76

At my suggestion they put the sniper where he could see the windows, not at the front door. One, we didn't know what they looked like, so the sniper couldn't just drop the people coming out the front. There might be law-abiding vampire citizens in the building, so the sniper couldn't even just shoot vampires. If he could tell for dead certain they were vamps. Even I wouldn't want to say yes or no on the vamp question through a scope. I mean, what if you're wrong? High silver content, there would be no apology. But anyone that flew out of the windows of our condo, they would be bad guys, and the sniper could drop them with impunity. Green-light city.

The rest of us were huddled around the van. In the movies the van is sleek and roomy. In real life, it's narrow, cluttered, and looks like a cross between a plumber's van and the Good Humor truck, if it sold guns instead of ice cream. There wasn't room for us and the guns. Hell, as empty as it got, most of us wouldn't have fit. It was an equipment van, not a transport vehicle. I was still in the vest, even though I'd pointed out that nothing we were about to go up against would be shooting at us, and vests were useless for stabbing or tearing. I'd run into this before with both military and law enforcement. They just couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that the body armor, their best defense, didn't help against someone that could crush steel. It was like going up against Superman, and thinking Kevlar would keep you safe. Finally, Sergeant Melbourne said what few special tactical units will ever admit out loud, "We're using bullets. Bullets can ricochet, and we'd just feel better if we knew you were safe from friendly fire." The microphone was integral to the vest and attached to a little earpiece, like the Secret Service wear. They showed me the button for the mike in the center of the vest, near your gun when you were holding it. They made sure the mike worked, someone patted me on top of my helmet, and I was good to go. Or as good as it was going to get. Not going in would have been the good thing, but the vamps had kidnapped that option away from us.

The woman they'd taken was Dawn Morgan, twenty-two, and had only worked at the club about three weeks. They had a picture of her up on their Web site and we'd all seen it. It was a publicity shot for a stripper bar, so we tried to look at her face. Brown hair, about shoulder length, and enough makeup that it was hard to really see her face. She was all blue eyes and red pouting lips. I didn't ask if the men had a harder time looking at her face than I did. She was covered by hands and a few well-placed pieces of cloth, but the illusion was that more skin was showing than really was. Distracting, and meant to be. I'm sure if Ms. Morgan had been told she'd be kidnapped by murderous vampires, she'd have left us a nice, less glamorous face shot. But you just don't plan for these kinds of things. We memorized the face of the hostage so we wouldn't accidentally shoot her during the action. Yeah, that would be bad.

I think that if I hadn't had my own dangerous toys to play with they would have taken me in unarmed. Most of the tactical team seemed to think I was a civilian and treated me that way. They weren't rude, just didn't like the idea of me having a loaded gun at their backs. I guess I couldn't blame them. I hadn't had their training. They'd never seen me use a gun. They'd never seen me do this kind of work. They seemed to consider me almost more dangerous than the vampires.

My biggest problem with the vest was that it made it impossible for me to carry the Browning and the Firestar in their current holsters and have any hope of drawing them. Officer Derry had thrown me a thigh holster with velcro straps. "It'll hold the Browning and an extra clip." Derry looked as Irish as his name, except for his coloring, which was dark.

I had to take the vest off to thread the upper part of the thigh holster through my belt, then the other straps went around my leg. The thigh holster wasn't bad actually, though I wouldn't have wanted to try it unless I had pants on to protect my thighs. My thighs rub together when I walk, thank you very much. But with jeans it wasn't bad. It was a different draw though, not just the angle, or where the gun was, but the actual hand movement was different. I wouldn't be as quick, because I'd have to think about it. Of course, for tonight's work, the handguns were secondary.

I had a new Mossberg 590A1 Bantam. Thirteen-inch length-of-pull, lighter weight overall. It meant more recoil, but, once you adjusted for it, it was the shotgun of my dreams. No more heavy barrel out there hanging while you tried to aim, leaving me feeling top heavy. I had a sawed-off that had started life as an Ithica 37, but now was just used for in-close vampire blasting. The Ithica had a strap fitted for it, so that it fitted across my body sort of like an awkward purse. To keep it from moving around until I wanted it for in-fighting, Edward, my friend and the only person I'd ever seen use a flamethrower, had helped me rig velcro to the thigh holster on my left thigh. That thigh holster was mine, but it was for extra ammo, not for holding guns. The velcro strap fit over the Ithica's shortened barrel, so that it was held tight against my leg, but not at an angle where if something went terribly wrong I'd shoot my kneecap off. One quick, hard pull, and the sawed-off would be in my hands, and it would be time to be very, very close with the vamps. The Mossberg had an Urban Ops sling from U.S. Tactical Supply. It had become my preferred sling for the bigger guns. Unfortunately, you couldn't carry two guns on two different Urban slings, because the sling was designed for switching hands, ease of movement. Which meant the gun would move around more. Edward, who was truly the assassin Hudson had accused me of being, wasn't as fond of the Urban sling as I was, but then he didn't do as much close in undercover work with the monsters. Most of the time he went in like a one-man demolition team. The sling also worked better if you had a heavier jacket over the sling to keep it from sliding off your shoulder. If I'd had broader shoulders, it would have stayed put better, and since most of the people who test this stuff are male, and thus have broader shoulders, I couldn't really complain much. It was still a sweet piece of equipment.

I had a stock mag attached to the butt of the Mossberg. I'd started carrying extra ammo in a thigh holder, but the Browning was on that thigh. I'd found that if I wore the extra ammo on my left thigh, it was harder to get to. It cost me a second, or three. If I couldn't have my right thigh for it, then the stock mag was the next best thing. I went ahead and put extra ammo in the left thigh holder. You know that old saying, I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. That applied to ammo better than anything else I knew.

Derry said, "That's almost the exact same thigh holder as I gave you for your Browning. If you had it already, you didn't need to borrow ours."

"I have two set up for ammo. I don't have one for handguns. If it's comfortable I might get one."

"So glad Mobile Reserve could help you try out some new toys." He smiled at me.

I smiled back.

"He gives you a lousy holster, and you flirt with him. I loan you my whole second rig and nothing," Killian said.

"That wasn't flirting, Killian. When I flirt, you'll know it."

"Ooh," Derry said.

Hudson came up, in full gear. "You going to keep distracting my men, Marshal, or are you ready to execute that warrant of yours?"

"I'm through distracting, if you're through planning."

"I'm through," he said.

"Then me, too. Let's go kill some vampires."

"Not hunt, just kill?" he asked.

"Hunting vampires isn't a catch-and-release sport, Sergeant."

He laughed, a short surprised sound. "Either you're getting funnier, or it's fucking late."

"It's fucking late," I said. "There are dozens of people who'll say that I'm not funny at all." I made him laugh again, and when you're about to risk your life together, there are worse ways to begin.

77

It was one of those buildings downtown that had been rehabbed until outside it was an architectural wonder that had been saved from demolition, but inside it was ultramodern, ultrasleek, with carpet and almost empty halls, as if once they agreed on the two-tone paint job, they couldn't agree on anything else. The building still had vacancies, but was mostly full. Good news for the investors, but bad news for us. If the building had been mostly empty the chances of having collateral damage would have been less. Collateral damage, isn't that a nice phrase. It was why they'd had to evacuate so many people. There was no way the vamps didn't know something was up.

We were outside the condo. It still belonged to Jill Conroy. It felt like we'd learned that hours ago, but actually only about an hour had passed from the first recon to us being here in the hallway. We'd finally gotten a number for one of her fellow lawyers. Jill had been AWOL from her job for five days. Three of those days she'd called in sick, but the fourth day she hadn't answered the phone. Hmm, three days home sick, then no answer. I was betting that Jill Conroy had become the undead. The evil, wicked undead, not a member of the Church of Eternal Life, and I knew not Jean-Claude's people. The fact that we had a third player in town and neither of the other sides had figured it out, was bad. It showed either the master of these guys was very powerful, or we'd become careless.

I would have liked to have pushed my power through their walls and checked out how many were in there. I was capable of doing that now, but if they were as good as I feared, they'd sense it. I feared they'd try more vampire tricks if they knew I, or someone with my skills, was with the cops. If they thought it was just cops, they might rely on speed and strength. If they did, my money was on us. So I had to go in blind, again, shit.

I'd done a lot of vampire lairs in my day, but never with Mobile Reserve or any police tactical unit. In some ways, it was very different, and in some ways, it was very the same. Difference one, I wasn't in front. Hudson was the guy in charge once we hit the building. He'd been in charge before, as far as I was concerned, but he'd had to answer to his chain of command. Incident commander, negotiation commander, tactical commander, but none of them was going in with us, and it was all about who was willing to pick up a gun and put their shoulder next to yours.

Hudson went third in the line order, though it wasn't going to be a true single line. "You will move when I move, Blake. You are my fucking shadow until I tell you different. You will follow my direct orders once we're inside, or I will cuff you and leave you with a guard. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," I said. I think he liked me as a person, but we were about to do his job. The job wasn't personal, and professionally, he didn't know me at all. No amount of charm could offset that he didn't really trust me at his back. I hadn't earned it yet.

They brought up a huge metal body shield with a little window in it. Officer Baldwin carried the shield. He wasn't the bulkiest of the men, that was Derry, but Baldwin had height, and since everyone was going to be crouching behind the shield, height counted, like tall people trying to crouch under a short person's umbrella.

I expected them to use one of those big metal rams, but they didn't. Ms. Conroy had paid extra for a solid metal door with a lock that made it true security. All that looking at specs of the building and interviewing people had paid off. They put a small explosive charge on the lock and blew it.

The flash bang grenade went first, then in we went in the wake of the stunning noise and blinding light. When the searing light faded, the only light came from the sweeps of the men's flashlights mounted to their guns. Then it was chaos. Not the chaos of a fight, because no one was in the first room, but the chaos of trying to shuffle behind the shield and not trip or trip someone else. They shuffled as a unit, but it was so quick, like running inside a shell of bodies. While you're doing what amounts to dancing or gymnastics as a unit, you're also searching the dark, keeping track of the gun in your hand, and looking for something to shoot at.

Thanks to the briefing, I knew the layout of this condo almost better than my own house. The big empty living room, the small enclosed kitchen, the hallway beyond with the guest bathroom left and the guest room right. It was a straightforward layout, thank God.

Hudson spoke in the mike in my ear, a whisper even with me standing right behind him with my hand touching his back, "Mendez, Derry, kitchen." They peeled off wordlessly, the back of our little conga line lighter. Jung moved up, and I felt his hand against my back. Nice to know I wasn't the only one who needed a steadying hand.

Radio in my ear: "Vic, female, not Morgan." I think it was Derry.

"Vamp bites."

"Yes."

"Blake, check it out."

I stumbled, made Jung stumble, we were like dominoes. I remembered to press my button. "What?"

"Check out the body."

I could have argued but there was no time. I knew he was doing it to get rid of me. Maybe I really had slowed them down, but he was definitely getting me out of the way before the main shit hit the fan.

I peeled off like they had shown me and went for the kitchen. I followed his order, even though I didn't agree. I went to check out the body, because the sergeant had told me to. Damn it.

I double-timed it to the kitchen, because if I hurried, I might still get to trail in for the main fight. Light shown through the louvered door of the kitchen. I smelled the blood before I touched the door.

Light washed over me, then dimmed, as my eyes adjusted. Derry was heading for the door as I was coming in. Hudson's voice, sounding strained but clear, hit the radio: "Stay with Blake until she's checked the body." Radio silence.

Derry's shoulders slumped, saying he was disappointed, but he didn't argue.

Derry just moved up with me, rifle still at the ready. I went with him, though I pointed my shotgun a little to one side. The room wasn't that wide, and I just wasn't sure there was enough room for all of us pointing guns in, without risking crossing someone's body. One of my goals tonight was not to do that.

I knew some of what we'd find, because I could smell it. Not just the blood, old blood, but that meaty, fluid smell, and a stale whiff of sex. Male sex. It helped me steel myself for what I was about to see.

She lay spread-eagle on the small four-seater table. Her legs had folded over the edge of the table, and her groin was splayed in a line for the door, so the view was painfully clear. She'd been raped, and for that much damage, probably not just with someone's body. Or at least not just with a penis. I was glad when I could look away. She was wearing what looked like a silver sequined bikini, but she had pantyhose on under it. Though I might not have realized that if the clothes on her lower body hadn't been ripped away. The pantyhose told me she was a stripper from this side of the river. The laws on the books in St. Louis for strippers are odd. Jean-Claude's club gets around it on a grandfather clause, because as a vampire he was here before the laws went into effect, but anyone else had to abide by the rules. One of the rules was that the girls had to wear pantyhose, not just hose, under their outfits. The rules were designed by people who wanted to make sure that St. Louis could not have "those kinds" of clubs. There's no one so self-righteous as someone policing someone else's morality.

Her head was back, so that her eyes were staring at the far wall of the small but expensive-looking kitchen. Her hair was brown and must have been at least to her waist. I'd become pretty good at judging hair length when people were lying down. The hair was real, not a wig, so it wasn't our missing stripper. This was indeed someone else. How many people had they kidnapped tonight?

Either Mendez or Derry had used flex cuffs on her wrists. It was standard op on intact bodies. Officers had been killed by "dead" bodies. Better safe than sorry.

Mendez squatted down. He was peering under the table. "What is that?"

I squatted, because I was closer to the ground. Derry kept an eye on the room, gun sort of at the ready, but careful to not point out toward us. It was nice to work with professionals.

There was a long cylindrical object under the table. It was black with dried blood on it. It was so caked with blood that for a second I couldn't tell what it was, then it was like one of those abstract pictures that suddenly snap into place, and you know. I swallowed hard, against the burn of nausea. I took a slow breath through my nose and let it out easy through my mouth. My voice sounded odd even to me, when I said, "Bottle, wine bottle."

Mendez said, "God." He must have hit his button by accident, because Hudson heard him.

"What is it, Mendez?" Hudson asked over the headsets.

"Sorry, sir, just, Jesus, this was a bad way to die."

"Steady, Mendez."

"That didn't kill her," I said, and stood up.

Mendez moved with me. His eyes flashed white through his mask and gear.

I pointed with one hand at her neck, her breast, her arms. "They bled her to death."

"Before?" he asked, sort of hopefully. Never a good sign when the police are asking you to please make this not as horrible as it looks.

I shook my head. "But multiple bites means she's dead, she can't be a vampire. The body is checked out, guys. Can I join you, or am I on permanent baby-sit duty?"

Derry moved for the door of the kitchen. Oh, goody, I wasn't the only one who wanted out of here. I followed Derry, and Mendez brought up the rear. I'd have moved to the back of the line, but no one complained, so I stayed where I was. The sound of gunfire and yelling and screaming was ahead. I wanted to run, but Derry moved at a jog. If his body was tight with adrenaline, and his pulse thundering, it didn't show. Mendez followed Derry's lead, and so did I.

A woman's scream came high and shrill, from deeper into the apartment. Her screams were accompanied by sounds that were more animal than human. Thick, wet, sucking sounds. The vampires were feeding, and Dawn Morgan was still alive. We did the only thing we could. We rushed into the hallway. We rushed off to save her. We jogged into the trap, because the bait was screaming.

78

The only light was the sweep of flashlights ahead and behind. Because I didn't have a light, it ruined my night vision, but didn't really help me. Derry jumped over something, and I glanced down to find that there were bodies in the hallway. The glance down made me stumble over the third body. I only had time to register that one was our guy, and the rest weren't. There was too much blood, too much damage. I couldn't tell who one of them was. He was pinned to the wall by a sword. He looked like a shelled turtle, all that careful body armor ripped away, showing the red ruin of his upper body. The big metal shield was crushed just past the body. Was that Baldwin back there? There were legs sticking out of one of the doors. Derry went past it, trusting that the officers ahead of him hadn't left anything dangerous or alive behind them. It was a level of trust that I had trouble with, but I kept going. I stayed with Derry and Mendez, like I'd been told.

There was a vamp near the end of the hallway with most of the top of his head missing. His mouth was wide, showing fangs in the flash of someone's light. Derry hit the doorway and hugged the wall to the left. I followed him. Mendez went right. Only when Mendez didn't follow me, did I realize that I should have peeled off to the other wall with him. Hell, there were too many rules. I stayed with Derry, because there wasn't time to correct the mistake, if it was a mistake. If we lived, I'd ask someone.

The holy objects had blazed to life, so bright, white and blue like captive stars. They were ruining everyone's night vision. Made it hard to shoot. My cross was safely tucked away, for just that reason. By the thin flashlight beams and the incandescent flare of holy fire I saw what there was to see.

If I'd been there from the beginning, my mind would have been slow and taking it all in with that artificial sense that you have more time to do things, decide things, than you actually do. But sometimes when you step into the middle of it, you see things in strobe effect, an image here, there, but never the large picture, as if to see it all at once would overwhelm you. Hudson yelling, MP5 to his shoulder. Bodies on the ground between him and the big bed. A glimpse of pale, naked flesh on the bed--female. Two other vampires riding two of the men. One rode him to the floor, so he had to be lost to sight from Hudson and Killian's position. The other man was trapped against the wall, still firing his gun into the chest of the vamp, while the body bucked and wouldn't die. The vamp was pressed tight to the white glow of something that looked like a luminous rosary.

Mendez with his rifle, trying to find a shot in the mess. Stepping around giving his back to the bed, so he could pin the gunbarrel against the back of the vamp's head. The vamp never lifted from Jung's neck. The gunshot, like all the others, was loud, but not nearly as loud as it could have been.

It was wrong, all wrong. No vamp, except the most powerful, could stand up to holy objects like this. Only revenants, mindless newbies would feed while you pushed a gun to their head and blew their brains out. You can't be ancient and a newbie, which meant, we were missing someone, someone that was standing right fucking here.

I dropped my shields, and I looked not toward the fighting, but away from it. Either he was better than I was, and he was invisible, which meant he was farther into the room, or he was hiding somewhere that the team hadn't gotten to yet, or both.

I found the energy of him in the far corner in plain sight. Even knowing he was there, I couldn't see him. Which meant either I was wrong, or he was good enough that he could stand wrapped in shadows and darkness and be invisible. The only other vamp I'd ever known that was that good had never been human. I think I could have stripped him of it using my necromancy, or Jean-Claude's marks, but I had the Mossberg in my hands. Why waste magic, when you've got technology?

I tightened my brace of the butt against my shoulder, sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger. The shot didn't kill him, but it brought him stumbling away from the wall. Suddenly everyone could see him. His hands were holding his stomach where I'd shot him. He looked surprised. Tall bastard, I'd been aiming for his chest.

I hit him again, and there was an echo, two echoes. His body slammed back against the wall. I yelled into the mike, "I want to see the wall through his chest."

No one argued. Derry had moved over to help Mendez. I was betting that Hudson had sent him, while I was concentrating on vampire stuff. Hudson, Killian, and I shot the master vampire, until there was a pale smear of wall through his chest. He slid down the wall like a broken puppet, painting the wall dark with blood. Hudson and Killian stopped firing, but I didn't. I put a shot into the head, and had a second shot in before they joined me, but they did join me. With three of us, it didn't take long to explode most of his head like a melon thrown against a wall. When most of his head was gone from his shoulders, I lowered my gun enough to look around and see how everyone else was doing.

Now that the master was dead, the newbie vamps were cringing away from the holy objects, just like they're supposed to. Well, the one vamp that was still alive cringed. She pressed her bloody face against the corner behind the bed, her small hands held out as if to ward it off. At first it looked like she was wearing red gloves, then the lights shone in the blood, and you knew it wasn't opera-length gloves, it was blood all the way to her elbows. Even knowing that, even having Melbourne motionless on the floor in front of her, still Mendez didn't shoot her. Jung was leaning against the wall, like he'd fall down if he didn't concentrate. His neck was torn up, but the blood wasn't gushing out. She'd missed the jugular. Let's hear it for inexperience.

I said, "Shoot her."

The vampire made mewling sounds, like a frightened child. Her voice came high and piteous, "Please, please, don't hurt me, don't hurt me. He made me. He made me."

"Shoot her, Mendez," I said into the mike.

"She's begging for her life," he said, and his voice didn't sound good.

"Shit," I said and started across the room. Something grabbed my ankle. Reflex pointed the shotgun downward. One of the "dead" vampires hissed up at me, with a hole in its forehead, but it still had my ankle, and it was still going to bite me. From less than two feet away, the sawed-off would have been better, but there was no time. I emptied my gun into its head and back, until it let go of me and blood and other things leaked out of the body. "Hudson, dead is at least half their brains spilled, and daylight through their chests."

He didn't argue, just stepped up close to the other vamp and started pegging away at it. I guess making invisible vampires visible had earned me some credits with the sergeant.

I peeled shotgun shells out of the stock holder and fed them into the gun, as I walked toward Mendez and the vampire. She was still crying, still begging, "They made us do it, they made us do it."

The woman on the bed was naked, and her eyes had started to glaze. Shit. But the room had to be secured before we could see to the victim. Secured in my line of work meant something different than for most officers of the law. Secured meant that everything in the room that wasn't on my side was dead.

Killian was moving up by the bed to check on our victim. I hoped he could help her, because it seemed worse to lose people who were trying to save someone that didn't get saved. Jung was trying to hold pressure on his own neck wound. Melbourne's body lay on its side, one hand outstretched toward the cringing vampire. Melbourne wasn't moving, but the vampire still was: That seemed wrong to me. But I knew just how to fix it.

I had the shotgun reloaded, but I let it swing down at my side. At this range the sawed-off was quicker, no wasted ammo.

Mendez had glanced away from the vamp to me, then farther back to his sergeant. "I can't shoot someone who's begging for her life."

"It's okay, Mendez, I can."

"No," he said, and looked at me, his eyes showed too much white. "No."

"Step back, Mendez," Hudson said.

"Sir..."

"Step back and let Marshal Blake do her job."

"Sir... it's not right."

"Are you refusing a direct order, Mendez?"

"No, sir, but--"

"Then step back, and let the marshal do her job."

Mendez still hesitated.

"Now, Mendez!"

He moved back, but I didn't trust him at my back. He wasn't bespelled, she hadn't tricked him with her eyes. It was much simpler than that. Police are trained to save lives, not take them. If she'd attacked him, Mendez would have fired. If she'd attacked someone else, he'd have fired. If she'd looked like a raving monster, he'd have fired. But she didn't look like a monster as she cringed in the corner, hands as small as my own held up trying to stop what was coming. Her body pressed into the corner, like a child's last refuge before the beating begins, when you run out of places to hide and you are literally cornered, and there's nothing you can do. No word, no action, no thing that will stop it.

"Go stand by your sergeant," I said.

He stared at me, and his breathing was way too fast.

"Mendez," Hudson said, "I want you here, now."

Mendez obeyed that voice, as he'd been trained to, but he kept glancing back at me and the vampire in the corner.

She glanced past her arm, and because I didn't have a holy item in sight, she was able to give me her eyes. They were pale in the uncertain light, pale and frightened. "Please," she said, "please don't hurt me. He made us do such terrible things. I didn't want to, but the blood, I had to have it." She raised her delicate oval face to me. "I had to have it." The lower half of her face was a crimson mask.

I nodded and braced the shotgun in my arms, using my hip and arm instead of my shoulder for the brace point. "I know," I said.

"Don't," she said, and held out her hands.

I fired into her face from less than two feet away. Her face vanished in a spray of blood and thicker things. Her body sat up very straight for long enough that I pulled the trigger into the middle of her chest. She was tiny, not much meat on her, I got daylight with just one shot.

Mendez's voice came over the mike, "We're supposed to be the good guys."

"Shut up, Mendez," Jung said in a voice that was choked and thicker than it should have been.

I knelt by Jung. "Check Mel," he whispered.

I didn't argue with him, though I was pretty sure that it was useless. I reached for the big pulse in his neck and found torn, bloody meat. The carpet around him was spongy with blood. They hadn't even fed on him. They'd just torn his throat out, not to feed, just to kill.

"How is he?" Jung asked.

"Hudson," I said.

Hudson was there, and I got up and let him tell Jung the bad news. Not my job to break the news to the wounded. Not my job. I walked out into the middle of the room. There was movement in the hallway, and it took everything I had not to shoot the medics as they came through. Hudson had had to call on the headsets, but I hadn't heard him. Hell of a night.

They descended on the wounded with their bags and boxes, and I walked farther into the room, because there was nothing I could do. I had no power over human mortality. Vampires, some shapeshifters, but not straight humans. I didn't know how to save them.

"How could you look her in the eyes and do that?"

I turned and found Mendez by me. He'd taken off his mask and helmet, though I was betting that was against the rules until we left the building. I covered my mike with my hand, because no one should learn about someone's death by accident. "She tore Melbourne's throat out."

"She said the other vampire made her do it, is that true?"

"Maybe," I said.

"Then how could you just shoot her?"

"Because she was guilty."

"And who died and made you judge, jury, and ex--" He stopped in mid-sentence.

"Executioner," I finished for him. "The federal and state government actually."

"I thought we were the good guys," he said, and it had that note of a child who finally realizes that sometimes good and evil aren't so much opposites, as two sides of a coin. You toss it one way, and it looks good, another way, and it's evil. Sometimes it just depends on which end of the gun you're on.

"We are."

He shook his head. "You aren't."

I have no excuse for what I said next, other than he hurt my feelings, and he said out loud something I'd began wonder about. "If you can't take the heat, Mendez, get out of the fucking kitchen. Get a desk job. But whatever you do, right now, get the fuck away from me."

He stared at me.

Hudson said, "Mendez, go get some air. That's an order."

Mendez gave us both a glance, then he went for the door. Hudson watched him go, then looked back at me. "He didn't mean that."

"Yeah, he did."

"He doesn't understand what you do."

I sighed. "Sure."

"In the movies, the vampires look peaceful. Nothing here looks peaceful."

"I don't bring peace, Sergeant, I bring death."

"You save more lives than you take."

"Pretty to think so," I said.

He clapped me on the back, the closest he'd ever get to hugging one of his people, but I took it for the compliment it was. "You did good tonight, Blake, don't let anyone take that away from you."

I nodded. "Thanks."

"You don't sound convinced," he said.

"Let's just say that after awhile you get tired of having to shoot people who are begging for their lives."

"They're vampires, they're already dead," he said.

I shook my head and smiled. "I wish I believed that, Sergeant Hudson, I do surely wish I believed that." I watched them start taking out the wounded. They left Melbourne where he lay, but took the girl from the bed. They were triaging, taking the ones they could save; the dead aren't going anywhere. Well, none of the dead in this room.

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