I smiled at him. He smiled back. “Name?”
“Jefferson, Henry Jefferson.”
“Well, Mr. Henry Jefferson, tell me what happened.”
“Honestly, officer, I was in the casino, playing poker, and he came to stand by the table, just outside the ropes.”
Ropes meant he’d been at one of the high-end tables, where a hand could start at five hundred, or ten thousand, or more. “Then what?” I asked.
“Then he made me cash out and told me to come with him.” He looked up at me, and there was puzzlement and a hint of fear on his face. “Maximillian is a powerful Master of the City. He protects us, but this guy just came out of nowhere and I couldn’t say no.”
The next vampire was a lot younger in every way. Maybe only a few years dead, and barely legal when he crossed over to undead land. He had healed needle scars at the bends of his elbows. He’d been clean a long time. I had a hunch.
“Church of Eternal Life, right?” It was the vampire church, and the fastest-growing denomination in the country. Want to know what it’s like to die? Ask a church member that’s gone on. That’s what they call it, going on. Church members wear medical ID bracelets, so if they’re in a life-threatening situation, you call the Church and have a vampire come and finish the job.
The man’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened enough to flash fang before he remembered. Boy, he was new. He recovered and tried to do what all the older vampires tell you to do when talking to the police: play human. Not pretend to be human, but just don’t be vampire.
“Yes,” and his voice was whispery, so frightened, “how did you . . .”
“The needle tracks. The Church got you off drugs, right?”
He nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Steve.”
“Okay, Steve, what happened?”
“I was at work. I sell souvenirs just down the street. People like buying from a vampire, ya know.”
“I know,” I said.
“But he came up to the stand, and he said, Come with me, and just like that, I did.” He gazed up at me, his eyes wide and frightened. “Why did I do that?”
“Why does a human being go with you once you bespell them with your gaze?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t do that. The Church rules . . .”
“Say no vampire gaze, but I bet you’ve tried it, at least once.”
He looked embarrassed.
“It’s okay, Steve, I don’t care if you’ve played slap-and-tickle with the tourists with your eyes. Did this vampire catch you with his eyes?”
He frowned up at me again. “No, I would swear it wasn’t his gaze. It was almost as if he said, Come with me, and I had to do it.”
“So, was it his voice?”
Steve didn’t know.
None of them knew why they had done it. They’d left their jobs, their dates, their money on craps tables, and just followed him. Sometimes Vittorio had spoken; sometimes he’d simply stood close to them. Either way, they’d followed him and done what he said.
The girl looked about nineteen, but except for Henry Jefferson, she was the oldest of them. Two hundred years and counting was my guess, and it wasn’t a guess. Her hair was long and dark and had fallen over her face, so she was trying to blink it out of her eyes.
We’d already been through name, rank, and serial number, when I said, “Sarah, do you want me to get your hair out of your eyes?”
“Please,” she said.
I moved the hair carefully out of the wide, blinking gray eyes. She was the first one to ask, “You’re looking me in the eyes; most humans don’t do that. I mean, I wouldn’t roll you or anything, but cops are trained not to look into our eyes.”
I smiled. “You aren’t old enough to roll me with your eyes, Sarah.”
She frowned up at me. “I don’t understand.” Then her eyes went wide, and what little color she had to her skin drained away. You don’t get to see a vampire go pale very often.
“Oh my God,” she said, and her voice held terror.
Rocco stepped up. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s figured out who I am,” I said, quietly.
Sarah the vampire had started to scream. “No, please, he made me. It was like I was some human. He just rolled me. Oh, God, I swear to you. I didn’t do this. I didn’t mean . . . Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. You’re the Executioner! Oh, my God, oh, my God, you’re going to kill us all!”
“You might want to step outside. I’ll try to calm her down,” Rocco said, having to yell above her screams.
I left him to the hysterical vampire and went back out into the main part of the club. Hooper and Olaf were arguing, quietly but heatedly, in the corner of the room away from the prisoners. There were still plenty of guards on the vampires. I walked by them and found them watching me. The looks were either hostile or scared. Either they’d heard Sarah screaming or someone else had figured it out. Of course, there was one other possibility.
I got close to the two men and caught snatches, “You son of a bitch, you are not allowed to threaten prisoners.”
“It was not a threat,” Olaf said in his deep voice. “I was merely telling the vampire what awaits them all.”
“They’re telling us everything we want to know, Jeffries. We don’t need to scare them into confessing.”
They both looked at me and made enough room so I could join the little circle. “What did you tell the girl?”
“How do you know it was a girl?” Hooper asked.
“I’ll do you one better, I’ll tell you which girl. The one with long, wavy brown hair, petite.”
Hooper narrowed his eyes at me. “How the hell did you know that?”
“Otto has a type,” I said.
“He was talking low to her, but he made sure the others could hear. He told her he was going to cut her heart out while she was still alive. He told her he’d make sure and do her after dark, so she’d be awake for it all.” Hooper was as angry as I’d ever seen him. There was a fine trembling in his hands, as if he were fighting the urge to make fists.
I sighed and spoke low. “Did you also mention who I am?”
“I told her we were vampire hunters, and we had the Executioner and Death with us.”
“I know Blake is the Executioner, but who’s Death? You?”
“Ted,” I said. I glared up at Olaf. “You wanted them afraid. You wanted to watch the fear on all their faces, didn’t you?”
He just looked at me.
Hooper asked, “What’s your nickname, Jeffries?”
“I do not have one.”
“He doesn’t leave survivors,” I said.
Hooper looked from one to the other of us. “Wait a minute, are you telling me that these vampires are all going to be executed?”
“They are vampires involved with the serial killer we were sent to destroy. They are covered under the current warrant,” Olaf said.
“The human crowd at the barricades attacked police officers, but when they said the vampire took them over, we believed them.”
“I believe the vampires, too,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Olaf said. “They took human hostages, threatened human life, and are proven associates of a master vampire that is covered under an active warrant of execution. They have forfeited their rights, all their rights.”
Hooper stared at Olaf for a second, then turned to me. “Is he right?”
I just nodded.
“No one died tonight,” he said, “and I want to keep it that way.”
“You’re a cop; you save lives. We’re executioners, Hooper; we don’t save lives, we take them.”
“Are you telling me that you’re all right with killing these people?”
“They aren’t people,” Olaf said.
“In the eyes of the law, they are,” Hooper said.
I shook my head. “No, because if they were really people under the law, I’d have another option. The law, as written, doesn’t m
ake exceptions. Otto is right; they have forfeited their right to live under the law.”
“But they were under the power of a vampire, just like the human crowd.”
“Yes, but the law doesn’t recognize that as a possibility. It doesn’t believe that one vampire can take over another vampire. It only protects humans from the power of vampires.”
“Are you telling me that there’s no other option for these vampires?”
“They go from here to the morgue. They’ll be chained to a gurney with holy objects, or maybe these new chains will do, I don’t know. But they will be taken to the morgue and tied down in some way, where they will wait until dawn, and when they go to sleep for the day, we kill them, all of them.”
“The law does not say we must wait for dawn,” Olaf said.
I couldn’t keep the look of disgust off my face. “No one voluntarily does them while they’re awake. You only do that when you’re out of options.”
“If we do them as soon as possible, then we can move on to help Sanchez and the other practitioners.”
“They radioed in,” Hooper said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“House was empty. The house had been torn up by something, and Bering, or what we assume was Bering, is dead. He’d been dead for a while.”
“So, a dead end, no pun intended.”
Olaf said, “I thought they were only to scout the house psychically, and wait for the rest of us to enter it.”
“They sensed nothing in the house. They radioed in and the lieutenant made the call.” Hooper turned back to me. “If we could prove that these vampires were telling the truth, could you delay the executions?”
“We have some discretion on when to put the warrant into force,” I said.
“Cannibal can get their memories.”
“He’ll be opening himself up psychically to vampires. That’s different from playing around in human brains,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter why they did what they did,” Olaf said. “According to the law, they will be executed, regardless of why.”
“We’re supposed to protect all the people in this city.” Hooper pointed back at the waiting vampires. “Last I checked, they qualify as people.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Sergeant. No jail will take them, and we can’t leave them for days chained to a gurney with holy objects. It’s considered cruel and unusual, so they must be executed in a timely manner.”
“So it’s better to just kill them than to leave them on the gurney?”
“I’m telling you the law, not what I believe,” I said, “Frankly, I think putting them in cross-wrapped coffins for a while would keep them safe and out of the way, but that was considered cruel and unusual, too.”
“If they were human, it wouldn’t be.”
“If they were human, we wouldn’t be talking about putting them in a little box and shoving them in a hole somewhere. If they were human, we wouldn’t be allowed to chain them to a gurney and remove their hearts and their heads. If they were human, we’d be out of a job.”
He stared at me, a slow dawning look that was almost disgust. “Wait here, I’m going to talk to the lieutenant.”
“The law is the law,” Olaf said.
“I’m afraid he’s right, Hooper.”
He looked at me, ignoring Olaf. “If there were another option, would you sign off on it?”
“It depends on the option, but I’d love to have a legal recourse for moments like this that doesn’t include murder.”
“It’s not murder,” Olaf said.
I turned to him. “You don’t believe that, because if it wasn’t murder, you wouldn’t enjoy it as much.”
He gave me those cave-dark eyes, and there was a hint of anger down in the depths. I didn’t care. I just knew that I didn’t want to kill Sarah, or Steve, or Henry Jefferson, or the girl that he’d made cry. But to keep Olaf from being alone with the women, I’d take them myself, but not while it was dark, not while they could see it coming, not while they were afraid.
“You really don’t enjoy killing them, do you?” he asked, and he sounded surprised.
“I told you I didn’t enjoy it.”
“You did, but I didn’t believe you.”
“Why do you believe me now?”
“I watched your face. You’re trying to think of ways to save them or to lessen their suffering.”
“You could tell all that from one look?”
“Not just one look, a series of looks, like clouds passing over the sun, one after another.”
I didn’t know what to say to that; it was almost poetic. “These people are innocent of any wrongdoing. They don’t deserve to die for not being strong enough to resist Vittorio.”
“Ted would say that no vampire is innocent.”
“And what do you say?” I asked, trying to be angry, because it was better than the shaky feeling in my gut. I didn’t want to kill these people.
“I say that no one is innocent.”
Hooper came back with Grimes beside him. Grimes said, “We have a lawyer who’s been wanting to try for a stay of execution in cases like this.”
“You mean like that last-minute call from the governor in the movies,” I said.
Grimes nodded. His so-sincere brown eyes studied my face. “We need an executioner to write it up and sign that he or she thinks that executing these vampires would be murder and not in the public good.”
“Let Cannibal read some minds, make certain we haven’t been fooled, and then I’ll sign it.”
“Anita,” Olaf said.
“Don’t, just don’t, and you stay away from the prisoners.”
“You are not in charge of me,” he said, and there was the beginning of anger. Great.
“No, but I am,” Grimes said. “Stay away from the prisoners until further notice, Marshal Jeffries. I’ll tell the other marshals what we’re doing.”
They walked toward the back room and the ex-hostages and Edward. Olaf said what I was thinking. “Edward won’t like what you’re doing.”
“He doesn’t have to like it.”
“Most women value their boyfriend’s opinion.”
“Fuck you,” I said, and walked away from him.
He called after me. “I thought you didn’t want to.”
I kept walking. The vampires on the floor stared at me as if I were Vittorio, or something else equally scary. There was hatred in a few eyes, but underneath it all was their fear. I could taste it on the back of my tongue, like something sweet that held a bitterness to it, like dark chocolate that’s a little too dark.
The far door opened and Cannibal was helping Sarah the vampire walk through the door. She caught sight of me and started screaming all over again, “She’s going to kill us! She’s going to kill us all!”
Usually she’d be right, but maybe, just maybe, we really could save everyone tonight.
65
IT WAS LESS than two hours before dawn. I was so tired I ached, but the vampires were all still alive. They were chained to gurneys in the morgue, and since the morgue had a room designed for only one vamp at a time, the coroner and all of his people hadn’t been too happy to see ten of them, but Grimes had used his own men to act as extra guards. The guard duty was volunteer only, but his men had looked at him like he was crazy; if he said it was a good thing, it was. Besides, he’d explained it like this: “No one died tonight; if we do this, no one dies tomorrow either.”
Edward hadn’t been happy with me. Bernardo had been amused. Olaf had left me alone, caught in his own thoughts that I wanted no part of. I’d actually let Sergeant Rocco drop me at my hotel because Edward didn’t offer. Normally, it would have hurt my feelings, but not over this.
“I’ve never tried my talent on a real vampire before,” he said in the quiet of the car.
“How different was it?” I asked, still gazing out at darkened buildings on the street. Like most streets in most cities, everything was closed on this street. Just
before dawn, even the strippers get to go home.
“They’re still people, but it’s as if their thoughts are slower. No,” he said, and something about how he said it made me look at him. His profile in the light and shadow of the streetlights was very serious. “It was like those insects frozen in amber, as if the memories that were clearest to them were old, and what happened tonight with our killer was mistier for them.”
“I’ll bet that was only true of Henry Jefferson and Sarah,” I said.
He glanced away from the road to me. “Yeah, how did you know?”
“They were the oldest. You know how with some people, when they get old, the past is more clear than the present to them?”
He nodded.
“I think for some vampires, it’s like that, too. The ones who haven’t succeeded but just survived. I think they look back on their glory days.”
“Does your vampire boyfriend do that?”
I resisted the urge to ask, Which one? and played nice. “No, but then he’s the master of his city.”
“You’re saying he’s happy now.”
“Yeah.”
“Henry was wearing a watch that cost more than this truck. He’s not doing bad, so why was his most vivid memory of a time when women wore long dresses and curls, and he was in vest and suit with a pocket watch and a top hat?”
“Did he love the woman?” I asked.
Rocco thought about that, then said, “Yes.” He looked at me again. “I’ve never been able to pick up love images before, Anita. I’m good at violence, hate, the dark stuff, but tonight I got soft images and had to work at the harsh. Did you do something to me when I read you?”
[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade Page 48
