“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 make 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
