I ignored the compliment because I never knew what to do with it. “And they’re scared,” I said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to; you’re special teams and you admitted it. If it’s spooked you, then it’s sure as hell spooked the rest. They’re going to be jumpy and looking for someone to blame.”
“We blame the vampires that killed our people.”
“Yeah, but I’m still going to be the whipping boy for some of them.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The message on the wall was for me. The head came to me. You already asked me what I did to piss Vittorio off. Some of your people are going to say that I pissed him off enough to make him do all this, or maybe even that he did it all to impress me in that sweet serial killer sort of way.”
Shaw was quiet, only his thick breathing on the phone. I didn’t prompt him, just waited, and finally he said, “You’re a bigger cynic than I am, Blake.”
“Do you think I’m wrong?”
He was quiet for a breath or two more. “No, Blake, I don’t think you’re wrong. I think you’re exactly right. My men are spooked, and they’ll want someone to blame. This vampire has made sure that the police here in Vegas will have mixed feelings about you.”
“What you need to ask yourself, Shaw, is did he do it on purpose, to make my job harder, or did he not give a damn about the effect it had on you and your men?”
“You know him better than I do, Blake. Which is it-on purpose, or didn’t give a damn?”
“I don’t know this vampire, Shaw. I know his victims, and the vampires he left behind for killing. I thought he’d resurface because most of these guys can’t stop once they get to a certain level of violence. It’s like a drug, and they are addicted. But I never dreamed he’d send me presents or special messages. I honestly didn’t think I’d made that big an impression on him.”
“We’ll show you the crime scene when you land. Trust me, Blake, you made an impression on him.”
“Not the impression I wanted to make,” I said.
“And what was that?”
“A hole in his head, and a hole in his heart big enough to see daylight through.”
“I’ll help you do it.”
“I didn’t think undersheriffs did fieldwork.”
“For this one, I’ll make an exception. When can you get here?”
“I’ll have to check the airline schedule, and I’ll have to check the regulations for my vampire kit. Seems like the rules change every time I have to fly.”
“Our marshal didn’t carry anything special on him that you couldn’t get on a plane with if you’ve passed the air marshal test.”
I thought to myself,
“Phosphorus grenades, no shit.”
“No shit.”
“They work on vampires?”
“They work on everything, Shaw, and water makes them burn hotter.”
“You ever seen a man dive into water, thinking it will put it out, but it just flares?” Shaw asked.
I had a sudden picture in my head of a ghoul that had run through a stream trying to get away. He, or one of his pack, had killed a homeless man who’d fallen asleep in the cemetery where the ghouls had come out of the graves. They’d never have attacked him awake, but they still ate him, and that still earned them an extermination. I’d just been backup for a flamethrower team of exterminators. But ghouls that are brave enough to attack and kill the living rather than just scavenge the dead can turn deadly. Which means you don’t send civilians in without badges to back them. It’d been the first time I’d used the grenades. They worked better than anything I’d ever used on ghouls. When they go bad, they are as strong as a vampire, faster and stronger than a zombie, immune to silver bullets, and almost impossible to kill with anything but fire. “I saw some run through a stream. The phosphorus flared up around them like a hot, white aura everywhere the water splashed. So bright, the water sparked in the light.”
“And the men screamed for a long time,” Shaw said.
“Yeah, ghouls, but yeah, they did.” I heard my voice utterly cold. I couldn’t afford to feel anything yet.
“I thought modern phosphorus didn’t do all that,” he said.
“Everything old is new again,” I said.
“I’m beginning to see why the vampires think you’re scary, Blake.”
“The grenades aren’t what make me scary, Shaw.”
“What does?” he asked.
“That I’m willing to use them.”
“It’s not being willing to use them, Blake. It’s being willing to use them again.”
I thought about that, and finally said, “Yeah.”
“Call me when you have your flight arranged.” His voice was unhappy with me, as if I’d said something else that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Give me your direct number, if you’re my go-to guy.”
He sighed loud enough for me to hear it. “Yeah, I’m your go-to guy.” He gave me his extension and his cell phone number. “We’re not going to wait for you, Blake. If we can catch these bastards, we will.”
“The warrant of execution died with your vampire executioner, Shaw. If you guys kill them without me or another executioner with you, then you’ll be looking at charges.”
“If we find them, and we hesitate, they’ll kill us.”
“I know that.”
“So what are you telling me to do?”
“I’m reminding you of the law.”
“What if I said I don’t need a fucking executioner to remind me of the law?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have a friend with a private plane. That’s probably the fastest way to get to you.”
“Your friend, or your master?”
“What did I say to piss you off, Shaw?”
“I’m not sure; maybe you just reminded me of something I didn’t want to remember. Maybe you just made sure I know what may have to happen in my town before this is over.”
“If you want pretty lies, you have the wrong marshal.”
“I heard that about you, that and that you’ll fuck anything that moves.”
Yeah, I’d pissed him off. “Don’t worry, Shaw, your virtue is safe.”
“Why, not pretty enough for you?”
“Probably not, but I don’t do cops.”
“What
“Monsters.” I hung up. I shouldn’t have. I should have explained the rumors, and how it wasn’t true, and how I had never let sex interfere in a case, much. But there comes a point when you just get tired of explaining yourself. And, let’s face it, you can’t prove a negative. I couldn’t prove I didn’t sleep around. I could only do my job to the best of my ability and try to stay alive, oh, and try to keep everyone else alive. And kill the bad vampires. Yeah, mustn’t forget that part.
I had other phone calls to make before I could leave town. Cell phones are wonderful things. First call was to Larry Kirkland, fellow U.S. Marshal and vampire executioner. He answered his own cell phone on the second ring. “Hey, Anita, what’s up?” He still sounds young and fresh, but in the four years we’d known each other, he’d acquired his first scars, along with a wife and baby, and was still the main person for the morgue stakings. He had also refused to kill the shoplifter. In fact, he’d been the one who called me from the morgue to ask what the hell to do about it. He’s about my height, with bright red hair that would curl if he didn’t cut it so short, freckles, the works. He looks like he should be going out with Tom Sawyer to play tricks on little Becky, but he’s stood shoulder to shoulder with me in some bad places. If he had one fault, other than that I wasn’t entirely a fan of his wife, it was that he wasn’t a shooter. He still thought more like a cop than an assassin, and sometimes that wasn’t good in
