I could aim at that body all damn night. I walked carefully, but quick, up to the fallen vampire.
Urlrich was moving in from the other side, the shotgun tight to his shoulder.
I looked down at the body and found that the corner of his skull was open, the blond hair peeled back, with blood and brains seeping out. It was the brain shot that had killed him instantly. If I’d just hit his skull, he’d have had enough time to rip Stevens’s throat out. Fuck.
“Hell of a shot, Marshal,” Urlrich said.
“Thanks,” I said, and my voice was a little breathy. My arms were tingling down to my fingertips, almost like pins and needles. It was as if my pulse poured back into my body all at once, as if I’d slowed more than just my heartbeat down for those few minutes. I felt a little weak-kneed, and light-headed. I let out a big breath and focused on standing firm.
Stevens was throwing up in the corner, not from fear, but the same sense of relief that made me want to drop to my knees rather than keep aiming at the vampire. I could see brains on the outside; that meant dead vampire, hell, dead anything.
“He dead?” Urlrich asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “brains on the outside means dead.”
“Then why you still aiming at him?”
I thought about that, and let out another long breath, and forced myself to lower my weapon. Somehow I didn’t want to; it just seemed safer. Not logical, but the urge to just keep aiming was very strong. I fought the urge to put another bullet in him, but his brains were leaking out onto the floor. That was dead, until we had to decapitate him and stake his heart. He was dead. He was really, truly dead, but I still moved so that standing with my weapon down kept the body clearly in my sight.
“See to your partner,” I said.
Urlrich nodded, and moved to do what I said.
Smith was in the doorway, and there were more cops with him. “Everyone okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “except the vampire. Who’s dead outside?”
Urlrich had moved to see to his partner, who was dry-heaving in the corner.
“Most of the vampires; no cops.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“The elderly woman flew, and then our holy items all went off and someone fired.”
“And everyone else thought the vampires were attacking,” I said, “so they fired, too.”
“Yeah,” Smith said.
“Shit,” I said.
“Hey, no cops dead,” he said.
I nodded. “You’re right. Bright side.”
A uniform ran up to us. “There’s a news crew out here.”
“Shit,” Smith said, “how the hell did they get in?”
I looked down at the dead vampire, and thought of all the vampires that looked like grandparents, children, soccer moms, all slaughtered by police on camera. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck! I fought the urge to kick the vampire’s body. Had they planned it this way? Had they alerted the media, and been willing to die for this? Had they made martyrs of themselves? God, I hoped not, because where there’s one martyr, there’ll be more.
The elevator clanged to life behind us, and we all turned, guns coming up. I snugged the AR to my shoulder and cheek until I saw Zerbrowski lift the wooden door. He had his gun out; so did they all. He glanced at the dead vampire. “I miss all the fun?”
“Missed the firefight, yes. Media shitstorm, no,” I said.
“I can go back upstairs,” he said.
“You may be ranking officer on site; I think you get to talk to them.”
“Shit,” he said.
That about summed it up.
6
I WALKED OUT into the courtyard into chaos. People were yelling, there were lights everywhere, including a chopper overhead, with a spotlight. One uniformed officer was kneeling over a child vampire, holding his hands over her stomach wound, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to save her. A gunshot sounded loud, close, and I turned, gun in hand, pointed and ready. Another uniformed officer was shooting into a vampire on the ground, finishing him off. Another cop with a blond ponytail was yelling at him, “Stand down! Stand down!”
Smith asked, “Do we save them, or kill them?”
That was an excellent question. Legally we could kill all of them. I’d invoked the act, which meant it was a paperless warrant of execution. We could legally do a coup de grace and put a bullet in everyone’s head and heart. Some officers were trying to stanch the wounds with their hands or jackets. Some had guns out, pointed at the fallen. If I gave the word, we’d just make sure they were dead. Legally I could do it; a few years back I would have, and been absolutely sure I was right. Now… I wasn’t sure. What legal options did I have here? What did the law say I could do? When you have a badge, sometimes that’s all that’s left; you have to follow the law. Problem is that sometimes the law is gray, and not clear, and other times, it’s too clear-clear, but not just, not right. Once I’d believed that the law was about justice, but I’d carried a badge and a gun too long not to understand that the law was about the law. It was about how it was written by people who would never have to stand here in the night with bodies bleeding, and men asking them,
Zerbrowski had his phone and came to me, speaking quietly, “Everyone upstairs is getting antsy. Do they shoot the rest, or try to bring them downstairs? And we’ve got two ambulances outside the kill zone. Do I have them come ahead and try to save the ones they can, or are we going to finish the job?”
“You know the legal options as well as I do,” I said. I didn’t want to make this call. Why couldn’t someone else make it?
“You want us to just shoot the ones upstairs, and send the ambulances away?” he asked, and he was studying my face, as if he didn’t know me, or was waiting to figure out who the fuck I was; maybe we both were.
I shook my head. “No, fuck it, but no, I guess not.”
“Guess?” he asked.
I shook my head again, and started moving. “Let the ambulances through. Tell the cops upstairs to reassure the vampires that we will get them to safety, but things are too volatile down here to guarantee their safety. Tell them to sit tight; everyone will get out alive, if everyone cooperates.”
He did what I said, and I went to help the wounded, and show, by example, what we were going to do tonight. How we were going to handle this would all depend on the next few minutes.
How do you help wounded undead? Smith was kneeling beside a teenage girl vampire. “Is she supposed to have a heartbeat?” he asked.
“Not necessarily,” I said, and went to kneel by him because it was as good a place to start as any.
“Then how do we tell if they’re dead, or… saveable?”
“Good question,” I said.
He spoke low. “You got a good answer?”
I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. I sighed and dropped some of my psychic shields. I was a necromancer, the first real one allowed to live and mature into their power in over a thousand years. The vampires had killed people like me for centuries, because legend said truly powerful necromancers controlled all the undead, not just zombies. I couldn’t control vampires the way I could a zombie I’d raised, but I had power over them… sometimes. I looked down at the “girl” with her short black hair and pale, pale skin. She was the most Goth, or emo, of the vampires. The hair so wasn’t her natural color. She looked about fourteen, maybe younger, the age when a lot of us rebel. I tried to “see” more than just the physical packaging. I’d been able to feel their hunger earlier; maybe I could do more? I’d saved a vampire or two in my time. There… a spark, like a cold flame flickering in the center of her body, about where the sternum and stomach met. The energy that I saw wavered like a candle flame moving in the wind, guttering down to die. I “looked” at the other bodies, concentrating, trying to see. Some of them were cold, no hint
