Sutton’s shooting on a warrant of execution meant there’d be no investigation into the kill. He could fire, kill, and not lose an hour off the job, or a minute talking to Internal Affairs or anyone else. The snipers loved working with me, because it was always a clean, no-muss, no-fuss kill.
I couldn’t really see the vampire. I could feel him, not like touching something with your fingers, but more as if you could touch something with your thoughts, as if thoughts were fingers, hands that could wrap around the vampire, so that I could feel the edges of him.
“He’s pacing,” I whispered. I closed my eyes so that my real vision would get out of the way. It didn’t matter what the side of the house looked like; it didn’t matter that there was a scattering of stronger light to one side. What mattered was inside the house. What mattered were things the real, hard eyes couldn’t see at all.
“How fast?” Sutton asked.
“Fast.” I didn’t realize I was moving my hand in time to the pacing until Hill said something.
“Is that his speed?”
I stopped moving my hand, eyes opening wide and glancing at Hill. “I guess so.”
“Hermes, spot the woman for me,” Sutton said.
Hermes raised a pair of binoculars that were a little too bulky to be “normal” ones. “She’s by the floor, sitting with her back to cabinets, not flat enough to be wall.”
“Good,” Sutton said, and his voice was already going quieter, a little deeper, as he began to slide away into the mind-set that would let him make the shot. He was already lying on the mat that the drag bag unfolded into, snugged up against the big rifle. It was so big that it mounted on a bipod, to help with the weight. Sutton was about to fire a.50-caliber projectile through a wall, into a moving target, and he needed to not just hit it, but hit it square and true, because the last thing we wanted was a wounded vampire inside the house with a hostage, or for that matter a wounded one coming out at us. The fact that there was even the slimmest doubt that hitting the vampire with the Barrett might not bring him down was exactly why Sutton had been given the yes on bringing the big gun in the first place. We hadn’t had it happen, but other units in other cities had had vampires and wereanimals keep coming after anything less than a.50, and a couple of nightmare stories about them coming with half their chests missing. It had just been the wrong half of the chest, like the half that didn’t contain the heart. Sutton had to take the heart, or head, or both with one shot. Not just damage it, but take it the fuck out; it was the only surety for a true kill.
Lincoln’s voice came over the earpieces. “Boy says suspect has a handgun. Repeat, vampire is armed with a handgun.”
“Fuck,” Hermes said.
“Blake,” Sutton said.
I tried to reach out carefully, but the gun changed things. Up to that point I’d thought the vampire would have to get close to the woman to hurt her; now he could stand farther away and kill her. Shit. The spurt of adrenaline brought my shields further down, but it helped me see the vampire better; no loss without a gain.
“He’s slowing, turning,” I said, and my voice was lower, careful. If the vampire had been older, more powerful, he might have felt my power touching him, looking at him, but either he was just that weak, or he was too emotional to sense anything but his own immediate crisis.
“Turning which way?” Sutton asked, voice squeezed down with concentration.
I used my finger to point. I could never have explained how I knew which way the vampire was looking, but I was sure of it; knew it.
“That’s toward the woman,” Hermes said.
“Is he aiming?” Sutton asked.
“I can’t tell that,” I said, “but he’s stopped moving. He’s still, very still.”
“Sight it for me, Blake,” Sutton said.
I opened my eyes and did maybe the hardest part. I had to use real, solid, visual landmarks on the house to pinpoint what the inside of my head that would never see anything solid was sensing. I fought to hold on to the feel of the vampire, as I looked with my eyes, and said, “Edge of window, five feet to my right.”
“Aiming,” Sutton said.
The side of the house was white siding; he needed marks. Fuck! I described a discoloration on the side of the house. “His head’s in line with it.”
“Can’t see it,” Sutton said, “my color vision at night isn’t as good as yours, Blake.” His voice was losing that edge of calm. You could hear the adrenaline tightening through his words; not good.
“Woman has her hands thrown up, like she sees something bad coming. What’s the vamp doing, Blake?” Hermes said.
“I think he’s moved closer to her.”
“You think?” Hills said.
“This isn’t like seeing with eyes, damn it.” I reached out to the vampire a little further, like the metaphysical equivalent of standing on a ledge, and just a little farther out in space is what you need, so you stretch out your hand toward it, but it’s still out of reach. You stretch a little bit farther and… anger, rage, such rage. It was like a red fire, blazing, consuming, filling my brain for a second. It was the vampire. I was feeling his emotion. “God, he’s so angry,” I said.
“Blake, give me something!” Sutton said.
There were no landmarks to give him. If I could have touched the vampire, maybe I could have eaten his anger like I did to Billings, but from a distance, I didn’t know how to do that. I did the only thing I could think of; I dropped my shields and called the vampire. It was like I was still on that ledge, but the thing just out of reach was so important that I leaned too far, and if you lean too far, you fall. I hadn’t allowed myself to drop shields like this in months. I called the dead, and I felt that vampire turn and look at me. He was too young, too weak-my necromancy could call really old shit-and he turned and looked at me, because I willed him to see me. Vampires used to kill necromancers on sight, and there was a good reason for that, because all the dead like us, respond to us at some level.
“He’s looking at us,” I said, “but I can’t hold him like this forever.”
“Give him to me, Blake,” Sutton said.
“Laser-sight him for Sutton,” Hill said.
I was concentrating so hard on the vampire in front of us that it took me a second to come back to myself and realize that he was right; I had a laser sight on my AR. I looked down at it as if it had just appeared in my hand.
“Can you hold concentration on the vampire and use the gun?” Hill asked.
It was a good question. I could feel the vampire motionless in the house, feel him struggle a little as I split more of my concentration between him and the reality of the gun in my hands. “We’ll find out. I’ll know if I lose him, and he’s moving again.”
But sighting for Sutton wasn’t as simple as me aiming at the vampire with my gun while I was standing. That wouldn’t help the prone officer aim; I needed to be in his physical space to aim right for him.
Hill said it. “You’re small enough, and he’s big enough; just lie across him and sight your gun down his barrel.”
It was the best idea we had, so I put my body on top of the big officer where he lay on the ground. I held the vampire in my head but had to move my body more, so my concentration was less pure on the vampire. He started to struggle free of me; his rage, that I could have eaten if I’d touched him, now acted like a pry bar to work me away from him. I fought to concentrate on the inside of my head, and the outside with my body, and hold both together. Sutton was so much bigger than me that most of my body was on just his upper body when I lay down, but I couldn’t get the angle I needed to aim along the long barrel.
“I can’t hold the shot with you on me like this,” Sutton said.
“It’s not working for the spot either,” I said. The vampire was struggling now; I threw a little more concentration his way and he quieted, but I couldn’t keep this up forever. I had a smart idea. “Tell the woman to try to leave the room while I hold the vampire. Maybe we don’t have to shoot to save her.”
Hill didn’t argue, just spoke into his mike. Hermes said, “She’s up, and moving.”
The vampire’s rage flared like gasoline thrown on a fire. “Stop,” I said, “stop moving her. It’s pissing him off. He’ll break free of me before she can exit the room.”
We were back to our original idea. “Sit up,” Hill said.
