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I was having an argu it quietly at the back of the equipment van, so the et us on caueant," I said

"So there was an extra vamp or two than the bite marks on the earlier victiroup is strong enough to hide his power from both the Church of Eternal Life and the Master of the City, nothing we killed up there had that kind of power"

"We lost three h"

I shook my head "Most of these were babies, almost brand-new What I saw at the earlier cri frenzy, it was methodical The vampires up in that condo were still s They were too wild to be taken on an organized hunt"

"I don&039;t knohat you&039;re talking about, an organized hunt Youdeer, or rabbit"

"To some of the vampires, it is"

He shook his head, hands on hips, and started to pace in a tight circle, but the open door of the van stopped his pacing "It&039;s the right number of vamps They had one dead stripper, and one that they nearly killed That&039;s good enough"

"They took her and left a state trooper as a witness, so we&039;d know They wanted us to coht Why?"

"They ambushed us in the hallway, Blake I think ere just better at killing them than they planned for us to be"

"Maybe, but what if it wasn&039;t a trap to kill us? What if it was a trap to kill the vampires?"

"That&039;s just that makes no sense"

"You&039;re ready to close the case You&039;re ready to declare them dead, defeated We kill a few vampires, find a few dead humans in the condo, and you&039;re ready to believe it&039;s our serial killers"

"And who else would it be? Are you saying we&039;ve got copycats?"

"No, I&039; that if we close this case, then they can just move on to the next town They can start over"

"You&039;re saying they left us some of their baby vampires so we&039;d kill them and think it was them? They sacrificed their own people for this?"

"Yeah, that&039;s what I&039;"

"You knohat I think, Blake?"

"No, what?"

"I think you just can&039;t let it go I think you want it not to be over"

It wasa little farther out fro It didn&039;t help "I want this over with, Hudson, more than you do Because if these vampires were left up there as sacrificial lambs, then they used me to kill them They used all of us as a sort of a weapon, their weapon"

"Go ho dog, but go home Your job is done here Do you understand that?"

I looked up at him and tried to think how to explain it I finally tried soe "I saw inside the ht I saw soot some names Those faces aren&039;t up there Those na to any of the dead"

"This case is closed, Blake, which means your warrant has been fulfilled You&039;re done Go hoeant, I have sole discretion on whether a warrant is finished or not Mark uys in St Louis, they&039;ll ht, but not all of theuy, and if you don&039;t kill thenew vaery, if you don&039;t get it all, then it keeps spreading"

"I thought you were dating a vampire," he said

"I a one of them, you have a damned dark view of thes sootten called in on too many serial killer cases, where they want it to be a monster, because they don&039;t want to believe that one hu"

"How long you been doing this, hunting va the bad crimes?"

"Six years, why?"

"Most violent crime units rotate their people about every two to five years Maybe you need to see so a little less bloody for awhile"

I didn&039;t knohat to say to that, so I sort of side-stepped it "Up there, thein the corner, none of you could see hiht?"

"Until you shot him"

"I could feel hi the others in the bedroom If he hadn&039;t died, then the others would have kept attacking, even with the holy objects visible We&039;d have lost more people"

"Maybe, but what&039;s your point?"

"My abilities with the dead are genetic, it&039;s like a psychic gift No a or practice will teach you how to see the invisible There are less than twenty people in the entire country that have abilities even close to mine"

"There are a hell of a lot ram," he said

I nodded "Yeah, and soood Some of them would have sensed his power, but I don&039;t know if any of the rest would have known exactly where to shoot"

"You&039;re saying that you&039;re the only one who can do your job?"

I shrugged

"Look, Blake, take soer than you have You&039;re not God, you can&039;t save everybody, and the police work in this town has been running just fine without you to baby-sit You aren&039;t the only cop in this city, and you aren&039;t the only one who can do this job You&039;ve got to let go of that idea, or you&039;ll go crazy You&039;ll start bla there twenty-four-seven You&039;ll start thinking, if only I&039;d been there, this bad thing, or that bad thing, wouldn&039;t have happened It&039;s a lie You&039;re just a person, with soht of the whole fucking world It&039;ll crush you"

I looked up into his brown eyes, and there was so advice that had been hard-won If I&039;d been a girl-girl, I&039;d have said so fro around with the boys&039; club too long not to knowup, and he didn&039;t have to, he was trying to help rateful wretch "I&039;ve been the only one for so long"

"Did you go up in that condo by yourself?" he asked

I shooklike you did Do you have anyone waiting for you at hoentler than it had been when he&039;d first told o hoot soo home Call him from the car, let him know that the officer down calls weren&039;t you" They never released names of the downed officers to the media until all the families had been contacted, better for the bereaved, but hell on all the other faht They were all waiting for the phone to ring, or worse, the doorbell No one with a police officer in the faht

I thought about how I&039;d left Micah and Nathaniel standing in the parking lot How I&039;d told them to take Ronnie hoood-bye My eyes were hot, and my throat hurt

I nodded, maybe a little too rapidly My voice was only a little shaky "I&039;ll go home I&039;ll call home"

"Get some sleep if you can, you&039;ll feel better tomorrow"

I nodded, but didn&039;t look at him I&039;d taken a couple of steps when I turned back and said, "I&039;ll bet you alree withto match most of the vao, will you?"

I shrugged "I don&039;t kno to let go, Sergeant"

"Take it fro, or you&039;re going to burn out"

I looked at him, and he looked back, and I wondered what he&039;d seen in ht for hiht? Or e all just tired? Him, me, all of us

80

I drove ho about vampires Not the fun ones The ones we&039;d just killed It was nearly three in the , hway Eight dead vamps, plus one human cohort My bet was a human servant, because he was the one that had killed Officer Baldith a sword That spoke of long ago skills Not h with a blade to take out a tactical officer arh to account for all of them, but I knee&039;d missed Vittorio He just hadn&039;t been there

The night was clear and bright, and as I left the city proper behind, stars studded the sky like so of diaood I wasn&039;t sure why and didn&039;t look at it too closely, just in case it was fragile, and too ood, and I was going home, and I&039;d saved everyone I could, and killed everyone I could I was out of it for the night

There&039;d been enough dead females to account for Nadine and Nellie, the pair that had seduced Avery Seabrook There&039;d even been an extra that could have been Gwenyth, Vittorio&039;s sweetheart, but I thought it long odds that all three of theht By the standards I was used to, it hadn&039;t been roup had been capable of At least one of them, or more, should have tried to fly out a , to escape The sniper had had nothing to do tonight

It wasn&039;t until I was turning off onto 55 South that I realized the Circus of the Daotten er to backtrack as go forward But I wanted uin I wanted Micah and Nathaniel, and right at that moment I didn&039;t really want to see another vampire It wasn&039;t the vaht, it was irl who&039;d begged for her life, and Jonah Cooper, and the silent croatching me at the church I tried to hide behind the shield of the horrible things they&039;d done to the woman in the kitchen It had been horrible Once I&039;d justified it for uy, that there were things I wouldn&039;t do, lines I wouldn&039;t cross Lately, the lines seereed with Mendez You didn&039;t shoot souy But a lot of the down the wrong end of a gun But they weren&039;t sorry while they were killing people, torturing people, no, they were having a good tiht, was her saying, "He made us do it" Had he? Had Vittorio so controlled them that they could not disobey him? I knew from the fallout with the London vaally bound to follow your e lord But was it s they did not want to do? I&039;d ask Jean-Claude, but not tonight Tonight I was tired

The highway stretched black and eht load across the country off in the distance The truck and I had the road to ourselves

I was betting that wherever Vittorio was, that&039;s where we&039;d find the woainst the bite marks in the first few victims, and we&039;d kno many we&039;d missed As far the St Louis police were concerned, it was over We&039;d executed most of them and chased the survivors out of town Trouble was, serial killers don&039;t stop killing, they just eant Hudson and his h price to be done But ht not be done with Vittorio and his people I pushed the thought away For noe&039;d driven hih, at least for tonight

I was off the highway now, on the smooth, more narrow road that led farther into Jefferson County and my house Trees blocked the view, so the stars seemed farther away I pulled into ainst the living room drapes Micah or Nathaniel had waited up It was after three AM, and souilty, happy, and apprehensive Nothing good had ever co up forwith anyone, so soain, and there was a light on I toldsilly, but this would be the first call-out like this one since Nathaniel had the right to make more demands on ht be So I was a little nervous as I putsilly? Only one way to find out

They were sitting on the couch I thought Nathaniel was asleep with his head in Micah&039;s lap, but he turned as I caht the flash of his eyes in the light from the television A look of such naked relief crossed Micah&039;s face before he ed to hide it behind a s neutrality, back toas few demands on me as possible, but I&039;d seen that first look That look that said more than any words, that he&039;d wondered if he&039;d ever see otten to call from the car, tell theht cut deep like soot to me first, then slowed, before he actually touched me The look on my face, maybe, or the fact that I just stood there halfway between the couch and the door The look on his face was so disappointed I got a flash of e back, away, too scared to really be with him, with them That wasn&039;t what I was scared of

You can&039;t shoot someone froet blowback I had blood in otten some of it with the ipes I kept in the car, but not all of it I wasn&039;t clean If I&039;d been just a cop, and the dead woman just a human, then I&039;d have worried about blood-borne disease She could have AIDS, or hepatitis, but she was a va, unless you counted vauess that counted, but Nathaniel and Micah couldn&039;t get that either But er from disease, but vaht, too ht?" Micah asked, and got off the couch to move up beside Nathaniel

I jerked out of reach "I&039;ve got blood onht ho," Nathaniel said, "not even a cold" He didn&039;t look lost anymore, he looked worried

"Blood can&039;t hurt us," Micah said

They were right I was being silly about contagion, but "Do you really want to touch ot the blood of my victims onh that he stopped I was afraid if I let the me that I would lose it I would just sink into their arms and sob

"Victims?" Micah said "Anita, this doesn&039;t sound like you" But he ca me

Ito cry Daave me a look "That&039;s not it"

I closedfall to the floor He was right, that wasn&039;t it, not completely I tried to be honest I tried to say what I felt "If I get any sy to fall apart"

"Maybe that&039;s what you need to do," Micah said, and he moved just a little closer, "maybe just for a little while, let us take care of you"

I kept shaking my head "I&039;m afraid"

"Of what?" he asked, voice soft

"Of letting go"

Micah touched ently I didn&039;t pull away Heme away fro for aline, and I let rabbed at his shirt, handfuls of cloth, as if I couldn&039;t get close enough, or hold on hard enough I wanted hih that would probably coainst as o run the bath," Nathaniel said

I reached out for hiht his shirt, and drew him into us "I&039;m sorry," I said

"What about?" he asked, and he and Micah exchanged a look

The first tear squeezed out, traitorous bastard My voice was alood-bye, either of you I just drove off I&039;m sorry"

They both kissed me, soft, chaste, a mere touch of lips Micah brushed the tear off my cheek "We understood" He looked at Nathaniel "Run the bath"

"I&039;d rather have a shower and get to bed"