Crimson Death (51 page)

T
HE ROOM WAS
done in bright colors. One half of the room was a circus theme complete with a cartoon-circus-parade wall mural and a clown lamp beside the twin bed. The other half of the room was covered in posters of boy bands I didn't know, some actors that I did know, and a rugby poster that seemed to be mostly a shot of buff men in small shorts fighting in mud. I'd never really thought of rugby as the male equivalent of women wrestling in oil, but suddenly I could see the analogy, because I was trying to see anything but the bodies in the room.

Helena Brady lay on the twin bed underneath the rugby poster with her daughter curled beside her. She had a protective arm around the girl, and if they'd been breathing, it would have been a charming example of mother-daughter love. The only positive was that Katie Brady looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. If we could keep Katie from killing anyone else and the Irish legal system didn't want to execute her for anything she'd already done, then as the years passed and she grew older in her mind and emotions, she'd have a body that would be adult enough to have a grown-up life.

Sinead Royce lay on the other bed underneath the circus parade. She looked older than Katie and could have easily passed for eighteen. “How old is this one?” I asked.

“Sixteen. They're both sixteen,” Pearson said.

“How old is the younger sister that's at the hospital?”

“Eight.”

“That's a big age gap to share a room,” I said.

“They moved Michael Brady's mother in with them after his grandfather died, and then moved her mother in when she had a bad fall, so the girls had to share a room.”

“The dutiful son and daughter,” Edward said.

“They were, or are, good people,” Pearson said.

I stared down at the bodies on the bed and was angry. “This isn't right.”

“No,” Edward said, “it's not.”

I shook my head. “One of the few taboos that all vampires have is you don't bring over children. The two teenagers you could make a case for, because if the vampire is old enough they may think of sixteen as an adult, because for centuries it was, but whoever made Katie Brady a vampire let her loose on her family. Whoever made her had an obligation to keep track of her until she was able to think for herself, because like Ted says, one of the first things vampires do is go home. The vampire creator is supposed to keep that from happening.”

“Why?” Pearson asked.

“One, it's morally questionable, but two, it's bad for business. One of the ways that vampires got discovered back in the old days was that
one person would die from some unknown disease, a wasting disease they used to call it, and then one by one the rest of the family would die, so someone would get the bright idea to dig up the first family member that died, and voilà, there's the vampire. Most of the old vamps liked to stay in their coffins during the day, because it was the most sunlightproof place they knew, and some believed that they needed to sleep in their original coffin at night or they'd die at dawn and not rise again.”

“Are you saying that vampires are superstitious?” Sheridan asked.

“People are superstitious. Why not vampires?”

“Katie didn't have a funeral. She went missing,” Pearson said.

“Modern burial techniques like embalming, or organ donation, will kill a vampire before it can rise the first time. If creator vampires want their offspring to rise from the dead, they'll take the body with them and hide it.”

“You said
if
. Some vampires do not care if their—what did you call it—offspring rise?” Sheridan asked.

“You know how some people are crazy, or mean, or just careless?”

“Yes.”

“Vampires can be all those things, too.”

“What can we do for them?” Pearson asked.

“They're all new enough that once darkness falls they will have to feed. If this is Mrs. Brady's first night as a vampire, she will be uncontrollable, or at least not controllable by a baby vampire like Katie, or Sinead. I don't mean baby vampire because they're teenagers. I mean they're less than a month dead. Whoever made Katie should still have her with them at night and be controlling how she feeds. There were rules against shit like this before vampires were legal.”

“In America, would you execute Katie?” Pearson asked.

“It depends on whether she's outright killed someone that we can prove; for all we know some of the bodies with their throats torn out are hers.”

“I hope not,” he said.

“Me, too, but she had to be getting her blood somewhere besides her family.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she needs to feed every night, and she hasn't been feeding on her family long enough to have them be her only food source.”

“How do you know that?”

“The parents wouldn't have come to you two weeks ago demanding more action on her disappearance if she'd already started feeding on them.”

“She fed on Sinead.”

“Is her family still alive and well?”

“To our knowledge.”

“Do they live close to here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You might want to check on Sinead's family, then.”

Pearson cursed as he walked out of the room, already on his phone. He was sending officers to the other home. I hoped the other family was okay. I didn't really want this kind of moral dilemma twice in one day.

“What can we do for them when they wake for the night?” Sheridan asked.

“There are only three options,” I said.

“Kill them,” Edward said.

“Yep, that's option one.”

“What's option two?” Sheridan asked.

“Lock them in a coffin or cell with holy items all over it and contain them. Though you need to make sure that whoever guards them is religious and wearing their holy item of choice, because even baby vamps can capture you with their gaze and make you their bitch.”

“And the third option?” she asked.

“Do nothing and let them keep attacking people,” Edward said.

“Okay, four options, then,” I said.

He looked at me. “What fourth option?”

“You get a vampire strong enough to control them.”

“I don't think we want to give the Brady family over to Damian's creator,” Edward said.

“No,” I said.

“She's the only master vampire in Ireland.”

“Not anymore, she's not,” I said.

We looked at each other. “Shouldn't you talk to your vampires before you volunteer them for babysitting duty?”

“Yes, but I can't talk to them until after dark and by that time the vampires in this room will rise, too, and it'll be too late to ask.”

“Catch-22,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I don't understand,” Sheridan said.

“Anita brought more than one vampire with her.”

“Are you saying your vampires might be able to control the new ones?”

“The three in this room maybe, but since they didn't make them, and they aren't related to the vampire that did make them, I'm not sure how much control they'll have over them.”

“Then we're back to three options,” he said.

“We won't let you execute them,” Sheridan said.

“Two options,” he said.

“We can't let them feed on whoever they want,” she said.

“Option number two, it is.”

“How strong are your holding cells and do they all have windows?” I asked.

I
DON'T KNOW
who had Nolan's back in the government, but whoever it was had clout, because the police gave the three sleeping vampires over to him. Pearson and Sheridan didn't like it. In fact, we got to hear Pearson yelling on the phone that it wasn't right, that Helena and Katie Brady and Sinead Royce were still Irish citizens and deserved better than this. He said other things, but that was the big part he kept repeating in different ways. None of it made any difference. Nolan, Brennan, and Donahue—Donnie—put the three women into body bags like the
corpses they almost were and loaded one vampire per vehicle, which meant there were two vampires per, because we'd brought our own. Edward told Nolan that if he valued his expensive toys he shouldn't lock us in the back once we were inside them. I was glad he'd said it, because it saved me having to threaten his old friend. Admittedly, it would have been Nicky or one of the other wereanimals that actually tore the door off, but I'd have given the order.

Dev was soaked by the time we walked back down to the trucks so that when he got inside water streamed from his hair down inside his rain jacket. He was so wet that Nathaniel kissed him but asked him to sit on the other side with Kaazim and Jake. It also gave us enough room on our side to not be quite so cramped. We still had Damian in his duffel bag at our feet, but now Nolan and Edward had a body bag full of vampire at their feet, too. They'd tagged the vamps on the outside of the bags, so we knew it was Helena Brady with us.

Nolan's phone sounded and he looked at the screen. The lines in his face seemed to deepen as if some extra burden had been added. “What's wrong?” I asked.

“Pearson sent me baby pictures.”

“Of his kids?” Dev made it a question.

“No, of the vampires.”

“He sent you baby pictures of Katie and Sinead?” I asked.

Nolan nodded. “Want to see them?”

“No,” I said.

Edward just shook his head.

“Why would he send you baby pictures of them?” Dev asked.

“The text with the pictures says, ‘Whatever you do to them, remember they're someone's babies.'”

“Pearson thinks it will make it harder for us to kill them,” I said.

“Harder for me,” Nolan said. “He didn't send the pictures to you.”

“He doesn't have my phone number,” I said.

Edward's phone sounded. He shook his head but got it out and checked. “Pearson,” he said, but put the phone away without swiping it open.

“You're not even going to look at it?” Dev asked.

“No.”

“It doesn't matter if they were adorable babies if they wake up trying to tear people's faces off,” I said.

“Maybe it does,” he said.

“Are you saying that if someone's cute as a baby, we shouldn't kill them?” Nicky asked.

“I'd rather not kill anyone,” Dev said.

We all looked at him, even Nathaniel. Edward said, “You do know why we're here, right?”

“To figure out why vampires are suddenly able to spread in Ireland as fast as anywhere else in the world, and to stop it if we can.”

“How do you think we're going to stop this, Dev?” I asked.

“Solve the mystery and fix what's gone wrong.”

I exchanged a look with Edward, who without saying a word let me know that this was why Dev hadn't been on his list of who to bring to Ireland.

It was Nathaniel who said, “Dev, honey, do you understand what fixing means for Anita and . . . Ted?”

“I'm not stupid, Nathaniel. I know. I didn't say I wouldn't do what's necessary. I just said I'd rather not kill people. Why is that a bad thing?”

“Because it makes us all wonder if you're a shooter,” Edward said.

“My scores are good at the range.”

Edward looked at me, as if to say,
Explain it to him
.

“You know that's not what we mean when we say someone is a shooter, Dev.”

“I know what it means, Anita. I know you pride yourself on your kill count being higher than any other vampire hunter in the U.S.”

“I may have the highest legal count worldwide, not just in America.”

He frowned at me. “And that's great, but even you prefer not to kill when you don't have to, or did I miss something?”

“Would I prefer not to have to kill people while we're in Ireland? Yes, but I'll still do it.”

“And if you need me to pull the trigger, I will, but why did I lose guy points from everybody in this truck because I said I'd prefer not to?”

“It makes us wonder if you'll hesitate when the time comes,” I said.

“I didn't hesitate in Colorado,” he said.

“No, you didn't.” In my head I added,
That wasn't the problem
.

“Those were zombies,” Edward said. “It's easier to kill them, because they look like corpses.”

“You're saying that I'll hesitate because the vampires look like people.”

“No, I'm saying that I'm concerned you might hesitate when I need you, or Anita needs you, or Nolan needs you.”

“And you're more worried because I said I didn't want to kill people if I didn't have to?”

“Yes.”

“Don't most people prefer not to kill other people?”

“Yes,” Edward said.

“So what did I say wrong?”

We all exchanged a look, and I mean all of us. Nathaniel understood something that Dev still didn't seem to get, but then Nathaniel had picked up a gun and killed to save our lives before. The guard that had dropped the gun had been shot to death at our feet, but Nathaniel hadn't frozen; he'd picked up the gun and used it. He'd never been one of the armed guards, but he'd proven everything he needed to prove to me that day. Dev still hadn't. Though come to think of it, I wasn't sure that Nathaniel would have been as cool under fire with the zombies in the hospital. It had been one of the worst things I'd had to do, and that was saying something. Maybe I wasn't being fair to my golden tiger?

Dev looked at Jake sitting beside him, as if for help. “You must stop looking to me for help, Mephistopheles,” he said.

“Why would he look to you?” Nolan asked.

“I am older and more experienced,” Jake said, his face and voice utterly bland. He was smiling slightly, and I realized that his pleasant face, which was one of his versions of blank cop face, was very similar to Dev's; was that where my golden tiger had learned it? I knew that Jake had helped raise and keep safe generations of golden tigers. He'd been one of the Harlequin who had hidden the entire clan bloodline from the Mother of All Darkness when she'd declared that it needed to be destroyed. Legend handed down for thousands of years said that the clan tigers were the key to defeating her, but in particular the gold tigers, because they were supposed to rule over all the rest. Jake and others had rescued a few gold tigers, and that was Dev's family line.

“I thought Devereux was an athletic pretty boy who wouldn't look up to anyone like that,” Nolan said.

“Why is being athletic and pretty bad?” Dev said.

“It's not, if you have more going for you than just muscle and looks,” Nolan said.

“I don't know if I have much more going for me than that.” It was a remarkably self-deprecating comment coming from someone who had been handsome, athletic, and charming all his life, as far as I knew. People like that don't do self-deprecating very well.

“It's too late to play humble, Devereux,” Nolan said.

“Am I playing?” Dev looked at him, and suddenly there was confusion on his face, and he looked younger, as young as he was, I guess, since he was still a few years under twenty-five. Nathaniel was only a little older, but he never seemed as young as Dev did from time to time.

“Every man I've ever met who was as big and handsome as you was anything but humble.”

Dev flashed him a smile. “Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.”

“You're too young to know that commercial,” Nolan said.

“There are whole websites dedicated to old commercials,” Dev said. “My first serious girlfriend showed it to me, because she agreed with you. She also didn't like the fact that I got more attention than she did when we went out to the clubs.”

“Beautiful women are used to being the center of attention,” Kaazim said.

“A woman won't date someone she thinks is prettier than she is,” Nolan said.

“I'm dating a lot of men who are prettier than me,” I said.

Nolan frowned at me, and the lines in his face folded into the frown like it was his natural look. He really needed more reasons to smile soon. “Who?” he asked.

I took Nathaniel's hand in mine, and nodded at Dev across the van. I laid my head against Nicky's shoulder. He said, “Don't include me in the prettier club, Anita. I know I'm attractive, but not in the same way that Dev is, and I'll never be as beautiful as Nathaniel, but that's okay. You don't have to protect my ego on this one.”

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I said, “It feels mean to say they're pretty and not include you, because you're hot, too.”

“I didn't say I wasn't hot. I said I wasn't as beautiful as they are, and I'm sure as hell not as beautiful a man as you are a woman. I'm dating out of my league and I know it.”

“I think you're ballparking my league just fine.” I smiled at him and offered up a kiss, which he took with a smile of his own.

“It's like we're not even here,” Nolan said.

“You haven't seen anything yet,” Edward said.

I gave him a frown. “Are you saying we overshare with you?”

“Not with me, but Nolan isn't me and he's not used to this much honest communication.”

“The only way to have this many relationships is to talk honestly.”

“But not in front of strangers,” he said.

“So it's okay to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nolan and kill vampires, but we're not supposed to talk about emotional stuff?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm saying.”

“Well, fuck that. Nolan started it by making a statement that isn't true, and I could prove it, so I did.”

“You didn't prove anything, Blake.”

“Dev and Nathaniel are prettier than I am, but I'm in relationships with both of them. That proves that women, or at least this woman, will date people prettier than they are, so I've disproved your blanket statement.”

Nolan frowned harder so that the lines on his forehead looked like they'd been carved into his flesh with a dull knife. It looked almost painful and made me want to touch his face and try to smooth them out. I wouldn't do it, but the more he made his face look like that, the more I wanted to do it.

He looked at Edward and whatever look they exchanged, Edward understood it. “She's being honest.”

“She thinks she's being honest,” Nathaniel said.

I looked at him sitting beside me, still holding hands with me. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I've never known a beautiful woman who didn't know exactly how beautiful she was,” Nolan said.

“Now you do,” Edward said.

I was pretty sure I understand what he was saying, but it made me uncomfortable, so I said, “How far to your headquarters?”

“Are you changing the subject?” Nolan asked.

“Yes.”

He frowned harder yet, and the lines looked almost artificial. I didn't even usually notice things like this, but Nolan's face seemed etched with some grief that had spent too many years fashioning itself a home on his face. It was like he needed a hug.

“We're not that far outside Dublin,” he said.

“Don't I get any points for the fact that if I pull my holy item out it will glow?” Dev asked; apparently we weren't done with the conversation.

“That will be more helpful when we don't have vampires fighting on our side,” I said.

“The first time I pulled out my cross it didn't glow,” Nolan said.

“Are you saying now it does?” Edward asked.

He nodded. “You might say that watching all the other holy objects glow in the face of evil was a conversion experience.”

“Were you not raised Christian?” Kaazim asked.

“No, my father is actually an atheist. He said he couldn't believe in anything that caused so much pain, when it was supposed to be a benevolent god.”

“I've got some close friends who aren't religious for similar reasons,” I said. Nathaniel had dutifully gone to church with me, but Micah had refused. He said that he couldn't reconcile a loving God with some of the things he'd seen in his life. Since he'd spent years being at the mercy of one of the most twisted sexual sadists I'd ever met, I understood his confusion, but I did not share it. It had actually bothered me that if it had been Micah I planned to marry instead of Jean-Claude, I still couldn't have married in the Episcopal Church. Jean-Claude couldn't step into the church, but Micah wouldn't step into one.

“It bothers you that they don't believe,” Nolan said.

“Yeah, it does.”

“Sorry, Anita, but sociopaths aren't big on God and the angels,” Nicky said.

“My only problem with so many of you not believing is that we're hunting vampires, and holy objects only work if you believe, so yes, Dev, you get brownie points that you believe.”

“Blessed objects work regardless,” Jake said.

“Yeah, because they're empowered by the belief of the holy person who blessed them, not by the belief of the person wielding them,” I said.

“I guess I need one of those before we meet any more vamps in person,” Nicky said.

“I can lend you a blessed object, Murdock—though you admitting that you're a sociopath . . . does that mean I shouldn't trust you at my back?” Nolan said.

“As long as we're on the same side with the same goals, I'll have your six.”