Kiss the Dead (4 page)

“You’re not supposed to invoke until we know for sure someone’s hurt, or there’s a hostage situation,” Perry said. He was all about the rules, our Clive.

“We have to assume the officers are hurt, or worse, Clive,” Zerbrowski said. “Anita’s within her rights to invoke the Preternatural Endangerment Act, which means she, and anyone with her, can use lethal force to save human lives without waiting for a warrant of execution.” Zerbrowski was the highest-ranking officer on site, and he was backing me. Clive did what the rule-lovers do, he followed the rules. Later he could tell himself he’d tried to prevent the bloodshed, but he was technically clean on it. He nodded, and said, “You’re in charge, Sergeant.”

Zerbrowski let it go at that, and turned to me. “Sic ’em, Anita.”

I raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but let it go. His grin was enough; he’d make a joke with his last breath, and after a while you had to let the smart-ass remarks go, or he wore you down.

“Give me a minute,” I said. If we’d been trying to sneak up on the vampires I couldn’t have searched for them using my necromancy because they might sense the power, and then they’d know we were coming, but with the marked police cars, it wasn’t like we were hiding.

In the interrogation room it had been an accident, a little power leaking out, and only after that on purpose. There was nothing accidental about this. Most people who raise the dead—animators if you’re being polite, zombie queens or kings if you’re being rude—have to do ritual to raise the dead. They need a circle of power, ointment, ritual tools, a blood sacrifice, and even then, they’re lucky to raise one zombie a night. I used a circle of power to keep wandering bad powers out of my zombies, and the blood sacrifice just meant I could raise more and better zombies, but with nothing but my power I could raise the dead. If I used all the accoutrements of the profession I could raise cemeteries. I’d kept that part to myself as much as possible, because no one, absolutely no one, should be able to do that—not even me.

I didn’t so much try to conjure up my necromancy as release it. The best I could describe it was like having a fist in my diaphragm, a fist that I kept clenched tight, holding on to my power so it didn’t escape. This
was unfolding my fingers, spreading my hand wide, letting go that tension that was almost always there just under my ribs. It was like letting out a breath I always had to hold, and finally being able to be free.

Maybe for some it was magic and that was why they needed all the tools and ointments, but for me it was a psychic ability, and all I had to do was unleash it. My necromancy was like a cool breeze flowing outward from me. It didn’t actually move so much as a hair on anyone’s head, so maybe
breeze
wasn’t the right word, but I could feel it seeking outward from me almost like the rings in water when you throw a pebble into it, except I was the pebble, and the power tended to be a little more powerful and directed in the direction I was facing. I could “feel” behind me, but it wasn’t as strong. I had no idea why.

Smith shivered beside me, and Clive Perry actually took a step back from all of us. He didn’t really feel anything, but I’d learned that his grandmother, like mine, had practiced as a Vaudun priestess, except his had been a bad person and mine hadn’t been. It had made him skittish around me, but not have a problem with Smith.

I searched for the undead. My power never even hesitated at a truly dead body. It was as if my power saw it the same as a table or chair: inert. Then I caught a hint of vampire, like something tugged at the edge of my attention, and I’d learned to direct my power so that it was like a scenting hound. I followed that “feeling,” that energy, and if the pull got stronger, then it was vampires; if not, it could be ghouls, or zombies, or just a place where vampires had been recently. The feeling got stronger, and stronger, and now my power was being pulled.

“This way,” I said. They’d all been with me before on hunts; they knew that once the power found the vampires it was a race. A race to see if we found them before they fled, or found us. We got our guns out and we ran. Running over the brick in the stilettos made me curse under my breath. The men couldn’t go first, because I was the only one who knew where we were going. I moved up on the balls of my feet, so the heels didn’t touch, and I ran, gun pointed at the ground. I loved Nathaniel, but I was going to have to stop letting my stripper boyfriend dress me for work. I had a moment to realize I hadn’t cleaned off
the one heel after it went in the vampire’s chest. They’d smell the blood on me; they might even know it was Barney’s blood. I wondered if they’d think I killed him; I wondered if I cared.

A scream sounded, high and piteous, echoing off the buildings. We ran faster, and somehow I knew the “feel” of vampires would be in the same direction as the scream.

I
HATE IT
when the bad guys are in upper stories because there are only two ways up, elevator or stairs, and either way they know you’re coming and can ambush you. The huge, rickety freight elevator, which was the only elevator in the place, was a metal cage—a kill box, if they had guns. No way.

That left the stairs, which were so narrow, dark, and dank that given a choice I’d not have gone into them. Another scream sounded from above us and there was no choice, so we went up. The steps were so narrow and steep I had to kick the stilettos off, and the moment my bare feet touched the chilled, damp steps, I slipped because of the hose. Shit!

There was just enough room for Smith and Perry to ease past us, while I sat down on the steps and unfastened the hose from the garters. Zerbrowski stood beside me, gun in hand, watching up and down the stairs. He never made one smart-ass flirting remark as I slid the hose down and left them crumpled on the steps. When Zerbrowski missed a chance to make some inappropriate remark, things were serious.

I stood up, my bare feet feeling the grime on the steps, but I didn’t slip as I followed Zerbrowski up. Still, I went up with my gun in a one-handed grip, the other hand on the wall, just in case. I smelled blood, a lot of it. I grabbed his arm and moved up beside him, our bodies almost pressed together by the narrow stone walls. I used two fingers to point not at my eyes, but at the tip of my nose. He knew that meant I’d smelled something, and that something was usually blood. He let me ease around him and go first. Zerbrowski also knew that I was harder to hurt than he was, and let me go forward as if I were the big bruiser
of a guy, the meat shield. I was small, but I had become fucking tough thanks to the vampire marks.

Blood was drying on the steps in a thick, darkening pool; at the top of that pool was a uniformed officer I didn’t know on sight. I was glad I didn’t know him, and felt instantly bad about thinking it. His pale eyes stared wide and sightless, his face frozen in death. His throat was savaged on one side so there was no way to check for a pulse; it was gone, torn out.

Shoe prints marked up the sticky blood; Perry and Smith had gotten past this point. I tried not to step in the blood with my bare feet, but couldn’t avoid it all unless I wanted to climb over the dead officer. I wasn’t willing to do that, and the blood was thick and squishy. I forced myself not to think about it, but just to think about getting up the steps to help the others. There was at least one more officer on site, maybe two more, depending on whether he’d been riding with a partner. I concentrated on the living and left the dead for later, but it was hard to ignore the blood sticking to the stone with every step I took. Perry and Smith’s bloody footprints went up, too. There was no way not to track the crime scene up, no way to avoid the blood, no way… Another high-pitched scream sounded and this time I knew it was a girl, and I could hear words: “Don’t hurt them! Don’t hurt anyone else!”

I didn’t look back at Zerbrowski to check, I just started running up the steps. They were so steep, my center of gravity so low, that it was faster to use my free hand to help me run up them. I climbed up the steps like you’d go up a stone hill, so that when I suddenly spilled out the opening into the huge room at the top I was on hands and knees, which was why the gunshot shattered the stone above my head, and not me.

I flinched, but was already turning to find the shot and return fire. I saw the standing figure, gun in hand, and had already sighted and fired at his chest before my mind had caught up to the fact that his other hand held the girl’s arm, while she struggled to get away from him. He fell backward, taking the girl with him. I felt movement in time to see
another man launching himself at me, but there wasn’t time to bring my gun around. Another gun exploded in the room and the vampire fell beside me, a hole in his chest, but still reaching for me. I put a bullet in his head without thinking about it. He stopped trying to grab me, mouth open, so his fangs glistened. Zerbrowski was standing in the doorway, gun pointed at the fallen vampire. I wasn’t sure if he’d shot him, or… Smith was kneeling behind a huge industrial-sized metal cog that was to one side of the door. His gun was pointed that way, too. I caught a glimpse of Perry lying on the ground beside him. Smith had him behind cover, which was more than Zerbrowski and I had. Another gunshot made Zerbrowski duck back through the doorway, but I was too far away; I turned and found a boy with a gun in his hand. He was standing there, so straight, so tall, so arrogant, as he took his time and aimed at me. I shot him in the chest before he could finish. He crumpled around the wound and then fell to his side. Another teenager rushed forward to grab the gun from his hand.

I slid to a one-knee shooting stance and shot him, too. Smith was yelling, “They’re kids, Anita, they’re just kids!” He was still behind cover; I wasn’t.

I yelled out, “Touch a gun, you die! Hurt anyone, you die! Are we clear?”

There were sullen murmurs of
yes
,
yeah
, and one
fucking murderer
. Some of them looked scared, eyes wide. There were a few more teenagers in the group, but there were also adults. In fact, we had vampires of all shapes and sizes in the large group. “Hands where we can see them, now!”

They raised their hands up, some ridiculously high, others barely out. “Hands on your head.”

Some of them looked confused by the request. Zerbrowski said, “Hands on your heads, just like you see on TV, come on, you know how to do it.”

I stood up, keeping my gun aimed in their direction, but I was keeping a peripheral eye on the first one I’d shot. The girl was whimpering,
trying to get his hand off her arm, but either his hands had seized up in death or he wasn’t quite dead. One silver-plated nine-millimeter bullet in the chest doesn’t always kill a vampire.

The vampires in the shadows did what Zerbrowski told them. Smith came out from behind his cover, and I saw Perry moving a little. He wasn’t dead—good—and he wasn’t hurt enough for Smith to feel he needed to keep pressure on the wound, or whatever had happened to him, even better.

I eased toward the girl and the first vampire. She looked up at me, tearstained face, eyes wide. “He won’t let go,” she said. She was trying to peel just one finger back so she could get away. His hand stayed closed. Vampires died weirder than humans; sometimes they seized up, but… I went slow and careful, my bare feet making almost no sound on the dirty floorboards. But he was a vampire; he’d hear my heartbeat. There was really no way to sneak up on them, not yards away, not feet away… He sat up, gun coming with him. I put a bullet in his forehead before he had the gun aimed at me. The girl was screaming again, but she was able to get away now and ran away from the vampire into my arms, trying to get comfort, but I needed to make sure he was well and truly dead, and unarmed, so I pushed her away, told her, “Go to the others. Go!” I pushed her too hard, and she fell, but I was moving to the fallen vampire. The gun was still in his hand. I needed it not to be.

I crept up on him with my gun held two-handed. If he’d twitched I’d have shot him again. I kicked the gun out of his hand and he never reacted. His eyes stared wide and sightless like the officer on the stairs. The vampire might actually be dead, but… I put a second bullet beside the hole in his head, and another one just a little lower than the other hole in his chest. I could have shot holes through both head and heart with the handgun, but it was messy, and it might eventually go through the body and into the floor beyond. Smith or Zerbrowski would have called for backup by now. It would be bad to accidentally shoot cops on the other floors. Bullets weren’t always a respecter of floors and walls. I needed my vampire kit from the car.

Smith was yelling at me, “You shot kids!”

I didn’t want to walk away with the vampire’s head and chest still intact, so I reached down, grabbed the dead vampire by the back of his jean jacket, and started dragging him over toward the other dead bad guys. Smith followed me, still trying to pick a fight, or something. I let the man drop beside the two teenagers’ bodies. Now I could keep an eye on all of them. If they moved I’d shoot them some more.

Smith actually pushed my shoulder, moving me back a little. “You fucking shot them! You shot kids!”

I glared at him, but knelt down by the teenagers and pulled the lips back on the first boy, exposing the fangs. I showed Smith fangs on the second teenager.

“You knew they were vampires,” Smith said.

“Yeah.”

All the anger just leaked away, and he looked confused. “They jumped us at the door. They threw Perry into the wall.”

“How hurt is he?” I asked, standing up from the pile of dead.

“Shoulder and arm may be broken.”

“Go see to your partner, Smith,” I said.

He nodded and walked away to do that. Zerbrowski joined me, his gun still on the kneeling teenagers. There wasn’t an adult face in the kneeling group. Zerbrowski leaned in and whispered, “You told me once that when your necromancy is on full power you can’t always tell vampire from human servant in a room.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You didn’t know they were vampires when you shot them,” he said quietly.

“No,” I said.

“Were you checking for fangs when you showed Smith?”