Laurell Hamilton - Kiss The Dead

I slowed my breathing first, it all begins with the breathing, and then I slowed my heartbeat, timed it. I thought softly, in time to that slowing beat, “Fuck… fuck… fuck… fuck…”

“Even if you can make the shot, you can’t make it fast enough.”

I kept my voice even, my vision on that edge of face. “Let… him… go.” I stopped looking at Stevens’s wide eyes and tried to just see my target.

He ducked completely behind Stevens so that I had no head shot except Stevens. I kept my aim on where his head had been last. He’d peek back out. He wouldn’t be able to resist-probably.

He spoke, hidden. “You’re talking in time to your heartbeat.”

“Yes,” I said softly.

“Don’t,” Stevens said, voice strained with the pressure of the vampire’s hand against his throat.

“If I tear his throat out now, you don’t have a shot.”

Urlrich said, “You kill him, and I’ll shoot you through his body.”

“I’m already dead; you can’t scare me.”

“You’re… not… dead,” I said. I was having trouble focusing where I thought his head would pop out. You can’t focus like that forever; you have to take the shot, or rest your eyes. They give out before your arms give out on holding the shooting stance.

“I am dead,” the vampire said.

“Not… yet…” I said.

I saw an edge of blond hair. My breathing just stopped, everything stopped. I pulled the trigger in a well of silence, where the emptiness waited for my heartbeat.

The blond hair fell back behind Stevens, and I thought I’d missed. I waited for the vampire to tear his throat out as I ran forward, gun to shoulder, yelling, “Fuck!”

Urlrich yelled, “Stevens!”

Stevens fell forward on all fours. I waited for his throat to spill crimson. He got to his feet and stumbled away from the vampire. The vampire stayed on the floor, on his back. I had the AR snugged tight, and suddenly I thought 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.

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, What do we do? Fuck.

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.