Лорел Гамильтон - Incubus Dreams

I wondered how Jean-Claude and Asher would like being referred to as my fag vampire friends. Better not to know. I shook my head. “How many lawsuits do you have against your department?”

“None,” he said.

I laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I get the job done, and that’s all people care about.”

It wasn’t my business, but I had to wonder how many of his arrests were people not white, not straight, not like him. I would have bet almost any amount of money, most of his arrests fell into those categories. I hoped I was wrong, but I doubted I was.

“You know the line that if all you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails?”

He frowned at me, not sure where I was going. “Yeah, I like Mr.

Ayoob’s writings.”

“Yeah, so do I, but my point is this. If all you’re looking at is the monsters, then that’s all you’re going to see.”

He frowned harder. “I don’t follow.”

Why was I even trying? “You’re so busy hating me and everyone with me, that you’ve done almost no real police work, or don’t you care about this one? Is that it, sheriff? Is this just some little fag stripper that got himself killed, so it’s not as important as the white women earlier?”

Something flinched through his eyes, if I hadn’t been staring right at him, I’d have missed it. “You must really hate this club.”

His eyes were cool and unreadable when he said, “My experience has been that what goes around, comes around, Marshal. You engage in high-risk behavior, and it catches up with you, and payback’s a bitch.”

I shook my head. “No one so blind as those that will not see.”

“What?” he said.

“Nothing, Sheriff, just wasting my breath.”

The radios on the black and whites crackled to life, and what we heard was enough to stop the squabbling. “Officer down, officer down.”

Location was just down the road at the first strip bar that the vampires hit. Ambitious bastards. I yelled to Micah and Nathaniel, “Take Ronnie’s car and go home.” I was already opening the Jeep’s driver’s side door.

“Anita…” Micah started.

“I love you,” I said, and I slid behind the wheel. I backed up and had to wait for one of the other police cars to get out of my way.

Nathaniel was still leaning against the car where the deputy had questioned him. I hit the button for my driver’s side window. I blew him a kiss. He smiled and blew one back. Then I was in line between two of the black and whites, and we were gone. Officer down, was it the vampires? Or had some drunk gotten lucky? No way to know until we got there. The only bright spot was that I wouldn’t be alone with just the sheriff and his men for long. Police would come from all over for this one. Officers that wouldn’t normally have any business or jurisdiction here would be driving up within minutes.

The ambulance was behind us, with its lights and sirens going.

They could have been simply following the police’s lead, but I took it for a good sign. EMTs only do the full cherry, when they know there’s someone hurt but still alive. I said a quick prayer and concentrated on driving. The sheriff was a bigoted asshole, but he knew the roads, and I didn’t. Here’s hoping I didn’t end up in a ditch.

We were the first officers on the scene, because we’d been less than ten minutes away. The sound of sirens wailed off into the night.

More help coming. There was an Illinois State Trooper car standing in the parking lot with one door open, and the officer slumped, sitting by the door. His face was just a white blur, one arm looked injured, and his gun was clasped awkwardly in his other hand. There was blood on the shoulder of his uniform.

The black and whites hit their doors, and they took cover behind the doors, or the engine block while they looked around. No one just ran straight at the injured trooper. We all took cover, we all had our weapons out, we all assessed the situation before we ran in. You never know about bad guys, sometimes they use bait. I hugged the front of my Jeep with my back, gun out, pointed skyward. I had the engine block at my back, so no matter what the bad guys were using I was okay, as long as I was on the right side of the Jeep. There were so many things to think about, and no time to think deep, you had to let training and experience do some of the thinking for you.

The sheriff did something with his arm, and suddenly all the sirens cut off. The silence was suddenly loud, just the strobing of the lights to let people know something was wrong, We were all scanning the parking lot and the surrounding area.

There was a privacy fence behind the dumpsters. There were other buildings within a few yards. The parking lot was packed. The bad guy could be hiding behind any of the cars, or they could have fled when they heard the sirens. No way to be sure.

Nothing moved, except the trooper who blinked at us. He was alive, and I wanted him to stay that way. We had to move up. As if Sheriff Christopher had read my mind, he moved up. He kept low, which with his stomach and his height was impressive. A lot more limber than he looked.

I pointed my gun not at anything in particular, but in the directions I could cover that might potentially have someone hiding who wanted to shoot at the sheriff. A white plastic bag rolled near the Dumpster, pushed by the wind. Nothing else moved.

Sheriff Christopher gave the all clear. His men all stood up, broke cover, and converged on him. I was more cautious, scanning the area as I moved to join them, my gun pointed at the ground, but held two-handed, ready to go back up. There was a crowd starting at the door to the club. Until I stood up, I couldn’t see the doors over the hood of my Jeep, but I was betting the crowd had been there all along.

People have no sense. Or they knew something we didn’t. Naw.

I heard, “Get the EMTs up here.”

Patterson trotted off to let the medics know it was safe to come up. Sheriff Christopher glared up at me. “It was one of your vampire friends.”

“Looks like a knife wound to me, how do you know it was a vampire?”

The trooper spoke in a voice that was strained low with pain and shock, “Bastards flew off with her. Flew up like fucking birds, straight up.”

Okay. “Alright, vampires. Who did they take?”

“One of the dancers,” the trooper said. “I was making a drive-through, like we’re supposed to. Saw her come out, and saw them just come out of the shadows, one on either side of her. She started screaming. I got out, pulled my gun. But there was another one, I didn’t see him. I don’t know why, but it was like he just appeared behind me. He put the knife to my throat, told me to watch. Then the others just flew away with the girl. They fucking flew away.” He closed his eyes and looked like he was struggling with the pain.

The EMTs were there, pushing us all back.

The trooper opened his eyes, and he looked at the sheriff. “He had the knife at my throat, why didn’t he kill me? He switched the blade, drove it into my shoulder. Why? Why didn’t he kill me?”

I answered, while the medics went to work on him. “He wanted you alive, so you could tell us what you saw.”

“Why?” he asked, and he looked at me.

“It’s a message.”

“What message?”

I shook my head. “They want us to come and save her. They want to force us to move tonight, while they’re strong, not wait until dawn when the advantage is ours.”

Sheriff Christopher stood up and reached out for me, but seemed to think better of it, and just motioned for me to follow him. I followed him. “Last I knew we didn’t know where these bastards are hiding. You sound like you know.”