Лорел Гамильтон - Incubus Dreams

I blinked up at him and thought, What can I tell him that won’t get us all in trouble? “I’ve got a date with Mobile Reserve for just after dawn, but if they’ve got a hostage, we can’t wait until dawn.” I dug my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed Zerbrowski’s cell. “Give me Captain Parker’s number, Zerbrowski.”

“Why?”

“The vamps took a stripper, alive. They even made sure we had a wounded but living state trooper to tell us about it.”

“Jesus, Anita, it’s a trap.”

“Probably, but give me the number anyway.”

He gave me the number, and I punched it in. Captain Parker came on the line with Sheriff Christopher watching me. I gave Parker the rundown.

“Is it a trap?” he asked.

“Maybe, or maybe they know we’re coming, and they’re just trying to rush us, so we will come in at night when they’ve got the upper hand. But yeah, it’s probably a trap.”

“I don’t want to send my men in to die, Blake.”

“I’m not wild about it either, but she was alive when they took her, and if we wait for dawn, she won’t be. Of course, she may already be dead, I don’t know.”

“It’s a trap, and the woman is bait,” Parker said.

“I know,” I said.

“You still demanding to go in with us?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He gave a small dry chuckle. “You argued your way into this operation, I hope you don’t regret that.”

“I regret it now, but if you’re really going in at night, then you’re going to need me more than ever.”

“Are you really that much better with vamps than we are?”

“Yes, Captain, yes I am.”

“I hope you’re as good as advertised, Marshal Blake.”

“Better,” I said.

“Then get over here, we’re going to hit the target in less than thirty minutes, if you’re late, we go without you.” He hung up.

I cursed as I folded the phone shut. I started walking for my Jeep. “Where the hell are you going?”

“To take the bait,” I said.

He frowned. “The stripper.”

I nodded, and was still walking with him dogging me.

“Mobile Reserve is really taking you in with them.”

“If you don’t believe me, call Captain Parker yourself.” I was at the door to the Jeep.

He caught the door edge before I could close it. “Isn’t this a conflict of interest for you, shooting up your boyfriend’s vampires?”

“These are bad guys, Sheriff, they don’t belong to anybody.” I shut the door, and he let me. I didn’t exactly peel out, but close. I knew Parker, and I knew how Mobile Reserve operated, if I didn’t make the time schedule, they would leave without me. The vampires wanted us to go in tonight. They knew we had the address. They knew we were planning on hitting them. They assumed that we meant to hit them after sunrise, and they were forcing our hand. They wanted us in there on their terms. That meant tonight. But why not run? If they knew we had their location, why not just vacate it? Why not just run, and find another daytime retreat? Why take a hostage and go to such elaborate lengths to make sure we knew about it? It was a trap, but even knowing that’s what it was, we still had to go.

The dry erase board was covered with diagrams. Sergeants Hudson and Melbourne had done a recon of the area before the rest of us got set up in our nice, safe, block-away location. They’d covered the whiteboard with entries and exits, lights, windows, and all the minutiae that I would never have noticed, or rather I’d have seen it, but I wouldn’t have been able to make use of it. I could have reported what I’d seen, but one of them would have had to interpret it for everybody else. I simply hadn’t had the training. My way of doing it would have been to do a front entry and kill everything that moved. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to get a diagram of the condo’s interior, or have the landlord of the building there tell us what he knew of the woman who owned the apartment. They’d already evacuated the condos adjoining ours, and they had the nearest neighbor, again, give us information about the interior and the owner. It was useful to know that there was almost no furniture in the condo, because the owner, Jill Conroy, was waiting for a shipment that had been delayed twice.

That she worked as a lawyer in a large downtown firm and had just made partner. Fascinating, but I didn’t see that it was useful. They were still trying to find someone who would answer the phone at her job, to find out when she was last at work. No one at work at nearly two in the morning, fucking slackers. It was all interesting, but our victim was in there, alone with vampires who had murdered at least ten people in three states. I wanted to get her out, and I was having trouble concentrating on the trivia. It must have shown, because Sergeant Hudson said, “We boring you, Blake?”

I blinked up at him, from where I’d finally curled up on the street. I was tired and didn’t see a reason not to sit down, some of the Mobile Reserve guys were kneeling. “A little,” I said.

The two men closest to me, Killian of the white, buzz cut, and Jung, who was the only green-eyed Asian American I’d ever met, both moved away from me, as if they didn’t want to be too close when the blood started to fly. I noticed that Melbourne stayed where he was next to Hudson, as if he expected the blood flow to be one-sided.

“There’s the street, Blake, start walking.”

“You asked the question, Sergeant. If you didn’t want an honest answer, you should have warned me.”

Someone laughed, low enough that I wasn’t sure who’d done it, and neither, apparently, was Hudson, because he didn’t try to find out who’d laughed, he just used it as an excuse to be more pissed at me.

Hudson took a step toward me. I stood up.

“If we’re boring you, Blake, then go home. We don’t need your attitude, we got enough of our own.” His voice was low and even, and every word was very carefully enunciated. I knew that oh-so-careful tone. It was the voice you used instead of screaming or hitting something.

“Dawn Morgan may still be alive in there,” I said. “But every minute we wait cuts her chances of survival. You can hate that your captain let me come, you can fucking hate me, I don’t care, but let’s get this done. I’d like to get to Dawn before it’s too late, Sergeant Hudson. Just once, I’d like not to be the cleanup crew and be there early enough to have something left to rescue.”

He blinked solid brown eyes at me that matched the mustache and close-cropped hair. My own hair was back in a ponytail. They had handed me a helmet, and hair nearly to your waist just didn’t fit in helmets without being pulled back in some fashion. I’d have cut my hair months ago, but Micah said if I cut mine, he’d cut his, the threat had left me with the longest hair of my life. I looked like a short, curvy hippie among the militaryesque haircuts and very masculine figures around me. Even stuffing me into one of their vests couldn’t hide that I so didn’t match everyone else. There are moments when I suddenly feel awkward again, not a cop, not a man, not part of this great brotherhood. Just a girl, just a voodoo dabbler, who no one trusts at their back. It had been years since I’d felt this bad about it. Maybe it was the borrowed equipment, which didn’t really fit, or maybe it was Arnet and Dolph being mad at me, or maybe it was just that I believed what was in Hudson’s eyes. I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t a tactical anything. I didn’t know how they did business. I wasn’t part of their team, and part of me understood that no matter how many friends I had that were cops, and no matter that I had a badge, that there would always be more cops that thought I didn’t belong than ones who did. I would always and forever be the outsider, no matter what I did. Part of it was gender, part of it was my day job, part of it was fucking the monsters, and part of it was just simply that I didn’t belong. I didn’t follow orders, or keep my mouth shut, or play the political game. I would have never survived as a real policeperson, I just couldn’t play the game by anyone else’s rules. Police, real police, understand and live by the rules. I spent most of my life going, rules, what rules? I stood there and looked at Hudson, held his gaze, his anger, and I just wasn’t angry. Too much of me agreed with his anger for me to get angry back.