Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

My stomach cramped so hard that I bent over. Dr Cross bent over me. ‘Are you all right, Marshal?’

I let out my breath in a slow, steady flow and said, ‘Rapid healing takes energy. I think I need food.’

‘Of course, I should have thought of it.’ We stopped long enough at the nurses’ station for him to order the food.

We had fewer people in our parade as they split off and went to check on Sheriff Callahan and just go do their jobs. Some of the uniforms were probably from small departments like Al’s, so they couldn’t afford to have all their manpower here.

The door at the end of the hallway opened and Officer Bush walked through. His short brown hair was still hat-flattened, as if he’d been in his patrol car for a while and was still fresh enough from the academy to wear it behind the wheel.

‘Marshal Blake, good to see you awake.’

‘Good to be awake, Officer Bush,’ I said, and smiled.

‘I just wanted to come and tell you personally that the vampires that started all this will be dead before dawn.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

‘The vampires that created the flesh-eating zombies are going to be executed tonight.’

‘They aren’t the vampire that caused all this.’

He frowned. ‘We were there. We saw them do it.’

‘You heard what she said, Bush. She was possessed by a much bigger, badder vampire than she is.’

‘Everyone lies when they get caught, Blake, you know that.’

‘Yeah, but in this case she didn’t lie. I felt the other vampire’s energy. I felt him on her and knew when he left. His energy was so strong that I kept expecting to see him standing there, but he didn’t need to be standing there to control her. He’s behind the rotting infection that Sheriff Callahan has, and he’s what drove Ares insane and made him attack people. The two vampires we took into custody are our only witnesses to the real vampire behind all this; if they die, then our best leads go with them. Kill them if you want, but the master vampire behind all this will just make more little vampires and keep spreading the infection. Killing the two in custody only helps the bad guys, because then I can’t question them.’

‘But they’re not talking to us, they’re not telling us anything,’ Bush said.

‘I know the questions to ask, Bush. If they’re dead before I get there, I can’t ask anything. I can’t find out who did this to them.’

‘Did this to them? What do you mean?’

‘Both those vampires are newly dead. They aren’t a month old as undead, which means they’re some of your missing people. Did you check their fingerprints against the missing people?’

‘They’re vampires with an order of execution on them; we don’t have to do anything but execute them.’

‘I know that, but I’m telling you that if they die you’ve just made it harder to find this bastard.’

‘Who’s carrying out the warrant?’ Edward asked.

‘Marshal Hatfield.’

‘It’s considered courtesy to offer the execution to the marshal who was injured or lost people hunting the vampire,’ Edward said.

‘We thought Marshal Blake would be in the hospital a few days, at least.’

‘I’m a medical miracle. I need those vampires alive to be questioned.’

‘I’ll call, and I’ll get on site to do what I can,’ Edward said. He put the backpack with all my dangerous toys in the wheelchair to one side so I could still have a clean draw to the Browning under my lap blanket. Edward never forgot.

‘I’ll go with you, and I’ll radio in,’ Bush said.

‘Then radio it in,’ I said.

He hit his shoulder mic as he and Edward went for the far door. Bush was talking to someone before they hit the door. I trusted Edward to do as much as he could to keep the two vampires alive in custody. I was going to be so pissed if Hatfield executed the only two people who I was sure had actually seen the big bad vampire face to face. Without them, we were back to square one.

A tall officer with short dark hair and brown eyes so dark they were almost black said, ‘So the Executioner is saying, Don’t execute the vampires .’

I looked up at him in his civilian clothes, but there was something about how tall, how terribly in shape he was, muscled, and just a level of energy to him that made me guess he was SWAT or something like it. Special forces military branch tastes the same sometimes.

‘I’m flattered that SWAT came down to keep me company,’ I said.

The faintest surprise went through those very dark eyes. ‘What gave me away?’

I waved sort of vaguely at him. ‘This.’

He frowned. ‘You just motioned at all of me.’

‘Exactly,’ I said.

He smiled.

One of the other officers patted his belly where it was pushing over his equipment belt. ‘Yeah, Yancey, you don’t have all the equipment that the rest of us have.’

He laughed. ‘If I had all the equipment you have, Carmichael, I’d get kicked off SWAT.’ He patted his own very flat stomach. I was betting he had washboard abs, just a thought, no harm in it. The next thought had harm in it; I wanted to lift his shirt out of his pants and see if I was right.

I called out, ‘Nicky, can you take the bag?’

The police had to make room for him to come to my side. Most of them gave him little eye flicks. Officer Yancey of local SWAT looked at him in that way that very fit, very tough men do when they’re not used to seeing men who make them wonder, Could I take him? Would I lose? Yancey was taller than Nicky, though not taller than Dev, but Nicky’s shoulder spread always impressed big men who thought they had nice shoulders until they had to stand next to Nicky.

I smiled, I couldn’t help it, and the amusement helped push back the impulse to touch strangers.

‘Some of the local PD are really not happy with you surrounding yourself with shapeshifters after what happened,’ Yancey said.

‘My man was turned against us by vampire mind games just like the officers, including Bush, were mind-fucked earlier by the same vampires.’

Yancey held up his hands as if to show he was unarmed. ‘SWAT is delivering more and more warrants as backup for the executioners. We train for what to do if one of us is vamped and turned against the rest of us. You did one of the things that we all pray we never have to do, Marshal Blake. I’m here because SWAT wanted you to know that we respect what you did and we’re sorry you had to do it. Hermes of St Louis SWAT speaks highly of you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, because what else could I say.

‘Boulder won’t allow psychics on SWAT yet. The report that vetoed it said they found that most psychics couldn’t use their special abilities and do their duty as officers at the same time.’

‘Which means most psychics can’t shoot straight and use their powers at the same time,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Something like that.’ Then he looked at me, very seriously, as if he were weighing and measuring me. ‘But you can, can’t you?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I can.’

‘That was a hell of a shot to make under the circumstances, Marshal.’

‘It was Ares who taught me how to make that shot,’ I said. I took a deep, even breath, because my chest was tight, my eyes suddenly hot. God, I was going to cry.

Nicky put his hand on my shoulder.

‘What do you mean?’ Yancey asked.

‘The man I killed, Ares, was a scout sniper before an enemy attack left him with lycanthropy and they forced a medical discharge on him. Handguns and up-close fighting I’m great at, but long guns, shooting distances, wasn’t my thing. He taught me.’ I raised my hand and put it over Nicky’s where he touched me. His fingers wrapped around mine and it helped me gather myself. I gripped my gun under the blanket, digging the butt of it hard into my hand. The solidness of it helped, too. Funny, that holding a gun made it easier to deal with the sorrow of using a different one.