Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [510]
The Church of Eternal Life didn’t promise much more than most churches promised, but you could join the Lutherans, and if you didn’t like it, you could quit. Joining the Church of Eternal Life as a full member meant never being able to do anything about regrets you might have.
Zerbrowski got us back on track. “You didn’t see anyone in the parking lot who could confirm when you left the Sapphire?”
He shook his head.
“Did you smell anything?”
Those washed out eyes flicked up to me. He frowned. “What?”
“You didn’t see anything, or anyone, but sight isn’t the only sensory input you’ve got.”
He frowned harder.
I bent down so I could meet him eye-to-eye. I would have knelt, but I didn’t want to touch the carpet with anything but my shoes. “You’re a vampire, Benchely, a bloodsucker, a predator. If you were human I’d just say what did you see, or hear, but you’re not human. If you didn’t see or hear anything, what did you smell? What did you sense?”
He was looking positively perplexed. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head. “What did they do, make you a vampire, then not teach you anything about what you are?”
“We’re the eternal children of God,” he said.
“Bullshit, bull-fucking-shit! You don’t know what you are, or what you could be.” I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. He was five years dead. I didn’t think he was involved, but he’d walked through that parking lot damn close to the time of the killing. If he hadn’t been such a pititful excuse for the undead, he might have been able to help us catch the bad guys.
“I don’t understand,” he said, and I believed him.
I shook my head. “I need air.” I went for the door, leaving Zerbrowski to mutter, “Thanks for your help, Mr. Benchely, and if you think of anything, call us. I was on the cement walkway, breathing in all the night air I could, when Zerbrowski came to find me.
“What the hell was that?” he asked. “You just decide we stop questioning a suspect?”
“He didn’t do it, Zerbrowski. He’s too damn pitiful to have done it.”
“Anita, listen to yourself. That doesn’t even make sense. You know as well I do that murderers can make you feel sorry for them. Some of them specialize in pity.”
“I don’t mean I felt pity for him, I mean he’s too damn pitiful a vampire to have pulled it off.”
Zerbrowski frowned at me. “You’ve lost me.”
I wasn’t sure how to explain it, but I tried. “It’s bad enough that they let him believe that becoming a vampire would fix everything that was wrong with his miserable life, but then they killed him. They took his mortal life, but they’ve done everything they can to cripple him as a vampire.”
“Cripple him, how?”
“Any vampire that I know would have noticed things, Zerbrowski. They’re like this hyperfocus predator. Predators notice things. Benchely may have fangs, but he still thinks like he’s a sheep, not a wolf.”
“Would you really want every member of the church to be a good predator?”
I leaned my back against the railing. “It’s not that. It’s that they took his life and didn’t give him another one. He’s not better off than he was before.”
“He’s not getting arrested for drunk and disorderlies anymore.”
“And how long will it be before he can’t take it anymore and he uses his gaze on somebody, drinks their blood, and blows it? They wake up and decide they were abused. He’s not a good enough vampire for them not to wake up and regret it.”
“What do you mean he’s not a good enough vampire? Anita, you’re not making sense.”
“I don’t know if it’ll make sense to you, Zerbrowski, but I’ve seen the real deal. They’re terrible, or can be, but they’re like watching a tiger at the zoo. They’re dangerous, but they have a beauty to them, even the ones that