• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Dolph would say it’s because you don’t want it to be Jean-Claude’s people.”

“Yeah, he would, but I’ll tell you this, Zerbrowski, the thought that all these new little vampires have only their human morals to make them be good, makes me almost agree with Dolph.”

“Agree on what?”

“Kill them all.”

Jean-Claude said, “Do not say this out loud to the police, ma petite. It may come to that, and you do not wish your friend to remember this conversation.” He was right.

“Shit, Anita, some of your best friends are bloodsuckers.”

“Yeah, but there are rules to being a vampire, and Malcolm is trying to treat them like they’re just people with fangs. They aren’t, Zerbrowski, they really aren’t. Even if this turns out to be a bunch of rogues that somehow slipped through everyone’s radar. Mine, Jean-Claude’s, and Malcolm’s, we are so going to have to talk to him about his new policy.”

“Why I do I think when you said, we, just now, you weren’t including me, or any of the cops?” He was looking at me, and the joking, lecherous comments were gone. I was seeing a very intelligent pair of cop eyes.

I sighed and took a step toward the ladder. I’d said too much, way too much. Jean-Claude’s voice in my head, “You must say something to take the sting out of your words, ma petite.”

Out loud, to Zerbrowski, I thought of something to say. “I’m tired Zerbrowski, please don’t tell Dolph that I think all the vamps in the church should be done in. I don’t mean it, not really.”

“I won’t tell anyone, especially not Dolph. He’d probably start with his new daughter-in-law, and wouldn’t that be a shit.”

I nodded. “But if we had hundreds of vamps go bad, all at once, I’m still who gets the call. I so don’t want to ever have to try to take on that many of them. I’m good, but not that good.”

“For a few hundred, even you’d need help,” he said. He let out a long breath. “I can see where the thought would piss you off, and make you tired. Hell, it makes me tired, and nervous.”

“I’ll try to find out how long this no-blood-oath policy has been in effect,” I said.

“And then what?”

I had my hands on the ladder. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Ma petite, you are being uncautious again.”

I whispered, “Get out of my head.”

“What does that mean, Anita? You’re a federal marshal, you can’t do the Lone Ranger shit anymore. You got a badge.”

I leaned my forehead on the ladder, got mud on my face, and jerked back. I told him as much of the truth as I could. “We’ll give Malcolm a choice, either he blood oaths everybody, or Jean-Claude does.” Jean-Claude was suddenly louder than ever in my head. “Stop there, ma petite, I beg you, do not say it out loud.”

What I didn’t say out loud was that any vampire that didn’t want to take the ceremony was probably dead. I had Jean-Claude’s memory of it now, and I knew the blood oath was one of their most strenuously observed laws. I’d seen what could happen if the oath wasn’t strong enough, what would happen if it wasn’t there at all.

I was actually on the ladder, when Zerbrowski said, “And what if the vamps don’t want to take the oath?”

I stayed frozen on the ladder for a second, then lied, “I’m not sure. I’m hoping that it’s just Malcolm and not every church of their’s across the country that’s doing this. You’re talking about something that’s never been done before, Zerbrowski. As far as I know, no master vamp has ever just allowed vamps to breed like this without securing himself as their leader in more than just name. It’s never been done before. Vamps aren’t big on new ideas.”

“Are you talking about killing the ones that won’t take the oath? Anita, they’ve got rights.”

“I know that, Zerbrowski, better than most.” I was cursing Malcolm, cursing him for the mess he’d started. Even if the murderers weren’t his people, it was only a matter of time. Vampires are not people, they don’t think like people. I realized that Malcolm was trying to do with the Church of Eternal Life what Richard had tried to do with the Thronnos Rokke Clan. Both of them were trying to treat the monsters like they were just people. They weren