Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [306]
“Put up your guns,” Zerbrowski said, “welcome to the wide world of weird vampire shit.” He didn’t sound happy, but I didn’t look to see what face went with the tone, because that would have meant looking away from Avery, and I didn’t want to do that.
He was a little clean-cut for my taste. His hair was a soft, medium brown, cut short the way a father or grandfather would cut it. The male hairstyle that has never really gone out of style for fifty years. His eyes matched his hair—a soft brown. His eyebrows were darker than his hair and arched in that way that men’s eyebrows will, perfectly, while most women have to pluck for that line above the eye. He didn’t have enough eyelashes, but they seemed thicker than they were because they were dark. His face was a soft oval, only the dark scattering of beard stubble saving him from looking even younger than he was. He was almost six feet, but seemed shorter, though I wasn’t sure why. Everything about him said that here was someone who’d never had anything too bad happen to him. It wasn’t just his face and coloring that was soft and undramatic; it was him. He had that flavor in my head of someone who’d never really been tested. How did you get to be a vampire and not lose that soft edge?
I got sadness from him, but he didn’t feel like someone who had just killed a woman, on purpose, or by accident. Was I wrong? Or had he not been the only vampire in that spotless apartment?
Avery stood in front of me with a look that was sad, so sad. Did he know? Had he done it?
There was a knock on the church doors. The sound startled all of us, I think. You just didn’t knock on the doors of a church. You came in, or you didn’t, but you didn’t knock. A voice called, “Sergeant Zerbrowski?”
Zerbrowski went to the door and peeked out. When he came back through the door, he had a piece of paper in his hand. It was thicker than it used to be, but most of the additions were things that would keep me out of jail and wouldn’t do a damn thing for Avery’s health.
Zerbrowski came toward me holding out the paper. I opened it up and read it, though I already knew what it was. It was my warrant of execution. The days when any vampire hunter would kill someone without seeing the warrant first were past, but I’d gotten cautious sooner than some. I’d also never been successfully sued. One of our fellow hunters was still in prison for doing his job before the paperwork came through. Everyone who worked with me knew that without this little piece of paper, there was no vampire hunt. With it, I had almost carte blanche.
I scanned it. It was pretty standard. I could legally hunt down and execute the vampire, or vampires, responsible for—I read the names of the victims. It helped me focus. Helped me remember why I was doing this kind of work—and any other murder victims that might follow. I was empowered to use any force necessary to find and stop the murderers of these people. I was further empowered to do anything within my abilities to execute this warrant with all due haste. The bearer of this warrant is allowed to enter any and all buildings in pursuit of the suspects. Any person, or persons, human or otherwise that stand in the way of the lawful execution of my duty, forfeit their rights under the Constitution of these United States and the State of Missouri. There was other legalese, but what it all boiled down to was that I could have turned back to Avery, put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and not only would the police not stop me, but legally, they had to help me carry out my duty.
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