Skin Trade

Ropes meant he’d been at one of the high-end tables, where a hand could start at five hundred, or ten thousand, or more. “Then what?” I asked.

“Then he made me cash out and told me to come with him.” He looked up at me, and there was puzzlement and a hint of fear on his face. “Maximillian is a powerful Master of the City. He protects us, but this guy just came out of nowhere and I couldn’t say no.”

The next vampire was a lot younger in every way. Maybe only a few years dead, and barely legal when he crossed over to undead land. He had healed needle scars at the bends of his elbows. He’d been clean a long time. I had a hunch.

“Church of Eternal Life, right?” It was the vampire church, and the fastest-growing denomination in the country. Want to know what it’s like to die? Ask a church member that’s gone on. That’s what they call it, going on. Church members wear medical ID bracelets, so if they’re in a life-threatening situation, you call the Church and have a vampire come and finish the job.

The man’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened enough to flash fang before he remembered. Boy, he was new. He recovered and tried to do what all the older vampires tell you to do when talking to the police: play human. Not pretend to be human, but just don’t be vampire.

“Yes,” and his voice was whispery, so frightened, “how did you…”

“The needle tracks. The Church got you off drugs, right?”

He nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Steve.”

“Okay, Steve, what happened?”

“I was at work. I sell souvenirs just down the street. People like buying from a vampire, ya know.”

“I know,” I said.

“But he came up to the stand, and he said, Come with me, and just like that, I did.” He gazed up at me, his eyes wide and frightened. “Why did I do that?”

“Why does a human being go with you once you bespell them with your gaze?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t do that. The Church rules…”

“Say no vampire gaze, but I bet you’ve tried it, at least once.”

He looked embarrassed.

“It’s okay, Steve, I don’t care if you’ve played slap-and-tickle with the tourists with your eyes. Did this vampire catch you with his eyes?”

He frowned up at me again. “No, I would swear it wasn’t his gaze. It was almost as if he said, Come with me, and I had to do it.”

“So, was it his voice?”

Steve didn’t know.

None of them knew why they had done it. They’d left their jobs, their dates, their money on craps tables, and just followed him. Sometimes Vittorio had spoken; sometimes he’d simply stood close to them. Either way, they’d followed him and done what he said.

The girl looked about nineteen, but except for Henry Jefferson, she was the oldest of them. Two hundred years and counting was my guess, and it wasn’t a guess. Her hair was long and dark and had fallen over her face, so she was trying to blink it out of her eyes.

We’d already been through name, rank, and serial number, when I said, “Sarah, do you want me to get your hair out of your eyes?”

“Please,” she said.

I moved the hair carefully out of the wide, blinking gray eyes. She was the first one to ask, “You’re looking me in the eyes; most humans don’t do that. I mean, I wouldn’t roll you or anything, but cops are trained not to look into our eyes.”

I smiled. “You aren’t old enough to roll me with your eyes, Sarah.”

She frowned up at me. “I don’t understand.” Then her eyes went wide, and what little color she had to her skin drained away. You don’t get to see a vampire go pale very often.

“Oh my God,” she said, and her voice held terror.

Rocco stepped up. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s figured out who I am,” I said, quietly.

Sarah the vampire had started to scream. “No, please, he made me. It was like I was some human. He just rolled me. Oh, God, I swear to you. I didn’t do this. I didn’t mean… Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. You’re the Executioner! Oh, my God, oh, my God, you’re going to kill us all!”

“You might want to step outside. I’ll try to calm her down,” Rocco said, having to yell above her screams.

I left him to the hysterical vampire and went back out into the main part of the club. Hooper and Olaf were arguing, quietly but heatedly, in the corner of the room away from the prisoners. There were still plenty of guards on the vampires. I walked by them and found them watching me. The looks were either hostile or scared. Either they’d heard Sarah screaming or someone else had figured it out. Of course, there was one other possibility.

I got close to the two men and caught snatches, “You son of a bitch, you are not allowed to threaten prisoners.”

“It was not a threat,” Olaf said in his deep voice. “I was merely telling the vampire what awaits them all.”

“They’re telling us everything we want to know, Jeffries. We don’t need to scare them into confessing.”

They both looked at me and made enough room so I could join the little circle. “What did you tell the girl?”

“How do you know it was a girl?” Hooper asked.

“I’ll do you one better, I’ll tell you which girl. The one with long, wavy brown hair, petite.”

Hooper narrowed his eyes at me. “How the hell did you know that?”

“Otto has a type,” I said.

“He was talking low to her, but he made sure the others could hear. He told her he was going to cut her heart out while she was still alive. He told her he’d make sure and do her after dark, so she’d be awake for it all.” Hooper was as angry as I’d ever seen him. There was a fine trembling in his hands, as if he were fighting the urge to make fists.

I sighed and spoke low. “Did you also mention who I am?”

“I told her we were vampire hunters, and we had the Executioner and Death with us.”

“I know Blake is the Executioner, but who’s Death? You?”

“Ted,” I said. I glared up at Olaf. “You wanted them afraid. You wanted to watch the fear on all their faces, didn’t you?”

He just looked at me.

Hooper asked, “What’s your nickname, Jeffries?”

“I do not have one.”

“He doesn’t leave survivors,” I said.

Hooper looked from one to the other of us. “Wait a minute, are you telling me that these vampires are all going to be executed?”

“They are vampires involved with the serial killer we were sent to destroy. They are covered under the current warrant,” Olaf said.

“The human crowd at the barricades attacked police officers, but when they said the vampire took them over, we believed them.”

“I believe the vampires, too,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Olaf said. “They took human hostages, threatened human life, and are proven associates of a master vampire that is covered under an active warrant of execution. They have forfeited their rights, all their rights.”

Hooper stared at Olaf for a second, then turned to me. “Is he right?”

I just nodded.

“No one died tonight,” he said, “and I want to keep it that way.”

“You’re a cop; you save lives. We’re executioners, Hooper; we don’t save lives, we take them.”

“Are you telling me that you’re all right with killing these people?”

“They aren’t people,” Olaf said.

“In the eyes of the law, they are,” Hooper said.

I shook my head. “No, because if they were really people under the law, I’d have another option. The law, as written, doesn’t make exceptions. Otto is right; they have forfeited their right to live under the law.”

“But they were under the power of a vampire, just like the human crowd.”

“Yes, but the law doesn’t recognize that as a possibility. It doesn’t believe that one vampire can take over another vampire. It only protects humans from the power of vampires.”

“Are you telling me that there’s no other option for these vampires?”

“They go from here to the morgue. They’ll be chained to a gurney with holy objects, or maybe these new chains will do, I don’t know. But they will be taken to the morgue and tied down in some way, where they will wait until dawn, and when they go to sleep for the day, we kill them, all of them.”