Skin Trade

“The law does not say we must wait for dawn,” Olaf said.

I couldn’t keep the look of disgust off my face. “No one voluntarily does them while they’re awake. You only do that when you’re out of options.”

“If we do them as soon as possible, then we can move on to help Sanchez and the other practitioners.”

“They radioed in,” Hooper said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“House was empty. The house had been torn up by something, and Bering, or what we assume was Bering, is dead. He’d been dead for a while.”

“So, a dead end, no pun intended.”

Olaf said, “I thought they were only to scout the house psychically, and wait for the rest of us to enter it.”

“They sensed nothing in the house. They radioed in and the lieutenant made the call.” Hooper turned back to me. “If we could prove that these vampires were telling the truth, could you delay the executions?”

“We have some discretion on when to put the warrant into force,” I said.

“Ca

“He’ll be opening himself up psychically to vampires. That’s different from playing around in human brains,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter why they did what they did,” Olaf said. “According to the law, they will be executed, regardless of why.”

“We’re supposed to protect all the people in this city.” Hooper pointed back at the waiting vampires. “Last I checked, they qualify as people.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Sergeant. No jail will take them, and we can’t leave them for days chained to a gurney with holy objects. It’s considered cruel and unusual, so they must be executed in a timely ma

“So it’s better to just kill them than to leave them on the gurney?”

“I’m telling you the law, not what I believe,” I said, “Frankly, I think putting them in cross-wrapped coffins for a while would keep them safe and out of the way, but that was considered cruel and unusual, too.”

“If they were human, it wouldn’t be.”

“If they were human, we wouldn’t be talking about putting them in a little box and shoving them in a hole somewhere. If they were human, we wouldn’t be allowed to chain them to a gurney and remove their hearts and their heads. If they were human, we’d be out of a job.”

He stared at me, a slow dawning look that was almost disgust. “Wait here, I’m going to talk to the lieutenant.”

“The law is the law,” Olaf said.

“I’m afraid he’s right, Hooper.”

He looked at me, ignoring Olaf. “If there were another option, would you sign off on it?”

“It depends on the option, but I’d love to have a legal recourse for moments like this that doesn’t include murder.”

“It’s not murder,” Olaf said.

I turned to him. “You don’t believe that, because if it wasn’t murder, you wouldn’t enjoy it as much.”

He gave me those cave-dark eyes, and there was a hint of anger down in the depths. I didn’t care. I just knew that I didn’t want to kill Sarah, or Steve, or Henry Jefferson, or the girl that he’d made cry. But to keep Olaf from being alone with the women, I’d take them myself, but not while it was dark, not while they could see it coming, not while they were afraid.

“You really don’t enjoy killing them, do you?” he asked, and he sounded surprised.

“I told you I didn’t enjoy it.”

“You did, but I didn’t believe you.”

“Why do you believe me now?”

“I watched your face. You’re trying to think of ways to save them or to lessen their suffering.”

“You could tell all that from one look?”

“Not just one look, a series of looks, like clouds passing over the sun, one after another.”

I didn’t know what to say to that; it was almost poetic. “These people are i

“Ted would say that no vampire is i

“And what do you say?” I asked, trying to be angry, because it was better than the shaky feeling in my gut. I didn’t want to kill these people.

“I say that no one is i

Hooper came back with Grimes beside him. Grimes said, “We have a lawyer who’s been wanting to try for a stay of execution in cases like this.”

“You mean like that last-minute call from the governor in the movies,” I said.

Grimes nodded. His so-sincere brown eyes studied my face. “We need an executioner to write it up and sign that he or she thinks that executing these vampires would be murder and not in the public good.”

“Let Ca

“Anita,” Olaf said.

“Don’t, just don’t, and you stay away from the prisoners.”

“You are not in charge of me,” he said, and there was the begi

“No, but I am,” Grimes said. “Stay away from the prisoners until further notice, Marshal Jeffries. I’ll tell the other marshals what we’re doing.”

They walked toward the back room and the ex-hostages and Edward. Olaf said what I was thinking. “Edward won’t like what you’re doing.”

“He doesn’t have to like it.”

“Most women value their boyfriend’s opinion.”

“Fuck you,” I said, and walked away from him.

He called after me. “I thought you didn’t want to.”

I kept walking. The vampires on the floor stared at me as if I were Vittorio, or something else equally scary. There was hatred in a few eyes, but underneath it all was their fear. I could taste it on the back of my tongue, like something sweet that held a bitterness to it, like dark chocolate that’s a little too dark.

The far door opened and Ca

Usually she’d be right, but maybe, just maybe, we really could save everyone tonight.

65

IT WAS LESS than two hours before dawn. I was so tired I ached, but the vampires were all still alive. They were chained to gurneys in the morgue, and since the morgue had a room designed for only one vamp at a time, the coroner and all of his people hadn’t been too happy to see ten of them, but Grimes had used his own men to act as extra guards. The guard duty was volunteer only, but his men had looked at him like he was crazy; if he said it was a good thing, it was. Besides, he’d explained it like this: “No one died tonight; if we do this, no one dies tomorrow either.”

Edward hadn’t been happy with me. Bernardo had been amused. Olaf had left me alone, caught in his own thoughts that I wanted no part of. I’d actually let Sergeant Rocco drop me at my hotel because Edward didn’t offer. Normally, it would have hurt my feelings, but not over this.

“I’ve never tried my talent on a real vampire before,” he said in the quiet of the car.

“How different was it?” I asked, still gazing out at darkened buildings on the street. Like most streets in most cities, everything was closed on this street. Just before dawn, even the strippers get to go home.

“They’re still people, but it’s as if their thoughts are slower. No,” he said, and something about how he said it made me look at him. His profile in the light and shadow of the streetlights was very serious. “It was like those insects frozen in amber, as if the memories that were clearest to them were old, and what happened tonight with our killer was mistier for them.”

“I’ll bet that was only true of Henry Jefferson and Sarah,” I said.

He glanced away from the road to me. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“They were the oldest. You know how with some people, when they get old, the past is more clear than the present to them?”

He nodded.

“I think for some vampires, it’s like that, too. The ones who haven’t succeeded but just survived. I think they look back on their glory days.”