Skin Trade

“I’ve looked up the articles, but frankly, I thought you’d take credit and not mention the police.”

“They went in with me. They risked their lives. Some of them died. It was bad. I don’t think I’d forget that.”

“Rumor has it that you’re a publicity sl-hound,” he said, changing the word he was going to use to something less offensive.

I actually laughed, which was a good sign. I wasn’t completely in shock, yea! “I’m not a publicity hound, or a publicity slut, Sheriff Shaw. Trust me, I get way more media attention than I want.”

“For someone who doesn’t want the attention, you get a hell of a lot of it.”

I shrugged, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “I’m involved with some pretty gruesome cases, Sheriff; it attracts the media.”

“You’re also a beautiful young woman and are dating the master of your city.”

“Do I thank you for the beautiful comment before or after I tell you that my personal life is none of your concern?”

“It is if it interferes with your job.”

“Check the record, Sheriff Shaw. I’ve killed more vampires since I’ve been dating Jean-Claude than I did before.”

“I heard you’ve refused to do stakings in the morgue.”

“I’ve lost my taste for putting a stake through the heart of someone chained and helpless on a gurney.”

“They’re asleep, or whatever, right?”

“Not always, and trust me, the first time you have to look someone in the face while they beg for their life… Let’s just say that even with practice, putting a stake through someone’s heart is a slow way to die. They beg and explain themselves right up to the last.”

“But they’ve done something to deserve death,” he said.

“Not always; sometimes they fall into that three-strikes law for vampires. It’s written so that no matter what the crime is, even a misdemeanor, three times and you get a warrant of execution on your ass. I don’t like killing people for stealing when there’s no violence involved.”

“But stealing big items, right?”

“No, Sheriff, one woman got executed for stealing less than a thousand dollars of shit. She was a diagnosed kleptomaniac before becoming a vampire; dying didn’t cure her like she thought it would.”

“Someone put a stake through her heart for petty theft?”

“They did,” I said.

“The law doesn’t give the preternatural branch of the marshal program a right to refuse jobs.”

“Technically, no, but I just don’t do the stakedowns. I had stopped doing them before the vampire executioners got grandfathered into the U.S. Marshal program.”

“And they let you.”

“Let’s say I have an understanding with my superiors.” The understanding had been that I wouldn’t testify on behalf of the family of the woman executed for shoplifting if they simply wouldn’t make me kill anyone who hadn’t taken lives. A life for a life made some sense. A life for some costume jewelry made no sense to me. A lot of us had turned down the woman. In the end they’d had to send to Washington, DC, for Gerald Mallory, who was one of the first vampire hunters ever who was still alive. He still thought all vampires were evil monsters, so he’d staked her without a qualm. Mallory sort of scared me. There was something in his eyes when he looked at any vampire that wasn’t quite sane.

“Marshal, are you still there?”

“I’m sorry, Sheriff, you got me thinking too hard about the shoplifter.”

“It’s in the news that the family is suing for wrongful death.”

“They are.”

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“I say what needs saying.”

“You’re damn quiet for a woman.”

“You don’t need me to talk. I assume you need me to come to Vegas and do my job.”

“It’s a trap, Blake. A trap just for you.”

“Probably, and sending me the head of your executioner is about as direct as a threat gets.”

“And you’re still going to come?”

I stood up and looked down at the box and the head staring up at me. It looked somewhere between surprised and sleepy. “He mailed me the head of your vampire executioner. He mailed it to my office. He wrote a message to me in the blood on the wall where he slaughtered three of your operators. Hell, yes, I’m coming to Vegas.”

“You sound angry.”

In my head I thought, Better angry than scared. If I could stay outraged, maybe I could keep the fear from growing. Because it was there in the pit of my stomach, in the back of my mind like a black, niggling thought that would grow bigger if I let it. “Wouldn’t you be pissed?”

“I’d be scared.”

That stopped me, because cops almost never admit that they’re scared. “You broke the rule, Shaw, you never admit you’re scared.”

“I just want you to know, Blake, really know, what you’re walking into, that’s all.”

“It must have been bad.”

“I’ve seen more men dead at one time. Hell, I’ve lost more men under my command.”

“You must be ex-military,” I said.

“I am,” he said.

I waited for him to say what service; most would, but he didn’t.

“Where were you stationed?” I asked.

“Classified, most of it.”

“Ex-special teams?” I made it part question, part statement.

“Yes.”

“Do I ask what flavor, or just let it drop, before you have to threaten me with the old if-I-tell-you-then-I-have-to-kill-you routine?” I tried for a joke, but Shaw didn’t take it that way.

“You’re making a joke. If you can do that, then you don’t get what’s happening.”

“You’ve got three operators dead, one vamp executioner dead and cut up; that is bad, but you didn’t send just three operators in with the marshal, so most of your team got away, Sheriff.”

“They didn’t get away,” he said, and something in his voice made that tight, black pit of fear rise a little higher in my gut.

“But they’re not dead,” I said, “or you’d say so.”

“No, not dead, not exactly.”

“Are they badly hurt?”

“Not exactly,” he said.

“Stop beating the bush to death and just tell me, Shaw.”

“Seven of our men are in the hospital. There’s not a mark on them. They just dropped.”

“If there are no marks on them, why did they drop, and why are they in the hospital?”

“They’re asleep.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“You mean comas?”

“The doctors say no. They’re asleep; we just can’t wake them up.”

“Do the docs have any clues?”

“The only thing close to this is those patients in the twenties who all went to sleep and never woke up.”

“Didn’t they make a movie years back about them waking up?”

“Yes, but it didn’t last, and they still don’t know why that form of sleeping sickness is different from the norm,” he said.

“Your whole team didn’t just catch this sleeping thing in the middle of a firefight.”

“You asked what the doctors said.”

“Now, I’m asking what you say.”

“One of our practitioners says it was magic.”

“Practitioners?” I made it a question.

“We’ve got psychics attached to our teams, but can’t call them our pet wizards.”

“So operators and practitioners,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So someone did a spell?”

“I don’t know, but apparently it all reeks of psychic shit, and when you run out of explanations that make sense, you go with what you got.”

“When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” I said.

“Did you just quote Sherlock Holmes at me?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you still don’t get it, Blake. You just don’t.”

“Okay, let me be blunt here. Something about my reaction wasn’t what you expected, so you’re convinced that I don’t get the seriousness of the situation. You’re ex-special teams, which means to you, women are not going to measure up. You’ve called me a beautiful woman, and that, too, makes most cops and military underestimate women. But special teams, hell, you don’t think most other military men are up to your level, or most cops. So I’m a girl; get over it. I’m petite and I clean up well; get over that, too. I’m dating a vampire, the master of my city; so what? It has nothing to do with my job or why Vittorio invited me to come hunt him in Vegas.”