I stood at the open car door and listened. There wasn't much to hear. No one answered.
Dolph sat there listening to the distant ring of the phone. He stared up at me. His eyes asked the question.
"Somebody should be there," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
"The man will rise like a beast," I said. "It'll slaughter everything in its path unless the master that made it comes back to pick it up, or until it's really dead. They're called animalistic vampires. There's no colloquial term for them. They're too rare for that."
Dolph hung up the phone and surged out of the car, yelling, "Zerbrowski!"
"Here, Sarge." Zerbrowski came at a trot. When Dolph yelled, you came running, or else. "How's it going, Blake?"
What was I supposed to say, terrible? I shrugged and said, "Fine."
My beeper went off again. "Dammit, Bert!"
"Talk to your boss," Dolph said. "Tell him to leave you the fuck alone."
Sounded good to me.
Dolph went off yelling orders. The men scrambled to obey. I slid into Dolph's car and called Bert.
He answered on the first ring; not a good sign. "This better be you, Anita."
"And if it's not?" I said.
"Where the hell are you?"
"Murder scene with a fresh body," I said.
That stopped him for a second. "You're missing your first appointment."
"Yeah."
"But I'm not going to yell."
"You're being reasonable," I said. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing except that the newest member of Animators, Inc., is taking your first two appointments. His name is Lawrence Kirkland. Just meet him at the third appointment, and you can take the last three appointments and show him the ropes."
"You hired someone? How'd you find someone so fast? Animators are pretty rare. Especially one who could do two zombies in one night."
"It's my job to find talent."
Dolph slid into the car, and I slid into the passenger seat.
"Tell your boss you've got to go."
"I've got to go, Bert."
"Wait, you have an emergency vampire staking at St. Louis City Hospital."
My stomach clenched up. "What name?"
He paused, reading the name, "Calvin Rupert."
"Shit."
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"When did the call come in?"
"Around three this afternoon, why?"
"Shit, shit, shit."
"What's wrong, Anita?" Bert asked.
"Why was it marked urgent?" Zerbrowski slipped into the back of the unmarked car. Dolph put the car in gear and hit the sirens and lights. A marked car fell into line behind us, lights strobing into the dark. Lights and sirens, wowee.
"Rupert had one of those dying wills," Bert said. "If he even had one vampire bite, he wanted to be staked."
That was consistent with someone who was a member of HAV. Hell, I had it in my will. "Do we have a court order of execution?"
"You only need that after the guy rises as a vampire. We've got permission from the next of kin; just go stake him."
I grabbed the dashboard as we bounced over the narrow road. Gravel pinged against the underside of the car. I cradled the phone receiver between shoulder and chin and slipped into a seat belt.
"I'm on my way to the morgue now," I said.
"I sent John ahead when I couldn't get you," Bert said.
"How long ago?"
"I called him after you didn't answer your beeper."
"Call him back, tell him not to go."
There must have been something in my voice, because he said, "What's wrong, Anita?"
"We can't get any answer at the morgue, Bert."
"So?"
"The vampire may have already risen and killed everybody, and John's walking right into it."
"I'll call him," Bert said. The connection broke, and I shoved the receiver down as we spilled out onto New Highway 21.
"We can kill the vampire when we get there," I said.
"That's murder," Dolph said.
I shook my head. "Not if Calvin Rupert had a dying will."
"Did he?"
"Yeah."
Zerbrowski slammed his fist into the back of the seat. "Then we'll pop the son of a bitch."
"Yeah," I said.
Dolph just nodded.
Zerbrowski was grinning. He had a shotgun in his hands.
"Does that thing have silver shot in it?" I asked.
Zerbrowski glanced at the gun. "No."
"Please, tell me I'm not the only one in this car with silver bullets."
Zerbrowski grinned. Dolph said, "Silver's more expensive than gold. City doesn't have that kind of money."
I knew that, but I was hoping I was wrong. "What do you do when you're up against vampires and lycanthropes?"
Zerbrowski leaned over the back seat. "Same thing we do when we're up against a gang with Uzi pistols."
"Which is?" I said.
"Be outgunned," he said. He didn't look happy about it. I wasn't too happy about it, either. I was hoping that the morgue attendants had just run, gotten out, but I wasn't counting on it.