Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 21)

HILL AND I arrived behind the house, pulses in our throats, hearts beating, slow and thick, bodies slick with sweat. Sutton and Hermes were waiting for us, lost in the blackness of underbrush and night. I didn't see them in the dark, but I smelled the oil on Sutton's big fucking gun. He'd brought the Barrett .50-caliber, good for stopping charging rhinos, stray elephants, and any kind of preternatural that bullets could harm. In a neighborhood packed this tight with houses I wouldn't have wanted to use it, because if the big bullet missed its intended target, it would keep traveling until it hit something. A .50-caliber bullet would take out most of the chest on a vampire or wereanimal; on a normal human it would take out the upper part of the entire body. To bring the big gun here said something about Sutton's arrogance about his own abilities and his teammate's confidence in him. He'd already put the Barrett on its little tripod stand, so he didn't have to hold the six-foot barrel. He was kneeling on the spread blanketlike surface of the drag bag that he'd carried the gun in; now it was a nice little shooting platform thick enough you didn't have to worry about twigs, rocks, broken glass, or whatever. It was like a picnic blanket but without the basket of edible goodies.

Hermes had put some sort of liniment on a joint, probably his knee, because the scent was lower down than the arm. It was a faint, sharp undersmell. Would I have noticed the scents of Sutton's gun oil or Hermes's bum knee if Hill hadn't told me the sniper would be waiting for us? I wasn't sure; maybe not. Hill and I knelt with them in the planted tree line that bordered the Bores yard and the one behind us. There was no light in either yard. It was the thickest dark that I'd seen in any yard. I had a moment to wonder if SWAT had helped the lights to be out, but it didn't matter. We knelt in a pool of darkness and second-growth bushes and small trees, with Sutton, and were as hidden as if we'd been in deep woods. Even if the vampire looked out the window he would miss us. It wasn't his eyes we had to worry about.

I was almost shoulder to shoulder with Hill, so the fact that I could hear his heartbeat, his pulse thudding faintly in his throat, was almost to be expected. I tried to hear Sutton's and Hermes's bodies, and it was more that I could feel the vampire like heat in the dark. I just knew he was there, but again, would I have been so certain of it if I hadn't known it? I hoped not, because that was the real problem with supernaturals; they had other, better senses than normals.

Lincoln's voice whispered in my ear, "Kids and dog are coming out."

Sutton asked, voice low, "Did perp send the dog out, or did the kids insist on taking it?"

"Perp sent it."

"Shit," Sutton and Hermes said together.

Hill said, "Crap."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He either sent the dog and kids out so they won't see him kill Mom, or didn't want the dog to bite him," Hill said.

"Either way," Sutton said, "it's not good."

"Spot him for us, Blake," Hermes said.

I didn't argue; I just looked at the side of the house and lowered my control. I used to say that I lowered my metaphysical shields, but I could keep my shields that protected me in place and still strike out through them. It was like having a shield and sword; you could use the sword and still hug your shield to your body. I tried to do that now, with my necromancy. To use my ability with the dead, but not open myself up so that the vampire inside could spot me metaphysically. I'd only recently learned how to use my power and stay more hidden from the undead in a given area; before this it had been like lighting a bonfire every time I used my abilities. Great as a distraction, an attraction, or if I was positive that I could take out whatever was coming to get me. Being able to do it quieter made my psychic gifts way more useful for police work.

I reached out toward the vampire; toward that particular vampire. Again, I used to just reach out to the dead, but now I could "aim" better at vampires that weren't tied directly to me metaphysically. If a vampire was tied to me in some psychic way I could reach out to them pretty easily, but strange vampires were harder. I reached out toward the house, and as silly as it sounded, reaching out with my hand toward the wall of the house helped me aim. It wasn't like pointing and shooting with my finger, but more like my hand was a line of sight so I could look down it, and follow the line of it toward the house. It was just a visual help, something that helped my eyes get out of the way for my mind.

I felt a vampire in the house, but with one I'd never met before I couldn't honestly tell you that it was the vampire that we were looking for; I had to rely on the fact that Lieutenant Lincoln had just been talking to him over the phone, and that everyone else told me this was the right vampire. I had to trust that the intelligence was accurate, because even though it wasn't me pulling the trigger, it was still my warrant of execution. It was my presence as a U.S. Marshal with an active warrant that got us a green light for this vampire. Sutton's shooting on a warrant of execution meant there'd be no investigation into the kill. He could fire, kill, and not lose an hour off the job, or a minute talking to Internal Affairs or anyone else. The snipers loved working with me, because it was always a clean, no-muss, no-fuss kill.

I couldn't really see the vampire. I could feel him, not like touching something with your fingers, but more as if you could touch something with your thoughts, as if thoughts were fingers, hands that could wrap around the vampire, so that I could feel the edges of him.

"He's pacing," I whispered. I closed my eyes so that my real vision would get out of the way. It didn't matter what the side of the house looked like; it didn't matter that there was a scattering of stronger light to one side. What mattered was inside the house. What mattered were things the real, hard eyes couldn't see at all.

"How fast?" Sutton asked.

"Fast." I didn't realize I was moving my hand in time to the pacing until Hill said something.

"Is that his speed?"

I stopped moving my hand, eyes opening wide and glancing at Hill. "I guess so."

"Hermes, spot the woman for me," Sutton said.

Hermes raised a pair of binoculars that were a little too bulky to be "normal" ones. "She's by the floor, sitting with her back to cabinets, not flat enough to be wall."

"Good," Sutton said, and his voice was already going quieter, a little deeper, as he began to slide away into the mind-set that would let him make the shot. He was already lying on the mat that the drag bag unfolded into, snugged up against the big rifle. It was so big that it mounted on a bipod, to help with the weight. Sutton was about to fire a .50-caliber projectile through a wall, into a moving target, and he needed to not just hit it, but hit it square and true, because the last thing we wanted was a wounded vampire inside the house with a hostage, or for that matter a wounded one coming out at us. The fact that there was even the slimmest doubt that hitting the vampire with the Barrett might not bring him down was exactly why Sutton had been given the yes on bringing the big gun in the first place. We hadn't had it happen, but other units in other cities had had vampires and wereanimals keep coming after anything less than a .50, and a couple of nightmare stories about them coming with half their chests missing. It had just been the wrong half of the chest, like the half that didn't contain the heart. Sutton had to take the heart, or head, or both with one shot. Not just damage it, but take it the fuck out; it was the only surety for a true kill.

Lincoln's voice came over the earpieces. "Boy says suspect has a handgun. Repeat, vampire is armed with a handgun."

"Fuck," Hermes said.

"Blake," Sutton said.

I tried to reach out carefully, but the gun changed things. Up to that point I'd thought the vampire would have to get close to the woman to hurt her; now he could stand farther away and kill her. Shit. The spurt of adrenaline brought my shields further down, but it helped me see the vampire better; no loss without a gain.

"He's slowing, turning," I said, and my voice was lower, careful. If the vampire had been older, more powerful, he might have felt my power touching him, looking at him, but either he was just that weak, or he was too emotional to sense anything but his own immediate crisis.

"Turning which way?" Sutton asked, voice squeezed down with concentration.

I used my finger to point. I could never have explained how I knew which way the vampire was looking, but I was sure of it; knew it.

"That's toward the woman," Hermes said.

"Is he aiming?" Sutton asked.

"I can't tell that," I said, "but he's stopped moving. He's still, very still."

"Sight it for me, Blake," Sutton said.

I opened my eyes and did maybe the hardest part. I had to use real, solid, visual landmarks on the house to pinpoint what the inside of my head that would never see anything solid was sensing. I fought to hold on to the feel of the vampire, as I looked with my eyes, and said, "Edge of window, five feet to my right."

"Aiming," Sutton said.

The side of the house was white siding; he needed marks. Fuck! I described a discoloration on the side of the house. "His head's in line with it."

"Can't see it," Sutton said, "my color vision at night isn't as good as yours, Blake." His voice was losing that edge of calm. You could hear the adrenaline tightening through his words; not good.

"Woman has her hands thrown up, like she sees something bad coming. What's the vamp doing, Blake?" Hermes said.

"I think he's moved closer to her."

"You think?" Hills said.

"This isn't like seeing with eyes, damn it." I reached out to the vampire a little further, like the metaphysical equivalent of standing on a ledge, and just a little farther out in space is what you need, so you stretch out your hand toward it, but it's still out of reach. You stretch a little bit farther and... anger, rage, such rage. It was like a red fire, blazing, consuming, filling my brain for a second. It was the vampire. I was feeling his emotion. "God, he's so angry," I said.

"Blake, give me something!" Sutton said.

There were no landmarks to give him. If I could have touched the vampire, maybe I could have eaten his anger like I did to Billings, but from a distance, I didn't know how to do that. I did the only thing I could think of; I dropped my shields and called the vampire. It was like I was still on that ledge, but the thing just out of reach was so important that I leaned too far, and if you lean too far, you fall. I hadn't allowed myself to drop shields like this in months. I called the dead, and I felt that vampire turn and look at me. He was too young, too weak - my necromancy could call really old shit - and he turned and looked at me, because I willed him to see me. Vampires used to kill necromancers on sight, and there was a good reason for that, because all the dead like us, respond to us at some level.

"He's looking at us," I said, "but I can't hold him like this forever."

"Give him to me, Blake," Sutton said.

"Laser-sight him for Sutton," Hill said.

I was concentrating so hard on the vampire in front of us that it took me a second to come back to myself and realize that he was right; I had a laser sight on my AR. I looked down at it as if it had just appeared in my hand.

"Can you hold concentration on the vampire and use the gun?" Hill asked.

It was a good question. I could feel the vampire motionless in the house, feel him struggle a little as I split more of my concentration between him and the reality of the gun in my hands. "We'll find out. I'll know if I lose him, and he's moving again."

But sighting for Sutton wasn't as simple as me aiming at the vampire with my gun while I was standing. That wouldn't help the prone officer aim; I needed to be in his physical space to aim right for him.

Hill said it. "You're small enough, and he's big enough; just lie across him and sight your gun down his barrel."

It was the best idea we had, so I put my body on top of the big officer where he lay on the ground. I held the vampire in my head but had to move my body more, so my concentration was less pure on the vampire. He started to struggle free of me; his rage, that I could have eaten if I'd touched him, now acted like a pry bar to work me away from him. I fought to concentrate on the inside of my head, and the outside with my body, and hold both together. Sutton was so much bigger than me that most of my body was on just his upper body when I lay down, but I couldn't get the angle I needed to aim along the long barrel.

"I can't hold the shot with you on me like this," Sutton said.

"It's not working for the spot either," I said. The vampire was struggling now; I threw a little more concentration his way and he quieted, but I couldn't keep this up forever. I had a smart idea. "Tell the woman to try to leave the room while I hold the vampire. Maybe we don't have to shoot to save her."

Hill didn't argue, just spoke into his mike. Hermes said, "She's up, and moving."

The vampire's rage flared like gasoline thrown on a fire. "Stop," I said, "stop moving her. It's pissing him off. He'll break free of me before she can exit the room."

We were back to our original idea. "Sit up," Hill said.

I tried sitting at Sutton's waist, but I was too short to reach what I needed to with my gun, so finally I ended up half-kneeling, half-sitting on Sutton's lower back and leaning over his shoulder.

"Put less weight on my shoulders if you can," Sutton said.

It was like leaning on him, and not, a careful balance of being so close, so that the heat and rhythm of him was just below me, and yet not touching too much, not putting too much weight so I didn't fuck with his hold, his aim, his sniper mojo. It took too much concentration. I leaned over his shoulder, sliding my AR down his Barrett, but not directly on top; there was too much on the bottom of the AR to make it a smooth slide.

The vampire was almost free. I fought to hold him, and hit the AR against the Barrett. "Don't do that," Sutton said in a tight voice.

"Sorry," I muttered. I called out to the vampire, threw my power into him like a spear. I felt it stagger him, but I also knew that I'd have to let him go to do the other part. Fuck. I hit him one more time; all that necromancy aimed at him staggered him, so that I think he had to grab the kitchen cabinets to stay upright, and in that split second I leaned over Sutton's body, married my gun along his as close as I could, and aimed where I knew the vampire's head would be. Sutton's point of light followed mine like a red-and-green game of tag on the side of the house. I held my red dot steady, and breathed, "There."

Sutton's green dot covered mine. I held my breath, willed my body still, even as I felt his go still underneath me. We held our breaths together, and in that moment of sinking stillness and concentration at that one bright dot, the vampire ripped himself free of me. Sutton fired, and the recoil moved him enough that I slid off, tumbling to one side. I got to my knees, sighting at the house, to find a surprisingly small hole in the white siding.

I could hear the woman screaming inside.

"Did we get him?" Hill said, almost yelling.

"Blake," Sutton said.

I reached out to the vampire, and found... "Dead, down, done."

And they accepted that. They gave the all clear, and let officers enter the house from the front, and the only confirmation they had that the vampire was dead was me and my psychic abilities. There were other police officers in St. Louis and elsewhere who didn't trust me or my abilities, but this team did. Sutton, Hermes, and Hill trusted me enough to send the rest of their team into a house with a rogue vampire, with only my say-so that it was no longer a threat.

I heard the other SWAT team members over the radio moving through the house room by room, calling "Clear" as they moved. Hill started up the yard toward the house with his gun at his shoulder. I put my AR to mine and followed Hill, because when your team moves, you move; when they put their guns to their shoulders and start into a house, you go with them. Sutton and Hermes brought up the rear, because they'd packed the Barrett up, and the four of us moved toward the house, guns up, watching for threats. Over the radios we heard, "House secure. Hostage secured... Suspect down."

There were no other bad guys in the house. The pregnant ex-wife was being taken out to the waiting ambulance. The vampire was dead. It was a good night.