Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"I wish I were."

"That man is too hurt to do anything to anyone," Pearson said.

"He is not a man, Superintendent. He is a vampire," Jake said.

Pearson shook his head. "No, no. If you had wanted to help, the time to do it was before the ambulance got here."

"In the future we will offer more aid. We did not dream that you would try to save what was left," he said.

Domino, Edward, and Nolan were running toward the closed ambulance. I don't know what had alerted them, but I'd learned if Edward was running to run with him. Jake and Nicky came with me, and the distance was short enough that Pearson was beside us when Edward reached the doors. Domino and Nolan faced them, rifle and handgun at the ready. Edward didn't wait for us to clear the last few feet, but opened the doors, as if even one more second was too long.

67

I SKIDDED TO a stop on the other side of Nolan, bringing my gun up before I even looked inside the dimness of the ambulance. It took a second for my eyes to adjust from the sunlight to the shadows. Domino yelled, "No shot, no shot!"

Nolan echoed him. "No shot, no shot!"

"No shot!" Edward yelled from the far side of Domino.

I was left staring into the back of the ambulance to see the nightmare of blackened flesh and bone that was the vampire curled around the paramedic like he'd used the officer inside to shield himself. He was feeding at his neck. It was a normal feed; the man would survive if we could get him out in time. I didn't have the angle, but Edward had a head shot; I knew he did and then I realized the second paramedic was behind the struggling pair. There was no shot that wouldn't hit him. Fuck!

The paramedic yelled, "Get us out of here!"

I hopped up into the ambulance as Nolan climbed inside. There wasn't room for anyone else. I heard someone shout my name, probably telling me not to be stupid, but it was too late. I was committed. Nolan put his gun against the vampire's forehead, but the other medic was still in the way. It would go through the vampire and into his chest. The vampire's victim's eyes were unfocused. He'd stopped fighting, because the vampire had mind-fucked him. At least he wasn't scared anymore. The other paramedic was scared shitless and I didn't blame him.

I tried to ease further in so I'd have a shot from the side, but the vampire growled at me and his eyes flared blue again. The color looked too alive in the blackened skull-like head. The vampire bit harder into the neck, tearing at the flesh just a little bit too much like a warning. If he worried at the side of the man's neck like a dog with a toy, he'd take out his jugular vein and that might be all she wrote.

"Don't hurt him," I said.

"He's already eating him!" the paramedic hugging the back of the ambulance yelled.

"No, he's just feeding on the blood. If that's all he does, your friend will be fine. I'm going to have the other medic get out of the ambulance," I said.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm talking to the vampire."

The vampire bit deeper at the man's neck.

I changed my grip on my gun, slowly, carefully, so that I was holding it left-handed and pointed at the vampire. I didn't have a killing shot for sure, but if it started to tear out his throat I'd shoot regardless. I spoke to the paramedic. "What's your name?"

"What?"

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Gerald, Gerry."

"Okay, Gerry, here's what we're going to do. You are slowly going to move toward my hand and you're going to stay at my back, between me and the wall, and you are going to get out."

If the Wicked Bitch or the vampire she was using knew anything about guns, they wouldn't let him get out, but I was betting that she was like a lot of the really old vamps. Modern firearms weren't their thing. I flexed my free hand at the paramedic like I was trying to get a child to take my hand to cross the street. Gerry the paramedic moved toward me.

The vampire made a low, evil sound in its chest.

"You've got one hostage. You don't need two."

He shook his head, burying his mouth deeper into the neck. Blood was beginning to spill out around the vampire's mouth. He wasn't drinking anymore; he was bleeding him. Fuck. I held my other hand up to stop Gerry from moving closer. He stopped moving. I stared at that shining blue eye and started sinking into that quiet center where I went when I had time to line up my shot and aim into the living eyes of someone else, because those blue eyes were full of so much life. I'd never felt the energy of any vampire burn so--alive.

Nolan's voice came low and even as he said, "If you tear his throat out we will shoot."

"If he keeps bleeding like that he'll die anyway," Gerry said.

"Don't help, Gerry," I said, keeping my eyes on the vampire and his victim.

There was movement near the door of the ambulance, and it took everything I had not to look in that direction, but Edward was there, Kaazim was there, Jake was there, Domino was there, and Nicky was there. They would have it covered. I had to trust that they would, because I didn't dare look away from the vampire and that one shining blue eye, which was the most I could see of its face as it tried to keep hidden from Nolan and me behind the man's throat and head.

"She's telling him to fight." Damian's voice.

"Get out of here," I told him, but I forgot one important thing: his name. Gerry thought I was talking to him, because he came toward me scrambling as fast as he could, but he was only human-fast and that wasn't fast enough. The vampire tore out the side of the victim's throat, pushing him toward Nolan, spoiling his shot. I had time to move in front of Gerry before the vampire slammed into me and drove us both back against the side of the ambulance. The vampire was snapping its teeth at my face as I shoved my empty right hand into its chest and shoulder to keep it off me as I fired point-blank into where its heart should have been. The sound of the gunfire in such a small space was thunderous, and deafened me. The vampire kept coming, screaming soundlessly now into my face as it tried to eat me. I got one knee up enough to help my arm hold it off us, and fired a second shot into the chest. It seemed to hesitate as if that one had hurt more, and then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Edward. I had a split second to decide. I stopped trying to push the vampire off me with my arm and moved it up to protect my face and eyes. It meant I was blind as I felt the vampire move forward; my knee wasn't enough to keep it away, but another shot echoed. I felt things scattering over my arm and the rest of me, but I kept my eyes closed. I trusted Edward. The vampire wasn't pushing so hard against my knee. The man behind me was grabbing my shoulders and I think screaming. Another shot rang out and I was deaf except for the reverb of the shot echoing inside the metal so that it felt like my bones were reverberating with it. My head was full of a high-pitched, echoing buzz that had nothing to do with any sound outside my head now.

Someone was pushing my gun hand and gun down, but it wasn't an attack; it was just safety. I lowered my arm and realized that it hurt, but I was looking into Edward's face. I'd known it would be him. He said something, but I just shook my head. He seemed to understand, because he stopped trying to talk to me and touched my arm, gently. There was a large bone splinter sticking out of it; some piece of the vampire was stuck in me. If I hadn't put my arm up, it would have been stuck in my face, but I'd been this close to a head shot before; I knew that blowback could be a lot more than just brains and blood. Nothing like experience to help keep you safe; if it had been anyone but Edward I don't know if I would have trusted enough to block my eyes.

Gerry the paramedic was pushing out from behind me and fell out the open door of the ambulance. I thought he was running away, but when Edward helped me out of the ambulance Gerry was kneeling beside his friend, taking over first aid from Nolan, who'd been trying to stop the blood from pouring out quite as fast. Gerry had bits of burned flesh and small bits of bone sticking out of his face like shrapnel, but he did his job. He stayed with it. I wasn't sure I had enough brownie points to give him for that. He didn't seem to have any bone fragments as

long as the one in my arm, so we let him do his job. I saw the flashing lights before I realized a second ambulance was pulling up. I hadn't really heard it, or if I had, the ringing in my ears kept me from understanding what I was hearing.

Nicky pulled the body of the vampire out into the light. It started to combust on the street almost immediately. This time when someone suggested putting extra bullets into the body to put it out of its misery, or to keep it from attacking anyone else--I honestly couldn't hear which was offered, but whichever--Pearson let it happen. Nicky shot until what was left of the vampire's head was gone and the burned rib cage splintered into pieces, spilling the still red and bloody heart out into the street, where it pulsed for a second and then burst into flames.

68

NEW AMBULANCES AND new paramedics arrived at the scene. They triaged the injuries, and I was happy not to be in the front of the line. It meant I wasn't dying. They had taken both the men who'd had their throats torn open; I hoped that meant that they would make it, but I knew that in America the ambulance crews in some states are not allowed to declare someone dead at a scene, especially if lifesaving measures have already been started. I prayed that they would be all right, but it really depended on if the vampire had gotten the jugular vein, and then whether he'd just nicked it or torn it wide open. The last possibility was that they were transporting corpses but weren't willing to admit it, but the first two left hope. I prayed for that hope. I prayed even though the memory of the spray of blood inside the station house made me worry the most about the first man. I didn't know what else would make that amount of blood pour from the neck that fast except for the jugular to be torn wide open. You didn't live long once that happened.

I did want to pray for them, but concentrating on almost anything else beat the hell out of looking at my own injury. The blackened bone splinter hurt, but mostly it looked alarming. It's just not okay to look down at your arm and see something foreign sticking out of it. If I thought about exactly what was sticking out of my arm--a piece of someone's skull, okay; a piece of a vampire's blackened and burned skull--then it got a little creepy. The sensation of something stuck in your body that is big enough to move around in a sort of painful wriggly feeling if you move too much went way beyond just the pain of it. Or maybe the sensation made it hurt more?