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."