“If they were human, it wouldn’t be.”
“If they were human, we wouldn’t be talking about putting them in a little box and shoving them in a hole somewhere. If they were human, we wouldn’t be allowed to chain them to a gurney and remove their hearts and their heads. If they were human, we’d be out of a job.”
He stared at me, a slow dawning look that was almost disgust. “Wait here, I’m going to talk to the lieutenant.”
“The law is the law,” Olaf said.
“I’m afraid he’s right, Hooper.”
He looked at me, ignoring Olaf. “If there were another option, would you sign off on it?”
“It depends on the option, but I’d love to have a legal recourse for moments like this that doesn’t include murder.”
“It’s not murder,” Olaf said.
I turned to him. “You don’t believe that, because if it wasn’t murder, you wouldn’t enjoy it as much.”
He gave me those cave-dark eyes, and there was a hint of anger down in the depths. I didn’t care. I just knew that I didn’t want to kill Sarah, or Steve, or Henry Jefferson, or the girl that he’d made cry. But to keep Olaf from being alone with the women, I’d take them myself, but not while it was dark, not while they could see it coming, not while they were afraid.
“You really don’t enjoy killing them, do you?” he asked, and he sounded surprised.
“I told you I didn’t enjoy it.”
“You did, but I didn’t believe you.”
“Why do you believe me now?”
“I watched your face. You’re trying to think of ways to save them or to lessen their suffering.”
“You could tell all that from one look?”
“Not just one look, a series of looks, like clouds passing over the sun, one after another.”
I didn’t know what to say to that; it was almost poetic. “These people are innocent of any wrongdoing. They don’t deserve to die for not being strong enough to resist Vittorio.”
“Ted would say that no vampire is innocent.”
“And what do you say?” I asked, trying to be angry, because it was better than the shaky feeling in my gut. I didn’t want to kill these people.
“I say that no one is innocent.”
Hooper came back with Grimes beside him. Grimes said, “We have a lawyer who’s been wanting to try for a stay of execution in cases like this.”
“You mean like that last-minute call from the governor in the movies,” I said.
Grimes nodded. His so-sincere brown eyes studied my face. “We need an executioner to write it up and sign that he or she thinks that executing these vampires would be murder and not in the public good.”
“Let Cannibal read some minds, make certain we haven’t been fooled, and then I’ll sign it.”
“Anita,” Olaf said.
“Don’t, just don’t, and you stay away from the prisoners.”
“You are not in charge of me,” he said, and there was the beginning of anger. Great.
“No, but I am,” Grimes said. “Stay away from the prisoners until further notice, Marshal Jeffries. I’ll tell the other marshals what we’re doing.”
They walked toward the back room and the ex-hostages and Edward. Olaf said what I was thinking. “Edward won’t like what you’re doing.”
“He doesn’t have to like it.”
“Most women value their boyfriend’s opinion.”
“Fuck you,” I said, and walked away from him.
He called after me. “I thought you didn’t want to.”
I kept walking. The vampires on the floor stared at me as if I were Vittorio, or something else equally scary. There was hatred in a few eyes, but underneath it all was their fear. I could taste it on the back of my tongue, like something sweet that held a bitterness to it, like dark chocolate that’s a little too dark.
The far door opened and Cannibal was helping Sarah the vampire walk through the door. She caught sight of me and started screaming all over again, “She’s going to kill us! She’s going to kill us all!”
Usually she’d be right, but maybe, just maybe, we really could save everyone tonight.
65
IT WAS LESS than two hours before dawn. I was so tired I ached, but the vampires were all still alive. They were chained to gurneys in the morgue, and since the morgue had a room designed for only one vamp at a time, the coroner and all of his people hadn’t been too happy to see ten of them, but Grimes had used his own men to act as extra guards. The guard duty was volunteer only, but his men had looked at him like he was crazy; if he said it was a good thing, it was. Besides, he’d explained it like this: “No one died tonight; if we do this, no one dies tomorrow either.”