Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #21)

ZERBROWSKI'S PHONE RANG. It was a twangy country song, the kind I didn't think they made anymore. He picked it up and cut the down-home song mercifully short. "Hey, Dolph," he said.

Brice and I listened to Zerbrowski say, "Hostage situation?" The rest of his end was mostly ums, and Shit, and SWAT is en route. "Okay, give me the address." He repeated it out loud to me, and I looked for a side street so I could turn us around without asking questions. If Dolph and Zerbrowski wanted us at a crime scene, there'd be a reason. Zerbrowski hung up and said, "They need us sooner than later."

I hit the switch under the dash, and I suddenly had flashy lights. It was a recent addition to my car, and I kept forgetting I had had it installed. It still felt weird to be able to have lights and even sirens. I wasn't too fond of the siren option. I did the lights but would hit sirens only if Zerbrowski insisted, or the traffic got stupid about getting out of the way.

"Why are we doing hostage negotiations?" Brice asked.

"Vampire or lycanthrope involved," I said.

"She's right," Zerbrowski said, "but Keith Bores is also one of the vampires that Shelby gave up when we questioned her. This vamp is so recently dead he's got an ex-wife, a name, a last known address, and two kids under the age of ten."

"Is that where we're going, to their house?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How long dead is Bores?" I asked.

"Less than two years," Zerbrowski said.

"Good," I said.

"Why good?" Brice asked.

"The younger the vampire, the less powerful it is, generally," I said.

"Generally, so not always?"

"No, not always. I know one vampire that's nearly a thousand who will never be a master vampire no matter how long he lives as undead, but then others that hit master vampire power level at around a hundred years."

"Why the difference?" he asked.

"Strength of will, character, dumb luck, no one knows for sure." I had us going in the right direction.

"Are all the vampires we're looking for holed up with him?" Brice asked.

"It looks like it's just Keith Bores, the vampire ex-husband. He and his wife divorced over domestic abuse charges. She has a restraining order against him."

"Had he stayed away from her up to this point?" I asked.

"Looks like," Zerbrowski said.

"Shit," I said.

"What?" Brice asked.

"The vampire doesn't have anything to lose now. He knows he's wanted for murdering the police officers, and that means no trial, no jury, and no lawyer, just one of us hunting him down and killing him. We can't kill him more than once, so he can finally kill the ex-wife and know that he doesn't get punished for it; he's already going to die for killing the cops."

"So he'll take the ex with him," Zerbrowski said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Do any of the other missing vampires have police records, or a history of violence? If Keith Bores has nothing left to lose, then neither do the rest of them," Brice asked.

Zerbrowski and I exchanged a look. He called Dolph back. I started to pray, silently, Dear God, don't let the rest of them have the same idea. Because if they did, they could all choose different people to kill, take hostage, or just decide to do the great-bad-thing that they'd always wanted to do, but never did, because they were afraid of getting caught. Now it didn't matter; there was nowhere to go, nothing they could do to save their lives. Once a vampire killed someone, they were the walking dead in so many ways.