Anita Blake 20bis - Beauty: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Outtake Read Online Free PDF Page A

name.”
    I nodded. Old vampires had one name, like Madonna, or Beyoncé, but what most people didn’t know was that they fought duels to see who got to use the name. A powerful vampire could demand that another lesser vampire give up the use of a name he’d had for centuries, or fight for the right to keep it. I didn’t say that part out loud, because most people, even us vampire experts, didn’t know it. It was an old custom that was dying out as the modern vampires kept their last names, and duels were illegal now that vampires weren’t. Dueling was looked on the same under the law regardless of whether the participants were alive or undead. I would have bet a lot of money that this Benjamin wasn’t old enough to know the history behind vampires having only one name.
    “Where can I find Benjamin?”
    “I thought you were so powerful that no vampire could resist you.” There was a flare of sullen anger in his pale blue eyes. There was temper in there, under the tears.
    “I would need a connection with him, someone who was metaphysically joined with him in some way, so I could follow the psychic connection. Someone like you.” I let the hint of threat ride into that last part.
    He looked sullen and arrogant. “You can’t do that; no one can.”
    “Are you sure?” I asked, and my voice dropped a little lower.
    “You’re a U.S. Marshal, you’re not allowed to do magic on me.”
    “It’s not magic, Barney. It goes under psychic skills, and law enforcement officers are allowed to use psychic abilities in the performance of their duties if they think that is the only way to prevent further loss of life.”
    He frowned, rubbing one pale hand across his face. He sniffed loudly, and I pushed the box of Kleenex toward him. He took one, used it, and then gave me angry eyes. It was probably his hard look, but as hard looks go, it wasn’t. “I have rights. The new laws won’t let you hurt me without a warrant of execution.”
    “And a minute ago, you were worried I’d kill you. Barney, you need to make up your mind.” I raised a hand and spread it flat in the air as if I were holding something he should have been able to see. “Am I a danger to you, or”—and I held up my other hand—“not able to hurt you at all?”
    His anger sputtered down to sullenness. “Not sure.”
    “The girl that Benjamin and the others took is only fifteen. She can’t legally agree to become a vampire.”
    “We didn’t take her,” Barney said, indignant, slamming his hand on the table.
    “Legally, she’s a minor, so it’s kidnapping, regardless of whether she went willingly or not. It’s kidnapping and attempted murder right now; if we find her too late, it’s murder, and I’ll get that court order of execution for you and Benjamin, and every other vampire that may have touched her.”
    A nervous tic started under his eye, and he swallowed so hard that it was loud in the quiet room. “I don’t know where they took her.”
    “The time for lies has passed, Barney; when Sergeant Zerbrowski comes back through that door with an order of execution, I’ll be able to legally blow your head and heart into bloody ribbons.”
    “If I’m dead, I can’t tell you where the girl is,” he said, and looked pleased with himself.
    “Then you do know where she is, don’t you?”
    He looked scared then, wadding the Kleenex up in his hands until his fingers mottled with the pressure. He had just enough blood in him for the skin to mottle. He’d drunk deep of someone.
    The door opened. Barney Wilcox, the vampire, made a small yip of fear. Zerbrowski’s curly salt-and-pepper hair fell around his half-open collar, his tie at half-mast with a spot of something he’d eaten smeared down it. His brown slacks and white shirt looked like he’d slept in them. He might have, but then again, his wife, Katie, could dress him neat as a pin and he still fell apart before he reached the squad room. He pushed his new tortoiseshell glasses more