Kiss the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

gotten past this point. I tried not to step in the blood with my bare feet, but couldn’t avoid it all unless I wanted to climb over the dead officer. I wasn’t willing to do that, and the blood was thick and squishy. I forced myself not to think about it, but just to think about getting up the steps to help the others. There was at least one more officer on site, maybe two more, depending on whether he’d been riding with a partner. I concentrated on the living and left the dead for later, but it was hard to ignore the blood sticking to the stone with every step I took. Perry and Smith’s bloody footprints went up, too. There was no way not to track the crime scene up, no way to avoid the blood, no way… Another high-pitched scream sounded and this time I knew it was a girl, and I could hear words: “Don’t hurt them! Don’t hurt anyone else!”
    I didn’t look back at Zerbrowski to check, I just started running up the steps. They were so steep, my center of gravity so low, that it was faster to use my free hand to help me run up them. I climbed up the steps like you’d go up a stone hill, so that when I suddenly spilled out the opening into the huge room at the top I was on hands and knees, which was why the gunshot shattered the stone above my head, and not me.
    I flinched, but was already turning to find the shot and return fire. I saw the standing figure, gun in hand, and had already sighted and fired at his chest before my mind had caught up to the fact that his other hand held the girl’s arm, while she struggled to get away from him. He fell backward, taking the girl with him. I felt movement in time to seeanother man launching himself at me, but there wasn’t time to bring my gun around. Another gun exploded in the room and the vampire fell beside me, a hole in his chest, but still reaching for me. I put a bullet in his head without thinking about it. He stopped trying to grab me, mouth open, so his fangs glistened. Zerbrowski was standing in the doorway, gun pointed at the fallen vampire. I wasn’t sure if he’d shot him, or… Smith was kneeling behind a huge industrial-sized metal cog that was to one side of the door. His gun was pointed that way, too. I caught a glimpse of Perry lying on the ground beside him. Smith had him behind cover, which was more than Zerbrowski and I had. Another gunshot made Zerbrowski duck back through the doorway, but I was too far away; I turned and found a boy with a gun in his hand. He was standing there, so straight, so tall, so arrogant, as he took his time and aimed at me. I shot him in the chest before he could finish. He crumpled around the wound and then fell to his side. Another teenager rushed forward to grab the gun from his hand.
    I slid to a one-knee shooting stance and shot him, too. Smith was yelling, “They’re kids, Anita, they’re just kids!” He was still behind cover; I wasn’t.
    I yelled out, “Touch a gun, you die! Hurt anyone, you die! Are we clear?”
    There were sullen murmurs of
yes
,
yeah
, and one
fucking murderer
. Some of them looked scared, eyes wide. There were a few more teenagers in the group, but there were also adults. In fact, we had vampires of all shapes and sizes in the large group. “Hands where we can see them, now!”
    They raised their hands up, some ridiculously high, others barely out. “Hands on your head.”
    Some of them looked confused by the request. Zerbrowski said, “Hands on your heads, just like you see on TV, come on, you know how to do it.”
    I stood up, keeping my gun aimed in their direction, but I was keeping a peripheral eye on the first one I’d shot. The girl was whimpering,trying to get his hand off her arm, but either his hands had seized up in death or he wasn’t quite dead. One silver-plated nine-millimeter bullet in the chest doesn’t always kill a vampire.
    The vampires in the shadows did what Zerbrowski told them. Smith came out from behind his cover, and I saw Perry moving a little. He