Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky Read Online Free PDF

said that this human is mine.
    Some
people kept them hidden with a high collar or a turtleneck. Everybody had to
make a living, but there was an element that thought making that living as a
Vee employee was like betraying humanity. And in the early days after
internment ended, people were found with their heads kicked in and their
pendant stuffed in their mouth.
    You
didn’t hear much about that kind of thing anymore. I guess attitudes were
changing. Or maybe people decided that killing other humans wasn’t going to
get rid of the Vees.
    There
was no standard look to the pendants. They were all about the size of a
small egg, and always nestled close to the base of the throat, where they’d
easily be seen by a Vee looking to tap into the mainline. But the designs on
the face of the disks were different, chosen by the Vee who’d issued
it.
    Some
chose bright colors in swirls and shapes. Others covered the disk with
writing, symbols, weird runic designs, family crests. Whatever suited their
fancy. I used to have one in my wallet, given to me by Joshua, that had the
insignia of the Area Government Security Force etched into it. It wasn’t
about letting other Vees know that I was his property. It was about letting
them know that I was his friend. The disc had been confiscated after
Joshua’s death.
    I
hadn’t seen one like the silver pendant that hung at Shuster’s throat. It
had some sort of holographic face, with the letters ‘GG’ seeming to float
above it. Definitely a step up from the usual.
    Shuster
was staring at me. “What?”
    “Nothing,”
I said quickly. “It’s good to see you, Shuster.”
    “It’s
always good to see me,” he said with a quick smile. “So, you want to stand
here all day or you want to get some lunch?”
    He
brushed past me and I followed him into Boyle’s. We were quickly
seated.
    “Welcome
to Boyle’s,” the young, pretty waitress said. “My name is Katie.” Like all
the serving staff, Katie wore a green outfit that was reminiscent of the one
worn by the leprechaun on a box of Lucky Charms, right down to the little
top hat.
    “Hey,
darlin’,” Shuster said. “I’d like a Guinness and the biggest, thickest
burger you have on the menu. Rare, swiss cheese, everything on it, fries on
the side. Can you do that for me?”
    “We
sure can,” Katie said. I noticed that she wasn’t looking at his face. Her
eyes were on the pendant at his throat.
    “Wonderful,”
Shuster said.
    She
turned to me. “And for you, sir?”
    “I’ll
have the same. Make my burger medium.”
    “Got
it,” she said. “I’ll be back with your beers in a minute.”
    As
she walked away, Shuster smiled after her. “I love a woman in
green.”
    “As
I recall, you like a woman in anything. Or nothing.”
    “Yeah,
I like a lot of things,” he said. “So, Charlie Welles, private eye. Who
woulda thunk it back in the 716 th . I figured you for a
lifer.”
    I
shook my head. “Nah, got tired of hauling soldiers off to the brig for bar
fights or smoking weed in an alley. Probably could have gotten into CID, but
it would have been the same thing, just bigger crimes. All the military
police showed me was that I liked police work. And if I liked police work,
the obvious choice was to join a police department.”
    “Police
department here didn’t have any openings for a man of your experience after
the war?”
    “Didn’t
appeal to me anymore. Human cops are mostly there for little things. The
real action is on the night shift and that’s Vee only.”
    “It’s
not like that in Area Seven,” he said. “Omaha PD is almost completely
integrated these days. No vamps walking a beat during the day, of course,
but they work inside the stations. And there’s both human and vamp cops on
the street at night.”
    “Like
you said, it’s different in the...what did you call them? Outside
areas.”
    “Yeah,
I guess their main goal at the beginning