resistance came from one of the two standing at the booking desk, a pale fair-haired man of about thirty named Dan, who made a frantic lunge for a jury-rigged red button stuck to the wall with masking tape.
Jack snatched the other man's wrist away from the alarm in midair and felt the bones in Dan's arm bend under the pressure of his grip. Dan yelped and groaned so sharply, Jack instinctively let loose of him and saw a deep purple bruise in the shape of his gloved fingers already forming on the wrist.
"Good Lord!" whispered Kirk.
Jack looked at him over Dan, who had crumpled to the floor holding his arm. "You see it, too?"
"Hell, yeah, I see it!" cried Kirk. "What the hell's the matter with him?"
"Offhand, I'd say it was loss of blood."
It was about then that Dan began to sob.
Soon the other two were also crying, deep tortured heaves that shook their shoulders painfully.
It hurt to watch it. Jack had been planning to get whoever was inside outdoors and into the squad car and out of the way as soon as possible, but this was just too good a chance to let by.
The fact was that Jack had never, in all his battles, actually met someone he knew to be under the influence of vampires. He knew there were always two or three suicides in the places where the Team had done its job. And he figured those were the ones who couldn't bear to live with the shame of what they'd been made to do.
But he'd never actually seen it. He looked down at the four, now huddled together and weeping. He could feel their shame. They reeked of it. And how they wept! It was the totally unleashed, uninhibited weeping of children, red-eyed, runny-nosed, and moaning.
No. It was too good a chance to pass up. He hated to do it. But he had to question them.
He paused, took a deep breath, and knelt down beside the one he'd grabbed away from the alarm button, Dan. The bruise on his wrist was now multicolored and swelling. He cradled it tenderly on his other forearm.
"I'm sorry about that," he said tenderly.
But Dan just sobbed some more and shook his head as if to say he deserved it.
Part of Jack wanted to grab this man and shake him, this grown man crying like a baby. But the rest of him knew better. These four really couldn't help it.
Supernatural.
"How many are down there?" he asked Dan.
Dan looked at him, uncomprehending. "How many?"
"Yeah. Downstairs. In the jail. How many?"
"How many... masters?"
Jack gritted his teeth but managed to keep his tone gentle. "Yeah. How many masters?"
The oldest of the bunch, the guy who had been sitting in front of the typewriter when Jack and the deputy had come through, shook himself and leaned forward. He held up three fingers.
Like a child.
"Three!" he whined.
Damn! thought Jack. He had been prepared for more than one. But goddammit, three?
Damn!
The other slaves began nodding. One of them, the kid who had been drinking from the fountain, held up three of his fingers and nodded fiercely.
And when he did his collar was pulled away from his throat and Jack saw the bite.
The deputy saw it, too, and gasped. Jack reached over to Dan, the closest one to him, and pulled his collar out and there it was.
"Jesus!" whispered Kirk.
It looked like the bit of a spider. But one impossibly large, impossibly vicious. Impossibly thirsty.
The two puncture marks were just over an inch apart, with overlapping black and yellow rings swollen out from their centers. The bites were recent, deep, and horribly infected.
Loss of blood, Jack had said.
Now he thought: loss of soul...
"They're..." gushed Dan and his gaze was plaintive, with a terrible yearning. "They're... They're so beautiful!"
And all four of them began to weep again. Weep and nod and huddle together and Jack couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and grabbed two of them by the upper arms and led them outside. The deputy brought out the other two.
Jack said nothing to the wary stares of the six flak-jacketed patrolmen on the sidewalk except: "These men aren't to be harmed. Just keep 'em out of the way."
The patrolman who seemed to be their leader glanced first at Deputy Thompson for his nod of confirmation before taking the prisoners in tow and depositing them in the backs of two police cars.
Carl appeared beside Jack. "You were right?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question.