Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,146

long it took for them to heal the damage we did to them, but by now, if they can heal it and walk again, they will be.’

‘Now you’re scaring me.’

‘Good, you should be scared,’ I said.

‘Shit, okay, I’ll grab a couple of other men from up here and we’ll go check in with hospital security and see if the morgue is full of dead people or not-so-dead people.’

‘Thanks, Al, and watch your back.’

‘Always,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you back to Nathaniel.’

Then Nathaniel was on the phone again. ‘I heard enough. So you think they killed everyone in the morgue.’

‘It’s a possibility, and I’d rather be paranoid and wrong than reasonable and really wrong. You and Micah be careful. Who’s with you for bodyguards?’

There was a knock on the door and a uniform finally came through with an ice bag wrapped in paper towels. I took it, because they’d gone to the trouble, but I’d actually forgotten my face hurt. I had to use my right hand to hold the ice in place since I was using my left for the phone.

‘Bram and Socrates. Micah sent everyone else home to get some sleep.’

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘What?’ Nathaniel said.

‘I’d just like you and Micah to have more than two guards with you, that’s all.’

Edward held up his car keys and just raised his eyebrows. I nodded, and we headed for the door.

‘I’m not done with you, Blake,’ Jonas called.

‘You can yell at me later, and yell at me more if I’m wrong about the morgue. If I’m right, we don’t have time to wait.’

‘They’re sending hospital security down to check,’ Jonas said.

I paused with my hand on the doorknob. ‘What’s their security armed with?’

He asked the person on the phone. ‘They don’t know. They say the guns are black. Does that help?’

‘Shit, did you have someone who doesn’t know guns at all send security down to the morgue? Do they have any idea what they’re walking into?’

‘They aren’t walking into anything,’ Hatfield said. ‘I did my job.’

‘I hope you’re right, Hatfield. God knows I hope you’re right.’

Edward said, ‘Captain, with respect, talk to someone on security personally and warn them, or they’ll just be more bodies.’

Jonas hung up and redialed. ‘I know an ex-cop on their security; I’ll call him.’

I opened the door and said, ‘Good.’ I wasn’t sure Jonas had heard me, and I know I didn’t care.

Hatfield yelled after us from the open door. ‘There’s nothing wrong at the hospital. I did my damn job!’

Edward and I both ignored her. We’d pick up Dev and Nicky from the front of the station and head to the hospital. If I was wrong, we’d get down there and look silly, but if I was right, people would already be dying, or dead. If I was right, Micah and Nathaniel were just a few floors up from half a dozen rogue vampires and a whole bunch of zombie parts that would do their best to tear people to pieces. God, I hoped I was wrong.

42

We were standing outside the morgue with the windowed door barricaded shut, because there were zombies inside eating the remains of two morgue attendants and the security guard who some genius had sent down here by himself after Jonas called them. By the time Al got down there it was all over except the eating part. I’d been worried about vampires, not so much the zombies. I’d never heard of zombies putting themselves back together once you blew them into pieces with guns. We didn’t have to worry about the vampires, because according to Al and the police with him the zombies were eating them, too.

We had two more hospital security officers with us now. One man looked to be in his early forties, built sort of square, with a high-and-tight haircut that said ex-military as if he had a sign around his neck. He’d introduced himself as ‘Macintosh, yeah just like the apple, but call me Mac.’ The other guard, Miller, looked to be early twenties, a slender, dark-haired kid with glasses. He’d already been sick down the hallway where we made him run when we realized he was going to do it. Throw up outside in the woods, or at a graveyard, and the out-of-doors sort of took away the smell and made things better. In a hallway in an area with no windows the smell of vomit lingered; at least it lingered a little farther away from us. I hadn’t yelled at him; I mean, how many