Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,151

which meant he was more comfortable with handguns than long ones. I had my AR to my shoulder checking the hallway – left, right, and up. Vampires fly, or float, sometimes. The hospital ceiling was too low to really be a place to hide, but checking up was a habit that was good to have when you hunted vampires that could fly and shapeshifters that could climb.

‘U.S. Marshals,’ I said, for the startled nurses and doctors. ‘Police.’ I added that just in case. I yelled ‘Police’ again and kept Dev and me moving toward the outer doors. I ignored the questions, because they would slow us down too much and I didn’t know what to say. Captain Jonas had said out loud that he didn’t want to start a panic; if I told them what was in the basement and wandering the hallways, they might panic. They should panic and evacuate everyone they could, but I wasn’t in charge, not like that.

Dev flashed them all his melt-in-your-socks smile. ‘We’ll be back, I promise.’

One of the scared nurses actually blushed at him. That was some good flirting.

‘We’re going outside,’ I said to Micah, low voiced, over the headset.

‘Be careful,’ he said.

‘I think it’s safer outside, but I’ll be careful,’ I said, as I moved toward the outer doors with the AR snugged to my shoulder.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘I love you and Nathaniel. I didn’t get to kiss Nicky good-bye.’

‘You’ll get another chance to kiss him,’ Micah said, and that was it, he’d given me my absolution, my that’s-okay-you-didn’t-leave-your-lover-to-die pat on the ethical back.

‘Thanks, gotta run. I love you.’

‘I love you more,’ he said.

‘Love you mostest.’

He laughed, softly, and hung up.

Dev and I were outside now. I looked up at the night sky, electric-kissed with the pools of light from the hospital behind us and the light poles rearing over the cars. Nothing moved in the darkness above us. The parking lot stretched empty and so still you should have been able to hear city crickets if it hadn’t been too cold for them.

‘Can we run now?’ Dev asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

He took off like something elemental, so fast that his speed left me immobile for a heartbeat, and then I ran, too. I ran fast, going from a dead stop to making the parking lot a blur to my vision like some movie special effect. I moved and it wasn’t just to be fast to save everyone and get the weapons, it was a release of tension to be able to move as fast as we could even for a few moments, to be able to RUN! I arrived at Edward’s SUV to find Dev there catching his breath. My heart was in my throat, trying to creep over my tongue and into my mouth. I felt alive, full of blood and thunder; it was the kind of energy that made you want to leave the guns in the holsters and wade into a fight with your bare hands. I wouldn’t do it, but I understood the urge.

Dev grinned at me, a fierce baring of teeth that still managed to be sexy and charming. I grinned back and unlocked the back of the SUV with my pulse thudding behind my own fierce smile.

Dev and I moved our gear out so I could get to where Edward kept his incendiaries. There was a reason he drove his SUV if the crime scene was close enough, or sometimes if it wasn’t. He had several compartments in his truck where the really bad things were hidden. If someone broke in and stole stuff, they wouldn’t get anything more dangerous than guns. Even if they stole the whole truck they’d likely never find the hidden shit unless they dismantled the truck piece by piece like at a chop shop, but even Edward couldn’t plan for all eventualities. Besides, some of the hidden stuff was illegal. I hadn’t known he had the European grenades. I’d read about them, seen videos of the effect, even photos of the victims. Some people in parts of Europe were using the grenades in my hands as a reason to give vampires and shapeshifters human rights, because the effects were too terrible to do to anyone, almost. No one cared about zombies, strangely. Not all dead are created equal.

Under other circumstances I might have hesitated to use something illegal while I was wearing my badge, but today … the European grenades gave us a real chance. I grabbed all that were