Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,187

like that have a badge?’

‘I will hunt down the vampire that made Ares attack us. I will hunt him down and I will kill him.’

‘In revenge?’

‘No, sir, because it’s my job.’

Chapman shook his head. ‘You’re right, Forrester; you’re death squad soldiers with badges. I suspected that, and it was one of the reasons I was pushing so hard to have people like Hatfield join your branch. I was hoping it would help balance the rest of you, but now I’m afraid that instead of her balancing you, you will corrupt her.’

‘I’m a little too old to be corrupted, sir,’ Hatfield said.

He looked at her and his eyes were sad. In that moment I knew that Chapman had seen real combat; there’s a look that only real violence, real survival, and real survival guilt can give you.

‘Until the devil takes your soul, Hatfield, you’re never too old to be corrupted.’ With that he turned and walked out, leaving the door open behind him.

We gathered up our stuff and went to talk to witnesses, read over the police reports, and hope we found a clue.

56

The local PD gave us a small room in the depths of the building to spread the papers around. There’d been some reluctance, but I had the warrant now and that made this my case. I tried not to be too rude, but I also was all out of taking shit. We had until nightfall to learn what we could from the reports, pictures, and witness statements. I was hoping to talk to some of the human witnesses, the few who had lived through being a witness, but first the reports. Yeah, they can be tedious and even boring, but there’s a reason we write reports and take pictures and measurements from every angle, and not all of it’s for court; sometimes you learn new things that help you catch the bad guys.

The three of us divided the reports into three piles: the missing-person reports, most of which were now solved; the crime scenes where people had been killed; and the reports from the doctors about the survivors’ injuries and the rotting disease. I skipped the last pile, because I’d talked directly to the doctors, and Edward had spoken to Micah about his dad while I was unconscious, so Hatfield got that pile. She hadn’t taken time to read any of it through; most of the time if you’re given a warrant against vampires in custody, there isn’t time to study up on it. The marshal can insist on reading about the crime, but most don’t. They ride into town, perform the execution, and ride out again. We’re sort of the Lone Rangers of Death, and yes I do know that the Lone Ranger was a Texas Ranger, not a U.S. Marshal, but it’s still what most people think of when we show up. One modern inner-city slang term for us was Lone Rangers, or just Rangers. We don’t usually solve the crime, but we sure as hell end the investigation. Death is about as final as you can get – mystery solved, time to ride off into the sunset on our pale horse with our blood-spattered scythe. I’d started reading before I did custody executions, because if I was ending someone’s life, I wanted to know what they’d done to earn it. I wasn’t called out on morgue kills anymore, partially because they knew I’d be a pain in the ass about it and actually insist on seeing case files, and because there were plenty of marshals like Hatfield and one of my fellow marshals back home who would be happy to ride into town, take care of your vampire problem, and ride out without asking a damn thing.

Edward read the crime scenes to begin with and I read the missing persons. It was interesting that some of the missing would turn out to be victims and others would be moved over to ‘vampire.’ Vampires were never considered victims in these cases. Once you moved from human to vamp you were the enemy; it was like you started out as the princess waiting to be rescued and ended up being the dragon to be slain. I’d theoretically known that this was the way things worked, but seeing the missing people divided up so neatly made me have to look at it differently. I even agreed with the change, because when a person was first made a vampire and the rogue master that made them was still controlling