Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,2

out loud, it had to be bad. I suddenly didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to add another nightmare to the visuals I had in my head. I was a legal vampire executioner and raised zombies as my psychic talent; I had plenty of scary shit in my head and I so didn’t need more, but I stayed in my chair. If Manning and Brent were tough enough to watch it multiple times, I could sit through it once. I couldn’t let the other badges think that getting proposed to by the vampire of my dreams made me one bit less tough. I couldn’t let myself believe it, either, though a part of me did. How could someone who let a man lead her into a Cinderella carriage carry a gun and execute bad guys? It made even my head hurt, thinking about it.

Zerbrowski said what I was thinking. “I thought the Feds never admitted anything bothered them.”

Agent Brent shook his head and looked tired. Lines showed around his eyes that I hadn’t seen before and made me add between three to five years onto his age. “I’ve worked in law enforcement for six years. I’d thought I’d seen it all, until this.”

I did the math in my head and realized he had to be around thirty, the same as me, but I’d used up my shininess years ago.

“I thought this was just another big bad preternatural citizen gone wrong,” I said.

“Not exactly,” he said.

“I don’t like mysteries, Agent Brent. I’m only here on this little information out of courtesy to the FBI, and because Lieutenant Storr requested it.”

“We appreciate that, Marshal, and we wouldn’t have had you walk into this blind if we didn’t feel that the fewer people who know the details, the better off we’re going to be,” Brent said.

“Awesome,” I said, “but the foreplay is getting a little tiresome; there’s no one in the room but the four of us, so what is on the video?”

“Are you always this cranky?” Manning asked.

Zerbrowski laughed out loud and didn’t even try to hold it in. “Oh, Agent Manning, this isn’t even close to cranky for my partner.”

“We heard that about her, and you’re right, Blake. I did come in here expecting the proposal to have softened that reputation. I didn’t think I had that much girl left in me, and if I’m assuming that it softened you up, then your male colleagues must be making your life . . . difficult.”

It was my turn to laugh. “That’s one way of putting it, but honestly it’s the whole engaged-to-a-vampire thing that’s making some of my fellow officers doubt whose side I’m on.”

“Vampires are legal citizens now, with all the rights that entails,” she said.

“Legally, yeah, but prejudice doesn’t go away just because a law changes.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “In fact, some at the bureau thought we shouldn’t include you in this case because of your proclivity to date the preternatural.”

“Proclivity, that’s polite; so what made you decide to trust me?”

“You still have the highest kill count of any vampire executioner in the United States, and only Denis-Luc St. John has more rogue lycanthrope kills than you.”

“He raises Troll-Hounds; they’re the only breed of dog ever raised specifically to hunt supernatural prey. It makes him the king of tracking through wilderness areas, after shapeshifters.”

“Are you implying that the dogs make him better at the job, or that he’s somehow cheating by using them?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Neither, just a statement of fact.”

“Now that Anita has passed muster, and I’m included because I’m her friend, show us some skin, agents, or stop teasing,” Zerbrowski said.

“Oh, you’ll see skin,” Brent said, and he looked older again, as if this case in particular were rubbing the shine away.

“What the hell is on the video, Agent Brent?” I asked.

“Zombie porn,” Brent said, and hit the arrow in the middle of the screen.

2

“SORRY, AGENTS, BUT that’s not new. It’s sick, but it’s not new.”

Brent hit the screen and froze the dark cemetery scene in midmotion. It was shaky and dark, and there were no zombies or anyone else in sight yet. The two agents looked at me as if I’d said something bad.

“Did we pick the wrong animator?” Manning asked her partner.

“Maybe,” he said.

“I’ve been approached for years to help people make sex tapes with zombies. Dead celebrities bring out the creeps the most.” I shivered, because the whole thought of it was just so wrong.

“My favorite of your sickos like