Three photographs had been taped to the whiteboard. The first showed the face of what should have been a corpse. The skin was rotting away from the skull and one of the eyes was missing, leaving an empty socket. The mouth hung open, showing row after row of once-?vicious teeth, some of which were missing, others of which had rotted down to black stumps. “This is Justinia Malvern,” Caxton said. “The oldest living vampire, though living is a relative term. Vampires do live forever, if they aren’t killed, but contrary to what you’ve heard they do age, and not very gracefully.” That got a few chuckles from the audience. At least they were awake. “With every night that passes they need more blood to stay strong and active than they did the night before. After three hundred years Malvern can’t even sit up in her coffin. That doesn’t mean she’s harmless. A year ago she made four new vampires and good people died putting them down. She was also responsible for the army of vampires we fought back in October, at Gettysburg—and you all know how badly that could have gone. The last vampire she made was this guy.”
She pointed out the second photograph on the whiteboard, and then the third. They showed Jameson Arkeley—as he had been in life, and as he had become, in death. The before photo showed an aging man with eyes so piercing she had trouble looking at them still. The after photo just showed one more vampire, as far as she was concerned. It was not an actual photograph but a computer-?generated extrapolation of what Arkeley would look like as a vampire. She’d seen the real thing and knew the picture didn’t do him justice. It just wasn’t scary enough. “In the aftermath of Gettysburg, Arkeley here voluntarily accepted the curse. He did it to save lives, and I don’t know what would have happened without him being there.” She shook her head. “He promised me, at that time, that as soon as the last vampire was dead he would turn himself in. So I could kill him, and put an end to this. It’s been two months since then and so far he hasn’t shown himself.” Next to his vampire photo Glauer had written POI on the board. It stood for “person of interest,” meaning he was wanted for questioning but had so far not been named in direct connection with any crime. “We haven’t found any bodies we can link to him. We haven’t turned up any half-?deads he’s made—”
At the back of the room Deputy Marshal Fetlock raised his hand.
She didn’t bother calling on him. “A half-?dead is a vampire’s slave. Once a vampire drinks your blood, once they kill you, they have the ability to bring your corpse back to life. Your body doesn’t like it and your soul can’t stand it. You rot away at an accelerated rate, so most half-?deads only last about a week before they just collapse in pieces. But while it lasts you do everything the vampire demands. Everything, including killing your best friend.”
Fetlock lowered his hand and nodded. She had answered his question.
“Jameson Arkeley was my partner,” she said, which was mostly true. That was how she’d thought of him, anyway, regardless of how he’d seen her. “He was a good friend. He asked me to kill him because he knew what happens to people who become vampires with the best of intentions. The first couple of nights they’re almost human. They can be noble, and good, and wise. But then they get thirsty. They start thinking about blood. They think about how it would taste, and how strong it could make them. How there are so many people out there just full of the stuff and how one or two of them could disappear and nobody would much mind. I’ve seen it again and again. No matter how strong their willpower might be—and Arkeley was one of the strongest men I’ve ever known—they always succumb. With each kill it becomes easier for them. It becomes more exciting. Their bodies start demanding more blood, always more…”
She turned and looked at the photos. At Arkeley’s eyes. She wondered, as she always did, about that last moment at Gettysburg, when he’d promised her he would come back. That he would let her shoot him right through the heart. He had believed, truly believed, that he could do that, that he could surrender to her like that. She’d believed it, too.
Yet somewhere between that moment and the dawn he’d changed his mind. He had run off into the shadows, to some place she couldn’t find him. What had he been thinking? Had he just been scared of dying? That wasn’t the man she’d known and respected. Had he thought he could control the bloodlust?
Yet he’d been the one who’d taught her that was impossible.
Off to one side of the room Glauer cleared his throat. She blinked rapidly and turned to face her audience again. “Arkeley is dangerous. He needs to be destroyed on sight,” she stressed. “The amount of damage he can do on his own is enormous. He’s much, much stronger than a human being and infinitely faster. He also knows every trick any human has ever used to kill a vampire. Worst of all, though, is that he could become a Vampire Zero at any time.”