Read Kiss the Dead for Free Online Page B

personally, could kill without a warrant, but that had made local police reluctant to be backup for the Marshals, and since most of us work solo a lot, that got people killed, too. Law is almost always made by people who will never see that law in action in a real-world situation; it makes it interesting.
    One of the first cases to test the use of the act in the field had come down to the fact that the Marshal involved had not put on all his gear, which he was legally forced to wear once he was actively hunting monsters with a warrant of execution in effect. The lawyers had successfully argued that if the Marshal had truly believed the situation merited a warrant of execution, then why hadn’t he geared up appropriately once he had time and access to his gear? He obviously hadn’t felt it was the same as a real warrant of execution; he had simply invoked the act so he could play Wild West and kill everything in the room. The police with him had also been charged, but were declared free before the trial started, because they had acted in good faith, believed the Marshal’sjudgment to be sound, and didn’t have the preternatural expertise to make any other choice. The Marshal had been found guilty and the case was in appeals, but he was in a cell while the lawyers argued.
    It did mean that I always had a change of clothes with me—pants, T-shirt, socks, jogging shoes, underwear, and bra. The undies were for those moments when I got enough blood on me that it soaked my clothes to the skin. I had a coverall, too, but that was more for official morgue stakings. I put the protective vest on over the T-shirt, because otherwise it rubbed. The vest had MOLLE attachments, because the weapons came next. The 9mm Browning BDM went to my side with a holster attached at my waist and around my thigh so it didn’t move. In an emergency you wanted your gun to be absolutely where your body memory could kick in—seconds counted. I had the Smith & Wesson M&P9c in a holster attached across my stomach, canted to the side so I could grab and pull it smoother and faster. I had a new sheath attached to the back of the vest with the MOLLE grips for the big knife that had enough silver content to slice anything, man or monster, and was as long as my forearm. Wrist sheaths held two more slender knives, again with high silver content. Extra ammo for all the handguns was on my left hip, strapped down like the Browning on my right. I had one AR on a tactical sling. I still had my MP5, but now that I had a badge I didn’t have to sweat the barrel length restrictions for carrying, so I had an AR modified to be a door-kicker for close indoor action.
    I had warned our prisoners that I was going to change into my full vampire hunting gear, because the law forced me to do it, not because I was upping the violence. The first time I’d had to change at a scene and come out in full gear the vampire prisoner had totally freaked, because he’d thought I was going to kill him then and there. I’d ended up having to do just that, when I probably could have brought him in alive. So many laws sound like a good idea until you try them out in real life, and then you find the flaws, and sometimes people die because of it.
    The vampires had wide eyes, and some looked pretty spooked, but they didn’t freak. I’d warned them. I’d helped take the first handful of them down in the ancient elevator to the reinforced transport van thatwe had for preternatural criminals. We had one van that could hold up to the kind of strength vampires and shapeshifters could use to pound their way through metal—one. Which meant we still had fifteen vampires on their knees in regular handcuffs and shackles, just like the ones that Barney the vampire had broken easily in the interrogation room. Technically I was supposed to take the heads and hearts of the four dead vampires in a heap on the floor, but doing it while the other vampires watched was a disastrous idea. It was just