It was the person’s faith that made it work, unless it was blessed by a priest or someone equally holy. Blessed items glowed and protected without need of faith, but just regular crosses, not so much. Even blessed items needed to be reblessed from time to time. I would have to see if Taggart was having a crisis of faith, because if he was, he had to be moved to a different squad. This was the monster squad, and an officer without faith was crippled against vampires.

I started to help Dolph get the vamp on his feet, but Dolph wrapped one big hand around the other man’s upper arm and just pulled him up. I was strong enough, but not tall enough or heavy enough to have the leverage to do it with someone so tall. The vampire was about six foot three, but Dolph still towered over him. The vampire marks I shared with Jean-Claude made me stronger, faster, harder to hurt, but nothing would make me taller.

Dolph put him back in the chair he’d knocked over. He kept one big hand on the vampire’s shoulder, and the gun was very big, and very black, as he held it beside his thigh. The implication was clear: Cooperate, or else. We couldn’t actually shoot him now, but no law prevents the police from making threats to get suspects to talk, and the vampire had opened the door for naked guns in the interrogation room. It took two men to help the worst of the wounded officers out the door, but everyone was able to walk out; it was a good night. Now all we had to do was get the girl out before she was murdered as a vampire, and find the officers that had gone radio silent unhurt. Oh, and get them all away from a rogue vampire kiss. Yeah, that’s the group name for a bunch of vampires: a kiss of vampires. A gobble of ghouls, a shamble of zombies, and a kiss of vampires; most people don’t know that, and the rest don’t care. A pretty name for a group of super-strong, super-fast, mind-controlling, blood-drinking legal citizens, who might live forever if we didn’t have to shoot them. That last part made them just like any other bad guys; the earlier parts made them unique, and too fucking dangerous.