Barney turned that pink-stained face to me, looking puzzled. “You aren’t going?”

“We’re forty-five minutes away from the location, Barney; a lot of bad things can happen in that amount of time. There’ll be other cops closer.”

“But you’re supposed to go. In the movies it’d be you.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t the movies, and I’m not the only Marshal in the city.”

“It’s supposed to be you.” He almost whispered it. He was staring into space, as if he couldn’t think clearly, or like he was listening to some voice I couldn’t hear.

“Oh, shit,” I said. I was around the table before I had time to really think what I’d do when I got there. I grabbed a handful of Barney’s black T-shirt and put our faces inches apart. “Is this a trap, Barney? Is this a trap for me?”

His eyes were wide, showing too much white. He blinked way too fast; the unblinking vampire stare took decades to perfect, and he hadn’t had that much time. The pale watery blue bled over his entire eye, so it was like looking at water with sun shining through it-his eyes with vampire power in them. He hissed in my face, snapping fangs at me. I should have backed off, but I didn’t. I was so used to dealing with vampires who wouldn’t hurt me that I forgot what it meant that he was a vampire, and I wasn’t.

He moved, too fast for me to blink, his arms around my waist, lifting me off my feet. I was fast enough to have time to do one thing, before he slammed me down on the table. Once I would have pulled out my cross, but it was in the locker with my gun, because a new law had declared it unfair intimidation against preternatural suspects. I had a split second to choose between my only two options: Do I slap my hand on the table to take some of the impact, or put my arm against his throat to keep his fangs away from mine? I chose my arm in his throat, and I was down. The table shuddered with the force of the blow, but his arm was between my back and the table and it took some of the impact. I wasn’t stunned, good.