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Burnt Offerings :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 234 из 286He started to adjust the strap as if I were five and being bundled off to play in the snow.
"I can do it." My voice came over the open radio line in the mask.
He raised his gloved hands skyward, still smiling. He was a hard man to insult, because I'd been trying. He had this sort of cheerful goodwill that seemed to deflect everything. Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright. Wren didn't strike me as stupid.
Insult to injury, I couldn't get the strap adjusted on the damned mask. I always hated trying to work with anything bulkier than surgical gloves. I pulled the mask off and my first breath of real air was too loud, too long. I was sweating, and it wasn't just the heat.
I had the Browning and the Firestar lying on the side of the fire truck. There were enough pockets on the outside of the suit to hold half a dozen guns. I had a sawed-off shotgun from my vampire kit in a makeshift pack across my back. Yeah, it's illegal, but Dolph had been with me once upon a time when we went after a revenant vampire. They were like PCP users: immune to pain, stronger even than a normal vamp. A force of hell with fangs. I showed him the shotgun before I got it out. He okayed it. We'd ended with two dead security guards and one rookie officer spread all over the hallway the last time. At least Dolph and his men had silver ammo now. He and Zerbrowski nearly getting killed because they didn't have it was what pushed the paperwork through. I gave them a box of ammo for Christmas before they got official silver ammo. I never wanted to watch any of them bleed their lives away for lack of it.
I'd left the knives in their wrist sheaths. Carrying naked blades in the pockets of a suit that was air-and water-tight seemed sort of defeatist. If I lost both handguns and had to scramble for the knives under the suit, then we were probably toast. No need to worry about it. My silver cross hung naked around my neck. It was the best deterrent I had against baby vamps. They couldn't force their way past a bare cross, not when it was backed up by faith. I'd only met one vamp that could force his way past a blazing cross and harm me. And he was dead. Funny how so many of them ended up that way.
Tucker came over to me. "I'll help you adjust the mask."
I shook my head. "Leave me till last. The less time I'm in this get-up the better."
She licked her lips, started to say something, stopped, then said, "Are you all right?"
Normally, I would have said sure, but they were depending on me, maybe for their lives. How scared was I? Scared. "Not exactly," I said.
"I can do it." My voice came over the open radio line in the mask.
He raised his gloved hands skyward, still smiling. He was a hard man to insult, because I'd been trying. He had this sort of cheerful goodwill that seemed to deflect everything. Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright. Wren didn't strike me as stupid.
Insult to injury, I couldn't get the strap adjusted on the damned mask. I always hated trying to work with anything bulkier than surgical gloves. I pulled the mask off and my first breath of real air was too loud, too long. I was sweating, and it wasn't just the heat.
I had the Browning and the Firestar lying on the side of the fire truck. There were enough pockets on the outside of the suit to hold half a dozen guns. I had a sawed-off shotgun from my vampire kit in a makeshift pack across my back. Yeah, it's illegal, but Dolph had been with me once upon a time when we went after a revenant vampire. They were like PCP users: immune to pain, stronger even than a normal vamp. A force of hell with fangs. I showed him the shotgun before I got it out. He okayed it. We'd ended with two dead security guards and one rookie officer spread all over the hallway the last time. At least Dolph and his men had silver ammo now. He and Zerbrowski nearly getting killed because they didn't have it was what pushed the paperwork through. I gave them a box of ammo for Christmas before they got official silver ammo. I never wanted to watch any of them bleed their lives away for lack of it.
I'd left the knives in their wrist sheaths. Carrying naked blades in the pockets of a suit that was air-and water-tight seemed sort of defeatist. If I lost both handguns and had to scramble for the knives under the suit, then we were probably toast. No need to worry about it. My silver cross hung naked around my neck. It was the best deterrent I had against baby vamps. They couldn't force their way past a bare cross, not when it was backed up by faith. I'd only met one vamp that could force his way past a blazing cross and harm me. And he was dead. Funny how so many of them ended up that way.
Tucker came over to me. "I'll help you adjust the mask."
I shook my head. "Leave me till last. The less time I'm in this get-up the better."
She licked her lips, started to say something, stopped, then said, "Are you all right?"
Normally, I would have said sure, but they were depending on me, maybe for their lives. How scared was I? Scared. "Not exactly," I said.