"07 - Burnt Offerings 4.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

back on her to check the vampire. To make sure she hadn't hurt him."
"She did your back," I said. We inched forward. We were now trapped between
Dairy Queen and Kentucky Fried Chicken on one side, and an Infiniti car
dealership and a gas station on the other. The scenery was not improving.
"Yeah, yeah. She must have thought I was down for the count because she left me
and went back to the vampire. I disarmed her, but she was still trying to get to
the vampire when the other attendant came in. It took both of us to pin her. She
was crazy, manic."
"Why didn't you draw your gun, Larry?" His gun was sitting in his vampire kit
because a shoulder holster and his back wound did not mix. But he went armed.
I'd taken him out to the shooting range, and out on vampire hunts until I
trusted him not to shoot his foot off.
"If I'd drawn my gun, I might have shot her."
"That's sort of the point, Larry."
"It's exactly the point," he said. "I didn't want to shoot her."
"She could have killed you, Larry."
"I know."
I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to mottle my skin, white and pink. I
let out a long breath and tried not to yell. "You obviously don't know, or you
would have been more careful."
"I'm alive, and she's not dead. The vampire didn't even get a scratch. It worked
out all right."
I pulled out onto Olive and started creeping towards 270. We needed to head
north towards St. Charles. Larry had an apartment over there. It was about a
twenty-minute drive, give or take. His apartment looked out over a lake where
geese nested in the spring and congregated in the winter. Richard Zeeman, junior
high science teacher, alpha werewolf, and at that time, my boyfriend, had helped
him move in. Richard had really liked the geese nesting just under the balcony.
So had I.
"Larry, you are going to have to get over this squeamishness or you're going to
get killed."
"I'll keep doing what I think is right, Anita. Nothing you can say will change
my mind."
"Dammit, Larry. I don't want to have to bury you."
"What would you have done? Shot her?"
"I wouldn't have turned my back on her, Larry. I could have probably disarmed
her or kept her busy until the other attendant arrived. I wouldn't have had to
shoot her."
"I let things get out of control," he said.
"Your priorities were screwed. You should have neutralized the threat before you
checked on the victim. Alive, you could help the vamp. Dead, you're just another
victim."
"Well, at least I've got a scar you don't have."
I shook my head. "You'll have to try harder if you want a scar I don't have."
"You let a human shove one of your own stakes into your back?"
"Two humans with multiple bites, what I used to call human servants, before I
knew what the term really meant. I had one pinned and was stabbing him. The
woman came at my back."
"So yours wasn't a mistake," he said.
I shrugged. "I could have shot them when I first saw them, but I didn't kill