"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 03 - Circus Damned" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

He cleared his throat sharply. “You know what I mean.”
“No, Mr. Ruebens, I don’t.”
“Well, a zombie queen…” He stopped in mid-sentence. I was getting pissed,
and it must have shown on my face. “No offense,” he said softly.
“If you came here to call me names, get the hell out of my office. If you
have real business, state it, then get the hell out of my office.”
Ruebens stood up. “I told you she wouldn’t help us.”
“Help you do what? You haven’t told me a damn thing,” I said.
“Perhaps we should just tell her why we have come,” Inger said. His voice
was a deep, rumbling bass, pleasant.
Ruebens drew a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “Very well.” He
sat back down in his chair. “The last time we met, I was a member of Humans
Against Vampires.”
I nodded encouragingly and sipped my coffee.
“I have since started a new group, Humans First. We have the same goals as
HAV, but our methods are more direct.”
I stared at him. HAV’s main goal was to make vampires illegal again, so
they could be hunted down like animals. It worked for me. I used to be a
vampire slayer, hunter, whatever. Now I was a vampire executioner. I had to
have a death warrant to kill a specific vampire, or it was murder. To get a
warrant, you had to prove the vampire was a danger to society, which meant you
had to wait for the vampire to kill people. The lowest kill was five humans,
the highest was twenty-three. That was a lot of dead bodies. In the good ol’
days you could just kill a vampire on sight.
“What exactly does ‘more direct methods’ mean?”
“You know what it means,” Ruebens said.
“No,” I said, “I don’t.” I thought I did, but he was going to have to say
it out loud.
“HAV has failed to discredit vampires through the media or the political
machine. Humans First will settle for destroying them all.”
I smiled over my coffee mug. “You mean kill every last vampire in the
United States?”
“That is the goal,” he said.
“It’s murder.”
“You have slain vampires. Do you really believe it is murder?”
It was my turn to take a deep breath. A few months ago I would have said
no. But now, I just didn’t know. “I’m not sure anymore, Mr. Ruebens.”
“If the new legislation goes through, Ms. Blake, vampires will be able to
vote. Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then help us.”
“Quit dancing around, Ruebens; just tell me what you want.”
“Very well, then. We want the daytime resting place of the Master Vampire
of the City.”
I just looked at him for a few seconds. “Are you serious?”
“I am in deadly earnest, Ms. Blake.”
I had to smile. “What makes you think I know the Master’s daytime retreat?”
It was Inger who answered. “Ms. Blake, come now. If we can admit to
advocating murder, then you can admit to knowing the Master.” He smiled ever
so gently.