Jason came out of the bathroom as I hung up. He was wearing the suit. I'd never seen him in anything except T-shirts and jeans or leather and less. It was odd to see him standing there in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and a thin white tie with a tastefully small design running through it. When you looked close, the tie was silk and the print was tiny fleur de lis. I knew who had picked out the tie. The suit was a better cut than most off the rack, but Jean-Claude had ruined me for off the rack no matter how nice the fit.
He buttoned the first button on the jacket and smoothed his hands through his blond hair. "How do I look?"
I shook my head. "Like a person."
He grinned. "You sound surprised."
I smiled. "I've just never seen you look like a grown-up."
He fake pouted at me, lip pushed out. "You've seen me nearly naked and I didn't look grown-up?"
I shook my head and smiled in spite of myself. I'd changed my clothes in the bedroom while he changed in the bathroom. I found a few dark spots of blood on the red blouse. As it dried, it would turn black and look even worse, which was why the blouse was soaking in the sink. Red shows blood no matter what people say.
The black jeans had escaped unstained as far as I could tell. A few spots of blood are hard to find on black. Black or navy blue hides blood best. I guess a really dark brown would work, but I don't own much brown, so I don't know for sure.
The fresh blouse was a pale, almost icy, lavender. It had been a gift from my stepmother, Judith. When I opened the box at Christmas and saw the pale blouse, I assumed she bought me yet another piece of clothing that would look better on her blond ice princess body than on my darker one. But the pure, clear color actually looked pretty spiffy. I'd even been gracious enough to tell Judith I was wearing it. I think it was the first gift in ten years that I hadn't exchanged. I was still 0 for 8 in the gift department for her. Oh, well.
Black dress pants with a belt wide enough for the Browning and wider than was fashionable, black flats, and I was ready. I'd added just a touch of makeup: eye shadow, mascara, a hint of blush, and lipstick. I tried not to think why I'd dressed up. It wasn't for the local cops. Jason and I were probably both overdressed for the locals. Of course, if we'd shown up in jeans and T-shirts, we'd have been underdressed. The only really good thing to wear to meet police is a uniform and a badge. Anything else and you are not in the club.
There was a law being discussed in Washington, D.C., right now that might give vampire executioners what amounted to federal marshal status. It was being pushed hard by Senator Brewster, whose daughter had gotten munched by a vampire. Of course, he was also pushing to revoke vampires' rights as legal citizens. Federal status for executioners, maybe. Revoking vamps' legal rights, I didn't think so. Some vampires would have to do something pretty gruesome to give the antivamp lobby that much push.
In March, vampire executioners had been officially licensed. It was a state license because murder was a state, not a federal, crime.
But I understood the need for federal status for vampire executioners. We didn't just kill, we hunted. But once we crossed out of our licensed area, we were on shaky ground. The court order was valid as long as the state we crossed into agreed to an extradition order. The extradition order was then used to validate the original order of execution. My preference was to get a second order of execution every time I crossed a state line. But that took time, and sometimes you'd lose the vamp to yet another jurisdiction and have to start all over again.
One enterprising vampire crossed seventeen states before he was finally caught and killed. The general run, if they run, is maybe two or three. Which is why most vampire executioners are licensed in more than one state. In our own way, we have territories, sort of like vampires. Within that territory, we kill. Outside of it, it's someone else's job. But there are only ten of us, and that's not a lot for a country with one of the largest vampire populations in the world. We aren't constantly busy. Most of us have day jobs. I mean, if the vampires had been bad enough to keep us hopping, then they'd never have made legal status. But the more vamps you get in an area, the higher your crime rate. Just like with humans.
Having to stop every time you left your licensed area made it harder to do our jobs. Having no real status as a police officer made it impossible to enter an investigation unless invited. Sometimes we weren't invited in until the body count was pretty damn high. My largest body count for a vampire was twenty-three. Twenty-three dead before we caught him. There had been higher body counts. Back in the fifties, Gerald Mallory, sort of the grandfather of the business, had slain a kiss of vampires that took out over a hundred. A kiss of vampires is like a gaggle of geese; it's the group name. Poetic, ain't it?
The phone rang. I picked it up and it was Belisarius. "He'll see us together. I'll try to have something to tell you by the time you get here." He hung up.
I took a big breath in through my nose and let it out in a rush through my mouth.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked.
"Nothing."
"You're nervous about seeing Richard," he said.
"Don't be so dammed smart."
He grinned. "Sorry."
"Like hell," I said. "Let's go."
We went.
6
The drive to Myerton took longer than it had to because I was driving an unfamiliar van on very narrow roads. It made me nervous. Jason finally said, "Can I drive, please? We'll get there before dark."
"Shut up," I said.
He shut up, smiling.
We did finally drive into Myerton. The town consisted of a main street that was paved and looked suspiciously like a two-lane highway with buildings hugging the edges. There was a stoplight with a second, much smaller gravel road spilling red clay dust across the blacktop. The town's only stoplight made you notice the two fast-food restaurants and a mom-and-pop diner that actually had a bigger crowd than the Dairy Queen. Either the food was good, or the Dairy Queen wasn't.
Jamil had given me directions to the police station. He said to drive down the main street, turn right. You can't miss it. Whenever someone says that, it means one of two things. Either they're right and it's obvious, or it's hidden and you'll never find it without a detailed map where X marks the spot.
I turned right at the stoplight. The van hit a pothole and rolled like a great beast treading water. I wished I had my Jeep. The gravel road was the true main street of the town. Buildings with a raised wooden sidewalk in front of them lined one side of the street. I spotted a grocery store and a woodworker's shop selling handmade furniture. They had a rocking chair out in front that still had rough grey bark on parts of the wooden frame. Very rustic. Very nifty. Another shop sold herbs and homemade jellies, though this wasn't the time of year for it. Houses lined the other side of the street. They weren't the newer Midwestern look that has taken over large parts of the South. The houses were mostly one story on cinder blocks or red rock bases. They were covered with side shingles running strongly to off-white and grey. One yard had a herd of ceramic deer and a crop of lawn gnomes so thick, it looked like they should be selling them.
There were mountains at the end of the street and trees like a thick, green curtain. We were about to drive back into the forest, and I hadn't seen anything that looked like a police station. Great.
"It has to be right here," Jason said.
I checked my rearview mirror, no traffic, and stopped. "What do you see that I don't?" I asked.
"Shang-Da," he said.
I looked at him. "Excuse me?"
"On the porch at the end of the street."
I looked where he was looking. A tall man sat slumped in a lawn chair. He was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, no shoes, and a billed cap pulled low. His tan stood out strongly against the whiteness of the shirt. Large hands held a can of soda or maybe beer. Just an early-morning pick-me-up.
"That's Shang-Da. He's our pack's second enforcer. He's Hati to Jamil's Sköll."
Ah. The light dawned. "He's
guarding Richard, so the police station has to be nearby."
Jason nodded.
I looked at the slumped figure. He didn't look particularly alert at first glance. He almost blended into the scene until you realized the T-shirt was spotless and new. The jeans had creases as if they'd been ironed and you realized though he was tanned, the skin coloring wasn't just from the sun. But it wasn't until he moved his head very slowly and looked straight at us that I realized just how good the act was. Even from a distance there was an intensity in his gaze that was almost unnerving. I knew we suddenly had his full attention and all he'd done was move his head.
"Shit," I said.
"Yeah," Jason said. "Shang-Da's new. He transferred in from San Francisco Bay pack. No one fought him when he came in as Hati. No one wanted the job that badly."
Jason pointed across the street. "Is that it?"
It was a low, one-story building made of white-painted cinder blocks. There was a small, gravel parking lot out front but no cars. The van took up most of the parking lot. I parked as close to the side as I could, hearing the soft swish of tree branches along the top of the van. There was probably a police car out there someplace that would be parking beside me. I think they had room.
There was a small wooden sign, elegantly carved, hanging beside the door. It read, Police Station. That was it, the only hint. Couldn't miss it -- Jamil had a sense of humor. Or maybe he was still pissed that I'd cut him. Childish.
We got out. I felt Shang-Da's gaze on me. He was yards away, but the power of his attention crept down my skin, raising the hair on my arms. I glanced his way, and for a second, our eyes met. The hair at the back of my neck stood to attention.
Jason came to stand beside me. "Let's go inside."
I nodded, and we walked to the door. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Shang-Da doesn't like me."
"He's loyal to Richard, and you've hurt him -- badly."
I glanced at him. "You don't seem mad at me. Aren't you loyal to Richard?"
"I was there the night Richard fought Marcus. Shang-Da wasn't."
"Are you saying I was right to leave Richard?"
"No. I'm saying I understand why you couldn't handle it."
"Thanks, Jason."
He smiled. "Besides, maybe I have designs on your body."
"Jean-Claude would kill you."
He shrugged. "What's life without a little danger?"
I shook my head.
Jason got to the door first but didn't try to open it for me. He knew me better than that.
I opened the mostly glass doors. I guess the doors were also a clue. Everything else on the street had doors like you'd see on a house. The glass doors were modern business doors. The interior was painted white, including the long barlike desk across from the door. There were some wanted posters tacked to a bulletin board to the left of the door and a radio system behind the desk, but other than that, it could have been the reception room for a dentist.
The guy sitting behind the desk was big. Even sitting down, you had a sense of size. His shoulders were almost as broad as I was tall. His hair was very short and still curled in tight ringlets. He'd have had to shave his head to get rid of the curls.
My executioner's license is in a nice fake-leather carrying case. It had my picture on it and looked damned official, but it wasn't a badge. It wasn't even a license good in this state. But it was all I had to flash, so I flashed it. I went in, holding the license out in front, because I was bringing a gun into a police station. Cops tended not to like that.
"I'm Anita Blake, vampire executioner."
The cop moved just his eyes; his hands were hidden behind the desk. "We didn't call for an executioner."
"I'm not here on official business," I said. I stood in front of the desk. I started to put the license away, but he held his hand out for it, and I gave it to him.
He studied the license while he asked, "Why are you here?"
"I'm a friend of Richard Zeeman."
His grey eyes flicked up then. It wasn't a friendly look. He tossed the license back on top of the desk.
I picked it up. "Is there a problem, Officer ... " I read his nameplate, " ... Maiden?"
He shook his head. "No problem except that your friend is a damned rapist. I never understand why the meanest son of a bitch in the world always seems to have a girlfriend."
"I'm not his girlfriend," I said. "I'm exactly what I said I was: his friend."
Maiden stood, and he looked every inch of his six-foot-plus frame. He wasn't just tall; he was bulky. He'd probably been a wrestler or a football player in high school. The muscle had started to melt into a general bulk, and he was carrying about twenty pounds around the waist that he didn't need, but I wasn't fooled. He was big and tough and used to it. The gun around his waist matched the rest of him. It was a chrome-plated Colt Python long barrel with heavy black custom grips. Good for hunting elephants, a little much for scaring drunks on a Saturday night.
"Who are you?" He pointed a thumb at Jason.
"Just a friend," Jason said. He smiled, trying to look harmless. He wasn't as good at looking harmless as I was, but he was close. Beside Officer Maiden we both looked sort of fragile.
"Her friend, or Zeeman's?"
Jason gave a big, good-humored smile. "I'm everyone's friend."
Maiden didn't smile. He just looked at Jason, giving him a cold, hard stare out of those dark grey eyes. Maiden didn't have any better luck staring Jason down than I did. Jason kept smiling. Maiden kept staring.
I finally touched Jason's arm ever so lightly. It was enough. He dropped his eyes, blinked, but the smile never faltered. But it was enough for Maiden to feel he'd won the staring contest.
Maiden lumbered out from behind the desk. He moved like he was aware that he was big, like in his own ears, the earth trembled as he moved. He was big, but he wasn't that big. Of course, I wasn't going to point it out to him.
A second man came out of a small door to the right of the desk. He was wearing a pale tan suit that fit him like an elegant glove. The white shirt was ribbed down the front, and he had one of those string ties with a hunk of gold at his throat. His eyes were large, black, and surprised when they saw me. His hair was cut very short, but stylish. The hand he extended for me to shake had a diamond pinkie ring and a college class ring on it.
"Could this vision of loveliness be the infamous Ms. Blake?"
I smiled before I could stop myself. "You must be Belisarius."
He nodded. "Call me Carl."
"I'm Anita, and this is Jason."
He shook hands with Jason, still smiling, still pleasant. He turned to Maiden. "May we go see my client now?"
"The two of you can go, but not him." Maiden jerked another thumb at Jason. "Sheriff said let the two of you in. No one said anything about anybody else."
Jason opened his mouth. I touched his arm. "That's fine."
"And the gun stays out here," he said. I didn't want to give up the gun, but it made me think better of Maiden that he'd spotted it.
"Sure," I said. I pulled the Browning out from under the jacket. I hit the slide and spilled the clip into my other hand. I jacked the gun open to show the chamber was empty and handed the whole shooting match to Maiden.
"Didn't trust me to unload it for you?"
"I figured the Browning might be too small for your hands. Requires fine motor skills."
"You giving me shit?" he said.
I nodded. "Yeah, I'm giving you shit."
He smiled then. He looked the Browning over before he put it in a desk drawer along with the clip. "Not a bad gun if you can't handle anything bigger." He locked the drawer -- another brownie point for Maiden.
"It's not size that counts, Maiden. It's performance."
His smile widened to a grin. "Your friend still has to wait out here."
"I said that was fine. I meant it."
Maiden nodded and led the way back through the door that Belisarius had come out of. There were two d
oors in the middle of the long, white hallway. One said, Ladies, the other, Men.
"I'd hoped you coming out of this door meant you were visiting Richard."
"I'm afraid not. Mr. Zeeman has not relented."
"Relented," Maiden said, "relented. Now, that's a nice lawyer word."
"Reading improves your vocabulary, Officer Maiden. You should try it sometime. Though I suppose you can get by with just looking at the pictures."
"Ooh, I'm cut to the quick on that one," Maiden said.
"If you cut us, do we not bleed?" Belisarius asked.
Maiden shocked the hell out of me by giving the next line: "If you tickle us, do we not laugh?"
Belisarius clapped softly. "Touché, Officer Maiden."
"Big and well read," I said. "I'm impressed."
He pulled a chain out of his pocket with keys on the end of it. "Don't tell the other cops. They'd think I was a sissy."
I looked up at him, all the way up at him. "It's not reading Shakespeare that makes you a sissy, Maiden. It's that damn gun. Only pansies carry that much hardware."
He unlocked the door at the end of the hallway. "Got to carry something big, Ms. Blake. Balances me out when I run."
That made me laugh. He opened the door and ushered us through. He locked the door behind us and went down a long white stretch of hallway with two closed doors on either side. "Wait here. I'll go make sure your boyfriend is ready to see you."
"He's not my boyfriend," I said. It was becoming automatic, like an involuntary reflex.
Maiden smiled and unlocked the door at the far end. He vanished through it. "You and Officer Maiden seem to have hit it off, Ms. Blake."
"Cops dish out a lot of shit. Trick is, don't take it personally, and dish back."
"I'll remember that next time."
I looked up Belisarius. "It might not work for you. You're a lawyer, and you're wealthy."
"And I'm not an attractive woman," he said.
"That, too, though that can work against me with policemen."
Belisarius nodded.
Maiden stepped back through the far door. He was smiling like something had amused the hell out of him. I was betting I wasn't going to think it was funny. "I told Zeeman that for a fucking pervert, he had a cute girlfriend."
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