Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I looked at him, and thought, maybe he would think that. “Are you implying that I’m pregnant?”

  “Implying, no.”

  I relaxed a little. I shouldn’t have.

  “I’m asking, do you know who the father is, or have there been too many to guess?”

  Zerbrowski stood, and he was close enough to Dolph that it forced him to move a little way from the table. “I think you should go now, Anita,” Zerbrowski said.

  Dolph was glaring at me. I should have been angry, but I was too surprised. “I’ve thrown up at murder scenes before.”

  Zerbrowski moved a little back from the table. He had a resigned look on his face, like someone who saw the train coming down the track and knew nobody was going to get off in time. I still didn’t think things were that bad.

  “You’ve never passed out before,” Dolph said.

  “I was sick, Dolph, too sick to drive myself.”

  “You seem fine now,” he said, voice low and rumbling, filled with that anger that seemed always just below the surface lately.

  I shrugged. “I guess it was just one of those viruses.”

  “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fang mark on your neck would it?”

  My hand went up to it, then I forced myself not to touch it. Truthfully, I’d forgotten about it. “I was sick, Dolph, even I get sick.”

  “Have you been tested for Vlad’s syndrome, yet?”

  I took in a deep breath, let it out, then said, fuck it. Dolph wasn’t going to let this one go. He wanted to fight. I could do that. Hell, a nice uncomplicated screaming match sounded almost appealing.

  “I’ll say this once, I’m not pregnant. I don’t care if you believe me, because you’re not my father, you’re not my uncle, brother, or anything. You were my friend, but even that’s up for grabs right now.”

  “You’re either one of us, or you’re one of them, Anita.”

  “One of what?” I asked. I was pretty sure of the answer, but I needed to hear it out loud.

  “Monster,” he said, and it was almost a whisper.

  “Are you calling me a monster?” I wasn’t whispering, but my voice was low and careful.

  “I’m saying you’re going to have to choose whether you’re one of them, or one of us.” He pointed to Jason when he said them.

  “You join Humans against Vampires, or some other right wing group, Dolph?”

  “No, but I’m beginning to agree with them.”

  “The only good vampire is a dead one, is that it?”

  “They are dead, Anita.” He took that step closer, that Zerbrowski’s moving had given him. “They are fucking corpses that don’t have enough sense to stay in their godforsaken graves.”

  “According to the law, they’re living beings with rights and protection under the law.”

  “Maybe the law was wrong on this one.”

  Part of me wanted to say, you know that this is being recorded? part of me was glad he’d said it. If he came off sounding like a bigoted crazy then it would help keep Jason safe. The fact that it wouldn’t help Dolph’s career did bother me, but not enough to sacrifice Jason. I’d like to save all my friends, but if someone is bent on self-destruction, there is only so much you can do. You can’t shovel other people’s shit for them, not unless they’re willing to pick up a shovel and help.

  Dolph wasn’t helping. He got down low, hands flat to the table and pushed his face into Jason’s. Jason moved back as far as he could in the chair. Zerbrowski looked at me, and I gave wild eyes. We both knew that if Dolph touched a suspect the way he’d touched me earlier his career was well and truly over.

  “It looks so human, but it’s not,” Dolph said.

  I didn’t like the use of the it for one of my friends.

  “Did you really let him touch you?”

  Him. See, even if you hate the monsters, it’s hard to keep straight in your own head what’s an it, and what’s a him. “Yes,” I said.

  Zerbrowski was moving around Dolph, trying to get to Jason, to get between them, I think.

  Dolph turned to look at me, still bent over low, way too close to Jason for anyone’s comfort. “And the bite on your neck, was that the bloodsucker you’re fucking?”

  “No,” I said, “that was a new one. I’m fucking two of them now.”

  He staggered almost as if he’d taken a blow. He leaned heavily on the table, and for just a second I thought he’d fall into Jason’s lap, but he recovered himself with a visible effort. Zerbrowski touched the big man’s arm. “Easy there, Lieutenant.”

  Dolph let Zerbrowski sit him down. He made no reaction when the sergeant eased Jason out of the chair and farther away from Dolph. Dolph wasn’t looking at them. His pain-filled eyes were all for me. “I knew you were coffin bait, I didn’t know you were a whore.”

  I felt my own face go hard and cold. Maybe if I hadn’t been so tired, so stressed—but there was no real excuse for what I said next, except that Dolph had hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him. “How’s that grandchildren problem coming Dolph? You still got a vampire for a soon-to-be daughter-in-law?”

  I felt Zerbrowski react to the news, and knew in that moment that only I had known. “You really shouldn’t piss off people you’ve confided in, Dolph.” The moment I said it, I wished I hadn’t, but it was too late. Too fucking late.

  He came up out of the chair, hands under the table, and upended it with a tremendous crash onto the floor. We all scattered. Zerbrowski stood in front of Jason against the far wall. I took a corner near the door.

  Dolph trashed the room. There was no other word for it. The chairs hit the walls, and the table followed. He finally picked one chair up and seemed to take a special grievance against it. He smashed the metal chair against the floor, over and over.

  The door to the interrogation room opened. Police filled the door, guns drawn. I think they expected to see a rampaging werewolf. The sight of a rampaging Dolph stopped them dead in the doorway. They’d have probably cheerfully shot the werewolf, but I don’t think they wanted to shoot Dolph. Of course, no one volunteered to arm wrestle him either.

  The metal chair folded in upon itself, and Dolph collapsed to his knees. His harsh breathing filled the room, as if the walls themselves were breathing in and out.

  I went to the door and chased everyone back. I said things like, “It’s okay. He’ll be fine. Just go.” I wasn’t sure he’d be okay, or fine, but I really did want them to go. No one needs to see their Lieutenant lose it. It shakes their faith in him. Hell, my faith wasn’t doing all that well.

  I closed the door behind them and looked across the room at Zerbrowski. We just stared at each other. I don’t think either of us knew what to say, or even what to do.

  Dolph’s voice came as if from deep inside him, as if he had to pull it up hand-over-hand like the bucket in a well. “My son’s going to be a vampire.” He looked at me with a mixture of such pain and anger, that I didn’t know what to do with it.

  “You happy now?” he said. I realized that there were tears drying on his face. He’d cried as he’d destroyed everything. But he wasn’t crying as he said, “My daughter-in-law wanted to bring him over, so he’d be twenty-five forever.” He made a sound that was halfway between a moan and a scream.

  Saying I was sorry didn’t seem to be enough. I couldn’t think of anything that would be enough. But sorry was all I had to offer. “I’m sorry, Dolph.”

  “Why, why sorry, vampires are people, too.” The tears started again, silent. You’d never have known he was crying if you hadn’t been looking directly at him.

  “Yeah, I’m dating a bloodsucker and some of my friends don’t have a pulse, but I still don’t approve of bringing humans over.”

  He looked up at me and the pain was flooding over the anger. It made his eyes harder and easier to meet all at the same time. “Why? Why?”

  I didn’t think he was really asking me why. I believed what I believed about vampires. I think it was the universal cry of w
hy me? Why my son, my daughter, my mother, my country, my home? Why me? Why isn’t the universe fair? Why doesn’t everyone get a happy ending? I had no answer for that why. I wished to God I did.

  I answered the implied why, because I couldn’t answer the other more painful questions. “I don’t know anymore, but I do know that it creeps me out every time I meet someone I knew first as a live human, then as a dead vampire.” I shrugged. “It just seems, I don’t know, unnerving.”

  He gave a big hiccuping sob. “Unnerving . . .” He half laughed and half cried, then he covered his face with his hands and he gave himself over to crying.

  Zerbrowski and I just stood there. I don’t know which of us felt more helpless. He walked carefully around the room, bringing Jason with him.

  Dolph sensed the movement and said, “He goes nowhere.”

  “He had nothing to do with this,” I said.

  Dolph wiped at his face angrily. “You haven’t alibied him for the first murder.”

  “You’re looking for a serial killer. If a suspect is cleared of one of the crimes then he’s usually innocent of all of them.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “We can keep him seventy-two hours, and we’re going to.”

  I looked around the destroyed room, met Zerbrowski’s eyes, and wasn’t sure Dolph had enough clout to make those kinds of pronouncements anymore.

  “The full moon is in a few days,” I said.

  “We’ll put him in a secured facility,” Dolph said.

  Secured facilities were run by the government. They were places where new lycanthropes could go and be sure of not accidentally hurting anyone. The idea was you’d stay until you got control of your beast, then they’d let you out to resume your life. That was the theory. The reality was that once you were signed in, voluntarily or otherwise, you almost never got out. The ACLU had started the years of court battles it would take to get them outlawed, or made unconstitutional.

  I looked at Zerbrowski. He stared at me with a sort of growing horror and weariness. I wasn’t sure he had the juice to keep Jason out of permanent lockup if Dolph pushed. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t let it happen.

  I looked back at Dolph. “Jason has been a werewolf for years. He has perfect control over his beast. Why send him to a secured facility?”

  “He belongs in one,” Dolph said, and the hatred had chased back the pain.

  “He doesn’t belong in a lockup, and you know it.”

  Dolph just glared at me. “He’s dangerous,” Dolph said.

  “Why?”

  “He’s a werewolf, Anita.”

  “So he needs to be locked up because he’s a werewolf.”

  “Yes.”

  Zerbrowski looked ill.

  “Locked up just because he’s a werewolf,” I said it. I wanted him to hear what he was saying, to disagree, to come to his senses, but he didn’t.

  “Yeah,” he said. And he said it, on tape, evidenced, un-take-backable. It could and probably would be used against him. There was nothing I could do to help Dolph, but I knew in that moment that Jason wouldn’t be going to a secured facility. Half of me was relieved, half of me was so scared for Dolph that I could taste metal on my tongue.

  Zerbrowski went for the door, pushing Jason ahead of him. “We’ll give you a few minutes alone, Lieutenant.” He motioned at me with his head.

  Dolph didn’t try and stop us. He just knelt there, face shocked, as if he’d finally heard his words, finally realized what he might have done.

  We all went out the door, and Zerbrowski closed it firmly behind us. Everyone in the squad room was looking at us. They tried not to be, but everyone had found something to do to keep them close at hand. I’d never seen so many detectives so eager to do paperwork at their desks, or even somebody else’s, as long as the desk was close to the hallway.

  Zerbrowski looked at the near wall of people and said, “Break it up people, we don’t need a crowd.”

  They all looked at each other, as if asking should we move, should we listen to him? They would have moved without question for Dolph. But finally, they did move, drifting off in ones and twos to other parts of the big room. The ones who were at their own desks close to the action seemed to remember phone calls they needed to make.

  Zerbrowski bent close to me, and spoke low, “Take Mr. Schuyler with you and go.”

  “What’ll Dolph say?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I know that Schuyler here doesn’t deserve to go to one of those facilities.”

  “Thanks, Sarge,” Jason said, and he smiled.

  Zerbrowski didn’t smile back, but he did say, “You’re a pain in the ass sometimes Schuyler, and you’re a furball, but you aren’t a monster.”

  They had one of those guy moments. Women would have hugged, but they were men, which meant that they didn’t even share a handshake. “Thanks, Zerbrowski.”

  Zerbrowski gave a weak smile. “Good to know I’m making somebody happy today.” He turned back to me. We looked at each other.

  “What’s going to happen to Dolph?” I asked.

  He looked even more solemn, which considering he’d looked downright depressed before, said a lot. “I don’t know.”

  Dolph had said enough on tape to lose him his job, if it got out. Hell, if the head of RPIT was this prejudiced it might bring all their cases under review, going back to the beginning.

  “Make sure he takes the two weeks of personal time, Zerbrowski, keep him out of here.”

  “I know that,” he said, “now.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, of course you do.”

  “Just go for now, Anita, please, go.”

  I touched Zerbrowski’s arm. “Don’t go back in there without some backup, okay.”

  “Perry told me what Dolph did to you the other day. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” He glanced back at the closed door. “Please, Anita, go before he comes out.”

  I wanted to say something. Something comforting, or helpful, but there wasn’t anything. The only helpful thing I could do was leave. So we did.

  Leaving felt cowardly. Staying would have been stupid. When it’s a choice between being cowardly or stupid, I choose stupid every single time. Today I opted for the better part of valor. Besides, I wasn’t sure that Dolph might come out of the room like some rampaging bull and try to attack Jason, or me. We might be able to hush it up in an interrogation room, but if he trashed the entire squad room, it would mean the end of his career. Right now, he maybe had shot his career in the foot. Even probably. But maybe and probably were better than certainly. I left Zerbrowski to pick up the pieces, because I didn’t know how.

  I was so much better at destroying things than fixing them.

  40

  JASON LEANED HIS head back against the passenger seat of the Jeep. His eyes were closed, and he looked weary. There were hollows under his eyes even with them closed. Jason was fair-skinned, not pale. He didn’t tan dark, but nicely golden. Today he looked vampire pale, and his skin gave the illusion that it was too thin, as if some great hand had been rubbing around his eyes and across his face, rubbing him down like you’d worry a pebble in your hand.

  “You look like shit,” I said.

  He smiled, without opening his eyes. “You sweet-talker.”

  “No, I mean it, you look terrible. Are you going to be okay about tonight, the banquet, and everything?”

  He opened his eyes enough to slide his gaze towards me. “Do I have a choice? Do any of us really have a choice?”

  Put that way . . . “No, I guess not.” My voice suddenly sounded tired, too.

  He smiled again, his head still back against the seat, eyes almost closed. “If the Lieutenant hadn’t popped a major gasket, would I be on my way to a secured facility, right now?”

  I buckled myself into the driver’s seat and started the Jeep.

  “You didn’t answer me,” he said, voice low but insistent.

  I put the Jeep in gear. “Maybe, I
don’t know. If Dolph hadn’t been popping a major gasket, as you put it, then he’d never have even thought of putting you in a facility. I eased out of the parking area. “But he might have called you in for questioning. You are pretty scratched up, and you are a werewolf.” I shrugged.

  He stretched his arms up over his head, arching his body against the seat, stretching all the way to his toes. It was an oddly graceful gesture. The movement flashed the cuts on his arms, making his T-shirt sleeves ride up, and he added a writhing movement, like a shudder, or a wave that flowed from the tip of his fingers, down his arms, his chest, the arch of his neck, his waist, the ripeness of his hips, down the muscles of his thighs, to his calves, to his toes.

  A loud honking and the screech of brakes brought me back to the road, and the fact that I was driving. I managed not to hit anyone, but it was close. I threaded my way through a forest of rude gestures and Jason’s laughter.

  “I feel better now,” he said, laughter still thick in his voice.

  I glanced at him, frowning. His blue eyes were sparkling, his face suddenly glowing with glee. I struggled, but finally had to smile back. Jason had always been able to do that to me, make me smile when I didn’t want to.

  “What is so damned funny?” I said, but there was an edge of laughter in my voice that I couldn’t quite swallow.

  “I was trying to flirt, and it worked. You’ve never reacted to my body before, not even when I was naked.”

  I concentrated on the road, really hard, while the blush burned my face.

  He chortled. “You’re blushing for me. Oh, God, yes!”

  “Keep it up and you are going to piss me off.” I turned onto Clark, and headed for the Circus.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” He looked at me, and I couldn’t read the look on his face. Puzzlement, delight, and something else.

  “Get what?” I asked.

  “I’m not invisible on your guy-radar anymore.”

  “What?”

  “You notice men, Anita, but you’d never noticed me. I was beginning to feel like the court eunuch.”