“But you don’t sleep naked in a bed with them.”
“I don’t sleep naked in a bed with Asher either. He takes blood from me so he can fuck you. It may be sensual, but it’s not about sex; it’s about blood.”
I frowned, trying to think my way through the tangle that had become my love life. “But Micah’s implying that Asher sees you as more than food.”
“I’m not implying,” Micah said. “I’m stating that if Asher didn’t think you and Jean-Claude would be pissed, he’d have already asked Nathaniel to be more than friends.”
I stared from one to the other of them. “He would?”
They both nodded in unison, as if they’d practiced.
“And you both knew this?”
They nodded again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you, or I, were always there to protect Nathaniel,” Micah said. “Now we won’t be.”
I sighed.
“I’ll be okay,” Nathaniel said. “If I’m really that worried about my virtue, I’ll bunk in with Jason.” He smiled even wider.
“What’s so funny?” I asked. I sounded angry, because I had totally missed the whole Asher-liking-Nathaniel thing. Sometimes I felt slow, and sometimes I felt totally unprepared for dealing with the men in my life.
“The look on your face, so worried, so surprised.” He bounced up off the bed, leaving the sheet behind him. He crawled toward me, naked and beautiful. I was at the end of the bed and had nowhere to go. But he came at me so fast that I tried to back up and ended up falling off the bed. I sat naked on the floor, trying to decide if I had any dignity left to save.
Nathaniel leaned over the bed and grinned at me. “If I tell you that was really cute, will you be mad at me?”
“Yes,” I said, but I was fighting not to smile.
He leaned his upper body off the bed, toward me. “Then I won’t say it,” he said. “I love you, Anita.” He leaned down, but if we were going to kiss I’d have to come to my knees and meet him halfway.
I moved into the kiss he was offering and whispered against his lips, “I love you, too.”
“Tell me what city we’re flying to,” Micah said from the bed, “and I’ll see about flights.”
I broke the kiss enough to mumble, “Philadelphia.”
Nathaniel leaned in to me again, one hand holding on to the bedpost to keep him in place. The muscles of his arm flexed effortlessly as he used the other hand to smooth hair away from my face. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” I said, and I realized that I meant it. But one “assistant” I might be able to explain to the FBI, not two. Two and they’d begin to wonder who they were and exactly what they were assisting me with. Or that’s what I told myself. Staring into the startling lavender of Nathaniel’s eyes, I wondered if I cared what the FBI thought of me enough to leave him behind. Almost not. Almost.
CHAPTER
2
We picked up Larry’s files on the way to the airport. Micah drove so I could find a phone number to call and let everyone in Philly know that there’d been a change of cast. The business card read, Special Agent Chester Fox.
He answered on the second ring. “Fox.” Not even a hello. What was it about police work that made you have bad phone manners?
“This is Federal Marshal Anita Blake. You’re expecting Marshal Kirkland this morning?”
“He’s not coming,” Fox guessed.
“No, but I am.”
“What happened to Kirkland?”
“His wife is in the hospital.” I wondered how much I owed him on the phone. I decided not much.
“I hope she’s going to be all right.” His voice had lost some of its edge. He sounded almost friendly. It made me think better of him.
“She probably will, but they’re not sure about the baby.”
Silence for a moment. I’d probably over-shared. That girlness again. Harder to be terse.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry that Marshal Kirkland couldn’t make it and even sorrier for the reason. I hope things work out for them.”
“Me, too. So I’m filling in.”
“I know who you are, Marshal Blake.” He was back to not sounding entirely happy. “Your reputation precedes you.” That last was definitely not happy.
“Are we going to have a problem here, Agent Fox?”
“Special Agent Fox,” he said.
“Fine, are we going to have a problem here, Special Agent Fox?”
“Are you aware that you have the highest kill count of any legal vampire executioner in this country?”
“Yeah, actually, I am aware of that.”
“You’re coming here to raise the dead, Marshal, not execute anyone. Is that clear?”
Now I was getting pissed. “I don’t kill people for the hell of it, Special Agent Fox.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard.” His voice was quiet.
“Don’t believe all the rumors you hear, Fox.”
“If I believed them all, I wouldn’t let you step foot in my city, Blake.”
Micah touched my leg, just to be comforting, while he drove one-handed. We were already on 70, which meant we’d be at the airport in moments.
“You know, Fox, if you’re this unhappy with me, we can turn around and not come. Raise your own damn zombie.”
“We?”
“I’m bringing an assistant,” I said, voice angry.
“And exactly what does he assist you with?” And his voice was full of that tone, that tone that men have been using against women for centuries. That tone that manages to imply we’re sluts without ever saying so.
“I’m going to be very clear here, Special Agent Fox.” My voice held that calm, cold anger that I used in place of screaming. Micah’s hand tightened on my thigh. “Your attitude makes me think we won’t be able to work together. That you’ve listened to so many rumors that you wouldn’t know truth if it bit you on the ass.”
He started to say something, but I cut him off.
“Think very carefully about the next thing you say, Special Agent Fox, because depending on what it is, I may or may not be seeing you in Philly today, or ever.”
“Are you saying if I don’t play nice, you won’t play at all?” His voice was as cold as mine had been.
“Nice, hell. Fox, I’d just take professional at this point. What has got your panties in a twist about me?”
He sighed over the phone. “I researched the federal marshals who are also animators. It’s a short list.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it is.”
“Kirkland comes in, does the job, leaves. Every time you get involved in a case, it all seems to go to hell.”
I took a deep breath and counted to twenty. Ten didn’t do it. “Go back through and look at the kind of cases that I get called in on, Fox. No one calls me in unless things have already gone south. It’s not cause and effect.”
“You have worked some rough shit. I’ll grant that, Marshal Blake.” He sighed again. “But you’ve got a reputation for killing first and asking questions later. As for rumors, you’re right—they don’t paint a very flattering picture of you.”
“You might bear in mind, Fox, that any man you’ve heard dirty stories about me from didn’t get to fuck me.”
“You’re sure of that.”
“Absolutely.”
“So you’re saying that it’s sour grapes, because he didn’t get the prize.”
“So we are talking about someone specific. Who?”
He was quiet for a second or two. “You worked a serial killer case in New Mexico about two years ago. Do you remember it?”
“Anyone who worked that case will remember it, Agent Fox. Special Agent Fox. Some things you don’t forget.”
“Did you date anyone while you were out there?”
The question puzzled me. “You mean in New Mexico?”
“Yes.”
“No, why?”
“There was a cop named Ramirez.”
“I remember Detective Ramirez. He asked me out, I said no, and he didn’t trash me.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Because he was a good guy, and good guys don’t trash you just because you turned them down.”
Micah was idling in front of one of the parking garages on Pear Tree Lane. We’d turned off of 70, and I hadn’t really noticed. “Are we parking?” he asked. What Micah was asking was, Are we going to Philadelphia?
“Did any of the agents on scene ask you out?” His voice was serious and not hostile now.
“Not that I remember.”
“Did you have a problem with anyone while you were there?”
“Lots of people.”
“You admit it.”
“Fox, I am female, I clean up well, have a badge and a gun, raise the dead for a living, and slay vampires. A lot of people have issues with some of the above. Hell, a lieutenant in New Mexico quoted the Bible at me.”
“What quote?”
“ ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ ”
“He did not.” He sounded shocked, something you don’t hear much from the FBI.
“Yeah, he did.”
“What did you do?”
“I planted a big kiss right on his mouth.”
He made a startled sound that could have been a laugh. “You really did?”
“It bothered him a hell of a lot more than hitting him would have, and it didn’t get me dragged out in cuffs. But I’m betting the other cops who saw me do it gave him hell.”
Fox was laughing now.
There were cars behind us, honking. “Anita, are we going?” Micah asked.
“My assistant wants to know if we’re going to Philly today. Are we?”
Fox’s voice still held that edge of laughter. “Yeah, come on down.”
I said to Micah, “We’re going to Philly.”
Fox said, “Marshal Blake, I am going to do what I never do, and if you tell anyone I did, I’ll deny it.”
“What are you going to do?”
Micah pressed the big red button on the little stand-up ticket machine. He waited for our parking ticket to pop out. I’d told him to do valet. When you drag your ass in at zero-dark-thirty, valet was worth it.
“I apologize,” Fox said. “I listened to someone who was there in New Mexico. His version of your run-in with the lieutenant was different from yours.”
“What did he say?”
We were in the dimness of the parking garage now. “He said you hit on a married man and got pissy when he said no.”
“If you’d ever met Lieutenant Marks, you’d know that wasn’t true.”
“Not cute enough?”
I hesitated. “I guess physically he wasn’t that bad, but looks aren’t everything. Personality, good manners, sanity—all nice things to have.”
Micah had pulled around the little glass building.
The attendant was coming toward us. We were moments away from needing to get out of the car. “If we’re going to make the flight, I gotta go.”
“Why’d you turn down Detective Ramirez?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure it was any of his business, but I answered. “I was dating someone back home. I didn’t think it was fair to any of us to complicate things.”
“Someone said you were all over him at the last crime scene.”
I knew what he was referring to. “We hugged each other, Agent Fox, because after seeing what was in that house I think we both needed to touch something warm and alive. I let one man hold my hand and all the other men think I’m fucking him. God, there are times when I really hate being the only woman around this kind of shit.”
I was out of the car. Micah was getting our bags from the back.
“Now that’s not fair, Marshal. If I’d hugged Ramirez or let him hold my hand, there’d be rumors, too.”
It stopped me for a second, and then I laughed. “Well, damn, I guess you’re right.”
Micah had traded the key for a little ticket stub. He popped the handles on the carry-on bags so they’d roll. I took one of them but let him take my briefcase, since I was still on the phone. The little bus was waiting for us and a few more passengers.
“I look forward to meeting you, Marshal Blake. Time I stopped listening to secondhand stories.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“See you on the ground.” And he was gone.
I folded the phone shut and was already going up the bus steps before the attendant tried to take my bag. It was the skirt outfit and the heels. I always had more offers to help with luggage when I was dressed like a girl.
Micah came up behind me, mostly ignored, though he was dressed up, too. We’d chosen his most conservative suit, but there’s only so much you can do with a black Italian-cut designer suit. It looked like what it was: expensive.
No one would mistake him for a Fed of any kind. We’d pulled his thick, curly hair back in a tight French braid, which almost gave the illusion of short hair. He’d put on a white shirt with the suit and a conservative tie.
We settled into the back row of seats. He’d kept his sunglasses on even in the darkened parking garage, because behind those dark glasses was a pair of leopard eyes. A very bad man had forced him into animal form long enough, and often enough, that he couldn’t return completely to human form. His eyes were yellow-green, chartreuse, and not human. They were beautiful in the tan of his skin, but they tended to freak people out, hence the glasses.
I wondered how the FBI would take the eyes. Did I care? No. Things had worked out with Special Agent Fox, or seemed to be working out. But someone who had been in New Mexico was trashing me. Who? Why? Did I care? Yeah, actually, I did.
CHAPTER
3
I hate to fly. I’m phobic of it, and we’ll leave it at that. I didn’t bleed Micah, but I left little half-moon nail impressions in his hand, though I didn’t realize it until after we’d landed and were getting our bags from overhead. Then I asked him, “Why didn’t you tell me I was hurting you?”
“I didn’t mind.”
I frowned at him, wishing I could see his eyes, though truthfully they probably wouldn’t have told me anything.
Micah had never been a cop, but he had been at the mercy of a crazy person for a few years. He’d learned to keep his thoughts off his face, so that his old leader didn’t beat those thoughts off for him. It meant that he had one of the most peaceful, empty faces I’d ever met. A patient, waiting sort of face like saints and angels should have but never seem to.
Micah didn’t like pain, not the way Nathaniel did. So he should have said something about the nails digging into his skin. It bugged me that he hadn’t.
We got trapped in the aisle of the plane, because everyone else had stood up and grabbed their bags, too. We had time for me to lean in against his back and ask, “Why didn’t you say something?”
He leaned back, smiling down at me. “Truthfully?”
I nodded.
“It was sort of nice to be the brave one for a change.”
I frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turned enough so he could lay a kiss, gently, on my lips. “It means that you are the bravest person I’ve ever met, and sometimes, just sometimes, that’s hard on the men in your life.”
I didn’t kiss him back. For the first time ever with him, I did not respond to his touch. I was too busy frowning and trying to decide if I should be insulted.
“What, I’m too brave to be a girl? What kind of macho bullshit—” He kissed me. Not a little kiss, but as if he’d melt into me through my mouth. His hands slid up over the leather of my jacket. He pressed himself against me, so that every inch of him was pressed against every inch of me. He kissed me long enough and held me close enough that I felt when his body began to be happy to be there.
He drew back, leaving me breathless and gasping. I swallowed hard and managed a breathy, “No fair.”
“I don’t want to
fight, Anita.”
“No fair,” I said again.
He laughed, that wonderful, irritating masculine sound that said just how delighted he was with the effect he could have on me. His lips were bright with the red of my lipstick. Which probably meant I looked like I was wearing clown makeup now.
I tried to scowl at him but couldn’t quite manage it. It was hard to scowl when I was fighting off a stupid grin. You cannot be angry and grin at the same time. Dammit.
The line was moving. Micah started pushing his carry-on ahead of him. I liked to pull mine behind me, but he liked to push. He had the briefcase, too. He’d pointed out that as the assistant he should be carrying more. I might have argued, but he’d kissed me, and I couldn’t think fast enough to argue.
Micah had had about the same effect on me from the first moment I’d met him. It had been lust at almost first sight or maybe first touch. I was still a little embarrassed about that. It wasn’t like me to fall for someone so quickly, or so hard. I’d really expected it to burn out or for us to have some huge fight and end it, but six months and counting. Six months and no breakup. It was a record for me. I’d dated Jean-Claude for a couple of years, but it had been off again, on again. Most of my relationships were. Micah was the only one who had ever come into my life and managed to stay.
Part of how he managed it was that every time he touched me I just fell to pieces. Or that’s what it felt like. It felt weak, and very girlie, and I didn’t like it.
The flight attendant hoped I’d had a pleasant flight. She was smiling just a little too hard. How much lipstick was I wearing and on how much of my face?
The only saving grace was we could hit a bathroom and get cleaned up before we met the FBI. They could pass through security with their badges, but these days even the Feds didn’t like to abuse their privileges around airport security.
I was wearing my gun in its shoulder holster but I’d been certified to carry on an airplane. Federal marshal or no, you had to go through special training these days to carry on a plane. Sigh.
I got some looks and a few giggles as I hit the main part of the airport. I sooo needed a mirror.
Micah turned, fighting not to grin. “I made a mess of your lipstick. Sorry.”
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