Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I let you down.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” I lay back down on the bed. Sitting up didn’t hurt, but it didn’t exactly feel good either. “What I meant was that loving people changes you. It’s changed me, too. I’m softer in some ways, harder in others. I haven’t compromised myself as much as you have.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m not trying to live with someone who doesn’t know who and what I am. I’m not driving an eight-year-old to ballet class.”

  “My schedule’s easier to move around than Donna’s.”

  “I know. She runs her own metaphysical store. I remember, but that’s not the point, Edward. The point is that I’m not trying to live a normal life. I’m not even trying to pretend that what I do, and what I am, is normal.”

  “If you had kids, you’d have to try.”

  I nodded. “The pregnancy scare last month made me have to look at that. I don’t see myself ever getting pregnant on purpose. If it happens accidentally we’ll deal, but my life doesn’t work with babies.”

  “You’re saying mine doesn’t either.” He sounded sad, and I hadn’t expected that.

  “No, I mean, I don’t know. It doesn’t work for me because I’m the girl. I’m the one pregnant, and, God forbid, nursing. Sheer biology makes it harder for me to combine gunplay and kids.”

  “I can’t marry Donna, can I?”

  The voice in my head screamed, Nooo, you can’t. But out loud I said, “Again, I can’t answer that. Hell, Edward, I have enough trouble with my own life, I can’t run yours.”

  He gave me a look; it was an Edward look, but there was something in the eyes, something that wasn’t cold, no, it was definitely warm, hot even. I watched the force of personality that could kill gather in his eyes. But what was it gathering for?

  “Edward,” I said, softly, “don’t do anything right now that you’ll regret later.”

  “We kill the vampire that caused this,” he said.

  “Well, of course,” I said. “I meant don’t make any hasty decisions about Donna and the kids. I don’t know much, but I do know that if Peter does turn furry they’ll need you more than ever.”

  “If he does turn furry, can I bring him up here to talk to your friends?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He nodded. He looked at me, his eyes softening a little. “I know you think I should leave Donna and the kids. You’ve always thought it was a bad idea.”

  “Maybe, but you love them, and they love you. Love’s hard to come by, Edward; you should never throw it away just because it’s a bad idea.”

  He laughed. “That made no sense at all.”

  “I’m trying here; what I meant to say was that you all love each other. If you can just make Peter stay home long enough to finish his training…I think in a few years, if he still wants to, he can join the family business, but he isn’t ready now. Put your foot down and explain it like that and make it stick.”

  He nodded. “You think he can do it, what we do?”

  “I think so, if this little adventure didn’t take all the fun out of it for him.”

  He nodded again. “I’ll go find a doctor.” He walked out without a backward glance. I lay in the bed, listening to the sudden whispering silence of the room. I prayed that Peter wouldn’t be a lycanthrope. I prayed that the council wouldn’t let the Harlequin declare war on us. I prayed that we’d all survive. Well, I guess it was too late for Cisco. I hadn’t known him that well, but he’d died defending me. He’d died at eighteen doing his job, defending the people he’d signed up to defend. It was an honorable death, a good death, so why didn’t that make me feel better? Did he have family? Was he somebody’s little boy? Someone’s sweetheart? Who was crying right now for him? Or was there no one to mourn him? Were we, his coworkers and friends, all he had? Strangely, that thought made me more sad than any of the thoughts that had come before.

  36

  THERE WAS A soft knock at the door. Edward wouldn’t knock, and if a doctor knocks it’s followed with an opening door. Who knocks in a hospital? I asked, “Who is it?”

  The answer came, “It’s Truth.”

  A second voice called, “And Wicked.”

  They were brothers, and vampires, and had only recently joined Jean-Claude’s group. The first time I’d met them, Truth had nearly died trying to help me catch a bad guy. They’d been warriors and mercenaries for centuries. Now they were ours. Jean-Claude’s and mine.

  Wicked came through the door first, in his pale-brown designer suit, tailored to the wide sweep of shoulder and the strain of muscles in his arms and legs. He actually went to the gym and had added some bulk to the muscles they’d both started with. His shirt was buttoned up tight, with an elegant tie and a gold tie clip. His blond hair was cut long enough to cover his ears, but still had a few inches to go before it reached shoulder length. He was clean-shaven so that the deep dimple in his chin showed. He was handsome, utterly masculine, and utterly modern from his haircut to his shined shoes. Only the sword hilt peeking from behind one shoulder spoiled the modern effect.

  Truth followed at his brother’s side as he usually did. He had the same half-growth of dark beard he’d had since I met him. It wasn’t a beard, just as if when he’d died he hadn’t shaved in a while, and he’d never gotten around to changing it. The almost-beard hid the clean, perfect masculine face, the dimple that they shared. You had to stare at them side-by-side for a while to realize how terribly much alike they looked. Truth’s hair was shoulder length, a dark, nondescript brown that was almost black. The hair wasn’t exactly stringy, but it was far from his brother’s shining halo of hair. He wore leather, but it wasn’t Goth leather. It was like fifteenth-century battle-hardened leather crossed with modern motorcycle leather. His boots were knee high, and they had a look about them that said they might be as old as he was, but they fit, they were comfortable, and they were just his boots. He liked them in the way that some men like that favorite chair that has molded to their bodies. So what if they were a little patched and worn; they were comfy.

  Truth had a sword at his back, too. I knew they both were carrying guns—one hidden under the beautiful suit jacket, the other hidden under a leather jacket that had seen better days. The brothers were always well armed.

  “Requiem said he didn’t trust himself around you, so Jean-Claude sent us,” Wicked said. He said it with a smile that filled his blue eyes with speculation.

  “Why would Requiem say that?” Truth asked. His eyes were the mirrors of his brother’s, but the expression in them was totally different. Truth was so sincere it almost hurt. Wicked always seemed to be laughing at me, or at himself, or the world in general.

  “The Harlequin messed with his mind.”

  “So he didn’t trust himself to keep you safe,” Truth said.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  There was another knock on the door, but Graham opened it and peeked through. “We’ve got company out here.”

  Wicked and Truth were suddenly on alert. It was hard to explain, but cops do it, too. One minute normal, ordinary, then suddenly they were on. They were ready.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The lions’ Rex.”

  I blinked at Graham. “You mean Joseph?”

  Graham nodded.

  “What’s that bastard doing here?” Wicked asked.

  “I think that’s my line,” I said.

  Wicked gave me a small half-bow. “Sorry about that.”

  I said, “What does he want?”

  Graham leaned the door closed and licked his lips. “I think he wants to beg your forgiveness, or something like that.”

  “I don’t feel very forgiving,” I said. I smoothed down the sheets on my hospital bed. No, I didn’t feel very forgiving.

  “I know,” Graham said, “but he’s out here alone. The lions left you and the vampires and our Ulfric to die. You don’t owe them anything.”

  “Then why tell her he’s o
utside?” Wicked asked.

  Graham licked his lips again. “Because if I didn’t tell Anita, and she found out later he’d come to see her, she’d be mad.”

  “Why would I be mad?” I asked.

  “Because of what Joseph thinks is about to happen to his lions.”

  “His lions are no concern of mine anymore,” I said, and I believed that down to the hard, cold feeling in my heart.

  Graham nodded. “Okay, but don’t say later that I didn’t tell you, because I did.” He moved away from the door so he could open it.

  “Wait,” I said.

  Graham turned and looked at me, hand on the door handle.

  “What do you mean, what’s about to happen to the lions?”

  “It’s not our concern, you said so,” Truth said.

  I looked at the tall vampire, shook my head, and then looked back to Graham. “I feel like I’m missing something. Just in case I do care, a little, someone explain what I’m missing.”

  “Asher invited the lions from Chicago back,” Graham said.

  “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “When you and Jean-Claude were dying,” Truth said.

  “And Richard,” Graham added. “Our Ulfric was dying, too.”

  Truth gave a small bow from the neck. “I meant no offense, wolf.”

  Graham said, grudgingly, “It’s okay.”

  “The vampires would not have listened to your Ulfric,” Wicked said. There was something in the way he said it, the way he stood, that said he wanted a fight.

  “Don’t pick a fight, Wicked,” I said.

  He turned just enough to give me a little bit of his eyes. “That’s not picking.”

  “I don’t feel well enough to mess with it. I need everyone to be a grown-up, okay?”

  Wicked gave me a look that wasn’t entirely friendly, but he didn’t say anything else. I’d take sullen silence. The brothers were an asset, the muscle we’d needed for a while, but they bothered me, too. There was always this feeling that they weren’t quite the obedient little vampires they might have been. Maybe it was the fact that I knew they’d spent centuries with all vampires turned against them. They’d killed the head of their bloodline when he went crazy and sent his vampires out to slaughter humans. Their crime hadn’t been slaying him, because the vampire council had decided he needed killing. Their crime had been surviving his death. Superstition said that lesser vampires died when the head of their bloodline died. Jean-Claude said it was true of weaker vampires, but it was supposed to be true of all vampires. I think it was a way to discourage palace coups. But Wicked and Truth were proof that it wasn’t true, not if you were powerful enough. And of course, only the very powerful would attempt to overthrow their creator.

  I had given the brothers shelter, a master to call their own. Truth would have died if I hadn’t shared Jean-Claude’s power with him. And where one brother went they both went, so Wicked was ours, too.

  “Tell me about the lions,” I said.

  “Asher was in charge of the city as Jean-Claude’s témoin, his second-in-command,” Truth said.

  “So?”

  “He is not the second most powerful vampire in St. Louis. We thought”—and by we he always meant his brother and himself—“that sentimentality had clouded Jean-Claude’s judgment. But there are other qualities in a leader than vampire powers. He was decisive, ruthless, and swift.”

  “What was he decisive, ruthless, and swift about?” I asked.

  “We needed extra muscle,” Graham said.

  “You said that.”

  Graham nodded.

  “Just tell me. I won’t be mad.”

  Wicked laughed, a loud bray of sound that was nothing like the perfect masculine chuckle he usually allowed himself. “Don’t promise until you know.”

  “I’ll know if you tell me,” I said, and already there was a thread of anger in my tone. Damn it.

  “Asher called Augustine in Chicago. He asked for soldiers,” Wicked said.

  “He let Auggie send his werelions back into our territory,” I said.

  Wicked and Truth nodded. Truth asked, “Do you understand what that means for St. Louis’s Rex and his pride?”

  I lay in the bed and thought about it. I did know. “I sent Auggie’s lions back to Chicago in November because they would have taken over Joseph’s pride. He doesn’t have anyone strong enough to protect them from the brutes that Auggie has.”

  “I’m not sure they’d like being called brutes,” Wicked said, “but it’s accurate.” He smiled, a most unpleasant smile that turned his handsome face to something else. Something more basic, less practiced, more real. Wicked and Truth had honor; you could bank on that honor, trust it. If they’d been one inch less honorable, they would have been totally untrustworthy, and too dangerous to keep.

  “Have they moved on Joseph’s pride?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Graham said. “I think they’re waiting to talk to you first.”

  “Me, not Jean-Claude,” I said.

  “They talked to Jean-Claude. He’s removed his protection from the lions.”

  “It’s all up to you, babe,” Wicked said.

  “Micah is the head of the furry coalition,” I said.

  “Micah kicked them out, unless you make him put them back in,” Graham said.

  “When your Nimir-Raj found out what the St. Louis lions had done, he accused them of having broken the treaty with both the wolves and the leopards,” Truth said.

  Wicked continued the story. “Since they broke the treaty, they are no longer allies of the coalition. So the coalition members don’t owe them anything.”

  “So when Auggie’s lions attack, no one will come to their aid,” I said, my voice soft.

  “Exactly,” Wicked said. He seemed pleased.

  Graham said, “Joseph is outside, alone. He thinks you will be the weak link.”

  I looked at Graham, because it was odd wording. “You think I should let Joseph and his people fry.”

  “They betrayed us,” Graham said. I saw something in his face then, a hardness that I hadn’t noticed before. He could be a good bodyguard when he wasn’t trying to fuck something, but he wasn’t hard, or ruthless. Not until now.

  I remembered what I’d said to Edward. I’d planned on taking revenge on the werelions. Edward was going to help me. But I’d met Joseph and his people, knew them. They were real, and they weren’t all a waste of time. Travis and Noel had helped feed me for months while I tried to find a more permanent lion. They were too weak to satisfy my lioness, but they were good kids.

  “Do I send him away?” Graham asked, as if that was what he wanted to do.

  I thought about it. It would be so easy to just refuse to see him. Then I could be ruthless and hard-hearted, and not have to look the man in the face who I was condemning to death. I might be able to keep Auggie’s lions from slaughtering all the pride, but one death would be an absolute must—Joseph’s.

  “Send him in,” I said.

  “You think that’s a good idea?” Wicked asked. He managed to keep his voice neutral.

  “It’d be easier not to see him,” I said.

  “Then why see him?” Wicked said.

  “Because it would be easier.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Truth said.

  I looked up at the other vampire. We exchanged a long look. He understood why I had to turn Joseph away in person: because if I couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him the truth, then maybe it was the wrong thing to do. I had to see him, to know whether I could stand by and let nature take its course with the lions in our city. The lions weren’t my problem, damn it. They had betrayed us. They would have let us all die. Their moral superiority had been worth more to them than the lives of our vampires. I wouldn’t cause them harm, but I was done stepping in and saving them. Or that’s what I told myself when I told Graham to open the door.

  37

  I WATCHED JOSEPH walk
toward the bed. He was tall with dark blond hair cut short. He was dressed for a business meeting in a suit complete with tie. I was betting his wife, Julia, had picked the outfit. He started undoing the tie before he got to Wicked and Truth. They stopped him a little short of the bed. Normally, I might have thought they were being overly cautious, but my body agreed with them. I was healing, but only through a miracle of metaphysics; eventually you run out of miracles.

  “Anita, how are you doing?” He tried for a neutral tone but it came out nervous.

  “Ted Forrester has gone to find a doc. I may get out of bed today.”

  “That’s great,” and the relief chased over his face. His hands flexed and unflexed. “Julia said you’d be all right. She said that you’d find someone else to feed on. She said you would all be all right, and you are.” He was talking a little too fast, as if even he didn’t believe it.

  “Who are you trying to convince, Joseph, me or you?” My voice was flat and my eyes empty. I’d had dinner with him at my house. I’d thought he was a good man. But in the end, he’d let us die.

  “Anita.” He tried to step closer to the bed, but the vampires stopped him.

  “You’re close enough,” Wicked said.

  “I would never harm her.”

  I raised the hospital gown, showed him the healing wounds that crossed my stomach and ribs. “The only thing that made me powerful enough to heal this was Donovan Reece’s letting me feed on every swanmane in this country. He gave me the power to live through this.”

  Joseph’s face had paled. “I’m married, Anita. Julia and I take our vows very seriously.”

  “If you were human that would be fine, Joseph, but you aren’t human. You’re a werelion. A werelion who owed allegiance to his allies. We needed you, and you failed us.”

  He went to his knees. “Do you want me to beg? I’ll beg.”

  I shook my head. “My lioness has never wanted you, Joseph. Had you ever wondered why? Why wouldn’t she want the strongest lion she could find? That’s what she’s programmed to do.” I felt the lioness stir down that long dark tunnel in my head, or in my gut. I thought calm thoughts at her, and she stilled. I was almost surprised that it worked. I said a little prayer of thanks, and went back to paying attention to the lion in front of me.