Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  I passed my hand over the damp sheets. Even the pillow was wet as if that thick wet hair had laid across it. My throat felt tight, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have said there were tears in my eyes. Naw, surely not. I mean I’d been the one that dumped Richard. Why should I cry?

  The print above the bed was another Van Gogh, Sunflowers this time. I wondered if every cabin had a Van Gogh print in a color that matched the decor. Yeah, maybe if I concentrated on the room’s furnishings, I wouldn’t keep wondering if Lucy had looked up at the melting sunflowers while Richard . . .

  I cut that particular visual off. I didn’t need to go there—ever. Did I really think that Richard was going to stay chaste while I boffed Jean-Claude? Did I really expect him to just wait around? Maybe I had. Stupid, but maybe true.

  The bathroom door was still closed. I could hear water running. Was he taking another shower? Maybe he was just wetting down his hair. Maybe. Or maybe he was cleaning off. Sex was never as neat as the movies made it. Real sex was messy. Good sex was messier.

  Three months with Jean-Claude, and I was a sex expert. It was almost funny. I’d been chaste until he came along. Not virginal. My fiancé in college had taken care of that. I’d fallen into my fiancé’s arms with the trust that only first love can give you. It was one of the last naive things I ever did.

  Richard and I had been engaged, briefly. But we’d never had sex. We’d both been chaste since our first experience in college with other people. Just a personal choice that we both shared. Maybe if we’d given in to that lust, there wouldn’t be so much heat left between us. Of course, lately, we’d been mostly fighting.

  Richard had been too kindhearted, too tender, too squeamish to rule the wolf pack. He’d had a chance to kill the old Ulfric, Marcus, twice; and twice Richard refused the kill. No kill, no new Ulfric. I urged him to kill Marcus. And after he did it, I dumped him. Unfair, wasn’t it? Of course, I hadn’t told him to eat Marcus, just to kill him. What’s a little cannibalism between friends?

  The water was still running in the bathroom. If I hadn’t been afraid he’d answer dripping wet in nothing but a towel, I’d have knocked and asked him to hurry. But I’d seen enough of Mr. Zeeman for one day. Less was definitely more.

  There were pictures pinned above the desk. I walked towards them. I’d had one semester of Primate Studies: North American. We’d all called it troll class. The Lesser Smokey Mountain Troll is one of the smallest of the North American trolls. They average between three and a half feet to five feet. They are mostly vegetarians but will supplement their diet with carrion and insects. I let all the stats run through my head as I walked towards the pictures. They were covered in blackish fur from head to foot. Crouched in the trees, huddled together, they looked like tall chimpanzees or slender gorillas, but there were pictures of them walking. They were completely bipedal. The only primate except man that walked upright.

  The close-up shots of faces were startling. Their faces were more furry than the great apes and more manlike. Some early theories had said trolls were the missing link between man and ape. There had been at least two famous cases of circuses in the early 1900s that toured with trolls but listed them as wild men. American settlers had been killing trolls for centuries. By the early 1900s, they’d been rare enough to be oddities.

  Two things happened in 1910 that saved the trolls from utter destruction. One: a scientific article was published that said that the trolls used tools and buried their dead with flowers and personal articles. The scientist very carefully did not project anything beyond the basic findings, but the newspapers did. They declared that trolls believed in an afterlife, that they believed in God.

  An evangelical minister named Simon Barkley felt that God spoke to him. He went out and captured a troll and tried to convert him to Christianity. He wrote a book about his experiences with Peter (the troll), and it became a best-seller. Suddenly, trolls were a cause célèbre.

  One of my biology profs had kept a black-and-white photo of Peter the Troll up in his office. Peter had his head bowed and his hands clasped. He was even wearing clothes, though Minister Barkley was always distressed that without constant supervision, Peter disrobed.

  I wasn’t sure how good a time Peter had with Barkley, but he saved his species from almost certain extinction. Peter had been a North American Cave Troll, the only species on this continent smaller than the Lesser Smokey. Barkley had been moved by the spirit of God, but he hadn’t been stupid. There had still been Greater Smokey Mountain Trolls in those days, eight to twelve feet tall and carnivorous. Barkley hadn’t tried to save one of them. Probably just as well. It would have been a real downer if the troll had eaten Barkley instead of praying for him.

  Trolls were the first protected species in America. The Greater Smokey Mountain Troll was not protected. It was hunted to extinction; but then, it pulled up large trees and beat the tourists to death and sucked the marrow from their bones. Hard to get good press that way.

  There was still a troll society called Peter’s Friends. Even though it was illegal to kill trolls, any trolls, for any reason, it still happened. Hunters poached them. Though staring into those too-human faces, I don’t know how they did it. Not just for a trophy.

  Richard stepped out of the bathroom in a rush of warm air. He was still wearing the jeans, but now there was a towel on his head and a blow-dryer in one hand. He had rewet his hair, though he seemed to have gotten all of him in the shower to do it. Mercifully, he’d dried his chest and arms off. His arms looked amazingly strong. I knew he could have tossed around small elephants, regardless of how muscular he looked, but the muscles helped remind me. Physically, he was a pleasure to gaze upon. But it made me wonder why he’d been spending the extra time on his body. Richard didn’t usually sweat that kind of thing.

  I pointed at the pictures. “These are great.” I smiled and meant it. Once upon a time, I’d envisioned spending my life in the field doing this kind of work. A sort of preternatural Jane Goodall. Though truthfully, primates hadn’t been my main area of interest. Dragons, maybe, or lake monsters. Nothing that wouldn’t eat me if it got the chance. But that had been long ago before Bert, my boss, recruited me to raise the dead and slay vampires. Sometimes, even though Richard was older than I was by three years, he made me feel old. He was still trying to have a life amid all the strange shit. I’d given up on anything but the strange shit. You couldn’t do both equally well—or I couldn’t.

  “I’ll take you up to see them, if you’d like,” he said.

  “I’d love to, if it wouldn’t upset the trolls.”

  “They’re pretty accustomed to visitors. Carrie—Dr. Onslow—has started allowing small groups of tourists to come and take pictures.”

  He’d mentioned a Carrie in the same breath with Lucy. Was this the same woman? “Are you guys that hard up for money?” I asked.

  He sat down on the side of the bed and plugged in the blow-dryer. “You’re always short of money on a project like this, but it’s not money we need. It’s good press.”

  I frowned at him. “Why do you need good press?”

  “Have you been reading the newspaper lately?” he asked. He removed the towel from his head. His hair was dark and brown with moisture, heavy, as if there was still water to be squeezed from it.

  “You know I don’t read the newspaper.”

  “You didn’t own a television, either, but you do now.”

  I leaned my butt against the edge of his desk, as far away from him as I could get and not leave the room. I’d bought the television so that he and I could watch old movies and videos.

  “I don’t watch much televison anymore.”

  “Jean-Claude not a fan of muscials?” Richard asked, and there was that edge to his voice that I’d heard in the last few weeks: angry, jealous, hurt, cruel.

  It was almost a relief to hear it. His anger made everything easier. “Jean-Claude’s not much of a watcher. He’s more a doer.”

  Richard’s face thi
nned out, anger making his high, sculpted cheekbones stand out underneath his skin. “Lucy isn’t much of a watcher, either,” he said, voice low and careful.

  I laughed, and it wasn’t a happy sound. “Thanks for making this easier, Richard.”

  He stared down at the floor, his wet hair tucked to one side so his face was in full profile. “I don’t want to fight, Anita. I really don’t.”

  “Could have fooled me,” I said.

  He looked up, and his chocolate brown eyes were dark with more than just color. “If I’d wanted a fight, I could have just given in to Lucy. Let you find us in the bed together.”

  “You’re not mine, anymore, Richard. Why should it bother me what the hell you do?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it?” He stood and started walking towards me.

  “Why did they frame you?” I asked. “Why did they want you in jail?”

  “That’s you, Anita. All business.”

  “And you let yourself get distracted, Richard. You don’t keep your eye on the ball.” Geez, a sports metaphor. Maybe it was contagious.

  “Fine,” he said, and that one word was so angry that it almost hurt. “The troll band that we’re studying has broken into two bands. Their birth rate is so low that they don’t do that very often. It’s the first recorded offshoot for a North American troll troop in this century.”

  “This is all fascinating, but what does it have to do with anything?”

  “Just shut up and listen,” he said.

  I did. That was a first.

  “The second smaller troop moved out of the park. They’ve been on private land for a little over a year. The farmer who owned the land was okay with that. In fact, he was sort of pleased. Carrie brought him up to see the first troll baby born on his land, and he carried the picture in his wallet.”

  I looked at him. “Sounds great.”

  “The farmer, Ivan Greene, died about six months ago. His son was not a nature lover.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “But trolls are a severely endangered species. And they’re not like the snail darter, or the velvet-back toad. They’re a big, showy animal. The son tried to sell the land, and we got it stopped legally.”

  “But the son wasn’t happy with that,” I said.

  Richard smiled. “Not hardly.”

  “So he took you to court,” I said.

  “Not exactly,” Richard said. “We expected him to do that. In fact, we should have known something was wrong when he didn’t keep us tied up in court.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  The anger was leaking away as Richard talked. He always had to work really hard to stay angry. Me, it was one of my best things. He retrieved the towel from the bed and started drying his hair while he talked.

  “Goats started disappearing from a local farmer.”

  “Goats?” I said.

  Richard peered at me through a curtain of wet hair. “Goats.”

  “Somebody’s been reading too much ‘Billy Goat Gruff,’” I said.

  Richard wrapped the towel more firmly around his head and sat down on the bed. “Exactly,” he said. “No one who really knew anything about trolls would have taken goats. Even the European Lesser Trolls that do hunt will take your dog before they’ll take your goat.”

  “So it was a setup,” I said.

  “Yeah, but the newspapers got hold of it. We were still okay until the dogs and cats started disappearing.”

  “They got smarter,” I said.

  “They listened to Carrie’s interviews where she discussed food preferences,” he said.

  I’d come to stand at the foot of the bed. “Why are the local cops interested in some land squabble?”

  “Wait, it gets worse,” he said.

  I picked up the spilled comforter and sat on the edge of the bed with it bundled in my lap. “How worse?”

  “A man’s body was found two weeks ago. It was just one of those horrible hiking acidents at first. He fell off the mountain. It happens,” Richard said.

  “Having seen some of the mountains, I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “But somehow the body was listed as a troll kill.”

  I frowned at him. “It’s not like a shark kill, Richard. How did they tell a troll did it?”

  “A troll didn’t do it,” Richard said.

  I nodded. “Of course not, but what was their proof, false or otherwise?”

  “Carrie tried to get the coroner’s report. But it was leaked to the newspapers first. The man had been beaten to death and had bites out of his body from animals. Troll bites.”

  I shook my head. “Anybody who dies in these mountains is going to have animal bites on the body. Trolls are known scavengers.”

  “Not according to Sheriff Wilkes,” Richard said.

  “What does the sheriff get out of this?”

  “Money,” Richard said.

  “Do you know that for sure?” I asked.

  “You mean, can I prove it?”

  I nodded.

  “No. Carrie’s been trying to see if there’s a paper trail, but so far, nothing. She’s been chasing around, trying to get me out of jail for the last few days.”

  “Is she the same Carrie you mentioned as a girlfriend in jail?” I asked.

  Richard nodded.

  “Aha,” I said.

  “Did you just say, aha?” he asked.

  “Yes, and I apologize for it, but what better way to keep Carrie from working on the mystery than to put her boyfriend in jail.”

  “I’m not her boyfriend anymore,” he said.

  I hurried past that little bit of knowledge. “Is it common knowledge that you’re not an item anymore?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then that may explain why they wanted you in jail. They framed you for rape because so far, Wilkes isn’t willing to kill.”

  “You think that will change?” Richard asked.

  I touched my swollen lip. “He’s already started upping the violence level.”

  Richard leaned across the bed until his fingertips touched the bruises on my face. It was a tentative touch like a butterfly’s wing. “Did Wilkes do this?”

  My heart was suddenly beating faster. “No,” I said, “Wilkes was very careful to only show up after all the bad guys needed an ambulance.”

  Richard smiled, fingers tracing the edge of my face, just beyond the bruises. “How many of them did you hurt?”

  My pulse was beating so hard, I was afraid he could see it jumping in my throat. “Just one.”

  Richard scooted just a little closer to me, hand still trailing up and down my cheek. “What did you do to him?”

  I didn’t know whether to move away or cuddle my aching face against the cool warmth of his hand. “I broke his arm and leg at the joint.”

  “Why did you do that?” Richard asked.

  “He was threatening Shang-Da, and he pulled a knife on me.” My voice sounded breathy.

  Richard leaned in close, then closer. He pulled the ridiculous towel from his head, and his thick hair fell in chilled, wet strands around his face, against my skin. His lips were so close to my mouth, I could feel his breath.

  I stood, stepping back from him, the comforter still bundled in my arms. I let it fall to the floor, and we stared at each other.

  “Why not, Anita? You want me. I can feel it, smell it, taste your pulse on my tongue.”

  “Thanks for that visual, Richard.”

  “You still want me after months in his bed. You still want me.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” I said.

  “Loyal to Jean-Claude now?” he asked.

  “Just trying not to fuck up any worse than I already have, Richard. That’s all.”

  “Regretting your choice?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No comment.”

  He stood and started towards me. I put a hand out, and he stopped. The weight of his gaze was almost touchable, as if I could feel what he was thinking, and i
t was personal and intimate, and things we’d never done before.

  “Sheriff Wilkes says get out of Dodge by dark tomorrow, take our bodyguards with us, and he’ll just forget everything. The rape charges will vanish, and you can go back to your normal life.”

  “I can’t do that, Anita. They’re talking about hunting the trolls down with guns and dogs. I’m not leaving until I know the trolls are safe.”

  I sighed. “School starts in less than two weeks. Are you going to stay here and lose your job?”

  “Do you really think Wilkes will let it go that long?” Richard asked.

  “No,” I said. “I think he or some of his men will start killing people first. We need to find out why this land is so valuable.”

  “If it’s minerals, Greene hasn’t filed the report, which means he doesn’t need goverment permission and doesn’t need partners.”

  “What do you mean permission and partners?”

  “If he’d found, say, emeralds on land that bordered the national park, then he’d have to file the claim and try to get permission to placer mine next to the park. If he’d found something that needed blasting and hard mining like maybe lead or something, then he might need partners to help him finance it. Then he’d need to file a claim to show the prospective partners.”

  “When did you start studing geology?” I asked.

  He smiled. “We’ve been trying to figure out what is on the land that is worth this much trouble. Minerals seemed the logical choice.”

  I nodded. “Agreed, but either it’s not minerals or it’s something private, and he doesn’t have to share that info, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I need to speak with Carrie and the other biologists,” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Why not tonight?”

  “You said it outside: arcane werewolf shit.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “It means that we’re four nights from the full moon, and you’re my lupa.”

  “I heard you’ve been taking applicants for the job,” I said.