Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  Olaf stared down at him. “You cannot mean to say that this girl, die Zimtzicke of a girl is better than Bernardo or me.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Die Zimtzicke meant a quarrelsome or bitchy woman. Couldn’t really argue with that one. I sighed. Olaf had hated me before. Now he was going to feel forced to be competitive. This I did not need. And compliment though it was, it was not reassuring to know that Edward fantasized about killing me. Oh, excuse me, hunting me while I was armed to see which of us was better. Oh, yeah, that was much more sane.

  I checked my watch. It was 1:30 A.M. “Frankly, boys, I don’t know whether to be flattered or frightened, but I do know one thing. It’s late, and I’m tired. If we are really going to see the big bad vampire tonight, then it has to be now.”

  “You just don’t want to look at the pictures tonight,” Edward said.

  I shook my head. “No, not just before trying to sleep. I don’t even want to read the forensic reports tonight. I’ll look at the gory remains first thing tomorrow.”

  “Afraid,” Olaf said.

  I met his angry eyes. “I need some sleep if I’m to function well while I’m here. If I see the pictures right before bedtime, I can’t guarantee sleep.”

  He turned back to Edward. “Your soul mate is a coward.”

  “No, she’s just honest.”

  “Thank you, Edward.” I went to stand closer to Olaf, so that I had to crane my neck back to see his face, and he loomed over me. There was really no way to get decent eye contact, so I stepped back to a more comfortable angle for my neck, and settled for meeting his deep-set eyes. “If I’d been a man I’d have probably felt compelled to look at the pictures, to prove myself worthy of all Edward’s praise. But one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men’s.”

  “Testosterone poisoning?” Olaf looked confused. Probably not a new sensation for him.

  “Show me to my room, then explain it to him, Edward. I want to get some extras if I’m going to be interviewing vamps tonight.”

  Edward led me past the brooding Olaf and out the door that everyone seemed to disappear through. The hallway was white and so unadorned it looked unfinished. He pointed out Bernardo’s room as the first door and Olaf’s was right beside mine.

  “Do you really think Olaf and I bunking next door to each other is a good idea?”

  “By putting you right beside him, it shows him I’m not afraid for you.”

  “But I am,” I said.

  He smiled. “Just take some basic precautions. You’ll be fine.”

  “Nice to know one of us is confident. If you hadn’t noticed, he outweighs me by like a ton.”

  “You’re talking like it would be a standup fight. I know you, Anita. If Olaf comes through your door tonight, you’ll just shoot him.”

  I studied his face. “Are you setting him up so I will kill him?”

  He blinked, and I saw for a moment that I’d surprised him. “No, no. I meant what I said to Olaf. If I wanted him dead, I’d just kill him. I put you next door to him because I know how he thinks. He’ll think it’s a trap, too easy, and he’ll behave himself tonight.”

  “What about tomorrow night?”

  Edward shrugged. “One night at a time.”

  I shook my head and opened the door. Edward called to me before I could go inside or even turn on the light. I turned back to face him.

  “You know most women get all mushy when a man tells them they’re his soul mate.”

  “I’m not most women.”

  His smile widened. “Amen to that.”

  I looked at him. “You know what you said in there scares me. The thought that you fantasize about hunting me and killing me. That’s creepy, Edward.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but he was still smiling, still amused.

  “But honestly if you’d said the soul mate stuff and meant it like lovey-dovey, that could have scared me more. I’ve known since we met that you might kill me some day, but fall in love with me . . . that would be just too weird.”

  The smile faded a notch or two. “You know if we could love each other, our lives would be less complicated.”

  “Truth, Edward. Have you ever had a romantic thought about me?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. He just shook his head.

  “Me, either. I’ll meet you out front by the car.”

  “I’ll wait for you here,” he said.

  I looked at him. “Why?”

  “I don’t want you smarting off to Olaf on your way out if I’m not there to stop the fight.”

  “Would I do that?”

  He shook his head. “Get the extra firepower and let’s start the drive. I’d like to get to bed before dawn.”

  “Good point.” I went into the room, closing the door behind me. There was a knock on the door almost immediately. I opened it back up, slowly, but was pretty sure it was Edward. It was.

  “We’ll take you into the club as my guest, just a friend. If the vamps don’t know who you are, they might be more careless around you, let something slip that would make sense to you, that wouldn’t make sense to me.”

  “What happens if I get outted during the evening? Think Her Worship will resent you sneaking the Executioner into her club?”

  “I’ll tell her that you wanted to see the best show in town and thought that they might not want the Executioner around, but that you’re strictly there in an unexecution work mode.”

  “Will you say it just like that, unexecution work mode?”

  He smiled. “Probably. She likes her men to be either very serious or very cute.”

  “She. You talk like you know her.”

  “Ted only kills rogues. He is very welcome in a lot of the local monster hangouts.”

  “Edward the actor,” I said.

  “I do good undercover work.”

  “I know you do, Edward.”

  “But it always makes you uncomfortable to see me do it.”

  I shrugged. “You’re such a good actor, Edward, sometimes it makes me wonder which act is real.”

  The smile faded, leaving his face blank, and empty like some of him had slithered away with his smile. “Go get your gear, Anita.”

  I closed the door with him still standing there. In some ways I understood Edward better than either of the men I had been dating. In other ways he was the biggest mystery of all. I shook my head, literally shaking it off, and looked around the small bedroom. If we came back here at dawn, I’d be tired, and tired could mean careless. I decided to make some changes now while I was fresh.

  The room’s only chair would go under the doorknob, but not until I was in for the night. I moved a line of miniature Kachina dolls from the dresser to the windowsill. If anyone opened the window, one or more of the dolls would fall. There was a small mirror on the wall that was framed by deer antlers. I placed it under the window, just in case the dolls didn’t fall. I’d leave my suitcase to one side of the door entrance so if the door did somehow manage to open without knocking the chair over, Olaf might trip over the suitcase. Of course, I was almost as likely to trip over it trying to get to the bathroom on the way out. The moment I thought of it, I had to go. I’d hit the bathroom on the way out. Edward could stand outside and make sure Olaf didn’t interrupt.

  I searched through my suitcase. It was illegal for me to carry my vampire gear without a court order of execution. Carrying it without one was like premeditated murder. But no law against carrying a few extras. I had two thin vials of holy water with little rubber caps. You hit the cap with your thumb and it popped open, sort of like a grenade, but only dangerous to the vamp. Which made it a lot more user friendly than a grenade.

  I slipped the holy water into each of my back pockets. They barely showed through the dark cloth. I already had my cross, but I’d had crosses ripped off of my throat before, so I had backups. I put a plain silver cross with chain in one front pocket of my jeans,
and another one in the pocket of the black dress jacket. I opened the box of new ammunition that I’d packed.

  I’d had to leave my apartment almost two years ago now. When I’d lived in my apartment, I’d put Glazer Safety Rounds in my guns because I didn’t want my neighbors to take a stray bullet. Glazers will not go through walls, but as Edward and some of my police friends had pointed out, I’d been lucky. Glazers will shatter bone, but don’t really go through bone, the difference between a shotgun and a rifle round, sort of. Edward had actually come into town just to take me out to the shooting range and test fire stuff. He’d asked me questions about specific gun fights, and what I’d learned was that the reason the Glazers had done what I wanted them to do was mostly being almost point blank every time I used them for a kill. What I needed was something that was a reliable kill from a safer distance than arm’s length. It also might explain why I’d hit some older vamps from a distance, but they hadn’t stopped. Maybe not. Maybe they were just that old, but . . . Edward had been very convincing. Something with more penetrating power, more stopping power, ammo meant not to wound but to kill. Because let’s face it: when was the last time I’d wounded anyone that I hadn’t meant to kill? Wounding was an accident for me. Killing was the goal.

  I’d settled on the Homady Custom XTP handgun ammo. To be exact the 9 mm Luger, 147 JHP/XTP, silver-coated of course. There were other hollow point bullets that will expand to a bigger mass, but some of them don’t penetrate nearly as far into a body mass. With a vamp you need to make sure you hit something vital, not just that you make a big hole. There were even bullets that penetrated farther into a mass, which meant they’d reliably go through a body and out the other side. But all the Homady XTPs were designed to penetrate the target, but not so far as to pass through the target object and “create a hazard.” That last was a quote from some of the Hornady Manufacturing literature. The ammo followed the FBI penetration requirements. The Feds, even more than little ol’ me, have to worry about what happens when a bullet hits the bad guy and keeps traveling. Is it going to hit a kid, a pregnant woman, a nun out for her morning stroll? Once a bullet hits the mark and keeps traveling, you really never know where it will end up. So the plan is to make sure it doesn’t leave the target, but that the target doesn’t get up either.

  Of course, Edward had made his own recipe for killing. He’d taken silver hollow points and filled the end with holy water and mercury, then sealed the top with wax. I’d been afraid that the wax would make the bullets jam in a gun, but they ran through like silk—smooth, dependable, like Edward himself. The ammo was a hell of a show. So Edward had told me. I hadn’t used Edward’s homemade surprise yet. I was still vaguely wary of them. He shouldn’t have told me that they might jam the gun. Or maybe, I would have been nervous of them anyway. With these even if you hit in a non-lethal area, missed the heart, the head, everything vital, you still did damage. The holy water and silver mercury would explode through the vamp’s body, burning where they touched. The holy water would eat through the body like acid. Hit a vamp even in a leg or arm with this shit, and they might lose all interest in killing you and just want to stop the pain.

  I stared at the two boxes of ammo, and finally loaded up with the Homady XTP, Edward’s specials in their box. If I did have to shoot any vamps tonight, I had no court order of execution, and carrying the homemade seemed too much like premeditation. Premeditation is the difference between first degree murder and second degree murder or even manslaughter if you had a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury. There were people in jail at this very moment for killing vamps. I did not want to be one of them. Besides, we were just going down there to ask questions, nothing major. So I told myself as I closed the suitcase and left the other bullets behind.

  But I knew better than most that what should be simple always grows complex when you add a vampire. Add a Master of the City, any city, and you never really know what you’re walking into. I’d killed three Masters of the City: one with a sword, one with fire, one by killing their human servant. Never just a straight-on shootout. I probably wouldn’t be shooting anyone tonight, but . . . I loaded up my extra clip with the bullets. I’d only use them if I’d used up the first clip. If I emptied thirteen of the XTPs into something and it didn’t go down, all bets were off. I’d worry about murder charges later, after I survived. Survival first. Try to stay out of jail second. My priorities in order, I slipped the extra clip into the right pocket of my jacket and went off to find Edward. He was, after all, the one who had taught me my priorities.

  22

  I WAS COOLING my heels in the living room when Bernardo and Olaf came out of the far rooms. They had both changed clothes.

  Bernardo was in white dress slacks with a sharp crease and a roll of cuff. A white vest showed off his darkly muscled arms. He’d added heavy silver arm bracelets at mid-bicep, and matching ones at each wrist. A silver saint’s medallion glittered against the smooth darkness of his chest. Most of his hair fell like a black dream around all that white, except for a braid on one side. It was a thick braid because he just had that much hair, and he’d woven silver chains with tiny bells here and there in his hair, so he stalked into the room to the sound of gentle chimes. He looked at me through a curtain of blackness caressing one side of his face, the other graced by the silver on black glint of the braid. It was, to say the least, eye-catching.

  It was a little bit of a struggle to tear my gaze from Bernardo and look at Olaf. He had gone for a black shirt that seemed utterly sheer. To hide his shoulder holster, he’d put on a leather jacket. It was way too hot for leather. Though admittedly, with his totally shaved head, black jeans, and black boots with silver toes and heels, the leather jacket looked about the right speed.

  “You guys look spiffy. What’s the occasion?”

  “We’re going to a club,” Bernardo said, as if that explained it.

  “I know that,” I said.

  He was frowning now. “You should change.”

  I pushed to my feet from the couch. “Why?”

  He walked toward me. I caught glimpses of dark flesh above his white leather loafers and the hem of his pants, no socks. He stopped at the edge of the couch, as if I’d pulled back, or made some other sign that I wasn’t happy. “I know you can look as good as we do.” He gave a little self-deprecating smile. “Or as good as Olaf here. Maybe not as good as me.” He smiled, and it was a good smile, meant to melt something a little lower than my heart. But I’d been working on my reaction to him. I was not a slave to my libido. Richard and Jean-Claude could attest to that.

  I looked at him in all his light and dark glory. “If I can’t look as good as you, why try at all?”

  The smile widened to a grin that made his face look somehow more real and less handsome. Less handsome, less practiced, but I liked it more. He took a step closer, and that teasing, practiced look was back. This was a man who knew how to flirt. But if anything will turn me off, it’s a very practiced approach, as if the man has done it a thousand times before, to a lot of different women. Which always seems to imply that I am no different from all the rest. Not flattering.

  “I think you might, might, be able to approach my glory, if you tried.”

  Even knowing it was an act, I had to smile. “I just don’t want to work that hard, Bernardo.”

  “If I am forced to change, then everyone changes,” Olaf said.

  I looked at him. Was he handsome? Not really, but he was striking. If he could tone down the bad boy routine, he could probably pick up plenty of girls at the club, or maybe even if he didn’t tone it down. It always amazes me how many women like dangerous men. Men who almost from the moment you meet them, you know are bad news. Me, I prefer my men kinder, gentler, nice. Niceness is highly underrated by most people.

  “I don’t remember anyone putting you in charge, Olaf. When Edward asks me to change clothes, I’ll change.”

  He took a step towards me, but whatever he was going to say or do, stopped when Edward c
ame into the room. He was wearing a red tank top with a short-sleeved silk shirt that matched the tank. The shirt would hide his shoulder holster if he were careful. His jeans were new and black, and with his yellow hair grown out enough to have a little curl to it, he actually looked sort of cute. Edward never looked cute.

  I knew when I was beaten. I raised hands in surrender and started walking towards the bedrooms. Then stopped. I turned back to him. “I thought the point to taking me down there without cops was that the monsters might talk to Anita Blake, vamp executioner. So that means no undercover crap.”

  “Why would changing clothes be undercover for you?” Bernardo asked.

  I looked at him, then looked at Edward. “If you want my services, you take whatever the hell I’m wearing. I don’t dress up outside the office.”

  Edward said, “Let’s go down there with you a little under wraps. Look around the club, meet the monsters, before they find out who you are.”

  “Why?”

  “You know the answer.”

  “You want me to look around, use my expertise, before they know I have any expertise.”

  He nodded.

  “But you also want me to be Anita Blake and impress the monsters.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Hard to do both.”

  “Be a tourist until they make you, then be yourself.”

  “The best of both worlds,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  I looked at him. “Is this all your plan? No hidden agenda?”

  He smiled, and it was Ted’s smile, slow, lazy, innocent. “Would I do that to you?”

  I just shook my head and started for the bedrooms. “Forget I asked. I’ll change into something more . . . festive,” I said without turning around.

  Edward didn’t call me back and say no need to change so I kept walking. We were undercover tonight apparently. I hate undercover work. I am just so damn bad at it.