“I hear you’re still dating that junior high teacher, Richard Zeeman.”
“Yeah.” I said it carefully, trying not to act tense about it. To my knowledge the police didn’t know Richard was a werewolf. Was his secret identity about to be revealed? I rubbed my hand over my stomach to give my eyes somewhere else to look and hoped that any tension in my body would be attributed to the wounds. Hoped.
“I asked you once if you were dating any humans, and you said no.”
I fought not to look too relaxed, or too tense. This was Richard’s world I was playing with. “You probably asked during one of our many breakups. We’re pretty on and off.”
“Why?”
“Why all the questions about my love life? We have a dangerous vampire out there to catch.”
“To kill,” he said.
I nodded. “To kill, so why all the questions about who I’m dating?”
“Why don’t you want to answer questions about Mr. Zeeman?”
We were on dangerous ground. Dolph hated the monsters, all monsters. His son was engaged to a vampire, and she was trying to talk the son into joining her as undead. It had made Dolph’s attitude toward the preternatural citizens go from cynical and dark to downright dangerous. Did he know about Richard, or suspect?
“Truthfully, Richard was who I thought I’d spend my life with, and the fact that we seem to be headed for the big breakup still hurts, okay?”
He gave me cop eyes, as if he were tasting the truth and weighing the lie. “What changed?”
I thought about how to answer that. The first time we’d broken up had been after I saw Richard eat someone. It had been a bad guy, but still, a girl’s got to have standards. Or that’s what I thought at the time. If I had it to do over again, would I have made a different choice? Maybe.
Dolph was beside the bed now. “Anita, what changed?”
“Me,” I said softly, “I changed. We broke up, and I started dating Jean-Claude. I went back and forth between them for a while, and finally Richard just couldn’t take me not deciding. So he decided for us, for me. If I couldn’t choose, he’d take away one of my choices.”
“He didn’t want to share you.”
“No.”
“But he’s dating you again, now.”
“Some.” I so did not like where this conversation was going.
Edward must not have liked it either, because he interrupted. “Not that this isn’t fascinating, Lieutenant, but we still have a very powerful vamp out there. She’s killed, or helped kill, at least two women that we know of: one Bev Leveto, and Margaret Ross.” I think he used their names to make them more real to Dolph. Names have a way of doing that. “Shouldn’t we be concentrating on catching the bad vampire, instead of quizzing the marshal here about her dates?” He said it all with a smile and a face full of down-home charm. I would never be the actor that Edward was, but damn there were moments when I wished I could be.
“How did you manage not to catch both of the vampires in the hotel room?” I asked. Maybe if we concentrated on crime-stopping, Dolph would let the other topic go.
Edward did his “aw, shucks” look, like he was embarrassed. The reaction wasn’t his, but maybe the emotion was; it was incredibly rare for Edward to miss a target. He came to stand by the head of the bed. One, so I could see him around Dolph’s broad build, but two, I think, so Dolph wouldn’t be able to scrutinize my reactions so damn closely.
“When we got to the hotel room there was only one vampire in the room. She was dead when we got there, but we took her head and heart, just like we’re supposed to. I know that dead doesn’t always mean dead for these guys.”
“That must have been Nivia.”
“How did you know her name?” Dolph asked.
I opened my mouth, closed it, and said, “An informant.”
“Who, Anita?” he said.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask, and I won’t have to lie to you.”
“You have someone who knows more about these murderers, and you won’t bring them in so we can all question them. You, and just you, get to do the interrogation.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“You’re good at your job, Anita, but you’re not a better cop than I am, or Zerbrowski is.”
“I never said I was.”
“But you exclude us. You keep secrets from us.”
“Yeah, just like you keep them from me. I know you don’t call me in all the time anymore. You don’t trust me.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“I trust you, Dolph, but I don’t trust the hate in you.”
“I don’t hate you, Anita.”
“No, but you hate some of the people I love, and that makes it hard, Dolph.”
“I’ve never hurt any of your boyfriends.”
“No, but you hate them, hate them for just being what they are, who they are. You’re like an old-time racist, Dolph; your hate blinds you.”
He looked down, took another deep breath. “I’ve been to the company shrink. I’m trying to come to an understanding with…” He looked at Edward, who looked innocently back at him.
“Your family,” I finished for him so he wouldn’t have to go into details.
He nodded.
“I’m glad, Dolph, really. Lucille’s been…” I shrugged. What was I supposed to say, that his wife, Lucille, had been frantic, afraid for him and of him? His rages had trashed a room or two of their house, much like he’d done to an interrogation room with me in it, once. He’d manhandled me at a crime scene. Dolph was close to losing his badge, if he didn’t get a grip.
“She said you’ve been helpful about it. Her.”
I nodded. If Edward hadn’t been in the room, I’d have said your son’s fiancée. “I’m glad I could help.”
“I will never be okay with you dating the monsters.”
“That’s fine, as long as you don’t let it rain all over police business.”
“Fine, police business.” He glanced at Edward, then reached into his suit coat and got out his notebook. “What killed the vampire in the hotel room?”
“When her animal to call died, the master didn’t survive it. It happens like that sometimes: kill one and they all die.”
“The police have killed wereanimals that were guarding vampire lairs, and the master vampire didn’t die.”
“Most master vamps have an animal that they can control, but the phrase ‘an animal to call’ means it’s the furry equivalent of a human servant.”
“A human that’s helping a vampire because of mind tricks?” He made it a question.
“I thought that once, too, but a human servant is more than that. It’s a human with a preternatural connection, a mystical connection, with the vampire. Sometimes the vampire survives the death of its servant, but the servant usually doesn’t survive the death of the vampire. I’ve also seen the body survive, but the human servant driven crazy by the master’s death. But this weretiger had healing abilities that it shouldn’t have had. It was almost like it had the best of both worlds on healing. The lycanthropy healing, and the rotting vampire’s ability to laugh off bullets, even silver.”
“I thought you just woke up?” Dolph said.
“I did.”
“How did you know she rotted?”
“I didn’t, but her animal healed like a rotting vampire, so I assumed she was one of them. But even if she was, her animal to call should not have had that close a tie with the vampire’s powers. It’s unusual, very unusual, as if the tie between master and servant was closer even than normal.”
“She started to rot as soon as we took her head,” Edward said.
“Ol…Otto must have been disappointed,” I said.
“He was, but at least they don’t smell like they look. Why is that?” Edward asked. “Not complaining, mind you, but why don’t they smell like a rotting corpse?”
“I don’t know, I think maybe because they aren’t really rotting. It’s like they, the vampires, w
ent to a certain stage of rotting, then stopped. The smell is from decomposition. If the vampire isn’t actually rotting, then no decomp, no smell.” I shrugged. “Truthfully, that’s just theory. I don’t know for sure. I don’t think I’ve seen more than a handful of them. It doesn’t seem to be a common type of vamp, at least not in this country.”
“They’re all rotting corpses, Anita,” Dolph said.
“No,” I said, and met his eyes just fine, “no, they aren’t. Most vampires, if you ever see them rotting like that, looking like that, they are well and truly dead. But the rotting ones can actually rot around you, then sort of heal themselves. They can go from looking like the walking dead to looking normal.”
“Normal,” Dolph said, and made a sound.
“Normal as they started,” I said. I turned to Edward. “Do we know where the other vamp went?”
Dolph answered, “We know that a white male, late twenties, early thirties, brown hair, cut short, jeans, jean jacket, carried a large duffel bag out to his car and drove away while two uniforms watched.”
“They watched,” I said.
“Civilians who saw the incident said the man told the officers”—Dolph flipped back through his notebook, then read—“‘You’re going to let me go to my car, aren’t you?’ The policemen replied, ‘Yes, we are.’”
“Shit, he pulled an Obi-Wan,” I said.
“What?” Edward and Dolph said together.
“You know, from Star Wars, ‘These are not the droids you’re looking for.’”
Edward grinned. “Yeah, while Otto and I were taking the other vampire apart, the man pulled an Obi-Wan.”
“He had to do it to several officers, or some version of it,” Dolph said. “By the time he drove off there were police all over that hotel. I thought daylight wasn’t good for vamps.”
“I think the vampire was in the duffel bag. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that as the weretiger shared her master’s healing ability, so the human servant of this other one shared her mind powers. I’ve never heard of anything like it, but it makes sense. If I think of another theory that makes more sense, I’ll let you know.”
“How did you know they would be at the hotel, Anita?” Dolph asked.
“I told you, an informant.”
“Was the informant a vampire?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Was the informant human?”
“I’m not giving you the name, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“How many vampires are involved with these murders?”
“Two that I’m sure of.”
“How close is your tie to your master, Anita?”
“What?” I just stared at him.
He looked at me, and there was no anger in his eyes, just a demand. He repeated the question.
My pulse was in my throat, and I couldn’t help it. My voice was almost normal when I said, “Are we going to catch these bastards, or are you going to go back to obsessing on how up close and personal I am with the vampires? I’m sorry that I’ve disappointed you, Dolph. I’m sorry that you disapprove of my personal life, but we have dead on the ground. We have injured people. Can we please, please, concentrate on that instead of your obsession with my love life?”
He blinked, slow, over those cool cop eyes. “Fine, how did Peter Black get injured, and who exactly is he?”
I looked at Edward, because I had no idea what story he’d come up with. I doubted the truth, the whole truth, had been involved.
“Now, Lieutenant,” Edward said, “I told you all this.”
“I want to hear Anita’s version.”
“My version, like you know it’s a version and not the truth,” I said.
“I don’t think you’ve told me the whole truth about anything since you started dating that bloodsucking son of a bitch.”
“Politically, that bloodsucking son of a bitch is the Master of the City.”
“Is he your master, Anita?”
“What?”
“Are you the human servant of the Master of this City?”
I’d outed myself once in front of Detective Smith. I’d done it to save the life of a vampire Good Samaritan. Apparently Smith hadn’t ratted me out. I owed him a beer.
I needed a moment to think how to answer Dolph. Edward gave me that moment. “You know, Lieutenant, your persistent interest in Marshal Blake’s personal life is a little disturbing. Especially as it seems to be distracting you from the investigation and capture of a double murderer.”
Dolph ignored him and kept those cool cop eyes on me. If I’d been sure how the federal marshal program would have handled my being Jean-Claude’s human servant I might have just said yes, but I wasn’t sure, so I had to lie, or distract him. “You know, Dolph, I’ve tried to be professional here, but you’ve asked me if I’ve fucked someone, you’ve persistently asked personal and sexual questions. Did you miss the day they covered sexual harassment?”
“You are, you really belong to him, don’t you?”
“I don’t belong to anyone, Dolph. I’m so my own woman that I’m chasing some of them away. Requiem wants to own me; that’s the vampire who just left, if you didn’t catch his name. I don’t want to be owned, not by anybody. Jean-Claude understands that better than any human I ever dated. Maybe that’s what your son sees in his fiancée, Dolph. Maybe she understands him in ways you never will.” That last was mean, and meant to be, but we had to end this conversation.
“You leave my family out of this.” His voice was low and careful.
“I will if you will. Your obsession with vampires and my personal life started about the time your son got engaged to a vampire. It’s not my fault. I didn’t introduce them. I didn’t even know he’d done it, until you told me.”
“The Master of the City knew. He just didn’t tell you,” Dolph said.
“Is that what you’ve been thinking, that Jean-Claude somehow sicced a vampire on your son, so she’d seduce him?”
He gave me a look. “You’re not the only vampire hunter in this country now, Anita. You’re not even the only one with a badge. They tell me that the Master of the City has absolute authority. That no local vamp does anything without permission.”
“If only that were true, but your son’s fiancée belongs to the Church of Eternal Life. She’s Malcolm’s problem right now, not Jean-Claude’s. The Church of Eternal Life is its own little universe in vampireland. Frankly, the other vamps are a little puzzled on how to deal with the Church when its members do stupid stuff like dating a policeman’s son.”
“Why was it stupid?”
“Because most police still hate the vampires. It’s just better policy to leave the cops alone if you can. None of Jean-Claude’s vampires have gone near a police person of any kind for anything.”
“He’s gone near you,” Dolph said.
“I wasn’t officially a cop when we started dating.”
“No, you were a vampire executioner. He shouldn’t have come near you, and you should have known better than to go near him.”
“Who I date is not your business, Dolph.”
“It is if it affects how you do your job.”
“I do my job better because I’m up close and personal with the monsters.” I struggled to sit up a little, tired of him looming over me. My stomach was tight, but it didn’t hurt. “You count on me knowing more about the monsters. Hell, every cop that comes near me for help counts on me knowing more about the monsters than they do. How the hell do you think I found all that out? By keeping them at arm’s length and hating them the way you do? They don’t like talking to people who treat them like shit. They don’t volunteer information to people they know hate them. If you want someone’s help you have to reach out to them.”
“How many have you reached out to, Anita?” Such innocent words, but he made it sound ugly.
“Enough so I could help you every time you called.”
He closed his eyes then, balled his fist around his notebook until something in it ripped. “If I’d left you where I found you, raising the dead, Jean-Claude would never have met you. You went into his club on police business the first time. On my business.” He opened his eyes and there was such pain in them.
I reached out to touch his arm, but he moved back, out of reach. “We did our jobs, Dolph.”
“When you look in the mirror, is that enough, Anita? At the end of the day, is that enough, that we do our jobs?”
“Sometimes, sometimes not.”
“Are you a lycanthrope?”
“No,” I said.
“Your blood work says different.”
“My blood work is puzzling the hell out of the lab, and it’ll puzzle the hell out of any lab you send it to.”
“You know you’re carrying lycanthropy.”
“Yeah, I’m carrying four different kinds of lycanthropy.”
“You knew.”
“I found out when I ended up in the hospital in Philadelphia, after that zombie case with the FBI.”
“You didn’t mention it to anyone here.”
“You hated me for dating shapeshifters; if you found out I was carrying it”—I spread my hands—“I couldn’t depend on how you’d react.”
He nodded. “You’re right. You were right not to tell me, but you could have told Zerbrowski or someone.”
“It doesn’t affect my job, Dolph. I’ve got a disease that I’m mostly asymptomatic for. It’s no one’s business unless it impacts the job.” In my head I wondered what would happen if the almost-beasts that I carried inside me got out of control on a case. That would be bad. I almost had the ardeur under control, and now I had something else that might keep me from being able to do my police work.
“Anita, did you hear what I said?”
“I’m sorry, no, I didn’t.”
“I said, how do you know it doesn’t affect the job? How do you know that your ties to the monsters don’t color your choices?”
“I’m tired, Dolph. I’m tired, and I need to rest.” Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I was in a hospital, I could have just cried hurt. Damn, I was slow tonight.
He uncrumpled his notebook, tried to smooth it out as best he could. He tried to fit it back in his suit pocket, but he’d damaged it so bad it wouldn’t fit. He finally just took it in his hand. “I’ll want to talk to you when you’ve rested. There comes a point, Anita, when you have enough secrets from your friends that they begin to wonder where your loyalties lie.”
[Anita Blake 15] - The Harlequin Page 35