The Harlequin ab-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "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, went 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 e
very 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."

  "Get out, Dolph, just go."

  "But he gets to stay," and he pointed at Edward.

  "He hasn't insulted me. He's been nothing but professional."

  "I guess I deserve that." He seemed about to say something else. He held his hand out. Edward hesitated, then gave Dolph back his gun. Dolph just left, closing the door softly behind him.

  Edward holstered his gun and we waited a few seconds, then looked at each other. "You are not going to be able to avoid answering him for very long, Anita."

  "I know."

  "It's not just you that's going to be in trouble."

  I nodded. "Richard."

  "He was hinting."

  "If he knew, he'd do more than hint."

  "Lieutenant Storr isn't stupid."

  "I never thought he was."

  "His hatred makes him stupid in some ways, but it also makes him very determined. If that determination gets turned on you and your friends, well…"

  "I know, Edward, I know."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "There isn't a law on the books that says I can't date the monsters. Legally it would be like telling a federal agent he can't date someone who's not white; it would be a public relations nightmare."

  "But the human servant bit, that's an area they haven't covered in the federal regulations."

  "You've checked?" I asked.

  "Before I took the badge, yeah, I read up. Nothing says you can't be Jean-Claude's human servant and a federal marshal."

  "Because the laws haven't caught up to themselves."

  "It doesn't matter, Anita; it still means even if Dolph finds out, you're covered."

  "I'm covered legally, but there are other ways to be gotten rid of, if cops want you gone."

  "Like not calling you in on cases."

  "Dolph's already doing that."

  "Frankly, I think they see you sleeping with the enemy as being just as bad as any metaphysical stuff, or worse."

  I thought about it. "They don't really understand the metaphysics, but they understand fucking."

  "Your lieutenant seems almost as worried that you're sleeping around as who you're sleeping around with."

  "A lot of police are prudes at heart."

  "I think Lieutenant Storr would almost be as disappointed with you if you were just sleeping around with humans."

  "I think he sees himself as sort of a surrogate father figure."

  "How do you see him?"

  "My boss, sort of. Once I thought he was my friend."

  "You're sitting up—does it hurt?"

  I thought about it, letting myself feel my body, sort of searching it for pain. I took a deep breath, all the way down to my stomach. "It's tight, but not painful. It has that tight feeling that it gets if you don't stretch the scar tissue out. You know?"

  "I know."

  "You don't have any scars as bad as mine, do you?"

  "Only Donna knows." He smiled.

  "How is Peter, really?"

  "Brave."

  "I meant, oh, hell, Edward, is he going to get the injection or not?"

  "Still debating."

  "You have to tell Donna."

  "She'd take the injection."

  "Legally, it's her decision."

  "One of the reasons we kept him Peter Black was so he could make the decision. I've been talking to your furry friends. Tiger lycanthropy is one of the harder-to-catch ones. It's also one of the few that runs in families and can be inherited as well as caught."

  "That's actually news to me," I said.

  "Apparently the tigers keep it a close family secret. I've been talking to the only other weretiger in town."

  "Christine," I said.

  He nodded. "Did you know she ran to a town with no tigers to escape being forced to marry into a clan of weretigers?"

  "I didn't know—wait, I remember Claudia saying that Soledad had come to St. Louis to probably escape an arranged marriage. Something about the tigers liking to keep it in the family."

  "That was her cover story."

  "How good was her cover?"

  "It was good. I've seen her documents; they look real. They were excellent forgeries, and I know what I'm talking about."

  "I'll just bet you do," I said.

  He gave me a look. The real Edward began to peek out, Ted Forrester melting from the eyes outward. It was always his eyes that reverted back to real first. Sort of the way most lycanthropes shifted, interestingly enough.

  "Thanks for sending Graham when you did. The shot they had was tiger. It's their standard because it's so rare. They're sending for a different batch, not tiger this time."

  "Will he take the shot?"

  "If you were him, what would you do?"

  I thought about it. "I'm not the one to ask, Edward. I've been cut up a lot, and I've taken my chances. So far, so good."

  "But the shot didn't exist last time. Would you have taken it?"

  "I won't make this decision for you, or for Peter. He's not my kid."

  "The other shapeshifters make weretigers sound like the last thing you'd want to be."

  "How so?"

  "Like I said, they try to force you to marry into the clan to keep everyone related. They'd find Peter and they'd offer him girls, try to lure him in. If he wouldn't be lured, they've been known to abduct."

  "Illegal," I said.

  "Most of them homeschool their kids."

  "Very isolationist," I said.

  "Peter doesn't like the sound of being a weretiger. He's not very big on other people te
lling him what to do."

  "He's sixteen," I said. "No sixteen-year-old likes to be bossed around."

  "I don't think he's going to grow out of it."

  "He takes orders from you, and from Claudia."

  "He takes them from people he respects, but you have to earn it. I wouldn't let some clan of weretigers take him, Anita."

  "They can't force you, or Peter. Christine has lived in St. Louis for years and never been bothered that I'm aware of."

  "Apparently, there're only four clans of tigers in the United States. They all keep to themselves. Their culture is also divided about pure-bloods, inherited lycanthropy, and attacks. Being given tiger lycanthropy is seen as a reward for a job well done. They think it's a sin to give it to someone you don't value."

  "Sounds sort of vampirelike," I said. "They feel the same way about human servants and animals to call. But I've seen my share of both that were forced, and didn't go willingly."

  "Were you willing?" he asked, and it was all Edward in those eyes now.

  I sighed. "If I say no, are you going to do something stupid?"

  "No, you love him. I see it. I don't understand it, but I see it."

  "I don't get you and Donna either."

  "I know."

  "I wasn't willing at first, but somehow it just happened. Where we are now wasn't forced on me."

  "Rumor has it that you're the power behind the throne, the one pulling his strings."

  "Don't believe every rumor you hear."

  "If I believed them all, I'd be too afraid to be alone with you."

  I stared at him, trying to read that face, that unreadable face. "Do I want to know what people are saying about me behind my back?"

  "No," he said.

  I nodded. "Fine, get a doctor, see if I can get up and mobile."

  "It's been ten hours, Anita, you can't be healed."

  "Let's find out," I said.

  "If you get out of bed this quick, some of those rumors are going to get confirmed."

  "Are the police talking to you about me?"

  "Not everyone knows that we're friends."

  "Okay, what rumors?"

  "That you're a shapeshifter."

  "Some of my best friends are shapeshifters," I said.

  "Meaning?"