“Trying to.”
“By fucking him?”
I glared at him. “Thanks a lot, Bernardo.”
He grinned at me as he pulled out onto the main street.
I glared at him as I unwrapped my burger. I so didn’t want to try to eat while we had this conversation, but I did want to have food in me before we got to Edward and Olaf. I definitely didn’t want to see Olaf on an empty stomach. I’d need all the strength I could muster.
I tried to decide if I should be angry with him for real, and if I did get angry, why was I angry? Because I felt guilty about Cynric, and that made me defensive about him. I ate my burger without tasting it, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell to do about Cynric.
“That’s it?” Bernardo said. “That’s all you’re going to say to me? You used to be easier to bait.”
I drank some Coke and picked up a French fry. “Were you trying to pick a fight?”
He smiled. “Not a real fight, but it’s fun to get you riled up.”
I ate the French fry, knowing it was all grease and salt, but then that was what made it taste so good. Why did so many things that were bad for you taste so good?
He glanced at me, then back to the road. “Either you really like the kid, or he bothers you for real.”
I sighed, eating my yummy fry and trying not to hunch in the passenger seat. I so didn’t want to have this conversation with Bernardo, but then he’d met Cynric the same time I did.
“You met him when I did, Bernardo. He was a virgin, because the white clan is like all the clans, it’s all about purity of bloodline, and their queen tiger, Bibiana, likes her men to be monogamous.”
“It’s because she holds her husband to the big M, and she can’t ask the head vampire of Vegas to do something she doesn’t make her tigers do.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and also teenagers don’t always have the control with their first orgasm not to shift and eat their partner.”
“How’s Blue Boy’s control?” he asked.
I shrugged, very deliberately not looking at him. “It’s good, and don’t call him that. He has a name.”
“Cynric doesn’t sound like a real name for a teenage guy,” Bernardo said.
“He goes by a short version of his name.”
“Rick?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Rick’s the only thing short for his name,” Bernardo said.
“Nope.”
He started merging into traffic. It probably meant we were going to exit soon. I hadn’t been paying enough attention to where we were, and I wasn’t familiar enough with the city.
“What does he call himself, then?”
I mumbled something.
“What?”
“Sin, okay, he likes Sin.”
Bernardo laughed out loud, head back, mouth wide, face alight with it.
“Yeah, yeah, enjoy it, laughing boy,” I said.
When he could talk, he said, “It’s just too good, Anita. Too easy.”
“I tried to talk him out of it, but his cousin Roderic goes by Rick, so he thinks of it as taken.”
He gave that low male chuckle. “Sin, you’re screwing a seventeen-year-old that’s named Sin. Oh, man, when I met you, you were like the virgin queen, so untouchable, and now . . .”
“Just stop, okay, I feel bad enough.”
He glanced at me as he waited for the traffic to let him exit. “Why feel bad about it? So he’s young, so what?”
“You said it yourself, he was a young sixteen. I took his virginity, Bernardo.”
“You were mind-fucked by Mommie Darkest at the time, and so was Cynric.”
“So were about four other weretigers. Your first time shouldn’t be in a vampire-induced orgy, but his was.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Anita. I was in Vegas. You’re lucky to have lived through it, and so were the weretigers.”
I shrugged. I put the rest of the food in the bag. My stomach was in a hard knot, and food just didn’t sound good right then.
“Well, they’re not living through it this time.”
“It’s not your fault that Mommie Darkest is making the bad vamps hunt weretigers.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Oh, can the Catholic guilt.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, glaring at him.
“It means that you do what you have to do, and you try to enjoy it along the way. It’s what we all do.”
“You were the one who teased me about Cynric,” I said.
“That was because you were supposed to tell me to go to hell like you always do. You weren’t supposed to actually let it bother you. If I’d realized you felt this bad about doing him, I’d have left it alone.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I said, and I stared out the window as he wove the car through the narrow streets.
“Why do you feel so bad about this one?”
“He’s seventeen,” I said.
“So, he’ll be eighteen next year.”
“He’s a senior in high school, Bernardo. Jean-Claude is his legal guardian and had to enroll him in school. He comes home with homework and shit, and then he wants to cuddle and have sex. It weirds me the fuck out.”
He was quiet as he wove through the progressively narrower streets. “You haven’t even asked where we’re going.”
“To Edward,” I said.
“Yeah, but we’re not going to the police station, and you haven’t asked why.” He glanced at me. “You’re a control freak. Why aren’t you asking?”
I thought about the question, and finally said, “I don’t know. I don’t seem to care. I mean, I trust you, I trust Edward, and I even trust Olaf to do the job. I just don’t trust him with me.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said.
“Okay, are we going to a new crime scene, or what?” I asked.
“You ask, but not like you care, as if it doesn’t matter at all. Things matter to you, Anita; it’s one of your charms and irritations.” He smiled, but I didn’t feel the need to smile back.
“I think I’m homesick. I think I’m tired of chasing bad guys. Did Edward tell you his idea that Marmee Noir is killing the tigers so that I’ll be away from St. Louis and all our people? The last one of her guards that talked to me said that she wants me alive. It’s what saved us twice, I think. She doesn’t want me dead.”
“He mentioned some of it. Could she really possess your body?”
“She thinks she can.”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think she might be able to.”
“That would scare the hell out of me.”
I nodded. “Trust me, Bernardo, I’m scared.”
“You don’t seem scared. You seem distracted.”
“Maybe I don’t know how to be scared. Maybe that’s what the distraction is,” I said.
“Whatever it is, you need to get your head in the game, Anita. We need you. Edward needs you, and you sure as hell want to bring your A-game when you meet Olaf.”
“He still want me to be his serial killer girlfriend?” I asked.
“He still thinks you are his serial killer girlfriend.”
“Great,” I said.
“You haven’t even asked if it’s a new crime scene.”
I looked at him, startled at last. “They’ve never killed twice in one city.”
“No, they haven’t.”
I scowled at him. “Stop the games, Bernardo. Tell me where we’re going and why the mystery.”
“Edward called Jean-Claude.”
I know my face looked as surprised as I felt. “Why?”
“Because he found a way for you to have bodyguards, and he thinks they can help us find these bastards.”
That Edward approved that strongly of the guards Jean-Claude had working for us showed the best stamp of approval I could imagine. I knew they were good, but that Edward agreed with me was both cool and interesting.
“So we’re going to meet them,”
I said.
“Yeah, but first Olaf and you get to say hi.”
“Why?” I said.
“Because Olaf thinks you have a relationship with him, and if you meet him first and privately, he can keep that illusion. Edward’s afraid of what Olaf will do if he realizes that you aren’t ever going to be his girlfriend.”
“I am not meeting privately with Serial Killer Guy.”
“Edward and I will be there,” he said. He’d found an empty space and was parallel parking like a pro, smooth, no hesitation.
“You live in the city,” I said.
He killed the engine and turned to me. “Why, because I can parallel park?”
I nodded. “A city where that’s the only parking you get to use most of the time, or you grew up where that was the only parking.”
“Don’t profile me, Anita.”
“Sorry, can’t I just be impressed with your parking skills?”
He seemed to think about that for a minute, then shrugged. “Then just say ‘Good job’ or something, don’t speculate.”
I nodded. “Okay, great job of parallel parking. I suck at it.”
“Country girl,” he said.
“Most of my life,” I said.
“I told you more of my background the first time I met you than most people ever know. I think I thought the whole foster-care-system sob story would soften you up, but nothing makes you soft, not like that.”
“I’ll quote Raquel Welch: ‘There aren’t any hard women; only soft men.’”
“Lie,” he said.
“In the normal world it’s pretty true,” I said.
He grinned sudden and bright in his tanned face. “Since when does either of us live in the normal world?”
That made me laugh. I shrugged. “Never.”
We got out of the car so I could meet Olaf and convince him he still had a chance in hell of ever getting in my pants. Sometimes you lie because the alternative is too awful to think about. Edward, Bernardo, and I all feared what Olaf would do if he ever lost hope of me having sex with him. I think we all knew that if he gave up all hope of my dating him voluntarily, he’d go for something less voluntary. Something that included chains and torture. Someday I’d have to kill Olaf, but hopefully today wasn’t that day. Hopefully.
27
THE BUILDING WAS an old Victorian house that had been divided into apartments. The one that Bernardo led me to was empty, all pale empty walls, and that slightly sharp smell of fresh paint. Bernardo went in first, his broad shoulders and back blocking most of my view. Edward walked into view, face grim, and then they both stepped aside so I could see Olaf.
He stood at the far side of the room, to one side of the bay window. He was watching the street, or watching something. The ten-foot ceilings made him seem shorter than he was, but he was only bare inches from seven feet. In the heeled boots he probably was seven feet. He was the tallest person I’d ever personally known. But unlike a lot of really tall people, he had some bulk to him. It was hard to see in the black jeans and black leather jacket, but I knew there were muscles under the clothes. His head was as smooth and free of hair as ever. Since he had to shave twice a day to stay clean-shaven, I always wondered if he shaved his head, too, but I never asked him. It never seemed important once he looked at me.
Two things startled me when he turned around. One, he was wearing a white T-shirt when all I’d ever seen him in was black. Two, he had a narrow black Vandyke beard and mustache. The color matched the eyebrows that arched thick and graceful over his deep-set eyes. He was too tall, but I could admit that he was attractive until you got to the eyes. The truth of what he was always stared back from those eyes, at least to me. I knew that other women seemed not to see it, but he never hid his eyes from me. When I first met him it had been because he wanted me afraid of him, and later I think he, like Edward, enjoyed that I was one person he didn’t have to hide the truth from. I knew who and what he was, and hadn’t run screaming. I might be the only woman he’d ever met more than once who knew the truth and still managed to have some sort of “normal” relationship with him. Maybe that was part of his attraction to me. I knew.
“So is this the good Olaf, via South Park, or the evil Olaf as in the old Star Trek,” I said.
He smiled; he actually smiled, though it left his dark, dark eyes almost untouched. They were black to begin with, so it was hard to make them shine. The well-trimmed facial hair framed his lips nicely. It reminded me of one of our vampires, Requiem, who was now second banana to the Master, or rather, Mistress, of Philadelphia, and her main squeeze.
“You like it?”
That he asked my opinion, any woman’s opinion, was real progress for him. He’d been one of the most misogynistic men I’d ever met a few years back, and I met a lot of them. It was progress, so I answered as if he weren’t scary.
“Yeah, I do.” I realized I did. It added definition to his strangely bare face. Most of the men in my life were like Bernardo, all shoulder-length or longer hair.
He moved toward me, still smiling. He moved like he did most things, in a graceful lope. For such a big man he was surprisingly graceful; if I hadn’t thought he’d take it wrong, I’d have asked if he had ever had dance training, but I doubted that would fit his ideal of macho.
He stopped about halfway to me. I wasn’t sure what was going on until Edward touched my arm. I looked at him, and he gave me a look. Oh, I remembered this part. Olaf saw it as weakness to come to me. That he’d met me even halfway was again a lot of progress.
I started walking toward him. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, what was I supposed to do once I got there?
I offered him my hand, even though the last time I’d done that he’d done the double-hand grab up my arm and reminded me of the one and only kiss we’d had, over a body that we’d just cut up. It had been a bad vampire and we had needed to take its heart and head, but he’d acted as if the blood on both of us were an aphrodisiac.
A handshake was still the most neutral thing I could think to offer. He wrapped his big hand around my much smaller one and pulled me into one of those guy hugs. You know, the handshake that turns into a sort of one-shoulder, one-arm hug. But it was unexpected. I went with it, but . . . it would have worked better if there hadn’t been two feet of height difference. It was meant to bring me in against his shoulder, but I ended up pressed to the front of his body with my entire head below his chest, so sort of his upper stomach/chest area. God, he was big.
I had enough guy friends that I’d automatically put my arm around him for the hug, like body memory. His much bigger arm was around me, and what was supposed to be a quick, manly, I’m-not-gay hug turned into more. His arm tightened around me, keeping me against his body. My right hand was in his, his arm behind my back, my left arm around his surprisingly slender waist.
The moment his arm tightened, I tensed against him, my mind going over my options. He’d feel me let go with my left arm, so any weapon reaching was going to be telegraphed big-time.
He held me against him, his arm pressing me close. I was tensed, my heart thudding, pulse racing, waiting for him to do something creepy, and then I realized he was holding me. He was just holding me. Of all the things Olaf could have done, that surprised me most. He let go of my right hand and just hugged me. He just held me close. It was so unexpected that I was at a loss, but my right arm was between our bodies, so that did two things to help my comfort level: It let me keep enough distance that we weren’t pressed completely against each other, and I could touch the butt of the Smith & Wesson in the shoulder holster. His arms tightened across my back almost too tightly; he let me feel how terribly strong he was. He wasn’t shapeshifter strong, but you don’t have to be able to bench-press a car to hurt someone. There was enough strength in his grip to let me know that he could hurt me. I wasn’t sure if he was doing it on purpose, or was simply that unaccustomed to hugging people.
I erred on the side of caution. I snuggled against him wit
h my left arm and body, making that little wriggling motion that girls and some smaller men make. I was hoping it would distract him from the fact that I was using my right hand to draw the gun from its shoulder holster at the same time.
“You just drew your gun,” he said, in that deep voice that matched the big body.
I fought not to tense as I pressed the gun against the side of his body. “Yes.”
I felt him bend over me, and then he kissed me on top of the head. Again, so unexpected that I didn’t know what to do. I mean I couldn’t shoot him for kissing the top of my head and giving me a hug. It was too hysterical. But this new, more tender Olaf puzzled the hell out of me.
“I’ve held many women in my arms, but you’re the first who’s managed to draw a weapon.”
It was a little hard to be tough talking into his stomach, but having the Smith & Wesson shoved into his side helped. “They didn’t understand what you were.”
He spoke with his chin resting on my hair. “They understood in the end, Anita.”
“But not until it was too late,” I said, and I didn’t feel silly pushing the gun into the hard muscle of his side. It felt safer.
Edward spoke from behind me. “She will kill you, if you give her a reason.”
Olaf rose up enough to look at him more comfortably, but he was still holding me. “I know she will shoot me, if I give her cause.”
“Then let her go.”
“It is the possibility of danger that makes us both enjoy her, in our own ways.”
“You and I do not think of her the same way,” Edward said, and his voice was growing colder. I knew that voice. It was headed to the tone he used when he killed.
I wanted to tell Olaf to let me go, but I’d seen him move. He was fast, not shapeshifter fast, but close. I thought I was fast enough to get enough distance that he couldn’t try for my gun, but I might not be fast enough, and then I’d have to shoot him to keep my gun and to keep him off me. It seemed almost stupid to be thinking of that while he was still hugging me so normally, or as normally as I’d ever seen him interact with me.
“I’m stepping back now, Olaf,” I said, and started moving out of the hug, though I kept the gun barrel hard against his body. That would be the last thing I moved.
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