"This says I can," he said, and put the ID back in his pocket. He smoothed his hand over the closure as if to make doubly sure it was secure. I wondered what kind of ID it was, and thought it was very interesting that the woman had said, You can't keep doing this, which implied we weren't the first special guests of Captain Brian Nolan.
"Get your bags and follow me," he said.
"To someplace where we can change into something less comfortable?" I said.
Nolan frowned at me, and again the lines in his forehead looked almost painful, like scars instead of frown lines. How many years had he been this unhappy to mark his own face up like that?
"Just grab your gear, darlin'; you can suit up later." He turned and started walking toward the plane as if it were all settled.
"I thought I left Bobby Lee at home. He's the only one who gets away with calling me that."
Nolan turned around and stared at me. That more-than-normal energy that I'd felt when he hit the room spiked and danced along my skin. I had to fight not to shiver like someone had walked across my grave. It didn't mean that his psychic gift was death related, or even scary per se; it just meant he was really powerful.
"Grab your gear, and we'll talk in private," he said, his voice proving that any accent, no matter how lyrical and movielike, could thin down to serious and threatening.
"Will do," I said. Edward, Pride, Dev, and I followed in Nolan's wake. When we got outside I went for the steps leading up into the plane to check on Nathaniel and Damian. I got there in time to see them zip the bag up over Damian's face. He was so still, so . . . dead that it was like watching them put him in a body bag. I think I stopped breathing for a second, my heart just sitting in my chest waiting for the rest of me to tell it to catch up, so that when I breathed again it was a gasp.
Magda glanced at me, but Nathaniel stayed focused on getting Damian safely zipped up. "Are you all right, Anita?" Magda asked. Her eyes looked very gray in the dimness of the plane, as if all the blue had been sucked away.
I nodded, not trusting that my voice wouldn't shake. What the fuck? I'd seen so much worse; why had that small moment bothered me? Or why this much?
Nicky spoke from behind me. "Come outside for a minute."
I shook my head. "I'm fine."
"Don't give me fine. I feel what you're feeling no matter how much you shield from the others." He held his hand out to me, and after a second I took it. He led me a little away from everyone else and looked at me, still holding my hand. "What made you feel that way?" he asked.
I told him.
"You think it's a preview of what could happen?"
"Yes," I said.
"Don't borrow trouble, Anita."
"We're hunting monsters. People die doing that."
"You knew all that when you let them get on the plane."
"You know, you're not always that comforting," I said.
He smiled. "But you're less scared now and more irritated. My job is to make you feel better; sometimes that's just choosing which emotion you like better. You'd way rather be irritated with me than scared and worried."
I frowned at him harder, but I couldn't argue with him. In the end I squeezed his hand tight and we went to get the rest of our bags. Normally I'd have kissed him for that, but Nolan was watching me and he was going to have enough issues with me bringing so many "boyfriends" and "girlfriends"; I didn't need to add fuel to the fire.
We grabbed our bags, full of all sorts of things that would never have made it through normal inspection. Echo and Giacomo went in large lightproof duffel bags just like Damian had. Fortune and Magda strapped their masters across their bodies and helped Nathaniel get his own balance with Damian. Watching them balance the full literally dead body weight of their masters along with both sets of weapons in other bags made me realize why most vampires chose bigger people for human servants. You needed the size just to carry everything. I wasn't sure I could have toted Damian and the rest of my gear. Once Nathaniel got the bag balanced he moved easily. Of course, he wasn't carrying and wearing as many weapons as I was.
Jake and Kaazim offered to carry some of the weapons bags for Magda and Fortune, and the women let them take some of them. Neither man offered to carry the vampires, though Giacomo was a big guy even for someone Magda's size. She was strong enough, but it was more height and breadth for toting someone else who was as tall, but wider, and heavier. I was beginning to see why Magda hit the weights heavier than Fortune did; it wasn't just personal preference--she needed the bulk to lift Giacomo.
Socrates said, "I'd offer to carry him for you, but I think you do a better job of it."
"Thank you for the compliment," she said, and checked the huge duffel on her back one more time, to make sure the smaller bags were tucked up tight so that they helped hold Giacomo's body in place. It's not always how much you're carrying, but how it moves, how it sits on your body, or how it moves with you.
Nolan didn't offer to carry anything, just waited with those frown lines furrowing deeper into his forehead. If he had a single smile line on his face I hadn't seen it yet. I mean, he smiled, but it was as if his face did it so seldom that there was no mark around his mouth of it. There were plenty of frown lines, though. I'd never seen anyone mark themselves up so badly, as if facial lines could be scars.
Nolan led us off across the tarmac with Edward beside him; they were talking in low, serious voices. The rest of us fanned out behind them. Nathaniel fell into step at my side. It actually seemed odd to walk beside him and not hold hands, but I was carrying too much and I needed to focus on work. Nicky was on one side of us, Dev on the other. Domino walked in front of us and Ethan was behind us. They'd put us in the bodyguard box, as I'd started calling it. I realized that Jake, Pride, Socrates, and Kaazim were carrying a little bit more than the other four men. They'd divided it up without a word, so that the four guards directly around us would have more hands free to go for weapons, if needed. Magda and Fortune's main allegiance was to the safety of their unconscious masters, so they weren't part of the bodyguard equation in that moment. I understood that; if I'd had Jean-Claude in a duffel bag in full daylight, I'd have been worried as hell that some ray of sunlight would get through. I was worried enough with Damian on Nathaniel's back, and I knew that sunlight didn't burn him.
Though, as I glanced up at the overcast sky, thick and gray with the promise of rain, maybe the famous Irish weather would be more vampire friendly than other places. You could get sunburned on a cloudy day if you were pale enough, so did cloud cover really matter to a vampire? In all the years I'd been intimate with vampires, first hunting them and then sleeping with them, I'd never asked about cloud cover. I mean, if your skin fried in the sunlight, was a cloudy day worth the risk?
There were three black vehicles waiting for us that I'd just started thinking of as the police version of the military Humvee, though not all of them were Humvees, and I knew that, but whether it was one of SWAT's BearCats or an armored military transport, they all looked vaguely the same, like a Jeep, an SUV, and a small tank had gotten together and had one hell of a night, and this was the result. Military would be painted in the camouflage of the area, or the current military fashion. The police were very fond of basic black for them.
There were three soldiers standing in a little cluster by the three black vehicles, dressed in the same all-black that Nolan was; between the outfits and the "SUVs," it reminded me a lot of working with SWAT, except I'd earned my place with our local cops, and here the hostility and doubt poured off all of them in waves. It wasn't aimed just at me; we were all unknowns. The three soldiers had no way of knowing how well we were trained, or how our training would complement or conflict with theirs. When you're about to trust your life to someone, you want to know that they're worthy of that trust.
Brennan was tall, dark, and handsome except for the hair being buzzed so close to his head it made me want to pet it to see if it was soft like baby duck feathers or bristly like beard stubble. Th
e face was nice enough to carry the lack of hair, but it still made him seem unfinished to me. Griffin was also tall, not so dark, with a few curls escaping the beretlike hat he had on his short hair, which meant his hair might be as curly as mine if he didn't keep it so short. His eyes dominated his face, huge blue-green orbs with thick, dark lashes. He'd probably spent his whole life having women tell him he had beautiful eyes, and since he'd gone military, he'd probably gotten tired of the compliment before he hit high school. No matter how much he lifted in the gym, or how good he was on the range or on the field, the eyes would make the other men give him grief and the women pester him. Donahue was shorter, but still about five-eight, which made her taller than me by five inches. She was built leaner than me; even under the body armor you could tell the hips and chest were more boyish than my curves. Her hair was brown, straight, and cut short enough that it tried to undercut the whole girl thing, but her face was too feminine to pass for male. She was pretty without a drop of makeup on, which meant she'd have to work even harder to prove that she was really just one of the boys. Her handshake was firm, though her hands weren't much bigger than mine. She smiled when she was introduced to the rest of the gang.
"More women than you've ever worked with on any of the special-operations stuff, isn't it?" I said.
"It is," she said, and like everything she'd said, it was lyrical, and just sounded better than a straight American accent.
Nolan said, "Forrester didn't tell me we'd have this many women in your group." He made no pretense that he was happy about it, and implied in his tone that he would be asking Ted to explain once he had him in private. Nolan was starting not to sound charming even with the Irish accent.
"Is this private enough to talk about the name Anita mentioned earlier?" Edward asked in his Ted voice.
"If the rest of her people step away, yes."
"They all know the person in question," I said.
Nolan looked at me and then at the people around me. "All of them know him, including Mr. Long Hair here?"
"Yes, Mr. Graison knows him," I said, hoping that if I kept repeating everyone's names he'd remember them. I did nicknames when I met a lot of people all at once, too. Mr. Long Hair sounded like something I'd use on a stranger, so it really shouldn't have bugged me, but it still did.
"We all know him," Edward said.
Nolan turned to him. "She said my darlin' reminded her of Bobby Lee."
Brennan's dark brown eyes went a little wide, then looked at me. He looked me up and down, but not like a man looks at a woman he thinks is attractive, more like he would have looked at me if I'd been a man about my height and size. Shorter men have to work harder to earn their stripes in this kind of fraternity, too.
"How do you know Bobby Lee?" he asked.
"I'll answer you in the car once we get moving," I said.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" Brennan asked.
I looked at Edward, who gave a tiny nod. It was his go-ahead nod. "Because we are wasting daylight and one thing you learn quick about hunting vampires is you want to use every bit of daylight you can."
"We know the job," Brennan said.
"Then let's get moving to Dublin, or are we not hooking up with the local police right away?"
"We need to talk about Bobby Lee before we decide where we're going, Blake," Nolan said.
I looked at Edward. "How honest can I be with him?"
"I'd like to know how he knows Bobby Lee before I answer that question," he said.
I put down the bags I was holding; no reason to hold everything if we were going to be there for a while. Most of the guards followed suit. "Fine. We play twenty questions and then we get our asses moving." I turned to the men. "How do you know Bobby Lee?"
Brennan narrowed his dark eyes and went from speculative to nearly hostile. "We don't owe you an explanation."
"Then we're at an impasse," I said.
"Impasse?" Brennan said.
Griffin said, "It means the situation can't progress, that we're stuck where we are until we agree to move forward." He was fighting not to smile at me or at Brennan's discomfort, one or the other. I'd take any lightening of the mood.
"I know what it means," Brennan snapped at him.
Griffin just smiled pleasantly at him. He was teasing the other man and not in a buddy kind of way, more an "I almost don't like you" kind of way.
"You aren't going to share information until we do, are you?" Edward said.
Nolan just stared at him, which was answer enough.
Edward smiled his Ted smile at me. "Anita, you be the grown-up and tell the captain how you know Bobby Lee."
"Me the grown-up, that's different," I said.
"Answer the question, Anita, please." He didn't say please for much of anyone, not when he meant it, so I did what he asked.
"Bobby Lee is one of our bodyguards."
"Our?" Brennan said.
"Jean-Claude's bodyguards," I said.
Edward said, "We all look for work once we get out of the service, Nolan. Now, your turn: How do you know Bobby Lee?"
"We met someplace warmer, and a hell of a lot drier," Nolan said.
"Once you've gone private contractor the military won't take you back," Edward said.
"Bobby Lee can't go back, even if he wanted to," Nolan said.
"I meant you."
"I've never left the military."
Edward looked at him like he didn't believe him, but finally said, "Did you move back to mainstream military?" There was very little Ted in his voice when he asked.
"I put together teams for special assignments."
"You mean like the teams we were assigned to back in the day?"
"Yes."
"If I tell Anita she can trust you, am I going to regret that?"
"Why did it bother both of you that we all know Bobby Lee?" I asked.
"Regular military doesn't work with shapeshifters, not even as private contractors," Edward said.
"Then how did Nolan and Brennan get to work with Bobby Lee?" I asked.
"That is the question, isn't it?" Edward said in a voice that was cold and almost threatening. Ted wasn't going to last as a disguise if he couldn't do better than this.
"What are you afraid of, Forrester?" Nolan asked.
"Regular military doesn't play with shapeshifters, but there are other people who wear the uniform. People I don't want Anita involved with."
I had a thought. "You mean Van Cleef, don't you?"
They both looked at me as if I'd said too much. Nolan looked shocked and walked the two of us out away from the rest of the group. The guards on their four-point formation tried to follow me, but I shook my head and let Nolan lead Edward and me a more private distance up to the front of the Humvee line. When Nolan thought we were far enough away, he turned on us angrily. That otherworldly energy danced in the air and around my skin. I had to swallow past it and tell my inner beasts to stay put and not react to it.
"Forrester, I heard the rumor that you and she were . . . Pillow talk like that will get you in jail for treason."
"She knows the name because I brought her to his attention, or her hanging around with me did. I don't want her to ever meet him, or be involved in anything he's doing, and I need to know right now, Nolan: Is he involved with your unit?"
He looked at me. "Why does Van Cleef want to meet you?"
"I'm not sure he wants to meet me, but I've heard from more than just Ted that he's interested in the fact that I carry lycanthropy but I don't shift."
"She heals almost as well as a lycanthrope, is almost as fast, and has their heightened senses, but she never changes shape," Edward said.
Nolan looked from him to me. "If that's true, then you'd be right up Van Cleef's alley."
"You see why I want to keep her away from him," Edward said.
"You aren't denying that you're a couple with her, then?"
"Couple?" He looked at me. "Anita, are we a couple?"
"Not last I checke
d."
"Fine. You want blunt. Are you lovers?" Nolan asked.
"No," we said together.
"Why don't I believe that?"
"Because no one wants to believe that a man and a woman can be best friends without sex being involved somewhere," I said.
"A lot of the men in our line of work hate the fact that she and I are better at the job than they are, so it makes them feel superior to spread the rumors."
"It makes me Ted's girlfriend, not an equal, I think."
"What does it give them over Ted?"
I looked at Ted. "Good question."
"You're out of step with the younger set, Nolan. Men can be sluts, too. If I'm sleeping with Anita, then I'm getting supernatural help from her, and I'm cheating on my fiancee, which gives some of the jealous bastards a sense of superiority."
"It's a way of explaining why you're better than they are," Nolan said.
"And then Anita isn't good in her own right; she's my protegee, or trainee, or some bullshit."
"To be fair, you did help train me to be a better hunter," I said.
"Monster hunting has always been an apprentice system, Anita, no shame in that," Edward said.
"Who'd you apprentice to?" I asked, because it just occurred to me.
"Van Cleef," he and Nolan both said, at the same damn time. They stared at each other, and it was only partly friendly.
"Are you still his boy?" Edward asked.
"That summer was a long time ago, Ted."
"Answer the question."
"This isn't one of his projects. I swear that."
"But you are in touch with him."
"And you called him in for help just a few years ago, and he came. He sent people to rain hell down on your enemies, helped you save your fiancee and her kids." It was the first time I'd met Donna and the kids; bad guys had kidnapped them, and Edward had turned to the mysterious Van Cleef for help, because the bad guys had known the name, and Edward, too.
"Because some of the men involved were old friends of ours, and of his," Edward said.
"They weren't military anymore; they'd gone more rogue than you have," Nolan said.
"I cannot believe I did not ask you if you were still in his fucking pocket before I got Anita on the plane."
"You call him in when you need him . . . Ted." And there was something about the way he hesitated on the name, as if there were another name he was almost saying. I knew that Van Cleef knew Edward was Edward, and not just Ted. I wondered if he'd shared that with Nolan.
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