Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I will keep fighting to get you out,” Ms. Brooks said.

  “I’ll stay until you’re out of jail, too,” I said.

  Bobby flashed a very warm smile my way. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

  “She must stay nearby until she either executes you or the warrant is voided,” Olaf said. He’d walked back in so he could peer through the doorway to the cells.

  Bobby’s face crumpled, going from happy smiles to confusion and fear. I touched his hands where they were still wrapped around the bars. He smiled at me again, but his eyes stayed scared. I squeezed his hands, and he moved his fingers so he could squeeze back.

  “It’s going to be all right, Bobby,” I said. “We’re all working to get you free.”

  “Thank you. Thank you all,” he said, still holding my hands through the bars, but looking at everyone he could see.

  I fought the urge to rub my cheek against his fingers like a cat scent-marking. My inner leopard was trying to rise and comfort him, too, but I’d had enough of my beasts getting out of control. I took a deep breath and stepped back, letting Bobby’s fingers slide down my skin as I pulled away. He didn’t want to let me go. I knew it was part just human comfort, but part of it was his beast recognizing mine. Every shapeshifter I knew said it was lonely without more of your own kind around, and he had been alone a very long time.

  “We have to go, Bobby, but we’ll see you tomorrow.” I smiled when I spoke, and he smiled back.

  We left him in smiles. I tried to get Angel or Ethan to stay behind, but the sheriff didn’t want them there, and we were in a gray area legally. The case wasn’t a supernatural case at all, so technically it didn’t fall under the supernatural marshals’ jurisdiction. If I hadn’t still had a warrant of execution with Bobby’s name on it, we’d have had no rights in the case at all. But none of my bodyguards wanted to stay and babysit Bobby. They didn’t say it out loud, but I got the distinct impression that they were more worried about guarding me and one another than Bobby Marchand. I wanted to argue, but Bobby seemed relaxed and happy. Leduc had found a chessboard, and he was setting up the pieces for him and Bobby to play through the bars. The winner would play Deputy Troy. Apparently, Troy had been something of a chess prodigy back in high school, but football got him more dates than chess club. I just couldn’t picture the deputy being a deep enough thinker for chess, but then, maybe I wasn’t catching any of the locals at their best.

  Ms. Brooks went to see if she could talk to the judge in person and get Bobby out of jail earlier. I took Leduc aside and asked him where Jocelyn was. I wasn’t sure how that reunion was going to go. She was back at the hospital under observation after her little fit with Muriel and Todd. They were talking about keeping her overnight under sedation. Bobby was as safe as I could make him. He’d be a free man in a day or two, and then I could go home with the first ever warrant of execution canceled without a death.

  We all trooped out with Olaf and Edward joining us. It was time to talk metaphysics and dating serial killers. I’d have rather stayed and played chess or checkers or Parcheesi, and I didn’t even know how to play that.

  74

  “YOU ARE ATTRACTED to Bobby Marchand,” Olaf said once we got outside. Of all the things he could have started with, that hadn’t been on my list.

  “I’m not attracted to Bobby,” I said.

  “Lies! I saw you with him just now.”

  His energy blazed around him so hot that I wanted to step back as if it were real fire and I was afraid of getting burned. God, he was so powerful. It really was a shame he was crazy. The moment I had that thought, I saw my lioness step out of the shadows. She stared at me with dark amber eyes.

  “I’m not lying. I don’t want to date Bobby.”

  “Why must you always make it about dating? I said you are attracted to him, not that you wanted a relationship with him.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My lioness took the first step forward, sniffing the air. So much power, such strength, he could protect us from the other lions. If we could only get him to hunt with our other lion, and I knew she meant Nicky.

  “She doesn’t want to fuck Bobby,” Nicky said.

  Olaf whirled toward him, all that power blazing bright and feeding on his anger. He suddenly smelled like food again. “I saw her with him! I saw her beast react every time they touched!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Your leopard did react to him, my . . . Anita,” Pierette said.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “You admit it,” Olaf said.

  “That my inner beast reacted to his, yes, but that’s not the same thing as being attracted to him.”

  Angel made a sound that might have been a laugh. I turned and glared at her. “Why is that funny?”

  “Your beast doesn’t react like that to just everyone,” she said with a smile.

  “Stop grinning at me, and just tell me what that means,” I said.

  “It means that you have more control over your beasts now, and they flare only if you are sort of attracted to someone.”

  “Or if she hasn’t fed the ardeur in more than four hours,” Pierette said.

  Edward said, “Do you really want to have this talk in front of the sheriff’s office?”

  “Until he can control his energy, we can’t get into a car with him,” Custer said, nodding at Olaf.

  “His energy is calming down,” Angel said.

  Olaf had been calming down, but now the energy flared again, and the anger flared with it. Damn it, why did his anger smell so good to me?

  “If you can tone it down, we can go somewhere and talk in private,” I said.

  I fought not to rub my arms or move closer to Olaf. It was like I either needed to wash his power off my skin or touch it. It wasn’t his lion I wanted; it was his rage. Yummy, yummy rage. My thinking of him as food confused my lioness, so she faded into the darkness with only a gleam of golden eyes to remind me she wasn’t gone, just hiding in the dark like a good ambush predator.

  “Privacy means no witnesses,” Olaf said.

  It took me a second to realize what he was saying and why. I nodded, trying to clear my head of hungers that had nothing to do with solid food. What was wrong with me today? “I’m not wanting privacy so there won’t be witnesses to a crime. I want it because I won’t talk about this shit in public.”

  “What shit is that?” he asked.

  “Private shit.”

  Olaf actually smiled as if I’d meant to be funny.

  “Anita doesn’t like talking about intimate stuff in public,” Angel said with a come-hither smile.

  “I want to talk of such things with Anita, but I will not let my desire make me foolish,” Olaf said.

  Angel cocked a hip to one side so that the swell of her hips was even more promising inside the pencil skirt. She even put a hand on one hip as if to emphasize the swell of them. “It’s not just Anita you get to be alone with.” She literally stroked a hand down one hip. I knew she’d overplayed it before Olaf said anything.

  “Two women at once is not one of my fantasies,” he said.

  “Then what is?” She made her come-hither go up a notch so that it was a little bit evil or promised to do evil things with you.

  “Does this pretense work on other men?”

  “I’m not pretending anything,” she said.

  “I let you see on my face what my fantasies are when we first met. You showed fear then, which was wise, and then you went back to flirting with me.”

  “I flirt with everyone,” Angel said, but she’d moved her hands away from her hips.

  “I have noticed. What I cannot decide is if you would carry through with all of it. Would you fuck them?”

  She took a breath to answer, but I cut her off. “Angel like
s to flirt, but no, she doesn’t sleep with as many people as she teases.”

  What I’d said was true, but the last thing I wanted was for Olaf to think Angel was a whore. He tended to kill them faster.

  Angel tried to say something else, but I held my finger up, and she took the hint. “We really need somewhere private for this conversation.”

  “How many of them will be joining us for the talk?” Olaf asked.

  “Most of them,” I said.

  “All of them,” said Nicky.

  “I don’t think we need everyone,” I said.

  “I think we do.” Nicky gave me very direct eye contact as if I was missing something important.

  “Then I need guarantees for my safety,” Olaf said.

  “What kind of guarantees?” I asked.

  “Are you admitting that you couldn’t take us all?” Nicky asked, and that was when I figured out what he’d been trying to tell me with his look.

  “Normally I would not worry about four against one,” Olaf said, “but you are all shapeshifters and two of you are former special teams, and one of them is you.”

  Nicky acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

  “Why only four?” Edward asked.

  “You want to know which of us is better. You cannot learn that attacking me in a group.”

  I glanced back at the offices behind us. “We need to go somewhere else for this talk.”

  “Agreed,” Edward said.

  “Sure,” Nicky said.

  “You’re not going to protest that he didn’t include you in either attack?” Angel asked.

  “Not while we’re standing in front of the sheriff’s station. So let’s try this again. What guarantees do you want, Otto?” I said.

  “Your word of honor and . . . Ted’s that I will come to no harm if I go with you.”

  “I’ll give my word of honor on the condition that you don’t try to hurt us first.”

  “I will not strike the first blow,” Olaf said.

  “Promise?” I asked.

  “I give you my word.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “You’re just going to take his word, just like that?” Custer asked.

  “Otto’s word is good, so yes.”

  “Don’t you want everybody’s word of honor?” Custer asked.

  “I know that Anita and Ted keep their word,” Olaf said. “I am almost certain that Nicky’s word of honor is worth nothing. He lies too well. The rest of you I do not know, so I cannot trust your word.” He turned to Edward then and asked, “Will you give me your word, Ted?”

  Edward actually looked at him for a few seconds and then nodded. “I give you my word.”

  Olaf smiled, and it almost looked normal, like he was happy about something. “Where shall we go for this conversation?”

  “I expected you to want us to go to your room,” Edward said.

  “I did not get a room yet.”

  “There aren’t a lot of room choices in Hanuman,” Ethan said. “We have two rooms that have connecting doors at the motel.”

  We all looked at one another and just like that we had our location. It was just as well, because Leduc came out on the porch.

  “What the hell?” Leduc asked. “I told you this isn’t a supernatural case anymore, so the marshals can stay, but the rest of you can’t.”

  “Preternatural branch can deputize, so they count as marshals,” I said.

  He shook his head, fingers in his duty belt again in a gesture that looked practiced yet awkward with the weight that had to be new, because he wasn’t used to it yet. “Not if it’s no longer a supernatural case. The only reason you’re still here is that warrant in your pocket. Once that is no longer in effect, then you’re all out of here.”

  “Sheriff, we’re in a legal gray area so big that I’m not even sure when I’m supposed to leave.”

  That made him laugh in spite of himself. “Well, I guess I can’t argue that, but I know you being able to deputize is meant for emergencies when a marshal is alone on a monster hunt and needs backup. I’m not sure anything about this case qualifies. You never had to hunt Bobby, and now no monsters are involved.”

  “Do you really believe that the people who killed Ray Marchand aren’t monsters?” I asked.

  The last of the smile vanished from Leduc’s face, and he suddenly looked exhausted and years older. It was that kind of case. “You’ve made your point, Blake. Now get the extra personnel out of here.”

  Angel sashayed up to him. “Oh, Dukie, you’ll miss me when I’m gone.”

  That put a smile back on his face. “Of course I’ll miss you, Angel. If I said anything less, I would not be a gentleman.”

  She kissed him on the cheek the way you’d kiss your uncle, except that she left a perfect crimson imprint of her lips behind. “You’re always a gentleman, Dukie,” she said, voice huskier than it needed to be.

  He blushed until his cheek was darker than her lipstick. Angel was good.

  75

  THE MOTEL HAD all the charm of a chain motel, which is to say none, but it was clean. One window in each room looked out on thick green forest with more evergreens reaching up toward the cloud-bedecked blue sky than we ever had in Missouri. The view made the generic room not matter. I could see getting up and going hiking, bird-watching, tracing down the scent of water on the air and finding the closest lake. So many possibilities and I wasn’t going to get to do any of them. Traveling as a marshal meant that it was all about the case. Sometimes the scenery was pretty, even glorious like this, but it didn’t matter. Unless I had to chase a shapeshifter through the forest outside, it might as well have been a big-screen TV set to New Age wilderness music.

  “Anita.” Edward’s voice came from behind me, and just by the tone, I knew it wasn’t the first time he’d called my name.

  “I’m sorry, Edward. What were you saying?”

  I turned from the window to look into the room. It was ridiculous that we were having this discussion at all, as if I would ever really have sex with Olaf. But since he was a shapeshifter and might be able to smell if we were lying, we all had to pretend that we weren’t lying and that there was a snowball’s chance in hell that Olaf and I could date.

  Nicky was standing with his back to the wall nearest me so he could see the room and the window. We were five stories up, but I’d seen shapeshifters climb up and down the outsides of buildings higher than that. Edward was sitting on the corner of the queen bed closest to Nicky and me. Angel was sitting on the bed with him, but she had taken off her heels and scooted all the way up on the bed so she could sit with her back to the headboard and the pillows she’d propped up behind her. Olaf was sitting in the corner of the couch that was almost at the foot of the bed. Custer was in the doorway to the connecting room. He was leaning his shoulder against the doorframe almost the way that Angel had cocked her hip at the sheriff’s office. I wondered if he realized that he was echoing her; with Custer, I was never quite sure.

  Milligan was leaning near the outer door that led into the hallway. The fact that both of the ex-SEALs had taken up posts by the only two doors hadn’t been accidental. Custer might not have realized that he was doing the guy equivalent of what Angel had done earlier, but he knew why he was in charge of one of the doors. I knew that Olaf was very aware that both of the men were between him and the exits; if he was bothered by their positioning, he didn’t show anything.

  Pierette and Ethan were on the other bed. Ethan sat on a corner of the bed, almost mirroring Edward. They both wanted their feet flat on the floor so they were ready to bounce up in case they needed to move quickly and decisively. Pierette sat against the headboard like Angel, but her back was against the bare headboard. The only pillow she was using was the one she was hugging to herself. Where Angel was stretched out and happy on her bed, Pierette was huddled i
n on herself. I’d seen her in the gym, at martial arts practice, on guard duty, and she never looked like this. It wasn’t her. It was an act for Olaf’s benefit, but she’d played it wrong. Olaf liked women to be afraid of him eventually, but I’d never seen him be attracted to anyone who already seemed so beaten down.

  If everyone had run their big plan by me beforehand, I’d have been able to give the women pointers, but it was too late now. It was almost a shame, since Olaf had been willing to like them in that serial killer way when he first laid eyes on them. Now he watched the room, but his gaze didn’t slow down when he ran it over the women.

  We had sodas and water that we’d picked up from the shop downstairs, and a coffeemaker that was doing its best to make coffee. It made sad little sounds, and the aroma was anemic, as if the generic coffee the motel offered wasn’t going to cut it. Almost everyone had taken water. I had a Powerade that Nicky had insisted I take. He’d also offered me a protein bar, which I would have turned down, but he gave me that look that people have been getting from their significant others since probably before written language. The look said I was being unreasonable, and after what had happened at the strip club, he was right. The healthy bars never taste right to me, and the unhealthy ones . . . honestly you might as well eat a candy bar and be done with it, but I took the bar. He opened the end of it before he gave it to me. Now he knew I wouldn’t just shove it into a pocket and forget about it. He knew me too well. The wrapper said it was triple-chocolate good and it managed not to be, but it wasn’t terrible. It certainly wasn’t as terrible as me losing control again. I took another bite and a drink of the Powerade, which helped. It was almost like chocolate cake and Kool-Aid at a kid’s birthday party—okay, it wasn’t, but I looked at Olaf sitting on the couch and thought about losing control when he was the nearest snack. I finished the bar in record time.

  Olaf sipped his water and looked at me. It was like he was waiting for me to say something. What had I missed while I was staring out the window?

  “I’m sorry, really. It’s not like me to be this distracted.”