Rafael

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Why did he cut you?” I asked again.

  “Diego,” Claudia said from where she was standing over us. Apparently, she didn’t plan on any more stumbling nurses getting past her to Pierette.

  I said, “Diego, why did he cut you?”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Besides that,” I said, and smiled before Lillian started tightening the stitches in my thigh. My stomach rolled again.

  “Big baby can’t take a few stitches, says I hurt him on purpose.”

  Claudia said, “Painkiller doesn’t work on us.”

  “I’ve had stitches with no drugs, it hurts a lot.” I tried to focus on how much better this was than that. It really was better.

  “Did you hurt him on purpose?” Pierette asked.

  “Not yet,” Diego said.

  Lillian was tugging on the stitches, which made me too aware of the hard thread going through my skin. My stomach clenched and tried to do a flip-flop at the same time. I squeezed Pierette’s hand tighter.

  Diego drew a knife out from under his scrubs and moved toward the curtain. He moved just enough of the curtain to slide back through and said, “Let’s try that again, Pedro.”

  Claudia said, “Pedro is an asshole.”

  “He’s a bully,” Lillian said as she finished tugging my skin back together. My stomach did another roll and I squeezed harder on Pierette’s hand. She leaned down and whispered, “You’re going to break bones, my . . . Anita.”

  I stopped squeezing and would have let go of her hand, but she held on. “It’s okay, Anita, you’ll get used to your new abilities.”

  “I pulled a man’s arm off; how do I get used to that?”

  “Time,” Claudia said. She knelt so that I wouldn’t have to crane my head up at her. Her face was all sympathy and something more, shared grief I think, as if me struggling with my issues had raised old ghosts for her. Had she torn someone apart like that, by accident? I wanted to ask, but staring into her brown eyes, seeing the pain in them made me hesitate. Bad memories shared isn’t always better; sometimes it just spreads the misery around but doesn’t lighten it for anyone.

  “There, all done,” Lillian said. Her voice made me look at her smiling, aged face. I looked at the peacefulness in her eyes and envied her. Would I ever feel as peaceful inside as she looked?

  “Thanks, doc,” I said. “Anyone have a T-shirt I can borrow? I’d rather not wear this much blood all night.”

  “We might have some scrubs.”

  “I’d really prefer a shirt, but if nothing else, I’d really prefer to be less bloody.”

  “I’ll go see what I can find.” She went with the male nurse and his tray of instruments in tow like his only job was to follow her around and be helpful. Maybe that was his job, or maybe he just had that much respect for the doc.

  I sat up on the bench and started pulling my pants up. I’d have loved to borrow pants, too, but the tac pants had too many weapons attached to them. I’d let the blood dry to me before I’d give up the easy carry of that many of my weapons for the night. I realized that this was the first time I’d been around this many shapeshifters while wearing this much blood and not had anyone get weird about the fact that I smelled like food. I stood up and Claudia stood with me; I realized she was there in case I needed to be steadied. She was in full bodyguard mode. Pierette was still sitting on the bench, looking up at us, and I realized that she was there in case she needed to give me a hand, too. They were both taking such good care of me, but if a fight started, it was against the rules for them to interfere unless it was to save my life.

  Pierette reacted to me staring at her by laying her hand on my hip and smiling up at me. I couldn’t help it, I smiled back. I had a moment of thinking it felt wrong to be fastening my pants instead of taking them off with her right there. When you start thinking things like that about someone, they’ve crossed from casual lover to something else; exactly what that else was we were still figuring out, but it was nice to realize there was an else to figure out with her.

  It must have shown in my face, or maybe my skin smelled different, because her smile widened and filled her eyes with an eagerness that made me smile back and let an answering eagerness fill my own eyes. I started to lean over for a kiss but felt the change in the air as the outer door opened. It made me stop what I was doing and finish fastening my belt.

  I felt Claudia stiffen before she turned more solidly toward the door. “Hector, what are you doing here?”

  “Is that any way to talk to your soon-to-be king, mi cariño?”

  “I am not your cariño.”

  “Once Rafael is dead, you will be.”

  I hadn’t even seen Hector in person, and already I hated him. Perfect.

  22

  PIERETTE AND I moved a little back and to the side of Claudia so we could see him and the room’s only entrance. Funny how that hadn’t bothered me until now. Hector was at least six feet tall, but that was still six inches shorter than Claudia, so he didn’t look nearly as impressive as he seemed to think he looked. He was wearing only fightwear shorts that hit him upper midthigh. They were even slit up the side and bright orange and black, which was a good color against the brown of his skin. The shorts left most of his muscled body bare to view. His long black hair was done back in a braid. If he hadn’t swaggered into the room like he owned it and everyone in it, I might even have said he was handsome. If this was Hector without a crown, God help us if he won tonight. It wasn’t just the loss of Rafael, it was just a bad idea for the tall, dark, and arrogant stranger to be in charge of anything. Maybe I was prejudiced against him, but I didn’t think I was wrong.

  “I believe that Rafael will kill you tonight, but either way it doesn’t change the fact that I will never be your girlfriend,” Claudia said.

  “I don’t want to be your boyfriend, Claudia. I just want to fuck you.” He was close enough now that I realized his eyes were even greener hazel than they’d looked when I fed on him. The eyes were pretty, and if I was totally honest, he was in good shape with pale brown skin so even and smooth over all that muscle that he looked pettable, but pretty is as pretty does. The nice package couldn’t make up for the way his gaze went up and down Claudia’s body so that it was very clear he was doing a lot more than just picturing her nude.

  Her hands curled into fists at her sides.

  “Now, Claudia, you know you can’t challenge me until after I kill Rafael.”

  “He’s baiting you, Claudia, don’t allow him to manipulate you,” Pierette said.

  Hector’s lascivious gaze moved to her, but in the second it took for it to change targets it went from sex to hatred. I wasn’t exaggerating either, he looked at Pierette as if he hated her. It was way too personal a look for just having met.

  “What are you doing here, kitty-cat? You have no business here among us.”

  “She’s with me,” I said.

  His gaze stayed on hatred as he looked at me. “Anita Blake, you have no business here either.”

  “Rafael says otherwise.”

  “When he dies, your safe passage dies with him.”

  “I didn’t get a safe passage through the rats outside. I fought my way through just like everyone else.”

  “So, you really did tear one of us into pieces with your bare hands? Such dainty hands, I don’t believe the story now. Did you go for your silver blade as soon as you got scared?”

  “I never went for silver.”

  “Lies.”

  “No lies,” Claudia said.

  He looked at her and this time there was intelligence and something else, calculating his chances, debating something. I couldn’t read the expression. “If she is not one of us, then she could not have done what they are saying she did.”

  “She bled Tony out with her bare hands, I swear it.”

  “You smell of tr
uth, but I knew Tony. A human couldn’t have killed him unarmed.”

  “I never claimed to be human,” I said, but even my tone wasn’t happy. I still hated the idea that I wasn’t human; no, I hated that I had never been human, not if that meant normal.

  “You aren’t one of us, and you aren’t a vampire, so you’re human,” he said.

  “I saw my first ghost when I was ten, I raised my first dead at fourteen, I’m not sure human was ever what I was.”

  Hector studied me out of those green-brown eyes. It wasn’t a teasing look, or arrogant, it was thoughtful. If the arrogant asshole was just the icing that hid an intelligent, deep thinker, Rafael was in more trouble than I’d thought, but then maybe he’d seen this part of Hector before, maybe it was what made him think the guy could be king someday. As a future leader smart was good; as an enemy to defeat, not so much.

  “Point taken, Anita,” and he said my name the way it’s meant to be pronounced, A-nee-ta. He tried to walk around Claudia to get closer to me, but she moved so that he couldn’t circle around us.

  He looked at her again. “I thought you didn’t like me, Claudia.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why do you keep attracting my attention every time I look at another woman?”

  “I’m supposed to take Anita to Rafael.”

  “Take? Are you her bodyguard here, where everyone must fight for themselves?”

  “I did not guard her outside in the open.”

  “But you guard her now?”

  She hesitated but said the only thing she could say. “No.”

  “Then I am going to move around you to talk directly to Anita; if you move between us again, I will take it as a challenge.”

  Lillian came back from the depths of the lockers with a white T-shirt in her hands. “You are not allowed to challenge anyone but Rafael tonight, Hector, you know the rules.”

  “Just as no one else can fight me before I kill Rafael.”

  “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” I said. I kept my face blank, wondering if he’d get the movie reference.

  He scowled at me. “That made no sense.”

  “I should have known you weren’t a Princess Bride fan.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We think Rafael will kill you tonight,” Pierette said.

  “I do not have to talk to you, cat.”

  “Fine,” I said, “we all think that Rafael is going to kick your ass tonight. Is that better? Did your little prejudiced feelings get hurt because the big, bad wereleopard talked to you?” Yes, I did the baby-talk voice to go with the teasing.

  It was his turn for his fists to curl at his sides. “I will be king tonight, Anita, and then everything that is Rafael’s will be mine, including his lovers.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t belong to Rafael and you know it.”

  “You belong to your vampire master, Jean-Claude, we all know that, but here you are in our holy of holies. You should not be here, Anita Blake.”

  “Tony agreed with you,” I said.

  Hector blinked at me, frowning a little, and then his eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “She’s not threatening you; go change in the back, Anita,” Lillian said, thrusting the T-shirt at me.

  “We wear the blood of our enemies with pride here,” Hector said.

  “Have you ever been covered in someone’s blood and had to walk around all night still fighting while it dries on your body?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Liar, our fights are fast and over with. They never last all night,” Claudia said.

  “You’re so hot when you’re being a pain in my ass, Claudia. I used to want to fuck you because you were hot, now I just want to shut you the fuck up.”

  “With your dick?” I asked.

  Lillian said, “Go change.” She even gave me a little push in the direction she wanted me to go, which was away from Hector.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “Nothing, she’s going to go change now, aren’t you, Anita?” Lillian said.

  I’d have argued with most people, but she’d just sewn me up and healed me too many times to count; that gained her something. I actually tried to leave to go change, but I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and I was just out of reach of Hector’s hand. He hadn’t even swung at me, just tried to grab me. Insult to injury, he’d treated me like a potential victim and not a potential opponent.

  “No human could have seen that.”

  “You’re the one who keeps calling me human, Hector. I’m not claiming to be something I’m not.”

  “I will be king, Anita, and if you do not want to be part of the spoils of my victory, leave before the fight begins.”

  “Rafael wants me at his side, so that’s where I’ll be.”

  “This is your last chance, Anita.”

  “I think you’re full of shit, Hector.”

  Anger ran through his face, tightened the muscles in his shoulders and upper chest and one arm. His body was getting ready to take a swing at me. I half hoped he would do it, because I was within my rights to defend myself. I might not be able to win a full-blown fight, but I knew I could hurt him before anyone could separate us. If he hurt me first, then me hurting him too badly for the fight to go on tonight would be within the rules, or I was almost sure it would be. Hector having to bow out would give us more time to find his master. I wanted that time.

  “If you hit her, she’s within her rights to defend herself,” Claudia said.

  “Are you saying I can’t win against a little girl?”

  “Tony attacked her with a silver blade, and she killed him without drawing a weapon.”

  He glanced at Claudia, then back to me, considering. “You smell like the truth, but I still don’t believe it.”

  “Take a swing at me and I’ll prove it to you,” I said, and that little smile curled the edges of my mouth. It wasn’t a voluntary smile. It was the one that I got just before I hurt someone. My BFF Edward called it my I’m going to fuck you up smile. I’d have hidden the smile if I could have, because if you knew me, it was a serious tell. Of course, Hector didn’t know me.

  “What the hell are you smiling at, little girl?”

  I wanted him to go for me first; he had to start the fight. “Is that the best insult you got, that I’m little and a girl? Because neither one is an insult, just true. Now I mean is it an insult if I say . . .”

  “Anita.” Claudia said my name with that caution that my friends learn after a while.

  “. . . you’re a little boy who’s totally out of his league?”

  His upper chest tensed more, the one arm stiffening. If that was the arm he swung with, then Rafael would see him coming a mile away. His voice came low and careful the way mine did when I knew if I lost control of it, I’d do something violent that I wasn’t ready to do yet. “I am not a boy and I am not out of my league with Rafael.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Rafael, Hector baby.”

  He frowned as if my teasing was too hard for him to follow. Who was the real Hector, the confused boy or the intelligent man that kept peeking out? “What are you talking about, Anita Blake?”

  “Us, me, Pierette, Claudia—you’re out of your league with us.”

  His body relaxed; damn. The arrogance was back, so sure of himself. “None of you are out of my league for dating.”

  I smiled and this time it was a happy smile. “I wasn’t talking about dating us, Hector, I was talking about fighting, but now that you mention it, all three of us are out of your league for both.”

  He laughed; it was that sound of a big, athletic, handsome man who has been bigger, faster, stronger, and better than all the other men
for most of his life. It can make a man be incredibly arrogant and have a sense of entitlement because no one ever tells him no.

  “Have you seen my fiancés?” I asked. “You’re cute enough, but you so aren’t as gorgeous as they are.”

  He frowned again, as if I was making him think too hard. I wondered if he was like some of the inner-city athletes who were great on the court or field, but all the rest of their lives had been skipped over so that they were undersocialized and couldn’t read well. “After the wererats are mine, your vampire master’s beauty won’t save him, and once he dies all that survive will be ours.”

  I blinked at him, because that was a little too much truth in advertising for this early in the game. “So you’re just going to tell us your dastardly plan for citywide domination now and not wait for the villain speech later?”

  “Would you rather I pretend that you and Jean-Claude are stupid?”

  “I guess not,” I said, but my pulse was a little faster than it should have been.

  Hector took a deep breath of the air. “I like smelling your fear, Anita. I like it better that you’re afraid of me now.” He smiled, but it was more a snarl than a smile, showing teeth to remind the other person that even in human form teeth can still tear flesh.

  Pierette said, “So you declare that you will use the wererats to attack Jean-Claude and his vampires?”

  “I do not answer to cats.”

  I repeated the question.

  “The wererats are the majority of Jean-Claude’s foot soldiers; take them and the numbers are on our side. He knows that. We all know that. Why pretend?”

  “What will you do if you take the wererats and the vampires, then what?” I asked.

  “Then I truly will be king.”

  “You shouldn’t be this confident,” Claudia said.

  “Perhaps Jean-Claude and all your pretty boys should be watching their backs tonight,” Hector said. He leaned in as he said it and I let him, because I was watching his eyes and not the rest of him. His eyes were a solid dark brown, no green at all, and down in the depths of that darkness was power that tried to pull at me.