FIC: Switchback 8: Catch a Tiger
Switchback Eight: Catch a Tiger
At TTH
and also here, for your commenting pleasure.
Switchback
by Mhalachai
Summary: It's a funny thing, time. It can cure us or it can drive us mad. For Anita Blake, simply waking up can take her to the path of madness, especially when time is not behaving as it should be.
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
~*~
Part Eight
Catch a Tiger
~*~
I was so warm when I woke up that I didn't want to move. Warm bodies pressed against mine, heavy in sleep. I burrowed closer to them as I came more awake. It wasn't Micah or Nathaniel, I realized, and part of me deep inside grew cold as I opened my eyes.
I was in the living room of the old apartment, stretched out on the couch. Stephen lay draped over me, pressing me onto Richard. Luckily, Stephen had put on some of my old workout clothes, sweats and a t-shirt. When had he come out here from the bedroom? I wondered, not moving. It must have been after I fell asleep.
My eyes found the clock on the wall. Six in the morning, too early for sunlight just yet. I tried to move, but my various bruises and wounds protested. A surprised moan escaped from my throat as I collapsed back against Richard.
The sudden movement must have woken the boys, because I felt them suddenly tense. Stephen sprang up off me and huddled against the other end of the couch, every movement wary.
I gritted my teeth and sat up, trying not to touch Richard too much. Richard blinked up at me with wide brown eyes. He didn't look at all sorry that I'd fallen asleep on him; rather, he seemed to be waiting for me to react before deciding what to say.
I looked away from him, and at Stephen instead. "Bed lonely?" I asked.
Stephen nodded carefully, never taking his attention off my face. "I didn't... I mean..." His voice trailed off uncertainly, and I realized that he was trying to protect Richard's identity. The submissive werewolf's first impulse would have been to explain why he was sprawled on me, that he wanted to be closer to Richard, his pack, but that would give away the fact that Richard was a werewolf.
"It's cool," I said, trying to give Stephen an out. "You behaved, it's fine."
Stephen relaxed, so relieved. I stood up, straightening my aching knee. Only then did I look around at Richard.
"Don't you have school in a little while?" I asked him.
"I do." He slowly stood up, and I realized that he had put on that old shirt of my father's. He hadn't been able to button it up over his chest, which explained why my hand still tingled with the feel of his skin under my palm.
There was no way Richard could go to school wearing that old shirt and a pair of sweatpants. It would be a lot easier for me to just give him a handful of cash and call him a cab, but it seemed rude to just kick him out like that, after what he'd done for me last night. I rubbed my hand over my eyes. "Just give me a minute to get dressed, I'll drive you home."
"Are you feeling up to it?" Richard asked, sounding concerned.
I glanced down at my bandaged arm. The events of last night seemed so far away. "Good as new." I escaped into the bedroom before he could ask me more.
What was I doing? I asked myself as I tore through my closet. I couldn't get involved with Richard again. It was a disaster waiting to happen. I couldn't believe I had agreed to go for coffee with him. I told myself sternly that it would be just one cup of coffee, and then we'd part ways.
The frustration at Richard and everything else in my life focused on the clothes I was flipping past. Everything in the closet was horribly out of date. Half the stuff would make me look like a teenager and the other half would turn me into an office harridan. I knew Jean-Claude had been a big influence on my party clothes and on the lingerie, but on the rest of it as well?
I began to yank things off the hangers. Shirts, sweaters, dresses, most of the clothes in the closet ended up on a pile on the floor. I was never going to wear any of this mess again, I told myself. I wasn't this person, I couldn't dress like her.
After a minute, the closet was mostly bare. I paused to wipe my stinging eyes before going back, this time to take down the only halfway fashionable work outfit I had left. It was a dark red, almost maroon, jacket and knee-length skirt. I grabbed a cream-coloured blouse and hurriedly got dressed.
The last thing I added to the outfit before I put the jacket on was my holster and the Browning. A spare clip went into the inner jacket pocket. If things had been right, I would have added my federal marshal badge to one of the outer pockets. Unfortunately, the state vampire hunter identification card, a little laminated thing, didn't carry nearly as much weight with the cops.
I had to step over the pile of discarded clothes on my way out of the room. Maybe I'd take it all to a homeless shelter when I got back, I thought idly, trying to come up with something productive to do with the mess of my life.
Richard and Stephen were standing by my kitchen table when I came out of the bedroom. I didn't miss the way Richard's eyes flicked over my body, but I decided to ignore it. "Ready to go?" I asked.
Richard nodded. "You don't really have to--"
I raised my hand, and he stopped talking. "Stranding you downtown without a ride or socks seems like a bad way to repay you for what you did last night," I said. "We should get you home in time for school."
He stared at me, trying to read something in my face. "All right," he said.
I picked up my keys, and was slipping my wallet into another pocket when my pager went off on the counter. It was Animators Inc., and I was half-tempted to let it buzz, but then I remembered what they might be paging me about. "Just a minute," I said to Richard and Stephen as I went to the phone and dialled the office. Bert himself picked up on the third ring. "Don't you need to sleep?" I said to him.
"You've got a dying will to take care of," Bert said, ignoring me. "Your police friends called me at home about half an hour ago about it."
"Who is it?" I asked.
Paper rustled on the other end of the line. "Cal Rupert," he said.
I swore under my breath. "When do I need to be there?" I asked.
"Around nine," Bert said, sounding surprised that I wasn't arguing with him. "The cops will meet you there with the paperwork."
"Brilliant," I said, and hung up without saying goodbye. Instead of heading for the front door, I went to the closet in the hall where I kept my vampire kit. I shouldn't have been allowed to carry it around; with the holy water and sawed-off shotgun, it was a little too much like a vampire assassination kit for the police to be happy, but I figured I'd try and get away with it. I didn't want to be facing a possibly feral vampire without as much weaponry as possible, even with the early morning sunlight at my back.
I tossed my pager into the bag and hefted the thing by the handles. When I came out of the closet, Richard was slipping into his leather coat. "Going to the gym after you drop us off?" he asked.
"I have work to do," I said flatly.
"Really."
"Dying will," I elaborated briefly. "Come on, I need to get moving."
I really didn't want to talk about this with Richard, not this morning, not ever. Back when we first started dating, he didn't like how dangerous my job was. Just another reason for me to end this quickly, I thought bitterly.
I opened my front door and glanced at the note. The paper hadn't moved, but the edge of the paper was creased slightly in a way that it hadn't been last night. Edward had been here, I just knew it.
Richard and Stephen waited while I locked the door and pulled down the note, one-handed, then put my keys in my pocket while I headed down the stairs, werewolves in tow. Richard remained uncharacteristically silent until we were in the car and driving down the road.
"Where do you live?" I asked, trying to fill the silence. I knew full well where Richard lived, but that was another thing that I shouldn't have known, right?
He told me, then went back to watching me. As I checked in my rear-view mirror, I saw Stephen huddled against the seats in the back.
"Stephen, do you want me to drop you off somewhere else?" I asked him.
He looked up, eyes wide. "No, it's okay," he said softly. "I can go to Richard's."
I nodded and turned back to the road. Halloween was almost upon us, and a few hardy leaves clung to the trees that lined the freeway. It was desolate and depressing. Sort of like my mood.
"Does the dying will have anything to do with why you came to talk to Jean-Claude last night?" Richard asked after a little while.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. "That doesn't seem like the kind of thing that you'd be interested in," I said, trying to deflect him. It didn't work.
"I'm interested in you," he said. The intensity of his voice sent shivers up my spine. "It seems dangerous."
"Tell that to Cal Rupert," I said shortly. "He's the one the vamps munched on. Turns out he's got a dying will. If he doesn't want to wake up a vampire, I'm perfectly willing to help him out."
"I'm surprised by that," Richard said.
I glanced over at him. The intense look in his eyes was too much. He hadn't known me long enough to be looking at me like that. That was supposed to be my look, with too many thoughts and too much history and too many feelings.
"From what I've heard, you're pretty friendly with some of the vampires in this town. I'm surprised you'd look at it like that."
I kept thinking that I should have been angry at Richard, but I couldn't work up the energy to yell at him. "If someone doesn't want to be a vampire after an attack, and they're already dead, I don't see the conflict in keeping them that way."
I flicked on my signal light with more force than necessary, and changed lanes to take the exit to Richard's house. My earlier desire to talk had evaporated with Richard's questions. He must have picked up on my change in mood, because he kept his mouth shut.
The early morning sun shone down on us as I pulled into Richard's driveway behind his Mustang. "I guess this is it," I said, still annoyed, but not wanting to let Richard go. It was for the best, I told myself, trying to ignore the sudden lump in my throat.
"Right." He paused, his hand on the handle. "Are we still on for coffee?"
"What?" I said, too surprised to do much more than react. "Why?"
"I still want to get to know you," he said evenly. "How about tomorrow after five?"
I stared at him. I remembered how warm he had been, lying under me on the couch this morning, and that brought back memories of what it had been like when we had sex, his body so close to mine. Maybe I was weak, but I wanted that back. "Sure," I finally said.
A grin broke out on Richard's face, making him even more handsome. "I'll call you to set it up," he promised me, and got out of the car. Before he shut the door, he said, "Thanks for the ride."
"Yes, thanks for the ride," Stephen echoed before opening the back door. "And for everything."
"You're welcome," I said automatically. They closed the doors and stood watching me while I put the car into reverse and drove away. I was back on the freeway before I realized what I had done, and I swore out loud. What ever happened to the promise I'd made to myself about not getting involved with Richard again? What the hell was wrong with me? Yes, just being around him usually addled my brain in embarrassing lust-induced ways, but this was ridiculous.
One coffee, I told myself sternly. That would be it. I couldn't afford to get involved with Richard again.
~~*~~
The sun was high in the sky by the time I emerged from the hospital. I'm sure that once upon a time, doing what I needed to a dead body to ensure it would not rise as a vampire would have bothered me, but all I could think about now was how hungry I was. I'd only had time for a stale muffin in the coroner's office while we waited for the last document to be faxed from the courthouse.
Since vamps became legal a few years ago, the paperwork that was needed to carry out a dying will was enormous. The will had to be registered with the courthouse and the coroner, and in most cases, the consent of the family was still needed. In this case, Cal Rupert's widow had signed the papers as soon as the police put them in front of her. From what Zerbrowski said, she was absolutely adamant that her husband not come back from the dead.
Not that I blamed her. My dying will had been on file since the week after Addison v. Clark was finalized. Not only that, but I had ticked the little box to authorize a cremation. There were too many people who might want a bit of dead necromancer for it to be safe to allow my body to rot under ground.
After the muffin and a really bad cup of coffee, the fax came through, and I had gone to work. It was messy, and I was glad of the coveralls I kept in the car. Now, I needed to wash the blood off them. At least Cal Rupert was truly dead, and all those people who had died last time when he went feral, the security guard who had once been Dolph's partner, the cops, even the vampire councillor, would continue to live. They would never know how at risk they had been, and that was perfectly fine with me.
The sun glinted off the cars in the parking lot, and because of it, I almost didn't see the blond man leaning against my Nova at first. Edward glanced up as I neared. I didn't see any weapons in his hands, but all that meant was that he'd hidden all the guns.
The handles of my vampire kit were in my left hand, leaving my right free to go for my Browning. There was a chance that I might be able to outdraw Edward, but really, if it came down to that, I might need to seek cover among the parked cars before I fired.
"I just want to talk, Anita," Edward said, cutting off my hurried tactical planning. I relaxed. Edward may be a sociopath who killed without remorse, but if he said he wanted to talk, well, we'd talk. If he was going to torture or kill me, he'd have said so.
"About what?" I asked, continuing to my car. Edward didn't move as I opened the trunk and stowed away my vampire bag.
"You didn't see me last night," he said.
I looked at him. His cold blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, and he kept his face expressionless. His blond hair was cut a bit shorter than I remembered. To all appearances, he was just another normal guy, the ultimate camouflage. "I did so," I bluffed. "At the Circus of the Damned, while I was dealing with the snake."
Edward removed the sunglasses. "How did you do that, anyway?" he asked, sounding mildly curious.
I smiled sweetly at him. Bantering with Edward was nice and familiar, and sort of like toying with a tame tiger. He might turn on you at any moment. "Tricks of the trade. Why are you here?"
He shrugged, slipping the sunglasses into an inner pocket of his jacket. "You met with the Master of the City last night," he said. "I need the name, Anita."
I didn't respond. I remembered what this was about now. Someone had hired Edward to find and kill the Master of the City. Knowing what I did now, I had a suspicion as to who was paying Edward's bills.
"Why?" I asked. As I stood facing off with Edward over the trunk of my car, I let a little of the monster inside me, the one who didn't care about slicing a corpse up to stop him rising as a vampire, show in my eyes.
"The name, Anita."
"And I said, tell me why," I shot back. "I don't like working in a vacuum, you know that."
He hesitated, eyes never leaving mine. "I've been hired to kill the Master."
"Again?" I said. I worked very hard at keeping my face and my eyes blank, not letting Edward know how much this bothered me. "You did this a few months ago, only I'm the one who killed Nikolaos."
"That you did," Edward said. "I thought you might want in on this one, too."
"Not interested," I said. "I've got a kiss of rogue vampires to worry about."
"I heard." Edward paused. "But you met with the Master last night, Anita. That makes you the only person I can find who would be able to identify the Master."
Once upon a time, Edward threatening to torture me might have made me angry, but not now. It was just a part of our relationship. Of course, so was the fact that I'd kill him before I let him hurt me. "Who hired you?" I asked.
"Who's the Master?"
I shook my head. "No, Edward, not this time." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Was it Humans First who hired you? They came to me the other day, asking for the Master's name." I watched him as I spoke, but I couldn't gauge his reaction. "How about a tall man, red hair, mutton-chop sideburns?"
There was the barest hint of a reaction, just a tiny thing, and if I hadn't known Edward for as long as I had, if we hadn't fought against Riker's men in New Mexico and all the other stuff, I would have missed it. Karl Inger, Mr. Oliver's human servant, was the one who hired Edward. But why on earth would Mr. Oliver want to have a human assassin kill Jean-Claude?
"Because he's the one who came to me, with the toady from Humans First," I continued. "Thing is, he's a vampire's human servant. They don't work without the approval of their vampire masters, which leads to the question of why another vampire wants a human to do his dirty work in offing the Master?"
A gust of wind came up, blowing Edward's hair across his forehead. "How can you tell if someone's a human servant?" he asked, curious.
"It's a thing I can do," I said, and it was only a little lie. "You need to know what to look for, and the older the bond between master and servant, the harder it is to tell. I almost missed it on old Karl when he was in my office, which leads me to believe that his master is old. Real old."
Edward blinked in the wind. "I'm not telling you anything about my client," he cautioned.
"I'm aware of that," I retorted. "It's just that if someone lied to me like that, I'd be a bit cranky with them."
He cracked a little smile at that. "That's one way of putting it," he said.
"Glad I'm amusing you." I wanted to get out of this conversation, now, but if I tried to walk away from Edward, he might just break his own rule and shoot me.
"Is Jean-Claude the Master?" he asked, changing the subject so abruptly that I almost reacted.
"What do you mean?" I asked, putting just a bit of puzzlement into my voice. "Jean-Claude's not the Master of the City."
"Who else could it have been, out there against the snake last night?" Edward asked. "The dark-skinned vamp, I hear she's new in town. The Master would never have gotten hurt like that. And those two blondes, it can't have been them."
"The Master doesn't need to be on scene to help his people," I said. "Look, do you remember what was happening when we faced off with Nikolaos? Something was killing master vampires. When all was said and done, most of the masters in town were dead, but not all of them. One of them grabbed power after Nikolaos died. It's not Jean-Claude."
Edward was silent for so long I started to worry that he hadn't believed me. "I need the name, Anita. A job is a job."
"I'm not telling you, Edward. I'm not helping another vampire take power in this city, not one who's too fucking weak to fight his own battles."
Edward nodded. "So that's where you stand," he said. "And you know where I stand." He turned around and walked away. "I'll be back to get the name, Anita."
His voice was blank, almost friendly, but the chills that ran over my skin at his words had nothing to do with the cold.
...tbc
At TTH
and also here, for your commenting pleasure.
Switchback
by Mhalachai
Summary: It's a funny thing, time. It can cure us or it can drive us mad. For Anita Blake, simply waking up can take her to the path of madness, especially when time is not behaving as it should be.
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. I am but borrowing the characters for a brief time and shall return them intact at the end.
~*~
Part Eight
Catch a Tiger
~*~
I was so warm when I woke up that I didn't want to move. Warm bodies pressed against mine, heavy in sleep. I burrowed closer to them as I came more awake. It wasn't Micah or Nathaniel, I realized, and part of me deep inside grew cold as I opened my eyes.
I was in the living room of the old apartment, stretched out on the couch. Stephen lay draped over me, pressing me onto Richard. Luckily, Stephen had put on some of my old workout clothes, sweats and a t-shirt. When had he come out here from the bedroom? I wondered, not moving. It must have been after I fell asleep.
My eyes found the clock on the wall. Six in the morning, too early for sunlight just yet. I tried to move, but my various bruises and wounds protested. A surprised moan escaped from my throat as I collapsed back against Richard.
The sudden movement must have woken the boys, because I felt them suddenly tense. Stephen sprang up off me and huddled against the other end of the couch, every movement wary.
I gritted my teeth and sat up, trying not to touch Richard too much. Richard blinked up at me with wide brown eyes. He didn't look at all sorry that I'd fallen asleep on him; rather, he seemed to be waiting for me to react before deciding what to say.
I looked away from him, and at Stephen instead. "Bed lonely?" I asked.
Stephen nodded carefully, never taking his attention off my face. "I didn't... I mean..." His voice trailed off uncertainly, and I realized that he was trying to protect Richard's identity. The submissive werewolf's first impulse would have been to explain why he was sprawled on me, that he wanted to be closer to Richard, his pack, but that would give away the fact that Richard was a werewolf.
"It's cool," I said, trying to give Stephen an out. "You behaved, it's fine."
Stephen relaxed, so relieved. I stood up, straightening my aching knee. Only then did I look around at Richard.
"Don't you have school in a little while?" I asked him.
"I do." He slowly stood up, and I realized that he had put on that old shirt of my father's. He hadn't been able to button it up over his chest, which explained why my hand still tingled with the feel of his skin under my palm.
There was no way Richard could go to school wearing that old shirt and a pair of sweatpants. It would be a lot easier for me to just give him a handful of cash and call him a cab, but it seemed rude to just kick him out like that, after what he'd done for me last night. I rubbed my hand over my eyes. "Just give me a minute to get dressed, I'll drive you home."
"Are you feeling up to it?" Richard asked, sounding concerned.
I glanced down at my bandaged arm. The events of last night seemed so far away. "Good as new." I escaped into the bedroom before he could ask me more.
What was I doing? I asked myself as I tore through my closet. I couldn't get involved with Richard again. It was a disaster waiting to happen. I couldn't believe I had agreed to go for coffee with him. I told myself sternly that it would be just one cup of coffee, and then we'd part ways.
The frustration at Richard and everything else in my life focused on the clothes I was flipping past. Everything in the closet was horribly out of date. Half the stuff would make me look like a teenager and the other half would turn me into an office harridan. I knew Jean-Claude had been a big influence on my party clothes and on the lingerie, but on the rest of it as well?
I began to yank things off the hangers. Shirts, sweaters, dresses, most of the clothes in the closet ended up on a pile on the floor. I was never going to wear any of this mess again, I told myself. I wasn't this person, I couldn't dress like her.
After a minute, the closet was mostly bare. I paused to wipe my stinging eyes before going back, this time to take down the only halfway fashionable work outfit I had left. It was a dark red, almost maroon, jacket and knee-length skirt. I grabbed a cream-coloured blouse and hurriedly got dressed.
The last thing I added to the outfit before I put the jacket on was my holster and the Browning. A spare clip went into the inner jacket pocket. If things had been right, I would have added my federal marshal badge to one of the outer pockets. Unfortunately, the state vampire hunter identification card, a little laminated thing, didn't carry nearly as much weight with the cops.
I had to step over the pile of discarded clothes on my way out of the room. Maybe I'd take it all to a homeless shelter when I got back, I thought idly, trying to come up with something productive to do with the mess of my life.
Richard and Stephen were standing by my kitchen table when I came out of the bedroom. I didn't miss the way Richard's eyes flicked over my body, but I decided to ignore it. "Ready to go?" I asked.
Richard nodded. "You don't really have to--"
I raised my hand, and he stopped talking. "Stranding you downtown without a ride or socks seems like a bad way to repay you for what you did last night," I said. "We should get you home in time for school."
He stared at me, trying to read something in my face. "All right," he said.
I picked up my keys, and was slipping my wallet into another pocket when my pager went off on the counter. It was Animators Inc., and I was half-tempted to let it buzz, but then I remembered what they might be paging me about. "Just a minute," I said to Richard and Stephen as I went to the phone and dialled the office. Bert himself picked up on the third ring. "Don't you need to sleep?" I said to him.
"You've got a dying will to take care of," Bert said, ignoring me. "Your police friends called me at home about half an hour ago about it."
"Who is it?" I asked.
Paper rustled on the other end of the line. "Cal Rupert," he said.
I swore under my breath. "When do I need to be there?" I asked.
"Around nine," Bert said, sounding surprised that I wasn't arguing with him. "The cops will meet you there with the paperwork."
"Brilliant," I said, and hung up without saying goodbye. Instead of heading for the front door, I went to the closet in the hall where I kept my vampire kit. I shouldn't have been allowed to carry it around; with the holy water and sawed-off shotgun, it was a little too much like a vampire assassination kit for the police to be happy, but I figured I'd try and get away with it. I didn't want to be facing a possibly feral vampire without as much weaponry as possible, even with the early morning sunlight at my back.
I tossed my pager into the bag and hefted the thing by the handles. When I came out of the closet, Richard was slipping into his leather coat. "Going to the gym after you drop us off?" he asked.
"I have work to do," I said flatly.
"Really."
"Dying will," I elaborated briefly. "Come on, I need to get moving."
I really didn't want to talk about this with Richard, not this morning, not ever. Back when we first started dating, he didn't like how dangerous my job was. Just another reason for me to end this quickly, I thought bitterly.
I opened my front door and glanced at the note. The paper hadn't moved, but the edge of the paper was creased slightly in a way that it hadn't been last night. Edward had been here, I just knew it.
Richard and Stephen waited while I locked the door and pulled down the note, one-handed, then put my keys in my pocket while I headed down the stairs, werewolves in tow. Richard remained uncharacteristically silent until we were in the car and driving down the road.
"Where do you live?" I asked, trying to fill the silence. I knew full well where Richard lived, but that was another thing that I shouldn't have known, right?
He told me, then went back to watching me. As I checked in my rear-view mirror, I saw Stephen huddled against the seats in the back.
"Stephen, do you want me to drop you off somewhere else?" I asked him.
He looked up, eyes wide. "No, it's okay," he said softly. "I can go to Richard's."
I nodded and turned back to the road. Halloween was almost upon us, and a few hardy leaves clung to the trees that lined the freeway. It was desolate and depressing. Sort of like my mood.
"Does the dying will have anything to do with why you came to talk to Jean-Claude last night?" Richard asked after a little while.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. "That doesn't seem like the kind of thing that you'd be interested in," I said, trying to deflect him. It didn't work.
"I'm interested in you," he said. The intensity of his voice sent shivers up my spine. "It seems dangerous."
"Tell that to Cal Rupert," I said shortly. "He's the one the vamps munched on. Turns out he's got a dying will. If he doesn't want to wake up a vampire, I'm perfectly willing to help him out."
"I'm surprised by that," Richard said.
I glanced over at him. The intense look in his eyes was too much. He hadn't known me long enough to be looking at me like that. That was supposed to be my look, with too many thoughts and too much history and too many feelings.
"From what I've heard, you're pretty friendly with some of the vampires in this town. I'm surprised you'd look at it like that."
I kept thinking that I should have been angry at Richard, but I couldn't work up the energy to yell at him. "If someone doesn't want to be a vampire after an attack, and they're already dead, I don't see the conflict in keeping them that way."
I flicked on my signal light with more force than necessary, and changed lanes to take the exit to Richard's house. My earlier desire to talk had evaporated with Richard's questions. He must have picked up on my change in mood, because he kept his mouth shut.
The early morning sun shone down on us as I pulled into Richard's driveway behind his Mustang. "I guess this is it," I said, still annoyed, but not wanting to let Richard go. It was for the best, I told myself, trying to ignore the sudden lump in my throat.
"Right." He paused, his hand on the handle. "Are we still on for coffee?"
"What?" I said, too surprised to do much more than react. "Why?"
"I still want to get to know you," he said evenly. "How about tomorrow after five?"
I stared at him. I remembered how warm he had been, lying under me on the couch this morning, and that brought back memories of what it had been like when we had sex, his body so close to mine. Maybe I was weak, but I wanted that back. "Sure," I finally said.
A grin broke out on Richard's face, making him even more handsome. "I'll call you to set it up," he promised me, and got out of the car. Before he shut the door, he said, "Thanks for the ride."
"Yes, thanks for the ride," Stephen echoed before opening the back door. "And for everything."
"You're welcome," I said automatically. They closed the doors and stood watching me while I put the car into reverse and drove away. I was back on the freeway before I realized what I had done, and I swore out loud. What ever happened to the promise I'd made to myself about not getting involved with Richard again? What the hell was wrong with me? Yes, just being around him usually addled my brain in embarrassing lust-induced ways, but this was ridiculous.
One coffee, I told myself sternly. That would be it. I couldn't afford to get involved with Richard again.
~~*~~
The sun was high in the sky by the time I emerged from the hospital. I'm sure that once upon a time, doing what I needed to a dead body to ensure it would not rise as a vampire would have bothered me, but all I could think about now was how hungry I was. I'd only had time for a stale muffin in the coroner's office while we waited for the last document to be faxed from the courthouse.
Since vamps became legal a few years ago, the paperwork that was needed to carry out a dying will was enormous. The will had to be registered with the courthouse and the coroner, and in most cases, the consent of the family was still needed. In this case, Cal Rupert's widow had signed the papers as soon as the police put them in front of her. From what Zerbrowski said, she was absolutely adamant that her husband not come back from the dead.
Not that I blamed her. My dying will had been on file since the week after Addison v. Clark was finalized. Not only that, but I had ticked the little box to authorize a cremation. There were too many people who might want a bit of dead necromancer for it to be safe to allow my body to rot under ground.
After the muffin and a really bad cup of coffee, the fax came through, and I had gone to work. It was messy, and I was glad of the coveralls I kept in the car. Now, I needed to wash the blood off them. At least Cal Rupert was truly dead, and all those people who had died last time when he went feral, the security guard who had once been Dolph's partner, the cops, even the vampire councillor, would continue to live. They would never know how at risk they had been, and that was perfectly fine with me.
The sun glinted off the cars in the parking lot, and because of it, I almost didn't see the blond man leaning against my Nova at first. Edward glanced up as I neared. I didn't see any weapons in his hands, but all that meant was that he'd hidden all the guns.
The handles of my vampire kit were in my left hand, leaving my right free to go for my Browning. There was a chance that I might be able to outdraw Edward, but really, if it came down to that, I might need to seek cover among the parked cars before I fired.
"I just want to talk, Anita," Edward said, cutting off my hurried tactical planning. I relaxed. Edward may be a sociopath who killed without remorse, but if he said he wanted to talk, well, we'd talk. If he was going to torture or kill me, he'd have said so.
"About what?" I asked, continuing to my car. Edward didn't move as I opened the trunk and stowed away my vampire bag.
"You didn't see me last night," he said.
I looked at him. His cold blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, and he kept his face expressionless. His blond hair was cut a bit shorter than I remembered. To all appearances, he was just another normal guy, the ultimate camouflage. "I did so," I bluffed. "At the Circus of the Damned, while I was dealing with the snake."
Edward removed the sunglasses. "How did you do that, anyway?" he asked, sounding mildly curious.
I smiled sweetly at him. Bantering with Edward was nice and familiar, and sort of like toying with a tame tiger. He might turn on you at any moment. "Tricks of the trade. Why are you here?"
He shrugged, slipping the sunglasses into an inner pocket of his jacket. "You met with the Master of the City last night," he said. "I need the name, Anita."
I didn't respond. I remembered what this was about now. Someone had hired Edward to find and kill the Master of the City. Knowing what I did now, I had a suspicion as to who was paying Edward's bills.
"Why?" I asked. As I stood facing off with Edward over the trunk of my car, I let a little of the monster inside me, the one who didn't care about slicing a corpse up to stop him rising as a vampire, show in my eyes.
"The name, Anita."
"And I said, tell me why," I shot back. "I don't like working in a vacuum, you know that."
He hesitated, eyes never leaving mine. "I've been hired to kill the Master."
"Again?" I said. I worked very hard at keeping my face and my eyes blank, not letting Edward know how much this bothered me. "You did this a few months ago, only I'm the one who killed Nikolaos."
"That you did," Edward said. "I thought you might want in on this one, too."
"Not interested," I said. "I've got a kiss of rogue vampires to worry about."
"I heard." Edward paused. "But you met with the Master last night, Anita. That makes you the only person I can find who would be able to identify the Master."
Once upon a time, Edward threatening to torture me might have made me angry, but not now. It was just a part of our relationship. Of course, so was the fact that I'd kill him before I let him hurt me. "Who hired you?" I asked.
"Who's the Master?"
I shook my head. "No, Edward, not this time." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Was it Humans First who hired you? They came to me the other day, asking for the Master's name." I watched him as I spoke, but I couldn't gauge his reaction. "How about a tall man, red hair, mutton-chop sideburns?"
There was the barest hint of a reaction, just a tiny thing, and if I hadn't known Edward for as long as I had, if we hadn't fought against Riker's men in New Mexico and all the other stuff, I would have missed it. Karl Inger, Mr. Oliver's human servant, was the one who hired Edward. But why on earth would Mr. Oliver want to have a human assassin kill Jean-Claude?
"Because he's the one who came to me, with the toady from Humans First," I continued. "Thing is, he's a vampire's human servant. They don't work without the approval of their vampire masters, which leads to the question of why another vampire wants a human to do his dirty work in offing the Master?"
A gust of wind came up, blowing Edward's hair across his forehead. "How can you tell if someone's a human servant?" he asked, curious.
"It's a thing I can do," I said, and it was only a little lie. "You need to know what to look for, and the older the bond between master and servant, the harder it is to tell. I almost missed it on old Karl when he was in my office, which leads me to believe that his master is old. Real old."
Edward blinked in the wind. "I'm not telling you anything about my client," he cautioned.
"I'm aware of that," I retorted. "It's just that if someone lied to me like that, I'd be a bit cranky with them."
He cracked a little smile at that. "That's one way of putting it," he said.
"Glad I'm amusing you." I wanted to get out of this conversation, now, but if I tried to walk away from Edward, he might just break his own rule and shoot me.
"Is Jean-Claude the Master?" he asked, changing the subject so abruptly that I almost reacted.
"What do you mean?" I asked, putting just a bit of puzzlement into my voice. "Jean-Claude's not the Master of the City."
"Who else could it have been, out there against the snake last night?" Edward asked. "The dark-skinned vamp, I hear she's new in town. The Master would never have gotten hurt like that. And those two blondes, it can't have been them."
"The Master doesn't need to be on scene to help his people," I said. "Look, do you remember what was happening when we faced off with Nikolaos? Something was killing master vampires. When all was said and done, most of the masters in town were dead, but not all of them. One of them grabbed power after Nikolaos died. It's not Jean-Claude."
Edward was silent for so long I started to worry that he hadn't believed me. "I need the name, Anita. A job is a job."
"I'm not telling you, Edward. I'm not helping another vampire take power in this city, not one who's too fucking weak to fight his own battles."
Edward nodded. "So that's where you stand," he said. "And you know where I stand." He turned around and walked away. "I'll be back to get the name, Anita."
His voice was blank, almost friendly, but the chills that ran over my skin at his words had nothing to do with the cold.
...tbc