FIC: Inevitable 62: Hard To Deal
Inevitable Sixty-Two: Hard To Deal
by Mhalachai
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. Only the story is my own.
Note: There are 10,181 words full of ANGST and WOE and CAPSLOCK-WORTHY-RAGE in this chapter, so settle in for the long haul. What I don't understand is how fast this all seems to go. Anyway, enjoy!
Previous parts here.
~~~~~~~
Micah had to buckle up my seatbelt around my sling for me in the jeep the next morning. Sitting up hurt so bad, but I wasn't going to complain, not with Nathaniel hovering silently beside the car. He hadn't spoken a word all morning, and after I woke up, he hadn't touched me either.
The doctors hadn't wanted to let me go, but even they had to admit that I was almost healed. There was pain in my abdomen where Olaf's knife had cut across several layers of muscles, but it was manageable, provided I didn't try any sit-ups for a while. I was wearing my Firestar in an inner-belt holster, almost pressing on the edge of the stitches. It was almost too much to bear, but I wasn't going anywhere unarmed today.
They'd looked somber when I'd asked about my left hand. The silver spike had shattered bone, they said, and there was some tendon damage. I was already scheduled for an appointment with a reconstructive surgeon the next day.
As Micah opened the jeep's back door for Nathaniel, I stared down at my right hand. The doctors said it was a miracle that the spike had missed causing any real damage. I'd pulled off the bandages on the way over in the wheelchair. I'd been raised Catholic, and seeing the large angry scab, going all the way through my palm like this, was giving me the heebie-jeebies. The nuns had told us about stigmatics in Sunday School. I'd had nightmares for weeks about holes opening up in my hands, bleeding to death because God wanted to remind me he was watching.
"Anita?"
I jerked up at the sound of Micah's voice, my back hitting the seat painfully. "What?" I asked when I got my breath back.
Micah stared at me steadily. I almost didn't notice how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel. "I asked you where you want me to take you."
"Oh." I blinked a few times to clear the fog in my brain. The doctors had insisted on giving me one last painkiller before I left. It wasn't killing the pain much but it sure was making me dizzy. "Am I supposed to be anywhere?"
"The police want to talk to you," Micah said slowly. "And we can't go back home yet, it's a... well, we can't go home yet."
I stared out the window at the brilliantly clear September day. "Where are we going to stay?"
"The Circus," Micah said promptly. "Jean-Claude said we could stay as long as we need, Damian's there and the whole pard promised they'd come by."
A tiny, distressed sound from Nathaniel in the backseat made me close my eyes. Yesterday, when his body was ripped to pieces on the floor of our living room, Nathaniel hadn't made a single sound. Now that I was safe in the car, the smell of that room came rushing back, the helplessness and horror and terror, and I curled my right hand into a ball, trying to keep breathing, my nails digging into my palm.
The jeep rocked, and I heard Micah's voice in the backseat, low and soothing. His words were a blend of sound that I couldn't make out, as I struggled to not start panicking. I had to be strong. Nathaniel needed me to be strong, everyone needed me to be strong.
Finally, I choked down my panic attack and opened my eyes. I didn't turn around, didn't want to see what was going on.
A little old lady in a walker inched her way slowly down the parking lot sidewalk. My eyes followed her, paying very close attention to her clothes, her hair, her stockings loose around her ankles. My head filled up with inconsequential details, shoving all the rest of it away to where I didn't have to deal with anything.
The little old lady had disappeared from view by the time Micah climbed back in the driver's seat. He put his hand on the key in the ignition, but didn't start the car. "What did you do?" he asked, reaching over and gently prying apart my clenched right hand, to reveal little bloody half-moon cuts on my palm.
I stared at my hand. It didn't hurt. It didn't feel like anything any more.
"Do you want to go get some rest?" Micah asked, wiping my palm with a tissue.
I shook my head. "We should go see the cops first, they may need something that can't wait."
"Anita--"
"No!" I exclaimed. "We're going to the police station!"
Micah started the car without another word.
~*~
Violent crimes was on a lower floor in the same building as RPIT. The officer in charge of the case was a Lt. Hanson. I'd never met him before, but since I spent most of my time as a federal marshal dealing with the preternatural, that wasn't surprising. What was a bit odd was that an officer as highly ranked as Hanson was actively working on the case.
He settled back in his chair in his office, giving me very serious eyes. "Marshal Blake--"
I held up my good hand. "Can we skip the formalities?" I asked. The painkiller had totally worn off and I felt like shit. Playing nice might just do me in. "Call me Anita and let's get on with it."
Hansom blinked at me, like I'd surprised him. God, what had he been thinking about me? "Fine. Anita." He opened a very large file on his desk. "We've gotten statements from almost everyone involved except for you and Mr. Graison." His eyes slid past me for a moment, to where Nathaniel was sitting against the wall. "Including the man who was supposed to be in charge of your bodyguards."
I let my face go blank, all the while I was thinking furiously. What had Rafael told them? Probably nothing about Tony's bank account. If Rafael found Tony, he wouldn't want the police to have any hint of the man's fate. I decided to tell the truth -- I didn't know enough about Tony to lie. Much, anyway.
"So you want a statement?" I asked.
"I want a statement," Hanson said. "If the two gentlemen would step outside--"
"No!" Nathaniel said quickly. He stood up and wrapped his arms around his stomach, his hair hiding his eyes.
Hanson looked down at his files. "Mr. Graison, under police regulations, victim statements cannot be given together."
I stood up, letting Micah help me, and went over to Nathaniel. "Nathaniel and I were together last night," I told Hanson, while I laid a gentle touch on Nathaniel's arm. "The statements are already potentially contaminated, so you may as well take them together."
Nathaniel trembled under my touch, almost frozen, but managed to slip one hand over mine. I gave him a gentle squeeze. If he couldn't do this now, the police would only make it harder later on. I was still half-tempted to send him out of the room with Micah, but I didn't want to wait to give my statement, and if Nathaniel wouldn't go without me, then we were stuck.
"Fine," Hanson said grudgingly. Nathaniel flinched at the word, and I almost turned and lashed out at Hanson for it. But I managed to smile encouragingly at Nathaniel, and pull him gently to the chair in front of the desk. Micah dragged over another chair for me to sit in.
"Anita, I'm going to go see Zerbrowski, okay?" Micah said. "I'll be back in a bit."
I nodded. Nathaniel didn't move as Micah closed the office door behind him. I looked at Hanson. "Do you want me to go first, or Nathaniel?"
Hanson had been staring at Nathaniel. "Why don't you go first, Marshal-- Anita," he said, pulling over a tape recorder and a pad of paper. "We'll see how far we get."
Something about his manner was setting me on edge. Maybe it was the way he kept looking at Nathaniel, like the wereleopard was something out of a horror movie. Whatever it was, I wanted to finish and get away from this place as fast as we could.
Taking a deep breath and ignoring the pain, I explained how I'd gone down to New Mexico the previous year in the spring, to help Ted Forrester, a bounty hunter and a friend of mine, deal with a series of gruesome murders. Down there I'd met Otto Jefferies, a man who had dealing with the US Government. I hadn't realized that Otto had fixated on me until Ted called me in August of this year to warn me.
As I gave Hanson all the details and official names that had appeared on the Santa Fe police reports from last year, I wondered if they knew what Edward had told me about Olaf's serial rapes and killings. Did they have any evidence connecting him to those disappearances? Hell, I didn't even know what name Olaf had gone to jail under.
When I started telling Hanson the part of the story about yesterday morning, everything in me went cold and still. All emotion bled away as I described finding Nathaniel's hand in the box, how I'd lost my head and burst through the door. Then, the parts about my energy being sucked away, Olaf carrying me to the living room, seeing Nathaniel. It was like talking about something I'd seen in a movie, hardly real.
I ended on Edward bursting in and shooting Olaf, then my passing out. Once I closed my mouth, I realized that I was holding Nathaniel's hand in a death grip.
I met Hanson's cool cop eyes. "Anything else?"
Hanson shook his head. "Perhaps I'll take Mr. Graison's statement before I ask any questions."
"Fine." I turned my hand over in Nathaniel's grip and used my thumb to stroke the back of his hand. "Are you okay with this?"
Nathaniel breathed steadily, staring at the nameplate on Hanson's desk. "Yes."
Hanson changed tapes in his little recorder, then sat back. "Whenever you're ready. Tell me what happened yesterday."
The tape recorder hissed along in the silence. "I, um, I thought Micah forgot his keys," Nathaniel said. "I mean, I got home late from work, like four in the morning, and Micah was at work and so was Anita and Damian was going to stay at Elinor's, and the house was all quiet so I made popcorn and was going to watch a movie until Anita got home because I can't sleep when the house is quiet." He took another breath. "I watched a couple of movies by the time it was almost sunrise and then the doorbell rang and I thought it was Micah forgetting his keys because he did that once."
"What happened then?" Hanson asked when Nathaniel stopped talking.
Nathaniel's breathing was a little ragged as he slowly pulled his hand out of mine. "Can... Can Anita leave?"
I froze, my hand almost touching Nathaniel's shoulder. What?
"Would you prefer to continue your statement without Anita?" Hanson asked. Nathaniel nodded. The cop looked at me. "Marshal Blake? Would you mind stepping outside for a few minutes?"
"Um, sure," I said distantly. I stood up somehow, groping around the chair and making my way over to the door. It wasn't until I was on the other side of the oak and glass door that what had just happened sunk in.
Nathaniel didn't want me there. He'd clung to me all night, refused to leave my sight for hardly long enough for me to go to the bathroom, and now he was kicking me out?
"Why didn't you know something was wrong?"
Nathaniel's accusing words from the previous night came back to me like a punch to the gut. My fingers fluttered up to my side where my shirt hid the bandage over my fifteen stitches, which now felt like they were pressing against my chest like steel bands, making it harder and harder to breathe.
Why hadn't I known something was wrong?
Why hadn't Tony's sudden vanishing act tipped me off more? Instead of just pulling my gun, why hadn't I done something useful? Something to save Nathaniel, not to fall over and be dumped next to him on the living room carpet?
I curled my fingers into my shirt, everything threatening to come back up, to spill out my mouth in screams and terror. I wouldn't lose it here, in the cop shop. I couldn't fall apart right now, everyone needed me to be strong.
"Anita?"
I almost screamed when Micah touched my arm. "Fuck!" I exclaimed, heart pounding. "Don't sneak up on me!"
"I've been trying to get your attention for a minute," Micah said softly. "Where's Nathaniel?"
I jerked my head over my shoulder. "Talking to Hanson."
"Hanson's a good guy," said the man standing behind Micah. I blinked a couple of times before I could focus on Zerbrowski. "He may have been the jerk who dumped me on the monster squad, but he's a good guy."
I looked up at Zerbrowski. He was dressed in a rumpled suit, he needed a haircut, and under it all, he looked exhausted. "Hey, Zerbrowski."
"Hey yourself, Blake," Zerbrowski said, a big grin on his face. "You're looking... well, mobile."
I made myself smile, but it didn't reach my eyes. "Not nailed to a floor today," I said before I thought.
Micah looked away, while Zerbrowski just stared at me. "Always a good day when that happens," Zerbrowski said slowly. "Look, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Go on," Micah said. "I'll wait for Nathaniel."
I glanced back at Hanson's door, trying to calm my sudden spike of anxiety. Nathaniel was in there with a cop, for heaven's sake. Micah would be right out here. Nothing was going to happen to Nathaniel, he was perfectly safe. Safes as houses.
Only Nathaniel's house hadn't been safe at all.
I dug my fingers into my shirt again as I made myself nod. "Lead the way," I told Zerbrowski, letting him escort me through the forest of desks. The cops we passed tried to hide the fact that they were watching me. Their eyes made me feel claustrophobic, pressing in on me from all sides, so much so that walking out of the squad room into the empty corridor jarred me.
"How about in here?" Zerbrowski suggested, pulling open an interview room door. I gratefully took the nearest chair, shaking a bit as I sat down. I had to close my eyes to try to get myself back under control. Gradually, the pain and noise in my head receded enough for me to open my eyes.
Zerbrowski stayed perched on the table, watching me. "You want me to go back and get Callahan?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Nathaniel may need him more than I do. It's not that bad."
Zerbrowski let out a breath, almost a sigh. "Reynolds and Perry are working with Hanson's men on this one," he said. "Because of the magic. They're helping to make sure everything's going to be okay."
I shrugged. "He's dead, so really, it's already over," I said.
"Yeah." Zerbrowski rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "Why didn't you tell us about this?"
I looked at him. "I had bodyguards, Zerbrowski. Usually, the cops need more than 'I think this crazy guy might come after me.' Like evidence."
"Jesus, Blake!" Zerbrowski exclaimed, standing up. "You know what we found when we ran this guy's prints?"
"Jail term for rape?"
"Well, yes," Zerbrowski stuttered, clearly surprised. "But they found a partial print that matched his at a murder scene in Oregon, a woman dismembered."
An image of Nathaniel's bleeding and destroyed body swam up in front of my eyes, and I had to grip the table hard with my good hand to stop from screaming. I concentrated on breathing, not shouting, not vomiting all over the floor.
"This isn't news to you," Zerbrowski said. "You knew this guy was capable of this and you didn't tell us?"
It took me a minute to remember how to talk. "I had bodyguards," I said again, almost pleading. "He wasn't supposed to go after anyone else. Only me. We didn't know he was coming."
Zerbrowski put his hands against the wall and leaned in, almost touching his forehead to the cold white paint. "I went out there, at your house, yesterday afternoon," he said, voice muffled. "After we heard you were going to be okay. I went out with Dolph."
I slowly removed my hand from the table. I'd dented the metal with my grip, and I didn't know how to make it right again.
"How much of the house did you see?" Zerbrowski asked.
"Not much. The hall looked fine, but--" I pressed my hand against my holster. "I wasn't able to move much, when we got to the living room."
"Lucky," Zerbrowski said. "It's bad. Most of the main floor's a wreck. The kitchen's a disaster zone, and the table-- Well, you're going to need to get a new one."
I'd bought that kitchen table after I moved into the house, and the pard kept coming over to eat. It was big and cheerful, could seat four comfortably. Just two days ago, Nathaniel and I had made sandwiches for dinner and ate them at that table, laughing the whole time about a movie we'd seen.
The jello and applesauce I'd eaten for breakfast felt like acid in my stomach as I raised my eyes to look at Zerbrowski. "You're telling me this why?"
Zerbrowski turned around, with his official cop face firmly in place. "Since Otto Jefferies actively used magic in an attempted murder of a federal marshal, his body is going to be cremated as soon as possible."
"He wasn't a witch!" I exclaimed. "That rule is only supposed to be used if the perp has a history of criminal magical use."
Zerbrowski raised his eyebrows. "Is there a reason you don't want the body cremated?"
I went still. I'd been too freaked out about Nathaniel and me to really give Olaf much serious thought, but the moment Zerbrowski said that, my mind went to the one place it shouldn't.
Olaf had died so quickly, too quickly, when Edward blew his head off with that shotgun. Olaf had tortured Nathaniel, ripped him up like a piece of meat, for no reason other than that it would hurt me. I'd told myself I'd kill Olaf for what he did, and Harry helped me stop him to Edward could kill him.
But Olaf hadn't suffered enough.
The low, simmering fury bubbled up and spilled over my skin, scalding. I liked to pretend my magic was good and kind, but I really knew better. Magic is only what you do with it. There were ways to bring back the dead, not just their bodies as zombies, but as something worse.
I couldn't raise a zombie for about three days after death; it usually took that long for the soul to realize what was going and move on to its final destination. Until then, the soul lingered around the body.
There were ways, dark, horrible, evil ways, to stuff a soul back into a corpse and then reanimate it. Senora Dominga, the Godmother of Voodoo in these parts, had been doing it before I killed her. When I'd seen what she'd done, I had thought it was the most horrible thing to do to someone: put their soul into a rotting dead body, capable of feeling fear and pain.
I could make Olaf suffer.
I curled my hand around the buckle of my belt, digging the metal into my palm so hard it broke the skin.
"The coroner said the body can be released this morning, and the police chief is sending it right to the crematorium," Zerbrowski said, looking at me very steadily.
I breathed in, letting the air slide into my lungs, filling me up, before I responded. "What's the hurry?"
Zerbrowski dragged his hand across his forehead. "I talked to the cop who walked into your place while Callahan and Zeeman were trying to save Nathaniel, before he shifted back. He told me what happened to Nathaniel."
"And?" The noise that had been in the back of my head all morning was getting louder, gibbering and harsh. I could make Olaf pay for what he did to Nathaniel.
"And I'm not letting you leave the station until the body's been destroyed."
Very slowly, I stood up. Tension screamed in every cell I had as I walked across that tiny room, getting in Zerbrowski's face. He didn't flinch. "Do you really think that you can stop me?" I asked, my voice as soft as ice.
Zerbrowski clenched his jaw. "Probably not," he said. "I'm pretty sure that you can do things we've never even heard about upstairs, and the only reason I'm okay with that is because I know you, Anita. I know you're a good person." He very carefully put his hands on my shoulders and moved a step back from me. "Hell, I'm a good person too, but if I could do what you do, and that had been Katie..." He let me go, but was still watching me as if I was a very dangerous person. "I'm not going to let you do that to yourself."
A very fine tremor was running through my body, making everything hurt so much more. The pain in my side moved into the centre of my chest, making it hard to breathe.
"Come on, why don't you just sit down for a few minutes?" Zerbrowski said, pushing me back over to the table. I tried to fight him, but my body just let itself be put back in that chair. Zerbrowski sat me down, then knelt in front of me, watching me closely.
Everything was pushing in at me, the uncertain jumble at the hospital; Nathaniel's blaming me, refusing to speak to me; the pains all over my body, all mixed in with that horrible, sticky magical undertow that was telling me I needed to make Olaf pay, over and over again.
I could hear ragged breathing, just this side of tears, and didn't understand why Zerbrowski was looking at me so concerned. The lump in my chest moved up to my throat, choking me. I couldn't do this. I couldn't break down. Nathaniel needed me to be strong. Everyone needed me to be strong.
Zerbrowski sat with me until the pain in my throat lifted just enough to let me breathe again, all the while the stabbing shards of fury and shame dug themselves deep into my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry stared down at the book in his lap, not seeing the words. Instead of black lettering on a white page, his mind burned with flashes of broken bodies, hands nailed to the floor, heads exploding.
Even though Harry had found out that morning that Nathaniel was going to be okay, that both the wereleopard and Anita would be fine, he couldn't stop picturing what he had seen.
Blood and bit of flesh everywhere, bits of Nathaniel all on the ground and the walls. Harry breathed in through his nose, feeling the pages of the book beneath his fingers, the hard stone bench under his legs, all of it far away. Anita nailed to the floor, bleeding, her skirt wrinkled--
Harry slammed the book closed before pressing his hands against his face. He knew things that he shouldn't, like how Olaf always wore black, how his victims always looked like Anita... things Harry could only know from being in Anita's head.
Things like how Olaf raped his victims before killing them.
Anita's skirt was just like that! Her legs were together and her skirt was just bunched up, it didn't mean that he did that to her! Harry told himself. She's fine and Olaf didn't do that to her, he only hurt Nathaniel really bad, and was going to kill Anita, but he didn't!
"Harry?"
Harry sat bolt upright at the sound of his name, hand dropping to near his wand before he realized that it was Luna who had spoken. "What?"
Luna cocked her head to the side, watching him like a bird. "No class this afternoon?" she asked, tucking her wand behind her ear.
"No." Harry shoved the book back into his bag.
"Ginny told me you missed Astronomy last night," Luna continued, settling herself on the bench next to Harry. "Ron wouldn't tell her why."
"Well, maybe it was none of her business," Harry snapped. "I'm not really in the mood for company, so can you go away?"
Luna shook her head. "The cards say no."
Harry stared straight ahead, wishing he wouldn't see Nathaniel's bleeding body superimposed over the stones of the wall on the far side of the courtyard. "What the bloody hell are you on about?"
"The Tarot cards in Divination," Luna said. "We were supposed to do a reading for someone else, but no one would be my partner, so I did a reading for you. There was a lot of stuff about blood and family."
"What a load of rubbish!" Harry exclaimed angrily. He shifted farther down the bench from Luna. "Divination's a load of bunk, I can't believe you're taking that class."
Luna ignored him. "The cards also said you shouldn't be alone, so here I am."
"Maybe next time you should shuffle harder," Harry said, kicking his bag over. He braced his elbows against his knees. "I have nothing to say."
"You don't have to talk," Luna said softly. "I just thought I'd keep you company for a little while."
Harry watched as an ant climbed over the toe of his shoe. He could just walk away, he supposed, but he'd run out of places to go. The common room was out, as was the library. He didn't want to talk to either Ron or Hermione, or anyone for that matter. The courtyard was usually empty during afternoon classes, even so early in the year.
I wonder what Anita and Nathaniel are doing.
Harry turned over his right hand and ran his thumb over the healing scab on his palm. He didn't understand what happened with him and Anita, and the dreams. They'd shared dreams before, at least once in St. Louis, and then those times he'd been dreaming of her feeding the ardeur with Nathaniel and the vampires. It had never been so real, as it had the previous day.
But how else would I have gotten this cut? Harry wondered. It's too round for me to have made it with my nails. There's nothing this shape near my bed.
I wished I have been in St. Louis for real. I'd have been able to do something useful, not just petrifying Olaf. I could have made him pay for what he did to Nathaniel and Anita.
Harry breathed around the swirling anger in his chest. He'd only tried to cast the Cruciatus curse once, at Bellatrix after she killed Sirius, and it hadn't worked. Somehow, Harry knew, he could have made it work on Olaf.
"Ron and Hermione are coming," Luna said, breaking into Harry's dark thoughts. "In case you want to know."
Harry glanced up to see Ron and Hermione at the far end of the courtyard. Hermione was whispering furiously in Ron's ear, and he had bent over to listen.
"Wonderful," Harry groaned. He didn't know if he could deal with either of them. They'd want to know why he was acting like he was, and he wasn't sure he could lie.
No matter what Hagrid had said that morning, they wouldn't be able to understand.
A waist-high student bounced around Ron and Hermione, holding a sucker in one hand. Reece hopped his way across the courtyard, veering over to the bench when he saw Harry. "Hi!" he said, sticking the blood pop in his mouth.
Harry barely spared him a glance. "What?"
A frown creased Reece's face. "I wanted to say thanks, for stuff," he said, his eyes darting over to Luna.
"Can't you see I'm busy?" Harry snapped.
Reece's face fell. "Sorry," he mumbled, shoulders slumping forward. He turned and walked away, leaving Harry feeling as if he'd just kicked a puppy.
Fuck! Harry jumped up and caught Reece's shoulder, spinning him around. "Look, I'm sorry. Just... bad news from home."
"Oh," Reece said. He nodded sagely, as only an eleven-year-old boy could. "Will everything be okay?"
"I guess. They say so, but... yeah."
"Good," Reece said, and smiled, his lips stained blood-red from the candy. "Bye!" He scurried away.
Harry shook his head. Why did he keep messing things up like this? He went back to the bench. Luna was watching him as if he was fascinating.
He was weighing the options of sitting back down, versus doing a bunk before Ron and Hermione came over, when he heard a hated voice behind him. "Potter!"
Harry turned around slowly, forcing himself to be calm as he looked at Draco Malfoy. He didn't say a word.
Malfoy grinned and nudged Crabbe and Goyle. "What do you think? Think Potter's given up on finding a girlfriend and decided to start boffing little boys?"
Harry flung himself at Malfoy, his fist knocking the blond boy to the ground. Harry followed him down, pulling back for another blow, raw animal fury roaring through him. His fist was on the down-swing when a blast of magic slammed into his side, knocking him off Malfoy.
"That's enough!" Tonks yelled, running over at full tilt, wand bare in her hand. "Don't even think about it!" she shouted at Malfoy, who had pulled his own wand from his robes. "Take your friends and go inside!"
"He hit me!" Malfoy yelled. "Gryffindor bastard, I'm not--"
Tonks came to a sudden halt and grabbed Malfoy by the robes, hauling him to his feet, and hissed something to him. Harry climbed to his feet, anger beating through him. If Tonks wasn't there, he was going to kill Malfoy...
Hermione and Ron hurried over. "Harry, are you okay?" Hermione asked, grabbing his arm.
Harry shook his head, trying to move away from Hermione. She didn't let go. The wolf inside Harry growled. It wanted violence, blood, and it wanted them now.
"Harry?"
Harry didn't trust himself to touch Hermione, even to move her away. "Get off me," he said in an unsteady voice.
"But--"
Harry looked over her head to Ron. "Get her away from me," he said through clenched teeth. The red-head's eyes widened at whatever he saw there, and he quickly pulled Hermione away from Harry.
Tonks finished with Malfoy and shoved him at Crabbe and Goyle. She whirled around and strode toward Harry. "You, with me!" she barked. Harry couldn't think; he just trailed along after Tonks. He vaguely registered Luna staring at him, wide-eyed, as Tonks stormed out of the courtyard, then they turned a corner and went down several flights of stairs.
Tonks moved so fast that the edge bled off Harry's fury as he struggled to keep up with her. Finally, they came out onto the deserted lawn in the back of the school, near the Quidditch pitch. There, Tonks turned around, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Do you have any idea how stupid that was?" she demanded.
"Malfoy--"
"I don't care what he said!" Tonks's hair changed from lavender to black, then back to lavender. "I don't care if he said he was You-Know-Who's bloody right hand!"
"Then what?" Harry yelled. "Take me to McGonagall for detention, who cares?"
Tonks shoved her wand away. "When were you going to stop?" she asked.
"Stop what?"
"Stop hitting Malfoy?" she said. "One punch? Two? Were you going to beat him unconscious? Were you going to kill him?"
"No!" Harry exclaimed, stepping away. He put his hands out in front of him. He wasn't going to do that to Malfoy; he hated the boy but not like that. Not like he hated Olaf. "That's not it!"
Tonks let her head fall back and sighed in frustration. "Have you heard about your friends, the ones that were hurt?" she asked.
A bit thrown at the sudden change in topic, Harry nodded. "Your dad sent me an owl this morning. Nathaniel's going to be fine, same with Anita."
Tonks pushed her hair back out of her face. "Good. What about the guy who did that to them?"
Harry kicked at the grass. "He's dead," he said, feeling the anger bubble back up. No thanks to me.
Tonks bit her lip, then beckoned Harry over. "Come on, walk with me."
Not seeing that he had a choice, Harry shuffled in her direction. Tonks started walking slowly toward the Quidditch pitch.
"Dumbledore said you had a dream about it. Did you see what happened to them?" she asked.
Harry blinked away the memory of the bloody body that had been-- that was, Nathaniel. "Yeah."
Tonks shook her head. "Don't suppose you know much about me?"
Harry frowned. "Uh, what?"
"Did I ever tell you the story about stuff that happened in my first year as an Auror?"
"No."
Tonks took a deep breath. "They make new Aurors work with another Auror in the field, for the first few years," she explained. "I was working with an old-timer, William Oliver. He wasn't bad, you know. Fought against You-Know-Who, all that."
Harry kept silent. There was an expression of pain on Tonks's face that warned him against being flip.
"We'd been working together for about a month, when something went wrong on a dark wizard we were tracking. Oliver and I got separated, and the wizard got to him first."
"Did... did he kill your partner?"
Tonks nodded. "The Unforgivable curses might be the worst, but there's still ways to turn ordinary curses bad," she said. "Oh, bother. Don't tell anyone I told you that, all right?"
"Sure."
"Shacklebolt wanted to take me off the case, because of what happened, not that it was my fault," she said sarcastically, "But because he thought I was too close. Scrimgeour disagreed."
"The Minister for Magic?" Harry asked. "He used to be in charge of the Aurors, right?"
"Right." Tonks kicked at a lump of grass. "Shacklebolt and I found the man who killed Oliver. Well, I found him first."
Harry slowed, then stopped walking. "What did you do?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.
"I didn't do anything." Tonks's voice was bitter. "I had him disarmed, at wand point, with no one around. And I did... nothing." She turned to face Harry, so serious. "Listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. There's a line, Harry, that you never think you'll cross until it's too late. It was me wanting to eviscerate that wizard for what he did to Oliver. It's you wanting to beat Malfoy to death because of what happened to your friends."
"I wasn't... I mean, I wouldn't have..." Harry's voice trailed off when he realized how weak his denials sounded.
Tonks folded her fingers together under her chin. "Harry, you're a good kid, everyone says it. Sirius used to say it all the time, and Remus still does. Just... be careful."
"So, what, I should just let my friends get hurt?" Harry said hotly.
Tonks shook her head. "No, you're not listening to me. There's a difference between defence and vengeance, and it's very easy to slide over that line."
Harry looked away. No matter what she said, if Olaf was still alive, Harry would have dropped everything to go find him, to kill him for what he did to Anita and Nathaniel.
Tonks turned back to the school. "Come on, I'd better go take you to McGonagall or something."
"Why didn't you do that first?" Harry asked, matching her pace.
Tonks shrugged. "Thought it'd be a bad idea with you so angry. Plus, I really did want to offer you that advice."
"I'll take it under advisement," he said shortly.
"That's all I can ask," she said, unperturbed.
They walked for a few minutes in silence, before Harry said, "Have you talked to Remus recently?"
Tonks shook her head. "He's off doing something for the Order."
"Oh." Harry swallowed. "Can you not... I mean, if you do speak to him, can you not tell him about what happened on the night of the full moon? I should tell him, first."
"If that's what you want," Tonks said. She gave him a side-long look. "He's not going to be mad at you."
"Don't be too sure of that," Harry said darkly.
"You saved Snape's life by stopping a rampaging werewolf," Tonks said. "Act of reckless heroics aside, you did a good thing. How could Remus be upset by that?"
"Some people, when they find out you'll be a werewolf, they get weird," Harry said. "Even other werewolves."
"I'm pretty sure that Remus won't be one of them," Tonks said.
"We'll see."
"Pessimist," Tonks muttered under her breath. They turned around the edge of the rose garden. "Look, Harry, before we go back in, can I ask you a question?"
"I guess."
Tonks put her hands behind her back. "It's about Bellatrix Lestrange"
Harry almost tripped. His mind flashed back to Bellatrix being eaten by werewolves in the St. Louis woods, and the memory mixed with Nathaniel's bleeding body, and that made it so much worse. Just what I didn't need. "What about her?"
"My mum never had much time for her sisters, right? They were both such pure-blood fanatics, just like the rest of that damned family. Everyone except Sirius," Tonks said hastily. "I talked to Dumbledore, and he wouldn't tell me, but we all know that no one's heard from Bellatrix in over a month."
Harry schooled his features into blankness. "What do you want to know?"
Tonks shrugged. "I don't know, if you've heard anything? If Dumbledore won't tell me, then it's probably something bad, but... I just want to be able tell mum if her sister might ever be coming back."
Harry stared off at the far-off turret of Gryffindor tower. He wasn't sorry Bellatrix was dead, not after what she did to Anita and Clay. If Dumbledore hadn't told Tonks, there had to be a reason.
I'd still do it again.
"She's not... Bellatrix won't be coming back," Harry said in an almost inaudible voice.
Tonks nodded. "Right then," she said in a brisk voice, with only a bit of a waver. "Good to know. I mean, I hated her, she told my mum she should have drowned me at birth, but sisters and all that."
"She said that?" Harry demanded. "That's foul!"
"Yeah," Tonks said conversationally. "Mum apparently turned Aunt Bella into a toad for it." She sped up. "Come on, we should get moving."
"To detention," Harry muttered. "Brilliant."
He couldn't thank Tonks for pulling him off Malfoy; the perverted git had deserved a punch or two, but the Auror had a point. Harry wouldn't have stopped at one.
Malfoy's not Olaf, Harry reminded himself. He said something. He didn't rip Nathaniel open like a side of meat.
The sudden visual made Harry gag. He clenched his fists hard, feeling the scab on his palm break open, hot blood on his skin, and it was the only thing that kept him from falling to his knees. Stop acting like a baby! Harry told himself, walking faster to catch up with Tonks. You only saw it, didn't live it! You have no bloody right to be freaking out like this!
"Harry?" Tonks said.
"I'm fine," Harry lied. "Let's go."
No use lingering on what's past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jean-Claude spread his hands wide as I looked around the room. "For as long as you require it, ma petite."
"Thanks," I said, not really caring where I was, as long as it was quiet. Micah dropped the bags by the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, watching me. "But why here? I thought..."
Jean-Claude smiled at me. "Non, ma petite. While I would delight in having you in my room, I know how disconcerted you are when I am dead during the day. As well, this room is more suited for Micah and Nathaniel as well."
"Oh."
Jean-Claude's smile faded. "Is something wrong?"
I shook my head a little too fast, and the room spun lazily around me. "It's fine."
Olaf's body had gotten to the crematorium at eleven this morning. He was ash now, beyond anything I could do to him. I wasn't sure what I felt about that.
"Very well," Jean-Claude said. "Would you care for me to remain while you settle in?"
"No, you don't have to," I said in a rush. "We're fine."
Jean-Claude stared at me for a minute, then nodded. "I will be only a call away, if you require anything at all, ma petite," he said.
I looked down as he walked out the door. I wanted to ask him to stay, to cling to him like he was the last strong thing in the universe, but I held my tongue. He probably had things to do that were more important than me falling apart..
Nathaniel closed the door softly, then shuffled over to the large bed. He curled up on the brightly colored bedspread and rested his head against the headboard, very carefully not looking at anything.
"Anita, do you want to lie down a little before the pard gets here?" Micah asked.
I paced the length of the stone room, too agitated to be still. "I'm going to be fine."
"I know that," Micah said. "But you're still hurt, I'm sure a little sleep can't be bad for you."
I turned around to glare at him, but the harsh words on my tongue fell away when I realized how exhausted he looked. Had he gotten any sleep last night at all? Or the night before that? I walked over to where Micah was sitting on the bed, letting my knees bump against his. "Are you okay?" I asked.
Micah caught my right hand in his, and brought it up to his lips to kiss my knuckles. "Just a little tired," he admitted, with a strange smile that I hadn't seen in a while. It was an unhappy smile, one that I had seen so often on him when he first came to me, after Chimera.
"Do you want to get some sleep?"
Micah tugged gently on my arm, and I let myself be pulled into his lap. He put his arms around my waist, his touch so gentle that my stitches didn't hurt at all. "I want to make sure you're all right," he breathed against my neck.
"I'm going to be fine," I repeated, unable to prevent my eyes from straying over to Nathaniel. He had flung an arm over his face and was pretending he was asleep, but the tension in his body gave him away.
He hadn't let me touch him after he left Hanson's office a few hours ago, even kept Micah between the two of us for most of the trip to the Circus of the Damned. I didn't know what to say to him. Every time he moved away from me hurt dug the stabbing guilt just a little deeper in my chest.
"Are you sure you don't want to lie down for a little while?" Micah asked again.
His arms tightened around me as I turned away from Nathaniel and pressed my face against Micah's hair. "Maybe for a few minutes," I conceded.
Micah kissed my shoulder. "As long as you want," he promised, transferring me to the bed before jumping up. He rummaged around in his jacket pocket for a little vial of pills, then grabbed a bottle of water out of one of the bags. "It's time for your painkillers."
I took the tiny white pills that he handed me, and managed to swallow them. "Are these actually supposed to work?" I asked as Micah helped me to lie down in the centre of the bed.
"The doctors said that they are supposed to work on a lycanthropic metabolism as well as human, so yes," Micah said, unlacing my runners and dropping them off the end of the bed. "I called Dr. Lillian to ask her, and she said they were safe."
"Good," I murmured, staring at the ceiling and not at Nathaniel, only a few inches from me. He hadn't moved when I lay down. If he moved away from me now... I didn't know what I'd do.
"Indeed," Micah said, pulling a blanket up over me and Nathaniel before slipping into the bed on the other side of me. "If you need anything, you let me know right away."
I closed my eyes as Micah turned the bedside lamp down to the lowest setting. "Micah?" I whispered.
"Yes?" he asked, breath tickling my cheek.
"Thank you."
He nuzzled his nose against my cheek. "Please don't thank me," he said. "I didn't do anything."
I turned my head so our lips were almost touching. His cat's eyes were glowing almost green in the faint light. "You stayed with Nathaniel," I whispered. "Then you stayed with the both of us. That's not nothing."
Micah blinked at me, that sardonic smile on his lips again, before he looked up at the ceiling. "You should get some sleep," was all he said.
I stared at his profile as he watched the shadows on the ceiling, and I didn't know what to tell him. How could I tell him that it wasn't his fault that this all happened, that it was mine? Olaf came here because of me. He went after Nathaniel because of me. Everyone knew it, but no one was saying it. At least to my face.
After a few minutes, Micah rolled onto his side and carefully laid his hand across my stomach. "Is that okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said fuzzily. The drugs were making me woozy, and the pain was sinking away. "S'okay."
"Good." Micah kissed my cheek, then lifted his arm to reach over me to touch Nathaniel's shoulder. "Nathaniel, don't you want to get closer?"
Nathaniel didn't respond or move a muscle. I knew he wasn't asleep, his breathing was too erratic for that.
I tried to reach out to him with the marks, to see what he was feeling, but I was met with cold silence. He'd walled up the marks between us tight.
He'd never done that before.
I closed my eyes, tears prickling at my eyelids. I'd tried to save him, but I'd failed. Harry and Edward had been the ones to save our lives yesterday. Not me.
I fell asleep trying to hold in the tears. I didn't have any right to cry about this.
~*~
The nap helped me feel a little more stable, physically at least. I was able to lie on my side and watch Micah unpack our bags. Nathaniel still hadn't moved, and hadn't responded when I'd spoken to him.
"How much did you bring?" I asked Micah as he opened the third bag.
"Enough for a few days," Micah said, folding a shirt and putting it onto a shelf. "We can decide what we're going to do then."
"What do you mean?"
Micah glanced at Nathaniel, then at me, a very serious expression on his face.
"Just say it, Micah."
Micah picked up another shirt and folded it carefully. "The crime lab said they'd send over someone to clean all the biological material out of the carpets and off the walls, but that's not what I mean."
"He means, are we going back there or not?" Nathaniel's voice, rough and lower than normal, startled me. I rolled onto my back just in time to see Nathaniel slowly unfold and sit up. He swung his legs down off the side of the bed, his back to me. "Are we going back there like nothing happened?"
I managed to sit up without popping a stitch. "What do you want to do?" I asked, trying to be as neutral as possible.
Nathaniel stood up and walked over to lean on the wall. His head was down, and his short hair swung forward to hide his eyes and part of his face. "It's not my house," he muttered.
"Yes, it is!" I insisted. I didn't know how to fix this, what to say. Helplessly, I looked over at Micah, but he appeared as lost as I did.
"Nathaniel, that is your house," Micah said, putting down the shirt and crossing the room. He stood in front of Nathaniel, not touching. "It's your home as much as it is mine, and you get a say in what we do now."
Nathaniel shook his head. "It's Anita's house, it always has been," he said bitterly. "I just do the laundry."
"That's not it at all!" I exclaimed, getting unsteadily to my feet.
"You're right," Nathaniel said, stepping away from the wall. "I also do the shopping." He stalked across the room toward the door. I tried to touch him, but he kept just beyond my reach. "I'm going to see Jason," he said before he slammed the door behind him.
I let my hand fall back to my side as I stared at the door. My head was ringing with Nathaniel's words.
Micah came over and put his arms around me in a hug. "He doesn't mean that, he's just upset," Micah said.
I let Micah hold me for a moment, just a few seconds of selfishly letting him comfort me. Then I pulled away. "Someone needs to go to talk to him," I muttered, hunting for my shoes.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Micah asked.
I shook my head. "You should go alone. He's not going to talk with me there."
"Anita--"
"Do you think we should move?" I interrupted. "I'm usually fine after bad shit happens in the house, you know, clean up and carry on, but what about Nathaniel? How can I ask him to move back there like nothing happened?"
Micah watched me with serious eyes. "Do you want to move?"
I flipped a shoe over with my toes and stepped into it. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm not the one who--" I cut myself off abruptly. "I mean, if Nathaniel wants to move, then that's okay with me."
Micah nodded. "I'll tell him that." He hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"
"Go," I commanded, pointing out the door. "Nathaniel needs a Nimir-Raj right now more than I need someone to hold my hand."
After giving me a look I couldn't decipher, Micah left.
I stepped into my other shoe. As long as I didn't trip over the laces, I'd be fine.
Fine. What the hell did that mean, fine? Fine as in I no longer felt the urge to start screaming? Fine as in I no longer wanted to go find Olaf's body and do horrible, unspeakable things to it just so I could torture him like he'd tortured Nathaniel?
Or fine, as in this was all my fault and nothing could make things right again?
"Why didn't you know something was wrong?"
A heavy knock on the door spun me around and made me go for my gun. Heart in my mouth, I stared at the closed door. No one could get down here who wasn't supposed to; the place was guarded tighter than Fort Knox.
"Anita, it's Damian."
I slowly lowered my gun to my side. Without thinking, I opened the marks and felt Damian's presence on the other side of that door. "Come in," I said, the sour edge of adrenaline fading.
The door slowly opened, and Damian stepped inside. He looked at me hungrily for a moment, before dropping his eyes. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked formally.
I holstered my gun. "You can come over here." I waited until Damian stopped a few feet from me before going over. "Hey," I said, waiting for him to look at me. His face was calm, but there were so many emotions running through those green eyes.
I could have lost him. If he'd been at my house the night of the attack, instead of staying here with Elinor, Olaf might have done to him what he'd done to Nathaniel.
I put my arm around his body, hugging him one-handed and pressing my cheek to his chest. I'd almost lost him too.
"It will be all right," Damian said awkwardly as he put his arms around me. We never hugged, not really, but standing here in Damian's arms like this I felt safe. "You are safe, and you will soon heal."
My eyes dry, I looked up at him. "Thanks to you."
Daman's face went cold, and he pulled away. "I was not present to fight your enemy," he said. "I am a day-walker, I could have--"
I shook my head. "You're only a day-walker when I'm there," I said. "He'd have gotten to you too, and then you wouldn't have been able to feed and keep me strong." I swallowed hard. "Look, Damian, you've been feeding for two days, to keep me and Nathaniel strong. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to help him. You're the only reason we're both still alive."
Damian kept watching me with those familiar eyes. "It was my honor to do whatever I could for you," he said.
I smiled weakly.
"May I ask a question?"
"Sure," I said, feeling unaccountably nervous. "What's up?"
"There have been rumors, here in the shadows, about Harry," Damian said. "He called Jason yesterday, not an hour after Jean-Claude and I were awakened by your call. Jason said that Harry knew things, things that had occurred. How could that happen?"
I looked down at my left arm, still in its sling. My hand tingled with the memory of Harry's grip. "I don't know how, or why, but... I had this vision, that Harry was there, in the living room." I played with a loose thread on the edge of the sling. "He grabbed my hand, just before Olaf was about to stab me again, and there was magic and Olaf froze."
"So Harry saved you?" Damian said, no trace of disbelief in his voice.
"Looks like."
"Good," Damian said, satisfied. "He then did what any warrior would do."
I shrugged my good shoulder. "Don't know how he did it, though."
"It was magic," Damian said, as if that explained everything. "Is there nothing I can do for you?"
I started to say no again, but something occurred to me. "Yeah, there is." I tried to smile, to cover how nervous I was feeling. "Walk me to Jean-Claude's room?"
"Of course," Damian said. He came over and held out his arm to me. "I would escort you anywhere."
"Just down the hall is fine," I said. I hated how much I wanted to cling to his arm. "How bad is it down these days?"
Damian shook his head as we walked. "Jean-Claude and Rafael have been arguing," he said in a low voice. "Christoff's wererats have been questioned, but as far as anyone can tell, they had never met Tony."
I frowned. "Why would Christoff's people help Olaf? It doesn't make sense."
"That is the conclusion Jean-Claude and Rafael reached," Damian said. "Asher is managing the businesses while Jean-Claude is occupied with other matters."
We came to a stop in front of Jean-Claude's door. After a minute of me just staring at the wood as if it might bite me, Damian gently squeezed my hand.
"Would you like me to knock?" he asked.
I took a deep breath. "No," I muttered, tapping gently on the door.
Damian stepped away from me, and bowed. "I will be available if you need me, for anything," he said.
"Thanks, Damian," I said. "Thank you, for everything."
He bowed again, then walked away as Jean-Claude's door opened. I stared down the hall after my red-headed vampire, suddenly too afraid to look at Jean-Claude.
"Ma petite?" Jean-Claude said. Slowly, I turned my head to look at him. He smoothed away his worried expression and held out his hand. "Would you care to come in?"
I took Jean-Claude's hand and let him guide me into the room. I glanced around as he closed the door, and saw something that made me frown. "You got a couch. When did you get a couch?" I asked, walking over to it unsteadily.
Jean-Claude stroked a hand over the soft black leather. "You liked the one in my office at Guilty Pleasures," he said, a bitter undertone in his voice. "I wanted to surprise you with this one."
"It's nice," I said, putting one hand on the couch arm to help me sit. "It's soft."
Jean-Claude stayed standing. "Where are Micah and Nathaniel?"
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my legs up into the couch. "Nathaniel wanted to go see Jason," I said, pulling my gun out of its holster and slipping it under the sofa. "Micah went after him."
"I see." He sat on the couch, not quite touching me. "Did you not wish to see Jason?"
I stared at his boots. "More like Nathaniel didn't want to see me."
"How do you mean?"
There was no blame in Jean-Claude's voice, but still, the guilt I was feeling threatened to come back up and choke me. "I, um... doesn't matter."
Carefully, Jean-Claude laid his hand on my knee. "Ma petite, you know I will be here to listen to you, in anything you wish to say."
I nodded. I traced the bones in the back of his hand with my fingers, feeling them strong and unbroken. "Yeah."
Jean-Claude let me touch him for a little while. "Did you hear of Harry's phone call to Jason, yesterday?" he eventually asked.
"Yeah, Nathaniel mentioned it," I whispered. I closed my eyes against the sudden visceral memory of lying on that floor, helpless and dying. "He saved us."
"How do you mean?" Jean-Claude asked, stroking my hair back from my face.
His touch was the only thing centering me, but I couldn't let myself cling to him. I needed to be stronger than that. "Harry was there, at least... I saw him," I said, eyes still shut. "He grabbed my hand, that part was real, I could feel it, and he used magic to stop Olaf. Then Edward came in."
"How could this be, ma petite?" Jean-Claude asked.
"I don't know." My right hand slipped down my jeans and clutched up the fabric by my ankle. "Edward saw something too, so Harry had to be there. He saved Nathaniel when I couldn't do anything."
"Ma petite, that is not true," Jean-Claude insisted.
"Yes, it is," I said, opening my eyes. "It's true! I was the one who put everyone at risk! I almost got everyone killed yesterday!"
I pushed Jean-Claude away and staggered to my feet. The walls seemed to be pressing in on me, and I tried to breathe, but the stitches in my side caught, and I gasped.
Jean-Claude shot to his feet. "Anita, listen to me!" he said, swinging me around in his arms. "You did everything you could, you could not have anticipated--"
"It doesn't matter!" I shouted. "What happened to Nathaniel is my fault! You would have died! Everyone would have died and it all would have been my fault!"
Something snapped in me. I tried to shove Jean-Claude away, but I was hyperventilating and the world started to get grey and shaking.
"Ma petite, stop this," Jean-Claude said in a voice halfway between cajoling and commanding. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight so I didn't fall over. "You are safe now, everyone is safe now. It was not your fault."
The pressure of his touch on my mind smoothed out my breathing, but as soon as his mental touch receded, I started sobbing. I balled my hand up in his shirt and I clung to him and I sobbed and screamed against him, all my terror and guilt and shame coming out.
He held me as I fell apart. Finally, my tears stopped and I was hollow, empty, as he held me in his lap on the floor.
"Ma petite, this was not your fault," he said after a while. "None of us could have foreseen that Nathaniel would be the one in danger."
"I should have," I said tonelessly. "I should have seen something, should have been able to do something."
"This was not your fault," Jean-Claude repeated.
I closed my eyes and wished I could believe him. "Tell that to Nathaniel."
Jean-Claude's silence told me all I needed to know.
...to be continued
by Mhalachai
Disclaimer: Laurell K. Hamilton owns all things Anita Blake. J.K. Rowling owns all things Harry Potter. Only the story is my own.
Note: There are 10,181 words full of ANGST and WOE and CAPSLOCK-WORTHY-RAGE in this chapter, so settle in for the long haul. What I don't understand is how fast this all seems to go. Anyway, enjoy!
Previous parts here.
~~~~~~~
Micah had to buckle up my seatbelt around my sling for me in the jeep the next morning. Sitting up hurt so bad, but I wasn't going to complain, not with Nathaniel hovering silently beside the car. He hadn't spoken a word all morning, and after I woke up, he hadn't touched me either.
The doctors hadn't wanted to let me go, but even they had to admit that I was almost healed. There was pain in my abdomen where Olaf's knife had cut across several layers of muscles, but it was manageable, provided I didn't try any sit-ups for a while. I was wearing my Firestar in an inner-belt holster, almost pressing on the edge of the stitches. It was almost too much to bear, but I wasn't going anywhere unarmed today.
They'd looked somber when I'd asked about my left hand. The silver spike had shattered bone, they said, and there was some tendon damage. I was already scheduled for an appointment with a reconstructive surgeon the next day.
As Micah opened the jeep's back door for Nathaniel, I stared down at my right hand. The doctors said it was a miracle that the spike had missed causing any real damage. I'd pulled off the bandages on the way over in the wheelchair. I'd been raised Catholic, and seeing the large angry scab, going all the way through my palm like this, was giving me the heebie-jeebies. The nuns had told us about stigmatics in Sunday School. I'd had nightmares for weeks about holes opening up in my hands, bleeding to death because God wanted to remind me he was watching.
"Anita?"
I jerked up at the sound of Micah's voice, my back hitting the seat painfully. "What?" I asked when I got my breath back.
Micah stared at me steadily. I almost didn't notice how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel. "I asked you where you want me to take you."
"Oh." I blinked a few times to clear the fog in my brain. The doctors had insisted on giving me one last painkiller before I left. It wasn't killing the pain much but it sure was making me dizzy. "Am I supposed to be anywhere?"
"The police want to talk to you," Micah said slowly. "And we can't go back home yet, it's a... well, we can't go home yet."
I stared out the window at the brilliantly clear September day. "Where are we going to stay?"
"The Circus," Micah said promptly. "Jean-Claude said we could stay as long as we need, Damian's there and the whole pard promised they'd come by."
A tiny, distressed sound from Nathaniel in the backseat made me close my eyes. Yesterday, when his body was ripped to pieces on the floor of our living room, Nathaniel hadn't made a single sound. Now that I was safe in the car, the smell of that room came rushing back, the helplessness and horror and terror, and I curled my right hand into a ball, trying to keep breathing, my nails digging into my palm.
The jeep rocked, and I heard Micah's voice in the backseat, low and soothing. His words were a blend of sound that I couldn't make out, as I struggled to not start panicking. I had to be strong. Nathaniel needed me to be strong, everyone needed me to be strong.
Finally, I choked down my panic attack and opened my eyes. I didn't turn around, didn't want to see what was going on.
A little old lady in a walker inched her way slowly down the parking lot sidewalk. My eyes followed her, paying very close attention to her clothes, her hair, her stockings loose around her ankles. My head filled up with inconsequential details, shoving all the rest of it away to where I didn't have to deal with anything.
The little old lady had disappeared from view by the time Micah climbed back in the driver's seat. He put his hand on the key in the ignition, but didn't start the car. "What did you do?" he asked, reaching over and gently prying apart my clenched right hand, to reveal little bloody half-moon cuts on my palm.
I stared at my hand. It didn't hurt. It didn't feel like anything any more.
"Do you want to go get some rest?" Micah asked, wiping my palm with a tissue.
I shook my head. "We should go see the cops first, they may need something that can't wait."
"Anita--"
"No!" I exclaimed. "We're going to the police station!"
Micah started the car without another word.
~*~
Violent crimes was on a lower floor in the same building as RPIT. The officer in charge of the case was a Lt. Hanson. I'd never met him before, but since I spent most of my time as a federal marshal dealing with the preternatural, that wasn't surprising. What was a bit odd was that an officer as highly ranked as Hanson was actively working on the case.
He settled back in his chair in his office, giving me very serious eyes. "Marshal Blake--"
I held up my good hand. "Can we skip the formalities?" I asked. The painkiller had totally worn off and I felt like shit. Playing nice might just do me in. "Call me Anita and let's get on with it."
Hansom blinked at me, like I'd surprised him. God, what had he been thinking about me? "Fine. Anita." He opened a very large file on his desk. "We've gotten statements from almost everyone involved except for you and Mr. Graison." His eyes slid past me for a moment, to where Nathaniel was sitting against the wall. "Including the man who was supposed to be in charge of your bodyguards."
I let my face go blank, all the while I was thinking furiously. What had Rafael told them? Probably nothing about Tony's bank account. If Rafael found Tony, he wouldn't want the police to have any hint of the man's fate. I decided to tell the truth -- I didn't know enough about Tony to lie. Much, anyway.
"So you want a statement?" I asked.
"I want a statement," Hanson said. "If the two gentlemen would step outside--"
"No!" Nathaniel said quickly. He stood up and wrapped his arms around his stomach, his hair hiding his eyes.
Hanson looked down at his files. "Mr. Graison, under police regulations, victim statements cannot be given together."
I stood up, letting Micah help me, and went over to Nathaniel. "Nathaniel and I were together last night," I told Hanson, while I laid a gentle touch on Nathaniel's arm. "The statements are already potentially contaminated, so you may as well take them together."
Nathaniel trembled under my touch, almost frozen, but managed to slip one hand over mine. I gave him a gentle squeeze. If he couldn't do this now, the police would only make it harder later on. I was still half-tempted to send him out of the room with Micah, but I didn't want to wait to give my statement, and if Nathaniel wouldn't go without me, then we were stuck.
"Fine," Hanson said grudgingly. Nathaniel flinched at the word, and I almost turned and lashed out at Hanson for it. But I managed to smile encouragingly at Nathaniel, and pull him gently to the chair in front of the desk. Micah dragged over another chair for me to sit in.
"Anita, I'm going to go see Zerbrowski, okay?" Micah said. "I'll be back in a bit."
I nodded. Nathaniel didn't move as Micah closed the office door behind him. I looked at Hanson. "Do you want me to go first, or Nathaniel?"
Hanson had been staring at Nathaniel. "Why don't you go first, Marshal-- Anita," he said, pulling over a tape recorder and a pad of paper. "We'll see how far we get."
Something about his manner was setting me on edge. Maybe it was the way he kept looking at Nathaniel, like the wereleopard was something out of a horror movie. Whatever it was, I wanted to finish and get away from this place as fast as we could.
Taking a deep breath and ignoring the pain, I explained how I'd gone down to New Mexico the previous year in the spring, to help Ted Forrester, a bounty hunter and a friend of mine, deal with a series of gruesome murders. Down there I'd met Otto Jefferies, a man who had dealing with the US Government. I hadn't realized that Otto had fixated on me until Ted called me in August of this year to warn me.
As I gave Hanson all the details and official names that had appeared on the Santa Fe police reports from last year, I wondered if they knew what Edward had told me about Olaf's serial rapes and killings. Did they have any evidence connecting him to those disappearances? Hell, I didn't even know what name Olaf had gone to jail under.
When I started telling Hanson the part of the story about yesterday morning, everything in me went cold and still. All emotion bled away as I described finding Nathaniel's hand in the box, how I'd lost my head and burst through the door. Then, the parts about my energy being sucked away, Olaf carrying me to the living room, seeing Nathaniel. It was like talking about something I'd seen in a movie, hardly real.
I ended on Edward bursting in and shooting Olaf, then my passing out. Once I closed my mouth, I realized that I was holding Nathaniel's hand in a death grip.
I met Hanson's cool cop eyes. "Anything else?"
Hanson shook his head. "Perhaps I'll take Mr. Graison's statement before I ask any questions."
"Fine." I turned my hand over in Nathaniel's grip and used my thumb to stroke the back of his hand. "Are you okay with this?"
Nathaniel breathed steadily, staring at the nameplate on Hanson's desk. "Yes."
Hanson changed tapes in his little recorder, then sat back. "Whenever you're ready. Tell me what happened yesterday."
The tape recorder hissed along in the silence. "I, um, I thought Micah forgot his keys," Nathaniel said. "I mean, I got home late from work, like four in the morning, and Micah was at work and so was Anita and Damian was going to stay at Elinor's, and the house was all quiet so I made popcorn and was going to watch a movie until Anita got home because I can't sleep when the house is quiet." He took another breath. "I watched a couple of movies by the time it was almost sunrise and then the doorbell rang and I thought it was Micah forgetting his keys because he did that once."
"What happened then?" Hanson asked when Nathaniel stopped talking.
Nathaniel's breathing was a little ragged as he slowly pulled his hand out of mine. "Can... Can Anita leave?"
I froze, my hand almost touching Nathaniel's shoulder. What?
"Would you prefer to continue your statement without Anita?" Hanson asked. Nathaniel nodded. The cop looked at me. "Marshal Blake? Would you mind stepping outside for a few minutes?"
"Um, sure," I said distantly. I stood up somehow, groping around the chair and making my way over to the door. It wasn't until I was on the other side of the oak and glass door that what had just happened sunk in.
Nathaniel didn't want me there. He'd clung to me all night, refused to leave my sight for hardly long enough for me to go to the bathroom, and now he was kicking me out?
"Why didn't you know something was wrong?"
Nathaniel's accusing words from the previous night came back to me like a punch to the gut. My fingers fluttered up to my side where my shirt hid the bandage over my fifteen stitches, which now felt like they were pressing against my chest like steel bands, making it harder and harder to breathe.
Why hadn't I known something was wrong?
Why hadn't Tony's sudden vanishing act tipped me off more? Instead of just pulling my gun, why hadn't I done something useful? Something to save Nathaniel, not to fall over and be dumped next to him on the living room carpet?
I curled my fingers into my shirt, everything threatening to come back up, to spill out my mouth in screams and terror. I wouldn't lose it here, in the cop shop. I couldn't fall apart right now, everyone needed me to be strong.
"Anita?"
I almost screamed when Micah touched my arm. "Fuck!" I exclaimed, heart pounding. "Don't sneak up on me!"
"I've been trying to get your attention for a minute," Micah said softly. "Where's Nathaniel?"
I jerked my head over my shoulder. "Talking to Hanson."
"Hanson's a good guy," said the man standing behind Micah. I blinked a couple of times before I could focus on Zerbrowski. "He may have been the jerk who dumped me on the monster squad, but he's a good guy."
I looked up at Zerbrowski. He was dressed in a rumpled suit, he needed a haircut, and under it all, he looked exhausted. "Hey, Zerbrowski."
"Hey yourself, Blake," Zerbrowski said, a big grin on his face. "You're looking... well, mobile."
I made myself smile, but it didn't reach my eyes. "Not nailed to a floor today," I said before I thought.
Micah looked away, while Zerbrowski just stared at me. "Always a good day when that happens," Zerbrowski said slowly. "Look, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Go on," Micah said. "I'll wait for Nathaniel."
I glanced back at Hanson's door, trying to calm my sudden spike of anxiety. Nathaniel was in there with a cop, for heaven's sake. Micah would be right out here. Nothing was going to happen to Nathaniel, he was perfectly safe. Safes as houses.
Only Nathaniel's house hadn't been safe at all.
I dug my fingers into my shirt again as I made myself nod. "Lead the way," I told Zerbrowski, letting him escort me through the forest of desks. The cops we passed tried to hide the fact that they were watching me. Their eyes made me feel claustrophobic, pressing in on me from all sides, so much so that walking out of the squad room into the empty corridor jarred me.
"How about in here?" Zerbrowski suggested, pulling open an interview room door. I gratefully took the nearest chair, shaking a bit as I sat down. I had to close my eyes to try to get myself back under control. Gradually, the pain and noise in my head receded enough for me to open my eyes.
Zerbrowski stayed perched on the table, watching me. "You want me to go back and get Callahan?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Nathaniel may need him more than I do. It's not that bad."
Zerbrowski let out a breath, almost a sigh. "Reynolds and Perry are working with Hanson's men on this one," he said. "Because of the magic. They're helping to make sure everything's going to be okay."
I shrugged. "He's dead, so really, it's already over," I said.
"Yeah." Zerbrowski rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "Why didn't you tell us about this?"
I looked at him. "I had bodyguards, Zerbrowski. Usually, the cops need more than 'I think this crazy guy might come after me.' Like evidence."
"Jesus, Blake!" Zerbrowski exclaimed, standing up. "You know what we found when we ran this guy's prints?"
"Jail term for rape?"
"Well, yes," Zerbrowski stuttered, clearly surprised. "But they found a partial print that matched his at a murder scene in Oregon, a woman dismembered."
An image of Nathaniel's bleeding and destroyed body swam up in front of my eyes, and I had to grip the table hard with my good hand to stop from screaming. I concentrated on breathing, not shouting, not vomiting all over the floor.
"This isn't news to you," Zerbrowski said. "You knew this guy was capable of this and you didn't tell us?"
It took me a minute to remember how to talk. "I had bodyguards," I said again, almost pleading. "He wasn't supposed to go after anyone else. Only me. We didn't know he was coming."
Zerbrowski put his hands against the wall and leaned in, almost touching his forehead to the cold white paint. "I went out there, at your house, yesterday afternoon," he said, voice muffled. "After we heard you were going to be okay. I went out with Dolph."
I slowly removed my hand from the table. I'd dented the metal with my grip, and I didn't know how to make it right again.
"How much of the house did you see?" Zerbrowski asked.
"Not much. The hall looked fine, but--" I pressed my hand against my holster. "I wasn't able to move much, when we got to the living room."
"Lucky," Zerbrowski said. "It's bad. Most of the main floor's a wreck. The kitchen's a disaster zone, and the table-- Well, you're going to need to get a new one."
I'd bought that kitchen table after I moved into the house, and the pard kept coming over to eat. It was big and cheerful, could seat four comfortably. Just two days ago, Nathaniel and I had made sandwiches for dinner and ate them at that table, laughing the whole time about a movie we'd seen.
The jello and applesauce I'd eaten for breakfast felt like acid in my stomach as I raised my eyes to look at Zerbrowski. "You're telling me this why?"
Zerbrowski turned around, with his official cop face firmly in place. "Since Otto Jefferies actively used magic in an attempted murder of a federal marshal, his body is going to be cremated as soon as possible."
"He wasn't a witch!" I exclaimed. "That rule is only supposed to be used if the perp has a history of criminal magical use."
Zerbrowski raised his eyebrows. "Is there a reason you don't want the body cremated?"
I went still. I'd been too freaked out about Nathaniel and me to really give Olaf much serious thought, but the moment Zerbrowski said that, my mind went to the one place it shouldn't.
Olaf had died so quickly, too quickly, when Edward blew his head off with that shotgun. Olaf had tortured Nathaniel, ripped him up like a piece of meat, for no reason other than that it would hurt me. I'd told myself I'd kill Olaf for what he did, and Harry helped me stop him to Edward could kill him.
But Olaf hadn't suffered enough.
The low, simmering fury bubbled up and spilled over my skin, scalding. I liked to pretend my magic was good and kind, but I really knew better. Magic is only what you do with it. There were ways to bring back the dead, not just their bodies as zombies, but as something worse.
I couldn't raise a zombie for about three days after death; it usually took that long for the soul to realize what was going and move on to its final destination. Until then, the soul lingered around the body.
There were ways, dark, horrible, evil ways, to stuff a soul back into a corpse and then reanimate it. Senora Dominga, the Godmother of Voodoo in these parts, had been doing it before I killed her. When I'd seen what she'd done, I had thought it was the most horrible thing to do to someone: put their soul into a rotting dead body, capable of feeling fear and pain.
I could make Olaf suffer.
I curled my hand around the buckle of my belt, digging the metal into my palm so hard it broke the skin.
"The coroner said the body can be released this morning, and the police chief is sending it right to the crematorium," Zerbrowski said, looking at me very steadily.
I breathed in, letting the air slide into my lungs, filling me up, before I responded. "What's the hurry?"
Zerbrowski dragged his hand across his forehead. "I talked to the cop who walked into your place while Callahan and Zeeman were trying to save Nathaniel, before he shifted back. He told me what happened to Nathaniel."
"And?" The noise that had been in the back of my head all morning was getting louder, gibbering and harsh. I could make Olaf pay for what he did to Nathaniel.
"And I'm not letting you leave the station until the body's been destroyed."
Very slowly, I stood up. Tension screamed in every cell I had as I walked across that tiny room, getting in Zerbrowski's face. He didn't flinch. "Do you really think that you can stop me?" I asked, my voice as soft as ice.
Zerbrowski clenched his jaw. "Probably not," he said. "I'm pretty sure that you can do things we've never even heard about upstairs, and the only reason I'm okay with that is because I know you, Anita. I know you're a good person." He very carefully put his hands on my shoulders and moved a step back from me. "Hell, I'm a good person too, but if I could do what you do, and that had been Katie..." He let me go, but was still watching me as if I was a very dangerous person. "I'm not going to let you do that to yourself."
A very fine tremor was running through my body, making everything hurt so much more. The pain in my side moved into the centre of my chest, making it hard to breathe.
"Come on, why don't you just sit down for a few minutes?" Zerbrowski said, pushing me back over to the table. I tried to fight him, but my body just let itself be put back in that chair. Zerbrowski sat me down, then knelt in front of me, watching me closely.
Everything was pushing in at me, the uncertain jumble at the hospital; Nathaniel's blaming me, refusing to speak to me; the pains all over my body, all mixed in with that horrible, sticky magical undertow that was telling me I needed to make Olaf pay, over and over again.
I could hear ragged breathing, just this side of tears, and didn't understand why Zerbrowski was looking at me so concerned. The lump in my chest moved up to my throat, choking me. I couldn't do this. I couldn't break down. Nathaniel needed me to be strong. Everyone needed me to be strong.
Zerbrowski sat with me until the pain in my throat lifted just enough to let me breathe again, all the while the stabbing shards of fury and shame dug themselves deep into my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry stared down at the book in his lap, not seeing the words. Instead of black lettering on a white page, his mind burned with flashes of broken bodies, hands nailed to the floor, heads exploding.
Even though Harry had found out that morning that Nathaniel was going to be okay, that both the wereleopard and Anita would be fine, he couldn't stop picturing what he had seen.
Blood and bit of flesh everywhere, bits of Nathaniel all on the ground and the walls. Harry breathed in through his nose, feeling the pages of the book beneath his fingers, the hard stone bench under his legs, all of it far away. Anita nailed to the floor, bleeding, her skirt wrinkled--
Harry slammed the book closed before pressing his hands against his face. He knew things that he shouldn't, like how Olaf always wore black, how his victims always looked like Anita... things Harry could only know from being in Anita's head.
Things like how Olaf raped his victims before killing them.
Anita's skirt was just like that! Her legs were together and her skirt was just bunched up, it didn't mean that he did that to her! Harry told himself. She's fine and Olaf didn't do that to her, he only hurt Nathaniel really bad, and was going to kill Anita, but he didn't!
"Harry?"
Harry sat bolt upright at the sound of his name, hand dropping to near his wand before he realized that it was Luna who had spoken. "What?"
Luna cocked her head to the side, watching him like a bird. "No class this afternoon?" she asked, tucking her wand behind her ear.
"No." Harry shoved the book back into his bag.
"Ginny told me you missed Astronomy last night," Luna continued, settling herself on the bench next to Harry. "Ron wouldn't tell her why."
"Well, maybe it was none of her business," Harry snapped. "I'm not really in the mood for company, so can you go away?"
Luna shook her head. "The cards say no."
Harry stared straight ahead, wishing he wouldn't see Nathaniel's bleeding body superimposed over the stones of the wall on the far side of the courtyard. "What the bloody hell are you on about?"
"The Tarot cards in Divination," Luna said. "We were supposed to do a reading for someone else, but no one would be my partner, so I did a reading for you. There was a lot of stuff about blood and family."
"What a load of rubbish!" Harry exclaimed angrily. He shifted farther down the bench from Luna. "Divination's a load of bunk, I can't believe you're taking that class."
Luna ignored him. "The cards also said you shouldn't be alone, so here I am."
"Maybe next time you should shuffle harder," Harry said, kicking his bag over. He braced his elbows against his knees. "I have nothing to say."
"You don't have to talk," Luna said softly. "I just thought I'd keep you company for a little while."
Harry watched as an ant climbed over the toe of his shoe. He could just walk away, he supposed, but he'd run out of places to go. The common room was out, as was the library. He didn't want to talk to either Ron or Hermione, or anyone for that matter. The courtyard was usually empty during afternoon classes, even so early in the year.
I wonder what Anita and Nathaniel are doing.
Harry turned over his right hand and ran his thumb over the healing scab on his palm. He didn't understand what happened with him and Anita, and the dreams. They'd shared dreams before, at least once in St. Louis, and then those times he'd been dreaming of her feeding the ardeur with Nathaniel and the vampires. It had never been so real, as it had the previous day.
But how else would I have gotten this cut? Harry wondered. It's too round for me to have made it with my nails. There's nothing this shape near my bed.
I wished I have been in St. Louis for real. I'd have been able to do something useful, not just petrifying Olaf. I could have made him pay for what he did to Nathaniel and Anita.
Harry breathed around the swirling anger in his chest. He'd only tried to cast the Cruciatus curse once, at Bellatrix after she killed Sirius, and it hadn't worked. Somehow, Harry knew, he could have made it work on Olaf.
"Ron and Hermione are coming," Luna said, breaking into Harry's dark thoughts. "In case you want to know."
Harry glanced up to see Ron and Hermione at the far end of the courtyard. Hermione was whispering furiously in Ron's ear, and he had bent over to listen.
"Wonderful," Harry groaned. He didn't know if he could deal with either of them. They'd want to know why he was acting like he was, and he wasn't sure he could lie.
No matter what Hagrid had said that morning, they wouldn't be able to understand.
A waist-high student bounced around Ron and Hermione, holding a sucker in one hand. Reece hopped his way across the courtyard, veering over to the bench when he saw Harry. "Hi!" he said, sticking the blood pop in his mouth.
Harry barely spared him a glance. "What?"
A frown creased Reece's face. "I wanted to say thanks, for stuff," he said, his eyes darting over to Luna.
"Can't you see I'm busy?" Harry snapped.
Reece's face fell. "Sorry," he mumbled, shoulders slumping forward. He turned and walked away, leaving Harry feeling as if he'd just kicked a puppy.
Fuck! Harry jumped up and caught Reece's shoulder, spinning him around. "Look, I'm sorry. Just... bad news from home."
"Oh," Reece said. He nodded sagely, as only an eleven-year-old boy could. "Will everything be okay?"
"I guess. They say so, but... yeah."
"Good," Reece said, and smiled, his lips stained blood-red from the candy. "Bye!" He scurried away.
Harry shook his head. Why did he keep messing things up like this? He went back to the bench. Luna was watching him as if he was fascinating.
He was weighing the options of sitting back down, versus doing a bunk before Ron and Hermione came over, when he heard a hated voice behind him. "Potter!"
Harry turned around slowly, forcing himself to be calm as he looked at Draco Malfoy. He didn't say a word.
Malfoy grinned and nudged Crabbe and Goyle. "What do you think? Think Potter's given up on finding a girlfriend and decided to start boffing little boys?"
Harry flung himself at Malfoy, his fist knocking the blond boy to the ground. Harry followed him down, pulling back for another blow, raw animal fury roaring through him. His fist was on the down-swing when a blast of magic slammed into his side, knocking him off Malfoy.
"That's enough!" Tonks yelled, running over at full tilt, wand bare in her hand. "Don't even think about it!" she shouted at Malfoy, who had pulled his own wand from his robes. "Take your friends and go inside!"
"He hit me!" Malfoy yelled. "Gryffindor bastard, I'm not--"
Tonks came to a sudden halt and grabbed Malfoy by the robes, hauling him to his feet, and hissed something to him. Harry climbed to his feet, anger beating through him. If Tonks wasn't there, he was going to kill Malfoy...
Hermione and Ron hurried over. "Harry, are you okay?" Hermione asked, grabbing his arm.
Harry shook his head, trying to move away from Hermione. She didn't let go. The wolf inside Harry growled. It wanted violence, blood, and it wanted them now.
"Harry?"
Harry didn't trust himself to touch Hermione, even to move her away. "Get off me," he said in an unsteady voice.
"But--"
Harry looked over her head to Ron. "Get her away from me," he said through clenched teeth. The red-head's eyes widened at whatever he saw there, and he quickly pulled Hermione away from Harry.
Tonks finished with Malfoy and shoved him at Crabbe and Goyle. She whirled around and strode toward Harry. "You, with me!" she barked. Harry couldn't think; he just trailed along after Tonks. He vaguely registered Luna staring at him, wide-eyed, as Tonks stormed out of the courtyard, then they turned a corner and went down several flights of stairs.
Tonks moved so fast that the edge bled off Harry's fury as he struggled to keep up with her. Finally, they came out onto the deserted lawn in the back of the school, near the Quidditch pitch. There, Tonks turned around, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Do you have any idea how stupid that was?" she demanded.
"Malfoy--"
"I don't care what he said!" Tonks's hair changed from lavender to black, then back to lavender. "I don't care if he said he was You-Know-Who's bloody right hand!"
"Then what?" Harry yelled. "Take me to McGonagall for detention, who cares?"
Tonks shoved her wand away. "When were you going to stop?" she asked.
"Stop what?"
"Stop hitting Malfoy?" she said. "One punch? Two? Were you going to beat him unconscious? Were you going to kill him?"
"No!" Harry exclaimed, stepping away. He put his hands out in front of him. He wasn't going to do that to Malfoy; he hated the boy but not like that. Not like he hated Olaf. "That's not it!"
Tonks let her head fall back and sighed in frustration. "Have you heard about your friends, the ones that were hurt?" she asked.
A bit thrown at the sudden change in topic, Harry nodded. "Your dad sent me an owl this morning. Nathaniel's going to be fine, same with Anita."
Tonks pushed her hair back out of her face. "Good. What about the guy who did that to them?"
Harry kicked at the grass. "He's dead," he said, feeling the anger bubble back up. No thanks to me.
Tonks bit her lip, then beckoned Harry over. "Come on, walk with me."
Not seeing that he had a choice, Harry shuffled in her direction. Tonks started walking slowly toward the Quidditch pitch.
"Dumbledore said you had a dream about it. Did you see what happened to them?" she asked.
Harry blinked away the memory of the bloody body that had been-- that was, Nathaniel. "Yeah."
Tonks shook her head. "Don't suppose you know much about me?"
Harry frowned. "Uh, what?"
"Did I ever tell you the story about stuff that happened in my first year as an Auror?"
"No."
Tonks took a deep breath. "They make new Aurors work with another Auror in the field, for the first few years," she explained. "I was working with an old-timer, William Oliver. He wasn't bad, you know. Fought against You-Know-Who, all that."
Harry kept silent. There was an expression of pain on Tonks's face that warned him against being flip.
"We'd been working together for about a month, when something went wrong on a dark wizard we were tracking. Oliver and I got separated, and the wizard got to him first."
"Did... did he kill your partner?"
Tonks nodded. "The Unforgivable curses might be the worst, but there's still ways to turn ordinary curses bad," she said. "Oh, bother. Don't tell anyone I told you that, all right?"
"Sure."
"Shacklebolt wanted to take me off the case, because of what happened, not that it was my fault," she said sarcastically, "But because he thought I was too close. Scrimgeour disagreed."
"The Minister for Magic?" Harry asked. "He used to be in charge of the Aurors, right?"
"Right." Tonks kicked at a lump of grass. "Shacklebolt and I found the man who killed Oliver. Well, I found him first."
Harry slowed, then stopped walking. "What did you do?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.
"I didn't do anything." Tonks's voice was bitter. "I had him disarmed, at wand point, with no one around. And I did... nothing." She turned to face Harry, so serious. "Listen to me very carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. There's a line, Harry, that you never think you'll cross until it's too late. It was me wanting to eviscerate that wizard for what he did to Oliver. It's you wanting to beat Malfoy to death because of what happened to your friends."
"I wasn't... I mean, I wouldn't have..." Harry's voice trailed off when he realized how weak his denials sounded.
Tonks folded her fingers together under her chin. "Harry, you're a good kid, everyone says it. Sirius used to say it all the time, and Remus still does. Just... be careful."
"So, what, I should just let my friends get hurt?" Harry said hotly.
Tonks shook her head. "No, you're not listening to me. There's a difference between defence and vengeance, and it's very easy to slide over that line."
Harry looked away. No matter what she said, if Olaf was still alive, Harry would have dropped everything to go find him, to kill him for what he did to Anita and Nathaniel.
Tonks turned back to the school. "Come on, I'd better go take you to McGonagall or something."
"Why didn't you do that first?" Harry asked, matching her pace.
Tonks shrugged. "Thought it'd be a bad idea with you so angry. Plus, I really did want to offer you that advice."
"I'll take it under advisement," he said shortly.
"That's all I can ask," she said, unperturbed.
They walked for a few minutes in silence, before Harry said, "Have you talked to Remus recently?"
Tonks shook her head. "He's off doing something for the Order."
"Oh." Harry swallowed. "Can you not... I mean, if you do speak to him, can you not tell him about what happened on the night of the full moon? I should tell him, first."
"If that's what you want," Tonks said. She gave him a side-long look. "He's not going to be mad at you."
"Don't be too sure of that," Harry said darkly.
"You saved Snape's life by stopping a rampaging werewolf," Tonks said. "Act of reckless heroics aside, you did a good thing. How could Remus be upset by that?"
"Some people, when they find out you'll be a werewolf, they get weird," Harry said. "Even other werewolves."
"I'm pretty sure that Remus won't be one of them," Tonks said.
"We'll see."
"Pessimist," Tonks muttered under her breath. They turned around the edge of the rose garden. "Look, Harry, before we go back in, can I ask you a question?"
"I guess."
Tonks put her hands behind her back. "It's about Bellatrix Lestrange"
Harry almost tripped. His mind flashed back to Bellatrix being eaten by werewolves in the St. Louis woods, and the memory mixed with Nathaniel's bleeding body, and that made it so much worse. Just what I didn't need. "What about her?"
"My mum never had much time for her sisters, right? They were both such pure-blood fanatics, just like the rest of that damned family. Everyone except Sirius," Tonks said hastily. "I talked to Dumbledore, and he wouldn't tell me, but we all know that no one's heard from Bellatrix in over a month."
Harry schooled his features into blankness. "What do you want to know?"
Tonks shrugged. "I don't know, if you've heard anything? If Dumbledore won't tell me, then it's probably something bad, but... I just want to be able tell mum if her sister might ever be coming back."
Harry stared off at the far-off turret of Gryffindor tower. He wasn't sorry Bellatrix was dead, not after what she did to Anita and Clay. If Dumbledore hadn't told Tonks, there had to be a reason.
I'd still do it again.
"She's not... Bellatrix won't be coming back," Harry said in an almost inaudible voice.
Tonks nodded. "Right then," she said in a brisk voice, with only a bit of a waver. "Good to know. I mean, I hated her, she told my mum she should have drowned me at birth, but sisters and all that."
"She said that?" Harry demanded. "That's foul!"
"Yeah," Tonks said conversationally. "Mum apparently turned Aunt Bella into a toad for it." She sped up. "Come on, we should get moving."
"To detention," Harry muttered. "Brilliant."
He couldn't thank Tonks for pulling him off Malfoy; the perverted git had deserved a punch or two, but the Auror had a point. Harry wouldn't have stopped at one.
Malfoy's not Olaf, Harry reminded himself. He said something. He didn't rip Nathaniel open like a side of meat.
The sudden visual made Harry gag. He clenched his fists hard, feeling the scab on his palm break open, hot blood on his skin, and it was the only thing that kept him from falling to his knees. Stop acting like a baby! Harry told himself, walking faster to catch up with Tonks. You only saw it, didn't live it! You have no bloody right to be freaking out like this!
"Harry?" Tonks said.
"I'm fine," Harry lied. "Let's go."
No use lingering on what's past.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jean-Claude spread his hands wide as I looked around the room. "For as long as you require it, ma petite."
"Thanks," I said, not really caring where I was, as long as it was quiet. Micah dropped the bags by the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, watching me. "But why here? I thought..."
Jean-Claude smiled at me. "Non, ma petite. While I would delight in having you in my room, I know how disconcerted you are when I am dead during the day. As well, this room is more suited for Micah and Nathaniel as well."
"Oh."
Jean-Claude's smile faded. "Is something wrong?"
I shook my head a little too fast, and the room spun lazily around me. "It's fine."
Olaf's body had gotten to the crematorium at eleven this morning. He was ash now, beyond anything I could do to him. I wasn't sure what I felt about that.
"Very well," Jean-Claude said. "Would you care for me to remain while you settle in?"
"No, you don't have to," I said in a rush. "We're fine."
Jean-Claude stared at me for a minute, then nodded. "I will be only a call away, if you require anything at all, ma petite," he said.
I looked down as he walked out the door. I wanted to ask him to stay, to cling to him like he was the last strong thing in the universe, but I held my tongue. He probably had things to do that were more important than me falling apart..
Nathaniel closed the door softly, then shuffled over to the large bed. He curled up on the brightly colored bedspread and rested his head against the headboard, very carefully not looking at anything.
"Anita, do you want to lie down a little before the pard gets here?" Micah asked.
I paced the length of the stone room, too agitated to be still. "I'm going to be fine."
"I know that," Micah said. "But you're still hurt, I'm sure a little sleep can't be bad for you."
I turned around to glare at him, but the harsh words on my tongue fell away when I realized how exhausted he looked. Had he gotten any sleep last night at all? Or the night before that? I walked over to where Micah was sitting on the bed, letting my knees bump against his. "Are you okay?" I asked.
Micah caught my right hand in his, and brought it up to his lips to kiss my knuckles. "Just a little tired," he admitted, with a strange smile that I hadn't seen in a while. It was an unhappy smile, one that I had seen so often on him when he first came to me, after Chimera.
"Do you want to get some sleep?"
Micah tugged gently on my arm, and I let myself be pulled into his lap. He put his arms around my waist, his touch so gentle that my stitches didn't hurt at all. "I want to make sure you're all right," he breathed against my neck.
"I'm going to be fine," I repeated, unable to prevent my eyes from straying over to Nathaniel. He had flung an arm over his face and was pretending he was asleep, but the tension in his body gave him away.
He hadn't let me touch him after he left Hanson's office a few hours ago, even kept Micah between the two of us for most of the trip to the Circus of the Damned. I didn't know what to say to him. Every time he moved away from me hurt dug the stabbing guilt just a little deeper in my chest.
"Are you sure you don't want to lie down for a little while?" Micah asked again.
His arms tightened around me as I turned away from Nathaniel and pressed my face against Micah's hair. "Maybe for a few minutes," I conceded.
Micah kissed my shoulder. "As long as you want," he promised, transferring me to the bed before jumping up. He rummaged around in his jacket pocket for a little vial of pills, then grabbed a bottle of water out of one of the bags. "It's time for your painkillers."
I took the tiny white pills that he handed me, and managed to swallow them. "Are these actually supposed to work?" I asked as Micah helped me to lie down in the centre of the bed.
"The doctors said that they are supposed to work on a lycanthropic metabolism as well as human, so yes," Micah said, unlacing my runners and dropping them off the end of the bed. "I called Dr. Lillian to ask her, and she said they were safe."
"Good," I murmured, staring at the ceiling and not at Nathaniel, only a few inches from me. He hadn't moved when I lay down. If he moved away from me now... I didn't know what I'd do.
"Indeed," Micah said, pulling a blanket up over me and Nathaniel before slipping into the bed on the other side of me. "If you need anything, you let me know right away."
I closed my eyes as Micah turned the bedside lamp down to the lowest setting. "Micah?" I whispered.
"Yes?" he asked, breath tickling my cheek.
"Thank you."
He nuzzled his nose against my cheek. "Please don't thank me," he said. "I didn't do anything."
I turned my head so our lips were almost touching. His cat's eyes were glowing almost green in the faint light. "You stayed with Nathaniel," I whispered. "Then you stayed with the both of us. That's not nothing."
Micah blinked at me, that sardonic smile on his lips again, before he looked up at the ceiling. "You should get some sleep," was all he said.
I stared at his profile as he watched the shadows on the ceiling, and I didn't know what to tell him. How could I tell him that it wasn't his fault that this all happened, that it was mine? Olaf came here because of me. He went after Nathaniel because of me. Everyone knew it, but no one was saying it. At least to my face.
After a few minutes, Micah rolled onto his side and carefully laid his hand across my stomach. "Is that okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said fuzzily. The drugs were making me woozy, and the pain was sinking away. "S'okay."
"Good." Micah kissed my cheek, then lifted his arm to reach over me to touch Nathaniel's shoulder. "Nathaniel, don't you want to get closer?"
Nathaniel didn't respond or move a muscle. I knew he wasn't asleep, his breathing was too erratic for that.
I tried to reach out to him with the marks, to see what he was feeling, but I was met with cold silence. He'd walled up the marks between us tight.
He'd never done that before.
I closed my eyes, tears prickling at my eyelids. I'd tried to save him, but I'd failed. Harry and Edward had been the ones to save our lives yesterday. Not me.
I fell asleep trying to hold in the tears. I didn't have any right to cry about this.
~*~
The nap helped me feel a little more stable, physically at least. I was able to lie on my side and watch Micah unpack our bags. Nathaniel still hadn't moved, and hadn't responded when I'd spoken to him.
"How much did you bring?" I asked Micah as he opened the third bag.
"Enough for a few days," Micah said, folding a shirt and putting it onto a shelf. "We can decide what we're going to do then."
"What do you mean?"
Micah glanced at Nathaniel, then at me, a very serious expression on his face.
"Just say it, Micah."
Micah picked up another shirt and folded it carefully. "The crime lab said they'd send over someone to clean all the biological material out of the carpets and off the walls, but that's not what I mean."
"He means, are we going back there or not?" Nathaniel's voice, rough and lower than normal, startled me. I rolled onto my back just in time to see Nathaniel slowly unfold and sit up. He swung his legs down off the side of the bed, his back to me. "Are we going back there like nothing happened?"
I managed to sit up without popping a stitch. "What do you want to do?" I asked, trying to be as neutral as possible.
Nathaniel stood up and walked over to lean on the wall. His head was down, and his short hair swung forward to hide his eyes and part of his face. "It's not my house," he muttered.
"Yes, it is!" I insisted. I didn't know how to fix this, what to say. Helplessly, I looked over at Micah, but he appeared as lost as I did.
"Nathaniel, that is your house," Micah said, putting down the shirt and crossing the room. He stood in front of Nathaniel, not touching. "It's your home as much as it is mine, and you get a say in what we do now."
Nathaniel shook his head. "It's Anita's house, it always has been," he said bitterly. "I just do the laundry."
"That's not it at all!" I exclaimed, getting unsteadily to my feet.
"You're right," Nathaniel said, stepping away from the wall. "I also do the shopping." He stalked across the room toward the door. I tried to touch him, but he kept just beyond my reach. "I'm going to see Jason," he said before he slammed the door behind him.
I let my hand fall back to my side as I stared at the door. My head was ringing with Nathaniel's words.
Micah came over and put his arms around me in a hug. "He doesn't mean that, he's just upset," Micah said.
I let Micah hold me for a moment, just a few seconds of selfishly letting him comfort me. Then I pulled away. "Someone needs to go to talk to him," I muttered, hunting for my shoes.
"Do you want me to come with you?" Micah asked.
I shook my head. "You should go alone. He's not going to talk with me there."
"Anita--"
"Do you think we should move?" I interrupted. "I'm usually fine after bad shit happens in the house, you know, clean up and carry on, but what about Nathaniel? How can I ask him to move back there like nothing happened?"
Micah watched me with serious eyes. "Do you want to move?"
I flipped a shoe over with my toes and stepped into it. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm not the one who--" I cut myself off abruptly. "I mean, if Nathaniel wants to move, then that's okay with me."
Micah nodded. "I'll tell him that." He hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"
"Go," I commanded, pointing out the door. "Nathaniel needs a Nimir-Raj right now more than I need someone to hold my hand."
After giving me a look I couldn't decipher, Micah left.
I stepped into my other shoe. As long as I didn't trip over the laces, I'd be fine.
Fine. What the hell did that mean, fine? Fine as in I no longer felt the urge to start screaming? Fine as in I no longer wanted to go find Olaf's body and do horrible, unspeakable things to it just so I could torture him like he'd tortured Nathaniel?
Or fine, as in this was all my fault and nothing could make things right again?
"Why didn't you know something was wrong?"
A heavy knock on the door spun me around and made me go for my gun. Heart in my mouth, I stared at the closed door. No one could get down here who wasn't supposed to; the place was guarded tighter than Fort Knox.
"Anita, it's Damian."
I slowly lowered my gun to my side. Without thinking, I opened the marks and felt Damian's presence on the other side of that door. "Come in," I said, the sour edge of adrenaline fading.
The door slowly opened, and Damian stepped inside. He looked at me hungrily for a moment, before dropping his eyes. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked formally.
I holstered my gun. "You can come over here." I waited until Damian stopped a few feet from me before going over. "Hey," I said, waiting for him to look at me. His face was calm, but there were so many emotions running through those green eyes.
I could have lost him. If he'd been at my house the night of the attack, instead of staying here with Elinor, Olaf might have done to him what he'd done to Nathaniel.
I put my arm around his body, hugging him one-handed and pressing my cheek to his chest. I'd almost lost him too.
"It will be all right," Damian said awkwardly as he put his arms around me. We never hugged, not really, but standing here in Damian's arms like this I felt safe. "You are safe, and you will soon heal."
My eyes dry, I looked up at him. "Thanks to you."
Daman's face went cold, and he pulled away. "I was not present to fight your enemy," he said. "I am a day-walker, I could have--"
I shook my head. "You're only a day-walker when I'm there," I said. "He'd have gotten to you too, and then you wouldn't have been able to feed and keep me strong." I swallowed hard. "Look, Damian, you've been feeding for two days, to keep me and Nathaniel strong. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to help him. You're the only reason we're both still alive."
Damian kept watching me with those familiar eyes. "It was my honor to do whatever I could for you," he said.
I smiled weakly.
"May I ask a question?"
"Sure," I said, feeling unaccountably nervous. "What's up?"
"There have been rumors, here in the shadows, about Harry," Damian said. "He called Jason yesterday, not an hour after Jean-Claude and I were awakened by your call. Jason said that Harry knew things, things that had occurred. How could that happen?"
I looked down at my left arm, still in its sling. My hand tingled with the memory of Harry's grip. "I don't know how, or why, but... I had this vision, that Harry was there, in the living room." I played with a loose thread on the edge of the sling. "He grabbed my hand, just before Olaf was about to stab me again, and there was magic and Olaf froze."
"So Harry saved you?" Damian said, no trace of disbelief in his voice.
"Looks like."
"Good," Damian said, satisfied. "He then did what any warrior would do."
I shrugged my good shoulder. "Don't know how he did it, though."
"It was magic," Damian said, as if that explained everything. "Is there nothing I can do for you?"
I started to say no again, but something occurred to me. "Yeah, there is." I tried to smile, to cover how nervous I was feeling. "Walk me to Jean-Claude's room?"
"Of course," Damian said. He came over and held out his arm to me. "I would escort you anywhere."
"Just down the hall is fine," I said. I hated how much I wanted to cling to his arm. "How bad is it down these days?"
Damian shook his head as we walked. "Jean-Claude and Rafael have been arguing," he said in a low voice. "Christoff's wererats have been questioned, but as far as anyone can tell, they had never met Tony."
I frowned. "Why would Christoff's people help Olaf? It doesn't make sense."
"That is the conclusion Jean-Claude and Rafael reached," Damian said. "Asher is managing the businesses while Jean-Claude is occupied with other matters."
We came to a stop in front of Jean-Claude's door. After a minute of me just staring at the wood as if it might bite me, Damian gently squeezed my hand.
"Would you like me to knock?" he asked.
I took a deep breath. "No," I muttered, tapping gently on the door.
Damian stepped away from me, and bowed. "I will be available if you need me, for anything," he said.
"Thanks, Damian," I said. "Thank you, for everything."
He bowed again, then walked away as Jean-Claude's door opened. I stared down the hall after my red-headed vampire, suddenly too afraid to look at Jean-Claude.
"Ma petite?" Jean-Claude said. Slowly, I turned my head to look at him. He smoothed away his worried expression and held out his hand. "Would you care to come in?"
I took Jean-Claude's hand and let him guide me into the room. I glanced around as he closed the door, and saw something that made me frown. "You got a couch. When did you get a couch?" I asked, walking over to it unsteadily.
Jean-Claude stroked a hand over the soft black leather. "You liked the one in my office at Guilty Pleasures," he said, a bitter undertone in his voice. "I wanted to surprise you with this one."
"It's nice," I said, putting one hand on the couch arm to help me sit. "It's soft."
Jean-Claude stayed standing. "Where are Micah and Nathaniel?"
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my legs up into the couch. "Nathaniel wanted to go see Jason," I said, pulling my gun out of its holster and slipping it under the sofa. "Micah went after him."
"I see." He sat on the couch, not quite touching me. "Did you not wish to see Jason?"
I stared at his boots. "More like Nathaniel didn't want to see me."
"How do you mean?"
There was no blame in Jean-Claude's voice, but still, the guilt I was feeling threatened to come back up and choke me. "I, um... doesn't matter."
Carefully, Jean-Claude laid his hand on my knee. "Ma petite, you know I will be here to listen to you, in anything you wish to say."
I nodded. I traced the bones in the back of his hand with my fingers, feeling them strong and unbroken. "Yeah."
Jean-Claude let me touch him for a little while. "Did you hear of Harry's phone call to Jason, yesterday?" he eventually asked.
"Yeah, Nathaniel mentioned it," I whispered. I closed my eyes against the sudden visceral memory of lying on that floor, helpless and dying. "He saved us."
"How do you mean?" Jean-Claude asked, stroking my hair back from my face.
His touch was the only thing centering me, but I couldn't let myself cling to him. I needed to be stronger than that. "Harry was there, at least... I saw him," I said, eyes still shut. "He grabbed my hand, that part was real, I could feel it, and he used magic to stop Olaf. Then Edward came in."
"How could this be, ma petite?" Jean-Claude asked.
"I don't know." My right hand slipped down my jeans and clutched up the fabric by my ankle. "Edward saw something too, so Harry had to be there. He saved Nathaniel when I couldn't do anything."
"Ma petite, that is not true," Jean-Claude insisted.
"Yes, it is," I said, opening my eyes. "It's true! I was the one who put everyone at risk! I almost got everyone killed yesterday!"
I pushed Jean-Claude away and staggered to my feet. The walls seemed to be pressing in on me, and I tried to breathe, but the stitches in my side caught, and I gasped.
Jean-Claude shot to his feet. "Anita, listen to me!" he said, swinging me around in his arms. "You did everything you could, you could not have anticipated--"
"It doesn't matter!" I shouted. "What happened to Nathaniel is my fault! You would have died! Everyone would have died and it all would have been my fault!"
Something snapped in me. I tried to shove Jean-Claude away, but I was hyperventilating and the world started to get grey and shaking.
"Ma petite, stop this," Jean-Claude said in a voice halfway between cajoling and commanding. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight so I didn't fall over. "You are safe now, everyone is safe now. It was not your fault."
The pressure of his touch on my mind smoothed out my breathing, but as soon as his mental touch receded, I started sobbing. I balled my hand up in his shirt and I clung to him and I sobbed and screamed against him, all my terror and guilt and shame coming out.
He held me as I fell apart. Finally, my tears stopped and I was hollow, empty, as he held me in his lap on the floor.
"Ma petite, this was not your fault," he said after a while. "None of us could have foreseen that Nathaniel would be the one in danger."
"I should have," I said tonelessly. "I should have seen something, should have been able to do something."
"This was not your fault," Jean-Claude repeated.
I closed my eyes and wished I could believe him. "Tell that to Nathaniel."
Jean-Claude's silence told me all I needed to know.
...to be continued