Blue Moon ab-8

by Laurell Hamilton

  "We're not shacking up," I said automatically. I sat back in my seat. "What do you want, Wilkes? Why the private talk?"

  He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, and for the first time, I realized how nervous he was. He was scared. Why? What the hell was happening in this tiny town?

  "If the rape charges disappear, Zeeman is free to leave town. You and everybody go with him. No harm, no foul."

  A sport's metaphor -- ooh, I was all a-tingle. "I didn't come down here to sniff around your mess, Wilkes. I'm not a cop. I came down here to get Richard out of trouble."

  "He's out of trouble if he leaves."

  "I'm not his keeper, Wilkes. I can't promise what Richard will do."

  "Why does a schoolteacher have bodyguards?" Wilkes asked.

  I shrugged. "Why do you want the schoolteacher out of the way bad enough to frame him for rape?"

  "We've all got our secrets, Blake. You make sure he leaves town and takes his assassins with him, and we can all keep our secrets."

  I looked at my hands spread on the smooth tabletop. I looked back up, met his eyes. "I'll talk to Richard, see what I can do. But I can't promise anything until after I've talked to him."

  "Make him listen, Blake. Zeeman is so clean he squeaks, but you and I know the score."

  I shook my head. "Yeah, I know the score, and I know what people say about me." I stood up.

  He stood up. We looked at each other.

  "I don't always pay attention to the letter of the law, that's true. One of the reasons Richard and I aren't dating anymore is that he is so fucking squeaking clean it makes my teeth hurt. But we have one thing in common."

  "What's that?" Wilkes asked.

  "Push us, and we push back. Richard usually for moral grounds, because it's the right thing to do. Me, because I am just that unpleasant."

  "Unpleasant," Wilkes said. "Mel Cooper may never walk right again or have the full use of his left arm."

  "He shouldn't have pulled a knife on me," I said.

  "If there hadn't been witnesses, would you have killed him?"

  I smiled, and even to me, it felt like a strange smile, not humorous, unpleasant maybe. "I'll talk to Richard. Hopefully, we'll be out of your hair before tomorrow night."

  "I wasn't always a small-town cop, Blake. Don't let the surroundings fool you. I will not let you and your people fuck with me."

  "Funny," I said. "I was thinking the very same thing."

  "Well," Wilkes said, "we know where we stand."

  "I guess we do," I said.

  "I hope come dark tomorrow you and your friends are on your way out of town."

  I stared into his brown eyes. I'd looked into scarier eyes, blanker, more dead. He didn't have the eyes of a professional killer. He didn't even have good cop eyes. I could see the fear shiny and almost panicked around the edges. No, I'd seen scarier eyes. But that didn't mean he wouldn't kill me if he got the chance. Make even a good man scared enough, and you never know what he'll do. Make a bad man scared, and you are in trouble. Wilkes probably hadn't killed anybody yet or they wouldn't have framed Richard for rape. They'd have framed him for murder or just killed him. So Wilkes hadn't slid completely down into the abyss. But once you embrace the screaming darkness, eventually, you kill. Maybe Wilkes didn't know that yet, but if we pushed hard enough, he'd figure it out.

  9

  By the time I got back to the cabins, it was after seven. It was August, so it was still daylight, but you could tell it was late. There was a softness to the light, a tiredness to the heat as if the day itself was eager for night. Or maybe it was just me that was tired.

  My face hurt. At least I hadn't had to have stitches in my mouth. The EMS guy on the ambulance had said I'd need a couple of stitches. When I got to the hospital, the doctor said I didn't. A very bright spot for me. I'm sort of phobic about needles. But I've taken stitches with no painkiller and that ain't fun, either.

  Jamil was standing in front of the cabins. He'd changed into black jeans and a T-shirt with a smiley face on it. The T-shirt was cut across the middle so his abs showed. Though my dance card was full of attractive men, Jamil did have one of the nicest stomachs I'd ever seen. The muscles stood out under the tight smoothness of his skin like shingles on a roof. It didn't even look real. Somehow, I didn't think you needed cobblestone abs to be a good bodyguard. But hey, everyone needs a hobby.

  "I'm sorry I missed the fun," he said. He touched my bruised lip gently. It still made me wince. "I'm surprised you let anyone mark you."

  "She did it on purpose," Shang-Da said.

  Jamil looked at him.

  "Anita pretended to faint," Jason said. "She looked really pitiful."

  Jamil looked back at me.

  I shrugged. "I didn't let someone kick me in the face on purpose. But once I was down, I did play up how hurt I was. This way, we could press our own assault charges."

  "I didn't think you lied that well," Jamil said.

  "Live and learn," I said. "Where's Richard? I need to talk to him."

  Jamil glanced behind him at one of the cabins, then back to me. There was a look on his face that I couldn't read. "He's cleaning up. He's been in the same clothes for two days."

  I stared at his so-careful face, trying to figure out what he wasn't telling me. "What's going on, Jamil?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing."

  "Don't give me grief, Jamil. I need to talk to Richard -- now."

  "He's in the shower."

  I shook my head, and it made my head hurt. "Screw this. What cabin is he in?"

  Jamil shook his head. "Give him a few minutes."

  "Longer," Shang-Da said, his voice very bland.

  Jason looked from one to the other of them, eyes just a touch wide.

  "What is going on?" I asked.

  The cabin door behind Jamil opened. A woman appeared in the doorway. Richard had her arms and seemed to be trying to push her, gently but firmly, out the door.

  The woman turned and saw me. She had pale brown hair in one of those hairdos that seem artless and simple yet actually take hours to do. She pulled away from Richard and stalked towards us. No, towards me. Her dark eyes were all for me.

  "Lucy, don't," Richard said.

  "I just want to smell her," Lucy said.

  It was the kind of comment a dog might make if it could speak. Smell me, not see me. We primates tend to forget that a lot of other mammals consider smell more important than vision.

  Lucy and I had time to study each other as she walked towards me. She was only a little taller than me, maybe five foot six. Her walk was an exaggerated sway so that the short, plum-colored skirt bloused around her and you got glimpses of the hose and garters she was wearing underneath. She was carrying a pair of black heels but walked towards us in a graceful, almost tiptoe movement. Her blouse was a paler purple, unbuttoned so that you glimpsed enough of the bra to know it was black and matched the rest of the undies that you could see. And either the bra was a wonderbra or she was, well, stacked. She was wearing more makeup than I ever wore, but it was well-applied and made her skin look smooth and perfect. Her dark lipstick was smeared.

  I glanced behind her at Richard. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and nothing else. Water still beaded on his naked chest. His thick hair clung to his face and shoulders in wet strands. He had her dark lipstick smeared across his mouth like a plum-colored bruise.

  We looked at each other, and I don't think either of us knew what to say.

  The woman knew exactly what to say. "So you're Richard's human bitch."

  It was so hostile, it made me smile.

  She didn't like the smile. She stepped into me so close, I'd have to step back to keep the edge of her skirt from brushing my legs. If I'd had any doubt what she was, this close, her power danced over my skin like insects swarming over my body. She was powerful.

  I shook my head. "Look, before we get into any arcane werewolf shit or worse, personal shit, I need to talk to Richard about jail and why
the local cops went to the trouble of framing him for rape."

  She blinked at me. "My name is Lucy Winston. Remember it."

  I looked into her pale brown eyes from inches away. I was close enough to see the small imperfections in her eyeliner. Richard had mentioned a Lucy in jail. He couldn't be dating two of them, could he? "Lucy -- Richard mentioned you," I said.

  She blinked again, but this time she was puzzled. She took a step back from me to glance at Richard. "You mentioned me to her?"

  Richard nodded.

  She backed up and looked on the verge of tears. "Then why ... "

  I glanced from one to the other of them. Why what, is what I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I'd been enjoying disliking Lucy. If she cried, it might spoil my fun.

  I put my hands up like I was surrendering and stepped around her. I walked towards Richard because we had to talk, but seeing Lucy in her garters and hose had taken a lot of the fun out of it.

  It was none of my business what he did. I was sleeping with Jean-Claude. I was all out of stones to throw. So why was I having such a hard time not being pissed? Maybe that was a question better left unanswered.

  Richard stepped back out of the doorway so I could walk past him. He closed the door behind me, leaning against it. We were suddenly alone, really alone, and I didn't know what to say.

  He leaned against the door with his hands behind his back. Water beaded on his naked upper body. He'd always had a nice chest, but he had been lifting weights since last I'd seen him without his shirt. His upper body was almost aggressively masculine, though still short of that overdone look that bodybuilders strive so hard for. He was slumped against the door. It made his stomach muscles bunch. Once upon a time, I could have helped him dry off. His hair was starting to dry in a wavy mass. If he didn't do something soon, he'd have to wet it and start over.

  "Lucy drag you out of the shower without a towel?" The moment I said it, I wished I hadn't. I put my hand up and said, "I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I don't have the right to be catty with you."

  He smiled, almost sadly. "I think that's the second time I've ever heard you admit you were wrong."

  "Oh, I'm wrong a lot. I just don't admit it out loud."

  That made him smile again, and it was almost his normal smile. That bright flash of perfect teeth in the permanent tan of his face. Most people thought Richard was tanned. I knew it was skin color because I'd seen the whole package. He was white bread, all Middle American, with a family that made the Waltons look unfriendly, but a generation or so back was something not so white bread.

  Richard pushed away from the door. He walked towards me on his bare feet. I was more aware than was polite of the line of hair running down the center of his lower abdomen.

  I turned away and said, "Why did they want you in jail?" Business, concentrate on business.

  "I'm not sure," he said. "May I get a towel and finish drying off while we talk?"

  "It's your cabin. Help yourself," I said.

  He disappeared into the bathroom. I was left to look around. The cabin was almost identical to mine except that it was yellow and it was more lived in. The cheerful comforter was pushed onto the floor in a sunny heap. The white sheets were wrinkled. Richard was almost fanatical about making the bed. Somehow Lucy didn't strike me as the neat type. I was betting she had mussed the bed. Of course, there was a wet spot on one side, so maybe she'd had help.

  I passed my hand over the damp sheets. Even the pillow was wet as if that thick wet hair had laid across it. My throat felt tight, and if I hadn't known better, I'd have said there were tears in my eyes. Naw, surely not. I mean I'd been the one that dumped Richard. Why should I cry?

  The print above the bed was another Van Gogh, Sunflowers this time. I wondered if every cabin had a Van Gogh print in a color that matched the decor. Yeah, maybe if I concentrated on the room's furnishings, I wouldn't keep wondering if Lucy had looked up at the melting sunflowers while Richard ...

  I cut that particular visual off. I didn't need to go there -- ever. Did I really think that Richard was going to stay chaste while I boffed Jean-Claude? Did I really expect him to just wait around? Maybe I had. Stupid, but maybe true.

  The bathroom door was still closed. I could hear water running. Was he taking another shower? Maybe he was just wetting down his hair. Maybe. Or maybe he was cleaning off. Sex was never as neat as the movies made it. Real sex was messy. Good sex was messier.

  Three months with Jean-Claude, and I was a sex expert. It was almost funny. I'd been chaste until he came along. Not virginal. My fiancé in college had taken care of that. I'd fallen into my fiancé's arms with the trust that only first love can give you. It was one of the last naive things I ever did.

  Richard and I had been engaged, briefly. But we'd never had sex. We'd both been chaste since our first experience in college with other people. Just a personal choice that we both shared. Maybe if we'd given in to that lust, there wouldn't be so much heat left between us. Of course, lately, we'd been mostly fighting.

  Richard had been too kindhearted, too tender, too squeamish to rule the wolf pack. He'd had a chance to kill the old Ulfric, Marcus, twice; and twice Richard refused the kill. No kill, no new Ulfric. I urged him to kill Marcus. And after he did it, I dumped him. Unfair, wasn't it? Of course, I hadn't told him to eat Marcus, just to kill him. What's a little cannibalism between friends?

  The water was still running in the bathroom. If I hadn't been afraid he'd answer dripping wet in nothing but a towel, I'd have knocked and asked him to hurry. But I'd seen enough of Mr. Zeeman for one day. Less was definitely more.

  There were pictures pinned above the desk. I walked towards them. I'd had one semester of Primate Studies: North American. We'd all called it troll class. The Lesser Smokey Mountain Troll is one of the smallest of the North American trolls. They average between three and a half feet to five feet. They are mostly vegetarians but will supplement their diet with carrion and insects. I let all the stats run through my head as I walked towards the pictures. They were covered in blackish fur from head to foot. Crouched in the trees, huddled together, they looked like tall chimpanzees or slender gorillas, but there were pictures of them walking. They were completely bipedal. The only primate except man that walked upright.

  The close-up shots of faces were startling. Their faces were more furry than the great apes and more manlike. Some early theories had said trolls were the missing link between man and ape. There had been at least two famous cases of circuses in the early 1900s that toured with trolls but listed them as wild men. American settlers had been killing trolls for centuries. By the early 1900s, they'd been rare enough to be oddities.

  Two things happened in 1910 that saved the trolls from utter destruction. One: a scientific article was published that said that the trolls used tools and buried their dead with flowers and personal articles. The scientist very carefully did not project anything beyond the basic findings, but the newspapers did. They declared that trolls believed in an afterlife, that they believed in God.

  An evangelical minister named Simon Barkley felt that God spoke to him. He went out and captured a troll and tried to convert him to Christianity. He wrote a book about his experiences with Peter (the troll), and it became a best-seller. Suddenly, trolls were a cause célèbre.

  One of my biology profs had kept a black-and-white photo of Peter the Troll up in his office. Peter had his head bowed and his hands clasped. He was even wearing clothes, though Minister Barkley was always distressed that without constant supervision, Peter disrobed.

  I wasn't sure how good a time Peter had with Barkley, but he saved his species from almost certain extinction. Peter had been a North American Cave Troll, the only species on this continent smaller than the Lesser Smokey. Barkley had been moved by the spirit of God, but he hadn't been stupid. There had still been Greater Smokey Mountain Trolls in those days, eight to twelve feet tall and carnivorous. Barkley hadn't tried to save one of them. Probably just as well. It wo
uld have been a real downer if the troll had eaten Barkley instead of praying for him.

  Trolls were the first protected species in America. The Greater Smokey Mountain Troll was not protected. It was hunted to extinction; but then, it pulled up large trees and beat the tourists to death and sucked the marrow from their bones. Hard to get good press that way.

  There was still a troll society called Peter's Friends. Even though it was illegal to kill trolls, any trolls, for any reason, it still happened. Hunters poached them. Though staring into those too-human faces, I don't know how they did it. Not just for a trophy.

  Richard stepped out of the bathroom in a rush of warm air. He was still wearing the jeans, but now there was a towel on his head and a blow-dryer in one hand. He had rewet his hair, though he seemed to have gotten all of him in the shower to do it. Mercifully, he'd dried his chest and arms off. His arms looked amazingly strong. I knew he could have tossed around small elephants, regardless of how muscular he looked, but the muscles helped remind me. Physically, he was a pleasure to gaze upon. But it made me wonder why he'd been spending the extra time on his body. Richard didn't usually sweat that kind of thing.

  I pointed at the pictures. "These are great." I smiled and meant it. Once upon a time, I'd envisioned spending my life in the field doing this kind of work. A sort of preternatural Jane Goodall. Though truthfully, primates hadn't been my main area of interest. Dragons, maybe, or lake monsters. Nothing that wouldn't eat me if it got the chance. But that had been long ago before Bert, my boss, recruited me to raise the dead and slay vampires. Sometimes, even though Richard was older than I was by three years, he made me feel old. He was still trying to have a life amid all the strange shit. I'd given up on anything but the strange shit. You couldn't do both equally well -- or I couldn't.

  "I'll take you up to see them, if you'd like," he said.

  "I'd love to, if it wouldn't upset the trolls."

  "They're pretty accustomed to visitors. Carrie -- Dr. Onslow -- has started allowing small groups of tourists to come and take pictures."

  He'd mentioned a Carrie in the same breath with Lucy. Was this the same woman? "Are you guys that hard up for money?" I asked.