Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Zerbrowski motioned the uniform back, so we had some privacy. There was almost no glass on the carpet, because it had all gone outside.

  “Did Van Anders throw someone through the window?”

  “He threw himself,” Zerbrowski said.

  I stared at him. “We’re twenty stories up, even a werewolf isn’t going to walk away from that kind of fall. It may not kill him, but he’ll be hurting.”

  “He didn’t go down, he went up.” He motioned me closer to the window.

  I didn’t like the window. It had a very low sill, almost low enough to step through. That gives a better view, but without glass in the metal frame, there was nothing but empty air between me and a very big fall.

  “Careful of the glass, and don’t look down. But trust me, Anita, it’s worth leaning out just a little, and looking up. Look at the right side of the window.”

  I placed a hand against the wall and found a place in the metal that was glass free so I could get a grip. The air was beating against me, like eager hands ready to snatch me away. I’m not afraid of heights, but the idea of falling from them, well, that I’m afraid of. I fought the almost irresistible urge to look down, because I knew if I looked down I might not be able to look out the window at all.

  I leaned out, very carefully, and at first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. There were holes in the side of the building, all the way up, as far as my eyes could follow. Small holes at regular intervals.

  I eased myself back in, carefully, watching for glass as much as a fall. I frowned at Zerbrowski. “I saw the holes, but what are they?”

  “Van Anders did a Spiderman on them. The sniper and observer were set up on the opposite side of the building. There was nothing they could do.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “You mean the holes are where he shoved his hands into the building, and climbed up?”

  Zerbrowski nodded, and he was smiling. “Captain Parker was screaming that he didn’t know werewolves could do that either.”

  I glanced back at the window. “Captain Parker isn’t the only one that didn’t know. I mean they have the strength, but they get cut and scraped and break bones even. They may heal quickly, but it hurts them.” I looked up at the ceiling as if I could still see the upward march of holes. “Being shot would have hurt like hell.”

  Zerbrowski nodded. “Will he need to see an emergency room, a doctor, something?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt it. If he’s strong enough to do a partial change, then I’ll have to assume that his healing abilities are on the high end. If they are, he’ll be healed within a couple hours, maybe less. If he changes form, when he’s human again, he’ll be good as new.”

  “They’ve put the word out to all the emergency and urgent care places, just in case.”

  I nodded. “Can’t hurt, I guess, but I don’t think you’re going to catch him that way.”

  “How are we going to catch him, Anita? How do you catch something like this?”

  I looked at him. “Did you ask the upper brass what they thought of using werewolves to track him?”

  “They vetoed it.”

  “I think you might find them in a more receptive mood now.”

  “You think your friends will be nice on a leash for me?”

  “I was really thinking I’d been holding the leash.” My phone rang, and the sound made me jump. I flipped it open, and it was a voice I didn’t recognize. I don’t talk to the chief of police all that often.

  I did a lot of yes, sir, and no, sir. Then the phone was buzzing, and I was left with Zerbrowski staring at me. “Were you talking to who I think you were talking to?”

  “They’ve issued a court order of execution for Van Anders.”

  Zerbrowski’s eyes were wide. “You are not going after him alone.”

  I shook my head. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  He looked like he didn’t believe me. I actually had to give him my word I wouldn’t try to pop Van Anders without backup. I’d have backup. The police chief had told me over the phone that they’d go along with the werewolf tracking idea. I’d have backup—if I could persuade Richard to give them to me.

  I asked for some plastic evidence bags and raided Van Anders’s dirty clothes drawer. I used gloves, not to keep my scent off them, but because I didn’t want to touch anything that had touched Van Anders’s body. I sealed the clothes in the bag, and hoped it would be enough to help the werewolves track him. We’d come back and start around the foot of this building. Van Anders might have climbed up, but he had to come down somewhere.

  Zerbrowski drove me, Officer Elsworthy, and himself off to the hospital, so Captain Parker could yell at us both. Bates had died on the operating table.

  Zerbrowski had to take the tongue lashing, because a sergeant doesn’t outrank a captain. I took it, because I smelled the fear on Parker. I didn’t blame him for being afraid. I think we were all afraid, every single person in the hallway. Every person in the apartment. Every policeman, and woman, in town should have been afraid. Because when something like this happens it’s still the police that have to clean up the mess. Well, the police, and your friendly neighborhood executioner. We were all afraid, and we should have been.

  59

  I MET RICHARD at his house. We sat at the kitchen table where we’d sat so many weekend mornings. He drank tea. I sipped coffee. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I didn’t know what to say.

  He caught me off guard by starting. “If you’d stuck to my morals, Asher would be dead right now, or worse, trapped in Europe with that monstrous bitch.”

  I was pretty sure that “monstrous bitch” was Belle Morte. “That’s true,” I said, and I tried to keep my voice neutral. I wanted to get down to business and ask Richard to loan me some werewolves, but it didn’t usually work well to approach Richard head on. It didn’t take much to offend him. I needed his cooperation, not another fight.

  “I don’t understand how you could let them feed off of you, Anita.” He finally looked up and his perfectly brown eyes were filled with a pain and confusion, so raw, that it hurt me to look at them.

  “It’s hard for me to cast stones anymore, Richard.”

  “The ardeur,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I can’t let you feed off of me either.”

  “I understand that,” I said.

  He searched my face. “Then why are you here?”

  Had he really thought this was going to be some tearful reunion, some plea on my part to get him back in my bed? Part of me was pissed, part of me was sad, none of me had time for it.

  “The werewolf that’s been raping and killing women here got away from the police today.”

  “I haven’t seen anything on the news.”

  “We’re trying to keep it quiet.”

  “You’re here for business,” his voice was soft.

  “I’m here to keep other women from dying.”

  He got up from the table, and I was afraid for a moment that he’d leave, but he took the tea cozy off the teapot and refreshed his mug. “It’s not one of my wolves, Anita.”

  “I know that.”

  He turned, and there was the first hint of anger. “Then what do you want from me?”

  I sighed. “Richard, I love you, I may always love you, but I don’t have time for this fight, not right now.”

  “Why not now?” he asked, and he was angry.

  I opened the file folder and took out the first photo. I held it up so he could see it. He frowned, narrowing his eyes, then finally his mind made sense of it, and total disgust filled his face. He turned away.

  “Why are you showing me that?”

  “He’s killed three women here and over a half dozen in other countries. Those are only the ones we know about. He’s out there right now picking a new victim.”

  “I can’t do anything about that.”

  “But I can, if you’ll give me some werewolves to help track him.”

  He looked at me then, then
away, because I still had the photo showing. “Track him, you mean like a dog?”

  “No, most dogs won’t track a shape-shifter, they’re too scared of them.”

  “We’re not animals, Anita.”

  “No, you’re not, but in animal form you have the nose of one, but you still have the brain of a person. You can track and think.”

  “Me, you expect me to do this?”

  I shook my head, and laid the photo down on the pile. I stood and spread the pile out across his table. “No, but Jason would, and Jamil would if you asked him to. I’d say Sylvie, but she’s not well enough to do much of anything.”

  “She challenged me, and she lost,” Richard said. His eyes kept flicking to the photos on the table. “Get those off of my table.”

  “He’s out there right now, about to turn another woman into so much meat.”

  “Fine, fine, take Jason, take Jamil, take whoever the hell you want.”

  “Thank you.” I started gathering the photos up.

  “You didn’t have to do it this way, Anita.”

  “What way?” I asked, shutting the file over the gruesome photos.

  “Harsh. You could have just asked me.”

  “Would you have said yes?”

  “I don’t know, but those photos are going to haunt me.”

  “I saw the real deal, Richard, your nightmares can’t be worse than mine.”

  He moved in one of those blurs of speed and grabbed my arm. “Part of me thinks they’re horrifying, just like I’m supposed to, but part of me likes the pictures.” His fingers dug into my arm, bruising. “Part of me just sees fresh meat.” He let a growl trickle out from between his even white teeth.

  “I’m sorry you hate what you are, Richard.”

  He let go of me so fast, I almost fell. “Take the wolves you need, and get out.”

  “If I could wave a magic wand over you and make you human, purely human, I’d do it, Richard.”

  He looked at me; his eyes had bled to wolf amber. “I believe you, but there isn’t a magic wand. I am what I am, and nothing will ever change that.”

  “I’m sorry, Richard.”

  “I’ve decided to live, Anita.”

  I looked at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve been trying to die. I’m not going to die anymore. I’m going to live, whatever that means.”

  “I’m glad, but I wish you sounded happier about the choice.”

  “Go, Anita, you’ve got a murderer to catch.”

  I did, and time was not on our side. But I still hated leaving him like this. “I’ll do what I can to help you, Richard, you know that.”

  “Like you help all your friends.”

  I shook my head, gathered up the folder, and went for the door. “When you want to talk, and not to fight, give me a call, Richard.”

  “And when you want to talk, and not catch murderers, you give me a call.”

  We left it at that. But I didn’t have time to hold his hand, even if he would have let me. Van Anders was out there, and there were so many people he could hurt. What was a little emotional desolation between friends compared to getting Van Anders off the streets?

  60

  JASON AND JAMIL stayed in human form, while Norman and Patricia stayed in wolf form. I’d seen Norman in human form before, but I couldn’t put a face on Patricia. She was just a big shaggy wolf, pale, almost white. We had to put the two pony-sized wolves on leashes. Today of all days I did not want the police seeing a giant wolf running loose on the streets. I was thinking they’d be in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of mood.

  I’d unzipped the two bags that I’d collected from Van Anders’s rented apartment. The wolves sniffed it, growled, and on the end of leashes, they tracked him from the sidewalk around his apartment building, and all through the city, and finally to a mall.

  The police had been watching the airports, the bus stations, the highways. Van Anders was sitting in the freaking food court of Eastfield mall. He’d piled his hair up under a billed cap and added a cheap pair of sunglasses. As disguises went it was okay. Besides, I couldn’t complain, much. I was wearing a billed cap with my hair up under it, and sunglasses. I hate it when the bad guys copy. I was also wearing a baggy T-shirt, and baggy jeans with my Nikes. Short as I was, I looked like a thousand teenagers wandering any mall in America.

  I’d deputized Jamil and Jason. They stayed out of sight, but warned me that he’d smell them sooner or later. I’d already flashed my badge at mall security. I’d made the decision that we wouldn’t call the police, and we wouldn’t try to evacuate. I had a court order of execution. I didn’t have to give him a warning. I didn’t have to do anything but kill him.

  It was mid-afternoon, so the food court wasn’t too busy. That was good. There was a group of teenagers at the table nearest Van Anders. Why weren’t they in school? At the table next-closest to him was a mother with a baby in a stroller and two toddlers. Two toddlers, neither of them in baby seats, but running free, while she tried to help the baby eat soft-serve yogurt.

  Van Anders was still more than fifteen feet from the rampaging toddlers. The teenagers were frightfully close, but I couldn’t figure out how to get them to move. I was working up my nerve to wind my way through the daytime moms and kids, when the teenagers got up, left their trash on the table, and walked away.

  Van Anders was as isolated as I was going to get him here in the mall. I wasn’t willing to let him escape again. He was too dangerous. I made the decision in that moment that I would endanger all these nice people. That the mother with her yogurt-smeared baby, and the two screaming toddlers were going to have to take their chances. I was fairly certain I could control the situation well enough to keep them out of it, but I wasn’t completely certain. All I knew for sure was that I was going to take him, now. I wasn’t going to wait.

  I had my gun at my side, safety off, round-chambered long before I got to the table with the mother and her children. I had my federal marshal badge hanging out over the pocket of the large T-shirt, just in case some brave civilian decided to try and save Van Anders.

  I had the gun up and pointed as I passed the woman’s table. I think it was her soft gasp that made him turn. He saw the badge, and he smiled, taking another bite of his sandwich. He talked with his mouth full. “Are you going to warn me not to move, tell me to freeze?” He sounded Dutch.

  “No,” I said, and I shot him.

  The bullet spun him out of his chair, and I fired again before he’d hit the ground. The first one had been rushed; not lethal, but the second one was a solid body shot.

  I fired into his body twice more before I got close enough to watch his mouth open and shut. Blood blossomed from his lips, and turned his blue shirt purple.

  I circled wide, so I could get a clear head shot. He lay on his back and bled, and managed to cough blood, and clear his throat enough to say, “Police have to give warning. Can’t just shoot.”

  I let out all the breath in my body, and sighted on his forehead just above the eyes. “I’m not the police, Van Anders, I’m the executioner.”

  His eyes widened, and he said, “No.”

  I pulled the trigger and watched most of his face explode into an unrecognizable mess. His eyes had been bluer than in the photos.

  61

  BRADLEY CALLED ME at home that night. Strangely, after blowing a man’s brains out in front of a lot of suburban moms and kids I just wasn’t in the mood to go into work. I was already tucked into bed with my favorite toy penguin, Sigmund, and Micah curled beside me. Usually Micah’s warmth was more comforting than a truckload of stuffed toys, but tonight I needed that choking grip on my favorite toy. Micah’s arms were wonderful, but Sigmund never told me I was being silly, or bloodthirsty. Neither had Micah, but I kept waiting for it.

  “You made national news, and the Post-Dispatch is running a front-page picture of you executing Van Anders,” Bradley said.

  “Yeah, turns out I was across fr
om a camera store. Lucky me.” Even to me, I sounded tired, or something more. What’s more than tired? Dead?

  “You going to be alright?” he asked.

  I pulled Micah’s arms closer around me, snuggled my head against his bare chest. I was still cold. How could I be cold under all these blankets? “I’ve got a few friends staying with me, they’ll keep me from getting too morose.”

  “He needed killing, Anita.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then what’s that tone in your voice?”

  “You haven’t gotten to the part of the article where the three-year-old boy is having screaming fits about me killing him, like he saw me do to the bad man in the mall, have you?”

  “If he’d gotten away . . .”

  “Just stop, Bradley, just stop. I made the decision before I moved on him that the witnesses’ psyches weren’t as important as their physical safety. I don’t regret that decision. Much.”

  “Okay, I’ll just talk business then. We think Leo Harlan is best known as Harlan Knox. He’s worked with some of the same people that employed Heinrick and Van Anders.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I said.

  “We tried the number he gave you. The answering service says he’s canceled his contract with them, except for one message.”

  I waited for it.

  “You’re not going to ask?”

  “Just tell me, Bradley.”

  “Okay, Here goes. ‘Ms. Blake, sorry we didn’t get to raise my ancestor. In case you were wondering, he is real. But under the circumstances, I thought discretion the better part of valor. And the assignment has been canceled, for the time being.’ Do you understand what he means about the assignment being canceled?”

  “I think so, I think he means the deal was called off. It got too messy. Thanks for checking, Bradley.”

  “Don’t thank me, Anita, if I hadn’t tried to get you onto our payroll as a federal agent, you might never have come to the attention of whoever hired Heinrick.”

  “You can’t keep blaming yourself for that, Bradley. It’s like spilled milk, clean up the mess, and move on.”