I looked up into his brown eyes, and there was something in his face that said he was giving advice that had been hard-won. If I'd been a girl-girl, I'd have said something like, you sound like you're talking from experience, but I'd hung around with the boys' club too long not to know my manners. Hudson was opening up, and he didn't have to, he was trying to help me; asking him personal shit would have made me an ungrateful wretch. "I've been the only one for so long."
"Did you go up in that condo by yourself?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"Then stop acting like you did. Do you have anyone waiting for you at home?" His voice was gentler than it had been when he'd first told me to go home to my husband or boyfriend.
"Yeah, I got someone waiting."
"Then go home. Call him from the car, let him know that the officer down calls weren't you." They never released names of the downed officers to the media until all the families had been contacted, better for the bereaved, but hell on all the other families with police officers out and about tonight. They were all waiting for the phone to ring, or worse, the doorbell. No one with a police officer in the family wanted to see another cop on their doorstep tonight.
I thought about how I'd left Micah and Nathaniel standing in the parking lot. How I'd told them to take Ronnie home. How I hadn't kissed either of them good-bye. My eyes were hot, and my throat hurt.
I nodded, maybe a little too rapidly. My voice was only a little shaky. "I'll go home. I'll call home."
"Get some sleep if you can, you'll feel better tomorrow."
I nodded, but didn't look at him. I'd taken a couple of steps when I turned back and said, "I'll bet you almost anything, Hudson, that the crime lab is going to agree with me. The DNA in the bites from the first vics aren't going to match most of the vamps upstairs."
"You just won't let this go, will you?"
I shrugged. "I don't know how to let go, Sergeant."
"Take it from someone who knows, Blake. You better start learning, or you're going to burn out."
I looked at him, and he looked back, and I wondered what he'd seen in me tonight for him to feel that I needed the "burnout" lecture. Was he right? Or were we all just tired? Him, me, all of us.
80
I drove home thinking about vampires. Not the fun ones. The ones we'd just killed. It was nearly three in the morning, mine was almost the only car when I pulled out onto the highway. Eight dead vamps, plus one human cohort. My bet was a human servant, because he was the one that had killed Officer Baldwin with a sword. That spoke of long ago skills. Not many modern humans are good enough with a blade to take out a tactical officer armed with an MP5. Eight was enough to account for all of them, but I knew we'd missed Vittorio. He just hadn't been there.
The night was clear and bright, and as I left the city proper behind, stars studded the sky like someone had spilled a bag of diamonds across the velvet of it. I felt surprisingly good. I wasn't sure why and didn't look at it too closely, just in case it was fragile, and too much poking would have broken the mood. I felt good, and I was going home, and I'd saved everyone I could, and killed everyone I could. I was out of it for the night.
There'd been enough dead females to account for Nadine and Nellie, the pair that had seduced Avery Seabrook. There'd even been an extra that could have been Gwenyth, Vittorio's sweetheart, but I thought it long odds that all three of them would just let us shoot them without much of a fight. By the standards I was used to, it hadn't been much of a fight. Not for what this group had been capable of. At least one of them, or more, should have tried to fly out a window, to escape. The sniper had had nothing to do tonight.
It wasn't until I was turning off onto 55 South that I realized the Circus of the Damned would have been much closer, and gotten me to bed sooner. Now it was too late, as long or longer to backtrack as go forward. But I wanted my own bed tonight. I wanted a certain stuffed toy penguin. I wanted Micah and Nathaniel, and right at that moment I didn't really want to see another vampire. It wasn't the vampire vics that made me not want to face another vampire tonight, it was my victims. It was the flash pictures in my head of the girl who'd begged for her life, and Jonah Cooper, and the silent crowd watching me at the church. I tried to hide behind the shield of the horrible things they'd done to the woman in the kitchen. It had been horrible. Once I'd justified it for myself, by thinking that I was the good guy, that there were things I wouldn't do, lines I wouldn't cross. Lately, the lines seemed blurry, or gone. I agreed with Mendez. You didn't shoot someone begging for their life, not if you were a good guy. But a lot of them begged. A lot of them were sorry, once they were looking down the wrong end of a gun. But they weren't sorry while they were killing people, torturing people, no, they were having a good time, until they got caught.
What got me tonight, was her saying, "He made us do it." Had he? Had Vittorio so controlled them that they could not disobey him? I knew from the fallout with the London vamps that we'd adopted that you were legally bound to follow your master, almost morally bound, because he was like your liege lord. But was it more than that? Could vampires make other vampires do things they did not want to do? I'd ask Jean-Claude, but not tonight. Tonight I was tired.
The highway stretched black and empty. My only company was a semi truck pulling some all-night load across the country off in the distance. The truck and I had the road to ourselves.
I was betting that wherever Vittorio was, that's where we'd find the women. The crime lab would check the dead vamps' DNA against the bite marks in the first few victims, and we'd know how many we'd missed. As far the St. Louis police were concerned, it was over. We'd executed most of them and chased the survivors out of town. Trouble was, serial killers don't stop killing, they just move on and start again somewhere else. Sergeant Hudson and his men were done with it, and they'd paid a high price to be done. But my badge said federal, which meant that I might not be done with Vittorio and his people. I pushed the thought away. For now we'd driven him and his surviving members out of town. That had to be enough, at least for tonight.
I was off the highway now, on the smooth, more narrow road that led farther into Jefferson County and my house. Trees blocked the view, so the stars seemed farther away. I pulled into my driveway and saw the faint shine of lights against the living room drapes. Micah or Nathaniel had waited up. It was after three A.M., and someone had waited up. I felt guilty, happy, and apprehensive. Nothing good had ever come of my father and Judith waiting up for me. I still wasn't completely used to living with anyone, so sometimes old reactions crept up, like I was seventeen again, and there was a light on. I told myself I was being silly, but this would be the first call-out like this one since Nathaniel had the right to make more demands on me. I wasn't sure, yet, what all of those demands might be. So I was a little nervous as I put my key in the door. Was I being silly? Only one way to find out.
They were sitting on the couch. I thought Nathaniel was asleep with his head in Micah's lap, but he turned as I came through the door, and I caught the flash of his eyes in the light from the television. A look of such naked relief crossed Micah's face before he managed to hide it behind a smile. He was back to his usual smiling neutrality, back to making as few demands on me as possible, but I'd seen that first look. That look that said more than any words, that he'd wondered if he'd ever see me again. I hadn't kissed him good-bye. I had forgotten to call from the car, tell them the officer down-calls weren't me. The thought cut deep like some guilty knife.
Nathaniel got to me first, then slowed, before he actually touched me. The look on my face, maybe, or the fact that I just stood there halfway between the couch and the door. The look on his face was so disappointed. I got a flash of emotion from him. So sad. He thought I was drawing back, away, too scared to really be with him, with them. That wasn't what I was scared of.
You can't shoot someone from less than three feet away with a sawed-off and not get blowback. I had blood in my hair, on my arms. I'd gotten some of
it with the wet wipes I kept in the car, but not all of it. I wasn't clean. If I'd been just a cop, and the dead woman just a human, then I'd have worried about blood-borne disease. She could have AIDS, or hepatitis, but she was a vampire, so she couldn't carry anything, unless you counted vampirism. Yeah, I guess that counted, but Nathaniel and Micah couldn't get that either. But maybe I could. If I killed humans, then I was in more danger from disease, but vamps were cleaner. It was too weird for me tonight, too much thinking.
"Anita, are you alright?" Micah asked, and got off the couch to move up beside Nathaniel.
I jerked out of reach. "I've got blood on me, other people's blood." I was shaking my head over and over. "God knows what I brought home with me."
"We can't catch anything," Nathaniel said, "not even a cold." He didn't look lost anymore, he looked worried.
"Blood can't hurt us," Micah said.
They were right. I was being silly about contagion, but... "Do you really want to touch me while I've still got the blood of my victims on me?"
"Yes," Nathaniel said, and moved to hug me.
I moved back, just enough that he stopped. I was afraid if I let them hug me that I would lose it. I would just sink into their arms and sob.
"Victims?" Micah said. "Anita, this doesn't sound like you." But he came with Nathaniel; he tried to hug me.
I moved back until the door hit me, and I was shaking my head. "If I let you hold me, I'm going to cry. Damn it, I hate to cry."
Micah gave me a look. "That's not it."
I closed my eyes and let the equipment bag fall to the floor. He was right, that wasn't it, not completely. I tried to be honest. I tried to say what I felt. "If I get any sympathy, I'm going to fall apart."
"Maybe that's what you need to do," Micah said, and he moved just a little closer, "maybe just for a little while, let us take care of you."
I kept shaking my head. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?" he asked, voice soft.
"Of letting go."
Micah touched my shoulder, gently. I didn't pull away. He moved slowly, gently, easing me away from the door, and into his arms. I stayed stiff and unyielding for a moment, then my breath came out in a long wavering line, and I let myself fold around him. My hands grabbed at his shirt, handfuls of cloth, as if I couldn't get close enough, or hold on hard enough. I wanted him naked, not for sex, though that would probably come, but because I just wanted as much of him pressed against as much of me as possible.
"I'll go run the bath," Nathaniel said.
I reached out for him, caught his shirt, and drew him into us. "I'm sorry," I said.
"What about?" he asked, and he and Micah exchanged a look.
The first tear squeezed out, traitorous bastard. My voice was almost steady when I said, "I didn't kiss you good-bye, either of you. I just drove off. I'm sorry."
They both kissed me, soft, chaste, a mere touch of lips. Micah brushed the tear off my cheek. "We understood." He looked at Nathaniel. "Run the bath."
"I'd rather have a shower and get to bed."
They exchanged another look, but with a nod from Micah, Nathaniel went for the bathroom. I looked at Micah's face. The only man in my life I didn't have to look up to meet his eyes. "What's happened? What have I missed?"
He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile he'd had when I first met him. A smile that held sadness, self-deprecation, mocking, and something else, something that sadness was too light a word for. I'd almost broken him from that smile.
I grabbed his arms, almost shook him. "What happened?"
"Nothing, I swear, everything's fine, but Jean-Claude warned us not to let you get in the shower. He said, and I quote, 'not between glass walls.'"
I frowned at him. "What are you talking about? Why should Jean-Claude care about how I clean up?"
The phone rang. I jumped like I'd been stabbed. I said what I was thinking. "If it's another murder scene tonight, I can't do it." Even saying it, I knew I'd do it. If they needed me, I'd go. But what I'd said was true, I'd go, but I wasn't sure I could handle it tonight. Admitting that even to myself scared me. It was my job. I had to be able to do it.
Micah went for the phone, while I stood in the darkened living room and prayed for it not to be the police. He called, "It's Jean-Claude."
"Why is he calling on the phone?"
"Come and find out," Micah said.
I walked to the lights of the kitchen. It was only the lights over the sink, not that much light, but I blinked like a deer in headlights. I took the receiver from Micah, while he tried not to give me worried eyes. "What's up?" I asked.
" Ma petite, how do you feel?"
His voice was the joy for me it usually was, but tonight even that voice left me flat and empty. "Like shit, why?"
"How long has it been since you fed?"
I leaned my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. "I ate some peanuts and chips in the last day, why?" Nathaniel had put some munchies in my glove compartment.
"I am not referring to food, ma petite. "
Suddenly the emptiness spilled away, replaced by panic. "Jesus, Damian."
"He is well. I have seen to it."
"How can he be well, he started to die if I went just a few hours over six. I've gone almost twenty-four hours. God, I cannot believe this, so stupid."
"And when in the last twenty-four hours could you have fed the ardeur , and who on?"
The question stopped the self-recriminations and helped me think. I guess there were worse things than forgetting about the ardeur during a police investigation. Like maybe, not forgetting the ardeur during a police investigation. Several horrible scenarios went through my head, like the ardeur rising in the van with Mobile Reserve, or Zerbrowski in his car. I was suddenly cold, and it had nothing to do with my earlier pangs of conscience.
" Ma petite, I can hear your sweet breath, but I need to hear your sweet voice."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, how did you keep it from getting me?"
"By shielding in every way between us, and Richard, and helping the others do so, as well."
"That's why you're calling me on the phone, not mind-to-mind."
" Oui. "
"How did you keep me from draining Damian and Nathaniel?"
"I fed the ardeur at the club, as we discussed, and I shared with Damian. It is only when he is drained that your triumvirate would begin to pull upon our bad kitty."
"One feeding through you took care of it, for this long?"
He sighed, and he sounded tired, because he was still shielding too hard for me to feel it. " Non, non, ma petite. We have done your six-hour feedings for you."
"Who's we?"
"Richard and Damian, and myself. Nathaniel had fed you last, and I was not a hundred-percent certain that I could control the feeding, so I did not use him."
"Richard got a taste of the ardeur from the other side?"
"He did."
"What'd he think of it?"
"He has new respect for our ability to not go mad."
I wanted to ask who Richard had fed on, but it was none of my business. I wasn't monogamous, and neither was he. I was still leaning against the wall, but my eyes were open. "Damian fed the ardeur not as the eatee, but as the eater?"
"It was not hard to raise it in him."
"Is this permanent? I mean do Richard and Damian need to feed now, too?"
" Non, ma petite. Desperate measures, but not permanent ones."
"How can you be sure?" I asked.
"Because I can feel it growing in me again, not just my need, but yours. I parceled it out, shared it among those I could, but it is time again, ma petite. "
I turned around and stared blindly out into the kitchen. "Are you saying you borrowed my ardeur for the last few hours?"
He seemed to think about that. "That will do for an explanation. Oui. "
"So I could hunt bad guys and not lose control in the middle of it all."
"Yes."
I
didn't know what to say, so I said what I could, "Thank you."
"You are most welcome, ma petite, b ut dawn is near, and when I sleep, the ardeur will return home. I would prefer to give it back to you before then, so I might feel how tempestuous that return will be."
"You're worried."
" Oui. "
"You asked me how I felt, why?"
"The ardeur comes with a price, as all the hungers do, but they have their rewards, as well. I do not speak of the pleasure, but of the strengths that they give us. In effect, by stealing away your ardeur , I weakened you tonight. If I hadn't feared contacting you mind-to-mind, I would have asked your permission first, or warned you."
"I didn't feel weak." Then I thought about it. "I'm really bugged by the vampires I killed tonight. I mean, more than normal. I'm sort of shaky, and wondering if I'm the good guy after all."
"Such self-doubt is not like you."
"I do have some self-doubt," I said.
"But not too much, you could not be who you are if you doubted too much."
"Are you saying that I draw some of my bravery, or my coldness, from the ardeur ?"
"I am saying that the ardeur may feed that part of you that keeps you safe in your own mind, your own heart."
I shook my head. "This is too complicated for me, Jean-Claude. Just let me have it back, and we'll see if I feel any better."
"I would rather you be alone with Micah when that happens. We have very carefully left him untouched while we sought to feed, so that you might feed on him yourself."
I didn't feel the least bit sexy. I just wanted a quick shower and to sleep. "I'm too tired for sex, Jean-Claude. Too tired for much of anything."
"As I feared, I took too much, or the ardeur has become attached to your own natural drives."
"What are you talking about?"
"Long before the ardeur found you, ma petite , I found that you were seldom too tired for sex."
Incubus Dreams ab-12 Page 79
