Affliction ab-22

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  ‘She’s still seeing that therapist?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, and yes, it probably is something she and her therapist worked out between them.’

  ‘So both you and Donna think of Ted and Edward as separate?’ Micah asked.

  He nodded. ‘Seems so.’

  ‘How did that make you feel?’ I asked.

  ‘Like Donna gets me more than most.’

  ‘So you think Donna will overlook Edward sleeping with other women, because she’s okay with you sleeping with Anita?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘But we aren’t sleeping together,’ I said.

  ‘When I tried to tell her that, she got mad at me and told me that if she could be brave enough to let us have our relationship, the least I could do was admit it.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Edward looked at Micah. ‘What do you think I said?’

  I looked at Micah. He was looking at the other man as he said, ‘You said, Yes, dear.’

  Edward smiled and nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You told Donna we were having sex?’

  ‘No, I didn’t argue with her when she said we were having sex.’

  ‘That’s the same thing.’

  ‘No,’ both men said together, ‘it’s not.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, and now that she’s worked all that out, she accepted my proposal and we’re setting a date,’ Edward said.

  It took me a second to process what he’d said. ‘You and Donna are finally getting married for real?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and he smiled. It was a real smile. He was pleased.

  I smiled.

  Micah said, ‘Congratulations.’ He was smiling, too.

  ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘When can you clear your calendar?’ he asked.

  ‘Me? Why? I mean, I’ll be there with bells on, but we’ll all work around your schedule.’

  ‘Good, because I want you to be my best man.’

  ‘I would love to be, but won’t the whole Donna-thinking-I’m-your-lover be a problem?’

  ‘She says not.’

  I tried to wrap my head around it. ‘You know, if you just hadn’t told me that Donna thought that, then I wouldn’t have felt weird about this, but now … wow, awkward.’

  Edward laughed, and it was a good, wholehearted laugh, the one that Donna had helped him find. It made me smile. For that laugh I could handle the weirdness, couldn’t I? ‘I would be honored to stand as your best man,’ I said, because in the end, really, what else was I going to say?

  ‘Donna has made one request.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That one of your men be on her side of the aisle.’

  ‘She’s never met any of the men in my life,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘I think she believes that if you have a lover in town with you, that will cut down on our time together.’

  ‘So she trusts us, but not really.’

  ‘She never said she trusted us. She said she forgave us, and she understood what we were to each other; she never said she trusted us.’

  ‘That’s just weird. Sorry, I know you love her, and everything, but that makes no sense,’ I said.

  ‘It’s girl logic,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a girl,’ I said.

  ‘You’re too much guy to be this much girl,’ he said.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Micah said, ‘actually it does.’

  I looked from one to the other of them, trying to decide if I’d been complimented or insulted.

  ‘Do you feel suitably distracted from ardeurs and blood lusts?’ Edward asked.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve noticed that giving you an emergency to handle or a problem to solve helps you ignore all the metaphysical stuff, so have I confused and puzzled you enough for you to get an X-ray without eating the doctor?’

  I thought about it, and then I laughed. ‘Damn you, but yes, I’m going to be puzzling and puzzling till my puzzler is sore about the convoluted logic of it all.’

  The door opened, and Dr Cross came through with the nurse at his side. He was smiling. ‘I thought I’d take you to X-ray myself.’

  Edward gave me a look. ‘Should have taken that bet.’

  ‘It was a sucker bet and we both knew it,’ I said.

  ‘And you were never a sucker,’ he said.

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ I said.

  We smiled at each other.

  ‘What bet?’ Dr Cross asked, still smiling, but obviously feeling he’d missed something.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Micah said. ‘They’ve been best friends for years. Sometimes you just nod and let them have their guy moment.’

  Dr Cross frowned harder. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m the wife,’ Micah said, ‘she’s the husband, and he’s the husband’s best friend. Does that explain it?’

  Dr Cross frowned and then said, ‘Oddly, yes.’

  The fact that it made sense to him made me like him better, which was both good and bad. Good, because liking people is always better than disliking people. Bad, because I was more likely to feed on people I liked.

  ‘You go check on Nathaniel and your dad; I’ll play chaperone,’ Edward said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Micah said.

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘Does Donna really not have a preference on which of my guys stands on her side?’ I asked.

  ‘Who’s Donna?’ Dr Cross asked.

  ‘My fiancée,’ Edward said.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Thank you; we’re starting to decide who’s in the wedding party.’

  ‘That’s always fun,’ Dr Cross said, and seemed to mean it.

  And just like that, this particular vampire was safe from me trying to eat him. I could never eat someone who thought planning a wedding was fun.

  35

  Dr Cross unhooked the IV and let me use the bathroom but wouldn’t let me get dressed. ‘Not until after the X-ray comes back clean. I get the feeling if I let you get dressed you’ll just make a break for it.’ He laughed.

  Edward said, ‘He does know you.’

  I scowled at him, but I took what I could get and went into the bathroom. The door shut and I got the first look at myself in the mirror. My curls had gone every which way. My skin was pasty pale. What makeup I’d been wearing had vanished long ago. My eyes had the beginnings of dark circles under them, which I almost never got. I looked rough. The fact that Micah and Dr Cross had reacted to me the way they had could only be chalked up to vampire mind games, or otherwise I was seeing something totally different in the mirror than they did. I guess we are our own harshest critics.

  ‘Dear God,’ I said.

  ‘Did you say something, Marshal Blake?’ Dr Cross asked, which meant he might seem ordinary, but he had more-than-human hearing.

  ‘I’m fine, just looking at my hair.’

  ‘You look fine,’ he said through the door.

  I ignored him. I was able to finger-comb my hair into some semblance of order, but what I really needed was a shower and a fresh start. Food, of all kinds, would help with the rest. I brushed my teeth, among other things, and gave Micah extra credit points for kissing me passionately before I’d tidied up. If things had been reversed I’d have kissed him silly, too. Love means the niceties matter less, especially when you’re glad the love of your life is still alive. Yeah, that makes everything better.

  I took the lap blanket that the doc offered because I knew the gown got chilly as they pushed you through the hospital. I’d been hurt often enough to know that for a fact. Once settled in the chair, I asked, ‘Where’s my stuff?’

  ‘You have a bag of clothes by the couch,’ Dr Cross said.

  ‘She doesn’t mean clothes,’ Edward said. He lifted a small backpack from beside the chair he’d been sitting in. ‘I got your stuff from the locals when I arrived.’

  ‘My body armo
r wouldn’t fit in there; please tell me they didn’t cut it off me in the ambulance.’

  He smiled. ‘Your armor is safe. I gave some of your things to your guards.’

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ I asked.

  ‘Enough so you won’t feel unarmed.’

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  ‘I really don’t think you’ll need to be armed just to go a few floors to X-ray, Marshal Blake.’

  Edward was already unzipping the backpack. ‘You can argue with us, but you’re going to lose.’

  ‘So I should just give up gracefully, is that it?’

  Edward nodded. ‘That’s it.’ Edward handed me the Browning BDM.

  I checked it automatically, popping out the clip to make sure it was loaded, though he was the person I trusted most on the planet to give me back my gun. I put it under the thin lap blanket. The weight of it was comforting, my hand on it under the blanket even more so.

  ‘You want any of the blades?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’ll just have to take them off again when we get to X-ray.’ I reached out for the whole bag.

  ‘I’m promise not to walk off with your stuff if you let me carry it.’

  I thought about it, I really did, but in the end I smiled and nodded.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and I knew he was thanking me for trusting him with my stuff when it could all sit in the chair. It didn’t matter that he’d been in charge of it for hours while I recovered; some things aren’t about logic, they’re about comfort. I liked having my weapons at hand at any time, but the whole being-shot thing made me really not want to be unarmed right now.

  When Edward opened the door and let Dr Cross push me outside, I was even gladder I had the lap blanket, because there was a damn crowd in the hallway.

  There are always police in the hospital when another one is hurt, especially in the line of duty. I don’t always have that big a crowd because I’m not usually local and I tend to rub people the wrong way, but I would never complain about the brotherhood in Colorado, because the hallway was packed with Boulder PD, state troopers, and uniforms I didn’t recognize. There were plainclothes, too, with their badges at their waists or on lanyards like Edward’s.

  In among all the handshaking and nods of ‘Blake … Marshal … ma’am,’ I caught a glimpse of Dev and Nicky against the far wall. They were just there, strangely unobtrusive for two such big guys. I wasted a smile on them and got some back. They didn’t try to push their way through the police to me, just let me know they were there. I was probably as safe as I’d ever be in the ring of police. Bodyguards seemed redundant, but I was still glad to see them. Not so much for the potential protection, but in case the ardeur fought its way through the puzzle that Edward had given me. Right now the local PD liked me, thought I was one of them, but one vampire-power-induced orgy involving them and me would so not be on their Christmas lists.

  Dr Cross fielded the questions and kept us moving down the hallway. Edward, in full good-ol’-boy Ted Forrester mode, helped the doctor keep us moving. Nicky and Dev trailed behind us. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them like a warm anchor through all the busy, well-meaning human energy like a blowtorch in a field of matches. It all burns, but some people burn brighter. I could feel that brightness.

  My stomach cramped so hard that I bent over. Dr Cross bent over me. ‘Are you all right, Marshal?’

  I let out my breath in a slow, steady flow and said, ‘Rapid healing takes energy. I think I need food.’

  ‘Of course, I should have thought of it.’ We stopped long enough at the nurses’ station for him to order the food.

  We had fewer people in our parade as they split off and went to check on Sheriff Callahan and just go do their jobs. Some of the uniforms were probably from small departments like Al’s, so they couldn’t afford to have all their manpower here.

  The door at the end of the hallway opened and Officer Bush walked through. His short brown hair was still hat-flattened, as if he’d been in his patrol car for a while and was still fresh enough from the academy to wear it behind the wheel.

  ‘Marshal Blake, good to see you awake.’

  ‘Good to be awake, Officer Bush,’ I said, and smiled.

  ‘I just wanted to come and tell you personally that the vampires that started all this will be dead before dawn.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘The vampires that created the flesh-eating zombies are going to be executed tonight.’

  ‘They aren’t the vampire that caused all this.’

  He frowned. ‘We were there. We saw them do it.’

  ‘You heard what she said, Bush. She was possessed by a much bigger, badder vampire than she is.’

  ‘Everyone lies when they get caught, Blake, you know that.’

  ‘Yeah, but in this case she didn’t lie. I felt the other vampire’s energy. I felt him on her and knew when he left. His energy was so strong that I kept expecting to see him standing there, but he didn’t need to be standing there to control her. He’s behind the rotting infection that Sheriff Callahan has, and he’s what drove Ares insane and made him attack people. The two vampires we took into custody are our only witnesses to the real vampire behind all this; if they die, then our best leads go with them. Kill them if you want, but the master vampire behind all this will just make more little vampires and keep spreading the infection. Killing the two in custody only helps the bad guys, because then I can’t question them.’

  ‘But they’re not talking to us, they’re not telling us anything,’ Bush said.

  ‘I know the questions to ask, Bush. If they’re dead before I get there, I can’t ask anything. I can’t find out who did this to them.’

  ‘Did this to them? What do you mean?’

  ‘Both those vampires are newly dead. They aren’t a month old as undead, which means they’re some of your missing people. Did you check their fingerprints against the missing people?’

  ‘They’re vampires with an order of execution on them; we don’t have to do anything but execute them.’

  ‘I know that, but I’m telling you that if they die you’ve just made it harder to find this bastard.’

  ‘Who’s carrying out the warrant?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Marshal Hatfield.’

  ‘It’s considered courtesy to offer the execution to the marshal who was injured or lost people hunting the vampire,’ Edward said.

  ‘We thought Marshal Blake would be in the hospital a few days, at least.’

  ‘I’m a medical miracle. I need those vampires alive to be questioned.’

  ‘I’ll call, and I’ll get on site to do what I can,’ Edward said. He put the backpack with all my dangerous toys in the wheelchair to one side so I could still have a clean draw to the Browning under my lap blanket. Edward never forgot.

  ‘I’ll go with you, and I’ll radio in,’ Bush said.

  ‘Then radio it in,’ I said.

  He hit his shoulder mic as he and Edward went for the far door. Bush was talking to someone before they hit the door. I trusted Edward to do as much as he could to keep the two vampires alive in custody. I was going to be so pissed if Hatfield executed the only two people who I was sure had actually seen the big bad vampire face to face. Without them, we were back to square one.

  A tall officer with short dark hair and brown eyes so dark they were almost black said, ‘So the Executioner is saying, Don’t execute the vampires.’

  I looked up at him in his civilian clothes, but there was something about how tall, how terribly in shape he was, muscled, and just a level of energy to him that made me guess he was SWAT or something like it. Special forces military branch tastes the same sometimes.

  ‘I’m flattered that SWAT came down to keep me company,’ I said.

  The faintest surprise went through those very dark eyes. ‘What gave me away?’

  I waved sort of vaguely at him. ‘This.’

  He frowned. ‘You just motioned at all of me
.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  He smiled.

  One of the other officers patted his belly where it was pushing over his equipment belt. ‘Yeah, Yancey, you don’t have all the equipment that the rest of us have.’

  He laughed. ‘If I had all the equipment you have, Carmichael, I’d get kicked off SWAT.’ He patted his own very flat stomach. I was betting he had washboard abs, just a thought, no harm in it. The next thought had harm in it; I wanted to lift his shirt out of his pants and see if I was right.

  I called out, ‘Nicky, can you take the bag?’

  The police had to make room for him to come to my side. Most of them gave him little eye flicks. Officer Yancey of local SWAT looked at him in that way that very fit, very tough men do when they’re not used to seeing men who make them wonder, Could I take him? Would I lose? Yancey was taller than Nicky, though not taller than Dev, but Nicky’s shoulder spread always impressed big men who thought they had nice shoulders until they had to stand next to Nicky.

  I smiled, I couldn’t help it, and the amusement helped push back the impulse to touch strangers.

  ‘Some of the local PD are really not happy with you surrounding yourself with shapeshifters after what happened,’ Yancey said.

  ‘My man was turned against us by vampire mind games just like the officers, including Bush, were mind-fucked earlier by the same vampires.’

  Yancey held up his hands as if to show he was unarmed. ‘SWAT is delivering more and more warrants as backup for the executioners. We train for what to do if one of us is vamped and turned against the rest of us. You did one of the things that we all pray we never have to do, Marshal Blake. I’m here because SWAT wanted you to know that we respect what you did and we’re sorry you had to do it. Hermes of St Louis SWAT speaks highly of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, because what else could I say.

  ‘Boulder won’t allow psychics on SWAT yet. The report that vetoed it said they found that most psychics couldn’t use their special abilities and do their duty as officers at the same time.’

  ‘Which means most psychics can’t shoot straight and use their powers at the same time,’ I said.