I scuttled backwards, still on the ground, not sure what to do. The closed drapes of the picture window were at my back if I stood up. I wasn’t sure standing up was my best bet. “Give me the rules, quick,” I said.
“First blood,” Sylvie said. “Human form only.”
“If he shapeshifts, you can shoot him,” Richard said.
“Agreed,” Sylvie said, others murmured their agreement.
Peachy. Neal leaped for me, leaving the ground completely, hands outstretched. I came up on one knee, grabbed his jacket, and rolled on my back, letting his amazing momentum carry us both. I shoved both feet into his stomach and pushed with everything I had. He flew over me in a near perfect arc. He’d set himself up for a textbook tomoe-nage throw.
He smashed through the window, taking the curtain with him. I rolled to my feet and stared at the gaping window. Broken shards of glass sprinkled onto the carpet and the yard beyond. Neal struggled out of the curtain, blood running down his face where the glass had cut him.
Edward was on the ground in a combat stance, gun out. He pointed it at Neal, as he struggled free of the curtain.
“Don’t shoot him,” I said. “I think the fight’s over.”
Neal stood, kicking free of the clinging curtain. “I’ll kill you.”
I drew the Firestar and pointed it at him. “I don’t think so.”
Richard stepped up beside me. “She drew first blood, Neal. The fight is over, unless you want to fight me, too.”
“And me,” Sylvie said. She stepped up on the other side of Richard. The rest of the pack stepped up behind us. Stephen crouched at my feet.
“She is pack now,” Sylvie said. “You fight one of us, and you fight all of us.”
Edward raised his eyebrows at me. “What is going on, Anita?”
“I think I’ve been adopted,” I said.
Neal glared at me.
“Do it, Neal,” Sylvie said.
Neal knelt in the glass and the curtain. The cuts were already beginning to heal on his face. Glass wasn’t silver or the claws of another monster, so he healed almost magically.
“You are dominant. You are alpha.” The words were dragged from his throat. “If this window hadn’t been here, you couldn’t have bloodied me.”
“Why do you think I moved in front of it, Neal?” I asked.
His eyes squinted. “You planned this?”
I nodded and raised my gun skyward. “I’m not just another pretty face.”
Richard took my left hand, squeezing it gently. “That’s the God’s honest truth.”
I put up the Firestar.
Edward shook his head, smiling, but didn’t put his gun up. He did stop pointing it at anyone. “You are the only person I know who leads a more interesting life than I do.”
Jason patted me on the back. “Tomorrow night we’ll take you out chasing deer.”
“I thought you’d chase cars,” I said.
He grinned. “What fun is that? Cars don’t bleed.”
I smiled, and then stopped. His eyes were as innocent as spring skies, as joyous, and staring into them, I wasn’t sure if he was kidding me or not. I almost asked, but didn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
12
* * *
EDWARD was five foot eight, with blond hair cut very short and close to his head. He was blue-eyed and the epitome of WASP breeding. He was also the most dangerous man I’d ever met, living or dead.
He was amused as hell by the gathering of lycanthropes. The group broke up soon after his arrival, mainly because all the business had been taken care of. The meeting had mainly been a last-ditch effort to convince Richard to compromise his morals and kill someone. Barring that, for him to pick a lupa who would kill for him. We’d sort of killed two birds with one stone, pun intended. But I was very aware that I’d gotten lucky with Neal. If he’d had a background in any martial art, if he’d known anything about fighting, I’d have been toast.
Richard had boarded up the broken window and had a call in to a glass repair shop that was willing, for an exorbitant fee, to come out and repair the damage immediately. I’d offered to pay for the damages since I made them.
Edward, Richard, and I sat around the kitchen table. Edward and I sipped coffee. Richard drank tea. One of his few serious faults was a total dislike of coffee. Hard to trust a man who won’t drink coffee.
“What have you found out?” I asked.
Edward sipped his coffee and shook his head. “Not much. The contract has been picked up.”
“Even with the time limit?” I asked.
He nodded.
“When is the twenty-four hours up?” I asked.
“Let’s say two o’clock. I got the offer about one o’clock last night, but we’ll add an hour to be safe.”
“To be safe,” Richard said. I think it was sarcasm.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Am I the only one in this room who’s worried?”
“Panicking won’t help, Richard.”
He stood up, emptying his mug in the sink and rinsing it automatically. He turned, leaning his butt against the cabinets, arms crossed over his chest. “You need a clear head to plan?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He stared at us. I watched him thinking about something serious. He finally said, “I don’t understand how the two of you can be calm. I’m shocked that someone has put a contract out on Anita. Neither of you is shocked.”
I looked at Edward, and he looked back at me. We had one of those moments of perfect understanding, and I knew I couldn’t explain it to Richard. I wasn’t even sure I could explain it to myself. “I’ve stayed alive this long because I don’t react the way most people react.”
“You’ve stayed alive because you’re willing to do things other people aren’t.”
I nodded. “That, too.”
His face was very serious, like a little boy asking about the facts of life. “Let me ask one stupid question; then I’ll shut up.”
I shrugged. “Ask away.”
“Anita says she doesn’t enjoy killing. That she feels nothing when she kills.”
I realized then that the question was going to be for Edward. I wasn’t sure how that would go over.
“Do you enjoy killing?”
Edward sat very still in his chair, drinking his coffee quietly. His blue eyes were as neutral and unreadable as any vampire’s, and in some ways just as dead. I wondered for the first time if my eyes ever looked like that. “Why do you want to know?”
“I agreed to kill Marcus,” Richard said. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
Edward stared up at him. He set his coffee down carefully and met Richard’s eyes. “Yes.”
“Yes, you enjoy killing?” Richard asked.
Edward nodded.
Richard was waiting for him to explain. You could see it in his face.
“He’s answered your question, Richard.”
“But does he enjoy the sensation of killing? Is it physical? Or is it the planning that he enjoys?”
Edward picked up his coffee.
“The question and answer session is over, Richard,” I said.
A look halfway between stubbornness and frustration crossed Richard’s face. “But ‘yes,’ doesn’t tell me anything.”
“After you kill Marcus,” Edward said, “you can ask the question again.”
“And you’ll answer it?” Richard asked.
Edward gave the barest of nods.
For the first time, I realized that Edward liked Richard. Not as a friend, maybe, but he didn’t think Richard was a complete waste of time.
Richard stared into Edward’s face for a long time, then shook his head. “Okay.” He sat back down. “No more questions. What’s the plan?”
I smiled at him. “To keep the hitter from killing me.”
“That’s your entire plan?” Richard asked.
“And to take out the man with the money,” Edward said. “As long as the
money is out there, Anita won’t be safe.”
“Any ideas how to accomplish this?” Richard asked.
Edward nodded and up-ended his coffee mug, finishing the last of it. He went to the counter and refilled it, like he was at home. He sat back down. Good ol’ Edward, comfortable wherever he was.
I sat waiting, watching him quietly. He’d tell us when he was ready and not before. Richard was practically dancing in place. “What?” he finally asked.
Edward smiled, I think at Richard, or maybe at that eternal music that only he could hear. The rhythm that kept him self-contained and alive.
“The assassin might come here today, and we’ll take precautions for that. A herd of shapeshifters was perfect. I’d have passed on the hit myself until they cleared out.”
I glanced around the quiet kitchen. The spot between my shoulder blades was itching. “You think we’re in danger now?”
“Maybe.” He didn’t seem too worried. “But I think they’ll hit you tonight on your date with the Master of the City.”
“How did you know I had a date tonight?”
Edward just smiled. “I know that the Master of the City is taking the Executioner to the opening of his dance club, Danse Macabre. I know that you’ll be arriving in a limo.”
“I didn’t even know that,” I said.
He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard to find out, Anita.”
“I was going to cancel my date tonight and hide out.”
“If you stay here, the assassin will almost certainly come here.”
I glanced at Richard. “Oh,” I said.
“I can take care of myself,” Richard said.
“Could you kill a human being?” I asked.
He blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean if someone came at you with a gun, could you kill them?”
“I said I’d kill to protect you.”
“That’s not what I asked, Richard, and you know it.”
He stood up and paced a small circle in the kitchen. “If it was standard ammunition, it couldn’t kill me.”
“You wouldn’t know whether it was silver ammo until it was too late,” I said.
He hugged his arms, ran his hands through his long hair, and turned to me. “Once you decide to start killing, it never stops, does it?”
“No,” I said.
“I don’t know if I could kill a human being.”
“Thanks for the honesty,” I said.
“But that means you’ll take an assassin into a club crowded with people? You’ll endanger all of them to keep me safe?”
“I would endanger almost anyone to keep you safe.”
Edward made a small sound, almost a laugh. His face was pleasant and empty. He sipped coffee. “Which is why I don’t want Richard in the line of fire. You’ll be so busy worrying about him, it might make you careless.”
“But all those people, you can’t put them in danger,” Richard said.
Edward looked at me and didn’t say what he was thinking. I was grateful for that. “I think Edward has a plan for that, too, Richard.”
“I think they’ll hit you on the way home from the club. Why work in the middle of a crowd if they don’t have to? Plant a bomb on the limo, or wait until you’re alone on the drive back.”
“Is that what you would do?” Richard asked.
Edward looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. Not the bomb, but I’d hit the limo.”
“Why not the bomb?” Richard asked.
I didn’t ask, because I knew the answer. Edward’s eyes flicked to me. I shrugged.
“Because I like to kill up close and personal. With a bomb there’s no personal risk.”
Richard stared at him, studying his face. He finally said, “Thank you for answering the question.”
Edward acknowledged him with a nod. Richard was gaining brownie points from both of us. But I knew that Richard had illusions. If Edward seemed to like him, Richard would assume Edward wouldn’t kill him. I knew better. If the situation called for it, Edward could pull the trigger on anyone.
“Let’s say you’re right,” I said. “I go on the date and let the hitter make his move. Then what?”
“We take him out.”
“Wait a minute,” Richard said. “You’re betting that the two of you are better than a professional assassin. That you’ll get to him before he gets to Anita.”
We both nodded.
“What if you’re not better?”
Edward looked at him like he’d said the sun wouldn’t rise tomorrow.
“Edward will be better,” I said.
“You’d bet your life on that?” Richard asked.
“I am betting my life on that,” I said.
Richard looked a touch pale. He nodded. “I guess you are. What can I do to help?”
“You heard Edward,” I said. “You stay here.”
Richard shook his head. “I heard, but surely in a crowd of people even Superman will need a few more eyes and ears. The pack can help watch your back.”
“It doesn’t bother you to endanger them?”
“You said you’d risk almost anyone to keep me safe,” Richard said. “I feel the same way.”
“If they want to volunteer, that’s one thing, but I don’t want them ordered into it. People aren’t good bodyguards if they resent doing it.”
Richard laughed. “Very practical. For a second there, I thought you were really worried about my wolves.”
“Practical will keep me alive, Richard, sentimentality won’t.”
“If we had some extra watchers, it’d free me up a little,” Edward said.
I looked at him. “You’d trust monsters to watch my back?”
He smiled, and it wasn’t pleasant. “Monsters make excellent cannon fodder.”
“They aren’t cannon fodder,” Richard said.
“Everyone’s cannon fodder,” Edward said, “eventually.”
“If I really thought we were endangering innocent bystanders, I wouldn’t go to the club. You know that, Richard.”
He stared at me for a second, then nodded. “I know that.”
Edward made a small sound low in his throat. “Innocent bystanders.” He shook his head, smiling. “Let’s get dressed,” Edward said. “I bought some new toys for you to use tonight.”
I looked at him. “Dangerous toys?” I asked.
“Is there any other kind?” We grinned at each other.
“You two are enjoying this,” Richard said. It was almost accusatory.
“If we didn’t enjoy it, we’d both do something else,” Edward said.
“Anita doesn’t kill people for money, and you do.”
I watched the humor drain from Edward’s eyes like the sun sinking behind clouds, leaving them pitiless and empty. “Think what you like, loverboy, but Anita could have chosen another line of work, one that wouldn’t put her in harm’s way. But she didn’t. There’s a reason for that.”
“She’s not like you.”
Edward looked at me with empty eyes. “Closer than she used to be.” His voice was soft, almost neutral, but it made me shiver.
I met his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, wondered what I’d given up to be able to pull the trigger. The same thing Edward had given up inside himself to be able to kill so easily? I looked up at Richard and wondered if he could do it. If, when the fur flew, he could really kill anyone. Some people couldn’t. No shame in that. But if Richard backed out, he was dead. Not tonight or tomorrow, but eventually, because Marcus would see to it. Richard had beaten Marcus twice and refused the kill. I doubted Marcus would let him have another shot at it. They’d taken Stephen last night, knowing what Richard would do. If I hadn’t been with him, he might he dead now. Shit.
All I had to do was kill the assassin before he or she killed me. Trust Richard not to let Marcus kill him. Keep Raina from killing me. And let’s see, I was sure there was something else. Oh, yeah, decide whether I’m going to sleep with Richard,
and if I did, what that would mean for Jean-Claude and myself. There were days when my life was too complicated even for me.
13
* * *
FINDING dress-up clothes that you can hide a gun in is a bitch. I actually hadn’t planned to carry a gun on my date with Jean-Claude. Of course, that was before the assassin. Now I wasn’t going out without one. If I’d known I’d be needing a gun tonight, I’d have worn the little black dress yesterday and saved the pants suit. But who knew, and now all I’d packed besides jeans was the dress. It was a little black dress with just enough strap to allow a bra, if you were careful. I’d bought a black bra to be safe. Flashing a white bra strap in a black dress always looked so tacky. The jacket was a deep black velvet, a bolero cut that hit me at the waist. Black beading edged the collar and hem.
The jacket was hanging on the doorknob of Richard’s closet. He was sitting forlornly on the bed, watching me put the last touches on my lipstick. I was leaning forward, peering at myself in the mirror on his dresser. The skirt was short enough that I decided to wear a black teddy under it, not for underwear but to go over my panty hose, so everything matched. Ronnie hadn’t trusted me not to end over at least once tonight. She was right. So even if I forgot, the teddy covered more than most bathing suits. I’d have never picked out something so short on my own. Ronnie was a bad influence on me. If she’d known I was planning to wear it for Jean-Claude, she’d have probably chosen something else. She called him fangface. Or worse. She liked Richard.
“Nice dress,” Richard said.
“Thanks.” I turned in front of the mirror to check the way the skirt hung. It was just full enough to swing when I moved. The black knife sheaths on my forearms actually matched the dress. The knives made a nice touch of silver. The wrist sheaths almost covered the scars on my arms. Only the mound of scar tissue at my left elbow was visible. A vampire had torn up my arm once upon a time. The same vamp had bitten through my collarbone. The scars were normal for me, but every once in a while I’d be out enjoying myself and catch someone looking, staring. They’d look hurriedly away, or meet my eyes. It wasn’t that the scars were awful to look at. They weren’t that bad—really. But they told a story of pain and something out of the ordinary. They said I’d been places that most people hadn’t, and I’d survived. Worth a stare or two, I guess.
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