Burnt Offerings ab-7

by Laurell Hamilton

  The second lead bullet took him square in the chest. Blood exploded out of his pale skin. He fell onto his back, spine bowing, struggling to breathe with a hole the size of a fist in his chest. I went for him, not running, but hurrying.

  I walked wide around him, out of arm's reach, and came up a little behind him, and to the side. The shoulder I'd shot was still limp, his other arm trapped under Nathaniel's body. Zane gasped up at me, brown eyes wide.

  "Silver, Zane, the rest of the bullets are silver. I'll make it a head shot and blow your freaking brains all over this nice clean floor."

  He finally managed to gasp out, "Won't." Blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin.

  I pointed the gun at his face, about eyebrow level. If I pulled the trigger, he was gone. I stared down at this man I'd never met before. He looked young, nowhere close to thirty. A great emptiness filled me. It was like standing in the middle of white noise. I felt nothing. I didn't want to kill him, but I didn't care if I did. It didn't matter to me. It only mattered to him. I let that knowledge fill my eyes. That I didn't give a damn one way or the other. I let him see it, because he was a shapeshifter, and he'd understand what I was showing him. Most people wouldn't. Most sane people anyway.

  I said, "You are going to leave Nathaniel alone. When the police arrive, you are going to do everything they tell you to do. No arguments, no fighting, or I will kill you. Do you understand me, Zane?"

  "Yes," he said, and more blood flowed in a heavy line from his mouth. He started to cry. Tears welled down his bloodstained face.

  Crying? The bad guys aren't supposed to cry.

  "I'm so glad you've come," he said. "I tried to take care of them, but I couldn't. I tried to be Gabriel, but I couldn't be him." His shoulder had healed enough that he covered his eyes with his hand so we couldn't see him cry, but his voice was thick with tears, as well as blood.

  "I'm so glad you've come to us, Anita. I'm so glad we're not alone anymore."

  I didn't know what to say. Denying that I was going to be their leader seemed a bad idea with bodies littering the area. If I refused his offer, he might get nasty again and I'd have to kill him. I realized suddenly with something like a physical jolt that I didn't want to kill him. Was it the tears? Maybe. But it was more than that. It was the fact that I'd killed their alpha, their protector, and never given a thought what that might do to the rest of the wereleopards. It had never occurred to me that there was no second in command, no one to fill Gabriel's place. I certainly couldn't be their alpha. I didn't turn furry once a month. But if it would keep Zane from tearing up any more doctors, I could play along for a while.

  By the time the cops arrived, Zane was healed. He'd curled around Nathaniel's unconscious body like it was a teddy bear, still crying. He stroked Nathaniel's hair and muttered over and over, "She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe."

  I think the "she" was me, and I was in way over my head.

  5

  Stephen lay in the narrow hospital bed. His curly blond hair was longer than mine, sweeping across the white pillow. Angry red and pink scars crisscrossed his delicate face. He looked like he'd been shoved through a window, which is exactly what had happened. Stephen, who didn't outweigh me by twenty pounds, had stood his ground. Zane had finally shoved him through a wire-mesh safety window. Like shoving someone through a wire cheese grater. If it had been a human being, they'd be dead. Even Stephen was hurt, badly hurt. But he was healing. I couldn't literally see the scars fading. It was like trying to watch a flower bloom. You knew it happened, but you never got to see it. I'd glance back at him, and there'd be one less scar. It was unnerving as hell.

  Nathaniel was in the other bed. His hair was longer than Stephen's. Waist length, I was betting. Hard to judge since I'd only seen him prone. It was the darkest of auburns, almost brown but not. It was a rich, deep mahogany. The hair lay on the white sheets like the pelt of an animal, thick and shining.

  He was pretty rather than handsome, and couldn't have been more than five foot six. The hair helped the illusion of femininity. But his shoulders were disproportionately broad, part weightlifting, but part genetics. He had great shoulders, but they belonged on someone about half a foot taller. He had to be eighteen to strip at Guilty Pleasures. His face was slender, jaw too smooth. He might have been eighteen, but he wasn't much over. Maybe someday he'd grow into the shoulders.

  We were in a semiprivate room on the isolation ward. The floor that most hospitals kept for lycanthropes, vamps, and other preternatural citizens. Anything they thought might be dangerous. Zane would have been dangerous. But the cops had carted him away, wounds nearly healed. His flesh had pushed my bullets out onto the floor like rejected bits of organ. I didn't think we needed the isolation ward for Stephen and Nathaniel. I could be wrong on Nathaniel, but I didn't think so. I trusted Stephen's judgment better than that.

  Nathaniel hadn't regained consciousness. I'd asked what his injuries were, and they told me, because they still thought I was a cop, and I'd saved their asses. Gratitude is a wonderful thing.

  Someone had pretty much gutted Nathaniel. I don't mean just cut open his gut with a knife. I mean opened him up and let his intestines fall onto the floor; they found bits of debris on his intestines. There were signs of severe trauma to other parts of the body. He'd been sexually abused. And yes, a prostitute can be raped. All it takes is saying no. No one, not even a lycanthrope, would agree to being raped while their insides were spilling onto the floor. The rape could have been first, then they tried to kill him. It was a touch less sick done in that order. A touch.

  There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he'd been chained. The marks were rubbed bloody like he'd struggled, and they weren't healing. Which meant that they'd used chains with a high silver content so it would hurt and not just hold. Whoever had done this to him knew ahead of time they'd be getting a lycanthrope. They were prepared. Which raised some very interesting questions.

  Stephen said Gabriel had been pimping the wereleopards out. I understood why people would want something as exotic as a wereleopard. I knew that sadomasochism existed. Shapeshifters could take a hell of a lot of damage. So the combination even made a certain sense. But this was beyond sex games. I'd never heard of anything this brutal outside of a serial-killer case.

  I couldn't leave them alone, unprotected. Even without the threat of sexual murderers, there was still the wereleopards. Zane might have cried and kissed my feet, but there were others. If they had no pack structure, no alpha, they had no one to tell them to leave Nathaniel alone. Without a leader it might be a matter of having to back down or kill each of them individually. Not a pleasant thought. Real leopards don't sweat who's in charge much. They don't have pack structures, but shapeshifters aren't animals, they're people. Which meant no matter how solitary and uncomplicated the animal form, the people half will find a way to screw things up. If Gabriel had hand-picked his people, I couldn't trust that they wouldn't come and try for Nathaniel again. Gabriel had been one sick kitty, and Zane hadn't impressed me much either. Who you gonna call for reinforcements? The local werewolf pack, of course. Stephen was a member of their pack. They owed him protection.

  There was a knock on the door. I took the Browning out and held it on my lap underneath the magazine I'd been reading. I'd managed to find a three-month-old copy of National Wildlife, with an article on Kodiak bears. The magazine hid the gun nicely.

  "Who is it?"

  "It's Irving."

  "Come in." I left the gun out, just in case somebody would try to push in behind him. Irving Griswold was a werewolf and a reporter. For a reporter he was a good guy, but he wasn't as careful as I was. When I saw he was alone, then I would put the gun up.

  Irving pushed the door open, smiling. His frizzy brown hair encircled his head like a brown halo with the bald spot gleaming in the middle. Glasses perched on a small nose. He was short and gave the impression of being round without being fat. He looked like anything but a
big bad wolf. He didn't even look much like a reporter, which was one of the things that made him such a great interviewer but would probably always keep him from being on-camera material. He worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and had interviewed me many times.

  He closed the door behind him.

  I put up the gun.

  His eyes widened. He spoke low, but not in a whisper. "How's Stephen?"

  "How did you get in here? There's supposed to be a cop on the door."

  "Gee, Blake, I'm glad to see you too."

  "Don't mess with me, Irving. There's supposed to be a guard out there."

  "He's talking to a very pretty nurse at the desk."

  "Dammit." I was not a real cop, so I couldn't go around yelling at them, but it was tempting. There was a law floating around Washington that might give vampire hunters federal badges soon. Sometimes I thought it was a bad idea. Sometimes, I didn't.

  "Talk to me fast before I get kicked out. How is Stephen?"

  I told him. "You don't care about Nathaniel?"

  He looked uncomfortable. "You know that Sylvie is de facto pack leader while Richard is out of town working on his master's degree, right?"

  I sighed. "No, I didn't know."

  "I know you're not talking to Richard since you broke up, but I'd think someone else would have mentioned it."

  "All the other wolves creep around me like there's been a death. No one talks about Richard to me, Irving. I thought he'd forbidden them to talk to me."

  "Not to my knowledge."

  "I'm surprised you didn't come in here asking for a story."

  "I can't do this story, Anita. It's too close to home."

  "Because you know Stephen?"

  "Because everyone involved is a shapeshifter and I'm just a mild-mannered reporter."

  "You really think you'd lose your job if they found out?"

  "Job, hell. What would my mother say?"

  I smiled. "So you can't play bodyguard."

  He frowned. "You know, I hadn't thought about that. When one of the pack got hurt in public where it couldn't be hidden, Raina always used to ride to the rescue. With her dead, I don't think we have any alphas that aren't hiding what they are. No one I'd trust to guard Stephen, anyway."

  Raina had been the wolf pack's old lupa before I took the job. Technically the old lupa doesn't have to die to step down, unlike the Ulfric, or King Wolf. But Raina had been Gabriel's playmate. They'd shared certain hobbies, like making pornographic snuff films starring shapeshifters and humans. She'd been helping film while Gabriel tried to rape me. Oh, yeah, Raina had made it a real pleasure to punch her ticket.

  "That's the second time you've ignored Nathaniel," I said. "What gives, Irving?"

  "I told you Sylvie is in charge until Richard gets back in town."

  "So?"

  "She's forbidden any of us to help the wereleopards in any way."

  "Why?"

  "Raina used the wereleopards in her porno movies a lot, along with the wolves."

  "I've seen one of the films. I wasn't impressed. Horrified, but not impressed."

  Irving looked very serious. "She also let Gabriel and the cats punish wayward pack members."

  "Punish?" I made it a question.

  Irving nodded. "Sylvie was one of the ones who got punished, more than once. She hates them all, Anita. If Richard hadn't forbid it, she'd have used the pack to hunt the leopards down and kill them all."

  "I've seen what Gabriel and Raina thought was fun and games. I think I'm on Sylvie's side for once."

  "You cleaned house for us, you and Richard. Richard killed Marcus and now he's Ulfric, pack leader. You killed Raina for us, and now you're our lupa."

  "I shot her, Irving. According to pack law, so I'm told, using a gun negates the challenge. I cheated."

  "You're not lupa because you killed Raina. You're lupa because Richard picked you as his mate."

  I shook my head. "We aren't dating anymore, Irving."

  "But Richard hasn't picked a new lupa, Anita. Until he does, the job's yours."

  Richard was tall, dark, handsome, honest, truthful, brave. He was perfect except for being a werewolf. Even that had been forgivable, or so I thought. Until I saw him in action. Saw the whole enchilada. The meat had been raw and squirming, the sauce a little bloody.

  Now I was dating just Jean-Claude. I wasn't sure how much of an improvement dating the head vampire of the city was over dating the head werewolf, but I'd made my choice. It was Jean-Claude's pale, pale hands that held my body. His black hair that curled over my pillow. His midnight-blue eyes that I stared into while we made love.

  Good girls do not have premarital sex, especially with the undead. I didn't think good girls had regrets about ex-boyfriend A, when they've chosen boyfriend B. Maybe I'd been wrong. Richard and I avoided each other when we could. Which had been for most of the last six weeks. Now he was out of town. Easy to avoid each other now.

  "I won't ask what you're thinking about," Irving said. "I think I know."

  "Don't be so damn smart," I said.

  He spread his hands wide. "Occupational hazard."

  That made me laugh. "So Sylvie's forbidden anyone to help the leopards. Where does that leave Stephen?"

  "He went against her direct orders, Anita. For someone as low in the pack structure as Stephen, that took guts. But Sylvie won't be impressed. She'll tear him up, and she won't allow anyone to come down and baby-sit them. I know her that well."

  "I can't do this twenty-four hours a day, Irving."

  "They'll heal in a day or so."

  I frowned at him. "I can't sit here for two days."

  He looked away from me and went to stand beside Stephen's bed. He stared down at the sleeping man, hands clasped in front of him.

  I walked over to them. I touched Irving's arm. "What aren't you telling me?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."

  I turned him around, made him face me. "Talk to me, Irving."

  "You aren't a shapeshifter, Anita. You aren't dating Richard anymore. You need to get out of our world, not further into it."

  He looked so serious, solemn, that it scared me. "Irving, what's wrong?"

  He just shook his head.

  I grabbed him by both arms and resisted the urge to shake him. "What are you hiding?"

  "There is a way for you to get the pack to guard Stephen and even Nathaniel."

  I took a step back. "I'm listening."

  "You outrank Sylvie."

  "I'm not a shapeshifter, Irving. I was the new pack leader's girlfriend. I'm not even that anymore."

  "You're more than that, Anita, and you know it. You've killed some of us. You kill easily and without remorse. The pack respects that."

  "Gee, Irving, what a rousing endorsement."

  "Do you feel badly about killing Raina? Did you lose sleep over Gabriel?"

  "I killed Raina because she was trying to kill me. I killed Gabriel for the same reason, self-preservation. So no, I didn't lose any sleep."

  "The pack respects you, Anita. If you could find some pack members that are already outed as shifters and convince them that you're scarier than Sylvie, they'd guard them, both of them."

  "I am not scarier than Sylvie, Irving. I can't beat them to a pulp. She can."

  "But you can kill them." He said it very quietly, watching my face, searching my expression.

  I opened my mouth, closed it. "What are you trying to get me to do, Irving?"

  He shook his head. "Nothing. Forget I said it. I shouldn't have said it. Get more cops in here and go home, Anita. Just get out of it while you can."

  "What's going on, Irving? Is Sylvie a problem?"

  He looked at me. His usually cheerful eyes, solemn, thoughtful. He shook his head. "I've got to go, Anita."

  I grabbed his arm. "You go nowhere until you tell me what's happening."

  He turned back to me slowly, reluctantly. I let go of his arm and stepped back. "Talk."

  "Sylvi
e has challenged everyone higher in the pack than she is, and won."

  I looked at him. "So?"

  "Do you understand how unusual it is for a woman to fight her way to second in command. She's about five foot six, small-boned. Ask how she's winning."

  "You're being coy, Irving. That's not like you. I'm not going to play Twenty Questions with you. Just tell me."

  "She killed the first two people she fought. She didn't have to. She chose to. The next three challenges she made just agreed she was dominant to them. They didn't want to risk being killed."

  "Very practical," I said.

  He nodded. "Sylvie's always been that. She finally picked one of the inner circle to fight. She's too small to be one of the enforcers; besides I think she was afraid of Jamil, and Shang-Da."

  "Jamil? Richard didn't drive him out? But he was one of Marcus's and Raina's flunkies."

  Irving shrugged. "Richard thought the transition would go smoother if he kept some of the old guard in power."

  I shook my head. "Jamil should have been driven out or killed."

  "Maybe, but actually Jamil seems to support Richard. I think it really surprised him when he wasn't killed instantly. Richard has earned his loyalty."

  "I didn't know Jamil had any loyalty," I said.

  "None of us did. Sylvie fought and won the place of Geri, second in command."

  "She kill for it?"

  "Surprisingly, no."

  "Okay, so Sylvie's tearing up the pack. She's second in command. Great, so what?"

  "I think she wants to be Ulfric, Anita. I think she wants Richard's job."

  I stared at him. "There's only one way to be Ulfric, Irving."

  "To kill the old king," Irving said. "Yeah, I think Sylvie knows that."

  "I haven't seen her fight, but I've seen Richard fight. He outweighs her by a hundred pounds, a hundred pounds of muscle, and he's good. She can't beat him in a fair fight, can she?"

  "It's like Richard is wounded, Anita. The heart's gone out of him. I think if she challenged and really wanted it, she'd win."

  "What are you telling me? That he's depressed?" I asked.

  "It's more than that. You know how much he hates being one of the monsters. He'd never killed anyone until Marcus. He can't forgive himself."