"Now put your gun up, Detective," I said.
Padgett looked at me for a second. I thought he wasn't going to do it. I looked into those big blue eyes and saw something dangerous. A fear so deep and wide that he needed to destroy the thing he feared. He put the gun up, but that one moment of nakedness in his eyes had been enough. I'd talk to Dolph and see if Padgett had any shapeshifter kills to his credit. I'd almost have bet that he did. Cleared of charges didn't always mean innocent.
I patted the top of Lorraine's head. "It's all right. Everything's all right." I had to get them out of here. The good guys were almost as big a threat as the bad ones.
She looked up at me, eyes puffy, nose running. Real crying is like real sex. If you really do it, it isn't pretty. "I didn't mean to hurt him," she whispered.
"I know." I glanced at the police up and down the hallway. Some of them avoided my eyes. I shook my head and helped her stand. "I'm taking them into Stephen and Nathaniel's room with me, Detective Padgett. Any objections?"
He just shook his head.
"Great. Come on, Teddy."
"I can stand up?" he asked.
I looked at Padgett. "You think you and your people can hold the Rambo routine?"
"If he behaves himself, sure." Padgett wasn't trying to be charming anymore. I think he was embarrassed about the show. I knew he was still angry, maybe at me, maybe at himself. I didn't care as long as he didn't start shooting.
"You got a uniform inside the room?" I asked.
He gave one curt nod.
"Is he as trigger-happy as the rest of you, or can I open the door without being shot at?"
Padgett strode to the door and knocked on it. "Smith, it's Padgett. Detective coming in." He opened the door with a flourish and ushered Lorraine and me in.
I looked at the young uniform seated just inside the door. Kevin was slumped down in a chair across from him, an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The werewolf looked at me, and one look was enough -- not a happy camper. It wasn't just nicotine withdrawal either.
I half-pushed Lorraine into the room, then walked back to Teddy. I held my left hand out to him, and he took it. I helped him stand, though he didn't need the help. "Thank you," he said, and he didn't mean for helping him stand up.
"No problem," I said. I escorted him back to the room. Once they were both safely inside, I turned to Padgett.
"We need to talk. I'd prefer private if I could be guaranteed no one will get shot while I'm gone."
"You okay in here, Smith?" he asked.
The young cop said, "I'm fine. I like animals."
The look on Teddy's face was scary even to me. That otherworldly energy was rising like a warm, stinging tide. "If the nice policeman behaves himself, then so do the rest of you," I said.
Teddy stared right at me. "I know how to follow orders."
"Great, shall we find some place private, Detective Padgett?"
His breath was coming fast, almost a pant. He was feeling the rising energy, too. "We can talk right here. I'm not leaving one of my men alone with these things."
"I'm okay, boss," the young cop said.
"You're not afraid?" Padgett asked. It was a question that cops seldom ask each other. They ask, are you all right. They admit to being nervous. Never scared.
Officer Smith's eyes widened a little, but he shook his head. "I know Crossman. He's a good guy. She saved his life." Smith sat up a little straighter in his chair, said softly, "These aren't the bad guys."
A tic started in Padgett's cheek. He opened his mouth, closed it, then turned abruptly on his heel and left. The door slid shut behind him. We all stood in the suddenly thick silence.
Stephen said, "Anita." He held his hand out to me. His face was flawless, no scars, no marks of any kind. I took his hand and smiled.
"I know you guys heal fast, but it's still impressive. You looked pretty bad last time I saw you."
"I looked worse," a soft male voice said. Nathaniel was awake in the other bed. His long auburn hair hung like a shining curtain around his face, maybe longer than waist-length. I'd never seen a man with hair that long. I couldn't see his face because I was too busy staring at his eyes. They were the color of lilacs, a wonderful pale lavender that was a genuine show-stopper. It took me a few seconds of staring to be able to see the rest of his face. He looked a few years older awake than he had unconscious -- nineteen instead of sixteen, maybe. He still looked drawn and tired, ill, but there was a vast improvement.
"Yeah, you looked worse," I said.
Stephen turned to Officer Smith like they were old friends.
"Can we have a few minutes alone?"
Smith looked at me. "Okay with you?"
I nodded.
He stood. "I don't know how Padgett's going to like it, so if you want to exchange secret codes or anything, make it fast."
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't mention it." He stopped in front of Lorraine before he left. "Thank you. Crossman has a wife and two daughters. I know they'd thank you if they could."
Lorraine blushed and nodded, mumbling, "You're welcome."
Smith left, and I walked over to Nathaniel's bed. "Nice to meet you while you're conscious."
He tried to smile, but the effort showed. He held out his left hand to me, the right hand was still hooked up to an IV drip.
I took his hand. His grip was tremblingly weak. He drew my hand towards his mouth as if to kiss it. I let him do it. The effort made his hand shake.
He pressed his lips to my hand, eyes closed, almost as if he were resting. For a second I thought he'd passed out, but his tongue flicked out, a quick wetness.
I jerked back, fighting the urge to wipe my hand on my jeans. "Thanks, a handshake would have been fine."
He frowned up at me. "But you're our léoparde lionné," he said.
"So people keep telling me," I said.
He turned his head so he could see Stephen. "You lied to me." Tears trembled in his pale, pale eyes. "She won't feed us."
I looked at Stephen. "I have missed part of this conversation, haven't I?"
"Have you seen Richard share blood with the pack?"
I started to say no, then, "I saw him let Jason feed off of a knife wound once. Jason seemed almost drugged from it."
Stephen nodded. "That's it. Gabriel could share blood."
My eyes widened. "I didn't think he was strong enough to do that."
"Neither did we." This from Kevin. He came to stand near me, cigarette transferred, still unlit, to his left hand. "It's been very interesting listening to Nathaniel talk about Gabriel. Nathaniel was addicted to heroin and a street whore when Gabriel rescued him, gave him a second life."
"Bully for him, getting him off drugs, but Gabriel still pimped him out. To a sicker clientele."
Kevin patted Nathaniel's leg under the sheet, a casual gesture, like you'd pat a dog. "But Nat here likes it, don't you, boy?"
Nathaniel looked at him and said softly, "Yes."
"Please, tell me you didn't enjoy being gutted."
He closed his eyes. "No, not that. But until then it was ... "
"That's all right," I said. Something occurred to me. "Have you told the police who did this to you?"
"He doesn't know," Kevin said. He put the ever-present cig back in his mouth, as if just the taste of the paper was sweet.
"What do you mean, he doesn't know?" I asked.
Stephen answered, "Zane chained and blindfolded him, then left. That was the deal. Nathaniel never saw them."
"Them?" I made it a question.
Stephen nodded. "Them."
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Do you remember anything unique or different that might help identify them?"
"Perfume like gardenias, and a sickly smell."
Great, I thought, that was helpful.
He looked full at me, and suddenly his eyes weren't just dull with illness. I realized they were dull with experience. It went beyond jaded, as if Nathaniel
had looked into the lower rungs of hell. He'd lived to tell the tale, but he hadn't really survived, not intact.
"I remember the perfume. I'd recognize it again if I smelled it."
"Okay, Nathaniel, okay." In the bottom of the awful emptiness of his eyes was panic. He was scared, unbelievably scared. I patted his hand, and when his fingers curled around mine, I held on. "No one will ever hurt you like that again, Nathaniel. I promise you that."
"You'll take care of me?" He looked up at me with a need in his eyes that was so raw, so primitive, I would have promised him anything to chase that look away.
"Yes, I'll take care of you."
His whole body relaxed. A tension running out of him like water from a cracked cup. I felt it run down his arm into his hand into me like a jolt of energy. It made me jump, but I didn't pull away.
He smiled up at me, lying back against the pillows. He looked a little better somehow, stronger.
I slid my hand out of his slowly, and he let me go. Great. I turned to the rest of the room. "We need to get you all out of here."
"I could go home now," Stephen said, "but Nathaniel still can't be moved."
"I don't trust the cops without me here to act as a buffer."
"Padgett is very afraid of us," Teddy said.
I nodded. "I know."
"Feed me," Nathaniel said. "Give me your strength, and I will go with you."
I frowned at him, then looked back at Stephen. "He's not seriously suggesting I open a vein for him, is he?"
"Richard could do it," Stephen said.
"Richard couldn't feed one of the leopards," Lorraine said, "only us."
"Raina could have fucked him back to health," Kevin said.
That earned him a long stare from me. "What are you talking about?"
"Raina could share energy without sharing blood," he said. His face registered both distaste and lust, as if he'd enjoyed some of Raina's shows in spite of himself. "She'd run her hands over you, then her body. It always ended with her fucking you. The more hurt you started out, the better she liked it, but you'd be healed when she was finished."
I turned to Stephen, because I didn't believe it. He nodded. "I've seen her do it."
"You're not suggesting that she ... " Lorraine let the awful thought go unsaid, but I was with her.
"I am not opening a vein, and I am most certainly not going to have sex with him."
"You don't want me." Nathaniel's voice was tear-filled, heartbroken.
"It's nothing personal," I said. "I'm just not into casual sex." This entire conversation was too weird even for me.
"Then Nathaniel has to stay here at least another twenty-four hours," Kevin said. He rolled the cigarette between his fingers while he talked.
Stephen nodded. "That's what the doctor said. We asked when he told me I could go home today."
"Don't leave me, Stephen." Nathaniel reached out across the space between them, as if he could touch him.
"I won't leave you alone, Nathaniel, not without someone to take care of you."
Teddy spoke. "Just because it ended in sex for Raina doesn't mean it has to end that way."
We all looked at him. "What do you mean?" Kevin asked.
"Everything ended in sex for Raina. But it was the touching that healed. I think my injuries were healed before we got down to basics." Just listening to him talk like that with a sixty-inch chest of pure muscle made my brain hurt. It was like finding out your golden retriever talked. You just didn't expect to get brains in such a bulky package.
Kevin shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is she healed me. I don't remember when I was better. I just remember her."
"Is there anyone in this room that didn't sleep with Raina?" I asked.
The only person who raised their hand was Lorraine, and knowing Raina, that had been debatable. "Sweet Jesus."
"I think Anita could heal him without sex, just bare skin," Teddy said.
I started to say no, then remembered sharing energy with Jean-Claude. Bare skin had been important there, too. Maybe it was the same. "Did Raina seem to feel tired after healing you?"
All the men shook their heads. The consensus was it seemed to energize her, not weaken her. Of course, that was Raina and she had been an unusual puppy even for a werewolf.
I didn't want to leave Nathaniel here, not even with werewolves to guard him. I didn't trust Padgett. There was also no guarantee that the zealots, whoever they were, wouldn't try for another hit. Either we all went or we all stayed. I had more crime scenes to visit. I couldn't sit here all bloody day.
"Okay, let's try it, but I don't have the faintest idea how to begin."
Nathaniel settled back into the pillows with something like a smile of expectation on his face. Like a child who's about to get the ice cream he was promised. Trouble was, I was the ice cream.
37
Kevin put a chair under the door handle and we were as secure as we were likely to get. I'd told Smith, who was now manning the door, that I needed to get a feel for things, and I'd be done when I was done. I was being treated like a detective, so the uniforms would stay out. The only worry was Padgett. He'd only stay out until his ego recovered. I half expected him to try and barge in on us. The only thing that might save us from him was the fact that he'd want to break the door in because he'd be sensing what we were doing, and he wouldn't want to admit that.
I stood by the bed. Nathaniel looked up at me with a look that was so trusting, it made me nervous. I turned away and found everyone else looking at me, too. "Okay, guys, now what? I've never even seen this done."
There was an exchange of looks all the way around. Stephen said, "I don't know if we can explain it to you."
I nodded. "I know, magic is like that. You either get it, or you don't."
"Is this magic?" Teddy asked. "Or is it just psychic ability?"
"I'm not sure there is a difference," I said. "Sometimes I think the only difference is that psychic ability is something you do without thinking about it, and magic requires a ritual to get your juices going."
"You do more of this kind of shit than we do," Kevin said. "We're just werewolves, not witches."
"I'm not a witch. I'm a necromancer."
He shrugged. "Same diff to me." He sat down in the chair he'd started out in, crushing the cigarette into the palm of his hand as if it were lit and his flesh were an ashtray. He scowled up at me. I didn't know him well enough to be sure, but he seemed nervous.
Me, too. I only knew two ways to raise energy: ritual or sex. The sex took the place of ritual when I was with Jean-Claude or Richard. But I had no bond with Nathaniel. No marks, no emotion, nothing. I wasn't his léoparde lionné, not really. It was all lies. I couldn't do this without some feeling towards him. Pity wasn't enough.
Teddy loomed up behind me. "What's wrong, Anita?"
I would have walked across the room and whispered, but I knew Nathaniel would hear anywhere in the small room. "I need some emotion to work from, something."
"Emotion?" he asked.
"I don't know Nathaniel. I don't feel anything for him except pity, obligation. Neither of those is enough to even get started."
"What do you need?" His eyes were very serious. The intelligence in them was almost touchable.
I tried to put it into words and ended up saying, "I need something to take the place of a ritual."
"Raina didn't use a ritual," Kevin said from the chair.
"She used sex. Sex can take the place of the ritual."
"You raised power at the lupanar that one night with Richard," Stephen said. "You didn't have sex, but you still raised power."
"But I ... I wanted Richard sexually. It's a sort of energy all of its own."
"Nathaniel is handsome," Stephen said.
I shook my head. "It's never been that easy for me. I need more than a pretty face."
Stephen slid out of the bed in one of those wraparound gowns, but it didn't gape as he moved. It was wrapped around him like a sheet, more clo
th than he needed, just like it would have been on me. One size never really fits all.
He tried to take my hand, and I wouldn't let him. "Let me help you."
"Define help." Suspicious, who me?
He smiled, and it was almost condescending. The smile men get around girls when they're doing something sort of cute and girlish. The smile alone pissed me off. "What is your problem?" I asked.
"You," he said softly. "You know I would never hurt you, don't you?"
I looked into his cornflower-blue eyes and nodded. "Never on purpose." I said.
"Then trust me now. Let me help you call the power."
"How?" I asked.
He took my hand in both of his, and this time I let him. He drew my hand to Nathaniel. He rested my fingertips on Nathaniel's forehead. His skin was cool. Just the touch of his skin, and you knew he wasn't well.
"Pet him," Stephen said.
I looked at him, shaking my head. I drew my hand back, "I don't think so."
Nathaniel started to say something, but Stephen put his fingers across his mouth. "No, Nathaniel." It was almost like he knew what the other man was going to say. But he couldn't know, not for sure, could he? I might have believed it if Nathaniel was pack, but he wasn't.
"Close your eyes," Stephen said.
"Uh-huh," I said.
"We don't have time for this," Kevin said.
"He's right," Teddy said. "I understand your natural reluctance, but the police are going to knock on the door eventually."
If Nathaniel couldn't leave with us, that meant leaving people behind to guard him, which put people in danger again. If we were all somewhere together, at least we wouldn't be endangering innocent policemen, though most cops would wince at being called innocent.
I took a deep breath and blew it out. "Fine, what's your idea?"
"Close your eyes," Stephen said.
I frowned at him. He looked patient, long-suffering even, and I closed my eyes. He took my hand in his, and it wasn't until he began to gently open my fist that I realized I'd clenched up. He started to massage my hand.
I said, "Stop that."
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