The woman who raised him, who was technically his mother, had taken his eye when he was fourteen because he tried to say no to her sexual abuse. Women are less likely to be active abusers, but when they are, it’s usually more violent. Nicky’s childhood had been bad. He had one lovely blue eye, but the other was just a smooth empty socket of scar tissue. The hair hid it completely, and managed to look like a fashion statement at the same time. The hair might have made people take him less than seriously, but he was six feet even, and the body that went with the rest of him made certain that anyone who knew what they were looking at wouldn’t underestimate Nicky. All the guards lifted weights as part of their training, but either Nicky hit them harder or genetics made him bulk up, because even in jeans, T-shirt, and a light jacket, the swelling of his shoulders and biceps showed. He wasn’t the tallest guy waiting for me in the hallway, but he was the biggest.
“Hey,” he said, softly.
I smiled at him. “Hey.” That was it, not the most romantic, but there was more emotion in those little words than in anything I’d said to anyone else. Nicky was my lover, and my Bride, in that Dracula, Prince of Darkness way. It made us closer than just dating ever would have. Thanks to my having to have private time with Olaf, and then uniformed cops arriving on the scene, I hadn’t gotten to really greet him. It had been a wave, and a hi, and oh, cops.
Domino stepped away from the wall so I had to look at him. I think I’d left Nicky and Domino for last because they distracted me. Domino’s hair was black and white curls, mostly black today, with just a few white, which meant that the last couple of times he’d shapeshifted he’d done black tiger. His hair tended to reflect whether he’d last shifted into his white tiger or black tiger form. I wondered if Ethan’s hair would change color with his shift. Domino had sunglasses that hid his eyes, because his eyes were always tiger eyes. They were deep reddish orange with spirals of gold through them, which was actually more black tiger than white genetically. He was only about an inch shorter than Nicky, but he tended to like boots with heels, so that added a couple of inches. Nicky was more a jogging-shoe kind of guy, but then he wasn’t insecure about his height, not in the least. Domino wasn’t insecure either, he just liked boots. He was one of my tigers to call. It was a different bond than with Nicky; Domino had free will. He could argue with me, fight, and tell me I was wrong. Nicky could do those things to a point, but if I gave him a direct order he’d do it. Domino followed my orders, but he had a choice.
With the jacket on, Domino looked much less muscled than I knew he was, but then clothes can hide a lot of good things, and I knew that what lay under his clothes was very good.
I was in the midst of giving Domino the smile he deserved when Ares said, “I feel ignored.”
I glanced at him. “Sorry.”
He grinned at me and took a breath to say something, but his eyes went behind me. Everyone looked behind me and it wasn’t entirely friendly. I turned to find Raborn coming up behind us. He’d closed the door to Clark’s office and she was on the phone.
“What do you want, Raborn?” I asked.
“Who’s in charge of the muscle?” he asked, and he made sure his tone was offensive.
Nicky shoved a thumb in my direction. “Anita is.”
Raborn gave him a look that said clearly, I don’t believe you.
“It disappoints me, too,” Ares said with a grin, “but she’s it.”
“What does ‘it’ mean?” Raborn asked.
“The boss, the big cheese, the head honcho, or honchette,” Ares said. “She’s it.”
“Why would you listen to her?”
Ares looked at me. “Do we have to explain ourselves to him?”
“No,” I said, “we don’t.”
Ares gave Raborn a big grin that filled his olive-green eyes with glee. “You heard her.”
“You all fucking her?” Raborn asked.
I felt Edward tense beside me. “That was over the line, pardner.” His Ted voice was a little strained around the edges. But it was the other men who were scary in that moment. They went quiet, but it was the quiet that a predator will use when it hunkers down in the long grass beside the trail. It was a tense, waiting quiet, and the energy coming off all of them raised the hair on my arms and tickled down my spine.
“Easy, guys,” I said.
“He doesn’t get to talk to you like that,” Domino said in a low voice.
“No, he doesn’t,” I said. I sighed and looked up at Raborn. “Do you want me to bring you up on sexual harassment charges?”
“Since when is the truth grounds for harassment?” he asked. His eyes were angry, defiant. I thought in that moment that Socrates was right; it was the fact that I was a woman. Cops usually thought policewomen were only two things: bitches or sluts. I had a reputation for both.
I stood there and thought of several replies, none of them helpful. Raborn said, “So it’s true then?”
I let out a breath, and smiled at him. “Actually, I’m fucking”—I pointed to Nicky and he stepped forward—“and”—I pointed at Domino, who moved up to join Nicky. “I forget anyone?” I asked gazing down the line.
Most of them shook their heads, faces very serious. Bobby Lee just stared at Raborn; it was not a good look, or rather it was a very good look if your sense of self-preservation was low.
“See, Raborn, I’m only fucking two of them. Does that make you feel any better?”
He blushed, except the color spread past his hairline and didn’t stay red. He was turning a sort of purple. Either it was the darkest blush I’d ever seen, or he was just that angry. Either way, the reaction was sweet and insulting.
“Any other questions?” I asked him.
He glared at me, and then Clark’s voice came from behind us. I guess she’d finished her phone call and opened the door quietly enough that Raborn and I didn’t hear her. “Marshal Raborn, I need you to drive to Oregon for me, right now.”
He glanced back at her, and then moved so he could keep an eye on both her and us, which meant he wasn’t as stupid as he seemed. “We have a serial killer in Seattle and you’re sending me on some trumped-up errand?”
“As your superior I’m telling you that you are driving to the far side of Oregon today; if you question my orders again, I’ll find something for you to do on the far side of Alaska, is that clear?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of your attitude and because I can. One more word and I promise you that you will be seeing so much real estate that by the time you drive back this case will be over.”
He closed his mouth tight, lips thinned with anger. The flush that had been fading began to darken again. If it was blood pressure, eventually he was going to stroke out if he didn’t learn to control himself. He just nodded.
She handed him a piece of paper. “This is where I want you to drive and what I want you to pick up for me.”
His eyes barely flickered over it before he turned on his heel and marched off. I think he didn’t trust himself to keep quiet if he stayed near us all.
Clark looked at me and Edward, but finally settled on me. “Bringing in lovers as deputies won’t help your reputation, Blake.”
I sighed. “I know, Marshal Clark, but neither of them is just a pretty package. They’ll be an asset to the case, or we wouldn’t have flown them in.”
“They better be more than a booty call, Blake. No offense, gentlemen.”
“None taken,” Nicky said.
Domino just looked at her.
It was her turn to sigh. “Prove to me that they’re more than just pretty, or muscle. Prove to me that they can help us catch these things.”
“Things?” I made it a question.
“Whatever is killing the weretigers isn’t human. Whatever injured Marshal Karlton wasn’t human either. What my marshals chased in the woods with you was sure as hell not human. We have a body in the morgue that is charred halfway between human and animal form. Nothing on this case is h
uman, so until I have another word for them, they’re things, perps, monsters. Now get out there and do something useful.” She went back into her office, and we started moving down the hallway like we had a purpose.
“Raborn is going to be trouble,” Lisandro said.
“He’ll try,” I said.
“How do we stop him?” Domino asked.
Edward said, “Execute the warrant; be so good at the job that he can’t come back at Anita.”
“The job is to kill . . .” Ares hesitated, trying not to say the Harlequin. “The killers, right?”
“Yep,” I said.
Ares smiled, a flash of teeth in his delicate face. “We’ll be good at the job.”
The rest of them just nodded. I realized in that moment we were a pack, a pride, we were a unit. We were—us. And for the first time since I understood that it was the Harlequin killing the weretigers, I felt . . . hopeful.
29
EDWARD WAS AT my right as we walked across the parking lot. Nicky came up on my left. His fingertips brushed mine. I had time to squeeze his fingers before Edward said, “We’ve got company.”
Nicky dropped back a step like a good bodyguard. I knew without looking that Domino was at my back; I could feel him like heat behind me. I was aware of the other men the way I was aware of my surroundings, or men in general, but not the way I was with the other two; they were mine in ways the others were not.
Marshal Newman was leaning against our rental car. He had a nice, noticeable bandage on his forehead. He looked a little pale in the sunlight, so that the few freckles he had stood out against his skin. I hadn’t noticed them last night, or was it two nights ago? I honestly didn’t know what day it was. Newman’s short brown hair looked as if he hadn’t bothered to comb it since he got out of the hospital. He leaned that tall, lanky body on the side of the rental and watched us.
When we were close enough, Edward called out, “How’s the head?” He was back to his happy Ted voice like a new person was walking around in his skin. I was used to it, but sometimes it still creeped me.
“Fine,” Newman said, pushing himself to his feet.
We let it go at that, but Edward and I both knew Newman wasn’t fine. He was functioning, he was well enough to work, but his head probably ached like a son of a bitch. We’d all have given the same answer. He was fine.
“But Karlton isn’t,” he said.
It took me a moment to realize that the last thing I’d heard about Laila Karlton had been waiting to hear back from the tests. “They told me she was going to pull through just fine,” I said.
Newman nodded. “Physically she’s well.”
“Ah,” I said, and I looked down for a moment gathering my thoughts. “So she’s positive for lycanthropy.”
“Yeah,” Newman said.
“What kind?” I asked.
He looked startled. “Does it matter?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Some of the men around me said, “Oh, yeah . . . Very much.”
Newman looked around at the men. “So you guys really are all lycanthropes?”
“They are,” I said, and Newman looked back at me.
“I didn’t ask what kind of lycanthrope she’s going to be; I didn’t know it would matter that much.”
“It matters for a lot of reasons,” I said.
It was Socrates who stepped up and asked, “I heard about what happened to the marshal. How is she taking the news?”
Newman looked at the other man and just shook his head.
“How bad?” Socrates asked.
Newman’s hands clenched around the hat he was still carrying. “I think if her family weren’t here she’d eat her gun.”
“Shit,” I said. I looked at Edward. “What’s the plan now that we have backup?”
“We go back to the last place they attacked us and use one of your friends here to track them.”
“You mean use them like I got to use werewolves to track that one serial killer in St. Louis?” It had worked so well, I’d hoped that it would become more standard for police around the country. I mean, it was like having a tracking dog that could talk to you, but the prejudice against shapeshifters was too deeply ingrained. You could bring a shifter to a crime scene, but you couldn’t bring them in animal form, and in human form their noses weren’t much better at tracking than a normal human being.
He nodded.
“Cool, but the odds of actually finding them close enough to track are pretty remote after all this time,” I said.
“They are, but it’s still a plan.”
“I don’t have a better idea,” I said. I thought about it and then said, “You take some of the men with you, track the bad guys. If you actually find a workable trail, call me.”
“Why won’t you be with us?”
“I’m going to the hospital to talk to Karlton. I need to let her know that her life isn’t over.”
Edward moved me a little away from Newman so we could talk privately. “Since when do you have to hold the other marshal’s hands?”
“Since Micah became the head of the Furry Coalition, and I saw what a difference it can make to have another shapeshifter to talk to when you first find out. Having someone on the other side say, ‘Look, I’ve got it and I’m doing okay.’ It helps.”
“You feel responsible for what happened to her,” he said.
I shrugged. “A little, but I know it will help to talk to me and some of the guards.”
He studied my face. “I don’t like splitting up.”
“Me either, but I’ll have good men with me, and so will you. I’ll check on Olaf, too. I didn’t mean to break him.”
“I didn’t think he’d try you, and that was my fault.”
“What made him feel the need to try his luck with me like that? It was worse than last time.”
“I think it was the rumors about all the men, and that you’re as fast and strong as a lycanthrope.”
“A combination of boyfriend and work jealousy,” I said.
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Has he decided that I’m not his little serial killer pinup now?”
“I don’t know.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Great, just what we needed on this case.”
“Olaf came into town asking about the rumors of new men in your life. He asked specifically about Cynric.”
“Why especially Sin?” I asked.
Edward looked at me. “Sin?”
“He’s seventeen, and Cynric sucks as a name for a teenager.”
“But Sin?” Edward asked.
I shrugged again. “If he were a different kind of kid he’d be a pale person in black, writing death poetry. I’m not real happy with the nickname either. But what is it about Cynric that bothers Olaf?”
“I think it’s the age.”
“Because he’s a teenager, or the age difference between him and me?” Edward said, “Your guess is as good as mine. He wouldn’t talk about it, but he asked more questions about Cynric. He wanted to know if the rumor that you’d moved a teenage boy in with you as a lover was true.”
“He asked it like that?” I asked.
Edward seemed to think about it, and then nodded. “He asked, ‘Is it true Anita has a teenage boy living with her?’ I said it was, and then he asked, ‘Is he truly her lover?’ Again, I said yes.”
“Has he ever asked about any other specific lovers before?” I asked.
“No, just if you had as many lovers as the rumors say you do; to that, I said, no one could be fucking that many men.”
“You didn’t want to tell him how many men I was sleeping with,” I said.
“Part of Olaf’s hatred of women comes from thinking they’re all manipulative whores. You weren’t having sex with anyone when he met you, so that helped him not have issues with you. I thought it was probably good to leave numbers of lovers vague.”
I couldn’t really argue with his reasoning, but... “Do you think I’ve gone over so
me magic line in Olaf’s mind? Am I not his girlfriend anymore, but just another whore that he’ll want to kidnap, torture, rape, and kill?”
Edward took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with finger and thumb. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Anita, honestly I just don’t know.”
“Well, crap, that could complicate things,” I said.
“And you broke his wrist, so he’s going to be trying to prove that you’re not better at this job than he is; almost any man would.”
“I didn’t mean to make it worse, Edward.”
“I know.” He looked at me, his blue eyes pale and tired under the shade of his cowboy hat. I still couldn’t get used to the fact that “Ted” wore a cowboy hat and Edward didn’t. Edward didn’t like hats. He put his sunglasses at the back of his shirt, rather than the front. They were less in the way for shooting back there.
“What do you want me to do about him?”
“Hell, Anita, I don’t know. If he’s decided you’re just another whore, then you can never, ever work with him again. And he may try to go after you for real.”
“You mean make me one of his victims,” I said.
“Yes.”
We looked at each other. “So I don’t check on him at the hospital when I talk to Karlton?”
He shook his head, took off his hat, and ran his hands through his hair. He put the hat back on and moved it until it was back at the same comfortable angle it started at. He was being Ted more than himself the last few years; maybe Edward liked hats, too, now?
“I don’t like you being at the hospital at all with Olaf there, Anita.”
“You’re not asking me to skip the talk with Karlton, are you?”
He shook his head. “I know better.”
“Because I can’t let fear of Olaf prevent me from doing my job.”
“Holding Karlton’s hand isn’t your job, Anita.”
“No, but I don’t want Micah in this city with the Harle . . . shit, them here. He’d be a hostage, or a target.”
“Agreed,” Edward said.
“Then that leaves me to do it.”
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