Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Well, I’m queen now, and that is not how I want Olaf handled. He’s a fellow marshal, for the love of God. You can’t just kill him.”

  “We will do nothing to him unless he tries to kidnap or rape me.”

  “But if you bait him into doing it, it’s like you’re setting him up to be killed.”

  “I will not harm him unless he tries to harm me first, and then I will merely defend myself. I am allowed to defend myself.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “Then if he behaves himself and passes on the bait, he will not get caught and slain,” Pierette said, and she was still too calm.

  I wanted to grab her and shake her until she showed the fear she’d let him see. Had it been an act? Was she an even better actor than Edward? If she was, then I couldn’t trust anything she’d ever said or done with me. Damn it, didn’t she understand this would make me doubt her?

  Nicky said, “She understands.”

  “You read my mind,” I said.

  He nodded. “And both Angel and Pierette understood both the danger from Olaf and that it might damage their relationship with you.”

  “We all decided the risks were worth it,” Ethan said.

  I looked into his soft gray eyes. “It’s wrong.”

  “Why, my queen?” Pierette asked.

  “What she asked,” Angel said.

  I tried to think how to say it and finally said, “It seems . . . dishonorable. If I have to kill Olaf, I want him to know it’s coming and why.”

  “If he kidnaps one of your girlfriends, he’ll know why we’re killing him,” Nicky said. Put that way, it made sense, but it still felt wrong.

  “I don’t have time to argue about this anymore. We go inside and you prove to me that you’re all assets on this case, or I will by God send you home.”

  “As you like, my queen,” Pierette said.

  She even bowed at the neck, which was as much bowing as I allowed her in public. In private she’d press her face to the floor like she was abasing herself before something holy. It was incredibly uncomfortable to have people drop to the floor in front of you. I never knew what to do. Did I tell them to stop that and stand up, or just get off the floor, ignore it, help them up? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to break them of the habit.

  “Don’t bow to me where the other police can see it.”

  “As you like, my queen.”

  “And don’t use any of my titles except for Marshal while we’re here.”

  “Of course . . . Marshal.”

  “We’re sleeping together. I think you can call me Anita.”

  “Thank you, my queen.”

  I started to correct Pierette, but then just started walking toward the sheriff’s office. I had a crime to solve and a life to save. I wasn’t letting anyone—not Olaf, not my bodyguards, not my lovers, not even my friends with benefits—interfere with this case. If they kept distracting me this badly, I would send them home, even the two women who were willing to fall on Olaf’s serial killer blade. I’d handled him before with just Edward to run interference. I could do it again if I had to. There was a tiny part of me that wasn’t so sure of that, and a very large part of me that knew someday I’d have to kill Olaf or he’d kill me. So why did it bother me so much that we were setting him up to fall back into his old murderous habits? I didn’t know, and I stopped trying to figure it out. Later. I’d think about it later. Crime first, moral dilemmas later. Oh, wait. The case was a moral dilemma, too. Damn it all to hell.

  50

  WE WERE ALL in the office having more of Duke’s yummy coffee, but none of my new people had been allowed near the cells. The cells were just a door away from us, but they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. With the hours ticking away before we had to execute Bobby, we were stuck trying to play diplomats. I’d thought Leduc and I had had a “guy” bonding moment outside, and he had forgiven the PDA, but he hadn’t even begun to harp on the fact that we’d brought members of the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Therianthrope and Human Communities to his town. Legally, Newman had invited them in, so he could simply show them to the cells, but he had to live here after the case was over, and he seemed to be chasing Leduc’s approval like a black sheep that finally wants Daddy to love him more, or maybe that was just my natural impatience and crankiness talking. Since everything out of my mouth made Leduc angrier, I’d found a piece of wall near the door so I could watch the entire room and all the people in it. Edward had stayed in the diplomatic effort, playing Ted to the hilt to help Newman, Ethan, and Angel persuade the sheriff that he should play nice with us. The rest of us who weren’t as good at playing diplomat were just trying to stay out of the way.

  Olaf was in the chair by the smaller desk since Leduc was pacing by his big desk and gesturing angrily between offering refreshments. The sheriff was like a mix of hostess and pissed cop. Ethan was utterly polite, and Angel was that plus an attractive woman who played to it; they both seemed to bring out a hardwired part of Leduc that wanted to play Susie Homemaker.

  Milligan and Custer had found a piece of wall to lean against near Olaf. He was studiously ignoring them while they were trying to casually keep an eye on him. It was the alpha-guy equivalent of women who showed up to a big party looking fabulous and wanted desperately to be prettier than the other women, but tried to act like it wasn’t that big a deal. Milligan had cut his white blond hair so short that he looked nearly as bald as Olaf. Custer’s brown hair was finally long enough for a short ponytail. The other three former SEALs who had survived the lycanthrope terrorist cell somewhere classified were giving him a lot of grief for growing it out. Millie was taller at over six feet. Custer was a little under six feet and broader through the shoulders and hips. Why was Custer nicknamed Pud? It was short for Puddin’, which was a play on Custer being Custard. I’m told that some military nicknames stick with you for life. Millie was on the willowy side. All the guys in their unit were of similar builds, regardless of ethnicity. They both gave off that I’m-the-biggest-dog-in-the-room vibe like most of the Team’s guys, but for once they weren’t. Olaf would have towered over everyone if he’d bothered to stand up; that he didn’t bother was an insult. He had nothing to prove to them, because he already knew he was bigger and better. Of course, all the SEALs had had to work on swallowing their egos when they joined our security team, because we had a lot of bigger dogs.

  Nicky was staying the closest to me, the way Bram shadowed Micah back home. Nicky didn’t travel everywhere with me the way Bram did with Micah, but when he was with me, he usually assumed the position of main bodyguard for me. The fact that he was also one of my lovers and metaphysically tied to me was almost beside the point for his job. He was probably about the same height as Custer, under six feet, but he was so muscled that he always seemed bigger. He’d removed his sunglasses and tucked them in the front of his shirt. The newly shortened yellow blond hair meant he couldn’t use it to hide the scars that were all that was left of his right eye. When I’d met him, he’d grown his bangs out in a long triangle like an anime character. Of course, he’d had about twenty pounds less muscle on him then, so he’d looked more like a club kid, but a devotion to the weight room had made him too fierce-looking to match the club-kid disguise, so he’d cut his hair. He was looking at the world barefaced. I’d been with him when people gawked or did the fast look away as if they were embarrassed they’d been caught staring. Watching Nicky walk through the world with his scars showing had made me love him even more. Bravery was one of my favorite things.

  Olaf wasn’t just ignoring the two men near him; he was also pretending that he didn’t see Nicky as worthy competition, and I knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t like they had ever discussed it in front of me, but they respected each other as warriors.

  Pierette had found a corner of the room away from all of us. I couldn’t even
see her from where I was standing, and neither could Olaf, which I think was her point. She was back to playing would-be victim for him. I still didn’t like it, but I hadn’t absolutely forbidden it either. One disaster at a time. First, I had to get my people in to see Bobby.

  Newman extracted himself from the discussion with Leduc to come talk to me. “I’m the one that has to deal with Duke when this is all over, so I have to be here for this part. You go and question one of the women. When you’re done with the interview, text or call me, and I’ll let you know if I can take the second interview or if you get both.”

  “Are you sure I can’t help here?”

  Ethan had come up to us, leaving Angel to be charming to Leduc. It was amazing how most men preferred to talk to an attractive woman, especially one who was willing to flirt a little while she did it. Angel could be almost as hard-nosed as I was, but she went the soft, flirty way much better than I did when it suited her purpose. It suited her purposes now. I knew she could flirt, but I hadn’t realized she could use it as a negotiation ploy. I could never use it that way. I either flirted with intent to date or I didn’t flirt. I just didn’t flirt well enough for anything in between. Duke was an older man; they always liked a young, pretty woman paying attention to them. Hell, I guess most people who are into women do, but I’ve found that men above a certain age are more susceptible to it without expecting anything to come of it.

  “You guys make a good team,” I said.

  “She’s the only one of us that has college degrees in social work and psychology,” Ethan said. “She’s smarter about this than I’ll ever be.”

  He lowered his voice and said, “Go question your witness. Try to find us more legal ammunition to give to the lawyer once she gets here. Angel and I will get us in to see Bobby.”

  With him bent over me, I was suddenly aware of the smell of his shampoo, the warmth of him so close to me. I wasn’t in love with Ethan, but he was one of my moitiés bêtes, my animal to call, which meant touching him felt comforting. Touching any of my animals to call, or even a shapeshifter of the same species, would lower my anxiety level. It just felt good to touch the shapeshifters who were tied to us. I didn’t want to kiss Ethan the way I had the others, but leaning against him so that we could touch without holding hands or getting all romantic would have been nice.

  “I thought you were done with the PDA, Blake,” Leduc said.

  “We’re trying to talk quietly so as not to interrupt you, Duke. That’s all, no hand-holding.”

  Leduc narrowed his eyes at us. “I don’t usually touch the people I’m talking to in the office. Maybe Flynn and Miss Angel here are more professional than I first thought, but I’m still thinking maybe you lied about it not being a booty call, Blake.”

  “You don’t have to have a good opinion of me, Sheriff. If you let Ethan and the rest of our people help us with Bobby, then you can hate me all you want.”

  “I didn’t say I hated you, Blake.”

  “Thanks, Le . . . Duke.”

  He nodded at me. “You’re welcome, but I need you to tell me exactly how they can help you with this case.”

  Ethan started to say something, but Leduc held his hand up. “Not from you, from Blake.” Leduc looked at me expectantly.

  “If I step back into the cage with Bobby, I want more wereanimal backup.”

  “Therianthrope backup,” Angel corrected automatically.

  “Yeah, that, but I’m not going to risk my life again without better backup.”

  “I was here, and I am an Ailuranthrope, like Marchand,” Olaf said.

  “Yeah, you’re both cat-based.”

  “I expected Micah or even Nathaniel to come and help you with the leopard in the cage. It’s always easier to control the same internal beast, yet you bring another lion, wolves, hyenas, and a tiger. What can they do that I could not?”

  “I’m a leopard like your prisoner,” Pierette said. She managed to make her voice sound uncertain, as if it took bravery for her to speak up. She was good at pretending—like Edward good. Again I realized that maybe I didn’t know her at all. It was interesting that Olaf hadn’t been able to tell what animal she was by smell . . . or had he met everyone else before? I couldn’t remember if he’d met Milligan and Custer or not.

  “Come out where I can see you, little cat,” Olaf said, his voice already full of what passed for teasing for him. It always came out as threatening to me.

  “Are you saying you’re not glad to see me, Otto?” Nicky said from his bit of wall near but not too near Olaf. He even smiled when he spoke. They’d run in the same mercenary—sorry, private contractor—circles at one point in their careers. They’d both had a certain reputation among their fellow contractors and had come to admire each other’s work, though they’d never actually worked together. And just like that, Nicky took Olaf’s attention off Pierette and put it squarely on himself.

  Olaf unfolded from the chair and suddenly seemed even taller than normal, as if he slumped just a little bit most of the time. I don’t think that was it, but he’d done something to make it very clear that he literally towered over everyone in the room. Nicky pushed away from the wall, still smiling. Milligan and Custer stood straighter; they’d already spaced themselves to have room to fight before they’d chosen their bits of wall. Ethan stayed by me like a good bodyguard; he looked fragile beside Olaf, but then he looked fragile beside Nicky, too. I guess everyone did, even the SEALS.

  “Everybody, ease down,” Leduc said, which proved that he was better at his job and more observant than this case was showing. Again, I got the idea I wasn’t catching him at his best, whether it was years too late or just emotional issues.

  “We’re easy,” Nicky said, grinning happily, as if saying, Let’s have fun, or let’s get violent, or let’s do both. He’d had that grin from the first moment I met him.

  Newman said, “Anita is going to go question the friends that went with Jocelyn to the club the night of the murder.”

  “I will go with her,” Olaf said.

  “And I’ll tag along,” Nicky said.

  “You have some kind of badge?” Leduc asked.

  Nicky smiled at him, giving full-face attention. Leduc’s eyes did the slide thing as if he was trying to decide where to look on Nicky’s face, because like most polite people, he didn’t want to stare at the scars. Thanks to Nicky, I’d discovered that I always stared at just one eye on anyone I was giving good eye contact to, and it was always the right eye. I’d tried to change that for Nicky, but he’d thought I was being weird like everyone else. In the end I’d explained my discovery, and we’d both decided that I’d stare at his face the way I did at everyone else’s even if that made it look like I was staring at his scars.

  “As members of the preternatural branch, we have the ability to deputize people if we think they’d be an asset on a case,” Newman said.

  “It’s your case, not hers, and I know you didn’t deputize someone you don’t know.”

  “I met him in the field on the same case where I met Forrester, Jeffries, and Blake.”

  Leduc looked Nicky up and down like he was taking measurements. “So, what’s your specialty that makes Blake want you on her cases so often?”

  “Tough motherfucker,” Nicky said, face sobering so that he said it straight-faced and serious.

  Custer laughed from the wall.

  “Are you making a joke?” Leduc asked.

  “No,” Nicky said.

  I smiled; I couldn’t help it.

  “Nicky is a good man in a fight,” Edward said, finally coming forward instead of just watching us.

  “Are we amusing you, Blake?” Leduc asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then why are you smiling?”

  “Nicky has that effect on me sometimes.”

  “He’s part of her poly group,” Olaf said,
and that surprised me more than almost anything he could have done. I hadn’t expected him to spill my secrets to the cops, if I couldn’t spill his. I mean, the kiss had given things away, but him using the poly vocabulary probably wouldn’t help with Leduc.

  I shot Olaf an unfriendly look.

  “What’s a poly group?” Leduc asked.

  Ethan answered, “Poly group and polycule are terms for the permanent members of a nonmonogamous group, a coupleness formed of more than two people.”

  We all got poly questions now, but apparently Ethan had heard Micah answer the question a lot, because Micah was the one most likely to have to answer on camera while he was trying to save lives or help lycanthropes—sorry, Therianthropes—get a more positive public image.

  “Are you a member of her poly group?” Leduc asked.

  Ethan shook his head. “I’m happily monogamous with my girlfriend back home in St. Louis.” A look of nearly shining happiness crossed his face. Ethan had loved Nilda enough to go to couples counseling when they’d barely been dating.

  The offer to help pay for therapy for any of our employees who wanted it was one of the best new policies of the last few years. As people had success and showed improvement, they encouraged others to go work out their issues and get healthier. I saw the policy as the same as dental or vision riders to health insurance, just another part of our bodies that needed care and attention.

  “Then how do you know all that?” Leduc asked.

  “I work with a lot of people that are poly, including my boss . . . bosses.” Ethan smiled at him.

  Leduc looked suspiciously at his pleasant smiling face. Ethan was handsome but not in a traditional way. I think it was the mixed hair color. Leduc probably thought it was some rebellious statement. At least Ethan’s eyes were solid gray and not some of the more exotic colors that the rest of the clan tigers had. Unless you knew what tiger eyes looked like, most people’s minds just saw human eyes in Ethan’s face, because it was what they expected to see.