I caught sight of Marguerite on the far side of the ring, watching. Her eyes were wide, her lips half-parted. She was enjoying herself. God.
The werewolf pulled back from the snake. The shapeshifter looked like a very classy version of every wolfman that had ever stalked the streets of London, except it was naked and had genitalia between its legs. Movie wolfmen were always smooth, sexless as a Barbie doll.
The werewolf's fur was a dark honey color. A blond werewolf? Was it Stephen? If it wasn't, then he had disappeared, and I didn't think Jean-Claude would allow that.
A voice yelled, "Everybody freeze"' Across the ring were two patrol cops with their guns out. One of them said, "Jesus Christ!"
I put my gun away while they were staring at the dead snake. The body was still twitching, but it was dead. It just takes longer for a reptile's body to know it's dead than most mammals.
I felt light and empty as air. Everything had a faintly unreal quality. It wasn't the snake. It was whatever Jean-Claude had done to me. I shook my head, trying to clear it, to think. The cops were here. I had things I needed to do.
I fished the little plastic ID card out of my sport bag and clipped it to the collar of my jacket. It identified me as a member of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. It was almost as good as a badge.
"Let's go talk to the cops before they start shooting."
"The snake's dead," he said.
The wolfman was tearing at the dead thing with a long pointed muzzle, ripping off chunks of meat. I swallowed hard and looked away. "They may not think the snake is the only monster in the ring."
"Oh." He said it very softly, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. What the hell was he doing with the monsters?
I walked towards the police, smiling. Jean-Claude stood there in the middle of the ring, his white shirt so bloody it clung to him like water, outlining the point of one nipple hard against the cloth. Blood was smeared down one side of his face. His arms were crimson to the elbows. The youngest vampire, a woman, had buried her face in the snake's blood. She was scooping the bloody meat into her mouth and sucking on it. The sounds were wet and seemed louder than they should have been.
"My name's Anita Blake. I work with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. I've got ID."
"Who's that with you?" The uniform nodded his head in the man's direction. His gun was still pointed vaguely towards the ring.
I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, "What is your name?"
"Richard Zeeman," he said softly.
Out loud I said, "Richard Zeeman, just an innocent bystander." That last was probably a lie. How innocent could a man be who woke up in a bed surrounded by vampires and shapeshifters?
But the uniform nodded. "What about the rest of them?"
I glanced where he was staring. It didn't look any better. "The manager and some of his people. They waded into the thing to keep it out of the crowd."
"But they ain't human, right?" he said.
"No," I said, "they aren't human."
"Jesus H. Christ, the guys back at the station aren't going to believe this one," his partner said.
He was probably right. I had been here, and I almost didn't believe it. A giant man-eating cobra. Jesus H. Christ indeed.
8
I was sitting in a small hallway that served as the performers' entrance to the big tent. The lighting was permanently dim, as if some of the things rolling through wouldn't like a lot of light. Big surprise there. There were no chairs, and I was getting a little tired of sitting on the floor. I'd given a statement first to a uniform, then to a detective. Then RPIT had arrived and the questioning started all over again. Dolph nodded to me, and Zerbrowski shot at me with his thumb and forefinger. That had been an hour and fifteen minutes ago. I was getting a wee bit tired of being ignored.
Richard Zeeman and Stephen the Werewolf were sitting across from me. Richard's hands were clasped loosely around one knee. He was wearing white Nikes with a blue swoosh, and no socks. Even his ankles were tan. His thick hair brushed the tops of his naked shoulders. His eyes were closed. I could gaze at his muscular upper body as long as I wanted to. His stomach was flat with a triangle of dark hair peeking above the sweat pants. His upper chest was smooth, perfect, no hair at all. I approved.
Stephen was cuddled on the floor, asleep. Bruises blossomed up the left side of his face, black-purple and that raw red color a really bad bruise gets. His left arm was in a sling, but he'd refused to go to the hospital. He was wrapped in a grey blanket that the paramedics had given him. As far as I could tell, it was all he was wearing. I guess he'd lost his clothes when he shapeshifted. The wolfman had been bigger than he was, and the legs had been a very different shape. So the skin-tight jeans and the beautiful cowboy boots were history. Maybe that was why the black shapeshifter had been naked. Had that been why Richard Zeeman was naked, as well? Was he a shapeshifter?
I didn't think so. If he was, he hid it better than anybody I'd ever been around. Besides, if he had been a shapeshifter, why didn't he join the fight against the cobra? He'd done a sensible thing for an unarmed human being; he'd stayed out of the way.
Stephen, who had started out the night looking scrumptious, looked like shit. The long, blond curls clung to his face, wet with sweat. There were dark smudges under his closed eyes. His breathing was rapid and shallow. His eyes were struggling underneath his closed lids. Dream? Nightmare? Do werewolves dream of shapeshifted sheep?
Richard still looked scrumptious, but then a giant cobra hadn't been slamming him into a concrete floor. He opened his eyes, as if he had felt me staring at him. He stared back, brown eyes neutral. We stared at each other without saying anything.
His face was all angles, high-sculpted cheekbones, and firm jaw. A dimple softened the lines of his face and made him a little too perfect for my taste. I've never been comfortable around men that are beautiful. Low self-esteem, maybe. Or maybe Jean-Claude's lovely face had made me appreciate the very human quality of imperfection.
"Is he all right?" I asked.
"Who?"
"Stephen."
He glanced down at the sleeping man. Stephen made a small noise in his sleep, helpless, frightened. Definitely a nightmare.
"Should you wake him?"
"You mean from the dream?" he asked.
I nodded.
He smiled. "Nice thought, but he won't wake up for hours. We could burn the place down around him and he wouldn't move."
"Why not?"
"You really want to know?"
"Sure, I've got nothing better to do right now."
He glanced up the silent hallway. "Good point." He settled back against the wall, bare back searching for a more comfortable piece of wall. He frowned; so much for a comfortable wall.
"Stephen changed back from wolfman to human in less than a two-hour time span." He said it like it explained everything. It didn't.
"So?" I asked.
"Usually a shapeshifter stays in animal form for eight to ten hours, then collapses and changes back to human form. It takes a lot of energy to shapeshift early."
I glanced down at the dreaming shapeshifter. "So this collapse is normal?"
Richard nodded. "He'll be out for the rest of the night."
"Not a great survival method," I said.
"A lot of werewolves bite the dust after collapsing. The human hunters come upon them after they've passed out."
"How do you know so much about lycanthropes?"
"It's my job," he said, "I teach science at a local junior high."
I just stared at him. "You're a junior high science teacher?"
"Yes." He was smiling. "You looked shocked."
I shook my head. "What's a school teacher doing messed up with vampires and werewolves?"
"Just lucky, I guess."
I had to smile. "That doesn't explain how you know about lycanthropes."
"I had a class in college."
I shook my head. "So did I, but
I didn't know about shapeshifters collapsing."
"You've got a degree in preternatural biology?" he asked.
"Yep."
"Me, too."
"So how do you know more about lycanthropes than I do?" I said.
Stephen moved in his sleep, flinging his good arm outward. The blanket slid off his shoulder, exposing his stomach and part of a thigh.
Richard drew the blanket back over the sleeping man, covering him, like tucking in a child. "Stephen and I have been friends a long time. I bet you know things about zombies that I never learned in college."
"Probably," I said.
"Stephen's not a teacher, is he?"
"No." He smiled, but it wasn't pleasant. "School boards frown on lycanthropes being teachers."
"Legally, they can't stop you."
"Yeah, right," he said. "They fire-bombed the last teacher who dared to teach their precious children. Lycanthropy isn't contagious while in human form."
"I know that," I said.
He shook his head. "Sorry, it's just a sore topic with me."
My pet project was rights for zombies; why shouldn't Richard have a pet project? Fair hiring practices for the furry. It worked for me.
"You are being tactful, ma petite. I would not have thought it of you." Jean-Claude was in the hallway. I hadn't heard him walk up. But I'd been distracted, talking with Richard. Yeah, that was it.
"Could you stamp your feet next time? I'm getting sick of you sneaking up on me."
"I wasn't sneaking, ma petite. You were distracted talking to our handsome Mr. Zeeman." His voice was pleasant, mild as honey, and yet there was a threat to it. You could feel it like a cold wind down your spine.
"What's wrong, Jean-Claude?" I asked.
"Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?" Anger and some bitter amusement flowed through his voice.
"Cut it out, Jean-Claude."
"Whatever could be the matter, ma petite?"
"You're angry; why?"
"My human servant does not know my every mood. Shameful." He knelt beside me. The blood on his white shirt had dried to a brownish stain that took up most of the shirt front. The lace at his sleeves looked like crumpled brown flowers. "Do you lust after Richard because he's handsome, or because he's human?" His voice was almost a whisper, intimate as if he'd said something entirely different. Jean-Claude whispered better than anyone else I knew.
"I don't lust after him."
"Come, come, ma petite. No lies." He leaned towards me, long-fingered hand reaching for my cheek. There was dried blood on his hand.
"You've got blood under your fingernails," I said.
He flinched, his hand squeezing into a fist. Point for my side. "You reject me at every turn. Why do I put up with it?"
"I don't know," I said, truthfully. "I keep hoping you'll get tired of me."
"I am hoping to have you with me forever, ma petite. I would not make the offer if I thought I would grow bored."
"I think I would get tired of you," I said.
His eyes widened a bit. I think it was real surprise. "You are trying to taunt me."
I shrugged. "Yes, but it's still the truth. I'm attracted to you, but I don't love you. We don't have stimulating conversations. I don't go through my day saying 'I must remember to share that joke with Jean-Claude, or tell him about what happened at work tonight.' I ignore you when you let me. The only things we have in common are violence and the dead. I don't think that's much to base a relationship on."
"My, aren't we the philosopher tonight." His midnight blue eyes were only inches from mine. The eyelashes looked like black lace.
"Just being honest."
"We wouldn't want you to be less than honest," he said. "I know how you despise lies." He glanced at Richard. "How you despise monsters."
"Why are you angry with Richard?"
"Am I?" he said.
"You know damn well you are."
"Perhaps, Anita, I am realizing that the one thing you want is the one thing I cannot give you."
"And what do I want?"
"Me to be human," he said softly.
I shook my head. "If you think your only shortcoming is being a vampire, you're wrong."
"Really?"
"Yeah. You're an egotistical, overbearing bully."
"A bully?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
"You want me, so you can't believe that I don't want you. Your needs, your desires are more important than anyone else's."
"You are my human servant, ma petite. It makes our lives complicated."
"I am not your human servant."
"I have marked you, Anita Blake. You are my human servant."
"No," I said. It was a very firm no, but my stomach was tight with the thought that he was right, and I would never be free of him.
He stared at me. His eyes were as normal as they ever got, dark, blue, lovely. "If you had not been my human servant, I could not have defeated the snake god so easily."
"You mind-raped me, Jean-Claude. I don't care why you did it."
A look of distaste spread across his face. "If you choose the word rape, then you know that I am not guilty of that particular crime. Nikolaos forced herself on you. She tore at your mind, ma petite. If you had not carried two of my marks, she would have destroyed you."
Anger was bubbling up from my gut, spreading up my back and into my arms. I had this horrible urge to hit him. "And because of the marks you can enter my mind, take me over. You told me it made mind games harder on me, not easier. Did you lie about that, too?"
"My need was great tonight, Anita. Many people would have died if the creature had not been stopped. I drew power where I could find it."
"From me."
"Yes, you are my human servant. Just by being near me you increase my power. You know that."
I had known that, but I hadn't known he could channel power through me like an amplifier. "I know I'm some sort of witch's familiar for you."
"If you would allow the last two marks, it would be more than that. It would be a marriage of flesh, blood, and spirit."
"I notice you didn't say soul," I said.
He made an exasperated sound low in his throat. "You are insufferable." He sounded genuinely angry. Goody.
"Don't you ever force your way into my mind again."
"Or what?" The words were a challenge, angry, confused.
I was on my knees beside him nearly spitting into his face. I had to stop and take a few deep breaths to keep from screaming at him. I spoke very calmly, low and angry. "If you ever touch me like that again, I will kill you."
"You will try." His face was nearly pressed against mine. As if when he inhaled, he would bring me to him. Our lips would touch. I remembered how soft his lips were. How it felt to be pressed against his chest. The roughness of his cross-shaped burn under my fingers. I jerked back, and felt almost dizzy.
It had only been one kiss, but the memory of it burned along my body like every bad romance novel you'd ever read. "Leave me alone!" I hissed it in his face, hands balled into fists. "Damn you! Damn you!"
The office door opened, and a uniformed officer stuck his head out. "There a problem out here?"
We turned and stared at him. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what was wrong, but Jean-Claude spoke first. "No problem, officer."
It was a lie, but what was the truth? That I had two vampire marks on me and was losing my soul a piece at a time. Not something I really wanted to be common knowledge. The police sort of frown on people who have close ties with the monsters.
The officer was looking at us, waiting. I shook my head. "Nothing's wrong, officer. It's just late. Could you ask Sergeant Storr if I can go home now?"
"What's the name?"
"Anita Blake."
"Storr's pet animator?"
I sighed. "Yeah, that Anita Blake."
"I'll ask." The uniform stared at the three of us for a minute. "You got anything to add to this?" He was speaking to Richard.
"N
o."
The uniform nodded. "Okay, but keep whatever isn't happening to a dull roar."
"Of course. Always glad to cooperate with the police," Jean-Claude said.
He nodded his thanks and went back into the office. We were left kneeling in the hallway. The shapeshifter was still asleep on the floor. His breathing made a quiet noise that didn't so much fill the silence as emphasize it. Richard was motionless, dark eyes staring at Jean-Claude. I was suddenly very aware that Jean-Claude and I were only inches apart. I could feel the line of his body like warmth against my skin. His eyes flicked from my face down my body. I was still wearing only a bra underneath the unzipped jacket.
Goosebumps rolled up my arms and down my chest. My nipples hardened as if he had touched them. My stomach clenched with a need that had nothing to do with blood.
"Stop it!"
"I am doing nothing, ma petite. It is your own desire that rolls over your skin, not mine."
I swallowed and had to look away from him. Okay, I lusted after him. Great, fine, it didn't mean a thing. Ri-ight. I scooted away from him, putting my back to the wall, not looking at him as I spoke. "I came here tonight for information, not to play footsie with the Master of the City."
Richard was just sitting there, meeting my eyes. There was no embarrassment, just interest, as if he didn't know quite what I was. It wasn't an unfriendly look.
"Footsie," Jean-Claude said. I didn't need to see his face to hear the smile in his voice.
"You know what I mean."
"I've never heard it called 'footsie' before."
"Stop doing that."
"What?"
I glared at him, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter. A slow smile touched his lips. He looked very human just then.
"What did you want to discuss, ma petite? It must be something very important to make you come near me voluntarily."
I searched his face for mockery, or anger, or anything, but his face was as smooth and pleasant as carved marble. The smile, the sparkling humor in his eyes, was like a mask. I had no way of telling what lay underneath. I wasn't even sure I wanted to know.