Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“Anita, get out of there!” Newman’s voice was urgent. I didn’t look at him. I knew he’d have a gun in his hand by now, too. If I stopped blocking their aim, Bobby Marchand would die.

The man kneeling beside me blinked, his human face showing that he was already losing his words, because leopards don’t think in words.

“Your name is Bobby Marchand. You live in Hanuman, Michigan.”

He stared at me, frowning, as if he knew I was talking to him but in a foreign language that he couldn’t understand.

“Come on, Bobby, I know you’re in there. Talk to me.”

“If he shifts with the door open, we will have to shoot, and friendly fire is a bitch, Blake,” Leduc said from behind me.

“Then close the door.”

“Anita, no!” Newman said.

I just kept looking into Bobby’s face and willed him to answer me. “Bobby is still in there. He’s still fighting to stay human. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Do you, Bobby?”

He gave the smallest shake of his head; it was a start. I was so happy that he’d responded that I added my jolt of joy to the energy. It jumped down my hand into him. He shivered and then gripped my arm back where I still held on to him. The energy of our beasts swirled across each other’s skin, and when he blinked at me next, I saw his eyes widen in surprise. He didn’t whisper it, more breathed it out with his lips barely moving. None of the humans at the door heard him say, “Your eyes.”

I blinked and knew that if I’d had a mirror at that moment, my own eyes wouldn’t have been human either. My eyes were the only thing that ever changed for me. To save himself, he couldn’t find his words, but to warn me of danger, to save me, he’d found his human half.

I leaned in close to him, using his body to hide my eyes from the door, because if they saw us both with inhuman eyes, I didn’t know what would happen. No, I did know: They’d shoot us both. Maybe Newman would try to save me, but Leduc would shoot first and sort it out later, and his deputy would follow his lead. I hugged Bobby, resting my face in the bend of his neck on the side opposite the door. It gave him a perfect opportunity to tear my throat out, but I could feel the heat of his beast withdrawing like we’d finally found the knob to turn the oven off. From the doorway, people were yelling just my name or demanding to know what I was doing. But in that second, I knew if I looked back at my fellow officers with leopard eyes, they’d kill us both.

5

I RAISED MY voice to make sure all my fellow officers would hear me, but I was careful not to yell and startle the man in my arms. “We’re okay. We’re both okay.

No one is shapeshifting. Right, Bobby?”

“Right,” he said, voice low and hoarse. He had to clear his throat to be loud enough for them to hear him say, “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I’m okay. I’m not going to change.”

Newman said, “His eyes are blue again, Duke, Frankie. Let’s everyone calm down and lower the weapons.”

I drew back enough for Bobby to see my eyes. I thought they were human again, but I wasn’t a hundred percent certain.

He nodded and then said, “We’re okay. We’re both okay.” It was his way of saying we were both safe to look at the armed police on the other side of the bars. I took his word and looked back at them.

Newman’s gun was aimed at the floor. Deputy Frankie’s shotgun was lowering. It was Sheriff Leduc who still had his handgun wedged between the bars so he’d be sure not to miss us by bullets ricocheting against the metal. His eyes were wide, lips parted, breath coming a little too fast. I could almost see the pulse in the side of his neck thudding against his skin. He was the veteran officer of the three, so why was he the one who was freaking out?

I looked at him, met his brown eyes with my own so that I was giving him eye contact about as serious as I’d given anyone in a while. “Hey, Duke, I’d feel better if you lowered your sidearm or at least stopped pointing it in my direction.”

“Just move away from him, Blake.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Duke,” I said. I tried to make my voice as unemotional as I could. He was emotional enough for all of us. I did not need to add to it.

Newman said, “Duke, the danger is over. We can all stand down.”

A nervous tic started under one of Leduc’s eyes, and the tremor that ran down his hands was strong enough that the barrel of his gun scraped against the bars. “You saw Ray’s body,” he said in a voice that was choked with emotion.

“I did,” Newman said, his voice gentle, the way you’d talk to a spooked horse or a jumper on a ledge or a man with a gun.

Frankie said, “Duke, what’s wrong with you? Just lower your gun. It’s over.”

“It’s not over, Frankie. It won’t be over until someone pays for Ray’s death.”

His face showed so many raw emotions, I couldn’t read them all, but he was still thinking about pulling the trigger. If I hadn’t been kneeling in front of Bobby, he’d have done it even now with the danger past. Hell, he was thinking about shooting through me, and he hadn’t even seen my eyes change. As far as Leduc knew, I was just a U.S. Marshal here to help with the case, and he was still thinking about shooting me just so he could shoot his prisoner. I’d thought that being a fellow officer would mean something. It usually did, but as I looked into his face, I knew it didn’t mean enough.

“Duke, put down the gun now,” Newman said, and his voice was as serious as the gun he’d raised to point at the sheriff.