Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 21)

SMITH SAW ME come out of the alley. "Your boyfriend making you feel guilty, too?"

"Something like that," I said, wiping one last time at my face. I was glad all over again that I didn't wear makeup to crime scenes.

"I think my girlfriend is going to dump my ass; she can't deal with the job."

"At least she can dump you," I said.

"What?" Smith asked.

I waved it away and we went back to work - to our job, the job - and left the shambles of our personal lives for later. The job came first, because if we failed at that, people died. If we failed at our personal lives, only emotions died, but there are moments when it feels like a broken heart is a kind of death, and you'd trade a little less crime busting for a way to fix that part of your life.

I should have probably been more sympathetic to Smith, but I was feeling too sorry for myself to have any sympathy left over, and the moment I realized that, I stood a little straighter and tried to pull my head out of my ass and back in the game.

I turned and said to Smith, "Sorry to hear about the girlfriend, Smith."

He gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Thanks. How long have you been dating Jean-Claude?"

"About seven years," I said.

"When we've got some downtime, I'd love to hear how you manage to have a relationship and do this job."

I smiled, I couldn't help it. "We'll never have the talk if you wait for downtime, and I'm not sure what works for me will work for anyone else, but sure, I'll give it a try when we get a break. Ask Zerbrowski, too; he and Katie have been together for over a decade."

Smith grinned. "I figure that Zerbrowski's wife is a saint. I don't date saints."

I grinned back. "Katie is pretty perfect, but not a saint; they just work together as a couple really well."

"But how, how do they do it?" Smith asked, and that he asked it in the middle of an investigation meant that this girlfriend was special, important. Shit.

I went to him and spoke low. "Every person is unique, Smith, so every couple is unique. What works for one couple won't work for everybody. Hell, what's made Jean-Claude and me work this long is totally different from what makes Micah and me work, or Nathaniel." Smith had met both of the latter at Zerbrowski's house this summer at the RPIT barbecue. It had meant a lot to me that Katie had invited me to bring both of them. Jean-Claude and I were just linked in the tabloids. He was the vampire cover boy, so by just being near him I got my picture taken - a lot. Either way, those were the three boyfriends that Smith knew about. There were rumors of other lovers, but there are always rumors. I neither confirmed nor denied rumors. It was the best I could do.

Smith shook his head, looking serious. "Only Lieutenant Storr and Zerbrowski aren't divorced in the entire squad, did you know that?"

"No," I said, "I didn't know that."

He sighed, and just the woebegone look on his face let me know that he was really serious about this girlfriend.

"Zerbrowski needs me to question the vampires we still have in custody, but later, I'm willing to try to sit down with you and tell you what little I know about relationships."

"You have to be good at it, Anita, or you couldn't have so many of them that last years," he said.

I hadn't thought about it that way, and I started to say that it was the men who made it possible by compromising for me, and then I thought about it and realized that somewhere along the way I'd learned to compromise, too. Being a successful couple was learning what you were willing to compromise on, and what you weren't; learning when to stand your ground, and when to give it up; what was truly important enough to fight over, and what was just you being pissy. You learned each other's hot buttons, the places that hurt, or angered, when you pressed them. Love makes you learn where all the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them, or how to set them off.

"Maybe," I said, "but right now we've got work to do." I patted him on the shoulder and walked away. My phone rang; it was the theme from Charlie Brown, which meant it was Zerbrowski. He didn't know he had his own ring tone, and if asked I would never admit that it was because he was always messy, and his car was worse, like Pig-Pen from the comic strip. "Hey, Zerbrowski, I'm on my way."

"They aren't talking, Anita. They're trying to lawyer up."

"They can't lawyer up," I said, "they admitted in front of other police besides me that they watched the officers being murdered, which makes them just as guilty in the eyes of the law as the vamps that did the bloody deed. Vampires that have murdered humans are automatically executed."

"Bloody deed, fancy," he said, "but you're right. They don't seem to understand that their rights under the law are different from humans' now. If it had just been kidnapping the girl, they could have lawyered up."

"But they can't lawyer on murder," I said.

"No," he said, "I haven't exactly pressed on that, because once they realize they're just going to be executed then..." He let it trail off.

I finished for him. "They have nothing to lose, so they could fight, go apeshit. I would in their place."

"I know you would," he said.

"Wouldn't you?" I asked.

He was quiet for a minute. "I don't know."

"Letting someone kill you is harder than it sounds, if you have another option," I said.

"Maybe," he said, and his voice was thoughtful, too serious for him.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"There's something in your voice, Zerbrowski. What is it?"

He laughed, and it was suddenly him again, but his next words weren't. "Just thinking I hope you never end up on the wrong end of the law."

"Are you implying that I'd be treated as less than human?" I asked, and I was both angry and hurt.

"No, and you're a good cop."

"Thanks, but I hear a but in there somewhere."

"But, you react like a bad guy when you're cornered. I just don't want to see what would happen if you felt you were out of choices."

We were quiet on the phone, listening to each other breathe. "You've thought about this," I said.

"Hey" - and I could see him shrug, that awkward version he did in his ill-fitting suit - "I'm a cop; that means I do threat assessment. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of Dolph either."

"Should I be flattered by the company?"

"He's six foot eight, you're five foot three - he's an ex - college football player and power lifter who stays in shape. You're a girl. Yeah, you should be flattered."

I thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Okay."

"Why do I feel like I should apologize? Like when Katie gets that silence, that girl silence?"

"Don't know; why should you apologize for the truth?"

"I don't know, but you've got that same tone that Katie gets, so I know I'm in the doghouse for it anyway."

"You can't compare me to Dolph and then compare me to your wife, Zerbrowski?"

"You're my partner, and you're a woman; actually that's about right."

I thought about it for another minute, and then said, "Okay."

"Now that's an okay that really means okay, not that okay that women use when it means everything but okay."

I had to laugh then, because he was absolutely right. "What do you want to do to get them to talk?"

"I had an idea. It's going to make me into bad cop, and you into serial killer cop, but we have about twenty missing vampires that have already killed two police officers. They fled, because they do know that they're going to be executed when we catch them."

"Which means we need to find them fast," I said.

"I think they'll give up the others after we're done questioning them."

"What's your plan, Zerbrowski?"

He told me. I was quiet for a few heartbeats. "God, Zerbrowski, that's fucking evil."

"Thank you, thank you very much," he said.

"It wasn't a compliment," I said, and I hung up before he could say something funny, and jolly me out of what I was thinking. Dolph was more physically intimidating and had the worse temper. I was scary in a lot of ways, but Zerbrowski - he hid it better, but the inside of his head could be fucking scary, too. He'd be the last one you'd shoot, but it might be a mistake you wouldn't live through. I filed that thought away, with the thought that he'd been thinking what he'd do if I went over to the Dark Side of the Force. Partners shouldn't think that way about each other - should they?