Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 21)

CLAUDIA AND PRIDE had to hand their weapons over, and the nice desk officer locked them away for them. Claudia had gone through this once before; that time I'd passed it off as two girls going out for some shopping and range time, and then I got that emergency call. This time I couldn't pretend that they were anything but what they were: bodyguards, my bodyguards.

Zerbrowski pulled out a chair so that Claudia could have a seat by his desk. He made suitably lecherous comments to her. She stood up and looked down on him, way down on him, since he was five-eight. She gave him her best glare, until he grinned and teased her until her mouth quirked and she almost smiled.

She looked across the room at me. "He doesn't mean a damn word of it, does he?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Hey," Zerbrowski said, "I resent that, I mean everything I say. I am a pervert, I swear!" He raised his hand like he was about to be sworn into court.

We both laughed at him. He grinned at us, and it was just Zerbrowski.

Pride actually got invited to sit with Detective Tammy Reynolds, Larry's wife. I'd been surprised at first, but Tammy hadn't been as mean to me as Larry was, partly because she'd been gone for a while. Tammy was a natural witch, a psychic, and the Church had made room for people like her as a kind of holy warrior. They used their abilities to help the Church defeat Satan in all his forms. A lot of the witches went into police or social work. She'd taken a year of maternity leave with their daughter, and then gotten transferred to the Preternatural Branch at the FBI. She'd only been back a few weeks.

Her long brown hair was pulled back into a sensible ponytail. Her skirt suit was brown with a white button-down shirt, as sensible as the hair and lack of makeup. She was still pretty, but the clothes wouldn't have flattered anyone. She was five-eight to her husband's five-four, and I'd always liked that she hadn't had a problem being taller than Larry.

Dolph had sort of loomed behind me. Claudia had stood to shake his hand, which made Pride come over and do it, too. It was nice to see a woman who was so close to Dolph's six-eight. Pride looked small beside them, which made me smile. Did I feel tiny standing there with them all? A little, but I was used to it.

Dolph took me back so I could get a look on the video at our supposed human servant, before I went into the interrogation room. "See if you can tell anything from a distance," he said.

I looked at the grainy black-and-white image. The man sat very still, hands folded on the table in front of him. He had short, dark hair, cut very traditionally. His shirt was white and button-down, top button open, no tie. His suit jacket looked black or true navy; either way the clothing was dark and conservative. There was a glass of water sitting by his hand. He never touched it. He sat, he blinked, and he waited.

"He looks almost too ordinary," I said.

"He looks like a thousand businessmen in this country," Dolph said.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Is he a human servant?"

I shook my head. "The point of a human servant is to appear human. I can't tell from here. I'll need to be physically closer."

"So far almost everyone associated with this group has tried to kill you, Anita."

I glanced up at him. "I can't break through his defenses and tell you if he's human or human servant without getting in the room with him."

"If he is a human servant, will he be faster and stronger than normal?"

"A bit, but mainly he's harder to hurt, harder to kill, just tougher. He shares his master's near-immortality."

"Why do you say near-immortality?" Dolph asked.

"Because anything you can kill with a gun or a blade isn't immortal, just hard to kill."

He smiled and nodded. "Agreed." Then his face went back to being serious. "I don't like you going in there with him."

"You guys searched him for weapons and explosives, right?"

He nodded, again.

"I trust you guys to do your job."

My phone sounded its text noise. I checked it automatically and found a text from Pride that read, "She's trying to convert me to her version of Christianity. Rescue me, or I'm going to be rude."

"Crap," I said.

"What's wrong?"

"Detective Tammy is back to trying to recruit the preternaturally talented for the Church."

Dolph scowled. "Religious freedom allows her to do it, but I have talked to her about concentrating more on saving lives than souls."

"Is she more zealous than she was before she left?" I asked.

"Seems to be," he said.

"I need to go rescue Pride and move him to a different desk, then let's talk to the human servant." I made air quotes around the last two words, a little hampered by the phone in one hand.

"Go save your bodyguard, then I'll walk you in to our businessman."

I didn't even argue that I didn't need Dolph at my back. There were people who would jump me, even with my reputation, who would hesitate at attacking with someone male and Dolph's size beside me. I could hate that it was true, but it was still true.

I went to rescue my tiger. Pride's face was darkening under his pale gold tan. His shoulders, arms, and hands were tight with tension, bordering on anger. Tammy had tried to recruit me to the order of holy witches when she first joined RPIT, and I'd been Episcopalian, so Christian. Pride wasn't, none of the golden tigers were; they all followed a pantheistic religion that had originated in China centuries before Jesus Christ had been a glimmer in the Creator's eye. Their religion had evolved from centuries of being in other countries and having to hide that they hadn't all been slain during the reign of the First Emperor of China in the early two hundreds BC, yeah, as in 259 BC to 210 BC. But the golden tigers were very devout to their faith; they didn't see it as inferior to the upstart religion that had started as a Jewish rebel sect.

I was almost to him when Arnet blocked my path. She spoke low. "Is he another boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend, or my lover, just a guard."

"You swear," she said, arms crossed across her small, neat breasts. I could never do that; my breasts were too big, I had to go under them and sort of lift.

"I swear," I said.

She smiled. "I'll rescue him from the Minister then."

It took me a moment to realize that "the Minister" was Tammy's nickname. Arnet swayed toward them; her skirt suit was cut to show off her ass, and though she was thin, she had a figure. She was also wearing makeup, understated, but Arnet made an effort. She used all that effort as she touched Pride's shoulder and then smiled down at him, and at Tammy. She got him up and moving to her desk. Pride looked at me across the room, and I gave a small nod; he nodded back and let Arnet pull him up a chair. He was safe from Tammy's recruitment drive, and he knew my background with Arnet, so he was as prepared as I could make him.

Zerbrowski was pretending to be scandalizing Claudia, but as I walked by to check on them, I saw that he was actually showing her pictures of his kids on his iPhone, not naughty pictures. He pretended to be a terrible lech, but in reality he was one of the happiest and most devoted family men I'd ever met. Katie, his petite and lovely wife, had told me once at a barbecue at their house that she thought his outrageous flirting was an outlet he needed. Apparently, he'd flirted like that when they first met, and she'd thought he didn't like her because she was the only girl he didn't flirt with; go figure.

Dolph sent two uniforms into the room ahead of us. They took up posts at corners of the room. Dolph said, "Mr. Weiskopf, this is Marshal Blake."

Weiskopf smiled, and it seemed genuine, as if he were really glad to see me. "Marshal Blake, Anita, I didn't expect to see you like this in an interrogation room. My master and I are very disappointed that it's come to this."

I offered him a hand across the table before I sat down. He hesitated, and then took it sort of automatically; most people will, even vampires, but he wasn't a vampire. His hand was just a hand in mine, warm, alive... human. I could have put some power into the touch, but he might take that as an insult so I minded my manners.

"What exactly has it come to, Mr. Weiskopf?" I said, as I sat down. Dolph actually pushed my chair in for me, which I'd have preferred he not do, because I still hadn't figured out the timing on that. I sat down too early, as usual, and got the chair shoved into the back of my knees, which sort of hurt. At least Dolph, like most of the men who insisted on the chair thing in my life, was strong enough to push me into place at the table.

Dolph stayed standing at my side, looming over both me and the man at the table. He was trying to be intimidating, and if you weren't used to someone his height, it usually worked.

Weiskopf rolled his eyes upward as if looking all the way to the top of Dolph's head, then back to me. He smiled, hands still clasped on top of the table. "My master does not approve of the violence done in the name of our cause."

"And what cause is that?" I asked. I couldn't think how a crackpot human could have gotten the name Benjamin from our interrogation of Barney the vampire, but I'd learned to never underestimate the crazy. Crazy didn't mean dumb; some insane people were incredibly smart. Sometimes I wondered if you had to be a certain level of intelligent just to go crazy in style.

He smiled at me, his brown eyes filled with a gentle chiding. "Now, Anita, may I call you Anita?"

"If I have a first name to call you?" I smiled back at him. I even made it fill my eyes. The days when I couldn't lie with the best of them were long past.

His smile broadened. "I've been Mr. Weiskopf, or just Weiskopf, for so long that it will do."

"Weiskopf, just that?" I asked.

He nodded, smiling.

"Then you can call me Blake. Last name for last name."

"You think if I give you a first name that you will be able to trace it, and by finding me, you may find my master."

I shrugged. "It's my job to figure things out."

"No," he said, and the smile slipped, "it's your job to kill vampires."

"If they've broken the law, yes."

He shook his head, and he wasn't smiling now. "No, Anita, I mean, Blake, you've killed vampires for petty crimes. Things that humans would never have been executed for."

I nodded. "Three-strikes rules for vampires were very harsh."

He gave a bitter laugh. "Harsh, is that the best you can say?"

"Unfair, inhuman, monstrous, barbaric; stop when you like one of them."

"All of those, and more, but monstrous, I like that one. The human laws against vampires were monstrous; they made the humans into monsters. You became the bogeyman of all little vampires everywhere, Ms. Blake."

"Marshal Blake," I said.

He nodded. "Then I am Mr. Weiskopf."

"I didn't use your name, or title, Mr. Weiskopf."

"No, I suppose you didn't." He seemed to get a handle on himself, smoothing the lapels of his black suit; I could see that it was black, not navy, now. He tried to go back to smiling at me, but it didn't quite fill his eyes now. He was angry, and he didn't like me, or my job.

"My master and I do not believe in an eye for an eye. We advocated nonviolence, though you offered only violence."

"I helped get the three-strikes rule for vamps changed. Petty crimes don't add to the three strikes anymore. A vampire has to harm people to get a warrant of execution now."

"We do appreciate that your testimony in Washington was instrumental in getting the law modified, Marshal Blake. It gave us hope that Jean-Claude would be different from all the ones that have come before him."

Dolph interrupted, "All the what that have gone before Jean-Claude?"

Weiskopf looked up at Dolph, all the way up. "Leaders of the Vampire Council, of course. It's been in the news, Captain Storr; surely you don't want me to believe you are ignorant that there is talk of the first American head of our council."

"I've heard the rumors," Dolph said.

"They are not rumors. They are fact."

I sat there, trying to be very still, trying not to show in any movement, or lack of it, or facial expression that Weiskopf might know things that weren't in the news and that I might not want my fellow police officers to know.

"The fact that Jean-Claude tolerated the Church of Eternal Life, and did not insist they all take oath to him, gave us great hope."

I fought not to relax, because he could have said blood-oathed, and I really didn't want to go into details on that with Dolph. He might know, but he might not understand, what it meant for a vampire to take oath to the Master of the City.

"But then, Jean-Claude did demand it, and we lost hope."

"So, you decided to try to kill him," I said.

"No," Weiskopf said, and he looked serious, and shocked. "No, we never advocated violence. On my honor, and the honor of my master, we never encouraged anyone to do violence to anyone. We were most aggrieved to see the dead police officers on the news."

"You chose vampires that looked like children, or the elderly," I said. "You meant to appeal to the media."

"We suggested that we show the media that vampires are not all beautiful and sexy like your vampires. We wanted to show that vampires are truly people in many shapes and sizes, so yes, we chose a group, but we never meant for them to be used in such a vile way."

"Your master, Benjamin, was their master; he had control of them while they did this vile shit."

"No, my master is not theirs. We have purposefully not tried to control any other vampires except through speech and the persuasion that any normal human could use."

"Bullshit," I said.

He let me see that flash of anger again. "I have given you my word of honor."

"He's a master vampire, and they didn't belong to any other master; it means that a powerful enough vampire exerts more control over them than any human ever will."

"Only if the master wills it so, and my Benjamin has been most careful for centuries to control no one but himself."

"Vampires are all about the food chain, the hierarchy; everyone owes allegiance to someone. Your master didn't just spring into being, he came from a bloodline of some vampire, so he owes allegiance to that line, and whoever created him."

"His master was killed by one of the long-ago vampire hunters, the predecessor of you, the Executioner. We were told that if the master of our bloodline died, then we would die with him, but we woke the next night. It had been a lie to keep us from attacking the head of our order."

"I only know one line that had its head wiped out, and only two vampires that survived it."

"Your Wicked and Truth, yes, they survived as my master survived, but our bloodline sprang into being and fled into the wilderness. He did not want to be part of the hierarchy of blood and depravity, but of course, by being a master and acquiring followers he began to value the growing power over his own good intentions, and they were good intentions once. He meant us to live as holy a life as the cursed could."

He was talking of some unknown bloodline that had basically tried to run a monastery in some isolated area. "A vampire monastery?" I made it a question, but couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice entirely.

"Exactly; as much as the head of my master's bloodline could make it. He was devout, so his very faith made holy objects work around him; it was most distressing to all of us."

I fought not to show surprise, because he was basically saying the vampire had not lost his faith, and his very faith had made holy objects flare around him. I tried to wrap my head around the idea of a vampire that made holy objects work against him, due to his own faith. It was just too weird.

"You may think what you will, Anita Blake, but I am telling the truth."

"Were you there, or is this just what Benjamin tells you?" I asked.

Weiskopf looked at me, very serious eye contact now. "You know as well as I do how complete the memories can be between master and servant. I know the truth, whether this body was present for the events, or the other body was alone for the making of certain memories. We were there. We saw the truth."

I didn't like the way he kept saying we; it was creeping me out. Was that what would have happened to Jean-Claude and me if we weren't so very careful about all the psychic connections between us? I thought about the months of learning curve when Richard, Jean-Claude, and I had all intruded on each other emotionally, sensorily, and in dreams. If we hadn't done anything to fight that... I remembered moments when I hadn't been sure whose body I was in, and who was seeing what. Yeah, if we hadn't set up rules of psychic etiquette, it could have made us into one mind with three bodies, or that was what Richard and I were afraid of. I wasn't sure if it scared Jean-Claude or not, only that it scared the hell out of me. To the point that I'd run for the hills for six months at a time, and left them both alone physically, emotionally, and as tight as I could shield psychically.

I sat there and listened to Weiskopf say we, and knew he meant it. They were a we, no longer an I. My skin ran cold with the thought of it.

"What has frightened you?" Weiskopf asked.

Fuck, I wasn't doing a very good poker face. Double fuck. I tried to rally and distract him. "So, some long-ago vampire hunter hunted the head of Benjamin's line down and killed him. Killing the master never kills all the little vampires, Mr. Weiskopf. It never has, not a single time, when I've done my job."

He studied me. "But they were small masters, the creator of a bloodline, the fountain of blood, the Fontaine de sangre; slaying that vampire is supposed to kill everyone descended from them. But it was a lie to keep us from rebelling against our creators. It was a lie, because we woke the next night. We, alone, woke."

"Benjamin was strong enough to make his own heart beat, simple as that," I said.

"No," Weiskopf said, and he leaned toward me over the table. "No, it's not that simple."

"Then why didn't the other vampires wake that next night? If it was all a lie, they should have all woken up," I said.

"The vampire hunter killed many of them. He murdered them in their caskets, their caves."

"Had they murdered people in the surrounding area?"

He nodded. "Our master had grown depraved with power. You cannot seek to control other vampires without it leading to corruption of your very mind and soul. So we sought to control no one but ourselves."

"And how did that work for you?" I asked.

"We were drawn to make followers, but we resisted. We traveled, always, so that we did not come to the attention of any other master. We did not want to fight for a territory, and we didn't want to be forced to bend our knee to any other vampire. We wanted only to be left alone."

"You had followers. They killed two police officers. One of them was about to kill his pregnant ex-wife when we stopped him."

"Killed him, you mean," Weiskopf said.

I nodded. "Fine, yes, killed him, but if it was him or a pregnant woman who'd done nothing wrong besides leaving her abusive ex-husband, I'd make the same choice again."

"As would we," Weiskopf said. "Saving the woman and the unborn child was the right thing to do."

I couldn't help but frown at him. "Glad you see that."

"Don't be so surprised, Anita Blake. We believe in violence to save the innocent. We are not complete pacifists."

"Good to know," I said.

"We had followers in the way of any human leader, but we did not make them bow to us. We did not make them take an oath to us. We were very careful to use only words."

I shook my head. "Weiskopf, a master vampire exerts control over lesser vampires just by being near them; it's like some kind of preternatural pheromone."

"You lie," he said, and he sounded so sure.

"Don't you understand, that's how a Master of the City knows another master is in his territory. They sense it."

"But your Jean-Claude did not sense us."

I tried to think of a safe way to reply to that. "Which means your Benjamin is very old, and very powerful. Let's say that he truly is trying not to exert control over other vampires. Let's say he honestly believes that he is just talking to them, just telling them that they deserve to be free of any master."

"That is all we want, for us, and for them. Freedom from eons of dictatorial rule, is that so awful a goal?"

"No," I said, and I believed it. "No, Weiskopf, it's a good ideal, it's a great ideal."

It was his turn to look surprised. "I did not expect you to agree."

"I'm just full of surprises," I said.

"I should have known you would be, Anita Blake."

"Anita," I said, "just Anita."

"Being friendly will not fool me," he said.

"I'm just tired of hearing you say Anita Blake. I feel like I'm in trouble with a teacher at school."

He smiled and nodded. "I understand; very well, Anita, and thank you for letting me use your given name."

"You're welcome. So, you and your master decided to try to free the little vampires from the control of the master vampires?"

"Exactly."

"I believe that vampires are people, Weiskopf, or I wouldn't be dating them; I wouldn't be in love with one, or two."

"Then how can you continue to execute them?"

I sighed, and felt my shoulders slump. I made myself sit up straight again. "I've actually been having a little crisis of conscience for a while."

Dolph stirred beside me, a minute involuntary movement. I fought not to glance at him, but to pay attention to the man in front of me.

"So you believe you murder them?"

"Sometimes," I said.

"All the time," he said.

I shook my head. "I've seen vampires do horrible things. I've walked through rooms so thick with the blood of their victims that the carpet squished underfoot and the room smelled like raw hamburger."

He flinched at that.

"I don't believe killing the animals that did that was murder."

He looked down at his hands on the table, then back up at me. "I can see that. Just as the one who tried to kill his wife, Bores, was in the wrong and had to be stopped."

"Yes," I said.

"Would you kill a human who had done awful things?"

"I have," I said.

Weiskopf glanced up at Dolph. "Do your fellow officers know that?"

I nodded. "Sometimes the bad guys aren't all vampires. I've helped the police hunt down and execute them, too."

He narrowed his eyes at me, so cynical. "Humans have more rights; you can't just kill them."

"Do you consider shapeshifters human?" I asked.

"The law gives them the right to trial, unless the warrant has been issued for their deaths. Once the death warrant has been issued, they are as much a pariah of human society as a vampire."

"So, is Benjamin trying to free the wereanimals from their pack leaders?"

He looked startled for a moment, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

I smiled, but knew it wasn't pleasant. "All the old vamps think the shapeshifters are lesser beings. You think of them as animals, not people."

He truly looked disturbed. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, "I cannot dispute your accusation. It did not occur to us to try to free them of their oppression, because they are animals, and animals need discipline, a leash of sorts to keep them from running amok and slaughtering the innocent."

"Vampires need the same thing," I said.

He shook his head. "That is not true."

"Bullshit," I said, "the newly risen can be just as animalistic as any first-time shapeshifter." I pulled my shirt collar to one side to expose the collarbone scar.

"That was no vampire," he said.

"You have my word of honor on that." I slipped out of my jacket, and since I'd had to give up all my weapons to enter the interrogation room, I could show off the scars really well, no sheaths to hide them. I showed him the bend of my elbow where the same vampire that did my collarbone had torn at my arm like a terrier with a rat.

"You have a cross-shaped burn scar."

"Yeah, some human Renfields thought it would be funny to brand me with it."

"And the scar that pulls the skin so it's crooked, what made that?"

"A witch that had shape-changed."

"Not a shapeshifter?" he asked.

"No, it was a witch that used magic to steal the animal of a real lycanthrope."

"I was there for that one," Dolph said. "Anita helped save one of my officers."

It had been Zerbrowski with his guts spilling out. I'd held them in with my hands while uniforms refused to help, because they thought the witch was a real lycanthrope and they might catch it. I'd held pressure on his wound, and screamed at them that they were fucking cowards, but Dolph and I had gotten Zerbrowski out of there alive. I'd been the one who held Katie when she fainted at the hospital. There were reasons that Zerbrowski and I partnered, and that Katie made sure I and my sweeties were invited to the barbecues and dinners. She wasn't comfy with the vampires visiting, but she let my furry sweeties come visit. She'd made sure the other cops knew that if they couldn't deal with it, they could leave. Katie seemed so soft, but there was steel under that silk, and she'd used it to defend me and Nathaniel and Micah at the last summer cookout. I loved Katie for that day.

"The vampire that tore at you, he was the newly risen?"

"No," I said.

He shook his head. "No vampire that had been undead for any length of time would do that, unless it was one of the revenants, those poor things that are little better than ghouls."

"The vampire that did this to me was over a hundred years old, and no revenant. He chose to hurt me like this; he wanted to make me suffer."

"Why?" he asked.

"That's something he'd have to answer," I said.

"Is he alive to answer it?"

"No," I said.

"There are bad vampires, as there are bad people, I suppose," he said.

"They're people, Weiskopf, just people, and like all people, some of them are good, and some are bad, but now they're bad people with super-strength, super-senses, and bloodlust. Without a master to hold their leash, they're like most people, power drunk."

"No," he said.

"They've killed two police officers. It was a trap to kill me."

He looked at the table. "They had talked of slaying you and Jean-Claude. We had told them no, but apparently they went ahead without us."

"If you'd really been their master, you could have prevented that, and all of this."

"But that would defeat our purpose, Anita. We wanted them to be free, to prove that vampires did not need to be herded and controlled like animals."

"You mean like the wereanimals," I said.

"They are part animal, Anita."

"I have more lovers who turn furry once a month than sleep in coffins."

He shuddered, actually shuddered, as if it made his skin crawl. "That is your choice, but vampires have no taint of beast in them."

"No, just like human serial killers, they're just people that do unspeakable things."

Dolph said, "We found bombs at the last house we raided."

That was a partial lie; we'd found the makings, or leavings, after bombs had been made, according to Alvarez, but the look of shock and horror on Weiskopf's face made the white lie worth it.

"Oh, no, no."

"What do they plan on doing with the bombs?" Dolph asked.

"How many did you find?"

And there is the problem with lying, you have to keep doing it.

"Two," Dolph said.

Weiskopf looked pale. "No, they can't."

"What are the targets?" Dolph said, and he leaned on the table, using his size to intimidate, but it was lost on Weiskopf. He was truly shaken by the news.

"They spoke of making bombs, but we told them no."

"But you didn't have any real authority over them, because you didn't make them take your oath," I said.

"They were better when we were with them."

"Yeah, the pheromones," I said.

He shook his head. "We worried that our very presence was affecting them, so we began to sleep elsewhere, away from them."

"Fuck, Weiskopf, that lost you and your Benjamin what little control you had over these people."

He looked at me, and there was real anguish in his face. "There has to be a way to be free. There has to be a way to be just human again."

"You're vampires, Weiskopf," I said, and my voice was soft, because I heard the pain in his voice. "That can't be changed, and that means that you need a master."

He shook his head faster, as if trying to shake a thought out. "No, no, that would make everything we've done... useless."

"What are the targets for the bombs?" I asked.

He looked at me. "The Church of Eternal Life; they feel that Malcolm betrayed them all by making them take oath to Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude's clubs and businesses. You and Jean-Claude. There were many who felt if they could kill him, and you, that they would be free. We told them that wasn't true, that you were the best and most modern prince that we had ever seen. That you gave us hope."

My pulse had sped, but he wasn't actually telling us anything we hadn't suspected. The guards would triple-check everything. We had good people. I believed that, I did, but I was still scared. "Are there any other human servants in your group?" I asked.

"No."

A little bit of the panic subsided. There was no one to use bombs during the day, and we'd killed their demolitions expert at the warehouse.

"Wait," I said, "are there Renfields; two-biters?"

He made a face of distaste. "Two-biter is an insult to humans we are bringing over."

"Renfields, then; do any of the vampires in your group have them?"

"A few," he said.

My pulse was back in my throat. "What are their names?"

He hesitated.

"If the bombs are used, then you and your master will be just as guilty as the rest," I said.

"You can stop this," Dolph said.

"If anyone dies because you didn't tell us, then you are as guilty as they are, and human servants are treated the same as vampires under the law if the vampires in question commit murder and the servants aid them in any way."

"We would never forgive ourselves if more innocent lives are lost," Weiskopf said, staring at his hands where they lay clenching each other on the table.

He told us the names. One of them wasn't in the system at all, but one had a record for assault, and the other was in the system because he'd worked as a court officer before he became a vampire; then he'd lost his job. The government, not just the military branch, didn't want vampires working for them. There was a case before the Supreme Court right now that might change that, but until it did, Clarence Bradley had lost his job, his pension, and over a decade of time in the system. That sounded like an excellent motive for all sorts of bitterness.

We put out an all-points bulletin on the one we had pictures for, and then started working to get the last picture we needed. My phone rang in the middle of it all, and I was only half-surprised when I heard Nicky's voice, "We have a problem."

"What?" I asked, and tried to keep my voice neutral just in case it was a problem that we wanted to handle without the other police.

"We have a Renfield with a bomb strapped to him, and a dead man's switch, so if he dies it blows."

"Where?" I whispered.

"Guilty Pleasures."

"It's closed right now," I said.

"They were here rehearsing the new dance routine."

My mouth was suddenly dry; my pulse couldn't decide it if was going to beat too fast, or stop altogether. "Who's they?"

"Our people took out two of them, but the last one, the one with the bomb, he grabbed..."

"Nicky, tell me."

"Nathaniel, the bomber has his arms wrapped around Nathaniel. If we shoot the Renfield, the bomb goes off. If we don't shoot him, eventually the bomb goes off."

I had a sudden wave of nausea, and had to sit on the edge of a desk and put my head down. Claudia was there, "Anita, what's wrong?"

So much for me being cool and hiding shit. "Why hasn't he blown it already?" My voice sounded almost normal. I didn't have enough brownie points to give myself for that.

"He wants you to come down. He says he'll let Nathaniel go for you."

"Okay," I said. I gripped the edge of the desk, and lowered myself to the floor with Claudia's help. I was still nauseous, and dizzy, and the room felt hot. Fuck.

"Anita, he may not let Nathaniel go. He may just blow it with both of you there. He's your leopard to call; if he takes you both out, then the chances of you actually dying are better, you know that."

"But he doesn't," I said.

"You don't know that, and he may just blow it with both of you because he can, Anita. You can't do this."

"I can't not do it," I said. I added. "Don't sacrifice Nathaniel to keep me safe, I'd never forgive you for it."

There was a crowd gathered around me. Claudia, and Pride, who was kneeling by me. Zerbrowski was there, and Arnet, and Tammy, and Dolph, and... I didn't care about any of them. In that moment I just cared about the one person who wasn't there.

"I would never hurt Nathaniel," he said.

"I thought you'd say, now that I told you you couldn't, you couldn't."

"He means something to me, too, Anita. I've had a pride of werelions, but this is the first home I've had since the woman who raised me... It doesn't matter. I want him safe, too."

And in that moment I knew that Nicky wasn't nearly as good a sociopath as I'd thought, or maybe as he'd thought.

"Keep him safe for both of us; I'm on my way."

"I will."

"Don't get yourself killed either, okay?"

"I won't on purpose.

"Nicky?"

But he'd hung up. I could have called him back, but what could I have said? Don't die on me. Don't any of you die on me. Yeah, I could have said that.