Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 21)

I SAT ON the shallow curb in the weak spring sunlight in my vest and weapons, and had all the SWAT guys, plus Marshal Arlen Brice, Zerbrowski and Dolph, and a lot more of RPIT than I thought gave a damn, plus my bodyguards, huddling around me to keep everyone else back while I did the psychic dream of every hostage negotiator. We didn't need to call the suspect or get eyes into the club; I had eyes in the club already. I just had to "open" them.

I sat on the curb, and I was small enough that it was like sitting at the bottom of a well of very tall people, but that was okay. I was used to being the smallest kid in school. I opened the blocks I had put in the way of Dev first. Pride had suggested starting with Dev, because he was trained as a warrior, a spy, a guard, and an assassin, though he didn't say all that out loud to the police; he said guard, just guard. I lowered my shields for Mephistopheles, my Devil. He hadn't come into my life until I'd had a lot of practice keeping my psychic and emotional distance from the people connected to me. I'd never let him in as far as Nathaniel could get, or Micah, or Jean-Claude, or... I'd kept him at a distance, because I knew how, because I could. Now, I tore down all that careful work and reached out to him.

I thought about making love to him. The feel of his body in mine, his skin under my hands, his... And just like that I was in. Most of the time it was like floating just above the people I was talking to, but the ties that bound me could get closer, much closer. I let that happen now, and I could see out of Dev's eyes for a moment. It was disorienting, and I drew back.

He blinked up at me where he could "see" me above him. He gave his version of blank cop face and then went back to staring across the room. I thought, What do you see? And just like that, I could see what Dev was looking at.

Sin was standing just a little farther toward the stage, ahead of everyone else, in the midst of all the little tables, most of them with their chairs put up on the tabletops, waiting for business that night. Nicky was the closest to the door, on the other side of Dev. Nathaniel stood against the wall on the far side of the stage, away from the doors. A man I didn't know had an arm around his neck. His other hand held something that looked like a cylinder with a button that he'd already pressed, and that startled me, except Dev thought at me, It's armed, but won't blow until he lets go. Pressing down armed it, letting go blew it.

I moved my perception to Sin. He did startle.

I heard the bomber say, "What's wrong? Where is Anita Blake? Where is she?"

Sin said, "Let my brother go."

"He's not your brother!" He yelled it.

"Yes, he is."

"Shut up! You, lion! Call her again!"

Nathaniel said, "Cynric, leave, please."

I felt Sin shake his head, felt the depth of his stubbornness, and knew he wouldn't leave. It wasn't a death wish, it was just a decision. He wouldn't leave Nathaniel. He just wouldn't.

I thought about Nathaniel, and I could feel the man's arm across my shoulders. I was looking at Sin, seeing his blue eyes too wide, his face pale, visibly scared, but not leaving. I felt Nathaniel's fear for him, tasted his pulse in my own throat, or was it my throat? I had a moment in which I could taste three pulses in my body, and none of them were mine. One of the reasons I had learned to shield like a son of a bitch was that I didn't want to end up like Weiskopf and his master, just one mind in two bodies, or three bodies, or four, or... When it had just been Jean-Claude, Richard, and me, we'd had moments of being almost a group mind floating between three bodies. I felt it for the first time with all of them, only Nicky was left out of this level of intimacy, if that was the right word for having someone else's heart beating in your head.

I felt their emotions like cards fanned out in my hand. I caught bits of thought. Dev seemed better at complete sentences, and just thinking about it let me know that the same people who had trained him to fight had trained him psychically. The gold tigers had been raised to be the perfect instrument of whatever master finally claimed them. That master had been me, though technically according to vampire law, Jean-Claude.

Nicky moved closer to Dev; he felt my energy, I knew he did. "I'll call her, just be cool, okay?" he said.

"Call her!" The bomber screamed it this time.

I pulled back, but it was like folding clothes in a suitcase. You never quite got them all put back as neatly and completely the second time. I could feel bits of the connection to all the men inside the club.

My phone rang, and Pride had to help me get it out of its pocket. I was having trouble telling my hands from much bigger ones in that other room. Crap, I had to do better than this, and then I realized I didn't want to close the door completely. If I lost Nathaniel, lost them all, this might be the last touch of them I had. I didn't want to give it up.

Dev thought in my head. Cut ties, Anita, we can't function like this.

I did what he asked, but it was Nathaniel I left last, drawing away like I was caressing him from the inside out. I brought the scent of his hair and skin with me, as I spoke into my phone. "Nicky."

"He wants you inside."

A spurt of fear from Nathaniel broke through the newly raised shields. He was afraid, and I felt a thought in his head that he would set it off before I got there, because he thought the bomber meant to blow him, me, and Dev up; two animals to call and me at the same time upped the chances of my really dying.

"Nathaniel is thinking about blowing the bomb before I get there. He's convinced the bomber is trying to kill me with my two cats, so I'll die for sure."

"Probably true," Nicky said in a very matter-of-fact voice. I could almost picture the smile on his face: pleasant, unreadable.

I thought at Nathaniel, thought hard, Don't you dare!

The bomber screamed, "What is that? If you shift, you die!"

"The energy in here just spiked. We're all nervous enough that our human friend here felt it." It was his way of warning me off.

The bomber was more sensitive than I'd hoped. Damn it!

"Where are you?" Nicky asked.

"Just down the road," I said.

"Traffic sucks, huh?"

"You don't want me to come inside," I said.

"No."

"You think he'll blow it as soon as I step inside?"

"I think so."

"Crap."

"Yes."

"Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Not sure that's a good idea."

The bomber started screaming, "Tell her she has ten minutes, that's it, that's it!"

"Hear that?" Nicky asked.

"I heard. Tell him thirty," I said.

"I'll try." He hung up.

"Tell us what's happening," Hill said.

I told them where everyone was, and that the bomber's nerve seemed to be failing him. "He's starting to panic."

"If it weren't a dead man's switch that'd be good news," Hill said.

"How quick are Nathaniel's reaction times?" Zerbrowski asked.

I glanced at him. "Fast."

"Faster than you were in the warehouse when you stopped Billings from hitting the kid vampire?"

I thought about that. "Yes, he's faster. They all are."

"Everyone in there?" Zerbrowski asked.

I nodded.

Claudia said, "Anita's fast, but she's not as fast we are."

"She's still human," Pride said.

"What are you thinking?" I asked Zerbrowski.

"I think your boyfriend is right. I think this guy will blow you and them up as soon as he thinks you're close enough to die with him."

"Not helpful," I said.

"Hear me out. There was a group of men playing ball in Israel when a guy in a bomber vest with a dead man's switch came in; they jumped him, held his hand pressed on the button until the police got there and shot the bomber."

"He's human," Dolph said, "you can't just kill him."

"He's a human involved with the group that killed two cops. Anita's warrant of execution allows her to kill anyone who is involved in the crime that the warrant pertains to."

"That's when you're on an active hunt," Dolph said. "It was never intended to allow a police officer to shoot a human being in cold blood."

"If it was your wife with an arm around her neck and a bomb pressed to her back, would you be shooting in cold blood?" I asked.

"No," he said, finally.

"Wait," Hill said, "you're saying we let Anita go in there, and hope that all of them figure out that they're supposed to jump the bastard and hold him until we get in and kill him?"

"Yeah," Zerbrowski said.

"Nathaniel isn't trained in hand-to-hand combat," Claudia said.

"Dev and Nicky are," Pride said, "and Sin isn't bad for a beginner, and he's wicked fast."

My pulse was in my throat again, but my skin was cold in the sunshine. "I can 'tell' three of them what we plan to do." I made air quotes for the tell part.

"Nicky's good," Claudia said, "he'll move when they do."

"You mean when I do," I said.

"He's human with a couple of vampire bites on him," Pride said. "He won't be stronger than Nathaniel, Sin, Dev, and Nicky."

"You're saying I won't get a piece of him?"

"You won't need to grab him," Pride said.

"I don't understand."

Bram spoke for the first time. "He means you get to blow his brains out so that he can't set off the bomb."

Dolph shook his head. "I'm not sure this is legal."

"I've read those warrants backward and forward," Zerbrowski said, "it's legal by the letter of the law, and there's no trial to worry about, because once a warrant is executed it's done."

We all looked at each other.

"I don't like the idea of you going in there alone," Hill said.

"He never said no police," I said.

Hill smiled, and it was a fierce flash of teeth, like showing fangs. "Then I got your back."

"We," Killian said, "we got her back."

And that was what we did. I let Nathaniel and the others know what I needed them to do. I trusted that Nicky would move when Nathaniel did, and I bet his life on his speed and ability to wrestle the bomber long enough for the others to cross the room and help him. They just needed to wait, and then I'd be in the room with full SWAT backup. It all depended on Nathaniel using that same hand-eye coordination and speed that made him so amazing on the dance floor, in the gym, at the shooting range, to keep the bomber's hand pressed tight to the switch. That was all he had to do, and then the others would be there, and they'd pile on top of the bomber... and either they'd have him safe until we got there to finish it, or they'd all blow up together. As plans went, I'd heard better, but Hill, Killian, and the rest were willing to walk in with me. They were willing to trust that if I believed the loves of my life could do this, then they could. I trusted the men in my life, and Hill, Killian, Derry, and the rest, trusted me. Fuck, fuck, fuck.