That made some of them glance at each other, as if looking for a clue, but most of them stayed with their guns nice and steady. One gun moved a fraction and was pointing at me; how could I tell? When you've had enough guns pointed directly at you, you get very sensitive to that kind of thing.
It was Ricky again. He'd used up all my goodwill at Danse Macabre last time I saw him. "Unless you're going to shoot me, move the gun off me, now," I said in a low voice.
"If that's Damian's blood, then you're more dangerous than he is." His voice was as steady as his hand, but there was an edge of anger to that calm.
One of the other guards, naked in the doorway, said, "Ricky, are you pointing your gun at one of our main protectees?"
Harris moved in front of us to act as a meat shield. Barry had his gun out, but neither of them wanted to draw down on this many of their fellow guards. I sympathized, but I also knew I'd be reporting their lack of enthusiasm for protecting my life. Since that was one of their main jobs, it wasn't reassuring.
I called out over the broad shoulders of my meat shield. "Ricky, the last time I saw you, Echo was telling you you'd fucked up, and now you've pointed a gun at me. You just don't want this job, do you?"
"You show up covered in blood and tell us it doesn't belong to the vampire--what are we supposed to think?" he asked. He even sounded like he might believe it. Maybe I had scared him more the first time we met than I realized. Sometimes, once you've used basically vampire powers on someone and let them keep the memory of what you did, they never get over it. I know I've held grudges against real vampires for shit like that.
I heard other sounds and knew the guards were closing around Ricky. They'd report what he'd done, because the only thing that hurts a bodyguard's reputation worse than having a client die on their watch is one of their own security specialists killing the client.
"You all smelled the fresh blood, but we were right on top of you before you reacted to it."
"Yeah." It was Bobby Lee wearing a pair of boxers and holding a Smith & Wesson M&P loose in his hands. His body was lean and muscled in that way that long-distance runners get sometimes; there was almost no body fat to him, so he looked impressively cut, each muscle showing under his skin, but it was a little too lean, and I wondered if he was eating enough. Bobby Lee was one of the men most likely to be sent out of country on mercenary work for the wererats that had nothing to do with us, and everyone deals with the stress of that kind of work differently. His short blond hair was still on end, but his gold-framed glasses showed that his medium-brown eyes were steady. He was always steady, was Bobby Lee, but I'd be talking to some of the other guards I trusted to see if he was doing okay.
"I didn't make Damian bleed. I just woke up in the mess with him."
"Well, darlin', if you didn't hurt him, who did? Because this is too much blood to be losing." He always had a slight Southern accent, and every woman was darlin'; when he was under stress, the accent got thicker and he started adding honey chile and sugar.
"It's a long story, Bobby Lee, but if you want to help these two walk us to Nathaniel and Micah's room so we can use the shower, I'll fill you in."
"Happy to help, ma'am. Can you give me a minute to get dressed and rearmed?"
"Sure."
He smiled, and then his brown eyes swam to black. His rat eyes in his human face. "Just so you know, darlin', the blood doesn't smell like vampire. It smells warmer than that."
I felt the jump of energy through the guards as their beasts flashed through them. I was suddenly looking at amber, orange, red, brown, and more black--wolf, lion, hyena, rat. I fought with everything I had not to shiver or show any sign of fear. Damian had gone so still that if I hadn't been holding his hand I wouldn't have been able to feel him there at all. I felt more from Nathaniel on the other side of him, even though we were both holding hands with the vampire and not each other.
The guards' energy whispered through me and I could see my own beasts inside me the way you see dreams in your head. My wolf, my lion, my hyena, my leopard, and my newest beast, rat, all looked up and their energy ran over my skin and spilled out toward the energy in the hallway. I had enough control now to make sure that was all that happened, and I was happy for that as I looked at them all, because smelling like fresh blood around a bunch of wereanimals isn't always good for your health, even if you had your own monster to throw back at theirs.
"And just like that, we don't know whether to fight you, fuck you, or eat you." Ricky again, though he was unarmed now with other guards on either side of him in a way that they usually reserved for bad guys.
"Two out of three isn't happening, Ricky boy, but that first one, maybe we should meet on the practice mats and see what happens."
"And when I start to win, you'll use your magic and cheat."
"If we meet on the mats, I promise not to eat your anger, or raise the ardeur."
"You'd fight me fair?"
"You're six feet plus to my five-three, so I'm not sure there's any way to have a fair fight between us, but if you mean I won't use any preternatural abilities that we don't both have, then yeah--a fair fight."
"Yeah, I'd like that, a lot." He gave me a look that held something close to hate. I'd humiliated him the first time we met. Yes, he'd started it, but I might have taken it too far, and if I did, then his reaction to me today was my fault. I was supposed to be his boss, so I'd try to fix it the only way I knew how, by letting him win. He was a big guy, and he was training with our guards, so I didn't expect to win; and because I didn't expect it, losing in a match with someone to call it before he hurt me didn't risk any ego on my part, and it might restore some of his. But this was the last chance for Ricky; if he ever stepped out of line after I saw him on the practice mats, either he was gone or he'd keep pushing until he got dead, and that was about as gone as you could get. I felt vaguely like it was my fault for messing with him the first time, so I'd literally go to the mats with him.
"Let me get this thing with Damian fixed, and we'll set something up," I said.
"Tomorrow?" Ricky asked.
"I don't think my problem will fix that soon," Damian said, and he managed to sound disdainful and sad at the same time.
"No," Nathaniel said, "it won't be tomorrow."
Ricky frowned at us, and just like the first time I'd met him, I wasn't sure he was the brightest bulb in the box. It was one of the things that had contributed to our misunderstanding. I had overestimated how much he understood of what I was saying un
til it was too late.
"It may be a few days," I said, "but you'll get your chance on the practice mat with me."
"You promise?" he said.
"I already did."
Ricky nodded and for the first time I saw something on his face besides fear, or hatred. I wasn't sure that his being eager to beat the shit out of me was really an improvement, but some days you take what you can get.
8
BOBBY LEE CAME back out minutes later with his still-wet hair combed in place. He was all in black, which was the unofficial uniform for the guards. Fully armed, he had on a black T-shirt, black tactical pants, a good leather belt with a black-on-black buckle, and matching boots laced up so that his pants were inside the tops of them. Most former military I knew wore their pants that way. Hell, I had all the same clothes and had started wearing them when I was out in the field serving a warrant of execution with the Marshals Service. I'd never been in the military but a lot of my friends had been, and a lot of the police I worked with had been, and I was always willing to learn from other people's experience. I still wore jeans a lot, but more and more tactical pants were becoming my go-to. It was partially the extra pockets, so damn useful.
"How you doing, Bobby Lee?" I asked.
He gave me a look, and then he smiled; the smile lines around his eyes seemed deeper, but his brown eyes shone with humor. "Darlin', you are covered in blood, holding a naked gun in one hand and a blood-soaked vampire in the other one, with your blood-covered boyfriend holding the vampire's other hand. Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"
He had a point. I laughed. "I'll stop throwing stones at your glass house until I get mine in order. I get it."
His smile widened into a grin. "Thank you, sugar. Now, let's get you to some showers that aren't full of shapeshifters that think all this fresh blood makes you smell good enough to eat."
I frowned at him, studying his face. Bobby Lee never flirted with me, so either the double entendre was unintentional, or it was just a statement of fact. Looking into his eyes, I thought the latter. "I've been around most of the guards with blood on me, or they've been around each other when they've been hurt in practice. Why is this more of a temptation?"