Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

I looked into Flannery's brown eyes and told the truth. "No."

"Does that bother Jean-Claude?"

"Sometimes he says it does, but honestly, I think it's one of the things he likes about me."

"That you will never call him master and mean it?" Flannery asked.

I nodded.

"I think you're right," Fortune said. "He wants partners, not servants in his romantic life. I've never known a man centuries old who wanted to be in less control of women."

"Jean-Claude is a modern kind of guy," I said.

"Maybe," she said, and there was something in her look that let me know had we been alone there would have been more to say. But it wasn't the kind of information you shared in front of strangers. I didn't poke at it, because Fortune was a good judge for what was public-speak and what wasn't. I trusted her judgment and I let it go. I could be taught.

"Show us the cell you want Magda to try to smash her way out of," I said.

Flannery and most of the others were watching the exchange between Fortune and me. He, Donnie, and Griffin all seemed to understand that the conversation had stopped for a reason, but they didn't push at it. Apparently, they'd come knowing when to back off a topic. It had taken me years to learn that particular lesson.

Flannery led the way to a door in the far wall. It was a different door from the one that Nolan and Edward had vanished through. Wherever they had gone, it wasn't to the cell block. I'd love to think that Edward would tell me later exactly where they had gone, but I knew better. No one alive kept a secret better than Edward.

43

WE DIVIDED UP into two groups. One went to the control room, where all their security cameras would be recording things and they could look into the cell as well as the hallway outside the cell. The second group went to the hallway with Magda. I sent Nathaniel with Damian up to the control room, because I was pretty sure that Magda was going to get out, and violence of some kind seemed likely. I wanted both of them safe and out of it. Since Jake was keeping Giacomo safe he stayed with them, and Fortune stayed there for the same reason. If we didn't have to leave the vampires unguarded, then why do it? In fact, there was really not a good reason for most of us to go down to the cells, so in the end it was just Magda, me, Nicky, and Socrates. He wanted to see the state-of-the-art cells and he could talk police with Flannery, and Griffin, who had actually been in the Garda Emergency Response Unit, before Nolan recruited them. They were both former military, too, but their civilian jobs had been as cops. Donnie, Mort, and Brennan had always been military. One of them had even been military police, an MP, so they'd handled detainees before. Socrates got more information out of everyone in a shorter time than I ever could have. I had a badge and was technically a real cop, but because I'd never been military and I hadn't come up through the ranks like a regular cop, I just didn't know how to talk like all the other cops. Socrates was great at it. They liked that he'd been a detective in Los Angeles, a real cop, before his "accident." They'd gotten to the point of finding out that he was in a traditional marriage with nothing that made them uncomfortable or forced them to think outside the box. It made it all so much easier for him to find out that Flannery was married, too, and everyone else was single; beyond that I don't know because we got to the cell block.

There were two cells finished on one side of a corridor that was empty and smooth, as if it had been started and never finished. There were two more cells roughed out on the other side. Everything was painted white from ceiling to floor, so the hallway had a science fiction feel to it, complete with cameras near the ceiling inside clear bubbles that were supposed to be bulletproof. I was pretty sure that I knew a caliber big enough to make bulletproof into bullet resistant, but I let it go. We weren't here to test the cameras out; we were here to test the cells.

The doors were oversize, like they were expecting small giants. The hinges were large but strangely flat to the wall. There were two small windows in each door, one in the upper part and one in the lower part. Both had small bars in them and were covered by sliding metal panels. When the panels were closed the doors were solid metal.

Donnie used her earpiece to signal for the doors to be opened. "We can't open the doors from down here," she said.

"What if you have a medical emergency with one of the prisoners?" Socrates asked.

They exchanged a look between all of them who weren't us. "Like what kind of medical emergency could a shapeshifter or a vampire have?" Brennan asked.

"If you put more than one new shapeshifter in a cell together, they will tear each other up," he said.

"I thought they wouldn't attack each other," Donnie said.

"Whoever told you that was wrong," I said.

Socrates added, "We're less likely to attack each other, because humans smell more like food, but if a brand-new shapeshifter can't get to anyone else it will turn on another of its own kind."

"What about vampires?" Donnie asked.

"They can't feed on one another, so I don't think they'll try to hurt one another." But I was frowning as I said it. I looked at the others. "You know, I've never seen new vampires that didn't have an older one around somewhere. Will the newly vamped attack each other if there's no other food around? I mean, they don't know that they can't feed on each other unless someone tells them, right?"

"Giacomo says that other vampires smell bitter. They don't smell like something edible," Magda said.

"Okay, then probably you can house multiple vampires together and they won't eat each other, but that doesn't mean they won't be violent to each other. I mean, I've seen vampires kill each other."

"We don't have enough cells," Donnie said.

"I think these three will be fine together," Flannery said, and turned to me. "What do you think, Marshal?"

"I think you're probably right, but we should put vampires in separate holding areas if possible, or have them chained up so there's no chance of them hurting each other, or themselves."

"What are your cells for them like, then?" Griffin asked.

"They aren't held long enough for it to be pertinent," I said.

"What does that mean?" Donnie asked.

"It means she executes them," Brennan said.

"Well, not just me, but yeah, usually they're executed too quickly for special cells to be needed."

"You think they can't be held safely, don't you?" Flannery said.

"I think we tried it in the States and ended up with a lot of dead correctional officers and fellow prisoners trying to be fair to vampires, shapeshifters, and even human sorcerers."

"But you've fought to get more lenient legislation on the books in your country so that execution isn't the only answer," he said.

I nodded. "When the vampires are being controlled by a powerful enough master, they literally have no will of their own. They can be forced to kill and do other terrible things totally against their will. I fought to have the law reflect that. Because once I realized they really had no choice, killing them for it seemed worse, but the law didn't give me another option, so I worked to give myself another option."

"Then you would rather not have to execute them?" Flannery said.

I thought about my answer and finally said, "If I think the person I'm about to kill was innocent, then yes, I want an option, but don't mistake me for someone who's against the death penalty. Most of the people I've executed have taken multiple lives, and I believe that ending their lives saved others."

"We may have to agree to disagree," he said, smiling, but his eyes stayed serious.

"We may," I said.

The doors to the cells opened and one was as white as the hallway, but the other one was shiny. "Silver-infused paint," Nicky said.

"Maybe one is just a glossier paint than the other one," Donnie said.

He shook his head.

"How did you know that quickly?" she asked.

"Being around this much silver . . . you know."

"Then it will limit what you can do

inside the cell," Flannery said.

He shook his head.

"Magda is not getting in a silver-lined cell," I said.

"I am wearing good boots and I can use my clothes to protect my hands," she said.

"No."

She looked at the others and asked, "Do you want me to destroy the most expensive cell or the one that is the most useful?"

"Destroy away, as long as you can't get out," Brennan said.

"Destroying it means I will break out of it."

"The silver will sap your abilities and you'll be just as human as we are," he said.

She and Nicky both laughed. Socrates didn't. "That's not what silver does to us."

"I will be just as strong inside either cell. All you need to tell me is which cell you prefer I break out of, and which you want to keep for the vampire prisoners."

"You haven't even touched the door or walls yet," Mort said.

"I do not have to."

He looked puzzled and almost frowned, but mostly just puzzled. "How can you be that certain you can break out without trying first?"

"I know my capabilities," she said, giving him that calm face she did so well. I knew from experience that she could hide almost any thought behind that placid mask. It wasn't the pleasant smiling face that Fortune did; in fact, it unnerved some people because Magda looked almost totally unemotional when she did it. But I knew that she could be feeling anything, everything, behind that look, just like Fortune's one smile. It was a different way of hiding in plain sight.

Mort shook his head. "I thought I was arrogant."

"It is not arrogance. It is self-knowledge."

Mort stared up at her, studying her face and trying to see behind it, I think. He finally laughed. "That makes perfect sense to me."

"Are you saying your bragging is because you really are that good?" Donnie asked, smiling.

He gave her a look that was a little too direct, but she had started it. "Have I ever said I can do something and not been able to do it?"