Bloody Bones (Vampire Hunter 5)

I grabbed my suitcase from the floor and carried it out before the bathroom door could open. I did not want to see him again. I did not want to see what happened to him when the sun rose.

When the sun had risen enough to pulse against the closed drapes like pale lemon liquid, I changed into a t-shirt and jeans. I had a robe with me, but if I was going to greet both Larry and Jason I wanted to be wearing some pants.

I called down for extra blankets and a pillow. No one bitched that it was a quarter past dawn, and a strange time to need bedclothes. They just brought the stuff. True class. The maid didn't even glance at the closed bedroom door.

I spread the blanket on the couch and stared at it. It was a pretty couch but didn't look terribly comfortable. Oh, well, virtue had its punishments. Of course, maybe it wasn't virtue that kept me out of the bedroom. If it had been Richard curled up in the next room, then only moral fortitude would have kept me out. With Jean-Claude... I had never seen him after dawn when he was dead to the world. I wasn't sure I wanted to see. I knew I didn't want to cuddle up next to him while the warmth left his body.

There was a knock on the door. I hesitated. It was probably Larry, but then again... I went to the door with the Browning na**d in my hand. Beau had had a shotgun last night. Paranoia, or caution; hard to tell the difference sometimes.

I stood to one side of the door and said, "Yes."

"Anita, it's us."

I hit the safety and put the barrel of the Browning down the front of my jeans. It was too big a gun to wear in an inner pants holster, but for temporary holding, that worked.

I opened the door.

Larry leaned against the doorjamb, looking rumpled and tired. He had a McDonald's sack in one hand, and four cups shoved into one of those Styrofoam holders. Two of the cups held coffee, the other two sodas.

Jason had a large leather suitcase under each arm, a battered, much smaller suitcase in his right hand, and a second McDonald's bag in his left. He didn't look the least bit tired. A morning person, even after no sleep at all. It was disgusting. His eyes flicked to the gun shoved in my waistband. He noticed, but he didn't comment. Point for him.

Larry never even blinked at the gun.

"Food?" I asked.

"I didn't eat much last night. Besides, Jason was hungry, too," Larry said. He came inside, putting the drinks and food on the wet bar. None of us drank; good to use the bar for something.

Jason walked through the door sideways with the suitcases and food, but there was no effort to it. He wasn't straining one little bit to carry it all.

"Showoff," I said.

He sat the luggage on the floor. "This isn't even close to showing off," he said.

I locked the door behind them. "I suppose you can bring the coffin up single-handedly."

"No, but not because it's heavy. It's just too long. The balance isn't right."

Great. Super werewolf. Though for all I knew, all lycanthropes could lift that much weight. Maybe Richard could lift coffins with one arm. It was not a comforting thought.

Jason started laying food out on the bar. Larry had already climbed onto one of the bar stools. He was pouring sugar into one of the coffees.

"Did you just leave the coffin in the lobby?" I asked. I had to lay the Browning on the bar to sit down. I was just too short-waisted to have it down my pants.

Larry sat the unopened coffee in front of me. "It's missing."

I stared at him. "You found the suitcases but not the coffin?"

"Yep," Jason said, as he finished dividing the food into three piles. He'd pushed some of it in front of both of us, but the lion's share was in front of him.

"How can you eat this early in the morning?"

"I'm always hungry," he said. He looked at me sort of expectantly.

I let it slide. It was too easy.

"Come on, I fed you that one," he said.

"You don't seem particularly worried," I said.

He shrugged, and slid onto a bar stool. "What do you want me to say? I've seen some weird shit since I became a werewolf. If I got hysterical every time something went wrong, every time someone I knew died, I'd be in the loony bin by now."

"I thought fights for dominance in the pack, except for pack leader, weren't to the death," I said.

"People forget," he said.

"I'll have to talk to Richard when I get back in town. He hasn't been mentioning any of this."

"Nothing to mention," Jason said. "Just business as usual."

Great. "Did anybody see who took the coffin?"

Larry answered, his voice sluggish even with the caffeine and sugar. There's only so much you can do on no sleep at all. "No one saw anybody take it. In fact, the only guy left from the night shift said, 'I just turned away for a second, and it wasn't there. Just the luggage standing there by itself.'"

"Shit," I said.

"Why take the coffin?" he asked. He drank most of his coffee. His Egg McMuffin sat untouched in front of him. They'd put hotcakes in front of me with a little tub of syrup beside it.

"Your breakfast is getting cold," Jason said.

He was enjoying himself too much. I frowned at him, but I opened my coffee. I didn't want the food. "I think the master is flexing a little muscle. What do you think, Jason?" I kept my voice casual.

He smiled at me around a mouthful of food, swallowed, and said, "I think whatever Jean-Claude wants me to think."

Maybe my voice had been too casual. I should really give up on subtlety; I just wasn't good enough at it. "Did he tell you not to talk to me?"

"No, just to be careful what I said."

"He says jump, and you say how high; is that it?"

"That's it." He ate a bite of scrambled egg, his face peaceful.

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"I don't make the rules, Anita. I'm not an alpha anything."

"And it doesn't bother you?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Sometimes, but there's nothing I can do about it. Why fight it?"

"I don't understand that at all," Larry said.

"Me either."

"You don't have to understand it," he said. He couldn't have been more than twenty, but the look in his eyes wasn't young. It was the look of someone who'd seen a lot, done a lot, and not all of it nice. It was the look I was dreading to see on Larry's face someday. They were nearly the same age; what had people been doing to Jason to give him such jaded eyes?

"What do we do now?" Larry asked.

"You're the vampire experts. I'm just Jean-Claude's pet."

He said it like it didn't bother him. It would have bothered me. I shook my head. "I'm going to call the cops, then get some sleep."

"What are you going to tell them?" Jason asked.

"I'm going to tell them about Xavier."

"Did Jean-Claude say you could tell the cops?"

I looked at him. "I didn't ask for permission."

"Jean-Claude wouldn't like you bringing in the police."

I just stared at him.

He blinked at me. "Don't do it just because I said that, please."

"He knows you pretty well for someone who's only met you twice," Larry said.

"Three times," I said. "Two out of three times, he's tried to eat me."

Larry's eyes widened a little. "You're kidding."

"She just looks so tasty," Jason said.

"I've had about enough of you," I said.

"What's wrong? Jean-Claude and Richard both tease you."

"I'm dating both of them," I said. "I'm not dating you."

"Maybe you've got a thing for monsters. I can be just as scary as the next guy."

I stared at him. "No," I said, "you can't. That's why you're not alpha. That's why you're Jean-Claude's pet, because you aren't scary enough."

Something flowed through his pale blue eyes. Something angry and dangerous. Sitting there with his forkful of scrambled eggs, and a Coke in one hand, he was suddenly different. It was hard to put into words, but it raised the hair on the back of my neck.

"Ease down, wolf-boy," I said. My voice was soft, careful. I was sitting less than a foot away from him. At this distance he could jump me easy. The Browning was an inch away from my right hand, but I knew better. I might grab the gun, but I'd never get it pointed in time. I'd seen him move before, and I wasn't quick enough. Lack of sleep was making me trusting, or stupid. Same thing.