Crimson Death Read online

  I whispered, "Were you just pretending to sleep?"

  He started to sit up and nodded.

  I tsk-tsked at him. "It's police business."

  "Then get a policeman to help you with the computer," he said, but he was already climbing out of the covers, carefully trying not to uncover the other two men.

  "Get my gun," I whispered.

  He reached into the specially made holster attached to the headboard and grabbed my Springfield EMP, and crawled to the foot of the bed to hand it to me so that he didn't cross Nathaniel's body with it. He was nowhere near the trigger, and he was being careful, but he knew the rules for gun safety. Treat every gun as if it's loaded and lethal, and never, ever cross someone's body with it unless you mean to shoot them. I took the gun and put it in my pocket, wondering if it would hold the weapon. The gun fit, but my robe was seriously hanging crooked from the weight. I tied the sash at my waist even tighter and tried to see if my hand would fit into the pocket well enough for me to draw the gun if I had to; it wasn't perfect, but it worked.

  Micah crawled out of the bed with his own handgun. He was one of the few lycanthropes I knew who carried a gun and weren't professional bodyguards or mercenaries. He was not only the Nimir-Raj of our local wereleopard pard but also head of the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Human and Lycanthrope Communities. The Coalition was a national organization that was slowly but surely forging the country's different types of shapeshifters into a cohesive group with one voice, shared goals, and they looked to him to lead them toward those goals. Not everyone was happy that the infighting that had always divided the shapeshifter communities was being turned into something more cooperative. Some hate groups saw it as a danger to humanity. Some lycanthropes saw it as us forcing our rule onto them, even though the Coalition never entered another group's territory unless invited in to solve a problem they couldn't solve on their own. It was like people who called the police when they needed them and then got angry that the police found evidence of a crime while they were saving the phone caller and his or her family.

  There'd been more than one death threat against Micah, so he had bodyguards when he traveled and carried his own gun when he could. Not all buildings and businesses would allow concealed carry on the premises, so sometimes he had to leave the gun behind and rely on the bodyguards, but he liked to be able to take care of himself, too. Just one more thing we agreed on.

  Micah's robe was one that Jean-Claude had bought for him, or maybe had had made, because it looked like something from the Victorian era, deep forest green velvet covered in gold-and-green embroidery. The thick cuffs and the collar and lapels that swept from his neck to his waist were shiny gold with more of the brocade embroidery. The robe also fell exactly to his feet but was a fraction short enough that he never tripped on it or had to lift it up when he was walking on anything but stairs. Stairs were tricky with anything that went to your ankles. I knew that at least the robe had been tailored to fit him. He added dark green house slippers and he was ready to go.

  I finally had house shoes, too, so that my feet were warm, and they stayed on rather than making me shuffle like the house slippers had done, but the silk robe . . . I needed something warmer. Especially now that we were here at least five nights a week. The two days in the Jefferson County house were mainly so we could get some sunlight. Except for Micah, we all worked almost exclusively nights, and after a while it was just depressing without some sunshine. I'd finally asked Jean-Claude if he missed it, and he'd said, "Very much, ma petite, much more than I thought I would when I agreed to become what I am."

  Micah gathered his own phone and his eyeglasses from the bedside table on his and Jean-Claude's side of the bed. The glasses had green frames with gold accents to complement his green-gold leopard eyes. He'd been wearing prescription sunglasses for a long time without most of us being aware they were prescription. A very bad man had forced him to stay in leopard form until he hadn't been able to shift completely back to human form. He had his summer tan from running outside, so that the eyes looked incredibly exotic against the darker skin, but the serious downside to his having kitty-cat eyes was that cats are nearsighted. He'd also lost some of his color vision, though not as much as a real cat, as if something were more human about his leopard eyes. His optician had asked permission to write a paper on the difference in his vision and was cowriting the paper with a zoo veterinarian. Micah had worn the sunglasses to hide his eyes when he didn't want to stand out and because he'd worried that having less-than-perfect eyesight might be used against him in fights for dominance in the lycanthrope community, but finally he'd gotten glasses that helped him read more easily as well as see farther away. Cat eyes focused differently and had made him work harder to read than we'd realized. He had contact lenses, too, but here with us he didn't bother. I liked the way the dark frames bordered his eyes like they were works of art that finally had a frame worthy of them rather than being hidden away behind dark sunglasses.

  We left Nathaniel deeply asleep nested in the covers and already wiggling a little closer to Jean-Claude. This bed was big enough that he might just wrap himself in covers before he reached the other man for cuddling, but Nathaniel was a cuddle-seeking sleeper more than any of the rest of us, and the rest of us were pretty cuddly.

  Micah and I moved as quietly as we could toward the door, leaving our shared boy asleep and our shared master sleeping the sleep of the dead. We probably didn't have to move all that quietly, but it was just polite. Micah stopped me at the door and made motions for me to fluff my curls into place. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he mouthed, Jean-Claude. Which meant my vampy fiance had requested that Micah remind me not to go out without tidying my hair a little. Since I was technically going to be queen of all the vampires once I married Jean-Claude, I guess a little decorum was called for, but it still irked me.

  Micah actually finger-tamed his own curls, too, so at least it was evenhanded silliness. Jean-Claude had said that our appearance reflected on him, and vampires, especially the very old ones, could be exceedingly vain. It had been everything I could do not to say, Vampires vain, you're joking, but I didn't, since he rarely went anywhere when he wasn't perfect top to bottom. I didn't think of it as vanity, more just him, just Jean-Claude, and I loved him, so I did what men had done for centuries when they waited for their beauties to get ready for the night--waited patiently for the perfection that was worth waiting for. It had never occurred to me that he might start wanting me to do more perfection on myself as the wedding got closer. It was a trend I wasn't really enjoying, but I was letting it ride. One thing I'd learned was to pick my battles. I'd already lost on the size of the wedding; I was still hoping to win on the wedding dresses for the women, mine included.

  Micah opened the outer door and the two guards went to attention, backs ramrod straight, shoulders back, arms at their sides as if they were still wearing a uniform that had a crease or stripe to follow.

  I said, "At ease, guys. You're not in the Army anymore."

  "I wasn't in the Army, Marshal Blake," the taller one said. His hair was still so short that I could see scalp through his nearly white-blond hair.

  "It was a line of an old song, Milligan; I remember that it's 'Anchors Aweigh' for you."

  The slightly shorter man, who was letting his brown hair grow out from the high and tight, gave a crooked smile and said, "Millie doesn't like the classics much."

  I smiled back. "You need to broaden his horizons, Custer."

  "Every time Pud tries to broaden my horizons, my wife gets mad," Milligan said, smiling. I knew that Pud was the first syllable of Pudding, because they'd started calling Custer Custard as a nickname, but in that mysterious way of nicknames it had changed into Pudding and then Pud. How did I know? I asked.

  Micah chuckled and shook his head. "Your wife made me promise that I wouldn't let Custer lead you astray when we traveled out of town."

  "I know she talked to you, sir."

  "It's jus
t Micah, or Mr. Callahan--no sir needed."

  "Are you serious? Your wife talked to Micah about me?" Custer asked.

  Milligan nodded. "That last weekend trip, you almost cost me my marriage."

  "I thought you were joking about that," Custer said.

  His friend shook his head.

  "Well, fuck, man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Custer actually looked serious, which wasn't typical for him.

  Milligan and Custer were part of a SEAL unit that had been attacked by a group of insurgents that thought being wereanimals made them a match for the SEALs. They'd been wrong, but the six-man unit had lost one of their own and the surviving five had all tested positive for lycanthropy, which meant an automatic medical discharge. We had other former military for similar reasons. One of them had brought the unit to our attention, and we'd offered them jobs.

  Some of the private contractor firms would take shapeshifters, but they were all new enough shifters that full moons meant they were either in secure areas or with older, more experienced lycanthropes who babysat them as they learned to control their inner beasts. Until they got complete control of themselves they couldn't work for any of the private contractor firms, because their rule was that you had to be a lycanthrope for at least two years before you could apply. Some companies insisted on four years, and not all countries would allow lycanthropes across their borders. The former SEALs had less than a year of turning furry. When the time was over they might decide to go to the other firms, because the money was better, for some assignments a lot better, but the money here wasn't bad and the level of life-threatening danger was much lower. Either way, they had good jobs with benefits for them and their families while they were deciding what to do next with a set of skills that was impressive as hell but of limited use in the civilian sector. So far their biggest complaint, and only from Custer and one other, was that there hadn't been enough excitement on the job.

  Micah and I started down the hallway hand in hand. It meant one of us had to compromise a gun hand, but since we didn't expect to be attacked in our own inner sanctum, I figured we were safe. I even let him have my gun hand, even though I had better scores on the range. Custer said, "I'm not sure how this works, but we're on duty here to protect everyone in the room behind us, including the two of you."

  "I'll go with them. You stay on the door," Milligan said.

  Custer eased back to his post beside the door without an argument. You could always tell who outranked whom in the newly ex-military, because of moments like that. We'd only had one person at a time from a unit before this, never most of a group that had worked together for years and then lost their careers in the same fight. They were still very much together as a unit. In fact, Claudia, who was in charge of our guards overall but especially here at the Circus, had talked to me about whether we wanted to separate them for work. They needed to learn to work with the rest of our people and not just with each other, but so far it hadn't been an issue that anyone had complained about.

  I honestly didn't think we needed a bodyguard here in the underground of the Circus, but I'd learned not to try to argue with some of the guards about where their duty lay. It just made me tired and didn't gain me much. I could have played the "I'm your boss" card, but I was also one of their protectees, so it was a gray area. If I was their boss, then I could tell them to take a flying leap and they had to listen, but if something happened and I got hurt on their watch . . . Like I said, it was a gray area, so Milligan trailed us toward the computer room. Though Jean-Claude had totally embraced the new technology, he didn't like everyone living on their phones and electronic devices instead of actually looking at and talking with the people around them, so he'd limited everything but smartphones to the one room. I happened to know that the other reason he'd done it was that some of the older vampires were a little intimidated by all the new tech. Besides, having to bring the wires and cables down this far through the rock hadn't been easy, and keeping the computers in one place helped make it just a little bit easier.

  Milligan hurried forward and opened the door to the computer room for us. Micah and I both let him. The room was dim, lit only by the banks of computer screens that were still cycling through the images on their screens. Some had finally gone black and still for the night. We moved into the room and Milligan started to come in with us, but I said, "Sorry, Milligan, but I'm going to have to look at police evidence."

  "I have to make sure the room is clear," he said.

  Again, I could have argued with him, but I let him do his job, though again, I was pretty sure the two of us could take care of anything that might be lurking in the computer room down here. It wasn't that big a room and there was only one area that was actually out of sight of the door.

  Milligan came back around the room after completing his circuit. "The room is clear, ma'am, sir."

  "Then you can leave us," Micah said.

  "You don't have to stay right by our sides," I said.

  He hesitated, and you could almost watch the wheels turning as he weighed whom he was supposed to listen to and whom he could safely override. A lot of our new ex-military had issues with the new, less rigid chain of command.

  "We're going to be talking police business, Milligan. You cannot be in here for it," I said.

  Milligan nodded. "Okay, that makes sense." He went for the door.

  "And don't stand just outside the door," Micah said.

  Milligan turned. "Sir, I . . ."

  "I know I could hear the conversation through the door, Milligan, which means so could you."

  "Claudia will have my head if I don't wait for you."

  "We're both armed, and we're standing in our own underground fortress," I said. "If we're not safe here, then we're in deeper shit than just one guard can handle."

  Milligan got that arrogant look on his face, one I'd seen before from men with certain backgrounds.

  "Even a former SEAL wouldn't be enough, Milligan. Now go back to Custer and guard Jean-Claude's door."

  He tried to argue some more, but Micah said, "That's an order, Milligan. Anita and I both outrank Claudia."

  He frowned, sighed, and said, "Yes, sir." He didn't question it again, just turned on his heel and went for the door.

  I made sure Milligan walked down the hallway and then came back to Micah.

  He sat down in the chair in front of the computer so he could type faster, and within a few minutes I was up and running. He didn't even have to ask for my password or username anymore, because he'd helped me too many times and had finally memorized it all. That probably wouldn't please the other officers if they knew, since he was a civilian, but I wouldn't tell if he didn't.

  I called Edward back. He answered on the first ring. "Anita, are you online?" His voice was less Ted and more Edward, so I thought to ask, "Can you talk freely yet?"

  "No." Edward's one-word answer rather than the longer way around the mountain that he sometimes took as Ted.

  "While we wait for the email to come through, you said something about how if you had your way I'd be seeing more than pictures, or something."

  "They don't like the fact that you're a necromancer." His voice held some of Ted's happy undertones, but there was also Edward's cold emptiness. He was not happy that they wouldn't let me come play.

  I heard voices in the background. Edward said, "Sorry, Anita. I've just been corrected"--with more of Ted's accent this time--"because it would be against their own laws to deny someone entry to their country on the basis of the type of magic they could perform."

  "I think of it as a psychic gift more than something mystical," I said.

  "Their laws actually don't acknowledge a difference between psychic gifts and magic, only between magic and Church-sanctioned miracles."

  "If they actually mention miracles in their laws, then that's a first outside of Rome that I'm aware of."

  "Then be aware, Anita, because this is the second," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, but it didn't
match the words, as if he were having trouble staying Ted in front of the other cops. What had they done, or what had happened, between one phone call and the next to make him struggle with it?

  "Are you okay, Ted?"

  "I'm just dandy."

  I let it go, because he either wouldn't talk about it or couldn't with all the other officers in the room. My email pinged. Micah helped me open the attachment on it, and we were suddenly looking at a throat with two delicate fang marks on it. It was a really small bite radius. It could be a child or a woman with a smaller-than-average mouth. The second neck wound had considerably bigger holes; no one was going to mistake them for hypodermic needle marks. These were definitely a different vampire.

  "I'm going to put you on speakerphone, Anita. Tell us what you see." He didn't mean tell us; he meant tell them. I was pretty sure this was some kind of test. If I dazzled them, would they let me come play with Edward in Ireland? Did I want to go play in Ireland? I didn't want to do an international flight with my phobia of flying--that was for sure--but . . . I didn't like that they were all prejudiced against a psychic gift that I couldn't do anything about. Also, I was a wee bit competitive.

  "Well, from the first two bite images you've got at least two different vampires. The first could be a child, or a grown woman with a small mouth, or a crowded one."

  "This is Superintendent Pearson, Marshal Blake. What do you mean, crowded?" His voice sounded like I'd expected. Irish in that way that movies convince you must be real. It made me smile that he actually sounded like movie Irish; so many accents didn't match what you expected.

  "Fang marks are just like human bite marks in one way, Superintendent Pearson. It's not always the size of the mouth that dictates how a bite mark looks; sometimes it's how the teeth are placed. Someone who has too many teeth for the size of their mouth can sometimes have teeth that are sort of crowded together, which will make the space between their canines much smaller than you'd expect for an adult."

  Another man's voice said, "We don't care about canine teeth. We care about the fangs." His accent didn't match as well, as if he were from a different part of Ireland. It was the same idea as a Southern accent here, as compared to Northern, or Midwestern, though television and the Internet were erasing regional accents in a lot of places.