"Then leave a card or number at one of Jean-Claude's clubs, and we'll arrange another meeting."
"We'll be there," Wicked said.
"Yes," Truth said, "yes, we will be there."
I turned toward the door and the other room. Smith came at my back. I reached my hand out to him. "Gun," I said.
He handed me my gun. I holstered it and kept walking toward the other room and the waiting bad guy and police. I had a vague feeling that I'd missed something just now with Wicked and Truth. "The Wicked Truth" Jean-Claude had called them, why? Just because they killed their bloodline? Or had I missed something. Something I'd regret missing later. I ran it over in my head, and all I had promised was to let Wicked take my blood and bind himself to Jean-Claude and me. That's all I'd promised, so why did I feel like the brothers were going to expect more than I'd offered. I thought, Jean-Claude, what did I just do?
To my surprise, he answered carefully, as if he were shielding me. "We have our warriors, ma petite, just as you wished."
"You can't be done feeding the ardeur , yet."
" Non, but I remember Wicked, of old, and I thought it foolish not to check on you one more time."
"You're holding the ardeur in check while you talk to me mind-to-mind, in a room full of lusty women?"
" Oui. "
"Nice to know our little three-way gained you something."
"You make it sound as if you gained nothing, ma petite. It is you who called the Wicked Truth to us, to you, before they came to my hand. You said only last night that we needed people that could fight, not merely seduce, and less than forty-eight hours later, you have called two of our most legendary warriors to you. That, ma petite, is not just impressive, it is frightening."
I ignored the frightening comment and concentrated on the other part. I didn't remember wishing for fighters, or warriors. I remembered thinking we needed more muscle.
"Then we have more muscle, just as you wished."
I couldn't argue with him, but I'd have to be more careful what I wished for. Lately, it seemed I was getting it, no matter what I wished. Suddenly, the phrase be careful what you wish for had taken on a whole new meaning. I guess I'd just have to be damned careful what I wished for.
69
Of course, what I was wishing the second I entered the next room was that we could catch our serial killers before they killed again. I was pretty secure with that wish. It seemed like a wish we could all live with. They had sat the vampire in the chair with his hands cuffed through the rungs, again, just a delay, but if it went really wrong, a second's delay could save lives. I stared at the vamp's face. His hair was darker than Avery's, a brunette that some would have said was black if I hadn't been standing in the room. His eyes were brown and dark. He was good looking in a standard haven't-I-seen-a-hundred-faces-just-like-that-way, but that wasn't what made me stare. I knew him. At first it was just a niggling in the back of my head, that his face was familiar, then suddenly it came full blown.
"You're Jonah Cooper. I got interviewed about how I felt that one of my fellow vampire hunters had been slain by the vampires. What was that, nearly two years ago now, three?"
His look, which had been neutral, went to hostile. "Four." He said that last word like it was a bad one.
"They're legal now, Cooper, why didn't you come out of the closet and tell people you didn't die in that fire?"
He looked down, then up, and his eyes had gone dark, sparkling with anger and vampire powers. I leaned into him with a smile. I knew what smile I was giving him, it was the cold one that left my eyes dead. My gun was pressed, not too hard to his chest, just over his heart. "Or is it that you let, what was it, six policemen die in the fire?"
"Anita, what's going on?" Zerbrowski asked.
I told him. I didn't have to look up to know that Zerbrowski's face wouldn't be friendly. Nothing pisses off the cops like someone who kills one of their own. "How'd you survive, Cooper?" I asked.
He glared up at me. "You know how."
"You sold them to the vampires you were hunting, didn't you?"
He just looked at me, but he didn't deny it. That was enough.
"He took money to betray cops?" Marconi asked.
"No," I said, "not money."
"No," Cooper said, "not money."
"What then?" Smith asked.
"Immortality," I said, "right, Cooper?"
"Not just that."
"What then?" I said.
"You're the Master of the City's human servant, you know what else."
I blinked at him, not sure what to say, but I leaned back enough so that I wasn't pressing a gun into his chest. I knew what it was like to finally be seduced by the thing you hunted. Mine just happened to be a more traditional seduction. Okay, at least I was still among the living.
"What does he mean?" Smith asked.
Malcolm's rich voice filled the parish hall with its tables and punch bowl. Everything was all set out for cookies and punch, though the punch looked a little red for my tastes, a little thick. "Power, Officer, power and sex, that is what Jean-Claude offers."
"Be careful about the stones you throw, Malcolm, sometimes they get thrown back."
"Is that a threat?"
"No, just a friendly warning that only the pure of motive should cast stones."
"Ask your friend there. Ask him, was it sex with one of us that lured him. I have watched mortals come to this life for centuries for the sake of sex."
"First," I said, "he's not my friend. Second, it doesn't matter why, only that he did it." I'd touched Cooper while I searched him for weapons, and I'd gotten no flashes of information. No images. I hadn't acquired Malcolm's ability to see through touch, I'd only borrowed it. I wanted to borrow it again.
I guess I should at least pretend to try to do it the normal way. I turned to Cooper. "Where is your master? Where is he now?"
"Feeding, most likely."
"Where is the daytime lair?"
He shook his head, with something like a smile on his face. "I won't tell you anything, Anita Blake. I would no more betray my master than you would yours."
"But see, my master doesn't ask me to butcher helpless unarmed women, like yours does."
He shook his head again. "I will not betray him."
Now, technically the vampire had no more rights. I could have put a bullet in his brain now, legally. The warrant read that I could use the force I deemed necessary. No one talked about it much, but I knew, and the rest of us legal hunters knew, that some of us used that part of the warrant to justify torture. I didn't like torture, not on either side of the chains. Besides, Cooper had had a reputation for being tough. We didn't have the time for him to be tough. We needed to know where his master lived.
I walked over to Malcolm. He didn't look happy to see me that close to him. "What do you want, Ms. Blake? You have your villain, take him and go."