Richard got to his knees, just enough to pull himself out of me, then collapsed onto his side, half-spooning me, but not quite touching Jean-Claude. In a voice that was still breathless, he asked, “Did I hurt you?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. I laughed, even though my jaw was beginning to ache as the endorphins faded. I laughed, as I began to feel the ache of him between my legs. I laughed, not because it hurt, but because it felt so good.
Jean-Claude started to laugh, too.
“What?” Richard said.
Jean-Claude and I lay on top of each other, too tired to move, and laughed. It took Richard a few minutes, but finally, a deep chuckle escaped him. He moved his body enough to throw an arm across mine, and laughed. The three of us lay unable or unwilling to move, and we laughed. We laughed until we could move, then we moved up on the bed and lay quiet, in a big, warm, naked, puppy pile. Me in the middle, but when Jean-Claude’s head touched Richard’s arm, neither of them moved away. It wasn’t perfect, but damn, it was close.
61
I’d tried to call my friendly neighborhood vampire hunter in New Orleans to see what I could learn about the vamps we were after, but Denis-Luc St. John, vamp hunter and federal marshal, was in the hospital, still in intensive care. They’d damn near killed him before they left town. Worse and worse.
The sun was a bloody strip of red against the western sky when Zerbrowski and I got out of his car to question the first witness. I always felt like I should have to wash my jeans when I got out of his car. The backseat was so full of paper and old fast food bags that it looked like a landfill. The front seat wasn’t actually dirty, but the rest of the car was so messy that it just felt like the entire car was icky.
“Do Katie and the kids ever ride in this thing?” I asked as we started up the steps to the first apartment on the list.
“Naw, she and the kids take the minivan.”
I shook my head. “Has she seen the inside of it recently?”
“You’ve seen our house, it’s perfect, everything in its place.
Even our bedroom is immaculate. The car is the one place that’s mine.
It gets to be as messy as I want it to be.”
Strangely, it made more sense to me now than it would have a few months ago. I understood the fine art of compromise between a couple in a way that I never had before. I’m not saying I was good at it, just that I understood it more.
Zerbrowski read off the number of the apartment, and it was on the second floor, in a line of concrete walkway and metal railing. The doors were all identical. I wondered if the neighbors knew that they had a vamp living next door. You’d be amazed at the number of people that don’t figure it out. Vampires hit my radar hard, so they don’t pass unnoticed for me. More humans than I’m comfortable with get fooled. I don’t know if it’s because they want to be fooled, or if it really is harder for them to spot a vamp. I don’t know which would bother me more, that normal humans can’t spot them, thus implying that I am even more outside the norm, or that people want to be fooled that badly.
Since we were looking for vampires that had killed at least two people, I stretched out that part of me that sensed the dead. It wasn’t the same part that raised zombies. Though explaining the difference was like explaining the difference between sky blue and turquoise. They were both blue, but they weren’t the same color.
Zerbrowski reached for the doorbell, and I touched his hand. “Not yet.”
“Why not?” he asked. His hand swept back his wrinkled trench coat and suit jacket, to touch the butt of his gun on his hip. “You hear something?”
“Ease down, it’s okay. He’s just not awake yet.”
Zerbrowski looked puzzled at me. “What does that mean?”
“I can feel vampires, Zerbrowski, if I concentrate, or they’re doing something powerful. He’s not awake yet. I was hoping he would be, he’s supposed to be the oldest one of the three, longest dead. Longest dead usually wakes up first, unless one of them is a master. Masters wake up first.”
“I knew the part about longest dead,” he said. “So a master vampire that is two years dead can wake up before a vampire that is five years dead, but not a master?”
“Yeah, though some vamps don’t accumulate enough power in five hundred years to rival masters I’ve met that were under five years.”
“That’d be a bummer. A flunkie for all eternity.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” I felt that instant spark inside the room. It hit me almost like a punch to the stomach, or lower. Once I could only sense vamps that I had a connection to, to this degree, and once it was just a small quiver of recognition. Apparently, I’d gone up a power level or two.
“You okay?” Zerbrowski asked.
“Yeah, just, yeah. Now you can use the doorbell.”
He gave me a look.
“I was concentrating too hard when he woke up, okay? My bad.”
I don’t know if he really understood the comment, or was just used to me being weird, but whatever, he pushed the button. We heard the strident sound inside the room beyond. So many people think that being a vampire automatically gets you the big house on the hill, or a coffin in a dungeon somewhere, but most of the vamps I knew had apartments, houses, and lived pretty much like everyone else. Vampires living in a central location surrounding their master, the way Jean-Claude had it, was becoming a thing of the past.
I missed it. Not nostalgia. If I had to kill a bunch of vamps, having them spread miles apart made my job harder. But we weren’t here to kill anybody, not yet. Of course, that could change. All we needed was proof, or, depending on the judge, strong suspicion. Once I’d been okay with that. Now, it bothered me. To my knowledge, I’d never killed vamps that hadn’t done the crime, but I had to admit that at the beginning of my career, I hadn’t checked as carefully as I did now.
They were just walking corpses to me once, and making them lie down and be still hadn’t felt like murder to me. My job had been easier then, fewer conflicts. Nothing helps you sleep at night so much as being absolutely certain that you’re right, and everyone else is evil.
The door opened, and the vampire stood blinking at us. His blond hair was tousled from sleep, and he’d thrown jeans over his boxers, or maybe slept in both. They were wrinkled enough. He squinted at us, and it took me a second to realize the squint was permanent, like someone who’d worked outdoors all their life, and not worn sunglasses. His eyes were pale and washed almost colorless. He looked tanned, but he was five years dead, and it couldn’t be a tan. Artificial tan was starting to be big business among the recently dead. The ones who hadn’t gotten accustomed to that paler than pale look. His looked better than most, a professional job, not homegrown.
“Jack Benchely?” Zerbrowski made it a question.
“Who wants to know?”
He flashed his badge, and I flashed mine. “Sergeant Zerbrowski of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team.”
“Federal Marshal Anita Blake.”
Jack Benchely blinked harder, like he was really trying to wake up. “Shit, what did I do to get the Spook Squad and the Executioner at my door just after sundown?”
“Let’s go inside and talk about that,” Zerbrowski said with a smile.
The vampire seemed to think about that for a second. “You got a warrant?”
“We don’t want to search your place, Mr. Benchely. We want to ask you some questions, that’s all.” Zerbrowski was still smiling. The smile didn’t even look strained.
I wasn’t trying to smile, I didn’t feel like it.
“What kind of questions?” he asked.
I said, “The kind about you being across the river at a strip club, when I know for a damned fact that Malcolm has ordered you all to stay away from shit like that.” Now I was smiling, but it was a smile the way a flash of teeth is a smile. Sometimes it’s a smile and sometimes it’s not. Put your hand close to the dog’s mouth and find out.
Benchely didn’t look like he wanted to find out. He looked awake now, awake and almost scared. He licked his thin lips and said, “Are you going to tell Malcolm?”