Hit List

WE WRAPPED ETHAN'S new golden self in the last of the bedspreads, and had him fold all that size into the backseat of Bernardo's rental car. While still in the room, Ethan had said, "I could be waiting for you when you get back."

"I'll be gone for hours, maybe until morning," I said.

"I'd wait."

I smiled at him. "If the bad guys weren't killing weretigers, then I'd say yes, but I don't want you here by yourself."

"You don't think I can take care of myself?"

Watching for male ego, I'd said, "You need to eat now that you've changed forms. Though I don't like anyone else knowing you have a gold form, the only safe-ish place I can think to take you is back to the red clan."

"But not forever," he said, and even through the gold and the pointy fangs meant for meat-rending, he was unsure, almost afraid.

"I promise, Ethan, it's not forever, but I gotta go catch bad guys now."

So he'd hidden in the backseat, and I'd called Alex so someone would be there at the entrance to meet him. Alex was actually about to go into a press conference for his day job as a reporter, but he promised that two guards would be there, and they'd take care of Ethan for me. "I'm the prince of the clan, Anita; they'll do what I say."

"Unless your mother the queen disagrees," I said.

He'd laughed. "Well, there is that."

But there were two guards waiting to take Ethan into the underground and help hold all the weapons that didn't fit on his taller man form. They raised eyebrows at glimpses of his fur through the bedspread.

I told them, "No one else knows, and I want to keep it that way."

"We have to tell our queen," one of the guards said.

"And if I tell you not to, what then?"

They looked at each other. "You are a little queen, but you won't kill us for keeping secrets from you; she might."

"If Ethan gets hurt because you let others know he has a third color form, and I think it's your fault, do you really think I won't kill you?"

"So, his safety is our safety?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"I can take care of myself, Anita, you know that," Ethan said.

"Against anyone but the bad guys we're chasing, I'd agree, but you saw him tear up a dozen of you guys in seconds. I want you safe."

He'd wrapped me in the bedspread and the warm muscle and fur of his body. "I've never had a woman care about me like that."

I didn't say that I was more worried about losing one of the few goldens we had who wasn't part of the bloodline the good Harlequin had hidden away, genetic diversity and all that, and that I didn't love him yet. I let him believe what he needed to believe so I could go back Edward up with the other cops. I didn't have time to discuss love and lust and the difference with Ethan. Those conversations were always long ones.

Bernardo drove me through a fast-food drive-up. Not the healthiest, but I needed meat; burgers would do. It would help delay the next need to feed, and I wanted to delay that and still keep my healing ability. I had a faint scar on my right arm, and it was my own damn fault for not taking care of my metaphysical business. It was while we were in line waiting to pick up the order that Bernardo said, "Before we meet up with Edward, I have to tell you something. He made me promise."

"That's ominous," I said, looking at him.

He smoothed his big, dark hands around the wheel, and that one gesture looked like a nervous gesture. Not good.

"What the hell is it?" I asked.

He took off his sunglasses, and took a deep breath. "I'm not the only one Edward called in to help watch his back while you were hurt."

I had a moment of not understanding, and then I got it. "Jesus, not Olaf."

Bernardo looked at me with eyes as dark a brown as my own. "Yeah, he called in the big guy."

I sat back in the seat and would have folded my arms over my chest, but there were too many weapons and the vest in the way. "Shit," I said, and the one word had a lot of feeling to it.

Olaf was also Marshal Otto Jefferies, an alias that allowed him to work for the armed forces on special projects sometimes, and the name on his U.S. Marshal badge. He'd never broken the law on U.S. soil to my knowledge, but in other countries, under his real name, he had. He earned his money as a mercenary and assassin, but his hobby was killing women. He'd kill and torture men, too, but usually only if necessary for work. Small, dark-haired women were his victims of choice, and I was very aware that I fit his victim profile. He'd made me aware of it the first time we met.

"Why did he invite Olaf to come play?" I asked.

"He didn't know how long you'd be out of commission. He needed backup, and since he has one of the warrants of execution he got to call in anyone he wanted. If he can't have you, he wants us." There was a certain unhappiness to Bernardo's voice.

"You sound jealous," I said.

He frowned at me as he eased the car up in line behind the other cars in the drive-up. "Maybe it's a little hard on the ego for Olaf and me that he prefers you to us. You've never been military. You've never been a lot of things that the three of us have been, and yet Edward prefers you as his main backup."

"You mean because I'm not a big, strong man, you feel slighted that Edward likes me better?" I let my tone speak for my view of that particular attitude.

Bernardo gave me a flat look. His face was still handsome, but there was now something in the eyes that might once have made me nervous. I was way past being nervous from hard looks. Hard looks couldn't hurt me, and it wasn't close to the hardest look he was capable of anyway. He didn't mean it.

"You know that's not what I mean."

"Isn't it?" I asked, and gave him flat look for flat look.

I watched something slide through his eyes, and then he smiled. "Well, I'll be damned."

"Probably," I said, "but what did you just think of?"

He gave me a quizzical look, shook his head as if to chase the puzzlement away, and said, "It is exactly that. I thought I was a little more evolved, but you're right. I'm this big, macho guy, with all this training that you don't have, and Edward would rather have you at his back than me. Edward is better at judging men and what they're capable of than anyone I've ever met except this one sergeant." He shook his head again. "Never mind, but my point is that if Edward believes you're better than me, or Olaf, at this job, then he must be right. It does hurt my ego that you sit there all itty-bitty and cute as hell, and you must be more dangerous than I will ever be. Yeah, that fucking bothers me."

I smiled, I couldn't help it. It was so terribly honest. Most men wouldn't have said it out loud, even if they'd thought it. It made me wonder how much therapy Bernardo had had, but I didn't say that part out loud. What I said was, "I'm flattered that Edward thinks I'm that good, because I know just how good you and Olaf are, well, when he's not distracted by the whole serial killer thing. But you're good, when you're not distracted by a woman."

"I just dragged you out of someone's bed so you could hunt bad guys, Anita; don't throw stones at my hobbies."

"I had to feed the ardeur, you know that."

"Yeah, but after a while it doesn't matter why you do something, Anita, only that you do it, and you are as into sex as I am now."

I started to try to argue, but we were at the window to pay. I handed him money, and he tried to hand it to the teenage girl at the window. She didn't take the money because she was staring at Bernardo.

He flashed her that dazzling smile and folded the money into her much smaller hand. He folded her fingers around the money, managing to half-hold her hand as he did it. It made her blush, and she stammered as she took the money and tried to count change back. I was betting that the change would be wrong; she was too flustered to count.

She handed him back some bills and coins. He handed them to me. I started unfolding it all and counting change against the receipt in my hand.

"Is this your girlfriend?" she asked.

"No, we just work together," he said, smiling.

The blush had begun to fade, and now it climbed up her neck and face again. "I get off at five o'clock."

"Sorry, babe, but you're way too young for me, and I've gotta work anyway."

"I'm eighteen," she said.

I doubted that. Apparently, Bernardo did, too.

"You got ID that proves that?" he said.

She dropped her eyes, and finally shook her head. The car behind us honked. A man with a badge that said Manager came into her little cubicle. She mumbled, "Please drive to the next window, sir." He was talking to her about her conduct as we drove forward to the suddenly empty line in front of us. The other cars had gotten their food and left while he was flirting.

"You have to be really careful with the younger women," he said. "They'll lie about being over eighteen and it's never them that gets in trouble. Police always believe that the young, innocent girl was taken advantage of. I had one sixteen-year-old who kept sending me lingerie shots of herself. In some states my receiving that kind of shit in my email could get me up on child pornography charges."

"What'd you do?"

"I turned her in to the cops. Told them I was concerned that she'd send this stuff to someone who wasn't as moral as I was and get herself hurt."

"You didn't," I said.

"Oh, yeah I did. The girls think it's a game, or something, but it's not them that goes to jail. I don't like them that young anyway." Then he looked at me, and the moment I saw the look I knew whatever he said next would be some kind of teasing, and I wouldn't like it. "But you do, don't you?"

"I do what?" I asked.

"Like them that young, or is it just a rumor that you've got that weretiger, Sydney, or something, from Vegas living with you now?"

"His name's Cynric, and it's not a rumor."

"Sixteen is too young even for me, Anita." But he smiled as he said it, enjoying being able to be morally superior. "And he was a young sixteen, Anita, what little I remember of him."

What was I supposed to say, that I hadn't meant to have sex with Cynric? That we'd been possessed by the biggest, baddest vampire of them all, Marmee Noir? It was true, but after a while the explanations just sounded hollow, because I kept having to make them.

"He's seventeen, and he's legal, and he's in St. Louis because he's the only male blue tiger alive today that we can find. He's on the Harle . . . bad vampires hit list."

Then I realized that wasn't true anymore. Ethan was blue, and he was all grown up. Could I send Cynric home to Vegas? And if I could, should I? He was already my blue tiger to call, but Alex was my red and he didn't live in the same state. Of course, the Harlequin might kill him to hurt me. Shit.

"So you're keeping Cynric safe," Bernardo said.

"Trying to."

"By fucking him?"

I glared at him. "Thanks a lot, Bernardo."

He grinned at me as he pulled out onto the main street.

I glared at him as I unwrapped my burger. I so didn't want to try to eat while we had this conversation, but I did want to have food in me before we got to Edward and Olaf. I definitely didn't want to see Olaf on an empty stomach. I'd need all the strength I could muster.

I tried to decide if I should be angry with him for real, and if I did get angry, why was I angry? Because I felt guilty about Cynric, and that made me defensive about him. I ate my burger without tasting it, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell to do about Cynric.

"That's it?" Bernardo said. "That's all you're going to say to me? You used to be easier to bait."

I drank some Coke and picked up a French fry. "Were you trying to pick a fight?"

He smiled. "Not a real fight, but it's fun to get you riled up."

I ate the French fry, knowing it was all grease and salt, but then that was what made it taste so good. Why did so many things that were bad for you taste so good?

He glanced at me, then back to the road. "Either you really like the kid, or he bothers you for real."

I sighed, eating my yummy fry and trying not to hunch in the passenger seat. I so didn't want to have this conversation with Bernardo, but then he'd met Cynric the same time I did.

"You met him when I did, Bernardo. He was a virgin, because the white clan is like all the clans, it's all about purity of bloodline, and their queen tiger, Bibiana, likes her men to be monogamous."

"It's because she holds her husband to the big M, and she can't ask the head vampire of Vegas to do something she doesn't make her tigers do."

"Yeah," I said, "and also teenagers don't always have the control with their first orgasm not to shift and eat their partner."

"How's Blue Boy's control?" he asked.

I shrugged, very deliberately not looking at him. "It's good, and don't call him that. He has a name."

"Cynric doesn't sound like a real name for a teenage guy," Bernardo said.

"He goes by a short version of his name."

"Rick?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Rick's the only thing short for his name," Bernardo said.

"Nope."

He started merging into traffic. It probably meant we were going to exit soon. I hadn't been paying enough attention to where we were, and I wasn't familiar enough with the city.

"What does he call himself, then?"

I mumbled something.

"What?"

"Sin, okay, he likes Sin."

Bernardo laughed out loud, head back, mouth wide, face alight with it.

"Yeah, yeah, enjoy it, laughing boy," I said.

When he could talk, he said, "It's just too good, Anita. Too easy."

"I tried to talk him out of it, but his cousin Roderic goes by Rick, so he thinks of it as taken."

He gave that low male chuckle. "Sin, you're screwing a seventeen-year-old that's named Sin. Oh, man, when I met you, you were like the virgin queen, so untouchable, and now . . ."

"Just stop, okay, I feel bad enough."

He glanced at me as he waited for the traffic to let him exit. "Why feel bad about it? So he's young, so what?"

"You said it yourself, he was a young sixteen. I took his virginity, Bernardo."

"You were mind-fucked by Mommie Darkest at the time, and so was Cynric."

"So were about four other weretigers. Your first time shouldn't be in a vampire-induced orgy, but his was."

"It wasn't your fault, Anita. I was in Vegas. You're lucky to have lived through it, and so were the weretigers."

I shrugged. I put the rest of the food in the bag. My stomach was in a hard knot, and food just didn't sound good right then.

"Well, they're not living through it this time."

"It's not your fault that Mommie Darkest is making the bad vamps hunt weretigers."

"Maybe," I said.

"Oh, can the Catholic guilt."

"What does that mean?" I asked, glaring at him.

"It means that you do what you have to do, and you try to enjoy it along the way. It's what we all do."

"You were the one who teased me about Cynric," I said.

"That was because you were supposed to tell me to go to hell like you always do. You weren't supposed to actually let it bother you. If I'd realized you felt this bad about doing him, I'd have left it alone."

"Thanks, I guess," I said, and I stared out the window as he wove the car through the narrow streets.

"Why do you feel so bad about this one?"

"He's seventeen," I said.

"So, he'll be eighteen next year."

"He's a senior in high school, Bernardo. Jean-Claude is his legal guardian and had to enroll him in school. He comes home with homework and shit, and then he wants to cuddle and have sex. It weirds me the fuck out."

He was quiet as he wove through the progressively narrower streets. "You haven't even asked where we're going."

"To Edward," I said.

"Yeah, but we're not going to the police station, and you haven't asked why." He glanced at me. "You're a control freak. Why aren't you asking?"

I thought about the question, and finally said, "I don't know. I don't seem to care. I mean, I trust you, I trust Edward, and I even trust Olaf to do the job. I just don't trust him with me."

"You shouldn't," he said.

"Okay, are we going to a new crime scene, or what?" I asked.

"You ask, but not like you care, as if it doesn't matter at all. Things matter to you, Anita; it's one of your charms and irritations." He smiled, but I didn't feel the need to smile back.

"I think I'm homesick. I think I'm tired of chasing bad guys. Did Edward tell you his idea that Marmee Noir is killing the tigers so that I'll be away from St. Louis and all our people? The last one of her guards that talked to me said that she wants me alive. It's what saved us twice, I think. She doesn't want me dead."

"He mentioned some of it. Could she really possess your body?"

"She thinks she can."

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I think she might be able to."

"That would scare the hell out of me."

I nodded. "Trust me, Bernardo, I'm scared."

"You don't seem scared. You seem distracted."

"Maybe I don't know how to be scared. Maybe that's what the distraction is," I said.

"Whatever it is, you need to get your head in the game, Anita. We need you. Edward needs you, and you sure as hell want to bring your A-game when you meet Olaf."

"He still want me to be his serial killer girlfriend?" I asked.

"He still thinks you are his serial killer girlfriend."

"Great," I said.

"You haven't even asked if it's a new crime scene."

I looked at him, startled at last. "They've never killed twice in one city."

"No, they haven't."

I scowled at him. "Stop the games, Bernardo. Tell me where we're going and why the mystery."

"Edward called Jean-Claude."

I know my face looked as surprised as I felt. "Why?"

"Because he found a way for you to have bodyguards, and he thinks they can help us find these bastards."

That Edward approved that strongly of the guards Jean-Claude had working for us showed the best stamp of approval I could imagine. I knew they were good, but that Edward agreed with me was both cool and interesting.

"So we're going to meet them," I said.

"Yeah, but first Olaf and you get to say hi."

"Why?" I said.

"Because Olaf thinks you have a relationship with him, and if you meet him first and privately, he can keep that illusion. Edward's afraid of what Olaf will do if he realizes that you aren't ever going to be his girlfriend."

"I am not meeting privately with Serial Killer Guy."

"Edward and I will be there," he said. He'd found an empty space and was parallel parking like a pro, smooth, no hesitation.

"You live in the city," I said.

He killed the engine and turned to me. "Why, because I can parallel park?"

I nodded. "A city where that's the only parking you get to use most of the time, or you grew up where that was the only parking."

"Don't profile me, Anita."

"Sorry, can't I just be impressed with your parking skills?"

He seemed to think about that for a minute, then shrugged. "Then just say 'Good job' or something, don't speculate."

I nodded. "Okay, great job of parallel parking. I suck at it."

"Country girl," he said.

"Most of my life," I said.

"I told you more of my background the first time I met you than most people ever know. I think I thought the whole foster-care-system sob story would soften you up, but nothing makes you soft, not like that."

"I'll quote Raquel Welch: 'There aren't any hard women; only soft men.'"

"Lie," he said.

"In the normal world it's pretty true," I said.

He grinned sudden and bright in his tanned face. "Since when does either of us live in the normal world?"

That made me laugh. I shrugged. "Never."

We got out of the car so I could meet Olaf and convince him he still had a chance in hell of ever getting in my pants. Sometimes you lie because the alternative is too awful to think about. Edward, Bernardo, and I all feared what Olaf would do if he ever lost hope of me having sex with him. I think we all knew that if he gave up all hope of my dating him voluntarily, he'd go for something less voluntary. Something that included chains and torture. Someday I'd have to kill Olaf, but hopefully today wasn't that day. Hopefully.