Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

«Why?» he asked, in that empty voice.

«Because Peter answering the phone made me realize that it's not all fun and games anymore. If I get you killed, then they lose another father. I don't want to have to explain that to Peter, or Donna, or Becca.»

«But especially Peter,» he said.

«Yeah,» I said.

«Since you can't lie to me, just tell me, Anita.» His voice was a little softer now, a little feeling to it. Edward liked me; we were friends. He'd miss me if I were gone, and I'd miss him, but there was still a little question on whether one day we'd find ourselves on the opposite sides of a problem, and have to finally see which of us was the better man. I was hoping that day would never come, because there was no way for me to win the fight now; dead or alive, we'd both lose.

«Do you know what the Harlequin are?» I asked.

«French clowns?» he said, and let himself sound puzzled.

«Do you know them in any other context?»

«Twenty questions isn't like you, Anita; just talk.»

«I just wanted to see if I was the only vampire hunter extraordinaire who was totally in the dark about this. It makes me feel a little better that you don't know about them either. Apparently Jean-Claude is right; they really are a big, dark secret.»

«Talk,» he said.

I talked. I told him what little I knew about the Harlequin and his band. It really wasn't that much.

He was quiet so long that I said, «Edward, I can hear you breathing, but…»

«I'm here, Anita. Just thinking.»

«Thinking what?» I asked.

«That you always let me play with the best toys.» And his voice wasn't empty now, it was eager.

«And what if these toys finally manage to be bigger and badder than you and me?»

«Then we die.»

«Just like that,» I said. «You wouldn't have regrets?»

«You mean Donna and the kids?»

«Yes,» I said, and I stood, starting to pace the bathroom.

«I would regret leaving them.»

«Then don't come,» I said.

«And if you get killed, I'd always believe that I could have saved you. No, Anita, I'll come, but I will bring backup.»

«Not anyone too crazy, okay?»

He laughed, that chuckle of true delight that I'd heard maybe six times in the entire seven years I'd known him. «I can't promise that, Anita.»

«Fine, but Edward, I'm serious. I don't want to get you killed on them.»

«I can't stop being who I am just because I love Donna, Anita. I can't stop being what I am because I've got the kids to think about.»

«Why not?» I asked, and I was thinking of a conversation Richard and I had had when we thought I was pregnant. He'd expected that if I were pregnant I'd stop being a federal marshal or vampire hunter. I hadn't agreed.

«Because it wouldn't be me, and they love me. Donna and Becca may not know everything that Peter does about me, but they know enough. They know what I had to do to save the kids when Riker took them.»

Riker had been a very bad man. He had been doing illegal archaeology digs, and Donna's amateur protection group had gotten in their way. It actually hadn't been Edward or me that first got the kids on Riker's radar. Nice to know we weren't completely to blame for what happened. Riker had wanted me to do a certain spell for him, which truthfully I hadn't been necromancer enough to do, but he wouldn't believe me. He tortured the children to get my, and Edward's, cooperation. Six-year-old, now eight-year-old, Becca had gotten a badly broken hand. Peter had been sexually molested by a female guard. We'd had to watch on videotape. We'd killed Riker and all his people. We rescued the kids, and Edward had made me give Peter my backup gun. Edward decided in that moment that if we lost, he preferred Peter to be killed resisting, rather than taken again. I hadn't argued, not after what they'd done to him. I had watched Peter empty my gun into the body of the woman who'd hurt him. He'd kept dry-firing into her body until I wrestled the gun away from him. I still saw his eyes when he told me, «I wanted her to hurt.»

I knew that Peter had lost some of his innocence the night his father died and he had to pick up a gun to protect his family. He'd taken a life, but I think he thought it was killing a monster, and that didn't really count. Hell, once I'd thought the same thing about monsters. Killing the woman who had hurt him had taken more from him, a bigger piece of his soul. I couldn't even imagine how big a piece the sexual abuse stole away. Had it been better for him to have his revenge so quickly? Or had it cost him more?

I'd told him the only truth I had that night: «You killed her, Peter. That's as good as revenge gets. Once you kill them, there isn't any more.» Revenge was always the easy part; the hard part was living with it afterward. Living with what you'd done. Living with what they'd done to you, or those you loved.

«Anita, are you there? Anita, answer me.»

«Sorry, Edward, I didn't hear a damn thing you said.»

«You're a thousand miles away inside your own thoughts. That's not a good place to be in the middle of a firefight.»

«It hasn't come to a firefight yet,» I said.

«You know what I mean, Anita. I have to round up my backup and arrange transport. That'll take a day or so. I'll be there as soon as I can, but you need to watch your back until I get there.»

«I'll do my best not to get killed before you get here.»

«This isn't funny, Anita. You seem seriously distracted.»

I thought about it for a moment, then realized what was wrong. I was happy for the first time in my life. I loved the men I was living with. I, like Edward, had a family to protect, and mine wouldn't be tucked safely in New Mexico while we cleaned this up. «I just realized that I've got my own family here, and I don't like them being on the firing line. I don't like that a lot.»

«Who are you worried about?» he asked.

«Nathaniel, Micah, Jean-Claude, all of them.»

«I'm looking forward to meeting your new lovers.»

It took me a minute to realize. «You've never met Micah and Nathaniel. I'd forgotten that.»

«Jean-Claude can handle himself, Anita, as well as anyone in this situation. It sounds like the shapeshifters have you covered for now. Micah is head of the local wereleopards. He didn't get the job on his winning personality. He's a survivor and a fighter, or he'd be dead already.»

«Is this supposed to be a pep talk?» I asked.

He gave a sound that was almost a laugh. «Yeah.»

«Well, you suck at it.»

He laughed then. «Which of your lovers is cannon fodder, Anita? Who are you really the most worried about?»

I took a deep breath, let it out slow, and said, «Nathaniel.»

«Why him?»

«Because he's not a fighter. I've taken him to the gun range and he knows the basics.» Then I remembered a moment when Chimera, a very bad guy, had come to town. I remembered an ambush, when Nathaniel had been with me. I'd forgotten. He'd killed someone, and I'd forgotten. I hadn't even thought how it might have affected him. Some leopard queen I was. Fuck.

«Anita, you still there?»

«Yeah, I just remembered something that I guess I was trying to forget. Nathaniel shot someone, killed him to save me. One of the wererats had gotten killed, and he picked up the guy's gun and used it just like I'd taught him.» I was suddenly cold down to my toes. All the awful things that people had made Nathaniel do over the years while he was on the street, and it had been me that forced him to kill. He'd done it out of love, but motive didn't change the end product. Someone was still dead.

«He'll do, Anita.» There was a tone to Edward's voice, approval maybe.

«You know, I hadn't thought about what he'd done until just now. What kind of person forgets that?»