Лорел Гамильтон - Cerulean Sins

My head lifted, and I sniffed the air, drew in a great breath of air and tested it. My foot was on the bottom step of the stairs before I came to myself. "It's upstairs." I whispered it.

"Yes," Jason said, and there was the thinnest edge of growl to his voice. If someone didn't know what they were listening to, they'd have thought his voice was just deeper than normal. But I knew what I was hearing.

"What's happening?" I asked, and I was still whispering, I think because I didn't want to be overheard. Maybe that was why Jason was whispering, or maybe not. I didn't ask. If he was fighting the urge to run upstairs and roll around in the murder scene, I did not want to know.

I hugged my arms, trying to rub away the goosebumps. "Let's go get those gloves," I said.

He looked at me, and even through the glasses I could feel him struggling to remember what I was saying, or rather what the words meant.

"Don't go all preverbal on me, Jason, I need you here with me."

He took a deep breath that seemed to come from the soles of his feet and slide out the top of his head. His shoulders hunched then straightened like he was trying to shake something off.

"I'm okay."

"You sure?" I asked.

"I can do it, if you can."

I frowned at that. "Am I going to have more trouble?"

"I don't have to go up into that room, you do."

I sighed. "I am so tired of this shit."

"Which shit?" he asked.

"All of it."

He smiled. "Come on, marshal, let's go get those gloves."

I shook my head, but I led the way through the dining room towards the kitchen. I could see the box of gloves sitting beside an open, nearly full trash bag. There'd been a lot of personnel through here to fill up one of those large bags. So where was everyone, and where was Dolph?

Dolph found us in the kitchen while I was helping Jason with the gloves. There's an art to putting them on, and it was Jason's first time, so he was like a small child with his first set of gloves, too few fingers and too many holes.

Dolph came in through the dining room the same way we'd come, though he almost filled the doorway, whereas Jason and I had walked through together with plenty of room to spare. Dolph is built like a pro-wrestler, wide, and he's six eight. I'm sort of used to him by now, but Jason did what most people do. He looked up, and up. Other than that, he behaved himself, which for Jason was a minor miracle.

"What's he doing here?" Dolph asked.

"You said if I wasn't well enough to drive I could bring a civvie driver. Jason's my driver."

He shook his head, his dark hair so freshly cut that his ears looked pale and stranded. "Don't you have any human friends left?" he asked.

I concentrated on helping Jason into the gloves and counted to ten. "Yeah, but most of them are cops, and they don't like playing chauffer."

"He doesn't need gloves, Anita, because he is not staying."

"We had to park too far back for me to walk without someone to catch me if I needed it. I can't send him back through that pack of reporters."

"Yeah, you can," Dolph said.

I finally got the last finger in place. Jason stood there flexing his hands inside the gloves. "How come it feels wet and powdery all at the same time?"

"I don't know, but it always does," I said.

"He is out of here, Anita, do you hear me?"

"If he sits on the front stoop, they're going to have pictures of him. What if someone recognizes him? Do you really want the headlines to read werewolves attack suburbia?" I slipped into my own pair of gloves with practiced ease.

"Gosh," Jason said, "that was nifty, you made that look easy."

"Anita!" It was almost a yell.

We both looked up at Dolph. "You don't have to shout, Dolph, I can hear you just fine."

"Then why is he still standing here?"

"I can't send him back to the car. He can't sit out front. Where would you like him to be while I check out the crime scene?"

He balled his big hands into even bigger fists. "I—want-him-out-of-here." Every word was squeezed out through gritted teeth. "I don't care where he fucking goes."

I ignored the anger, because it didn't get me anywhere to pay attention to it. He was in a bad mood, it was a bad scene, and Dolph wasn't too fond of the monsters lately.

Merlioni came into the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway between kitchen and dining room, as if he'd picked up on the tension. "What's going on?"

Dolph pointed a finger at Jason. "He is out of here."

Merlioni glanced at me.

"You do not fucking look at her, you look at me!" The anger was hot in his voice. He wasn't yelling, but he didn't really need to.

Merlioni walked around Dolph, carefully, and reached out to take Jason's arm. I stopped him with one gloved hand on his hand.

Merlioni glanced back at Dolph, then moved a little farther down the kitchen, out of the line of fire, I think.

"Is there a backyard?" I asked.

"Why?" Dolph asked, his voice gone low and growling, not with the edge of any beast, but with anger.

"Merlioni can take him out back. He'll be out of the house and still safe from the reporters."

"No," Dolph said, "he's out of here. Gone, completely gone."

My headache was coming back, a flutter of pain behind one eye, but it had the promise of great things to come. "Dolph, I do not feel well enough for this shit."

"What shit?"

"Your shit with anyone not lily-human," I said, and I sounded tired, not angry.

"Get out."

I looked up at him. "What did you say?"

"Get out, take your pet werewolf and go home."

"You bastard."

He gave me that look that had been making grown policemen cringe for years. I was too tired and too disgusted with it all to flinch.

"I told you I was too sick to drive when you woke me up. You agreed I could bring a driver, even a civilian. You didn't say he had to be human. Now after dragging my ass down here, you're going to send me home without having seen the crime scene?"

"Yes," Dolph said, that one word almost choking in its brevity.

"No," I said, "you're not."

"This is my murder, Anita, and I say who stays and who goes."

I was finally beginning to get angry. You can only cut even your friends so much slack. I stepped in front of Jason, closer to Dolph. "I'm not here on your sufferance, Dolph. I'm a federal marshal now, and I have the right to investigate any preternatural crime that I see fit."

"Are you refusing my direct order?" his voice was very quiet now. Not heated—empty—and that should have scared me more, but I wasn't scared of Dolph. I never had been.

"If I think your direct orders are jeopardizing this investigation, then, yes I am."

He took one step towards me. He loomed over me, but I was used to that, a lot of people loomed over me. "Never question my professionalism again, Anita, never."

"When you act like a professional, I won't."

His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides. "You want to see why I don't want him at this scene? You want to see it?"

"Yeah," I said, "I want to see it."

He grabbed me by the upper arm. I don't know if Dolph had ever touched me before. It caught me off guard, and it wasn't until he'd half-marched, half-dragged me across the kitchen to the dining room door that I unfroze. I looked behind me and shook my head at Jason. He probably didn't like it, but he settled back against the cabinets. I caught a glimpse of Merlioni's shocked face before we were into the dining room.

He dragged me to the stairs, and when I stumbled, he didn't give me time to get to my feet, but literally dragged me up the stairs.

The door opened behind us, and I heard a man say, "Lieutenant!" I thought I recognized the voice, but I wasn't sure, and there wasn't time to look, I was too busy trying not to get rug burns from the stairs.