Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘Everybody take a deep breath,’ I said, my voice calm but clear. ‘I’m Marshal Anita Blake and the men who you’re sizing up right now are with me.’

‘We know who you are,’ an older guy in a state trooper uniform said, and he didn’t sound thrilled.

‘The other beasts are with you in what way?’ Jamie asked what the cops probably wanted to ask anyway, so they let him. Except for the beast part, I’d give the police the benefit of the doubt on that.

‘First, don’t ever call them beasts again,’ Micah said.

‘That’s what they are,’ he said, and he raised his hand and pointed at Micah. ‘Just like you are.’ His silver crosier winked in the light.

‘Oh, God, you’re wearing the shepherd’s crook. Please tell me that the two of you didn’t become Shepherds of the Flock?’ Micah sounded disgusted.

I thought, The nut jobs on the news , but I didn’t say it out loud. They were his relatives and I’d do my best not to make things worse, but the Shepherds were a new zealot group that went around to victims of preternatural attacks and tried to ‘save’ them by telling new lycanthropes they were now animals without souls and new vampires that they were demon-inhabited corpses, so becoming one of those made you an agent of the devil.

‘We are here to be guardians for the victims of the beasts and demons,’ Jamie said, which was a big yes.

‘Sheriff Callahan wasn’t bitten by a shapeshifter or a vampire,’ Al said, ‘so you shouldn’t be up here.’

‘We’re Rush’s family. We have every right to be here,’ Jamie said.

‘Then be here as family, not as Shepherds,’ Al said.

‘We’re here to protect Rush, in case the monster that attacked him comes back,’ Aunt Bertie said.

‘Leave that to the police,’ Al said.

‘Not when the police consort with devil worshippers and soulless beasts. You cannot use the devil to protect you from the devil.’

I moved up beside Micah. ‘Who are you calling a devil worshipper?’ Nathaniel came with me, because he wouldn’t let go of my hand. In fact, he had a double grip on my arm now, as if he thought I’d do something unfortunate.

‘Don’t feel bad, Anita, he just called his own nephew a soulless beast,’ Micah said, and now his voice held an edge of anger. The first trickle of power slithered across my skin, raising the hair on the arm closest to him. He had the best control of any shapeshifter I’d ever been around, and sometimes he’d flare power to back down another shapeshifter, like I’d tried to do with Nilda at the airplane, but somehow I didn’t think this flare-up was on purpose. His aunt and uncle couldn’t feel the burst of power, and if they had it would only have confirmed their fears.

‘Easy,’ I said softly.

He whispered, ‘I need a minute.’

He needed a minute to regain his iron control. I did the only thing I could think to do: draw their ‘fire.’ ‘How dare you call your own nephew a soulless beast, you narrow-minded, poor excuse for a Christian.’

‘How dare you question my Christianity, you devil-worshipping, evil—’

‘That’s enough, Jamie,’ Al said, and tried to step between us.

‘I’m Christian,’ I said, ‘and my cross glows just fine. When’s the last time you bet your faith against something that could tear your face off?’

Nathaniel’s grip on my arm tightened enough to almost hurt. I hadn’t meant to step closer to Uncle Jamie, but religious bigots like him pissed me off. The ones who were so sure they were right were usually the most un-Christian of all.

Micah’s energy was almost back to normal. The fact that he was having this much trouble getting to normal said just how angry and upset he was, and it wasn’t just the crackpot aunt and uncle who were making him raw. His dad was in the room and they were delaying him with their bigotry that masqueraded as religion.

‘She’s Micah’s fiancée,’ Juliet said, ‘and that alone should make you talk like a civilized human being to her.’

Aunt Bertie pushed up beside her husband and Juliet. ‘Are you his fiancée, or is it Beatrice’s fancy way of saying you’re shacking up together?’

Oh, good, they were going to hate the sex part, too. ‘Shacking up together?’ I said.

‘That’s what I said,’ Bertie said, and her face looked smug.

‘It’s just I haven’t heard that phrase since I was a little girl; I didn’t know anybody still used it.’

She blushed, as if I’d embarrassed her. Interesting, because I had not begun to embarrass Aunt Bertie.

‘Are you his fiancée, or living in sin?’

‘She could be both,’ Juliet said, ‘the way I was with Ben.’

‘Just because Ben married you when he could get the milk for free doesn’t mean it wasn’t a sin.’

‘Milk for free?’ I asked. ‘Are you guys for real?’

Jamie gave me a look of utter disdain. ‘When a man can get what he wants from a woman, he uses her until he’s done with her, and then he abandons her for the next woman who will open her legs for him.’

Nathaniel’s hands tightened desperately on my arm, but it was Micah who stepped up beside us and said, ‘I am ashamed that you are the kind of man who would fuck a woman and then abandon her, Uncle Jamie.’

‘What?’ Jamie said, and looked at Micah. ‘I would never—’

‘You just said that if a man can get sex before marriage, he uses the woman and then abandons her for the next woman.’

‘Yes, that’s why you marry first and show your commitment before God.’

‘I love Anita and I would never abandon her for another woman. I don’t need God to tell me that would be wrong, and I’m deeply ashamed that if you hadn’t married Aunt Bertie first that you would have fucked her for a while and then abandoned her.’

‘I never would … I did not say that!’

Aunt Bertie yelled, ‘How dare you! Apologize to your uncle! He is the best man I have ever known and he would never do such a thing.’

‘And Anita is the best woman I have ever known, and she would never abandon me just because she could get all the sex she wanted without marrying me. She loves me for more than just sex, don’t you, sweetheart?’ he asked.

I don’t think he’d ever called me sweetheart, but I said the only thing I could say: ‘Yes, I love you for way more than just the mind-blowing sex.’

He smiled at me, and then he took off the sunglasses that he’d put back on in the lights of the hospital. He let his aunt and uncle see his leopard eyes. They backed up, gasping. Then Aunt Bertie yelled, ‘His eyes! He’s starting to shift! Oh, my God, help us!’

The police in the hallway knew about his eyes, so they didn’t go for their weapons, but Aunt Bertie didn’t know they wouldn’t. She’d been willing to get Micah killed.

Al said, ‘His eyes are stuck in animal form, Bertie. He’s not changing.’

She and Jamie kept backing up. She turned to the other officers. ‘Protect us.’

‘Deputy Gutterman told us about Mike Callahan’s eyes being leopard,’ the older state trooper said. ‘You don’t need to be protected from Rush’s son, your nephew.’ In other circumstances he might have half-agreed with their attitude, but he’d understood, just like I had, that she’d been willing to get her own nephew shot in the hallway outside his dying father’s hospital room. None of the police who had witnessed it were going to like either of them now. Some lines you did not cross, and they’d just crossed several.

Micah took my free hand in his, and I said, ‘You aren’t shepherds, you’re sheep. The first hint of threat and you run for protection to the real shepherds, the police.’

The older statie said, ‘We’re not shepherds, Marshal Blake, we’re sheepdogs.’ He grinned, and it was more a flash of teeth, like baring fangs, than amusement.