Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘God knows in police work you see your partner more than you see your wife sometimes,’ Burke said.

I just nodded.

‘What did I do to earn the look this time?’ Ares asked.

Bram glared at him.

‘What?’

I said, ‘You implied that the other guards with us aren’t as good at their jobs as you two are.’

‘I did not,’ he said, and his face showed that he totally didn’t get it.

‘Don’t you get it, Ares?’ Bram said, ‘Dev and Nicky don’t look like cops, or military, and saying they were hostages just undermines them in Commander Burke’s eyes even more.’

Ares looked from one to the other of us, and then his face sort of fell. He took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, ‘That is not what I meant.’

‘I know,’ Bram said with an eye roll, like a long-suffering spouse.

I turned my head to hide my smile.

‘I’m just glad Marshal Blake and young Callahan have good men to step in when needed.’

Bram gave him a very direct look. ‘None of us saved Marshal Blake that day.’

Burke frowned. ‘I’m not sure I’m following.’

Bram sighed. He looked at me, back at Ares, and finally back at me. ‘I’m sorry, Anita; having bodyguards with you is going to make all the other cops think less of you as a cop, like a soldier who needs guards.’

I nodded and shrugged. ‘Yeah, but what can we do?’

Bram turned back to Burke. ‘Let’s be clear, Commander. Marshal Blake helped come up with a plan to rescue the hostages and take out the bomber. She went in with SWAT to execute that plan. The other guards upstairs were key players in that plan. In fact, Nathaniel Graison, the other civilian with Micah Callahan, helped save them all, too. If Nathaniel hadn’t done his part first, the rescue would have failed. But it was Anita who took out the threat – not the other cops, not the guards, her.’

‘You get mad at me for being chatty and now you’re just running off at the mouth,’ Ares said.

‘It’s a police case. Everything’s on record,’ Bram said.

I looked at Bram’s stoic dark face. I couldn’t read his expression, and hyena wasn’t one of my animals to call, so I had no extrasensory hint of what he was thinking. ‘Ares is right – this is the longest speech I’ve ever heard from you.’

‘Commander Burke is the highest-ranking officer we’ve met. I just want him to know that you aren’t a victim who needs saving, you’re the person who comes through the door and does the saving.’

I smiled and frowned at the same time, puzzling. ‘Then why add Nathaniel in?’

‘Because he’s the kind of man that men like us discount, and Nathaniel deserves better than that. If I had just told Commander Burke how tough you, Dev, and Nicky are, then it marginalizes Nathaniel.’

‘You didn’t defend Mike Callahan’s honor to me,’ Burke said.

Bram turned just his head, and there was some change in his energy, not quite his beast peeking out, but almost anger. Ares reacted to it by standing taller and moving slightly closer to his partner. Bram said, ‘Micah doesn’t need anyone to defend his honor. He is his honor.’

‘No offense,’ Burke said.

Bram nodded. ‘We take Anita’s orders because she leads from the front line. We follow Micah’s orders because he is our leader.’

‘What about your Master of the City, this Jean-Claude?’

‘We respect Jean-Claude,’ Bram said.

‘But he isn’t your leader the way Callahan and Blake are?’

It was Ares who stepped forward for Bram this time. ‘Excuse my partner here; he’s not used to talking this much. I think sharing time is over, right, Anita?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. It was actually a point of contention between some of the vampires around Jean-Claude that the bodyguards followed my orders better than his and that almost all the shapeshifters followed Micah’s orders better. The Harlequin had once been the elite bodyguards of the head of the vampire council, the Mother of All Darkness, but with her defeat they belonged to Jean-Claude now. He was the new head of the vampire council. Not all the Harlequin had agreed with the change, but once the Mother of All Darkness was dead, it was very much ‘The king is dead, long live the king.’ Though I guess in this case it had been ‘The queen is dead, long live the king.’

Burke looked from one to the other of us, but our faces gave him nothing back and he’d been a cop long enough to know when to let it go. What I didn’t like was that he’d asked about Jean-Claude in the first place. How much did the other police know about our vampire politics? Looking at Burke’s face, I thought maybe more than I’d thought. It made me wonder if Burke had the same mysterious federal friend as Sheriff Callahan had and how much the commander here knew about some of the less public adventures we’d all had, things that hadn’t been reported to the police, because we’d handled it old-school. Yeah, I meant illegal.

I needed away from Burke before he asked something even more awkward. Unfortunately, I had the perfect out. ‘I need to get back to Micah and Nathaniel. I really wish I’d been able to meet Sheriff Callahan under other circumstances,’ I said.

Burke nodded, face somber. ‘Callahan is a good sheriff and a good man. I hope like hell that you get a chance to find that out for yourself, Marshal.’

‘So do I, Commander, so do I.’

We all shook hands and three of us went for the elevator. It was time to see if Micah’s mother and aunt had gone to jail on mutual assault charges. The fun just never stopped on this trip.

By the time we got upstairs, some decisions had been reached. Neither of the women went to jail. Aunt Bertie and Uncle Jamie had been escorted out of the hospital. Aunt Jody and Aunt Bobbie were staying at the hospital with the bevy of policemen who would haunt the place until Rush Callahan either got to go home or didn’t. The doctors were starting to wean Rush from the drugs that were keeping him unconscious, but as Dr Rogers had said, they were going to do it slowly because of the other patient going into shock and dying from too rapid a wake-up. We had about two hours, maybe more, so … We were invited to go to Micah’s mom and stepfather’s house. It was close to the hospital and to the university where they both worked.

Micah started to protest, saying, ‘I’m not going to leave.’

Nathaniel had moved close to him and spoke low. ‘We all need food.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ Micah said.

‘Your beast is, because mine is, and Anita carries more than one hunger inside her.’

We both looked at our third. I don’t know about Micah, but I felt stupid for not remembering that we weren’t just human. Going without enough food had consequences for wereanimals beyond just low blood sugar. We, and everyone with us, had iron self-control of our ‘hungers,’ but iron wasn’t impenetrable.

‘You are under a lot of stress,’ Nathaniel said. ‘It makes it harder to control everything.’

‘I hate to leave him now that I’m back,’ Micah said.

I took his hand and said, ‘The doctors will call when he starts to come around, and Nathaniel is right. We don’t want your family to meet your beast unexpectedly. Do we?’

‘My control is better than that,’ he said, and sounded defensive, which was rare for him.

Nathaniel hugged him one-armed so I could keep his hand. ‘You have the most amazing control of anyone I’ve ever met, my Nimir-Raj, but no one is perfect, not even you. Don’t let guilt make you stupid, not now. You have your family again; let’s not scare them by a surprise shapeshift.’

His mother came up then and said, ‘Beth is so excited to see you.’