Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

Mischa tried for the beginnings of a roundhouse kick, but there wasn’t room, and his leg hit a coffin, which stopped the movement and tumbled the coffin over. It also made him stumble, hesitate, and that was all Truth needed.

He hit Mischa in the solar plexus enough to double him over and followed it with a blow to the face that spun him half around and collapsed him over another coffin.

I heard the outer door open and glanced away from the fight long enough to see Lisandro and Emmanuel spill into the room, guns drawn. I held up my hand, not sure if it was needed; I didn’t want anyone to get shot, but the silence was suddenly nothing but the labored breathing of fewer men. I turned back to find Goran collapsed on the ground and Mischa still draped motionless over the coffin.

Wicked and Truth stood, chests rising and falling with their breaths, which you didn’t always see in vampires, because they didn’t always breathe. It meant they’d worked hard to win the fight, but they had won; more than that, they’d knocked them both cold, which wasn’t easy against either a vampire or a wereanimal. The brothers grinned at each other, a fierce baring of happy teeth. Wicked grinned wide enough to flash fang, which I’d never seen him do; I could only see the back of Truth’s head, so I missed seeing his fangs do their happy, tired flash. Blood started to trickle down the side of Wicked’s face, proving that Goran had landed at least one blow.

‘Wow,’ said Emmanuel.

‘I can smell that Goran’s alive, but is Mischa?’ Lisandro asked. His gun was pointed at the carpet, but not holstered.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that when vampires fight among themselves, they might be able to kill each other by snapping the spine. I said out loud, ‘Mischa’s too ancient and powerful to die from a snapped spine, isn’t he?’

Lisandro shrugged.

I glanced at Jean-Claude.

He sighed and started forward.

Truth started to bend over Mischa, as if to check for a pulse.

‘No,’ I said, loud and firm.

Truth looked at me but kept back from the fallen vampire. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Other than the fact that you may have killed one of our bodyguards?’ I said.

Truth had the grace to look embarrassed then, but he said, ‘Yes, besides that.’

I took out the Browning Hi Power and placed it against Mischa’s temple, gun to flesh. ‘Now check for signs of life,’ I said.

Truth looked a little puzzled, but he bent over the fallen vampire.

I didn’t keep looking at where my gun was pointed; I’d feel if his head moved. I looked farther down the body like you do in a fight; you look at the center of the body where the arms and legs attach to see if they move, because if the center does not move, nothing moves. I saw his hand tense not on his holstered gun, but near it.

‘Don’t move, Mischa, not an inch.’ My voice was low, careful, honed down with practice and control, because when you have the barrel of your gun pressed to someone’s temple, your finger on the trigger, you have to have control, because without it you might flinch and blow their brains out.

‘How did you know he was bluffing?’ Truth asked.

‘I hunt vampires, remember?’

‘Lisandro is going to disarm you, Mischa, just until you cool down.’

‘I can disarm him,’ Truth said.

‘No, you can’t,’ I said. ‘If you touch him he might try to kill you, and then I’d have to shoot him.’

Wicked said, ‘Goran is coming around.’

It was Jean-Claude who said, ‘Goran, can you hear me?’

The werebear’s voice was a little shaky and too deep from the dregs of the extra testosterone from the fight. ‘I hear you, my lord.’

‘This fight is over, do you understand me?’

‘I understand.’

‘Lisandro is going to disarm your master so he will not do anything unfortunate.’

Mischa spoke carefully, and I could feel the small movements against my gun as he enunciated his words. ‘That won’t be necessary. I am quite calm.’

‘You were going to shoot Truth as he bent over you,’ I said.

‘I thought about it,’ he said, ‘but your gun against my head dissuaded me.’

‘And when my gun isn’t against your head, what’s to dissuade you then?’ I asked.

‘My temper is hot, but your cold steel has dampened the flame of it.’

‘Fancy talk, but how do I know you won’t get all hot and bothered later?’

‘Mischa,’ Jean-Claude said.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Give us your word of honor that you will not in any way, through any means, seek retaliation against Truth, or Wicked, for this incident.’

Mischa went so profoundly still that I could feel the change in his body through the barrel of my gun against his head. I knew that if I’d dared to raise my gaze from his center body mass to his face, it would have that unreadable emptiness to it that the old vampires got when they went very still, as if they were well-crafted statues rather than people.

‘Mischa,’ Jean-Claude said, ‘give your word.’

‘And if I do not?’

‘Then ma petite will finish this argument for you.’

‘My death may take Goran’s life, as well.’

‘It would be a shame to lose him for such an inexplicable reason, but he understood the risks when he joined the battle at your side.’

‘Truth stopped Mischa from hitting you a second time,’ Wicked said. ‘Why did you join the fight on his side?’

‘He is my master,’ Goran said, as if that explained everything.

‘Wives attack the police when they try to take their abusive husbands to jail. It’s one of the reasons that police hate to go on domestic disturbance calls,’ I said.

‘Why would you help your abuser?’ Truth asked.

‘I don’t know, but they do,’ I said.

‘Better the devil you know than the unknown,’ Jean-Claude said.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Never mind, ma petite ; Mischa, give us your word and we can all go to bed for the day.’

Now that he’d said it, I could feel the press of dawn above us like the hand of some giant hesitating over a butterfly, except we were the butterflies and knew what was about to happen.

Mischa gave his word.

‘You may put up your gun, ma petite . Old-school vampires are many things, but we are not oath breakers.’

I hesitated for a fraction of a second, but he was right. It was one of the few things that made dealing with the really old vampires better than dealing with the weaker modern ones. Modern vampires lied just as easily as people did, and their word wasn’t worth shit.

I took my finger off the trigger and eased my gun back. The mark of my barrel was imprinted on his skin where I’d pressed it tight. If he’d been human it might even have bruised. I stepped back before I raised my gaze enough to meet his blue eyes. I expected to see anger in his eyes, but instead I saw respect, even admiration. I had not expected that.

‘May I get up?’ he asked.

Jean-Claude said, ‘You may.’

Mischa kept looking at me and didn’t move.

‘You heard your lord and master,’ I said.

‘But he will not kill me and you will.’

‘He won’t shoot you,’ I said. ‘That’s not the same thing as not being willing to kill you.’

‘Fair enough, my dark queen, but you have the gun and he does not.’

‘Get up, Mischa, but don’t do anything stupid.’

He sat up carefully, never taking his gaze from me. ‘You would have killed me.’

‘It’s my job description,’ I said.

‘Killing someone you have a warrant of execution for, who has already taken human life, is one thing, but you would simply shoot me for thinking about harming Truth. Either you value him as your lover more than we thought, or you would have done it to protect any of your guard.’