Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

“You know our names, what’s yours?” I asked.

“We are the Harlequin, that is sufficient.”

“So I call you all Harlequin, like calling all dogs Rover? Come on, you’ve got to have names.”

“We are the Harlequin,” he repeated.

“Fine, Harley, what do you want?”

“You know Harley is not my name.”

“Tell me your name and I’ll use it.”

“The Mother of Us All told us to give you no names.”

“Can’t fuck me, can’t give me your name, what else has she forbidden you to do with me?”

“I asked if you thought Lisandro was handsome; you ignored the question.”

“Yeah, he’s cute. His wife thinks so, too.”

“Does that mean he’s not one of your lovers? How disappointing.”

I swallowed hard, and when I looked at Lisandro his brown, human eyes met mine. I think he was thinking the same thing I was: Which answer would help us most? Would they hurt him more if they knew he was a lover, or less? If he wasn’t a lover, would they just kill him? They had other hostages; who? Who, for the love of God?

Harley, for lack of a better name, stepped between us so we couldn’t make eye contact. “It is a simple question, Anita. Is he one of your lovers?”

“Honestly, I’m trying to decide what answer will make you the happiest.”

“The truth will make me happiest, Anita.”

I didn’t like the way he kept using our first names, as if he knew us. I had never heard the voice, I’d have bet money on it. “Would you believe yes, and no?”

He moved so I could see Lisandro again, and he put the barrel of one of his guns against his head. “Perhaps I will simply kill him. I think you would be more cooperative after one of them dies.”

“Don’t do it,” I said.

Lisandro told me with his eyes, Don’t do it. Whatever they want, don’t do it . I knew why they’d gagged him, because he’d have said all that out loud.

Harley spoke each word slowly, carefully. “Is-he-one-of-yourlovers?” There was anger in each word now, the reasonable tone vanishing in the heat. “If I smell a lie on you I will kill him, Anita.”

“We had sex once, but out of respect for his wife’s wishes we’ve behaved since then. See, yes, and no, I wasn’t lying.” I tried to quiet my pulse, but couldn’t quite do it. I was telling the truth, but Harley seemed to want to hurt Lisandro, or maybe he just liked hurting people.

“His wife’s wishes, what does that mean?” He still had the gun barrel pressed to the back of Lisandro’s head. I did not want to have to watch his brains get blown out. I did not want to tell his wife and kids that I’d watched him die.

“It means that she told him that if he ever cheated on her again she’d leave him, and take the kids, or kill him, and me.”

He rubbed Lisandro’s hair with the tip of the gun, almost like he was petting him with it. “Do you think she meant that?”

“That she’d leave him and take their two kids? Yes.”

“No, Anita, the part about killing him and you. Did she mean that?”

I shrugged as far as I could with my hands bound behind my back. “I don’t know.”

He slid the barrel along the side of Lisandro’s face. “Oh, come, you must have an opinion of the woman.”

“I haven’t met her,” I said.

“Interesting,” he said, and slid the gun barrel underneath Lisandro’s chin. Lisandro jerked away, but Harley put the barrel more firmly under his chin, and forced his face up, until they could meet each other’s gaze. “Would your wife truly kill you both?”

Lisandro just glared at him.

“Oh, the gag, how silly of me, just nod. If you had sex with Anita again, would your wife kill you both?”

Lisandro just looked at him.

“Answer me, Lisandro.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know either,” I said.

Harley looked at me. “Don’t help him.”

“I’m just saying that most married couples I know say things in anger they don’t exactly mean, but I know she’ll take his kids. He coaches their soccer teams. He wouldn’t risk losing his kids.”

Harley used the gun barrel to force Lisandro’s head back farther so that the angle of his neck was painful. “Is that true, Lisandro? Do you value your family?”

This time Lisandro gave a tiny nod, as much as the angle of his neck would allow.

Harley moved the gun and let him put his head down. “And do you value your bodyguard, Anita?”

Lisandro flashed me his dark, angry eyes again. Again, we were both wondering which answer would help us, and which one would hurt the most.

“He’s my bodyguard; he’s good at his job. I value anyone who’s good at their job.” My words were calm, reasonable; the pulse in my neck didn’t agree, but I was afraid of what was going to happen next. I couldn’t find my calm on this one.

“Your words are those of an employer, but your fear is that for a friend. He is your lover, and your friend; yes?”

“I make friends easily,” I said.

Harley laughed then, and it was a good, full-chested deep chuckle. Under other circumstances it would have made me smile, at least, but with a gun in each hand, and Lisandro’s blood still fresh on the floor, the laugh was unnerving. It didn’t match what was happening. It’s never good when the bad guy’s reactions don’t match normal human emotions. It means there’s something wrong with them, and that they won’t react like you expect. They become a sociopathic wild card. The kind of wild card that can get people hurt, or dead.

“You make friends easily, so we’ve heard.” His voice still held that edge of humor. “Put Lisandro on the table.”

The three Harlequin carried him to the table. There was no blood trail from his wounded knee; it had already healed. They lifted him like a piece of luggage and laid him facedown on the table.

“Face up, please,” Harley said.

They flipped him over without a word or a hesitation. They never even exchanged a glance between them. What the hell was wrong with them? The Harlequin in the woods hadn’t been like this; they’d been like Harley, like the red tiger Harlequin. Why were these three different?

Harley holstered his guns and came to loom over me. He had to be around six feet tall and from the ground he looked bigger, but they always did. I could see that his eyes were a soft gray. He knelt and picked me up in his arms, gently. He cradled me against his chest. It made me tense, for no reason other than that the gentleness was like the laughter; it didn’t match.

But this close to him, I could smell the sweet pungent scent of leopard. My leopard rose like a darker shadow, to begin to pad up that long path inside me.

Harley stumbled in midstep, and I heard him sniff the air behind his mask. “You smelled like wolf for your first captor, now you smell like leopard for me. I do not believe either is real. I think it is part of your sweet poisoned bait that lures the shapeshifters to you.” He was back to sounding oh so reasonable, but he leaned his face down toward me. I felt his chest rise in a long, deep breath, as if he wanted to catch the perfume of my leopard while he could.

My fear had made it good odds that one or more of my beasts would rise; the scent of his leopard had chosen who it would be. My leopard began to jog up the path.

Harley laid me, gently, on the table beside Lisandro. It had been a long time since I’d been laid flat on my back with my hands bound behind me; it wasn’t any more comfortable than the last time I remembered it.

Harley whispered, “If you shapeshift we will kill him.”

“I can’t change form,” I said.

He rose up enough to study my face. “You smell of the truth, but I smell your leopard. You can’t be a wereleopard and not shapeshift.”