Laurell Hamilton: Bullet

I still miss windows and light and air, but until we find and free the Lover of Death, the Circus of the Damned is the safest place to be. We’re doing the best to make it home.

I’ve rearranged my schedule so that I have three afternoons a week free of clients, so I can train with the guards. Nathaniel tries to have coffee ready for me in the kitchen when I come home so we have a few minutes to visit. One afternoon Matthew was at the kitchen table drinking milk and eating a freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Hey, Matthew,” I said, and made sure my suit jacket was lying flat over my gun so I wouldn’t flash.

“Hey, ’Nita,” he said, with a mouthful of sandwich. He stood up in his chair and raised his arms for me to pick him up. He puckered up for a kiss and I gave him one. He got lipstick and I got grape jelly.

I went to Nathaniel and started to kiss him, then remembered Matthew’s comment at the dance recital: All the big boys kiss you, ’Nita .

Nathaniel gave me a puzzled look and then kissed me, and I kissed him back, because I didn’t know what else to do. Besides, the smell of his skin made me feel better than the smell of the coffee he handed me.

Nathaniel sat down at the table near Matthew, and I did, too. “Monica’s taking a deposition out of state. It’s apparently a witness they’ve been searching for on a fraud case.”

I sat down at the table and sniffed the coffee. It smelled good. “How long is she gone for?”

“Overnight. We drop him at preschool tomorrow, and she’ll pick him up like normal.”

The guards spilled into the kitchen. It was shift change. They’d get coffee and maybe a snack and then we’d all go work out. The guards called, “Hey, kiddo.” Lisandro, who had two little ones of his own, ruffled Matthew’s auburn curls. He chattered with them, excited, like it was all normal. I took off my jacket, because I wanted to and every guard was armed to the teeth and not hiding it. My little gun didn’t seem so bad.

He called out to Devil. “Can I come watch you practice?”

“Sure,” he said, and he leaned over and kissed me hi. So did Nicky. All the big boys kiss ’Nita.

When everyone had had coffee or water, or just a few minutes to decompress, we all got up and went for the gym. We moved surrounded by muscular armed and dangerous men. Matthew took my hand and Nathaniel’s. “What are we reading tonight, Natty?” he asked.

“ Goodnight Moon ?”

“No, that’s a little kid’s book. I’m big now.”

Nathaniel smiled and said, “How about Peter Pan ?”

“You mean like the cartoon?”

He smiled wider. “Yeah, like the cartoon.”

“I like Peter Pan, he can fly!”

Peter Pan was the first book Micah, Nathaniel, and I ever read to each other, and now we’d read it to Matthew. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with everything Matthew saw and learned with us, but his mother was okay with it. Who was I to bitch?

What bothers me most about keeping Matthew is that Nathaniel is starting to hint that maybe we could have a rug rat of our own. Me, a mom? So not happening. But if he keeps hinting about kids, he may talk me into that puppy he’s been wanting.

I can see us with a puppy, but a baby? Not only no, but hell no. I’m a U.S. Marshal, a legal vampire executioner, and I raise the dead for a living. None of those jobs would work with a baby, and not even the thought of having Nathaniel’s lavender eyes staring up at me from some curly-haired moppet is enough to change that. Besides, brown beats light-colored eyes genetically. I’d more likely be staring into a pair of my own dark brown, and I can see that every time I look in a mirror. I’m not fond enough of my own eyes to want to see them in someone else’s face.