Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (13 page)

“You hanging all over him doesn’t change that he’s a homo.”

“Fruit, homo, can’t you even say
homosexual
?”

“You like that word better, girlie, fine. He’s a homosexual.”

His mother had moved closer to the bed, but not to it. She was hovering somewhere between her husband and her son. I got the feeling that she’d spent a lot of Jason’s life caught like that.

“I think I’m in a better position to know what Jason’s sexual preferences are than you are, Mr. Schuyler.” There, that had been polite.

“Dad,” Julia said from near the door, “Jason brought Anita here to meet you, doesn’t that say something?”

“It says she’ll lie for him.”

Jason moved away enough to just have my hand. He drew me toward the door. “Let’s go, Anita.”

“No,” Iris said, grabbing his other hand.

“Dad,” Julia said, “he came all this way. Both of them left work and everything to come here. Be nice.”

“I’m dying, Julia, I don’t have time to be nice. I want my son to be a man, and he’s not going to be.”

Jason’s shoulders rounded as if he’d been struck a blow. That was it, the last straw. This camel wasn’t taking any more crap from anyone, not even the dying.

I kept Jason’s hand, but turned toward the bed. “Jason is a better man than you are, Mr. Schuyler.”

Those cavernous eyes glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 86 of 287

“It means that a man is courteous. A real man is kind. A real man loves his family and treats them like human beings.”

“I’m dying, I’ve earned the right to be a son of a bitch.”

“I bet you’ve always been a cruel bastard.”

A look I couldn’t read came over his face. “
I’m
not the bastard.”

“Oh, I think you are. So you’re dying, so fucking what? We’re all dying, Mr. Schuyler, you just know the checkout time and how much the bill will be.”

“Get your little chippie friend out of here. Putting a cross around her neck doesn’t change what she is,” he said.

Jason’s hand tensed on mine, drawing me back a little. I must have moved toward the bed without realizing it. I’d been told wearing my cross was wrong because I raised the dead, but never because I was a whore. It was a new insult. I didn’t like it much.

“You should not have said that,” Jason said.

“Does
chippie
mean what I think it means?” I asked.

“Yeah, he called you a whore,” Jason said. I couldn’t read his tone, but it wasn’t angry exactly, more shocked, as if even for his father it had been too much.

Julia and Iris were standing openmouthed, as if they too were too shocked to know what to say.

“Franklin,” Mrs. Schuyler said, finally, in a breathy, uncertain voice.

“Stripper is just one step up from whore,” he said, totally unrepentant.

“So now I’m a homo and a whore,” Jason said. He didn’t sound angry, more like tired.

“If the shoe fits,” his father said.

“Franklin, don’t do this.”

“You told him to lie to me, Iris. You told him to bring his little stripper friend, so I’d die in peace. He’s a fucking fairy and fucking coffin bait to boot.”

Jason turned away; the otherworldly energy just stopped, as if he’d put up some big shield that cut off everything. The furry energy, the emotion, all of it. He shut down. I held his hand, kept him in the room. “If you walk out of this room, that’s going to be it.”

“I know,” he said softly.

“If it’s over, can we go out with a bang instead of a whimper?”

He looked at me, studying my face. Then he nodded. “Why not?”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 87 of 287

I smiled at him, and knew it was
that
smile, most unpleasant. The one that used to scare me in the mirror, but I’d gotten used to it. I knew it was in there now. I turned it on the bed and the man in it.

“Some of my best friends are strippers, Mr. Schuyler, people I love, even. So that’s not the insult you want it to be. I’m Federal Marshal Anita Blake.” I let go of Jason’s hand so I could get my badge out of my pocket with my left hand. I moved close enough to the bed for him to see it.

“I don’t believe it.”

I put the badge back and slipped off the left sleeve of my jacket so I could show him the worst of my scars from my job. “The scar tissue at the bend is where a vampire gnawed at me. The doctors thought I might lose the use of my arm. The cross-shaped burn is from some human servants who thought it would be funny for a vampire hunter to have a scar like a vampire. The claw marks were from a shapeshifted witch.”

“So you’re one of the federal marshals who hunt vampires.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“You know he’s fucking the master vampire of St. Louis.”

“Actually, I know he isn’t. Jean-Claude gets a lot of people thinking he’s sleeping with anyone who’s seen with him in public. One of the downsides of being a beautiful man, I guess.”

Those deep brown caves of eyes stared up at me. “You telling me he doesn’t give him blood?”

“I thought we were talking about sex.”

“Same thing.”

“If you think taking blood is the same thing as sex, Mr. Schuyler, then you’re the pervert, not either of us.”

Iris said, “Anita!” as if she were my mom and that tone had ever worked on me. He said, “No, no, don’t stop her, I started it.” He gazed up at me. “But you’ll finish it, won’t you?”

“You damn bet I will,” I said.

He smiled, just a little one. “You’re really my boy’s girlfriend?”

“What do I have to do to prove to you and his other sister that we’re dating? We’re lovers and we’re friends, so I guess that makes me his girlfriend. The word just sounds a little too junior high, don’t you think?”

He smiled again. “I guess it does.” He reached out as if to touch the scars, then hesitated. He wasn’t the first to want to touch them. I moved closer so he could. His fingertips were very rough, as if his day job had been something with his hands. There was a gasp behind me. I turned and found Mrs. Schuyler with her hand to her mouth and her eyes a little surprised.

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 88 of 287

Jason moved up to lift my jacket into place. “She saw the gun.”

“Gun,” Julia said.

Jason helped me on with my jacket, and the scars were invisible again. Well, except for the one in the palm of my right hand. It’s a smaller cross-shaped burn scar. That one I got because a very big and bad vampire was trying to possess me and someone shoved a cross into my hand. The vampire hadn’t given up until the cross had sunk into my flesh.

“I don’t go anywhere unarmed,” I said quietly.

Jason kissed my cheek, and I moved back to stand with him. “I’ll take Anita back to the hotel. We’ll leave in the morning.”

“Stay a day, or two.” His father said it, flat, almost no emotion. But the two other women in the room all tensed, as if that one small statement meant more than you’d think. Jason put his face next to my neck and breathed in the scent of my skin again, as if he needed another hit. I felt him use that touch and scent to help his voice be calm when he said, “We won’t leave tomorrow, but beyond that I’ll have to see. We both have jobs.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” his father said.

Jason nodded. “I guess you will.”

We went for the door. His father said, “Glad to see you cut your hair.”

Jason looked back, and it was not a friendly look. “If I’d known I’d be coming home, I’d have started growing it out again.”

“Because you know I like it short.”

“No, because you think when it’s long I look too pretty to be a boy. Anita likes long hair.”

“Then why did you cut it?” his father asked.

“For a change. I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.”

“I’ll be here.”

His mother started to follow us out, but his father said, “Iris,” in a tone that called her back. She waved at us, and called, “Bye…I love you.” Jason didn’t reply. Julia followed us out and hugged us both very thoroughly. Jason hugged her back; I did my best. Peterson and the suit fell into line around us. Jason put my left arm through his so he could touch my hand and arm with his hands. He was icily calm in the elevator going down and in the lobby, and perfectly calm as we slipped into the limo.

Peterson closed the door. We were alone. Jason held on until the motor started, and then his shoulders started to shake. He put his hands in front of his face and cried. He cried with his whole body, shaking, shivering.

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 89 of 287

I touched his shoulder, and he flinched. I tried one more time and he fell sideways into my lap, so that I held him while he wept. I held him while he cried in huge racking spasms, but he wasn’t loud. His body felt like it was being torn apart with grief, but he didn’t shout with it. He cried like someone who’d been taught not to attract too much attention with his grief. Too much noise and they come find you, to find out why the tears.

Call it a hunch, but I was betting that Franklin Schuyler had thought boys weren’t supposed to cry, especially his very small, very pretty, very-unlike-him son. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 90 of 287

18

THE TEARS BEGAN
to slow, and finally he just lay in my lap, very still, as if the tears had emptied him of everything. I stroked his hair; I made the noises you make when you know that the pain is so vast that nothing you can do will fix it. The soft
It’s all right
, when you know that it isn’t all right, and never will be again, and perhaps never had been.

Peterson opened the door for us. Jason wiped at his face and sat up. If he’d been a woman he would have asked if it looked like he’d been crying, but he was a man, and he didn’t ask. We got out, hand in hand again. They’d taken us around to the parking garage again. I hadn’t even noticed. The world had narrowed down to the man in my lap and his grief.

Peterson led us up the back stairs, which meant there was probably some real Summerland newsworthy event in the lobby. Fine with me; I’d had enough circus for a while. I was ready for some bread.

Peterson and the suit waited for me to open the door with the little key card. They waited until we were inside the room. I half-expected them to check that the room was safe, but they resisted the urge. Bully for them.

“Thanks,” I said.

Peterson handed me a business card. “If you have any more incidents with the press, call. It’s going to be a mess here this week. It’s very unfortunate that your friend and his father are going to be caught up in it. The governor is very serious about helping keep you out of the limelight.”

“I appreciate the effort, Mr. Peterson.”

“My job, Ms. Blake.”

I nodded. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

I closed the door, locked it, and put on the flip-bar door lock at the top. I always locked up tight. Yeah, most of the things I hunted could bust through a door without a problem, but you never knew, some bad guys were only human.

I didn’t expect bad guys tonight, but then I hadn’t expected to need the gun today either. I’d brought it anyway.

Jason had gone for the bathroom and closed the door. I heard water running. I almost left him alone, but I was starving. I knocked on the door.

The water stopped. “Yes.”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 91 of 287

“I want to order some room service, what do you want?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat, Jason.” It wasn’t just normal
have to eat
. Wereanimals all had better control of their beast if their bellies were full. One hunger feeds the other, and one emptiness calls another.

“Nothing is going to sound good to me, Anita.”

“I know.” I leaned my forehead against the door. “I’m sorry, Jason.”

I heard him at the door, and moved away enough for him to open it without bumping me. “What are you sorry about?”

“That your dad was so awful, I guess.”

He gave a smile that was so bitter it hurt my heart to see it. “He’s been awful to me my whole life. I guess I thought, he’s dying, we’ll have that Hallmark moment, but it’s not going to happen, is it?”

I didn’t know what to say, except, “I don’t think so.”

“He liked you, though. That surprised me.”

“Why?”

“He likes Mom all soft and
yes, dear
. He likes Roberta best of the girls because she always agrees with him. But he liked that you stood up to him.”

I shrugged. “My peculiar charm, I guess.”

He smiled at me. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” He walked past me into the room. I frowned at his back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he touched your scars.”

“A lot of people are fascinated by them.”

“No, they aren’t. They ignore them and pretend they aren’t there. Or they stare, but don’t want to. Your scars embarrass people, make them uncomfortable.”

“I try to ignore it all,” I said.

“Yeah, but they’re your scars, so it bothers you. I get to just watch people’s reactions.” He took off his tie and threw it on the floor.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know you were that interested in how people reacted to my scars.”

He smiled at me as he took off his jacket. “I like people-watching, you know that.”

“All wereanimals do; I’ve always thought it was the same way a lion watches a herd of gazelles. You know, looking for the weakest link.”

file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 92 of 287