Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (24 page)

I smiled. “You have no idea.”

He actually grinned, before Shadwell said, “If they’re changing clothes you and Price can stay outside the room.”

Sanchez shook his head, frowning again. “They aren’t changing, but our orders were explicit. Until further notice we do not lose sight of our”—he glanced at me, then finished with—“charges.”

He said the last softly, as if it wasn’t quite the word he would have used if one of the “charges” hadn’t been standing in front of him.

I smiled at him, and something about the smile made him shift, or maybe the gun was digging into his side.

“Your jacket fits nice, but it’s harder to hide a shoulder holster,” he said. Oh, he’d noticed the gun. It was my turn to shrug. “I got used to wearing it.”

Shadwell said, “She’s a federal marshal, and the girlfriend of the man.”

Sanchez’s eyes went a little wide. “He don’t act like he has a girlfriend.”

I smiled, and this time it was a happy one. “Are his clothes still on?” I asked. Sanchez tried not to look startled, but failed a little around the edges. “Last I checked.”

I smiled wider. “Then Jason hasn’t gotten too carried away yet.”

“He take his clothes off in front of groups of women a lot?” Sanchez asked. I nodded. “All the time,” I said. I didn’t explain what Jason’s job was; I was enjoying Sanchez’s reaction too much. It was helping me delay going into the next room, which was pretty much my goal.

“He’s a stripper,” Shadwell said, a little disgusted.

I gave him a dirty look. “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tone about my boyfriend’s job, thanks.”

Shadwell’s eyes flashed at me from behind his glasses, showing that there was a little blue to all that gray in his eyes. “No offense.”

“Sure,” I said.

“He the entertainment?” Sanchez asked.

“No,” Shadwell said, and he didn’t explain either.

Great, we were just going to play need-to-know until we were all confused. It was Rowe who moved around so he could look me in the face. His eyes had seemed very brown, until I had Sanchez’s to look into; now they seemed pale. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

BloodNoir

Page 157 of 287

“You’re delaying so you don’t have to go into the other room.”

I gave him an unfriendly look. “You don’t know me well enough to make that guess.”

“It’s not a guess,” he said.

I turned the look into a glare.

He laughed, and raised his hands ceilingward. “Hey, don’t give me that look just because I’m right.”

I shrugged, and tried not to be childish about it. I settled for sounding a little sulky, but I couldn’t help that part. “You’re smarter than you look, Rowe.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” he said.

“Accurate,” Sanchez said, with a smile.

“You said if we had a problem tonight it wouldn’t be you,” Shadwell said. I turned the remnants of the unfriendly look on him. But explaining might keep me in this room until they stopped looking at the wedding clothes. “I am an unmarried woman who is dating a man seriously enough to drop everything and come home to meet his folks. We have no plans to marry, but if I go into the other room with the wedding dresses being
ooh
ed and
aah
ed over, the women are going to ask about our plans. Jason and I don’t have any plans, and that will bug the women. I don’t want to mess with it.”

“Why would you come home to meet someone’s family if you have no plans to marry?”

Shadwell asked.

“I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer one of mine first.”

He looked suspicious, but I think they weren’t much more eager to go into the next room than I was. The sound of giggling was being punctuated by Jason’s laugh. “You can ask.”

“What caused the order to come down that you aren’t to let your charges out of your sight?”

Shadwell shook his head. “If Peterson gives us permission I’ll be happy to tell you, but until then, I can’t.”

“Orders,” I said.

“Chain of command,” he said.

I nodded. “What happens when Chuck comes back? Is he higher in the chain of command than you are?”

They all exchanged glances. Shadwell actually rolled his lower lip under, which was the most nerves I’d seen him show.

“You don’t know where he stands in the chain of command, do you?”

“That’s none of your business,” Shadwell said.

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

BloodNoir

Page 158 of 287

“Whatever you say, shall we go see if everyone’s still got all their clothes on?”

“We could just keep talking out here,” Rowe said.

“We could, but I’ve delayed as long as my self-respect will allow. Time to brave the giggling horde.”

“All women giggle,” Rowe said.

“I don’t,” I said.

He gave me a look that was neither professional nor okay from a strange man. “I bet I could make you giggle.”

“Rowe,” Shadwell said, in a serious voice.

“You just lost points in my book, Rowe, serious points.”

He held up his hands in a push-away gesture. “Sorry, that was out of line.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it was, and if you expect to be in the room with us while we sleep tonight, you are so very wrong.”

Shadwell actually stepped between us to break the eye contact. “We hope the orders will change by then.”

“I’m sorry,” Rowe said again, “it’s just nice to talk to a woman that doesn’t have that look in her eyes.”

“What look?” I asked.

“That how-fast-can-I-get-you-down-the-aisle look.”

I laughed. “I think that’s your nerves projecting, Rowe.”

“This from the woman who didn’t want to go into the next room because she’s afraid they’ll press you to marry your boyfriend.”

“You can tell how happy a couple is by how hard the women try to fix up their single friends,” I said.

“Some men do that, too,” Sanchez said.

There was a loud thump from the next room, and near-hysterical laughter.

“Shit,” I said, and started for the room.

“I thought you didn’t want to go in there,” Rowe called.

“I don’t, but I just realized I’m actually nervous about it, which means I’ve got to go in.”

“That makes no sense,” Rowe said. “You’re going to do it because you know you’re afraid to do it?”

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

BloodNoir

Page 159 of 287

I didn’t correct his
afraid
to my
nervous
, because my pulse was up, my muscles tense. I was just meeting some of Jason’s old girlfriends, for God’s sake. He and I weren’t even really an item.

“She’s got to do it now,” Shadwell said.

“Why?” Rowe asked.

“That you gotta ask that question is why you had to leave the cops early.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rowe asked.

Shadwell had hurried his step to catch up with me, then slowed down because his stride was about twice mine. We didn’t have to look at each other to understand. If something scares you, no matter how small, you gotta face it, because if you start failing on the small stuff, you’ll eventually fail on the big stuff. Shadwell got that; Rowe didn’t. Shadwell and I didn’t necessarily like each other, but he’d go through into the bedroom with me. Sanchez was right behind us. Rowe trailed behind. I could see a metal folding screen that hid most of the bedroom from view. Shadwell went past the screen first, and suddenly we could see in. There was a storm of giggling, and deep blue crinoline was everywhere. A pale blue dress came flying through the air to land at our feet. It was raining blue bridesmaid dresses.

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

BloodNoir

Page 160 of 287

34

I ACTUALLY HAD
to stop beside the fainting couch just inside the room, because it looked like someone had planned the image. The bed was covered in blue dresses. In among the dresses were Jason and the women. They were all blond, blue-eyed, delicate, and looked like cousins or closer. They were all out of breath, and lying or sitting like they’d just finished doing something strenuous. The blue dresses near their faces made their eyes incredibly blue. Trish stood to the side of the little party like she’d fled the bed when the fun started. She stood behind a man in a suit who had to be Price, Sanchez’s other half.

“What did you guys do,” I asked, “have a dress fight?”

Lisa pushed back a puffy blue slip and said, “Yes. We are going to be in such trouble when the wedding coordinator sees the wrinkles, but it felt so good.”

Trish bent over and picked up a dress that had fallen to the floor. “If we hang them up now, they won’t wrinkle.”

Most of the women on the bed started picking things up and searching for hangers. But one of the women slid off the bed and came to me. She was taller than the others, taller than me by several inches, at least five foot eight, but still had that delicacy of bone that seemed par for the course. She was wearing either a sheath dress or a slip with the thinnest of spaghetti straps that clung to her body to show every muscle, every curve. She didn’t have enough body fat to really have curves. Her breasts were small and tight to her body. But she moved well, and the muscles that showed in her bare arms and the body of the dress were more than the muscles you get from working out to keep in shape. There was a physical potential to her that you didn’t see in many women. Jason bounced off the bed, literally, and caught her hand before she got to me. “Anita, this is J. J.; she and I were in dance together all through school.”

J. J. gave me an appraising look that I couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t just an old girlfriend looking at a new one, but that was in there. I couldn’t read the look, and that bothered me a little. I took her hand, carefully manicured but with nails short enough for function. She had a good grip. “I take it you’re still dancing.”

She gave me a smile that was shy, eyes turned down, looking under her long lashes at me. The lashes were golden and very long, and the color had to be natural because mascara would have ruined it. “Does it show that much?”

“The workout does,” I said, and realized she seemed to have no intention of breaking the handshake. I had to draw my hand away from her. Her fingertips lingered on my wrist, and down my hand.

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

BloodNoir

Page 161 of 287

She was flirting with me. Great. I had no idea why, or what to do about it. Women always confused me when they hit on me. I kept forgetting that they could do that, or would want to. If it stayed this subtle I could ignore it, but for J. J. to be even this bold right out of the box made me pretty sure that it wouldn’t stay subtle.

I gave Jason a look, as if to say,
What have you told her about me?

He gave me a look back that said,
Not my fault.
I didn’t believe the look. He moved between us and hugged me tight. He breathed against my ear, more than whispered, “I did not tell her that you would be interested.”

If he said it outright, I believed him, but…I still didn’t know what to do about it. I did what I always did when someone confused me: I tried to ignore her. The other women helped, by wanting to be introduced to Jason’s girlfriend. First Jean-Claude’s girlfriend, now Jason’s. Sigh. You get a career, work your ass off for a reputation, and you still end up being introduced as someone’s girlfriend. Peachy.

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

BloodNoir

Page 162 of 287

35

JENNA WAS A
real estate developer, or worked for one. Jen was a stay-at-home mom married to her high school boyfriend. They had two kids. Kris was about to graduate with her degree in architecture. She’d done most of the set design for the plays at school. Ashley was finishing up her student teaching; she was hoping to teach drama somewhere along with English classes. They talked about the time she’d directed
Pygmalion
, which was the nonmusical version of
My Fair Lady
, and what an amazing job she’d done. So glad you stayed in the business. J. J. was performing with a professional dance company in New York City. Lisa had come home to work in her dad’s law office as a paralegal. He was the local lawyer for the Summerlands. It’s where Keith met her again. No one said it out loud, but it was strongly implied that her father wished fervently that he’d sent his daughter on that European trip she’d wanted instead of insisting she get a job right away. They talked about plays they’d worked on, dreams they’d had, dreams they’d followed, dreams they’d lost. Only Jason, Ashley, and J. J. had stayed with the dance outside school all the way through college—though Jen was taking an adult ballet class, trying to get back into shape after having two kids in less than three years. She wasn’t out of shape, but the weight made her look older than the other women. Or maybe, just the lack of sleep of having two kids still in diapers. It’d age anybody. Trish and I were the odd girls out. We had no old times to remember, so we drifted back to the edge of the group, finding a spot in the far conversational grouping. There was only a white sectional sofa with its back to the bedroom, because the dining table took up the room near the windows. We sat on the sofa, a discreet distance from each other, both of us a little uncomfortable. I never warmed up instantly to strangers, and I think Trish was waiting for me to be mad at Jason, or the other women. They were on the sectional nearest the door with its back to the windows. There were chairs there, but none of the women were using them. They were all cuddled on the sectional, very Roman, as in ancient; very decadent, as in any century. The happy group was beginning to drink a little, except for Jason. He wouldn’t drink for the same reason that most lycanthropes didn’t drink. It lowered your inhibitions, and that meant it was harder to control the inner beast. No, drinking and drugs did not go with being a good little wereanimal.