Crimson Death (49 page)

Nolan nodded. “My mother, for one.”

“I'd have never guessed she was anything but human,” Edward said.

“The less you change form, the less you give off the energy. It's said that if you go too many years you can lose the ability to slip from human to animal, but I don't think my ma would care. She helped teach me how to control my wolf and how to shift form, but once that was done I'm not sure she ever changed again. I'd come home for visits and ask her to come run with me, but she would never do it again. It was like her being a wolf like me was a dream.”

“Did you have other family that went into the woods with you?” Jake asked.

“Cousins, but there are fewer and fewer of us every generation. Unless we start marrying closer into the family line again, there may come a day when there are no MacIntires or MacTires worthy of the name.”

“I seem to remember a second cousin of yours that you told me to stay away from,” Edward said.

Nolan smiled. “She's married now and has three kids.”

“Are any of them werewolves?” Jake asked.

“No.”

“Would she tell you if they were, or would she just have the tail removed in the hospital and hide it from everyone?” Edward asked.

“Some have tried, but you can't ignore your shadow from birth. If they take after our ancestors and are not taught control, the inner beast will come out in other ways. The last of my cousins that were treated that way ended up in prison. He nearly beat someone to death in a bar fight. Part of what we learn to control as children is the amoral part of ourselves. The wolf sees nothing wrong with fighting for what is his, or when threatened.”

“Wolves in nature seldom fight to the death,” Jake said.

“And they aren't put into situations like school, or bars where they can drink until they lose all sense of themselves,” Nolan said.

“Very true,” Jake said.

“Wolves are not dogs,” Nolan said, “and they do not behave like dogs when you put a collar and leash on them.”

“True again.”

Nolan looked at Edward. “I didn't think it would bother you this much. Makes me think if I'd told you years ago we wouldn't have been friends.”

“Honestly, I don't know. I wasn't as comfortable with shapeshifters back then, but you'll always be Wee Brian to me.” He said the last with a perfect Irish accent, as far as I could tell.

Nolan sighed and shook his head.

“Wait. Wee Brian,” Dev said, “for real?”

“I'm named after my father, who's named after his father, and further back. I hated being Wee Brian.”

“
Little Brian
would be bad enough, but even with an Irish accent
Wee Brian
would be hard as a kid,” I said.

He smiled and looked up. “My da is Little Brian, my grandfather is Young Brian, and my great-grandfather was Old Brian, because that's what Great-Grandma Helen insisted on calling him after he named their son Brian Junior.”

“Both you and your father are taller than your grandfather, so it just made it funnier,” Edward said.

Nolan laughed. “You were so confused when I introduced you to my gran-da, Young Brian, after meeting my da, Little Brian.”

I perked up; if Edward had met Nolan's family, maybe Nolan had met his. Edward said, “Let it go, Anita.”

“How do you know what I was going to say?” I asked.

He smiled at me, the smile that let me know he'd not only seen through me but out the other side, and knew exactly how eager I was to solve the mystery of Ted Forrester alias Edward.

“Aww,” I said.

Edward let his smile get a little bigger.

Nolan was looking from one to the other of us. “Either you've gotten much more comfortable with women, or she really is your comrade in arms.”

“I'm much better with women than I was that summer, but Anita is going to be my best man at my wedding.”

“And you're going to be mine,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, slipping back into his Ted voice. “I'll be standing up with you, before you stand up with me.”

“Yep,” I said, trying for a down-home drawl.

“You really shouldn't try to do accents, Anita; you suck at it,” he said in that middle-of-America, not-from-anywhere accent, the Texas/Oklahoma/Wyoming drawl of a second ago gone, and his voice crawling down into the cold-as-ice tones of the Edward I'd come to know and love.

“He always picked up accents like that; within a week of going home with me he sounded like he was a local. If he hadn't been so blue-eyed and fair-haired, he'd have been so much more useful as a covert operative,” Nolan said.

“Contacts and hair dye fix a lot of problems,” Edward said, still in his own voice, and still crawling around the tones that would tickle along your neck and make you realize just how dangerous he might be.

“You didn't go into military covert ops,” Nolan said.

“I didn't say I did.”

They had another moment of looking at each other. I couldn't tell if they were best buds or hated each other. It was like it switched back and forth depending on what they were talking about, or their moods. Edward was usually pretty even-tempered, but Nolan seemed to bring out his moody-bastard side. It was like visiting family; the walk down memory lane could bring out the worst in all of us.

“Does Van Cleef know your secret?” Edward asked.

“Not twenty years ago.”

“Now?”

“He does.”

“He must have given you hell for hiding it.”

“I was attacked a few years back by a werewolf. I let everyone think that's what did it.”

“If he ever finds out you hid something he wants so badly . . . He's disappeared people for less than this, Nolan.”

“What do you mean, disappeared people?” Nathaniel asked.

I patted his thigh. “Think the government safe houses for new lycanthropes, but more secret and probably more permanent than just a cell.”

“That's not far off,” Nolan said.

“Have you helped disappear other shapeshifters?” Nathaniel asked.

Nolan just looked at him, and it was my boy who looked away first. He looked at me with those beautiful eyes and he didn't like this one little bit. Me either. It was like lately no matter where I went Van Cleef's name kept coming up.

“I've hunted rogues all over Europe. We were able to capture some of them alive,” Nolan said at last.

“Is Van Cleef still chasing the same goal?”

“If you mean super-soldiers, yes. That's why he collected both of us.”

“I remember,” Edward said.

“I swear to you that he is not directly involved in this; it's the Irish government wanting their own special-forces team.”

“You know what I'll do if you're lying to me.”

“The same thing I'd do.”

Nathaniel said, “Did you both just threaten to kill each other?”

I patted his leg again. “Let it go,” I said.

“I'm not going to understand a lot of this, am I?”

“No,” I said.

“No,” Nicky said.

Dev patted his other thigh. “Don't feel too bad, Nathaniel. I'm more guy-guy than you are and I don't understand it.”

“But you understand, don't you?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“Nicky?”

“Yeah.”

He looked across at the others. Pride shook his head. Jake and Kaazim understood.

“We all give up pieces of ourselves to do the job,” Edward said.

“Some of us give up more pieces of ourselves than others,” Nolan said, and it sounded almost accusatory.

They looked at each other and you could just feel the years between them. Here was someone who had known Edward just as Van Cleef found him, found them both for some mysterious top secret assignment.
What had he done to them? What had been so bad that it had made Edward leave the military? What had carved those lines on Nolan's face? Had it been twenty years of working with Van Cleef? I didn't know, but I would find out. I had the keys to Edward's true past; I wasn't going to let them go, as long as I didn't have to meet Van Cleef to answer the riddle. Anyone who scared Edward that much was someone to avoid.

“You have no idea how much I gave up to leave,” Edward said.

“And you have no idea what I gave up to stay.”

They looked at each other for another minute, and then Edward held out his hand. Nolan took it, and then he pulled Edward into a hug, and they held each other, not like lovers, but like friends, the kind of friends that you make while the bullets are flying and the enemy is anyone who is trying to kill you and the man beside you. Outside of combat you may not have a damned thing in common, but these are the friends who became family who can call you twenty years later and say, “I need your help,” and you help. Brothers in arms are brothers of blood, too; it's just not always their own blood that gets spilled to cement the bond.

E
DWARD'S CELL PHONE
sounded. “Police,” he said, and answered it. He listened and finally said, “We'll be there as soon as we can, if Captain Nolan will act as transport.” He handed the phone to Nolan. “They want to talk to you.”

Nolan took the phone and spent his own time going
Uh-huh
, and
Yes, sir, No, sir
, and finally, “I don't disagree, sir.” He handed the phone back to Edward, but apparently whoever it had been had hung up.

Nolan said, “Change of plans. I'll call ahead and let the rest of my team know we'll be late.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“New crime scene,” Edward said.

“They want him at the scene and if I feel like you and your people will be assets, you as well.”

“They know you haven't gotten to test us yet?” Dev asked.

“They're aware.”

“What changed their minds on testing us first?” I asked.

“I believe the phrase was ‘I'd take help from the devil himself.'”

“It must be bad, whatever it is,” Edward said.

Nolan nodded. “They're more afraid of whatever has happened than of all shapeshifters and necromancers on Irish soil. It's going to be more than bad.”

“You always invite me to the best places, Ted,” I said.

“You might want to phone your people and prep them. They aren't the hardened campaigners I was hoping you'd bring.”

“I won't take everyone into an active crime scene,” I said.

“Good, because you're going to be limited and everyone you take in has to be justified.”

“Justified to whom?” I asked.

“Me.”

“Why you?”

“Because I've talked to you the longest of any of the Irish uniformed officers.”

“You aren't a cop,” I said.

“No, I'm not.”

“What kind of scene is it, other than awful?” I asked.

Edward answered, “They think they found some of their missing Dubliners.”

“What do you mean, they
think
they found them?” Dev asked.

“Do you mean the bodies are so messed up they can't tell?” Nathaniel asked.

I leaned my head against his. “I'm sorry that you even know to think that part.”

“I'm not. I want to be okay with what you do for a living, and that means being okay with the disturbing stuff.”

I just looked at Nolan and said, “I'm going to kiss him now, because that deserves a kiss. Don't give me grief about it.”

Nolan held his hands up. “Wouldn't dream of it. I read your file, Blake. I'd be shocked if you didn't have some of your boy toys with you.”

“Nathaniel and I live together and we're engaged. He's not a boy toy.”

“My apologies; I thought you were engaged to the head vampire of your country, Jean-Claude.”

“I am, but if the laws let us, the wedding would be at least four people.”

“I can't make a one-on-one relationship work. If you can do four people in a relationship, then you're the better man.”

“I don't know about that, but I'm definitely the better woman.”

He laughed then. “I'll give you that one.”

I turned my head and Nathaniel turned his, and we kissed, because we were sitting that close to each other. I drew back enough to look him in those flower-colored eyes and say, “Thank you for trying to understand my job.”

“Thank you for trying to understand me,” he said.

That made me smile, because that was probably the biggest part of being a successful couple in two sentences.

“Where's my kiss?” Dev said, smiling.

I rolled my eyes at him, but Nathaniel just turned his head the other way and offered up a kiss. Dev leaned over and took it.

“Don't ask,” Edward said.

“Don't tell,” Nolan said.

Dev leaned around Nathaniel to me, and I gazed up into that earnest face. “What did you do to deserve a kiss?” I asked, my voice mild.

“I'm going to go into the crime scene with you. Whether it's zombies, or vampires, or whatever, I'm with you until you tell me to stay with the car.”

“Good point,” I said, and kissed him, too.

I turned and kissed Nicky last. He kissed me back, then said, “What did I do to earn a kiss in front of the police?”

“I'm taking you into the crime scene with me. Think of it as an apology.”

“I'm okay with blood and gore—you know that.”

“It's one of the things I love about you,” I said.

He smiled at me. “And that fact is one of the reasons I love you.”

“And the fact that I'm not as good with the gory stuff is why you're not in love with me,” Dev said.

I looked back at him and wasn't sure what I would have said, but Nolan asked, “Now, I'm confused. Why does he get a kiss if you're not in love with him, but you are with the other two?”

“Do you just kiss people you're in love with?” I asked.

He looked surprised and then sort of laughed. “No. No, Blake, I definitely kiss women I am not in love with. If I could have given that habit up, I might still be married to wife number two.”

“Two divorces? Your ma must have made your life hell,” Edward said.

“She thought I married too young the first time, and she was right. She's upset about the second one, though. She liked Kathleen. Everyone likes her. She's just that kind of person.”

“I'm sorry that it didn't work,” Edward said.

“Me, too.” He looked at me. “How many other people did you bring with you that you'll be kissing on, Blake?”

“At a crime scene, none, but three, four more.”

“Every time I tried dating that many women at once, they found out and I was in fear of me life.”

“Maybe that was your problem,” I said.

“What was my problem?”

“You said they found out, which meant you were cheating on them. Everyone in my life knows about everyone else.”

“I've never met two women in my life who wouldn't have killed me, or left me, for sleeping with the other one.”

“Oh, Captain, you have been dating the wrong women.”

“At least two of Anita's other people are women,” Edward added.

“Nope, that settles it. Blake, you really are the better man.”

That time I didn't argue with him. I seemed to be winning Nolan over; never argue when you're winning.