"You'll get your arm wet."
"I'll live, right?"
I couldn't see his face well enough under all the equipment, but I'd bet he was frowning at me.
"Yeah, you'll live."
I moved my hand down the front of the skin until I hit water. The cold made me hesitate, but only for a heartbeat. I reached down, soaking myself to the shoulder to untangle it. My hand touched something slick and solid that wasn't skin. I gave a small yip and jerked back, nearly falling. I got my balance and went for my gun.
I had time to say, "Something's down there." It surfaced.
A round face, with a screaming lipless mouth, shot upward, hands reaching for MacAdam. I had a glimpse of dark eyes before it fell back into the water.
The divers got the hell out of there, swimming with strong sure strokes for shore.
Aikensen had stumbled back, falling into the water. He came up sputtering, gun in hand.
"Don't shoot it," I said. The thing surfaced again. I slid in beside it. It shrieked, its human-shaped hand groping for me. It grabbed a handful of jacket and pulled itself to me. My gun was in my hand, but I didn't shoot.
Aikensen was aiming at it. Shouts from the shore. The other cops coming, but there was no time. There was just Aikensen and me in the river.
The creature clung to me, not screaming now, just clinging as if I were the last thing in the world. It buried its earless face into my chest. I pointed my gun at Aikensen's chest.
That seemed to get his attention. He blinked, focusing on me. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Point it somewhere else, Aikensen."
"I'm tired of looking down the barrel of your gun, bitch."
"Ditto," I said.
Voices shouting, movement on the bank, people coming, almost there. Only seconds left until someone came. Someone saved us. Seconds too late.
A shot exploded next to Aikensen. Close enough to spray him with water. He jumped, and his gun fired. The creature went wild, but I was already moving, diving for the rocks. It clung to me as if attached. We floated by the big rock, swirling in snakeskin, but I managed to point the Browning at Aikensen. The sound of his Magnum vibrated in the air, echoing down my bones. If Aikensen had turned towards us, I'd have fired.
"Goddamn it, Aikensen, put that damn gun away!" The splashing was heavy, and it was probably Titus wading into the water, but I couldn't look away from Aikensen.
Aikensen was looking away from me towards the splashing. Dolph got there first. He loomed over Aikensen like the vengeance of God.
Aikensen's gun started to swing towards him, as if he sensed his danger.
"You point that gun at me and I will feed it to you," Dolph said. His voice was low and reverberated even through the ringing in my ears.
"If he points it at you," I said, "I'll shoot him."
"Nobody's shooting him but me." Titus waded up. He was shorter than everyone but me, so he was struggling in the water. He grabbed Aikensen by the belt and pulled him off his feet, tearing the gun from his hand as he fell into the water.
Aikensen surfaced choking and mad. "What the hell did you do that for?"
"Ask Ms. Blake why I did it. Ask her, ask her!" He was short and wet, and still managed to browbeat Aikensen.
"Why?" Aikensen said.
I'd lowered the Browning, but hadn't put it away. "Trouble with carrying a big gun, Aikensen, is that it goes through a hell of a lot of flesh."
"What?"
Titus pushed him, making him stumble. Aikensen struggled to stay on his feet. "If you'd pulled that trigger, boy, with the creature pressed right up against her, you'd have killed her, too."
"I thought she was just protecting it. She said not to shoot it. Look at it!"
Everyone turned to me then. I used the rocks to leverage to my feet. The creature was dead weight, as if he'd passed out with his hands locked in my jacket. I had more trouble putting the gun away than I had getting it out. Cold, adrenaline, and the man's hand stuck on my jacket, covering the holster.
Because that's what I was holding. A man, a man who had been skinned alive, but somehow wasn't dead. Of course, it wasn't exactly a man.
"It's a man, Aikensen," Titus said. "It's a hurt man. If you weren't so damn busy pulling your gun and shooting at things, you might see what's in front of ya."
"It's a naga," I said.
Titus didn't seem to hear me. Dolph asked, "What did you say?"
"He's a naga."
"Who is?" Titus asked.
"The man," I said.
"What the hell is a naga?"
"Everybody out of the water now," a voice from shore yelled. It was a paramedic with an armload of blankets. "Come on folks, let's not have to run everybody into the hospital tonight." I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard the paramedic mutter under his breath, "Damn fools."
"What the hell is a naga?" Titus asked again.
"I'll explain if you can help me get him to shore. I'm freezing my ass off out here."
"You're freezing more than your ass off," the paramedic said. "Everybody to shore, now. Move it people."
"Help her," Titus said. Two uniformed deputies were in the water. They splashed up. They lifted the man, but his fists had locked into my jacket. It was a death grip. I checked the pulse in his throat. It was there, faint but steady.
The medic was folding blankets around everybody as they hit shore. His partner, a slender woman with pale hair was staring at the naga, glistening like an open wound in the spotlight.
"What the hell happened to him?" one of the deputies asked.
"He's been skinned," I said.
"Jesus Christ," the deputy said.
"Right thought, wrong religion," I said.
"What?"
"Nothing. Can you pry his hands loose?" They couldn't, not easily. They ended up carrying him cradled between them. I sort of stumbled to the shore with his fingers still locked in my clothes. None of us fell. A second miracle. The first was that Aikensen was still alive. Staring at the raw bluish skin of the man, maybe the miracle count was higher than just two.
The medic with the pale hair knelt by the naga. She let out her breath in a great whoosh of air. The other medic threw blankets around me and the two deputies.
"When you get him pried off of you, you get your butt up to the ambulances. Get out of those wet clothes, ASAP."
I opened my mouth and he pointed a finger at me. "Clothes off and sit in a warm ambulance, or a trip to the hospital. Your choice."
"Aye, aye, Captain," I said.
"And don't you forget it," he said. He moved off to spread blankets and orders to the rest of the cops.
"What about the skin?" Titus asked. He had a blanket wrapped around him.
"Bring it to shore," I said.
MacAdam said, "You sure this is the only surprise out there in that sinkhole?"
"I think this is our only naga for the night."
He nodded and slipped back into the water with his partner. It was nice not to be argued with. Maybe it was the naked ripped body of the naga.
The paramedics had to pry the naga's hands from my jacket a finger at a time. His fingers didn't want to uncurl. They stayed bent like the fingers of the dead after rigor had set in.
"Do you know what he is?" the paramedic with pale hair asked.
"A naga."
She exchanged glances with her partner. He shook his head. "What the hell is a naga?"
"A creature out of Hindu legend. They're mostly pictured in serpent form."
"Great," he said. "Will he react like a reptile or a mammal?"
"I don't know."
The medics from the other ambulance were setting up a pulley system and directing everybody up to the warmth of the ambulances. We needed more medics.
The paramedics spread a warm saline solution on a soft cotton sheet and wrapped the naga in it. His whole body was an open wound with all that that implied. Infection was the big threat. Could immortal beings get infections? Who knew? I knew about preternatural creatures, but first aid for the immortal? That wasn't my area.
They bundled him in layers of blankets. I looked at the drill sergeant paramedic. "Even if he's reptilian blankets can't hurt."
He had a point.
"His pulse is weak but steady," the woman said. "Should we risk trying an IV or ... "
"I don't know," her partner answered. "He shouldn't be alive at all. Let's just move him. We'll keep him alive and get him to the hospital."
The distant whoop of more ambulances sounded. Reinforcements were on the way. The medics put the naga on a long spine-board and fit it in a Stokes basket, attached to the ropes the other paramedics had set up at top of the hill.
"You got any other information that'll help us treat him?" the paramedic asked. His eyes were very direct.
"I don't think so."
"Then get your butt up to an ambulance, now."
I didn't argue. I was cold, and my clothes were beginning to freeze to my body even under the blanket.
I ended up in a warm ambulance wearing nothing but a blanket while more paramedics and EMTs forced heated oxygen on me. Dolph and Zerbrowski ended up in the ambulance with me. Better them than Aikensen and Titus.
While we waited for the medics to tell us we would all live, Dolph got back to business.
"Tell me about nagas," Dolph said.
"Like I said, they're creatures from Hindu legend. They're mostly pictured as snakes, particularly cobras. They can take human form. Or appear as snakes with human heads. They're the guardians of raindrops and pearls."
"Say the last again?" Zerbrowski asked. His neatly combed hair had dried in messy curls. He'd jumped in the river to save little ol' me, even though he couldn't swim.
I repeated it. "There's a pearl embedded in the head of the skin. I think the skin was the naga's. Someone skinned him, but he didn't die. I don't know how the skin ended up in the river, or how he did."
Dolph said, "You mean he was a snake and they skinned him, but it didn't kill him."
"Apparently not."
"How is he in man form now?"
"I don't know."
"Why isn't he dead?" Dolph asked.
"Nagas are immortal."
"Shouldn't you tell the paramedics that?" Zerbrowski said.
"He's been completely skinned and is still alive. I think they're going to figure it out on their own," I said.
"Good point."
"Which of you fired the shot at Aikensen?"
"Titus did it," Dolph said.
"He cussed him out, and took his gun away," Zerbrowski said.
"Hope he doesn't give it back. If anyone shouldn't be armed, it's Aikensen."
"You got an extra change of clothes with you, Blake?" Zerbrowski asked.
"Nope."
"I've got two pairs of sweats in the trunk of my car. I want to get back to what's left of my anniversary."
The thought of wearing a used pair of sweats that had been sitting in Zerbrowski's car was too much for me. "I don't think so, Zerbrowski."
He grinned at me. "They're clean. Katie and I were going to exercise today but never got around to it."
"Never made it to the gym, huh," I said.
"No." Color crept up his neck. It must have been something really good, or really embarrassing to get to Zerbrowski that quickly.
"What kind of exercise were you two doing?" I asked.
"A man needs exercise," Dolph said solemnly.
Zerbrowski looked at me, eyebrows going up. "And how much of a workout is your sweetie giving you?" He turned to Dolph. "Did I tell you that Blake's got herself a boyfriend? He's sleeping over."
"Mr. Zeeman answered the phone," Dolph said.
"Isn't your phone right beside your bed, Blake?" Zerbrowski asked. He was giving me his best wide innocent brown eyes.
"Get the sweats and get me out of here," I said.
Zerbrowski laughed, and Dolph joined him.
"These are Katie's sweats so don't get anything on them. If you really want to work out, do it nude."
I flashed him a one-fingered salute.
"Oh, do that again," Zerbrowski said, "your blanket gaped."
I was just amusing the hell out of everyone.
I was standing in my hallway at four o'clock. I was dressed in a very pink sweatsuit. My wet clothes were held sort of gingerly in a bundle under my left arm. Even with the new pink sweats, I was cold. The paramedics had only let me go because I promised to drink hot fluids and take a hot bath. I'd run up the stairs in a pair of gym socks. I could wear Katie's sweats, but not her shoes.
I was cold, tired, and my face hurt. The headache was gone, though. Maybe it was being dunked in ice-cold water. Maybe it was the touch of a naga. I couldn't recall any stories associating them with spontaneous healing, but it had been a long time since I read up on nagas. They'd been on the final in preternatural bio class. The big clue had been the pearl and the cobra skin. I was going to have to dig up my textbook and reread the section. Though the doc on call at whatever hospital they went to was going to have to read up faster than I was. Would nagas be in their computers? By law, they'd better be. Would the naga have anyone to sue for him if they didn't? Would he rise from his deathbed and sue himself?
I stood in front of my apartment for the second time in six hours and had no key. I leaned my head against the door for just a second and felt sorry for myself. I didn't want to see Richard again tonight. We had a lot to talk about that had nothing to do with his shapeshifting. I wished I hadn't thought of children. I didn't want to discuss the little tykes tonight. I didn't want to discuss anything. I wanted to drag off to bed and be alone.
I took a deep breath and stood straight. No need to look as woebegone as I felt. I rang my own doorbell and vowed to get an extra set of keys made. No, one of them wasn't for Richard. They were both for me.
Richard opened the door. His hair was sleep tousled, falling in a heavy, wavy mass around his face. He was shirtless and barefoot. The top button of his jeans was undone. I was suddenly glad to see him. Lust is a wonderful thing.
I grabbed the top edge of his jeans and drew him to me. He jumped when my wet clothes touched his bare chest, but he didn't pull away. His body was almost fever warm from sleep. I warmed my hands along his spine and he twitched, writhing against the cold but never pulling away. I dropped the wet clothes on the floor.
We kissed. His lips were gentle. My hands traced the edge of his waistband, fingers dangerously low. He spoke low and soft next to my ear. I expected sweet nothings or dirty promises. What I got was, "We have company."
I sort of froze. I had this image of Ronnie, or worse Irving, sitting on the couch while we groped each other. "Shit," I said softly and with feeling.
"Home at last,
ma petite
." It was much worse than Irving.
I stared up at Richard with my mouth hanging open. "What's going on?"
"He came in while I was asleep. I woke up when the door opened."
I was suddenly cold again, down to my sodden toes. "Are you all right?"
"Do you really want to discuss this in the hall,
ma petite
?" Jean-Claude's voice was oh so reasonable.
I wanted to stand in the hall just because he'd said not to, but that was childish. Besides, it was my apartment.
I stepped through the door, Richard a warm presence at my side. I kicked my wet clothes through the door, keeping my hands free. The gun was in plain sight over the sweats. The holster flapped loose without a belt, but I could draw the gun if I needed it. I probably didn't need it, but it was good to keep reminding the master that I meant business.
Richard closed the door and leaned against it, hands behind his back. His face was nearly hidden by a spill of hair. The muscles in his stomach bunched and just seemed to invite caressing, which was what we'd probably have been doing if there hadn't been a vampire in my living room.
Jean-Claude sat on my couch. The black shirt was spread around his naked torso. His arms were straight out along the back of the couch, raising the shirt, revealing nipples that were only two shades darker than his white skin. A slight smile curled his lips. He was dramatic and perfect on the white couch. He matched the decor. Shit. I was going to have to buy new furniture, something not white, not black.
"What are you doing here, Jean-Claude?"
"Is that any way to greet your new suitor?"
"Don't be a pain in the ass tonight, please. I'm too tired and too sore to mess with it. Tell me why you're here and what you want, then get out."
He rose to his feet as if pulled by strings, all boneless ease. At least the shirt closed on most of the pale perfection of his body. That was something.
"I am here to see you and Richard."
"Why?"
He laughed, and the sound rolled over me like a wave of fur, soft and slick, tickling, and dead. I took a deep breath and stripped the holster off. He wasn't here to hurt. He was here to flirt. I walked past both of them and draped the holster on the back of a kitchen chair. I felt their eyes follow me as I moved. It was both flattering and uncomfortable as hell.
I glanced back at them. Richard was still by the door, looking unclothed and inviting. Jean-Claude stood by the couch utterly still, like a three-dimensional picture of a wet dream. The sexual potential in the room was astronomical. The fact that nothing was going to happen was almost sad.
There was still coffee in the pot. If I drank enough hot coffee and took a really hot bath, maybe I'd thaw out. My preference would have been a hot shower, quicker at four o'clock in the morning. But I'd promised the paramedics. Something about my core temperature.
"Why did you want to see Richard and me?" I poured coffee into my freshly washed penguin mug. Richard was good at being domestic.
"I was told that Monsieur Zeeman planned to spend the night."
"If he did, what of it?"
"Who told you?" Richard asked. He'd pushed away from the door. He'd even buttoned the top button of his pants. Pity.
"Stephen told me."
"He wouldn't have volunteered the information," Richard said. He was standing very close to Jean-Claude. Physically, he was looming above him, just a bit. Half-dressed. He should have looked uncertain, hesitant. He looked completely at home. The first time I'd met Richard, he'd been naked in a bed. He hadn't been embarrassed then, either.
"Stephen did not volunteer it," Jean-Claude said.
"He is under my protection," Richard said.
"You are not pack leader yet, Richard. You can protect Stephen within the pack, but Marcus still rules. He has given Stephen to me, as he gave you to me."
Richard was just standing there. He hadn't moved, yet suddenly, the air around him swam. If you blinked, you'd have missed it. A creeping edge of power fanned out, prickling along my skin. Shit.
"I belong to no one."
Jean-Claude turned to him. Face pleasant, open, voice conversational. "You do not acknowledge Marcus's leadership?" It was a trick question, and we all knew it.
"What happens if he says no?" I asked.
Jean-Claude turned back to me. His face was carefully blank. "He says no."
"And you tell Marcus, and then what?"
He smiled then, a slow curve of lips that left his perfect blue eyes glittering. "Marcus would see it as a direct challenge to his authority."
I set down the cup of coffee and came around the island. Standing nearly between them, Richard's energy crawled over my skin like insects on the march. From Jean-Claude there was nothing. The undead make no noise. "If you get Richard killed, even indirectly, the deal is off."
"I don't need you to protect me," Richard said.
"If you get yourself killed fighting Marcus, that's one thing, but if you get killed because Jean-Claude is jealous of you, that's my fault."
Richard touched my shoulder. His power was like a rush of electricity down my body. I shivered, and he dropped his hand. "I could just give in to Marcus, just acknowledge his leadership, then I'd be safe."
I shook my head. "I've seen what Marcus considers acceptable. It's not even close to being safe."
"Marcus didn't know they filmed two endings," Richard said.
"So you have talked to him about it?"
"Are you referring to the delightful little films that Raina masterminded?" Jean-Claude asked.
We both looked at him. A brush of power lashed out, growing stronger. It was hard to breathe standing next to him, like trying to swallow a thunderstorm.
I shook my head. One problem at a time. "What do you know about the films?" I asked.
Jean-Claude looked at us, one and then the other. He ended staring into my eyes. "Your voice makes it sound more important than it should be. What has Raina done now?"
"How do you know about the films?" Richard asked. He moved a step closer. His chest touched my back, and I gasped. The skin up and down my back tingled as if someone had touched a live wire to the skin, but it didn't hurt. It was just an almost overwhelming sensation. Pleasurable, but you knew if it didn't stop soon, it would begin to hurt.
I stepped away from him, standing between both of them, giving my back to neither. They both looked at me. Almost identical expressions on their faces. Alien, as if they were thinking thoughts that I'd never dreamed of, listening to music that I could not dance to. I was the only human in this room.
"Jean-Claude, just tell me what you know about Raina's movies. No games, okay."
He stared at me for a heartbeat, then gave a graceful shrug. "Very well. Your alpha female invited me to join her in a dirty movie. I was offered a starring role."
I knew he'd turned her down. He was an exhibitionist, but he liked a certain decorum to his sideshow. Dirty movies would have been beyond the pale for him.
"Did you enjoy having sex with her on screen?" Richard asked. His voice was low, and that energy flooded into the room.
Jean-Claude turned to him, anger dancing in his eyes. "She brags about you, my furry friend. Says you were magnificent."
"Cheap shot, Jean-Claude," I said.
"You don't believe me. You are that sure of him?"
"That he wouldn't have sex with Raina, yeah."
A strange look crossed Richard's face.
I stared at him. "You didn't?"
Jean-Claude laughed.
"I was nineteen. She was my alpha female. I didn't think I had a choice."
"Yeah, right."
"She has her pick of the new males. It's one of the things I want to stop."
"You're still sleeping with her?" I asked.
"No, not once I had a choice," Richard answered.
"Raina speaks so fondly of you, Richard. In such loving detail. It can't have been that long ago."
"It's been seven years."
"Really?" That one word held a universe of doubt.
"I don't lie to you, Anita," said Richard.
Richard took a step forward. Jean-Claude moved towards him. The testosterone was rising higher than the supernatural powers. We were going to drown in both.
I stepped between them, bodily, putting a hand on each chest. The minute my hand touched Richard's bare skin, the power poured down my arm, like some cool electric liquid. My hand touched Jean-Claude a second later. Some trick of cloth, or vampire, put my hand on his bare skin, too. The skin was cool and soft, and I felt Richard's power cross my body and smash into that perfect skin.
The moment it touched, an answering roll of power spilled out of the vampire. The two energies did not fight each other, they mingled inside me, spilling back on each of them. Jean-Claude's power was a cool, rushing wind. Richard was all warmth and electricity. Each one fed the other like wood and flame. And under it all I could feel myself, that thing inside me that allowed me to call the dead. Magic for lack of a better word. The three powers melded into one skin-curling, heart-pumping, stomach-clenching rush.
My knees buckled, and I was left gasping on the floor on all fours. My skin felt as if it were trying to pull away from my body. I could taste my heart in my throat and couldn't breathe past it. Everything was sort of golden around the edges, and spots of light danced before my eyes. I was in danger of passing out.
"What the hell was that?" It was Richard. His voice seemed to come from farther away than it should have. I'd never heard him cuss before.
Jean-Claude knelt beside me. He didn't try to touch me. I looked into his eyes from inches away. The pupils were gone, nothing but that lovely midnight blue remained. It was the way his eyes looked when he was getting all vampiric on me. I didn't think he'd done it on purpose this time.
Richard knelt on the other side. He started to reach out to touch me. When his hand was an inch away, a little jump of power ran between us, like static electricity. He jerked his hand back. "What is that?" He sounded a little scared. Me, too.
"
Ma petite
, can you speak?"
I nodded. Everything was in hyperfocus, the way the world gets on an adrenaline high. The shadows on Jean-Claude's chest where his shirt spilled around him were solid and touchable. The cloth looked almost metallic black, like the back of a beetle.
"Say something,
ma petite
."
"Anita, are you all right?"
I turned in almost slow motion to Richard. His hair had fallen over one eye. Each strand was thick and perfect like a line drawn apart. I could see every eyelash around his brown eye in startling contrast.
"I'm all right." But was I?
"What happened?" Richard asked. I wasn't sure who he was asking. I hoped it wasn't me because I didn't know.
Jean-Claude sat beside me on the floor, back against the island. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. When he let it out, his eyes opened. They were still that drowning deep color as if he were about to feed on something. His voice came out normal, or as normal as it ever got. "I have never tasted such a rush of power without spilling blood first."
"Trust you to think of the perfect thing to say," I said.
Richard sort of hovered over me as if he'd like to help but was afraid to touch me. He glared at Jean-Claude. "What did you do to us?"
"I?" Jean-Claude's beautiful face was nearly slack, eyes half-closed, lips parted. "I did nothing."