42

I kicked everyone out except Jason. He got to stay because they started arguing that I couldn't be left completely alone. Had I forgotten that people were trying to kill me? Had I forgotten that Jean-Claude had said he'd kill them all if I died? That last did not win friends and influence people with me. My comment had been, "If we all died, I guess that'd solve everything." Which sort of put an end to the arguments.

Jason lay on the bed propped in the nest of pillows. He tried to roll onto his side, then stopped in midmotion with a small sound of pain. He moved stiffly, like things hurt, which was what had gotten him a place on the bed instead of the chair.

I was pacing the room. I had a little circuit mapped out. Foot of the bed, windows, far wall, near wall with the door.

"You know that you've walked past the foot of the bed twenty times, and that's just since I started counting," Jason said.

"Shut up," I said. I'd put all my guns back on, not because I thought I needed them, but because they were familiar. The tightness of the shoulder holster, the digging of the Firestar in its inner-pants holster made me feel more like myself. I was the only one of the three of us who carried guns. It was one thing I knew that I hadn't gotten from either of them. It was mine. Guns, this particular brand of violence, was all mine. I needed something that was all mine right now.

Jason moved over on his side, slowly, an inch at a time. It took him until I'd made the circuit and was back at the foot of the bed before he made it to his side with a look of relief. He and Jamil had been moved to this house so that all the injured could be in one place. Roxanne was just down the hall with Ben sitting guard. Apparently, I'd been channeling enough of Richard's power that they thought she might have a concussion. I wasn't sure if Ben was supposed to be guarding her from me or the other way around. Dr. Patrick was down in the kitchen stirring the stew that Marianne had left us. Zane and Cherry were here, but all the other shifters had gone to the lupanar. They were going to finish the ceremony that had been interrupted last night. Bully for them.

Asher was somewhere in the house. I didn't know where and didn't want to know. Too much was happening too damned fast. I needed some time to regroup. And I wasn't going to get it.

There was a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"It's Damian."

"Go away."

"There's a vampire down here with one of Sheriff Wilkes's deputies. They say they have to talk to you or Richard. They aren't treating this like police business."

That got my attention. I stopped pacing and went to the door. Damian stood there, still wearing the vest that Barnaby had ripped all the buttons off of. When Colin's human servant died, Barnaby had given up the fight and flown away. Damian's suit was black in bright light and made his skin look unbelievably white.

"What did they say exactly?" I asked.

"Just that they had a message for the two of you from Frank Niley."

"Fuck," I said, softly.

"They're sitting in the kitchen with Dr. Patrick and Asher."

"Tell Roxanne and Jamil that the bad guys are here. I'll go down and talk to them."

"The man has a gun," Damian said.

"So do I," I said. I walked down the hall, and Damian fell in step behind me.

Jason called from the door. "Wait for me."

"Follow at your own pace, Jason. I'm not waiting for you to trip down the stairs."

"Don't let her get killed, Damian," he said.

I called back over my shoulder, "He'll do what I tell him to do." An hour or so of thinking about everything I had learned had not improved my mood.

I clattered down the stairs. Damian followed like a soundless shadow at my back. Why hadn't Wilkes and his men stormed the place? I'd really expected them to just start shooting if they found out we hadn't left town. What message could they have from Niley? And where did the vampire come in? Dolph hadn't mentioned anything about Niley traveling with a vamp. Dolph hated vamps enough that he would have mentioned it. So many questions, and for once, I was going to get them answered almost as soon as I thought of them. How refreshing.

The kitchen looked normal. They'd scrubbed the blood off the linoleum and placed a fresh lace tablecloth on the table. Deputy Thompson sat in one of the kitchen chairs. He was in civvie clothes, no uniform. A tall, thin vampire that I'd never seen before sat in the chair beside him. Dr. Patrick sat in the chair facing them with his back to the hallway, to us. Nathaniel took up the last chair. He was staring at the vampire.

Zane stood with his back against the sink. Asher leaned against the china cabinet close enough to Thompson that he could have touched him and certainly could prevent him from pulling the gun. The gun in question was a Berretta 10 mil in a shoulder holster. Same gun as on duty, just in a different holster. Letting Asher that close was careless, but Thompson didn't seem to think that.

He smiled at me, and the smile was confident, arrogant, like he had me where he wanted me, and I couldn't do anything about it. What was going on?

"How'd you find me?" I asked.

He stuck a thumb in the vampire's direction. "The local Master of the City told us he could still feel you in town. They helped us hunt you down. Evidently, you're easier to find than your boyfriend. Something about your power attracts them."

I stared at the vampire. His face was unreadable, pale and empty. His eyes were dark grey, his hair straight and black. It was cut short and smoothed back over his forehead in a pompadour. That was what they'd called it in the fifties. The hairdo matched the feel of him in my head. He wasn't fifty years dead yet.

"What's your name?"

"Donald."

"Hi, Donald, missed you at the wienie roast."

Anger flared across the vampire's face. He wasn't old enough to hide it. "You told my master that you were here just to get your third out of jail. Once you had accomplished that, you should have gone home. You pretended to leave town but did not. If you had simply left, we would have accepted the murder of our people. By staying, you show that you intend to possess our lands and my master's power."

"Have you talked to your master lately?" I asked. "Or more importantly, has he talked to his human servant lately?"

The vampire glared at me, but there was no power to it. "Colin is injured but not yet dead. But the Council will slay you for ... killing his servant."

Asher said, "A human servant gives up their safe conduct if they attack another vampire directly. That is Council law. Anita did nothing that the Council will hunt her for. If Colin persists in trying to harm us, it is he the Council will hunt down and destroy."

"Enough of the vampire crap," I said. I turned back to Thompson. "So, what's the message? I thought if we were still here after dark, Frank was going to do us all personally."

"Ol' Frank seems scared shitless of you. Howard keeps mumbling that the signs are real bad, that they need to leave town now. That if they stay, you'll kill them all."

I raised an eyebrow. "Having met Niley and his crew, I'm flattered at being their bogeyman. Now, what the fuck is the message?"

Thompson brought a small white box out of his pocket. It was like something you'd buy an inexpensive necklace in. He held it out to me with a smile that was so unpleasant, it made me afraid to take the box.

"It won't bite," he said.

I glanced at Asher. He shrugged.

I took the box. It was tacky on the bottom. I raised it to see a brownish stain on the white cardboard. The box was light but not empty. "What's in here?"

"Don't want to spoil the surprise," Thompson said.

I took a deep breath and lifted the lid off. There was a lock of hair, curled over some cotton. The hair was long and thick and chestnut brown, tied with a bit of red ribbon like you'd use on a present. I lifted the lock of hair and it fell across my palm. The cotton it had been resting on was stained at one corner. Stained reddish brown.

I fought to keep my face blank. "So?" I said.

"Don't you recognize it? Zeeman's baby brother donated that."

"You didn't get blood cutting Daniel's hair," I said.

"No," he smiled, laughed, squirming in his chair like a kid who couldn't wait for the rest of the joke, "There's another little present in the box. Lift up the cotton."

I laid the hair on the table. It lay there curled and gleaming. I didn't want to lift the cotton. I didn't want to see what else they'd cut off of Daniel. The one consolation I had was that of the many awful possibilities that flashed through my mind, most of them were too big to fit into the box.

I lifted the cotton and fell to my knees like someone had struck me. I knelt there, staring down at the tip of a little finger that was far too delicate to be Daniel's. The nail polish on the finger was still perfect, smooth, pale. Nothing declasse about Richard's mother.

Dr. Patrick had to leave the table and throw up in the sink. Soft touch for a doctor and a werewolf.

"What is it?" Cherry asked.

I couldn't speak.

Asher answered because he could see over my shoulder into the box. "It's a woman's finger."

Jason had just entered the room. "What did you just say?"

The vampire, Donald, said, "What have you done, human?"

"We have Richard's brother and his mother," Thompson said. "I thought we'd just kill you, but Niley's paying the money. He wants to give you a way out besides killing. He seems to think if he doesn't try to kill you, you won't try and kill him. Funny, ain't it?"

I finally looked up, away from Charlotte Zeeman's finger. "What do you want?"

"You leave town tonight. We release Richard's mother and brother tomorrow morning, when we're sure you really are gone. If you don't leave this time, Niley will keep trimming pieces off of Zeeman's family. Maybe an ear next time, maybe something bigger." He was grinning as he said it. Thompson was a sadistic brute, but he didn't understand me at all, or he wouldn't have been smiling.

There was a look on Donald the vampire's face that said he did understand me.

I stood up very slowly. I laid the box on the table beside the lock of hair. My voice was amazingly calm, almost empty of inflection. "Where are they?"

"We left them safe and sound," Thompson said.

"I did not know what they had done," the vampire said. "I did not know they had mutilated your third's family."

I shook my head. "You see, that's the problem, Donald. When you play with bad guys, you can't control how bad they are. You both just left Daniel and Charlotte, just left them there."

"Yeah," Thompson said. "Ol' Don here picked me up in his car."

I was staring at the finger. I couldn't seem to not look at it. I raised my eyes to Donald the vampire. "So, you both know where they are," I said.

Donald's eyes went wide. He whispered, "I didn't know."

Asher moved forward and laid hands on Thompson's shoulders.

Thompson wasn't worried. "If anything happens to us, they'll do worse to both of them. Richard's mom is a real attractive woman. Be a shame to change that."

Donald said, "I am sorry about what they did, but my orders are the same. You must leave our territory tonight."

"Use the kitchen phone. Tell them we give. Tell them don't hurt them, and we're out of here."

Thompson smirked. "No, no phone calls. They're giving us two hours. Then, if we're not back, they'll start cutting things off that will affect a lot more than her typing."

I nodded and pulled the Browning. I pointed it and shot it in one motion. I didn't even remember aiming. The vampire's head exploded in a cloud of blood and brains. The body rocked back and fell, taking the chair with it.

Asher held Thompson in his seat. Some of the blood had splattered Thompson's face. A glob of something thicker than blood was trailing down his forehead. He was trying to bat at the piece of flesh, but Asher held him.

I took the gun out from under his arm and pointed the Browning at his forehead.

Thompson stopped fighting and glared up at me. I had to give him credit. Covered in blood and brains, held down by a vampire, staring at the barrel of a gun, and he was putting on a brave show. "Kill me, it won't get you anything but them cut to pieces."

"Tell me where they are, Thompson, and I'll go get them."

"Fuck you! You're going to kill me, anyway."

"I give you my word that if you tell us where they are, and we get them out alive, you get to live."

"I don't believe you, bitch."

"Problem with being a traitorous, untrustworthy, wretch, Thompson, is you begin to believe everyone else is the same way." I put the safety on the Browning and reholstered it. He watched me do it, puzzled. "I keep my word, Thompson. Do you want to live or not?"

"Niley and Linus Beck are a hell of a lot scarier than you will ever be, chickie."

He'd called me bitch and chickie. He was either stupid, or ... "You're trying to get me to kill you."

"If I talk, my life is over. And Niley won't just shoot me." Thompson stared up at me, and there was a knowledge in his eyes that he was already dead. It was only a matter of how and who. And he preferred me, now, to Niley, later.

"He doesn't fear death," Asher said softly.

I shook my head. "No, he doesn't."

"We could call the cops," Jason offered.

"If he's not scared of you guys, he won't be scared of the state cops." I stood staring down at Thompson. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Thompson, but I'll tell you what I won't do. I won't sit here for two hours and watch the time tick away. I won't let Daniel and Charlotte die."

"Then leave town," Thompson said.

"I've met Niley, Thompson. Do you really expect me to believe that he's going to let them go?"

"He said he would."

"You believe him?" I asked.

Thompson just looked at me.

"I didn't think so."

Asher's fingers kneaded the man's shoulders almost like he was massaging them. "There are other things to fear besides death, Anita. If you have the stomach for it."

I looked into that beautiful, tragic face and couldn't read it. "What do you have in mind?"

"An eye for an eye, I think," the vampire said.

I stared into crystalline blue eyes and let the idea grow in my head like a horrible flower. A lot of people who could face being shot, quick death, blanched at torture. I was one of them. And that's what we were talking about.

"I believe the deputy will tell us where they are within the next half hour, if we are ruthless," Asher said. "I will do the dirty work, as it were. You need only permit it."

Thompson looked worried. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Jason," I said.

He came to stand beside me. He stared down at what lay on the table. He didn't say anything, but tears slid silently down his face. He'd been over at the Zeeman house for a lot of Sunday dinners.

"Help hold Thompson," I said.

Jason went to stand on the other side, pinning one arm to the top of the table. Asher still held his shoulders.

I looked at Asher and nodded. "Do it."

"Damian, if you would be so kind as to fetch me a knife. One with a serrated edge would be best. It will go through bone better."

Damian just turned and walked across the kitchen. Zane and he started opening drawers.

"What are you going to do?" Thompson said.

"Guess," I said.

"I didn't cut anything off of that bitch. I didn't touch them. It was that strange goon that Niley has. Linus Beck. He cut the finger off. He did it. I didn't do anything."

"Don't worry, Thompson. We'll get to Linus. But right now, you're all we've got."

Damian had a big serrated butcher knife. He stalked towards the table with it.

Thompson was struggling now. It was hard to hold him sitting. "Better take him to the floor," I said.

Nathaniel helped. They held him facedown, one on each arm, Nathaniel pinning his legs. Thompson was a big, strong man, but he couldn't fight them. They were too strong. Far too strong.

Thompson was screaming. "Fuck you!"

Damian held the knife out to Asher. "I'll hold him."

I touched Damian's arm and shook my head. "No, I'll do it."

Damian looked at me.

"The rule is never ask anyone to do something you won't do yourself. If I can't do this, then we won't do it at all. We'll find another way."

Jason looked up from holding the struggling man. "There is no other way." I'd never seen such rage in his eyes.

"Could you do it?" I asked. "Could you chop him up?"

Jason gave a slow nod. "I could bite his fucking fingers off one by one for what's in that box." He seemed to mean it, and it made me think I didn't know Jason at all.

"We can do this, Anita," Asher said, "and it will cost us nothing."

"It should cost, Asher. If we're going to do something this evil, it should bother whoever does it."

"It isn't evil," Asher said. "It is practical. It is even justice."

I held my hand out for the knife. "It's evil, and we all know it. Now, give me the knife. Either I can do this, or we do something else."

Damian just stood there, holding the knife. "Let me do this for you, Anita, please."

"Give me the damn knife."

He gave it to me because he couldn't do anything else. I knelt down by Thompson. "Where are they, Thompson?" I asked.

"No, no, Niley told me what they'd do to me if I helped you. He's fucking crazy."

"Wait," Zane said. He had found a small cleaver. "This will work better."

"Thanks." I took it, checked it for balance. I wasn't sure I could do it. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be able to do it. In fact, I knew that I hoped I couldn't do it. But if we were really going to do this, I had to be the one. I did it, or we found another way. Charlotte Zeeman's finger was lying in a box. In less than two hours, they'd cut something else off. I'd killed the vampire, splattered Thompson with blood and brains, and he wasn't talking. He was a mean son of a bitch, but he was tough, too. Charlotte and Daniel didn't have time for him to be tough. We had to break him, and we had to break him fast. I gave myself all the reasons. They were good reasons, real reasons. And still, I didn't know if I could do it.

"We'll start with a finger, Thompson. Just like Linus did," I said.

He was screaming, "Don't, please, don't! Oh, God, don't!"

Asher was leaning almost his full weight on the flat of the man's palm, forcing his fingers to spread wide. "Tell me where they are, and it won't happen," I said.

"Niley said they'd cut me open and make me eat my own intestines. Says he did it once in Miami. I believe him."

"I believe him, too, Thompson. And you don't believe we'll do it, do you? You don't believe we're as crazy as Niley."

"No one is as crazy as Niley."

I raised the cleaver up. "You're wrong." I stayed frozen for one long moment. I couldn't make myself start the stroke. I couldn't do it. Daniel, Charlotte.

"Has Niley raped Daniel yet?" I asked it in a voice that was so empty, it was like I wasn't there.

Thompson stopped struggling. He lay very still. He rolled his eyes upward. "Please don't."

I stared into his eyes when I said the next, "Did you rape Charlotte Zeeman?" I saw the fear in his eyes. That flash that said he'd done it. It was enough. I could do it. God forgive me. I got the little finger and the tip of the next one, because he moved. But they got better at holding him down, and I got better at cutting. Thompson told us where they were keeping Daniel and Charlotte Zeeman. In less than fifteen minutes he would have told us the ingredients to the secret sauce or anything else. He'd have confessed to killing Hoffa, or dancing with the devil. Anything, anything to make it stop.

I threw up in the corner until there was nothing but bile, and my head felt like it was going to explode. And I knew that I'd finally done something that I wouldn't recover from. Somewhere in the first blow or the second, I'd broken something inside myself that would never heal. And I was content with it. If we got Daniel and Charlotte back, I was content with it. A hard, cold knot filled me. It was beyond hate. I would make them pay for what they'd done. I would kill them. I would kill them all.

I felt strangely light and empty, and I wondered if this was what it was like to be crazy. It didn't feel too bad. Later, when the shock wore off, I'd feel worse. Later, I'd wonder if there had been another way to get Thompson to talk. Later, I'd remember that I wanted to hurt him, wanted him to crawl and beg. That I wanted to take all the hurt that had happened to Charlotte and Daniel and carve it out of his flesh. Now we had to go rescue Daniel and Charlotte. Oh, one last thing. Thompson was screaming, high and piteously, like a wounded rabbit.

I shot him in the head. The screaming stopped.