The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #15) - Page 21

Chapter Thirty-nine

THE DOCTOR TOLD me I could go. That if I exercised and didn't let the scar tissue harden up on me, I'd be fine. He also assumed I was a shapeshifter, a new kind of shapeshifter that could do different animals. He actually used the term panwere. It was the first time I'd heard anyone but a shapeshifter say it. The doctor had never actually seen one, until me. I told him he still hadn't seen one, but nothing I said persuaded him different, so I gave up. If people won't believe the truth, and you don't want to lie, then you're out of options. Chimera had been the real deal, a true panwere, and one of the scariest beings I'd ever met. I wondered what the doctor would have made of him?

I walked down the hall to Peter's room with Edward leading the way. Olaf brought up the rear. I didn't like him behind me, but he wasn't doing anything wrong. For him, he was positively being a good boy. The fact that I could feel the weight of his gaze on my back almost like a hand pressing between my shoulder blades wasn't something I could really bitch about. I mean, what was I supposed to say, Stop looking at me? It was a little too childish for me to say it out loud, no matter how true it felt.

It didn't help that Olaf and I were dressed alike, sort of. Edward was in his white button-down shirt and jeans, and cowboy boots. Ted Forrester dressed to be comfortable; Olaf dressed either to intimidate or because he liked the Goth assassin look. I hadn't picked my clothes, Nathaniel had. Black jeans tight enough that the inner pants holster dug in a little, but they tucked nicely into the lace-up boots. The black T-shirt was scoop-necked and the push-up bra that was under it made sure I had plenty of scoop to show. My cross sat on my breasts, rather than hanging in front of them. How did I know Nathaniel had packed the bag and not Micah? First, the panties and bra matched, and the panties were perfect for the lower waistline of the jeans; second, the shirt and bra showed a lot of cleavage; third, the boots. Maybe my Nikes were covered in blood, they probably were, and the boots were comfy and low heeled, but Nathaniel was twenty and male and often looked at clothes from the perspective of his job. Micah had a tendency to not match everything perfectly; he would have just put on an ambi-sexual T-shirt from the T-shirt drawer we shared. The outfit wouldn't have looked so terribly like an outfit if Micah had done it. I'd have to talk to Nathaniel about picking out things with this much cleavage when I was working with the cops. I had my backup shoulder holster instead of the custom-made leather one, which probably meant hospital efficiency had destroyed it. That would be the second or third one that had gotten cut to pieces in an emergency room.

I felt heat, or air movement, or… something. I turned and must have done it fast enough to catch Olaf in midmotion, pulling his hand back. He had almost touched me.

I glared at him, and he stared at me. Those dark, deep-set eyes stared at my face, and then his gaze slid down the front of my body in that way that men can do. That look that slides over you so that you know they're thinking about you naked, or worse. In Olaf's case it was probably worse.

"Stop looking at me like that," I said.

Edward was watching us both.

"Every man who sees you tonight will be looking at you like that." He made a gesture in the vague direction of my chest. "How can they not?"

I felt the heat run up my face, and spoke through gritted teeth. "Nathaniel picked the clothes to bring to the hospital, not me."

"Did he buy the shirt and the bra?" Olaf asked.

— Advertisement —

"No," I said. "I did."

He shrugged. "Then do not blame the boy."

"Yeah, but they're date clothes, and I don't think there's going to be time for a date tonight."

"Will we be hunting the vampire that escaped us?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, if we can figure out where she and her human servant have gotten to, yeah."

He smiled.

"What?" I said, because the smile didn't match what we were talking about.

"If things work out as I hope, I may owe your boy a thank-you."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

Edward touched my arm, and I jumped. "You don't want to understand." He led me down the hallway, his hand on my arm. Olaf stayed where he was, staring at us with that strange half-smile on his face.

"What?" I asked Edward.

He leaned in close, speaking low and quick, "While you were unconscious, Olaf came into the room. You were covered in blood and they'd cut off most of what you were wearing. He touched you, Anita. The doctors and guards chased him back, and I got him out of the room, but…"

I stumbled, because I was trying to stop, and he kept us moving. "Touched me where?" I asked.

"The stomach."

"I don't understand," and then I did. "The wounds, he touched the wounds."

"Yes," Edward said, and stopped us outside a door.

I swallowed hard; both my pulse and a certain nausea were trying to climb up my throat. I looked down the hallway where Olaf was still standing. I knew my face showed fear; I couldn't help it. He drew his lower lip under and bit it. I think it was an unconscious gesture. A gesture you make when you are moved to the point where you don't think about how you look, or who's looking. Then he moved down the hallway toward us like some black movie monster. The kind that looks human, and is human, but in their mind there's nothing human left to talk to.

Edward opened the door and drew me inside. Apparently we weren't waiting on Olaf. Fine with me.

I stumbled over the doorsill. His hand tightened, steadying me. The door closed on the sight of Olaf gliding up the hallway. He moved like all his muscles knew what they were doing, almost like one of the shapeshifters. He so needed killing.

I must have looked pale, because Micah came across the room and took me in his arms. He whispered against my cheek, "What's wrong?" He hugged me tighter. "You're shivering."

I wrapped my arms around him and pressed as much of me against as much of him as I could. It was one of those hugs when it feels almost like you're trying to meld yourself into the other person. Sometimes it's sexual, but sometimes it's because the world has gone too wrong and you need something to cling to. I clung to Micah like he was the last solid thing in the world. I buried my face against the curve of his neck and drew in the scent of his skin. He didn't ask again what was wrong; he just held me close.

Other arms hugged me from behind; another body pressed tight against me. I didn't need to open my eyes and see Nathaniel to know it was him. I didn't even need the faint hint of vanilla. I knew the feel of his body against mine. I knew the feel of them holding me together.

Another body came in from the side of us. I did turn to see, and found it was Cherry. She put an arm around both men. I realized with a start that she wasn't taller than Nathaniel now. "What's wrong?" she asked, dark eyes worried.

What did I say? That I was afraid of Olaf? That the thought that he'd caressed my wounds creeped me? That I wondered if he'd touched that bulge of intestine the way a man touches a breast? That I wanted to know, and didn't want to know?

The door opened behind us. Edward nodded at me and went to the opening door. He spoke softly, then walked out the door to talk to Olaf in private, or maybe to simply keep him away from me for a while. Whichever, I was grateful. Of course, that left me with Edward's other backup.

I looked past Micah's shoulder and Cherry's arm to the bed in the room. Pain had brought more of the shadow of that boy I'd first met into Peter's face. He looked pale and terribly young lying there hooked up to tubes and monitors. When I woke up, I hadn't been hooked up to anything that monitored my vitals. How much worse off was he than me?

I whispered, "I don't think I can explain what's wrong."

Cherry gave me narrow eyes.

"I'll try to explain later, promise."

She frowned at me, but stepped back as if she knew what I was going to do. Maybe she did. I'd probably made some small movement toward the bed, or turned my body as if prepping to move. Most people wouldn't notice, but a lot of the shapeshifters would.

I hugged Micah again, a little less intensely, and he kissed me. It was a gentle, lingering kiss. If Peter hadn't been watching I might have made it more, but he was, and Edward was taking care of big and scary in the hallway. That left me with not so big, but scary in a very different way. I leaned back to look over my shoulder at Nathaniel. He kissed my cheek, putting his hand against the other side of my face so he could press our faces together. I turned so he could get more of a kiss, but he gave me one of the most delicate, gentlemanly kisses he'd ever given me. I drew back, giving him puzzled eyes. His lavender gaze flicked across the room toward the bed. I got it, and didn't. Something about Peter watching made Nathaniel behave himself, but I didn't know why, or what. I mean it was a kiss, not making out. I pushed the thought away into the crowd of other confusing thoughts. There were so many of them, I felt like I needed a cage to hold them in, so that all the things I didn't understand wouldn't overwhelm me.

I got a better look at Nathaniel's clothes and realized he'd dressed himself almost exactly as he'd dressed me, except his T-shirt was a boy's, and he wasn't wearing any weapons. We looked like we should be going clubbing. Hard to complain about how someone dresses you when they're wearing the same outfit. The clothes were minor problems compared to what was waiting.

I took a deep breath and pushed out of the circle of comforting hands. I moved out of that circle of warmth to face the current confusing thought. This one was staring at me with brown eyes that looked like islands in the pale skin of his face. Peter wasn't naturally pale, not like I was, or Edward was, but he was pale now. Blood loss and pain will do that to you.

I walked toward the bed. In that moment I would rather have faced Peter than Olaf. Was I being a coward, or was Edward the one being the coward? I was betting that he'd rather face a thousand Olafs than one almost-stepson right now. The look on Peter's face changed as I walked toward the bed. He was still hurt, but his gaze seemed to be drawn to something other than my face. By the time I got to the bedside he wasn't as pale; he'd found enough blood somewhere to blush.

Chapter Forty

"HEY, PETER," I said.

He turned his head so he was looking up at the ceiling. Apparently he didn't trust himself not to stare at my chest and wasn't sure how I'd react. I wasn't sure either. "I thought you were hurt," he said.

"I was."

He turned to look at me, frowning. "But you're up. I feel awful."

I nodded. "I'm a little surprised myself, truthfully."

His gaze had drifted down again. Olaf was crazy and mean, but he was right about one thing. Men would stare, some on purpose to be rude, but not all. Some like Peter, well, it was as if my chest were a magnet and their gaze iron; it just attracted it. I was sooo going to have to talk to Nathaniel about what clothes to pack next time. Next time I got so hurt I ended up unconscious in the hospital. I simply assumed there'd be a next time. Unless I changed jobs, there would be. The thought startled me. Was I thinking about giving up the vampire hunting? Was I really, truly considering it? Maybe, maybe I was. I shook my head and pushed the thought into that cage with all the other thoughts. The cage was getting awfully damn full.

"Anita?" Peter made it a question.

"Sorry, thinking too hard."

"What about?" He was managing eye contact. I felt like I should pet his head and give him a cookie, good boy. God, I was in a strange mood tonight.

"Truthfully, wondering if I want to keep hunting vampires."

His eyes went wide. "What are you talking about? This is what you do."

"No, I raise zombies; the vampire hunting is supposed to be a sideline. Sometimes the zombie thing gets me hurt, but the vampire and rogue lycanthrope hunting are more likely to put me in the hospital. Maybe I'm just tired of waking up with new scars."

"Waking up is good, though," he said, and his voice sounded fragile. He wasn't staring at my face or my chest now. He was looking into the distance, with that look on the face that says you're seeing something unpleasant, reliving it, just a little.

"You didn't think you were going to wake up," I said, and kept my voice gentle.

He looked at me, eyes wide, looking lost, frightened. "No, I thought this was it. I thought…" He stopped and he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"You thought you were going to die," I finished for him.

He nodded, then winced as if the movement hurt.

"I knew I wouldn't die, or you. Stomach wounds hurt like hell and they can take a lot of healing, but they're rarely fatal with modern antibiotics and prompt medical attention."

He looked at me, uncomprehending. "Were you really thinking all that as they put you under?"

I thought about it. "Not exactly, but I've been hurt a lot, Peter. I've lost count of the number of times I've lost consciousness and woken up in a hospital, or somewhere worse."

I thought his eyes were on my chest again, but he said, "The scar on your collarbone, what did that?"

Another interesting sideline of wearing this much of my chest in full view was that some of my scars were on display. I'd been more worried about my modesty than about the scars. "Vampire."

"I thought it was a shapeshifter bite."

"Nope, vampire." I showed him my arms with all their scars. "Most of these are from vampires." I touched one on my left arm: claw marks. "This one was a shapeshifted witch, which means her shapeshifting was a spell and not a disease."

"I didn't know there was a difference."

"Well, the spell isn't contagious, and it's not tied to the full moon at all. In fact, strong emotions don't cause you to shift, or any of that. You don't shift until you put on the item, usually a fur belt or something."

"Do you have any scars from shapeshifters?"

"Yes."

"Can I see?"

Truthfully, the most permanent scars were claw marks on my ass. They were almost delicate marks. Gabriel, the wereleopard who had done it, had considered it foreplay before he tried to rape me on film. He'd been the first person I'd ever killed with the big knife in its spine sheath. I was going to have to figure out a different way to wear the knife until I could get the shoulder rig remade. But I had new scars now, ones I was willing to show Peter.

It took a little work to get the T-shirt out of the pants, but somehow I didn't want to unbuckle or unzip anything. I got the shirt up and raised it over my belly, exposing the new wounds.

Peter made a surprised sound. "That can't be real." He whispered it. He reached out as if he'd try to touch, then drew his hand back, as if he wasn't sure what I'd say.

I stepped closer to the bed. He took it as the invitation it was, and ran his fingertips across the new pink scars. "The scars may disappear altogether, or they may stay. I won't know for a few days, or weeks," I said.

He drew his fingers back, then put his whole hand across the biggest wound. The one where it looked as if she had tried to take a chunk of flesh. His hand was big enough to cover the mark and leave his fingers splayed out beyond the scars. "You can't have healed this in less than, what… twelve hours. Are you one of them?"

"You mean a shapeshifter?" I asked.

"Yes." He whispered it as if it were a secret. He slid his hand along my stomach, tracing the ragged marks of claws.

"No."

He ran his hand over my skin until he came to the edge of the scars where they dribbled away just past my belly button. "They just changed my dressing. I look like shit. You're healed." He curved his hand around to the side of my waist that wasn't scarred. His hand cupped my waist, and his hand was big enough to do it. That one gesture caught me off guard. The only man I was dating whose hand was big enough to do that was Richard. It seemed wrong that Peter's hand was that big. It made me move back from him and let my shirt drop over my stomach. Which embarrassed him, which wasn't my intent. I just suddenly realized I probably shouldn't let him touch me that much. It hadn't moved me or made me uncomfortable until that moment.

He took his hand back, and again wasted blood that he didn't have in blushing. "Sorry," he mumbled, and wouldn't look at me as he said it.

"It's okay, Peter. No harm, no foul."

He gave me a quick upward glance of his brown eyes. "If you're not a shapeshifter, how could you have healed like that?"

Truthfully, it was probably because I was Jean-Claude's human servant, but since Dolph was wanting to know that, I just didn't want to share it with people who didn't know. "I'm carrying four different kinds of lycanthropy. So far I don't turn furry, but I'm carrying."

"The doctors told me you can't get more than one kind of lycanthropy. That's the point of the shot. The two different kinds of lycanthropy cancel each other out." He stopped at the end of the speech and took a deeper-than-normal breath, as if talking too much hurt.

I patted his shoulder. "Don't talk if it hurts, Peter."

"Everything hurts." He seemed to try to settle into the bed, then stopped as if that had hurt, too. He looked up at me, and the angry, defiant face was like an echo of almost two years ago. The kid I'd met was still in there, he'd just grown up. It made my heart hurt. Would I ever get to see Peter when he wasn't getting hurt? I guess I could just go visit Edward sometime, but that was just weird. We did not just visit each other. We weren't that kind of friends.

"I know it hurts, Peter. I didn't always heal this fast."

"Micah and Nathaniel have been talking to me about weretigers and being a lycanthrope."

I nodded, because I didn't know what else to say. "They'd know."

"Do they all heal as fast as you do?"

"Some, no. Some faster."

"Faster," he said. "Really?"

I nodded.

His eyes filled with something I couldn't decipher. "Cisco didn't heal."

Ah. "No, he didn't."

"If he hadn't thrown himself between me and the… weretiger, I'd be dead now."

"You couldn't have taken the damage that Cisco took, that's true."

"You're not going to argue about it. Tell me it wasn't my fault."

"It wasn't your fault," I said.

"But he did it to save me."

"He did it to keep both my guards alive longer. He did it to give us time for other guards to come and help us. He did his job."

"But…"

"I was there, Peter. Cisco did his job. He didn't sacrifice himself to save you." I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I kept talking. "I don't think he meant to sacrifice himself at all. Shapeshifters don't usually die that easily."

"Easily? He had his throat ripped out."

"I've seen both vampires and wereanimals heal from wounds like that."

He gave me a disbelieving face.

I crossed my heart and gave the Boy Scout salute.

That made him smile. "You were never a Boy Scout."

"I wasn't even a Girl Scout, but I'm still telling the truth." I smiled, hoping to encourage him to keep doing it.

"Healing like that would be cool."

I nodded. "It is cool, but it's not all cool. There are some serious downsides to being a wereanimal."

"Micah told me some of it. He and Nathaniel have answered a lot of questions."

"They're good at that."

He glanced past me at the door. I glanced where he looked. Micah and Nathaniel had given us as much privacy as they could without leaving the room. They were talking softly together. Cherry had actually left the room. I hadn't heard her go.

"The doctors want me to get the shot," Peter said.

I looked at him. "They would."

"What would you do?" he asked.

I shook my head. "If you're old enough to have saved my life, then you're old enough to decide this on your own."

His face crumbled around the edges, not like he was going to cry, but as if the child was peeking out. Did all teenagers do that? One minute grown-up, the next so fragile like a dream of their younger selves? "I'm just asking your opinion."

I shook my head. "I'd say call your mom, but Edward doesn't want to. He says Donna will vote for the shot."

"She would." He sounded resentful, face sullen. He'd been pretty moody at fourteen; apparently that hadn't changed completely. I wondered how Donna was coping with this new, more grown-up son.

"I'll tell you what I told Edward; I won't give an opinion on this one."

"Micah says that I might not get the tiger lycanthropy even if I don't get the shot."

"He's right."

"He said fifty-five percent of the people who get the shot don't get lycanthropy, but that forty-five percent get lycanthropy. They get what's in the shot, Anita. If I get the shot and catch what's in there, it means if I'd just left it alone I wouldn't have gotten anything."

"I didn't know the stats broke down that nicely, but Micah would know."

"He says it's his job to know."

I nodded. "He takes his job at the coalition as seriously as Edward and I take ours."

"Nathaniel said he's an exotic dancer, is that true?"

"It's true," I said.

He actually lowered his voice to say, "So he's a stripper?"

"Yes," I said and fought not to smile. With everything that was going wrong in his life, he was weirded out that my boyfriend was a stripper. Then I realized that he might not know that Nathaniel was my boyfriend. No, we'd kissed when I came through the door. But then, Cherry had joined the hug. Oh, hell, now was not the time to try to explain my love life to him.

"Micah told me some of the jobs that other lycanthropes have. Nurses, doctors, but only if they don't find out. I might not be able to join the armed forces, any branch."

"They consider lycanthropy a contagious disease, so probably not." In my head I remembered a talk Micah and I had had about a rumor. A rumor about the armed forces looking into deliberate recruiting of shapeshifters. But it was a rumor. He couldn't trace anyone who had actually been approached. It was always a friend of a friend's cousin.

"Did you get the shot?"

"They didn't offer. It's too late for me, Peter. I'm carrying already."

"But you're not a shapeshifter?" He made it a question.

"I don't turn furry once a month, or at all, so no."

"But you're carrying four different kinds at once. The whole shot thing is based on the idea that that's impossible."

I nodded and shrugged. "I'm a medical miracle, what can I say?"

"If I could heal like that and not turn furry, that would be amazing."

"You still wouldn't pass blood screenings for some jobs. You'd still hit the radar as a lycanthrope."

He frowned. "I guess so." Then he gave me that young face again, that echo of before, and it was a frightened face. "Why won't you help me decide?"

I leaned closer. "This is what it means to be grown-up, Peter. This is the bitch of it. If you're playing eighteen, then you have to decide. If you want to fess up to your real age, then everyone will treat you like a kid. They'll make decisions for you."

"I'm not a kid," he said, and he frowned, going sullen on me.

"I know that."

His frown slipped to puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"You stood your ground today. You didn't panic, or lose it. I've seen grown men lose it around lycanthropes when the situation wasn't as desperate. Most people are afraid of them."

"I was afraid," he said softly. "I've been afraid since I was a kid."

I had one of those moments of, shit and aha. "The attack on your father," I said. How could I have forgotten that this wasn't the first lycanthropy attack he'd survived?

He gave a small nod.

"You were what, eight?"

"Yes." His voice was soft, his eyes staring into the distance again.

I didn't know what to say. I cursed Edward for not being here. In that moment I might have traded a talk with Olaf for this talk with Peter. I could always shoot Olaf, but no weapon would help me deal with Peter's pain.

"Anita," he said.

I looked at him, met his eyes. His eyes reminded me of Nathaniel's eyes when I first met him. Eyes that were older than they should have been. Eyes that had seen things that older men would never see.

"I'm here, Peter," I said, because I couldn't think what else to say. I met his gaze and fought my face not to show how much it hurt me to see his eyes like that. Maybe they'd been that way years ago, but it took dating Nathaniel to teach me what eyes like that meant in a face that hadn't seen twenty yet.

"I thought if I trained with Edward that I wouldn't be so scared, but I was. I was scared just like last time. It was like I was little and watching my dad die again."

I wanted to touch his shoulder, take his hand, but wasn't sure it was what he needed me to do, so I kept my hands still. "I lost my mom when I was eight to a car wreck."

His eyes changed, lost a little of that awful look. "Were you there? Did you see?"

I shook my head. "No. She drove away and just never came back."

"I saw my dad die. I used to dream about it."

"Me, too."

"But you weren't there; what did you dream about?"

"Some well-meaning relative took me to see the car she died in. I used to dream about touching the bloodstains." I realized I'd never told anyone that.

"What?" he said. "What's wrong?"

I could have said so many things, many of them sarcastic, like I'm talking about my mothers death, why wouldn't something be wrong? I settled for the truth, which crosses the lips like jagged glass, as if you should bleed when you say it. "Just realizing I've never told anyone about that dream."

"Not even Micah and Nathaniel?"

Apparently, he did know they were my boyfriends. "No, not even them."

"Mom made me go to therapy afterward. I talked about it a lot."

"Good for Donna," I said.

"Why didn't your dad send you?"

I shrugged. "I don't think it occurred to him."

"I thought I could face my fears, and I wouldn't be so afraid, but I was afraid." He looked away from me again. "I was so scared." He whispered the last.

"So was I," I said.

He gave me a startled look. "You didn't look it."

"Neither did you."

It took him a moment, but he finally smiled and looked down in that pleased way that young men do. They seem to grow out of it, but it was strangely charming. "You really think so?"

"Peter, you saved me today when you jumped on us in the hallway. She was going to kill me as soon as she was out of sight of you guys."

"Edward told me that if a bad guy wants to remove you from the scene, and is already threatening or has a weapon, that most of the time they mean to kill you, but if you go with them, you die slower and more painfully."

I nodded. "I thought that's what you meant when you repeated the rule in the hallway."

"You understood," he said.

"I encouraged you, remember?"

He searched my face, as if trying to read something there. "You did, didn't you?"

"Edward and I know a lot of the same rules."

"He said you think like him."

"Sometimes," I said.

"Not always," Peter said.

"Not always," I said.

"I won't get the shot," he said, and his voice sounded firm.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Do you think I should get it?"

"I didn't say that, I just want your reasoning."

"If I don't get it, and I turn into a weretiger, well, then I did it saving you. If I don't get the shot, and I don't turn into a weretiger, then it's good. If I get the shot and I wasn't going to be a weretiger, I'll get whatever's in the shot, and I'll have turned into a shapeshifter because I was scared to be a shapeshifter. That sounds stupid."

"But if you are going to be a weretiger, then the shot would stop it from happening."

"You think I should take it," he said.

I sighed. "Honest?"

"Honest would be good," he said.

"I didn't like the way you said that if you turn into a weretiger, it's good because you did it saving me. I don't want you to think about me in this equation. I want you be a selfish son of a bitch, Peter. I want you to think about yourself and yourself alone. What do you want to do? What feels right to you?"

"Honest?" he said.

"Yeah, honest," I said.

"I think I've made up my mind, then I go back and change it. I think if I decided, and they had the shot here and ready, I'd just take it, but they won't bring it until I say so." He closed his eyes. "Part of me wants to call my mom and let her decide for me. Part of me wants someone to blame if it goes wrong, but a man doesn't do that. A man makes his own decisions."

"In this situation, yes. But don't imprint that whole lone gunman mentality too deep on your psyche."

"Why?" he asked.

I smiled. "I know from experience that it&#