THE CRYING HAD almost stopped. I was just standing there with my arms around Peter’s waist while he held me in place, and I leaned against him. I felt light and airy, and quiet inside like the world after a storm wiped it clean. It didn’t feel much like me.
Peter hugged me carefully and said, “I’ve always wanted to hold you in my arms, but this wasn’t how I pictured it.”
It made me laugh, just a little. “Didn’t meet expectations, huh?” I said, sighing with my head still resting on his chest.
“In some ways, no.” He stroked his hand down the back of my hair.
I raised my head up and away from the touch. It was borderline between comfort and more.
“But in other ways, totally exceeded expectations.” He smiled down at me, and it was a good smile full of all the years we’d known each other, all the things we’d been through together, how much we’d both grown, though mine had been more internal instead of gaining ten inches of height like he had. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said, and just like that I knew he understood how much it had cost me to fall apart and how much I had to trust anyone to let them catch me while I did it.
“Thanks for being trustworthy,” I said.
“Oh, when a woman calls you trustworthy you’re so in the friendzone.” He made a dramatic face to go with the comment. It made me laugh and start to push away as the far curtain opened and a vampire and a werehyena came through. Asher, the vampire, was tall with long golden hair that he wore loose to hide half his face. The half that showed looked almost artificial in its beauty. Kane, the werehyena, was tall, dark, and sullenly handsome. The vampire said, “Anita, what’s wrong?” The hyena said, “Found another man to fuck, I don’t know how you find the time.”
I wanted to punch Kane in the face, but I debated whether the comment was enough to justify it, or just my anger with my family talking. Peter beat me to it, moving faster than I’d ever seen him move. One second we were holding each other, the next he was across the room punching Kane in the solar plexus with his right hand, so hard it doubled him over, then bringing his left elbow into the side of Kane’s face. Kane tried to stand up, swung at him, and Peter raised his left arm to block the blow just in case, but he was already coming up under Kane’s chin with as pretty an undercut as I’d seen in a while. Kane fell over backward, and the fight was over.
“I’ve never seen you move that fast, Peter,” Edward said from behind us in the door of the dressing room.
“Or hit that hard,” I said.
Peter was staring at his hands like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done. Apparently, he hadn’t seen himself move like that before either.
Asher looked at his fallen lover and then at Peter and then back to Kane. “I apologize for what Kane said, it was inexcusably rude, but could we begin with verbal insults before resorting to violence next time?”
Milligan was back through the curtains with Craven at his heels. Milligan had his pale hair newly military cut. He kept trying to grow it out since testing positive for lycanthropy had gotten him a medical discharge from the Navy, but he hated it touching his ears. Craven was so newly discharged that his black hair was still in its original high and tight. It seemed weird to have Milligan on duty without his usual partner, Custer, but we’d divided all the more experienced military security among the newer guys who were still transitioning from career military to civilian security. It was a good idea, but I still missed Custer, and Milligan was a lot less chatty and comfortable to be around with the newbie.
Milligan said, “Blake, if you’re going to pick fights with shapeshifters I’m going to have to stay on this side of the curtain.”
“If Kane’s involved it might be for the best,” I said.
Craven knelt and checked for the pulse in Kane’s neck.
“He’s a werehyena, I didn’t hit him that hard,” Peter said, but his voice held a note of panic.
“He’s alive,” Asher said, but not with the emotion you’d expect about the news. Kane’s cruel streak had started to wear thin on everyone.
“He’s got a pulse,” Craven said.
I heard Peter let out a breath, his shoulders slumping with relief.
“And that’s the other reason we’re here,” Edward said.
“Can you move like that now, too?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Neither of us has ever moved like that. We’re stronger and faster, but not like that.”
Peter backed far enough away from Kane so he might have some warning if the werehyena came to and wanted to have a rematch. He backed up until he was standing by Edward. Peter looked pale. “I don’t know what happened.”
“You cleaned his clock,” I said.
“You lost control of your temper,” Edward said.
Peter just nodded. “Worse than I have in a long time.”
“I taught you to fight, and you’ve learned more at the dojo, but with those skills comes responsibility and judgment about when to use them and how hard to go at it. Today was not the moment to go this hard, Peter,” Edward said.
“I know that, I really do, but he said what he said after Anita had talked to her dad on the phone and it was . . . I lost control. I don’t have an excuse for it, but I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t lose control,” I said, “that was very controlled, very precise.”
“I wanted to hurt him, Anita, that’s not okay. I’m too big and too strong, and now it’s even worse. I have to control my emotions as much as I do the physical stuff, or someone will get hurt and I could end up arrested.”
“Well, if you hit a human this hard someone could get dead,” Craven said.
“I don’t want to kill someone by accident,” Peter said. He suddenly looked scared, the shadow of the boy I’d first met on his face. I didn’t blame him.
“You’re here to work out with us, right?” Milligan said.
Peter nodded.
“We’ll teach you how to manage your new strength and speed, and how to hide it.”
“Yeah, that, too. I mean, if I moved like that in the dojo they’d all know.”
“You were fast, kid, but not as fast as we are,” Craven said.
Peter looked at him. “Are you serious?”
Craven smiled that smile that big, athletic men have been smiling since the first one realized he was bigger and stronger than everyone else.
“They are serious,” Asher said, “and please remember that when Kane comes to, he will take this as a grave insult.”
“Is that a threat?” Edward asked.
“No, it is a warning. As I become healthier and less prone to being what Anita calls a shit stirrer, Kane is getting worse. He’s only here today for my fitting because he didn’t trust me out of his sight.”
“The jealousy issues are that much worse?” I asked.
“I fear so.”
“How much worse, since we’re supposed to be keeping everyone safe?” Craven asked.
Milligan answered, “You haven’t been around Kane much, but he’ll probably try and tear the kid up next time he sees him.”
Asher lowered his head, putting his hands in front of his face like he might weep or didn’t want to see Kane lying on the floor. He shoved his hands back through his hair so it pulled back completely, exposing the scars on the left side of his face. It let me know how upset he was, because he would never have done that in front of so many people if he’d been thinking about it.
Peter gasped.
Asher froze and then very slowly moved his hands so his hair would fall back like a dark golden curtain to hide behind again. He spoke with his face still hidden. “If Kane wakes and the young man is still here, he will attack him. He can take such an insult to his honor from Anita and others at the apex of our power structure, but he is too insecure to take it from anyone he perceives as less able.” He never moved his head at all while he spoke, so his hair was all we could see of his face. He didn’t even show us the unmarked side of his face, which meant all his issues had been hit hard by that one small sound.
“If everyone is okay with it, we’ll just send Kane to the medical area at the Circus of the Damned so he can wake up there,” Milligan said.
“Fine with me,” I said.
“Yes,” Asher said, still unmoving as if he was afraid to give Peter a second look at his face.
I walked over to Asher as Milligan picked Kane up like a sack of potatoes, putting him in a fireman’s carry over one of his shoulders.
“What if he has a spinal injury?” Peter asked.
“Kid, if his spine was injured he’d either be dead or it’ll heal no matter what,” Milligan said, and then he walked out while Craven held the curtain for him.
He hesitated in the doorway and said, “We’re not supposed to leave you without someone to watch your back.”
“We’ve got her back,” Edward said. I was a little uncomfortable with Peter being part of that we, but he had earned the right to be included.
Milligan yelled back, “If Forrester says he has her, he has her. Now let’s get the werehyena to medical before he comes to.”
Craven almost saluted, remembered in time, and hurried to catch up with Milligan.
I tried to stand in front of Asher, but he moved just enough so that his hair was between me and seeing any of his face. I hadn’t seen him this insecure in maybe ever. Damn it. I reached up to touch his hair, but he moved just out of reach, so I dropped my hand to his arm. Which he let me hold, but he was immobile under my touch like he was trying not to be there.
“Asher, please,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said.
“Your reaction was honest, don’t be sorry for that,” Asher said, but his voice held bitterness that made the words a lie.
“It wasn’t for the reason you think.”
“Now you will tell me that I don’t know my own mind. You do have the arrogance of youth and beauty.”
“I’m young but I’m not beautiful, not compared to you,” Peter said.
Asher made a sound that was too bitter to be a laugh, but I didn’t have another word for it. He pulled away from my hand and I didn’t fight him over it. I had my own issues to work today, I didn’t have enough energy left over to deal with one of Asher’s famous fits. He was gorgeous, but eventually beauty and great sex aren’t enough.
Peter said, “You’re so good at hiding the scars with your hair that I forget they are there.”
“Good that you can forget that I am ruined.”
“All you let me see is the perfect parts of you physically. Nicky lets me see the scars where he lost his eye now, so it’s part of him, but you never seem to treat your scars that way.”
“Oh, they are very much a part of me, a part that I can never forget. I have wished often that vampires had no reflections like in movies, because then it would not be a constant reminder of what I have lost.”
“If that is how you feel, Asher, then why don’t you go back to consult with the plastic surgeon? He was hopeful about helping you,” I said.
He just shook his head hard enough that his hair moved but never showed any of his face. Peter was right, Asher had spent centuries using his hair to shield his face. He always seemed to know where every shadow or patch of light would hit him and what it would show. He used all of it to keep his scars hidden. The scars didn’t cover that much of his face because he could keep the hair over it while looking at someone with both eyes and most of his face, but it wasn’t my face, it wasn’t me who had gone from the kind of beauty that would make people gasp in wonder, to scars that made people gasp like Peter had.
I felt Jean-Claude like a distant dream down the metaphysical connection between us. He was being subtle because if Asher sensed his presence then he would say that I didn’t want him except through Jean-Claude’s eyes. Since I was beginning to agree with that, it was hard to argue. I’d only been in an off-again, on-again relationship with Asher for a few years; Jean-Claude had been trying for centuries. That breath of power asked me in emotions to please try. Jean-Claude could have simply spoken in my mind, but that much power between us and Asher would have sensed it happening.
I reached for his hand. He startled, his hand tensing under my touch. He darted a glance at me, a flash of those ice-blue eyes through the wilderness of his golden hair. “Why would you want to touch me when you have unblemished youth before you?”
I settled my hand more securely in his; Jean-Claude was gone from the part of me where I could feel it, because touching made all our powers stronger. If Asher realized that it hadn’t been just my idea to hold his hand, then it would have made things worse. “You know that Peter and I aren’t an item.”
“Only a lover will defend someone’s honor so swiftly and so decisively.”
“Any suggestions, Ted?” Peter asked.
“You made the mess, you clean it up, that’s the rule; besides, this isn’t the part of Anita’s life that I help out with, and I’m good with the division of labor.”
Peter took a few steps toward us and my hand in Asher’s kept him from moving away. Peter took the hint, though, and stopped where he was, giving the vampire the space he seemed to need. “Somewhere in all that talking, did you imply that you’re jealous of me?” Peter asked, so not what I thought he would lead with.
Asher laughed, and it was so bitter it felt like broken glass in my ears just to hear it.
“No vampire mind tricks,” Edward said, “or I will join in, and you don’t want that.”
“No,” Asher said, “I do not. My apologies, for losing control for a moment.”
“You didn’t go off your meds, did you?” I asked, because this was the moody Asher of old, not the one who had taken his therapy so seriously that they’d found meds that worked on a vampire, which hadn’t been easy. The doctor was writing a paper on it because it was a first. Finding meds that evened out Asher’s brain chemistry had made an amazing difference. He was healthier than he’d ever been, and we were all happier for it, except for Kane, apparently.
“No, I did not go off my meds, but I can understand why you asked.” He squeezed my hand gently.
“If the meds are still working, then what’s wrong?” I asked.
“The medicine clears my head and helps my heart be less tempestuous, but now the true work of therapy begins. I am finding that working on internal issues is far more challenging than I had imagined.”
I squeezed his hand back and said, “I’m proud of you for working your issues, instead of letting them work you.”
“It’s so hard to do the work in therapy; I’m sorry that I made it worse,” Peter said.
“You are young, you don’t know any better.”
“Let me try to do better; first can I say something without you taking it as flirting, because I don’t like men, so I don’t mean it that way, but I want to try and explain.”
Asher laughed again and it was bitter, but it didn’t hurt to hear it. He was trying, too. “You are safe from my advances. I would not want to be with anyone who reacts to me as you did.”
“It’s not the scars, it’s the fact that you have one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen. I think that every time I see you, but this is the first time you’ve ever let me see your whole face.”
“I’m sorry you found it revolting.”
“No, that’s not it,” Peter said, reaching out as if he were trying to pull the words from the air. “I knew you were scarred by holy water and I knew that it burns like acid on vampire skin, but theory is different from seeing it.”
“So much worse than you imagined,” Asher said, and tried to pull his hand away from me; when I didn’t let him go he let me keep holding him, but it was like his hand was only there for politeness’ sake. I had to breathe through the anger that started to boil up inside me. I really didn’t have the emotional spoons left for Asher today, but for Jean-Claude’s sake I kept trying.
“Damn it,” Peter said, “I’m not saying this right, but the scars aren’t that bad, it just surprised me, and it was shitty of me to react like that. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Asher said, but his voice said plainly that he didn’t mean it.
“Asher, what does he have to do to make this better?” I asked, shaking his hand, trying to get him to look at me.
“How did you word it, that I was unblemished youth?” Peter pulled the hem of his T-shirt up with one hand, exposing the scars on his upper stomach that traced over one side of his chest. I knew they went up onto one shoulder, but the shirt would have to come off to see them. The scars looked like what they were, claw marks. It had been a weretiger that meant to kill me; both Peter and I almost died, but I’d had enough magic to heal completely, and he hadn’t.
Asher turned with his hair swinging to hide the scarred side of his face, but he gave the full perfection of the other side of his profile so he could look at the scars that traced Peter’s body. “I am a fool, please forgive me for forgetting that I am not the only one who has suffered.”
Peter let his shirt fall back into place. “I don’t let people see me without a shirt much, even the girls who say they don’t mind, how can they not? The girls who like the scars seem to like them more than the rest of me, and that’s creepy for a different reason.”
Peter had never mentioned any of this to me, but he was sharing with Asher and the rest of us, because he was trying to make up for making Asher self-conscious. It was brave and smart. I was so proud of him I’d have hugged him if I hadn’t thought that would make things worse again.
“I have had lovers over the centuries who preferred their lovers scarred, but you are right, you are your scars to them, not yourself.”
“Exactly,” Peter said.
“I knew that you had risked your life to save Anita from a shapeshifter, but I did not think what that would mean for someone who was not a shapeshifter or vampire. Again, my apologies for assuming that because you were young you did not have your own wounds.”
“It’s okay, most people see someone my age and assume the same thing.”
“I try not to be that ordinary,” Asher said.
“You could never be ordinary,” I said, smiling up at him.
He finally smiled down at me just a little. I could only truly see Asher through the lens of all the centuries he and Jean-Claude had been together first as rivals, then as lovers and best friends, then as bitter enemies, and now they/we were figuring out what the hell we all were again. They were like some star-crossed lovers who kept reincarnating lifetime after lifetime trying to get it right, except it was all one lifetime, just a really long one.
I missed Asher in the bedroom and in a few other places, and I knew that Jean-Claude missed him more, which made me say, “Now, do I finally get a hello kiss?”
Asher gave a real smile this time, the one that traveled all the way to the long curving scar that was closest to the kissable bow of his mouth. I loved that smile, because it was real, not calculated to hide his scars. It made me smile for just myself without Jean-Claude needing to interfere. I wanted to love Asher, he just made it so damn hard sometimes.
“Whatever my lady desires,” he said, and bent that six feet, one inch of height down as I went up on my tiptoes to meet him partway. His lips were as soft as ever, the kiss gentle; his arms started to wrap around me, but I put a hand between us, keeping our bodies from touching completely and from him holding me too tightly.
He drew back immediately. “Will you never forgive me for that one cruel kiss?”
“If I’d been human I’d have needed stitches and weeks, or months, to be able to kiss, or eat, or so many things without hurting. Hell, I could have ended up with scars and my mouth would never look like this again.”
He turned away from me then. “Did you mean to be cruel?”
“No, but brutally honest, yes.”
He turned back to me, his pale blue eyes swimming in unshed tears. It hurt my heart to see him like that, but I knew part of that was Jean-Claude’s emotion and we had to be firm with our beautiful man. “Unless we have certain people in the room with us, I’m not comfortable letting you wrap me in your arms until I’m out of options against your superior strength, Asher.”
“I was ill, Anita. I am on meds and in therapy, what more do you want me to do to prove that I am sincere in my desire to be in your life again like I was before?”
“We’ll give you some privacy,” Peter said.
I moved back so I could see him and Asher at the same time; I even had a sense of Edward still standing in the doorway to the changing room. “I don’t want privacy, I want witnesses.”
“Anita, I would never harm you on purpose.”
“You came in here tonight sounding like your old self, your old insecure jealous self. That person is not safe to be around, so I’m going to be cautious.”
“Are you saying he hurt you?” Peter asked.
“I hurt everyone around me before the doctor found medication that balanced my brain chemistry. It’s worse than being an addict, because at least that is something you can live without, something outside yourself, but what is wrong with me is inside me. I cannot go cold turkey as they say, because I am my own drug, my own weakness without a different drug to help me see sense.”
“That sounds terrible,” Peter said, and sounded like he meant it.
“It is, mon ami, it is.”
“I’m glad they found meds that worked for you,” Edward said.
Asher looked past Peter to the other man. “Thank you.”
“We can shelve this conversation for privacy with Jean-Claude and the other lovers in our life,” I offered.
“Do you truly feel unsafe with me holding you in my arms?”
Okay, I guess we weren’t going to wait for a more intimate audience for this conversation, so be it. I looked at him and distant like a bell was Jean-Claude’s love for the man in front of me, but my own heart was strangely unmoved. “We’re lovers again, Asher.”
“But you are not in love with me, as I am with you.”
“You hurt me, Jean-Claude exiled you for months, and then you came home with Kane, who makes it impossible. The time we have together without him just enrages him more, so that it’s harder and harder to be together.”
“We are lovers again, but it is as if we are not together, because everything must run through Kane’s jealousy and possessiveness,” Asher said.
“Exactly.”
“If I had married him I would divorce him, but I made him my moitié bête, my animal half; that is not a tie that can be broken short of death.”
“Yeah, it truly is until death do you part,” I said.
“I do not know what to do about Kane; if I had been healthier I would never have chosen him.”
Edward said, “Maybe without Kane you might not have given therapy a real shot.”
“What do you mean?” Asher asked.
“Anita had to tell me about Kane before we came to St. Louis for this trip, because she wanted Peter and me to know that he was potentially dangerous. I think Kane held up a mirror to your own obsessive jealousy. You finally saw in him what everyone else had seen in you, and you didn’t want to be like that anymore.”
“I knew you were a deadly foe, but I did not know that you were also a wise friend,” Asher said.
“I’m not your friend, I’m Anita’s friend.”
“You don’t like me.”
“You haven’t given me a reason to like you.”
“That is fair.” Asher turned back to me. “Perhaps your friend is correct, and I needed Kane to show me the error of my ways.”
“If that’s true then I’m grateful for that, but that still leaves us with Kane.”
“What happens if you kill him?” Edward asked.
“His death could kill Asher.”
“I thought Asher lived through the death of his human servant once.”
“He did.” I didn’t elaborate on one of the most painful moments in Asher’s or Jean-Claude’s lives. The bare facts and move on.
“Then why can’t he live through the death of his animal to call?”
“I am still in love with Kane,” Asher said.
“I saw your reaction when Peter knocked him cold; that was not the reaction of a man in love.”
“I love him,” Asher insisted.
“But you’re not in love with him anymore, are you?” Edward asked.
Asher hesitated and then said, “I don’t know.”
“Yeah you do, you just don’t want to admit it.”
“Just to be clear, Ted, you can’t kill Kane unless he tries to kill you or Peter, or somebody else. He is not just a problem to be solved, not yet.”
Edward shrugged. “If you say so.”
“We can’t just kill Kane because he might hurt someone, can we?” Peter asked.
“You can’t,” Edward said.
“No one can,” I said.
“You mean that Peter cannot kill Kane in cold blood, but that you could,” Asher said.
“It would be a solution.”
“It could kill me.”
“It would still be a solution,” Edward said. I realized in that moment just how much he didn’t like Asher. He hadn’t even been around him that much, but he’d heard my stories and seen some of the damage Asher had caused; for Edward that would be enough.
I said, “No, it would not be a solution.”
Peter said, “Ted, no.”
“Then keep Kane away from me and Peter while we’re here. If he hurts Anita in front of me, I will not hesitate.”
“If he hurts Anita, that’s different,” Peter said.
Edward looked at his son, his eyes gone cold and distant like winter skies before the storm rolls down and buries you under a blizzard. “You’ve made Kane your enemy, Peter. He’s a wereanimal; that means he’s faster and stronger than you are, even now. What will you do if he attacks you?”
“I’ll defend myself.”
“Will you kill him?”
“If he tries to kill me.”
Edward shook his head. “You can’t wait that long, Peter, not with shapeshifters.”
“I can’t just shoot him on sight.”
“I can.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“I will do my best to see that Kane stays away from Peter,” Asher said.
Edward ignored him and looked at his son. “The biggest difference between Anita and me is that I can, and she won’t. It’s not that she isn’t capable of shooting and killing, Kane. It’s that she will wait until he does something that she feels justifies it, but by then someone else will be hurt or dead. If Anita weren’t here to tell me no, I would kill Kane before he hurts someone else.”
“And it wouldn’t bother you?” Peter asked.
“No.”
“Why tell me all that, Ted?”
“I want you to start thinking now about what you will and will not do, what you are willing to do, where you draw your line.”
“I am thinking about that,” Peter said.
“Good, because if you go into the family business you’re going to need to decide what your rules are, so that you won’t waste time wondering when it’s time to act. Hesitation will get you killed if you’re up against vampires and shapeshifters, Peter.”
Peter looked at me, maybe for confirmation or maybe for my opinion. I nodded, and said, “If you decide ahead of time what you’ll do in a given scenario, then if that happens you’ll just act. You won’t waste time debating your options.”
“But you can’t think of every scenario ahead of time,” Peter said.
“No, but you can think of the ones most likely to happen next, like what will you do if Kane jumps you when you’re alone?” I asked.
“Kill him if I can.”
“Good,” Edward and I said together.
“But surely you don’t have to kill him. Could you not incapacitate him as you did just now?” Asher said.
“Not if he gets me alone,” Peter said.
“Explain your answer to Asher,” Edward said.
“I surprised Kane and myself with my speed, strength, and training. I won’t surprise him a second time. He’ll be ready for me now and he’s faster and stronger than I am, plus he can shapeshift into a form that has claws and teeth.” Peter turned to me. “Can Kane do just claws in human form?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I said, and looked at Asher.
“No, he cannot,” the vampire confirmed.
“Okay, but he’s still better than me physically and he knows how good I am now, so he’ll come harder, maybe hard enough to try and kill me. If he gets me alone I’ll have to assume that’s what he’s planning.”
“And if he attacks you in front of us all, as he will likely do?” Asher asked.
“If Anita and Ted are with me, or Nicky and a few others, I’ll try to fight until they can subdue him, but if he catches me alone or without the people I trust with me, then I’ll have to take care of it myself.”
“You do not trust that I can control my own animal to call?”
Peter looked at me as if to ask, What do I say?
“Tell him the truth,” I said.
“No, why should I when you don’t seem to have any control over him at all. In fact, he bullies and manipulates you and you let him do it. Why would I trust my life to you suddenly standing up to him and saving me? I’m much safer saving myself while you stand around wringing your hands about what to do.”
Asher stared at him, then turned to me. “Is this what you think of me, too?”
“Do you want the truth?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I think you’d stand there and watch Peter die at Kane’s hands and do nothing, not because you want Peter dead but because you don’t know what to do in emergencies, especially when Kane is involved.”
“Am I that useless?”
“Where Kane is concerned, yes.” In my head I thought he’d be one of the last people I’d count on in an emergency, but I kept that to myself. One hard truth at a time worked better if you wanted most people to do better, and I didn’t want to hurt him that much. I still loved him, or Jean-Claude loved him enough for both of us; either way it made it hard to be completely honest in that moment.
“So, you agree that Peter should kill Kane?”
“No, I agree that Peter shouldn’t let Kane kill him, and if that means he kills Kane first, then I’m okay with that.”
“Even if it means my death?”
Damn it, he wasn’t going to let this be easy, which was so Asher. “You are a master vampire, Asher, which means you can control your animal to call, which is hyena. I’ve seen you force werehyenas that hated you to attack people they liked better than you. Kane is your personal animal, your moitié bête, your beast half, so you should be able to control him and keep him from attacking Peter, but you won’t, not can’t, won’t. If you want to commit suicide by letting Kane do it for you, that is your choice.”
“Will you not miss me?”
I made an inarticulate sound that was somewhere between frustration and a scream of rage. “Damn it, Asher, don’t be the fucking girl in this conversation. Not every damn thing is just about you! I will not let your issues with Kane get Peter killed, period, end of fucking discussion. If Kane dies and that drags you to the grave with him, I will mourn your beautiful ass, but I will not let you kill or injure anyone else I love ever again. Ever!”
“I did not know you felt that way about Peter.”
“Wait, are you saying that unless I have a romantic love toward someone you think it’s okay for Kane to hurt them, or kill them?”
What I could see of Asher’s face looked confused. Oh my God, I was too stressed today for this shit. My phone rang and it was the ringtone for Captain Rudolph Storr of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team.
“Answer the question, Asher, because we’re going to have a lot of people in for the wedding that I’m not fucking, and you have to understand that if Kane hurts them that’s still a death sentence on him.”
“That is your work ringtone,” he said.
“I know. I’ll call back. You must understand what I just said, or Kane is going to do something unfortunate, and someone will have to kill him, and that may kill you, which will take a piece out of Jean-Claude’s heart and mine, but Kane has no more free passes. None, zero, zilch. If he attacks anyone else the minimum is what Peter just did. I am about to have a lot of humans around me for fittings of dresses and shit, and Kane cannot take a swing at any of them, because if he kills any of them even by accident I will put a silver bullet between his eyes.”
“He is my animal to call; he might survive even that.”
I had to count slowly before saying, “You are not stupid, Asher, so you have to be deliberately missing my point here.”
“I thought you might discipline him with one bullet to make your point.”
I shook my head hard enough that all my own black curls flew back and forth. I was having to fight not to make my hands into fists. “It’s not my job to discipline Kane, it’s yours, but if you won’t do your job, you will force me to do mine. “
“You would execute him, even knowing it could destroy me, as well.”
“If Kane loses his temper and hits one of my human bridesmaids or their partners, or one of my family, or hell, anyone who is in my wedding, anyone who—”
“You’re making this too complicated, Anita,” Edward said.
“If you can explain it to him better, be my guest.”
“Your fault, our fault, no one’s fault, if Kane kills anyone, we kill him. If you get in the way of that, you can die first.”
I turned to stare at Edward, but his face showed no compromise. I knew he meant it. I wasn’t sure I could pull the trigger on Asher; on Kane and let Asher take his chances, yes, but to actually point a gun between those beautiful blue eyes, at that face we loved . . . I wasn’t sure I could do it, and because it was Edward he needed to know that.
“I don’t know if I can pull the trigger on Asher, so if it comes to that I’ll take Kane, but Asher has to be yours.”
“Understood,” Edward said.
“Anita, how can you talk about my death so coldly?”
“We are starting to plan how to take Kane and you out, Asher; do you understand now?”
“That I don’t matter to you, yes.”
I wanted to ask him again if he’d stopped taking his meds, but my phone rang again. It was Dolph and for him to call back that soon it was important. “If you didn’t matter to me, Asher, I’d have killed Kane months ago. I have to take this call,” I said as I stepped a little away from him, not so he wouldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but because I was so angry with him I didn’t want to be looking directly at him while I concentrated on police work.
“Hey, Dolph, what’s up?”
“We have a murder scene.”
“What kind?”
“We may have a Sunshine kill.”
The anger washed away on fear, my stomach clenching tight with it. “Jesus, Dolph, I was hoping it wouldn’t come here.”
“So was I, but we have a body at the Marriott. A maid noticed the smoke and got a fire extinguisher, so the scene is relatively preserved, but we’re going to need dental to ID the victim.”
“So, it’s a vampire that’s newly dead enough to have dental records?” I asked.
“If it’s the one that signed in for the hotel room, yes.”
“Is the vampire local?” My voice sounded ordinary when I asked, but my stomach wasn’t fooled. I knew a lot of the local vampires now, because most of them attended the Church of Eternal Life and so did Jean-Claude and I at least once or twice a month. It was the church that Jean-Claude and I were going to be married in; I’d started to think of the congregation as mine, just like I did the Episcopal church that I went to most Sundays.
“Not if it’s the vampire that checked into the hotel.”
“Give me the name, I might be able to find a vampire that knows them.”
“I don’t want to give out the name of the victim until we notify the family.”
“They’re married?”
“There were photos of the victim with a family on the laptop. All the photos with the vampire in them were taken at night or inside, so it looks like it’s not the family the vampire had before, but a current one.”
“Okay, track the family down. What do you need from me?”
“You’re still our vampire expert. I want your expertise.”
“Okay, be there as soon as I can. I’m at a wedding fitting so it may take a few minutes.”
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s okay, my job doesn’t change just because I’m going to be a bride.”
“I’m still sorry to drag you away from something pleasant to this.”
“Is it that bad?”
“We’ve both seen worse, but it’s just that someone in our city hated vampires enough to open the drapes and let the sunlight do this to them. I was really hoping that this particular brand of hate would skip St. Louis.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He sighed, which he didn’t do much over the phone or in person. “Get here when you can, Anita.”
“Dolph, one thing. When did they open the drapes on the vampire? I mean, it’s after dark, they had to be cutting it damn close to sundown.”
“I’ll check the timeline and have the info for you when you get here.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Then he hung up, which was actually not abrupt for him.
I said, “I need to go,” to no one in particular, or everyone.
“You need backup?” Edward asked.
“No, I need you to stay here and finish the fitting.”
“You sure?”
“If it’s a Sunshine Murder there will barely be anything for me to do,” I said.
He studied my face, then said, “You’ll call if you need me.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Give me ten minutes, I’ll be out of these clothes, and I can go with you.”
“The pants are still too long for the boots,” the seamstress said as she came back into the room.
“What boots?” Edward asked suspiciously.
I didn’t even try to hide my smile, but I did add, “The boots are actually the most conservative part of the outfit, you won’t have a problem with them.”
“You’d take Ted with you, but you don’t want to leave me on my own,” Peter said.
“I really do need Ted to have his fitting. I need something about this damn wedding to go right.”
“If this is where you need me more, I’ll stay,” Edward said.
“Thank you.”
The seamstress looked at me. “The makeup artist is waiting for you with the clothes that Jean-Claude picked out for tonight.”
“Oh,” I said, “I’ll come back after the crime scene to change.”
She raised an eyebrow at me over her horn-rimmed glasses. “The makeup and hair will take some time, Ms. Blake.”
“Are you trying on your wedding dress today?” Edward asked.
“No, it’s for the date tonight. Jean-Claude wanted me to match his outfit tonight like it’s prom or something,” I said, and couldn’t hide my discomfort at having to get all dressed up.
“Nathaniel has been so excited about helping Jean-Claude put the new act together,” Peter said.
“And they’ve kept it a surprise from me, I won’t even know what color he’s wearing until I see my dress for tonight.”
“I know you have to go be a cop now, but now I want to see the date dress,” Peter said, smiling.
“I’m sorry that I have the date tonight and can’t be there to see you working out with everyone,” I said.
“We came at the last minute,” Edward said. “You can’t cancel a date night this big because our schedule opened up suddenly.”
“Mom would be wicked pissed if you canceled on her like that,” Peter said.
Edward gave a small smile. “Donna would never forgive me if she had professional hair and makeup planned, and then I canceled for less than life and death.”
“If Mom went to this much trouble for a date with you, even life and death wouldn’t be an acceptable excuse,” Peter said.
Edward grinned. “You’re right.”
“I was hoping to see you in all your finery here, since I cannot be at Guilty Pleasures tonight,” Asher said.
I looked at Asher. “You’re ringmaster at the Circus of the Damned, can’t be in two places at once, and I need you to finish your fitting as best man today, too.”
“That is why I am here,” he said.
“I also need you to be okay with Ted and Peter. I need you to not take what we just discussed and be all pissy and bitter at them. I need you to get along.”
Asher got this look on his face that I knew, so I added, “And you’re not allowed to flirt with them or be obnoxious in that way either.”
“Do you know me so well?”
“I share a lot of Jean-Claude’s memories, so yeah, I do.”
Then he got a look on his face that I hadn’t seen much, it was more from a memory of Jean-Claude than my own. He looked lost. “What am I to do if I cannot be cruel or flirtatious?”
I realized with a start that he was serious. “Asher, there is more to you than just that.”
“Is there? As the medication and therapy strip away all the broken thinking I am left unsure of who I am. I know that sounds ridiculous after almost seven hundred years, but I don’t know how to behave if I’m not sick with jealousy. It’s as if all of me was the obsessive negative thoughts.”
“You are more than just your illness, Asher.”
“Am I?”
“Is that why you don’t discipline Kane, because he’s the last part of your illness?” Peter asked.
Asher looked at him, careful to only let him see the perfect half of his face. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe worrying about Kane gives you something to obsess over now that your own obsessive thoughts are gone?”
“I . . . I had not thought about it like that.”
Edward said, “Giving up an obsession is hard. Giving up one that is made from your own obsessive-compulsive thoughts would be even harder. You are stronger than you let us see or you wouldn’t have been brave enough to do it.”
“Do you truly believe that?” Asher asked, again glancing at him through a fall of hair and perfect face.
Edward nodded. “I do.”
Asher ran his hands down his shirt, which was a gesture similar to one that Jean-Claude had; it was a sign of nerves. “Thank you.”
“When you first give up your obsession your life loses focus. You have to decide if you’re still you, or someone else, becoming someone else,” Edward said.
It was all I could do not to ask him what obsession he had given up, because this was more insight into his past than I’d ever had, at least about his emotional landscape. He was my best friend and we’d known each other for ten years, but Edward knew how to keep a secret.
Asher said, “I feel empty like a seashell washed up on the shore, beautiful but hollow with whatever creature lived inside me gone.”
“It will take time to fill yourself back up,” Edward said.
“Yeah,” Peter said, “it’s sort of like being fourteen again when you don’t know who you are or what you’ll be when you grow up.”
“I have been grown up for centuries.”
“In age maybe, but you got stuck because you were sick; now you can decide what you’ll be when you grow up for real.”
He stared at Peter, forgetting to keep his hair in place so he gave both eyes and an edge of scars. “How can you be so wise at such a young age?”
“I’ve had a lot of therapy and I have a great dad, and smart friends,” he said, looking from Edward to me.
“If you stop trying to be the old Asher, we’ll help you figure out who the new Asher is,” Edward said.
“You make it sound simple,” Asher said.
Edward shook his head but stopped midmotion because his head rubbed the stand-up collar. He frowned at the clothes, I think, but said, “It’s not simple. Re-creating yourself after you’ve given up one way of being is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but if you pay attention to yourself you can build a life you want, instead of the life that you fell into.”
I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but he’d never answer them in front of this many people, and he probably wouldn’t answer them at all, but more than that I realized he’d opened himself up to Asher. Was it for my sake, for Peter’s, or had Edward seen something in the vampire that made him want to reach out to him? Maybe I’d ask later when we were alone and Edward would give me the look he’d been giving me for ten years, the one that said he knew things I didn’t, and he wasn’t going to share.
“You would help me after I have behaved so badly?”
“Do better from this point on, and before you say it’s as simple as that, I know that changing how you interact with the world is anything but simple.”
“He’s really good at helping you through things like this,” Peter said.
I thought about it and then nodded. “He really is.”
Asher spread his hands wide. “Then I will take the help, for I have no clue what to do with this new me. I am happy that I am not beset with all those compulsive thoughts, but I am afraid of the silence inside me. I do not know what to do with it.”
“We’ll help you figure that out,” Edward said.
“But you have to control Kane so we can do that,” Peter said.
I had a moment of thinking Shouldn’t the last two sentences have been the other way around, but I saw the surety in Peter’s face and the calmness in Edward’s and realized that they’d be okay with the vampire, and that maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with them.
The seamstress caught my attention at the door. “Makeup and hair will need at least two hours.”
“Two hours! This is just a date, not the wedding.”
“For the wedding we will need four hours, perhaps more.”
My mouth fell open and I just gawked at her. I wanted to ask if she was joking, but I knew better. The seamstress had no sense of humor that I was aware of; I hoped that the makeup and hair people were better, but I doubted it. I went for the door. She called after me, “Two hours, Ms. Blake, and then you still need to go to the club.”
I yelled, “I’ll be back, and it’s Marshal Blake.”