visit first.”
“You think he’ll just let you waltz in and accuse his people of murder?”
“I think Max told Sheriff Shaw to invite me to come play and that I’d sort things out.”
Memphis’s eyes went wide. “Did he now?”
“So I’m told.”
“It doesn’t sound like our master.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, “but if he invited me, why wouldn’t he want to help me sort things out?”
“You won’t get in without a warrant. The Master of Vegas is old-time mob; it makes him cautious,” Memphis said.
“We’ll apply for several,” Edward said.
Memphis looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“We have a lycanthrope kill confirmed. Nevada still has varmint laws on the books. We’ll be able to get a warrant of execution on the lycanthrope that did this.”
“But you don’t have a name for the lycanthrope,” Memphis said.
Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister. “You know we don’t need a name. The warrant will read a little vague. I keep forgetting about the varmint laws in the western states; it makes it actually easier to get a vague warrant for a shapeshifter than for a vampire,” I said.
“I still believe it’s a legal excuse for murder,” Memphis said.
I stepped close to the doctor, and he held his ground. “Randall Sherman was your friend, not mine. Don’t you want his murderer caught?”
“Yes, but I want to make sure it’s the right weretiger, not just the one that pisses you all off.”
I grinned at him, but could feel it was more a snarling flash of teeth. The tigers were still a little close. “If you don’t like the way I do my job, then file a complaint. But in the dark when the big bad monsters come to get you, you always want us. You see us standing here. You know what we are, what we do, and it makes you feel uncivilized. Even with your friends on gurneys in the morgue, you flinch. Well, we don’t flinch, doctor. We do what the rest of you are afraid to do”-I leaned in close and whispered-“we’ll be your vengeance, doc, so you can keep your lily-white hands clean.”
He stepped back as if I’d struck him. “That’s not fair.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want vengeance for what it did to your men? Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t look forward to weighing their murderer’s liver on a scale?”
His eyelids flickered behind his glasses. He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips. He finally said, “You are a hard woman, Blake.”
I shook my head. “No such thing as a hard woman, Memphis, just soft men.” With that, I turned, and the others followed me. We went for the doors, and a phone, and a judge who would give us warrants.
Edward said, “What did the doctor do to piss you off that badly?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“Then what’s with the super bitch act?” Bernardo asked.
I laughed. “Who was acting, Bernardo, who the fuck was acting?” The tigers swirled inside me, happy that I was angry, looking forward to more anger, more emotion. They wanted out. They wanted out so badly.
20
I GOT OUTSIDE in the breath-stealing heat, and Edward grabbed my arm, swinging me around to face him.
I stared up at him.
“Anita, are you all right?”
I started to say
I looked at his hand on my arm until he let me go. “I’m fine.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then I forced myself to stop and take a few deep breaths. I tried to think past the feeling of eagerness and anger. I was angry. Why? Memphis had done nothing to piss me off that much. So he was a liberal who didn’t approve of DPEA; so what? There were lots of people who felt that way. So why had I pulled him up by the short hairs?
Why was I angry? Okay, scratch that, I was almost always angry. Rage was like fuel for me. It always bubbled just below the surface. It was probably one of the reasons that I could feed on other people’s anger. It was my drink of choice. The real question was, why was I being a shit to someone who hadn’t earned it? That wasn’t like me.
I was about to run off and see the weretigers; a lot of them. The tiger energy inside me was happy about that and just a little too eager. Just because I hadn’t shapeshifted for real didn’t mean I wouldn’t. The only other person I’d met with this many different kinds of lycanthropy in his body had been able to shift to all the forms. He’d also been insane, but that may have been from other things.
What would happen if, with my tigers that close to the surface, I suddenly found myself surrounded by a whole bunch of weretigers? I wasn’t sure, and that was reason enough to take it slower.
“Thanks, Ed… Ted. I needed that.”
“You seem calmer now.”
I nodded. “You made me think. First, I’ll go back inside and apologize to Dr. Memphis. Second, I’ll see if he knows where we can find Officer Randall Sherman’s high priestess.”
“Why?” he asked.
I told them about the pentagram and my theory that Sherman had been trying a spell when the weretiger killed him.
“Spells don’t work against wereanimals,” Bernardo said.
“No, they don’t,” I said.
“A practicing witch would know that,” Edward said.
“He would.”
“Which means something else besides vampires and weretigers may have been in that warehouse,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“If Memphis doesn’t know Sherman’s high priestess?”
“Then we find someone who does. You call Washington and get started on those warrants. One for a wereanimal that killed Sherman, and the other for searching homes and businesses of the Master of Vegas.”
“That second one may be tricky; Max is pretty well connected here and is one of the major funders of the pro-vampire lobby in DC.”
I hadn’t known that last part. “Then he should want to cooperate with the police.”
Edward gave me that smile of his. “He’s a vampire, Anita, they always have something to hide.”
I smiled back. “Don’t we all.”
To that, he didn’t answer, just got his cell and started working on the warrants. Me, I went for the door back inside.
Olaf followed me, but I stopped him. “You stay with Edward, I mean, Ted.”
“The vampire Vittorio made a threat against you. You really shouldn’t be alone, not if he has wereanimals on his side.”
I couldn’t fault his logic. “Bernardo,” I called, “you’re with me.”
Bernardo gave Olaf a speculative look but came to my side. “Anything you say, little lady.”
“Don’t call me that, ever again,” I said, and reached for the door.
“Why him and not me?” Olaf said.
I glanced back at the tall, black-clad man. He’d put the black wrap-around sunglasses back on. He stood there, looking like a Hollywood idea of a bad guy. “Because he doesn’t creep me out, and you do.”
