cheek against the heat of him. The white tiger rose closer to the surface and pushed the black one down. There were other colors of tiger inside me. I had a damn rainbow, impossible colors that had never occurred in any zoo, though I had learned that every tiger inside me had once existed as a real animal. It had just been a few thousand years for some of the subspecies. They were just legends now.
“Maybe if we get out of the elevator and get a little more room,” Edward said.
“You do not order us about, human,” Domino said.
“He’s got a badge; you don’t,” I said, still being too up close and personal with Crispin’s arm and hand. It was hard to be tough as nails when kissing someone’s hand, but some days you do the best you can.
“The marshal is right, let’s step outside.” Rick’s voice sounded just a little strained, which meant he was holding on to his friend even tighter than it looked. That wasn’t good.
“What will your friend do once we’re somewhere without security cameras?” I asked around the sweet smell of Crispin’s arm.
“He’ll do what Chang-Bibi tells him to do,” Ava said.
“And that would be what?” I asked.
“What?” Ava asked.
“What does she want him to do? Obviously he’s not happy about it, whatever it is.”
“You,” Crispin said.
Ava said, “Crispin!”
I said, “What?”
“You,” he repeated from behind me, “our queen wants them both to do you.”
“Crispin,” Ava said, and her face wasn’t friendly anymore, almost angry.
Bernardo leaned in and said, “I’d really rather have more room for the fight than the elevator.”
I stepped out of the elevator, and everyone followed. I knew why Crispin and the other marshals waited for me, maybe, but I finally realized that at some level the weretigers were treating me like what Domino had said, a little queen. They weren’t doing it on purpose, I’d have bet on that. It was all unconscious, which made it both useful and a little scary.
The hallway was white and cream, and much more elegant than the casino or the elevator. I waited until everyone was standing in the cool, wide hallway.
“Look, Domino, this is news to me. I’ll make you a deal. You tone it down and I’ll promise you won’t be on the menu for sex.” In my head, I thought,
He frowned at me.
Crispin tried to help. “She means she won’t do you if you don’t want to do her.”
“You can’t speak for anyone,” Ava said.
The uniformed guards were looking at us, with their hands on the butts of their guns. They saw the badges, but they saw the guns, too, and they’d picked up that we might not be getting along with the weretigers. It would be interesting to see where their loyalties would divide.
Edward leaned in. “Either we leave or we go with them. Your call.”
I sighed. Leaving was such a good idea. But the bodies in the morgue would still be dead. The head they’d mailed to me would still be waiting to come back to its body for burial. I had smelled tiger on the body in the morgue here. I wasn’t wrong, and for clues about weretigers, this was the place to come.
“Anita,” Edward said, softly.
“With them, we go with them.”
“What about their weapons?” Domino said.
“We have a gun room, if we could lock up some of them?” Rick said.
“We don’t give up our weapons,” Olaf said.
“Your warrant excludes us, and you don’t have other police with you. You do not go before our queen with automatic weapons on you,” Rick said, and it was matter-of-fact.
“Would you let someone see your Master of the City armed like this?” Ava asked.
I thought about it, then shook my head. “Probably not.”
“Let’s get some privacy, and we’ll discuss the weapons,” Edward said. He’d glanced up at the hallway, near the ceiling. His gaze had found the security cameras. I wondered if it was a law in Vegas, the cameras?
“Sure.”
I put Crispin’s hand more firmly in my left hand. He squeezed back. I said to Domino, “I’m not into rape; if you don’t want me, fine. I’m not crazy about you either.”
He almost snarled, and Rick suddenly had a two-armed grip on him. “I must obey my queen,” Domino growled. The energy of his beast pushed off him. I braced for it to hit me like a kidney punch thrown from inches away, but it was completely different. No violence, no electric rush. It was like being bathed in a pool of warm, expensive perfume. Except the scent didn’t hit my nose. Can something have a scent that hits your brain but not your nose? It was as if the “perfume” hit something deeper inside me. The white tigress and the black paced closer to the surface, opening their mouths in that grimace/growl, so they could taste the scent on the tops of their mouths where the Jacobson organ is located. He smelled… good.
I backed up and slid my arm around Crispin. His arm hesitated at the touch of the MP5 on its sling, then just kept moving until he held me close, our bodies touching all the way down side to side. Touching Crispin helped clear my head, but the tigers growled at me. They liked Domino better now.
Domino had gone quiet in Rick’s grip. Those orange-fire eyes were looking at me differently now. “You smell… like home.” He didn’t sound angry now, more puzzled.
I needed to leave. It was a bad idea to get closer to any of the tigers. But… all that seemed at risk was my virtue; somehow that didn’t seem worth another cop’s life. If I got a clue here that saved lives, would it be worth it? Hell, yes. Did I want to add another man to my menu? Hell, no. But sometimes a girl’s got to do what a man’s got to do, or something like that. In that moment, I was angry. Angry that metaphysics would probably help solve the crime, but it was going to fuck me up again. Probably literally.
30
THE ANTECHAMBER HAD white tile and white walls; it was all so pale it was almost disorienting. The only thing that saved it was that the white had more wallpaper on it. The paper had raised designs in silver and gold. It was like standing inside a delicate Christmas ornament. It was almost too elegant for comfort, as if I were afraid I’d break something just by breathing too hard. The chairs were all those delicate, spindly-backed ones that only very small people fit into, if at all, and even if you fit, they won’t be comfortable.
We’d come through a big door from the hallway, and there was another set of double doors in the far wall. Behind them, where Ava and Domino had gone, was Bibiana and her inner circle. Ava went to talk to Bibiana, but I think Domino went because they didn’t trust him around me and all the guns. Rick was adamant that we weren’t going before his queen armed to the teeth.
Crispin was sitting, waiting for us all to finish the debate. He seemed peaceful with all of it, as if it didn’t matter to him what we decided. If the delicate chair was uncomfortable, it didn’t show. He seemed more at ease than he had in the casino.
“The warrant excludes the weretigers, so you can keep us out of the inner room. But you can’t force us to disarm,” I said.
“Then you don’t get in,” Rick said. “But frankly, I thought at least one of you wouldn’t be armed. Ava said one of these guys was supposed to be food. We don’t arm our food.”
“I’ve been personally threatened by a serial killer here in your town; I thought it was smart to bring food that could take care of itself.”
He made a can’t-argue-with-that face and said, “Fair enough, but you still don’t get inside with all the shit you’re carrying.”
There were two more uniformed guards by the double doors. The two who had met us at the elevator were still outside in the hallway. Four armed guards, cool, but all human; interesting. If I had a choice of guards, I’d have picked weretigers to guard weretigers. I thought it was an interesting decision to use regular human guards
