another was a serious historian and scholar and loved his books more than anything, and the last one was scouting out another vampire kiss where weretigers were the main animal to call of the Master of the City, so Pride was it.
I got up to the two of them, and they fell to either side and slightly back of me. Pride said, “I’m still not happy being your sacrificial lamb for the female wolves at work. Thorn flirts better.”
“He’s got a temper. I don’t want him anywhere near my job.”
“Wrath has a very even disposition.”
“And he’s so deep into his role as historian for the Harlequin that he doesn’t remember he’s a man, let alone that he likes girls.”
“I think he likes his books better than any woman,” Claudia said.
Pride and I just nodded, though it made me look at her and ask, “Did you try to date Wrath?”
She blushed, only the second time ever, and both times over me asking about her dating.
“You did,” I said.
Pride stumbled in the smooth stride he normally had. “Wrath? Why Wrath?”
And in that moment, I knew that Pride had looked at her and at least thought about it; thought about her as a woman.
“He’s not a guard, but he can still handle himself in an emergency. I don’t want to date a potential victim, but I don’t want to date another bodyguard, or mercenary. They get competitive.”
“With you?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I like a woman who can keep up with me,” Pride said.
Claudia looked across me at him, and I watched her look at him. “I had you pegged for a competitive bastard,” she said.
“I like to be the best, but I don’t have to win.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and her voice sounded thoughtful.
I had a very alien urge to match-make. I didn’t do that, ever, but suddenly it seemed like such fun. If Claudia hadn’t hinted that she had a steady lover, I’d have pushed it, but it was too new a thought. I wanted to have more information before I did anything stupid, or helpful. I let it go, as Pride and Claudia both reached for the door at the same time. They glared at each other.
“See,” she said.
He gave a small bow and stepped back, letting her hold the door open for me. His handsome face was that arrogant, almost angry, beauty that he wore as his blank cop face. Whatever he was feeling, he didn’t want to share.
I went through the door, leaving Claudia looking at him as if she’d never quite seen him before. In the midst of catching bad guys maybe we could have a little romance, and for once, it wouldn’t be mine. Cool.
45
CLAUDIA AND PRIDE had to hand their weapons over, and the nice desk officer locked them away for them. Claudia had gone through this once before; that time I’d passed it off as two girls going out for some shopping and range time, and then I got that emergency call. This time I couldn’t pretend that they were anything but what they were: bodyguards, my bodyguards.
Zerbrowski pulled out a chair so that Claudia could have a seat by his desk. He made suitably lecherous comments to her. She stood up and looked down on him, way down on him, since he was five-eight. She gave him her best glare, until he grinned and teased her until her mouth quirked and she almost smiled.
She looked across the room at me. “He doesn’t mean a damn word of it, does he?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Hey,” Zerbrowski said, “I resent that, I mean everything I say. I am a pervert, I swear!” He raised his hand like he was about to be sworn into court.
We both laughed at him. He grinned at us, and it was just Zerbrowski.
Pride actually got invited to sit with Detective Tammy Reynolds, Larry’s wife. I’d been surprised at first, but Tammy hadn’t been as mean to me as Larry was, partly because she’d been gone for a while. Tammy was a natural witch, a psychic, and the Church had made room for people like her as a kind of holy warrior. They used their abilities to help the Church defeat Satan in all his forms. A lot of the witches went into police or social work. She’d taken a year of maternity leave with their daughter, and then gotten transferred to the Preternatural Branch at the FBI. She’d only been back a few weeks.
Her long brown hair was pulled back into a sensible ponytail. Her skirt suit was brown with a white button- down shirt, as sensible as the hair and lack of makeup. She was still pretty, but the clothes wouldn’t have flattered anyone. She was five-eight to her husband’s five-four, and I’d always liked that she hadn’t had a problem being taller than Larry.
Dolph had sort of loomed behind me. Claudia had stood to shake his hand, which made Pride come over and do it, too. It was nice to see a woman who was so close to Dolph’s six-eight. Pride looked small beside them, which made me smile. Did I feel tiny standing there with them all? A little, but I was used to it.
Dolph took me back so I could get a look on the video at our supposed human servant, before I went into the interrogation room. “See if you can tell anything from a distance,” he said.
I looked at the grainy black-and-white image. The man sat very still, hands folded on the table in front of him. He had short, dark hair, cut very traditionally. His shirt was white and button-down, top button open, no tie. His suit jacket looked black or true navy; either way the clothing was dark and conservative. There was a glass of water sitting by his hand. He never touched it. He sat, he blinked, and he waited.
“He looks almost too ordinary,” I said.
“He looks like a thousand businessmen in this country,” Dolph said.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Is he a human servant?”
I shook my head. “The point of a human servant is to appear human. I can’t tell from here. I’ll need to be physically closer.”
“So far almost everyone associated with this group has tried to kill you, Anita.”
I glanced up at him. “I can’t break through his defenses and tell you if he’s human or human servant without getting in the room with him.”
“If he is a human servant, will he be faster and stronger than normal?”
“A bit, but mainly he’s harder to hurt, harder to kill, just tougher. He shares his master’s near- immortality.”
“Why do you say near-immortality?” Dolph asked.
“Because anything you can kill with a gun or a blade isn’t immortal, just hard to kill.”
He smiled and nodded. “Agreed.” Then his face went back to being serious. “I don’t like you going in there with him.”
“You guys searched him for weapons and explosives, right?”
He nodded, again.
“I trust you guys to do your job.”
My phone sounded its text noise. I checked it automatically and found a text from Pride that read, “She’s trying to convert me to her version of Christianity. Rescue me, or I’m going to be rude.”
“Crap,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Detective Tammy is back to trying to recruit the preternaturally talented for the Church.”
Dolph scowled. “Religious freedom allows her to do it, but I have talked to her about concentrating more on saving lives than souls.”
“Is she more zealous than she was before she left?” I asked.
“Seems to be,” he said.
