Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1016]
I was left buffeted, breathless, heart hammering in my chest. A single feather longer than my hand lay across my stomach. I managed to prop myself up, the feather fluttering down between my legs to land beside the condom that lay discarded on the bed. It had been the only clothes he’d been wearing.
Jean-Claude’s voice eased through me. “Je t’aime, ma petite, je t’aime.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered.
Then dawn came, and I felt him die. Felt that wonderful person I loved go away. I heard the sound of a body hitting the ground. Requiem was a heap of black cloak. One of the guards had managed to catch London and was lowering him to the ground a little more gently. The vampires were dead for the day, all of them. We had hours of daylight to find the Harlequin and kill them. I’m not sure that’s what Jean-Claude and the other vampires would have wanted, but the vampires were down for the count until nightfall. It was daylight, and the humans were in charge. Thanks to Jean-Claude I was the top human in our city. Thanks to Richard’s self-loathing, the guards would listen to me instead of him. All right, except for the wolves. The wolves were his, but that was okay, I needed professionals, not gifted amateurs. I needed Edward and his backup. At that moment I would have welcomed any backup he thought could handle the job.
28
I WAS WRONG. I didn’t want to welcome Edward’s backup. One of them I wanted to send back to his mommy. The other I wanted to put a bullet in his brain, or heart. He was human, so either would do the job.
At least I was dressed for the fight. I never fight as well naked. I would so not have been comfy naked in front of Edward, let alone in front of his “backup.” “What the fuck were you thinking?” I shouted at him. Yeah, it was one of those kinds of fights.
Edward’s face was blank, empty, peaceful. It was one of the faces he killed with when he wasn’t enjoying the kill. “Olaf is good backup for this, Anita. He’s got the skills we need: a covert spook, any weapon you care to name, hand-to-hand, and better with explosives than I am.”
“He’s also a fucking serial killer, whose victims of choice are petite brunette women.” I slapped my upper chest. “Sound like anyone you know?”
He let out a breath; if it had been anyone else I would have said he sighed. “He’s a good match for this job, Anita, I swear that he is, but he wasn’t my choice, not exactly.”
I stopped pacing and came to stand in front of him. I’d kicked everyone out except Micah when he handed me the overnight bag full of clothes and weapons. I loved a man who knew how to pack for me. When I’d stepped out into the hallway and seen Olaf and Peter, I’d gone back in the room, kicked Micah out, too, and invited Edward in.
“What does that mean, he wasn’t your choice, exactly? You just said his skills match this job.”
“They do, but do you really think I’d have brought him within a hundred miles of you, Anita? Olaf likes you, likes you in a way I’ve never seen him like a woman. He has whores and he has victims, but whatever he feels for you is different.”
“Are you saying he loves me?”
“Olaf doesn’t love anybody, but he feels something for you.”
“He wants me to play serial killer with him, Edward.”
Edward nodded. “The last time he saw you, you and he killed a vampire together. You decapitated it, and he cut out its heart.”
“How do you know what we did? You were in the hospital trying not to die.”
“I heard about it later from the local cops. They were creeped by the way you butchered the vampire. Said you were both real good at cutting up the body.”
“I’m a legal vampire executioner, Edward. It’s what I do.”
He nodded again. “And Olaf has been a special-ops assassin for most of his adult life.”
“I don’t hold his day job