Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [111]
“Shit,” I said.
“What?” Nathaniel asked.
“That damned Jeep is at the end of the street. Nobody look back.” Everyone stopped themselves in mid-motion except for Jason. He hadn’t even tried to look back, maybe wolf necks didn’t work that way, or maybe he was staring at other things. I realized that he was looking at Caleb.
I looked at that huge shaggy head. “Are you thinking about eating Caleb?”
He turned and gave me the full force of that pale green gaze. People say that dogs are descended from wolves, but there are moments when I doubt that. There was nothing friendly, or sympathetic, or even remotely tame in those eyes. He was thinking about food. He met my gaze because he knew I’d caught him thinking about eating someone that was under my protection, then he turned back to gaze at Caleb, and think of meat. Dogs never look at people and think, food, hell; they don’t even look at other dogs and think that. Wolves do. The fact that there is no recorded account of a North American wolf attacking a human being for food has always amazed me. You look into their eyes, and you know that there is no one home that you can talk to.
I knew that lycanthropes want fresh meat when they first change shape. New lycanthropes are deadly, but Jason wasn’t new anymore, and he could control himself. I knew that, but I still didn’t like the way he was looking at Caleb, and I liked even less that he was projecting his need onto me.
“What do you want me to do about the Jeep?” Nathaniel asked.
I jerked my attention back to Nathaniel and away from the hunger. It was an effort to think past it, but if the Jeep was full of bad guys, then I needed to be concentrating on them, not some metaphysical craving.
“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t get followed that much. Usually people just try and kill me.”
“I have to either pull out onto the highway, or turn the other way. Just sitting here, they’re going to know we saw them.”
He had a point, a good one. “Highway.”
He moved us forward, angling for the ramp. “Once we’re on it, where are we going?”
“The Circus, I think.”
“Do we want to lead the bad guys there?” Nathaniel asked.
“Jason said it earlier, most people know where the Master of the City bunks during the day. Besides, the wererats are still there, and most of them are ex-mercenaries, or something in that ballpark. I think I’m going to call ahead and ask Bobby Lee’s opinion.”
“Opinion about what?” Caleb asked, from the backseat. His eyes were still too wide, and he still smelled of fear, but he wasn’t looking at the wolf on the seat beside him. Whatever he was afraid of wasn’t something that close.
“About whether we catch them, or turn around and try to follow them.”
“Catch them?” Caleb said, “Catch them how?”
“Not sure, but I know that I know a lot more about catching bad guys than about following people to see where they lead me. I’m not a detective, Caleb, not really. I can spot a clue if it bites me on the ass, and give an opinion about monster-related crime, but at heart I’m in a more direct line of work than detective.”
He looked puzzled.
“I’m an executioner, Caleb, I kill things.”
“Sometimes you have to track things in order to kill them,” Nathaniel said.
I looked at him, that serious profile, his eyes searching the traffic, his hands on the wheel at exactly two and ten. He hadn’t had his license a year, yet. If I hadn’t insisted, I’m not sure he’d have ever had one.
“True, but I don’t want to kill them, I want to question them. I want to know why they’re following us.”
“I don’t think they are,” Nathaniel said.
“What?” I asked.
“The blue Jeep didn’t follow us onto the highway.”
“Knew we spotted them, maybe.”
“Or like everyone else knows where the Master sleeps. So it’s not hard to find his girlfriend,” Nathaniel said, voice quiet, eyes on the road. But he knew I hated being the Master’s