Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1069]
Again they looked at each other. I sighed. Bobby Lee was wearing a sleeveless jean jacket over his T-shirt. Cris wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and oversized black tank top untucked, sloppy over his khaki pants. It was too hot to wear a coat. But I was wearing a black silk shirt, open over a black tank top myself. I had my shirt tucked in, and the Firestar 9mm in a front draw across the front of all that black. Most people wouldn’t see it, black on black. But the long-sleeved shirt was hiding guns and knives. I was betting that Bobby Lee had at least one gun under his jacket, probably at the small of his back, because there was no bulge, no matter how slight, under either arm. It was hard to see the bulge under Cris’s left arm. He’d chosen a shirt with a lot of print on it, bright patterns to distract the eye, but a hot wind blew his shirt back, and I caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster. I couldn’t be sure what was under the untucked tank top, but I was betting at least one more gun, in front for a cross-draw, just like mine.
“You cannot shoot anyone tonight unless I say so, how’s that for clear?”
“We have our orders,” Bobby Lee said, “and they aren’t from you.”
“Then you can go back to Rafael and tell him I refused your help.”
Cris’s eyes widened a touch. Bobby Lee’s expression never changed. Those pretty blue eyes were as empty as glass, no one home. “Why are you so afraid of taking us inside?” he asked.
I sighed again and tried to put it into words they’d understand and I was willing to share. I couldn’t come up with anything, so I tried the truth. “I am about to introduce my Nimir-Raj to the Master of the City for the first time.”
“You fucking both of them?” Bobby Lee asked, and the phrase seemed wrong with that Scarlett O’Hara accent.
I started to protest, or bitch, but let it go. “Yeah, I am, and I’m a little worried about how the introduction’s going to go.”
“You think the Master will try and kill your Nimir-Raj?” Cris asked.
“No, but he may want to play with him, and a vampire’s idea of fun and games can get a little odd.”
Bobby Lee laughed. “Odd, she says, odd.” He laughed again, and it sounded warm and deep and rumbly. The laughter filled his eyes, made them more real. “What she is trying to say, Cris, is that we are about to be entertained just like when the rats meet the hyenas. A show of force with no danger, but maybe a little discomfort.”
“Yeah, what he just said.”
Cris nodded. “So tonight isn’t real.”
“It’s real,” I said, “but it’s just not dangerous in any way you can protect me from.”
“We’re supposed to protect you, period,” Cris said.
Bobby Lee clamped him on the shoulder. “We can’t protect her from her own love life, Cris. We’re supposed to keep her body intact, not her heart.”
“Oh,” Cris said, and he looked suddenly much younger—early twenties, at best.
Bobby Lee turned to me. “We’ll hang back tonight, unless you’re in real physical danger.”
“I’m glad we understand each other.”
His eyes went empty again, the smile still curving his lips. “Oh, we don’t understand each other at all, ma’am, I can almost guarantee that, but we’ll do what we’re told, until we decide not to.”
I didn’t exactly like the sound of that, but, looking into his empty blue eyes, I knew it was the best I was going to get.
48
THE STEPS LEADING down into the bowels of the Circus are wide enough for three small people to walk abreast, but the steps themselves are oddly spaced, as if whatever the steps were originally built for wasn’t two-legged, or at least wasn’t human sized.
We were following Ernie down the steps. The first time I’d met him he’d had one of those long hair cuts with the sides shaved. The sides had grown out, and he’d cut the rest, so he had a fairly standard short haircut, with a little