Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [205]
It was time to put the gun up, but irritatingly, I’d have to flash the parking lot. I was really going to have to invest in more dressy pants suits. Dresses just sucked for concealed carry.
There was no one else but the three of us in the parking lot. I turned my back on both of them and raised the dress enough to put up the gun.
“Please, don’t be modest on my account,” Asher said.
I smoothed the dress into place before I turned around. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
He smiled, and the look on his face was amused, condescending, and something else. That “something else” bothered me. “Modest. Were you also chaste before our dashing Jean-Claude found you?”
“That’s enough, Asher,” Jean-Claude said.
“She was a virgin before you?” He made it a question and then threw his head back and laughed. He laughed until he had to lean against the Jeep to steady himself. “You, wasted on a virgin. It is simply too perfect.”
“I wasn’t a virgin, not that it’s any of your damn business.”
The laughter stopped so abruptly, it was startling. He slid down to the ground, sitting on the dark pavement. He stared up at me through a curtain of golden hair. His eyes looked strange and pale. “Not virginal, but chaste.”
“I’ve had enough games for one night,” I said.
“The games are just beginning,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means, ma petite, that the council await us. They will have many games for us to play, none of them pleasant.”
Asher rose to his feet like he’d been pulled by strings. He stood, brushing himself off. He settled his black overcoat more solidly into place. It was hot for a long coat. Not that he would necessarily care, but it was odd. Vamps usually tried to blend in better than that. Made me wonder what was underneath the coat. You could hide a pretty big gun under an ankle-length coat. I’d never met a vampire that carried a gun, but there was always a first time.
Jean-Claude had said we were safe until we reached the council, but that didn’t mean Asher couldn’t pull a weapon then and blow us away. It had been beyond careless to put up my gun without patting Asher down first.
I sighed.
“What is wrong, ma petite?”
Asher was a vampire. How much more dangerous could he be with a gun? But I couldn’t do it. “Let me test my understanding. Is Asher going to ride in the car with us to the meeting?”
“I must, to give you directions,” Asher said.
“Then lean against the Jeep.”
He frowned at me in an amused, condescending sort of way. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t care if you’re the second coming of the Antichrist, you can’t sit behind me in my own car until I know you’re not carrying a weapon.”
“Ma petite, he is a vampire. If he is sitting behind you in a car, he is close enough to kill you without a gun.”
I shook my head. “You’re right. I know you’re right, but the point isn’t logic, Jean-Claude. The point is that I simply can’t let him in the car behind me without knowing what’s under the coat. I just can’t.” It was true. Paranoid, but still true.
Jean-Claude knew me better than to argue. “Very well, ma petite. Asher, would you be so kind as to face towards the Jeep.”
Asher smiled brilliantly at both of us, flashing fang. “You want to pat me down? I could rip you into pieces with my bare hands, and you’re worried I have a gun?” He chuckled, a low, skin-prickling sound. “That is so very cute.”
Cute? Me? “Just do it, please.”
He turned to face the Jeep, still laughing softly.
“Hands on the hood, feet apart.” I got out the gun one more time. Maybe I should just carry it on a chain around my neck. I pressed the barrel into his spine. I felt him stiffen under my hands.
“You are serious about this.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Feet farther apart.”
He shifted, but it wasn’t enough.