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He just stood there, looking at me. His face had gone all cold and suspicious.

I got the bra in one hand and turned my back on him. I let the gown slide to my waist, leaned back against the bed to hold it in place, and slipped the bra on. There was no sound from behind me. I got the panties and slipped them on underneath the gown. I had the jeans halfway up my legs under the cover of the gown when I heard the door hush open and close.

I turned and found the doorway empty. I finished dressing. I had my toiletries in the bathroom all ready, so I threw them in the gym bag along with the big knife, and the boxes of ammo. The new shoulder holster felt odd. I was used to a leather one which fit tight and secure. I guess nylon was secure, but it was almost too comfortable, as if it seemed less substantial than my leather one had. But it beat the heck out of sticking it down my jeans.

The knives went in the wrist sheaths. I checked to see what kind of ammo the Firestar had in it. Edward’s homemade stuff. I checked the Browning, and it was his stuff, too. The backup clip for the Browning was the Homady XTP Silver-Edge. I changed the clip. We were going into the Obsidian Butterfly as cops, which meant if I had to shoot someone, I’d have to explain it to the authorities later. Which meant I didn’t want to go in there with some possibly illegal homemade shit in my gun. Besides I’d seen what the Homady Silver-Edge could do to a vampire. It was enough.

The Firestar went into an Uncle Mike’s inner pants holster, though truthfully the jeans were too tight for an inner pants holster. Maybe I wasn’t spending enough time in the gym. I had been on the road more than I’d been home. The Kenpo was neat stuff, but it wasn’t the same thing as a full workout with weights and running. Another thing to pay more attention to when I got back to St. Louis. I’d been letting a lot of things slide.

I finally transferred the Firestar to the small of my back and hated it, but it dug in something fierce in front. I have a slight sway to my back so there’s always more room for a gun there, but it wasn’t a quick place to draw from. Something about a woman’s hip structure makes a gun at the small of the back not the best idea. That I kept the gun at the small of my back tells you just how tight the jeans were. Definitely going to have to get back into a regular gym schedule. The first five pounds are easy to get rid of, the second five are harder, and it gets even harder from there. I’d been chunky in junior high, close to fat, so I knew what I was talking about. So that no teenager out there will get the wrong idea and go all anorexic on me, I was a size thirteen in jeans, and that was at five foot nothing. See, I really was chunky. I hate women who complain about being fat when they’re like a size five. Anything under size five isn’t a woman. It’s a boy with breasts.

I stared at the black jacket. Two days folded in a gym bag and it desperately needed to go to the dry cleaners. I decided to carry it folded over one arm, on the theory it would unwrinkle a little. I didn’t really need to hide the weapons until we got to the club. The knives were illegal if I’d been a cop or a civvie, but I was a vampire executioner, and we got to carry knives. Gerald Mallory, the grandfather of our business, had testified before a senate subcommittee, or something like that, at how many times knives had saved his life. Mallory was well liked in Washington. It was his home base. So the law got changed to let us carry knives, even really big ones. If someone challenged me, all I had to do was whip out my executioner’s license, and I was legal. Of course, that predicated on them knowing the loophole in the law. Not every cop on the beat is going to know. But my heart is pure because I’m legal.

Edward and Ramirez were waiting for me in the hallway. They both smiled and the smiles were so close to identical it was unnerving. Will the real good guys please stand up? But Edward’s smile never faltered as I walked towards them. Ramirez’s did. His gaze hesitated on