Anita Blake 22 - Affliction (68 page)

Travers frowned, and looked lost for a second, and then he jerked back, holding his arm as if it hurt where I’d touched him. ‘What did you do to me?’

‘Why were you angry at us?’ I asked quietly.

He shook his head, rubbing his arm. ‘Do me a favor, Blake; next time I’m about to die don’t save me, and don’t have any of your damn vampires save me either.’

‘You’d rather have rotted to death in excruciating pain than had Truth suck the corruption out of you?’

He looked at me, and there was real pain in his eyes. He whispered, ‘Yes.’ Looking into his eyes from touching distance, I knew he meant it. Something about Truth feeding on him had disturbed him so badly that he had decided dying was preferable.

I don’t know what my expression was, but Travers suddenly turned around and walked fast for the elevators. He was still holding his arm.

Gonzales said, ‘What did you do to him just now?’

‘Just calmed his anger a little, I swear.’

‘Do we care what happens to Travers?’ Nicky asked.

‘Care in what way?’ I asked.

‘Care if he lives or dies?’

‘Truth risked his own life to save Travers, so yeah, alive would be good.’

‘Then put him on suicide watch,’ Socrates said from behind us.

I turned and looked at him. ‘Why?’ I asked.

‘After I found out that I had lycanthropy and they were giving me a commendation for bravery and taking my badge, I thought about eating my gun. I know that look in someone’s eyes.’

I looked at Nicky. ‘You know that look, too?’ I asked.

‘If I hadn’t had my brother and sister to keep safe, I’d have done it when I was a kid.’

I knew what ‘it’ was: suicide. Nicky had just told me he’d thought seriously about suicide when he was a teenager, or hell, maybe younger. I didn’t know how old he’d been when the abuse started.

I took his hand in mine and didn’t care if the other cops saw. I’d already thrown up for no real reason; they’d take points off for that. If they wanted to take more points off for me holding my lover’s hand, let them. In that moment it was more important to reassure Nicky than to be the toughest badge in the room.

Nicky looked down at our clasped hands and smiled. That one smile was worth the teasing I might get for the hand holding.

‘Why would your vampire friend saving his life make Travers suicidal?’ Gonzales asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Socrates said, ‘but something about it spooked him.’

The door to the room opened, and it was Micah. He didn’t have dark circles under his eyes; it was more as if the lack of rest had worn away some of the skin underneath his eyes so that he looked hollow-eyed and beyond exhausted. I’d seen him go with less sleep for longer and look a lot better, but sometimes it’s not the number of hours, but what those hours hold that wears you down.

I’d been so angry with him just minutes before, but seeing those beautiful green-and-yellow eyes so tired, so discouraged, I just wanted to make it better. I let go of Nicky’s hand and went to Micah.

He looked almost surprised, and then as I wrapped my arms around him, held him close, he held me back and buried his face in my hair. His breath shuddered, and then I felt something hot and liquid trailing down my neck. Everything that comes from the body is hot for a second or two, and then it leaves the body, touches the air, and loses its heat. Nothing showed that he was crying; his shoulders did not shake, he was almost utterly still, and with his face buried in my curls no one else could see what I could feel, his tears falling hot along my skin, then growing cooler as they flowed down my neck.

I held him, let his tears paint their salty trail across my skin, and I couldn’t be mad at him; the only thing I could do in that moment was hold him. It didn’t seem like much, but sometimes when everything else goes to hell, arms to hold you tight is everything.

Gonzales drove Beatrice home with promises from the police left in the hallway that they’d call at the first sign of any change. She kissed Micah and me good-bye and left without apologizing for having fallen apart. I’d have felt compelled to apologize, but that was me. Socrates took Domino back to the hotel, where he could release his inner tiger in peace and without getting shot by the police. Socrates also wanted to be farther away from me and my newfound inner hyena. He actually said, ‘You have a tendency to find your animal to call pretty quickly, and that’s not what we are to each other.’

‘That’s not what I am to any of the hyenas,’ I said.

‘Then I’d stay clear of us for a while,’ he said.

It was good advice.

I persuaded Micah to come to the cafeteria with us. Nicky came with us, of course, but so did Micah’s remaining bodyguard, Bram. He was still six feet of tall, dark, handsome, overly stern muscle, though he was built lean and not bulked the way Nicky was. Bram and Ares had been like light and dark copies of each other in so many ways. It was the first time I’d seen Bram since I’d had to shoot his favorite coworker and good friend. I wasn’t sure what to say to him or if I was supposed to say anything. When in doubt on personal stuff I did my usual: nothing. If Bram brought it up I’d deal, but if he didn’t I’d let it go until I could decide if and how to handle it.

Nicky went in front of us, Bram trailed behind, and Micah and I walked in the middle holding hands. He knew to hold my left hand so my gun hand was free. It was routine for me most of the time, but especially so when on the job and armed to the teeth for vampire hunting. It was nice that Micah remembered even under such emotional duress without my having to remind him. I loved him a lot for many reasons, but one of the biggest was his calm acceptance of this part of my life. Of course, knowing his dad had been a police officer the entire time Micah was growing up helped explain why he was okay with it.

We chose a table that put us in a corner so we had two walls at our backs and a line of sight through damn near every part of the cafeteria. Bram and Nicky moved to a table beside ours, automatically, like bodyguards do when they’re trying to give you some privacy and still keep you safe.

It was a little weird for Nicky to go back into bodyguard mode and act as if he and Bram were the same to Micah and me. Nicky lived with us, traveling back and forth from the Circus of the Damned to the house in Jefferson County. He was the person most likely to be by my side when I wasn’t with Micah, Nathaniel, or Jean-Claude. It seemed like it should make a difference, but I did want alone time with Micah. We needed to have a serious talk, maybe several serious talks, but first he needed food and water, or maybe coffee.

We turned our chairs so that we could both have our backs to the wall and sit with our legs lightly touching. He kept hold of my hand and laid his forehead on my shoulder. Again, it would have been a bit more romantic without the body armor, but I was on the job and had an active warrant, plus last time I’d been in the hospital I’d needed the vest.

I stroked the braid of his hair. It was in a tight French braid, which I knew Nathaniel had done before he left for the hotel. Neither Micah nor I could French-braid worth a damn, let alone our own hair. It wasn’t as fun to pet his hair in the braid, but I knew that it would stay out of his face and just be overall easier to deal with than almost any other hairdo.

He raised his face and I was suddenly looking into those amazing eyes of his from inches away. They were green and gold, but that didn’t do them justice. There was a ring of green around the pupils and yellow outside that. The amount of each color varied as the pupil expanded or contracted, and in dim light the green could look almost gray, but right at that moment the green was the paleness of new spring leaves, and the yellow the gold of elm leaves in the fall, as if he held both the newness of the year and the end of it in his eyes. The color was more startling because his skin had those darker undertones; when he had his dark summer tan the eyes were even more amazing. He’d tanned as dark as Richard Zeeman, our Ulfric, Wolf King, but his family did have Native American in their background. I’d asked Micah if his family had Native American, or Hispanic blood, like me, in their background and he’d simply said no. It was interesting that it had never occurred to him to explain his own mixed heritage. Either he never thought about it like that, or he’d assumed it wouldn’t matter to any of us.

‘I don’t know how to do this, Anita,’ he said, at last.

‘Do what?’ I asked.

‘Regain my dad after all these years and lose him at the same time.’

That was Micah, straight at it, no hesitation, no prevarication, just hit right between the eyes, and then I realized it wasn’t him at all. He’d been keeping something really big from me for most of the three years we’d been together.

‘What’s wrong? I just watched some thought go across your face,’ he said.

‘Everything that’s happened since we landed here, and you’re asking what’s wrong,’ I said, and did my best to smile.

He smiled back. ‘Okay, you have a point, so you’re telling me I’m imagining you thought of something just now.’

I sighed. I realized that I’d decided not to confront him about the dominance fights out of town until we got through this visit and back home. I didn’t want to hit him while he was down, and the pain in his eyes when he came out of his father’s room, that was down. But I’d waited too long; I could lie, but seldom to Micah. The fact that he’d managed to keep such a big secret from me for so long made me wonder if there were other secrets. I hadn’t liked thinking it, and I really hated the thought of this conversation now when he was so low.

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘I love you, too, but that sounded like a preamble to something bad,’ he said.

‘You know me too well,’ I said.

‘We’re engaged; shouldn’t we know each other well?’

I smiled. ‘Fair enough, and I admit I was all ready to have a serious talk about something totally unrelated to your family, or the case here, but then I saw you, and …’

‘And I completely fell apart,’ he finished for me.

‘I didn’t say that; I think you’re doing pretty damn well under the circumstances.’

He smiled. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

‘It has the potential for being a really big fight, Micah. Let’s not do this now.’

‘Something that big and you can honestly wait to discuss it?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘I’m a little surprised myself, but yeah, I can wait.’

He put his head to one side and looked at me. ‘Will I think it’s a good idea to wait?’

‘Yeah, I think you will,’ I said.

He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Would you understand if I said you’re being way too reasonable, and it’s actually making me nervous?’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, actually I would.’

He smiled, and this time it was brighter, more his usual smile. ‘Tell me, Anita, because now I’m convinced that it’s something about what my dad told us about Van Cleef and the pseudomilitary stuff.’

‘It may not be pseudo, but it’s not about that.’

He gave me a look.

‘Promise,’ I said.

‘You know you have to tell me now, because I’ll be thinking of the worst things.’

It was my turn to put my head against his shoulder. ‘I’m trying to be reasonable, Micah; let me do it. Let me be the grown-up for once.’

He touched my hair, lifted my face so we were looking at each other. ‘Now you’re scaring me.’

‘Damn it, we are both relentless in our own way,’ I said.

‘Yes, we are; it’s one of the things I loved about you from the beginning.’

I held his hands, looked him in the eyes. I was afraid of this talk, because if he could keep this from me, then he was capable of keeping other things, big things, things that could blow us up as a couple. I realized I was afraid to have the talk, and afraid not to, which made no sense at all.

‘And I loved that you loved that about me, because I’d had so many men who had hated it.’

‘Then whatever it is, we can get through it, Anita. We both value too much about each other to let anything spoil everything.’

Sitting there holding his hands, looking at him, I believed him, but … I’d always believed him and now I felt like he’d lied to me, but … Oh, fuck it.

‘Okay, here goes. Are you really fighting the leaders of the other animal groups to force them to join our Coalition?’

‘Sometimes.’ He said it as if it were nothing, ordinary, like
Of course
.

I tried to take my hands back, but he held on. ‘Why are you angry?’

‘Why am I angry? For the love of God, Micah, you’ve been going out of town and having battles to the death and you didn’t think I needed to know that?’

‘Lower your voice,’ he said.

I wanted to yell louder, but he was right; I’d just said he was committing murder according to human law. I lowered my voice and leaned in closer, but my voice was still angry, just softer, like angry whispering.

‘How could you keep that from me?’

His face closed down, his own temper showing. He didn’t get mad often, but when he did it could be as bad as mine. This was going to go so badly.

‘I didn’t keep anything from you. I just didn’t tell you.’

‘That’s the same thing, it’s just words to cover it up,’ I said.

He let go of my hands and said, ‘Do you tell me every time you risk your life as a U.S. Marshal?’

‘No, but that’s different.’

‘How?’ he asked.

I wanted to say,
It just is
, but that wasn’t an answer. I opened my mouth to explain the difference and stopped. I frowned at him. ‘I see it as different, very different.’

‘Why is it any different? They’re both our jobs, and both our jobs can be dangerous.’

‘But I didn’t know your job was dangerous,’ I said.

He studied my face. ‘What did you think we were doing to get all the other groups on board with the Coalition?’

‘I thought you were persuading them. I thought you were using diplomacy, logic that it just made sense to join.’

‘I do most of the time, but you’ve been around enough shapeshifters, Anita. You know that some animal groups aren’t about logic or being reasonable.’

‘If I’d thought about it, I guess I would have assumed that some of the bodyguards did the one-on-one combat for you the way that most of the Clan tiger queens have a champion.’