Kiss the Dead (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #21)

THE PHONE DRAGGED me from a deep, dreamless sleep. There was the tiniest thread of sunlight in the dark room, proving we hadn't shut the blackout curtains quite right. If they were closed, the room was cave dark. Micah moved beside me, groping on the nightstand for my cell phone. The ring was loud and harsh, an old-fashioned phone ring. Nathaniel made a protesting wiggle on the other side of me, his hand trying to hold Micah in place even in his sleep.

Micah's voice came with only a hint of sleep to it, "Hello."

I lay in the dark of the blackout curtains, with Nathaniel curled around me; he'd pulled me in even tighter to his body, his front to my back, but there was a tension to his body that let me know he was awake.

"Just a moment, Marshal Brice." Micah had said the name out loud so I'd know who I was talking to and have a chance of knowing what it was about. He rolled over and handed me the phone. The line of sunlight slashed across his upper body, so that it looked like it was cutting him like some sort of golden blade. I took the phone but shifted the covers over Micah, so that the line of light didn't touch his skin. Maybe it was years of dating vampires and knowing what sunlight did to them, but the sight of that line of sunshine across his skin had unnerved me. Micah was a wereleopard; sunlight didn't hurt him, but... it was almost as if I'd dreamed something bad and didn't remember it, but it had spooked me just the same.

"Hey, Brice, what's up?" I said, and my voice sounded normal. I'd had time to wake up for the phone.

"While you and Zerbrowski went home to the family, I found a clue."

I leaned higher up on my elbow. "What?"

"Neighbors saw the same van between the locations we have, but the plate is registered to an address that our vampire snitch didn't give us."

I sat up; Nathaniel's arm slid down around my waist, his face snuggling into my bare back and ass. He nuzzled a little, and I did my best to ignore it. "Where?" I asked.

"Out near you, which is why you get invited to the party, otherwise I'd just grab SWAT and you'd hear about it afterward. We can pick you up as we drive past."

Nathaniel was kissing softly against my body. It wasn't exactly distracting me from what Brice was saying, but it wasn't exactly helping me focus either. I put a hand behind me between him and my body. I frowned at the clock on the nightstand. "Crap, Brice, we've only got two hours until sunset, and there could be as many as twenty vampires to execute. We are going to be cutting it close."

"If we use guns, we can do it," he said.

"If they're all out in plain sight and we don't have to play hunt the vampire hiding place, maybe."

"What choice do we have?" he asked.

"None. Get your asses out here; if you're late, I go in without you."

"I don't remember giving you the address," he said, "just that it's out by you."

Shit, I was more tired than I knew. "Give it to me."

"Nope, Captain Storr and Kirkland both warned me you'd go all Lone Ranger if I did, and they were right."

I cursed silently. "Are you really picking me up, or will you give me the address when you're closer?"

"I'll pick you up; it really is on the way."

"I'll be ready; hurry, Brice. You do not want to be inside the place when that many vamps wake for the night."

"No, I don't," he said, and hung up.

Nathaniel hugged me tighter around the waist, nuzzling past my fingers to kiss along my hip. He knew better than to say, Don't go, but the tightness of his arm said it for him.

Micah looked at me and took my hand in his. "Be careful."

"I will be."

We had a moment of them holding me, and me not wanting to go. I'd have much rather snuggled back down into the warm nest of sheets and body heat. Once I'd enjoyed hunting the monsters, taken a lot of pride in being the best at killing them, but lately, I just wanted to go home and be with the people I loved. Zerbrowski said I was having the ten-years-on-the-job moment. I told him I hadn't been on the job that long. His reply: "You work what amounts to serial killers, or sex crimes, violent crimes; everyone burns out on those details, even you."

I sat there in the dark with that thread of sunlight across the sheets, giving enough light for me to see Micah and Nathaniel by, let them wrap me round with the warmth and strength of them both, and I didn't want to go. Twenty vampires minimum was a lot to kill in less than two hours. I was pretty sure that Jean-Claude could keep my death from dragging any of my other metaphysical sweeties down to die with me, including Nathaniel, but... I'd never been as happy as I was right now. Does happiness make us cowards? If someone had threatened the people I loved, I would have been ruthless to protect them, but there was no threat to me and mine. I was about to leave this warm bed, these warm arms, this happy family, and the rest of our family that stayed mostly at Circus of the Damned, for my job.

It was great to get the bad guys. Wonderful knowing I'd saved them from killing other innocent victims, but Nathaniel was so warm cuddled against me, his lips so soft on my skin. Micah felt solid and real, and so good in my arms. I snuggled against them, and we held each other, and for the first time ever, if one of them had asked me not to go, I might have done it.

I let myself think in the front of my head what I must have been thinking in the back for a while. Maybe the world would be safe without me being Marshal Anita Blake. Maybe new Marshals like Arlen Brice could save the day and I could find a different way to... live.