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

MICAH'S RING TONE was "Stray Cat Strut," by Stray Cats; Nathaniel had put it on when he went wild giving nearly everyone personal ring tones on my new phone. It wasn't a perfect ring for Micah, but I hadn't found anything I liked better yet, so I'd left it.

His business answer was always, "Micah Callahan here." Tonight, to me, it was, "Anita," and there was relief in his voice, and then he recovered his tone and was businessier when he said, "I didn't expect a call this early. You can't be done with the crime scene."

That relief at the beginning and his quick matter-of-fact recovery made me start with an apology that no amount of criticism, or whining, could have gotten from me. "I'm sorry I didn't call earlier, but I knew that you guys would know I wasn't one of the dead officers." I regretted using the word dead as soon as it left my mouth, and then I didn't regret it, because it was the truth, and then... Oh, hell.

I could picture him at his end of the phone, his chartreuse eyes, green and gold, depending on the light. Leopard eyes, because a very bad man had forced him to stay in animal form until he couldn't come all the way back to human. If his deep brown curls were loose, and not back in a ponytail or braid, he'd be pushing them behind his ear so the phone could set better. He was my size, the shortest man in my life, with the delicate frame to go with it, but he'd put muscle over that fragile-seeming body, and like me he made the most of what he had.

"Nathaniel would have let me know if you were hurt," he said, and his voice wasn't as calm now. There was a slight tremor in it. He had moved in with me at the same time Nathaniel did, so we'd been a happy little threesome the entire two years we'd been together. Micah was my Nimir-Raj, leopard king to my Nimir-Ra, leopard queen, and we had an amazing metaphysical connection, but Nathaniel was my leopard to call, just as if I were a real vampire, which meant that if I died, there was a very real chance that he'd die with me. It didn't work as much the other way, because animals to call and human servants, in my case a vampire servant, were meant to feed the master vampire energy, strength, which meant the vampire would feed on the servant's energy first to stay alive longer. It was the way the system was set up, and in fact when Nathaniel almost died from a gunshot wound, I hadn't been that hurt. If I died, though, Micah would almost surely lose us both. I hadn't thought until this moment how that must make him feel. I was a coldhearted idiot. Fuck.

"I'm so sorry," I said.

"For what?" he asked, and he sounded genuinely puzzled.

I shook my head, knew he couldn't see it, and tried again. He did not need me to say out loud what I'd just thought; one, he already knew it, and two, that I'd only just now figured it out would probably not earn me any couple brownie points.

"Ignore me; I just wanted to make sure you told everyone that I'm okay."

"Of course." He still sounded a little puzzled, and finally said, "Do you have a few minutes to talk to Cynric?"

"Maybe; why him in particular?"

"He saw the special report on the news. You standing surrounded by bodies. He's scared for you now, for you and Nathaniel."

My insight was new enough that I understood that last part. Nathaniel and Cynric were close, maybe because they were closer in age. Cyn had figured out the issue with Nathaniel before I had; I felt slow.

"Shit," I said.

"Yes," Micah said.

"Yes, put him on, but I'm needed to talk to the vampires that are still alive, so I can't be long."

"He just needs to hear your voice, Anita."

I sighed. "Sure." I was dreading the next few minutes for so many reasons. Cynric had been with us almost a year now. He'd turned eighteen, old enough to die for his country, but I still wasn't sure he was old enough to be my lover. Of all the men in my life, Cynric bothered me the most.

He was my blue tiger to call. Theoretically, I now had enough weretigers whose energy I could drain that my near-death might not touch Nathaniel, if I could pick and choose whose energy I took. The fact that I'd trade Cynric's life for Nathaniel's, given a choice, didn't make me feel any better about Cynric being my lover. He was on the list of people that I called and texted when I had to travel for work. Some of the people on my text list could have contacted me mind-to-mind, like Jean-Claude; not as smoothly, but they could feel me, sense me, we could share sensations and emotions, but that could be very distracting in the middle of hunting down a rogue vampire, or questioning witnesses, so they refrained. The compromise was that I texted them, and called when I could.

"Anita, I'm sorry that the news freaked me a little." His voice sounded even younger than usual, not a kid's voice, but not a man's voice either. He was taller than me and Micah, five-nine now and still growing. His hair was a deep, cobalt blue; in low light it looked black, but it so wasn't. Just as his eyes were two colors, the way some cats' eyes could be, with a paler ring of blue and a darker inner ring that was almost as dark a blue as Jean-Claude's midnight blue. All the pureblood weretigers were born with tiger eyes, not human; it was a mark of the purity of their bloodline. There were occasional throwbacks to human eyes among them, but that usually meant they were survivors of an attack and had started life as human, or sometimes it was just a sign of how even the pure tiger clans occasionally married and bred with a human being. They liked to deny it, but when you're lonely enough, you take what you can find. Cynric was the last pure blue tiger male that we could find. The rest of his people had been slaughtered off long ago; in fact, we weren't sure where he'd come from. The white tigers of Vegas had found him in an orphanage.

I fought the urge to squirm uncomfortably and answered him. "It's okay, Cynric; the news doesn't usually get crime scene footage this fresh."

"And they reported two officers dead," he said.

"You knew I wasn't dead," I said, and kept my voice even.

"I know I would have felt the energy drain if you'd died, but you shield really well, Anita. Sometimes so well, it scares me, because I can't sense you at all."

I hadn't known that. "I'm sorry if that bothers you, but I can't let you guys know about investigations."

"I know, but it's still... I... Shit, Anita, it scared me."

He hadn't cussed when he first came to us, but he'd picked it up from me - or maybe trying to "date" me would drive any man to curse?

"I am sorry for that, Cynric, really, but I have to go question the surviving vampires."

"I know you have to work, solve the crime."

"Yes," I said.

"When will you be home?"

"I don't know; this one is a mess, so it'll take longer."

"Be careful," he said, and again his voice sounded young, fragile.

"As I can be," I said.

"I know you have to do your job." He sounded defensive.

"I've got to go, Cynric."

"At least don't call me that; you know that's not what I like to be called," and he sounded exasperated, and still scared.

I swallowed, took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, "Sin, I've got to go." I couldn't keep the displeasure out of my voice. I hated that he wanted to be called Sin, as short for Cynric. We'd tried spelling it Cyn, but no one could spell it, so he went with the actual word sin. That the only teenager in my bed preferred to be called "Sin" was just rubbing salt in my already wounded sense of self.

"Thank you. I'll see you when you get home."

"It may be after dawn."

"Then wake me up."

I had to count to ten to keep from snapping at him, but it was my discomfort that wanted to snap, not really him. He was so young he just didn't have the skills to deal with me being shot at yet. Hell, some men decades older than Sin couldn't deal with my job.

"I'd rather let you sleep."

"Wake me," and now his voice sounded older, an echo of what it would be in a few years, maybe. There was demand in those two words, almost like an order. I fought off my knee-jerk reaction to that, too. I was the grown-up; I'd behave like it.

"Fine," I said.

"Now you're mad," he said, and he sounded sullen, and on the edge of anger himself.

"I don't want to fight, Cynric - Sin - but I have to go."

"I love you, Anita," he said.

And there it was, so bold, so out there, so... Fuck. "I love you, too," I said, but I wasn't sure it was true; in fact, I knew it wasn't. I cared for him, but I didn't love him the way I loved Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel, or... But I said the words, because when someone says they love you, you're supposed to say it back. Or maybe I was just too cowardly to let the silence fill up; when Sin said he loved me, I said the only thing I could: "I love you, too, Sin, but I have to go."

It was Micah on the phone, though. "It's okay, Anita, go; I'll take care of things here."

"Shit, Micah, I have to have my head in the game here, I can't... Is he all right?"

"Solve the crime, catch the bad guys, do your job; Nathaniel and I will take care of Sin."

"I love you," I said, and this time I meant it.

I could see the smile that went with the tone of his voice as he said, "I know, and I love you more."

I smiled. "I love you most."

Nathaniel's voice came on the phone as if Micah were holding it out to him: "I love you mostest."

I got off the phone in tears. I loved Nathaniel and Micah, so much. There was no guilt there. We made each other happy. Cynric should have been with someone who loved him the way I loved them. The way I loved Jean-Claude. Hell, the way I loved Asher, or Nicky, or even Jason. He shouldn't have had to compromise for a relationship that got him great sex, and even love of a kind, but I didn't think I'd ever be in love with Cynric. He deserved someone who would feel for him what he seemed to feel for me, didn't he? Didn't everyone? I wasn't sure I could give that to him, and the fact that he'd stood there and heard the three of us say our cute little trio of I love you, I love you more, I love you most, I love you mostest, which was just ours, made my chest tight and my eyes hot with unshed tears. I had crimes to solve, more rogue vampires to find; I couldn't afford to be distracted like this, not by an eighteen-year-old kid who happened to love me more than I loved him. And that was the thought that made me wipe the tears away with the back of my hands, that was the thought that cut the deepest. He loved me, was in love with me, and I didn't feel the same. If he hadn't been metaphysically bound to me, I could have broken up with him, sent him home, but once some preternatural bonds happen, they can't be undone. We were trapped, Cynric and I, and there was no way to undo it. Fuck.