Micah (Vampire Hunter 13)

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Micah." I really didn't. I touched his arm, but he stepped out of reach and went back to unpacking. The tight feeling in my stomach returned, but for a different reason.

Micah never fought with me. He never pushed about our relationship. Up until that moment, I'd have thought he was happy. But this didn't feel happy. Was that my fault because I wasn't enjoying the room? Or was this a talk that had been coming, and I just hadn't known it?

"You know," he said from the bed, "you are the only woman I know who wouldn't be asking me questions about how I met Agent Fox."

The change of topic was too fast for me. "What? I mean, do you want me to ask?"

He stopped with the toiletries kit in his hands, as if he had to think about his answer and moving would have interfered with the thinking. "Maybe not, but I want you to want to ask. Does that make any sense?"

I swallowed past my rapidly speeding pulse. This felt like the beginnings of a fight. I didn't want to fight, but without Nathaniel or someone else to help me talk my way out of it, I wasn't sure I knew how to derail it. "I'm not sure I understand, Micah. You don't want me to ask, but you want me to want to ask." I shook my head. "I don't understand."

"How can you, when even I don't understand it?" He looked angry for a moment, and then his face smoothed out to its usual handsome, pleasant neutrality. It had only been in the last month that I'd realized how much pain and confusion he hid behind that face. "I want you to care enough about me to be curious, Anita."

"I do care," I said, but I kept myself pressed against the open French door. My hands were behind my back, fingers clutching the door like it was an anchor to keep me from getting swept away in the emotional turmoil.

I puzzled for a way out of the fight that was coming and finally had an idea. "I thought you'd tell me when you were ready. You've never asked me about my scars." There. That was a valid point.

He smiled, and it was his old smile, the one I'd almost broken him of. The smile was sad, wistful, self-loathing, and had nothing to do with anything pleasant. It was a smile only because his lips went up instead of down.

"I guess I haven't asked about the scars. I figured you'd tell me if you wanted me to know." He had all the clothes put away, only the toiletries case still waiting on the bed. "I promised Nathaniel I'd order food when we got here," he said.

Again the conversational switch was too fast for me. "Are we changing the topic?"

He nodded. "You scored a point." He said, "You didn't like the room, and it hurt my feelings. Then you didn't seem to care about meeting Fox and hearing more details about my attack. I thought, if she cared, she'd want to know more."

"So we're not going to fight?"

"You're right, Anita, I've never asked how you got any of your scars. I've never asked you, just like you've never asked me. I can't get angry with you for something I've done myself."

The tightness in my chest eased a little. "You'd be amazed by the number of people who would still fight about it."

He smiled, still not happy, but a little better. "But I would really like it if you'd try to enjoy the room and not act like I've lured you here for nefarious purposes."

I took a deep breath and let it out, then nodded. "It's a beautiful room, Micah."

He smiled, and this time it reached his kitty-cat eyes. "Just like that, you'll try."

I nodded. "If it means that much to you, yes."

He took a deep breath, as if his own chest had been a little tight. "I'll put the toiletries up, then look at the room service menu."

"Nathaniel was pretty put out that he didn't get to make us a real breakfast," I said, still clinging to the door.

"I remember when a bagel was breakfast," Micah said.

"Hell," I said, "I remember when coffee was breakfast."

"I don't," he said. "I've been a lycanthrope too long. We have to eat regularly to help control our beasts."

"One hunger feeds the other," I said.

"I'll order food. You look at the file."

"I looked at it on the plane."

"Do you remember anything you read?"

I thought about it, then shook my head. "No. I'd hoped it would help take my mind off of the whole being hundreds of feet above the ground situation, but I guess it didn't really help."

"I noticed just how unhelpful it was." He raised his hand up. There were still dim marks of my nails. Considering how fast he healed, that meant I'd actually hurt him.

"Jesus, Micah, I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "I'm not complaining. Like I said on the plane, it was interesting to see you so... so shaken."

"You being there helped," I said in a small voice.

"Glad to hear that I spilled blood for a good cause."

"Did I really bleed you?"

He nodded. "It's healed, but yeah, you did. You still aren't quite used to being more than human strong."

"I'll read the file because I need to before tonight, but if you want to tell me about how you became a wereleopard, you can. Honestly, once you told me it was an attack, I treated you like any survivor. You don't question survivors about the trauma; you let them come to you."

He walked toward the doors, and for a moment I thought he'd walk by without touching me. Which would have been bad. He gave me a quick kiss and a smile, then moved past me to put the toiletries kit in the bathroom.

I stood there for a moment, leaning against the door. We were doing the exact thing I'd feared we'd do alone together. We were raking emotional shit. I sighed and moved into the living room. The briefcase was waiting beside the couch. I got the file out and took it to the four-seater table by the big picture window. The main road was just outside, but it wound around a sidewalk that wound around a large fountain. It somehow made it seem less of a road and more of a view.

I could hear Micah puttering in the bathroom. He had to be putting out the toothbrushes, deodorant, etc... I would have stopped unpacking once the good clothes were hung up. Both Micah and Nathaniel were neater and more domestically organized than I was. So was Jean-Claude I guess. I wasn't sure about Asher. But I was definitely the slob of the group.

I opened the file and started to read. There wasn't much there. The deceased's name had been Emmett Leroy Rose. He'd had a double degree from the University of Pennsylvania in accounting and prelaw. He'd gotten his law degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He'd died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-three, while in federal custody waiting to testify at an important trial. He'd been dead less than three months. It listed his race as African American, which wasn't important to me. His religion was listed as Protestant, and that information I did need. There were a few religious persuasions that could interfere with zombie raising. Vaudan--voodoo--was the big one. It could be tricky to raise someone who messed with some of the same magic that I would be using. Wiccan could also make things difficult, and so could some of the more mystically oriented faiths. Straight Christian of whatever flavor wasn't a problem. And psychic abilities could mess with a zombie and make it either hard to raise or hard to control once you raised it. If there was anything less than normal human about Emmett Leroy Rose, it wasn't in the file.

In fact, there were some important things missing from the file. Like what had he been arrested for--what illegal activity did they catch him at that was bad enough to get him in federal custody awaiting his testimony? And exactly what did an important trial mean? Was it mob business? Was it government business? Was it something else I couldn't even think of? Who did Mr. Rose have dirt on, and what had the Feds had on him that made him willing to shovel it? Did I need to know any of the above to raise him from the grave? No. But I wasn't used to going into this blind. If they'd sent me this file, I'd have told them no dice without more info. Yeah, they'd have replied it was a need-to-know basis, and I'd have said if they wanted me to raise the zombie, I needed to know. Larry had just taken the crumbs they gave him and not complained.

I wondered how Tammy was doing. Did I call and ask? Later, I decided. I'd try to get some more info out of Fox first. Truthfully, I'd had about as much emotional angst as I could deal with for a little bit. If the news was bad it would wait, and I wouldn't know what to say anyway. I said a quick prayer that Tammy and the baby would be all right. That was the most concrete thing I could do.