Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 16-19 (9781101562147), page 1
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K. Hamilton
GUILTY PLEASURES
THE LAUGHING CORPSE
CIRCUS OF THE DAMNED
THE LUNATIC CAFE
BLOODY BONES
THE KILLING DANCE
BURNT OFFERINGS
BLUE MOON
OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY
NARCISSUS IN CHAINS
CERULEAN SINS
INCUBUS DREAMS
MICAH
DANSE MACABRE
THE HARLEQUIN
BLOOD NOIR
SKIN TRADE
FLIRT
BULLET
HIT LIST
STRANGE CANDY
LAURELL K. HAMILTON’S ANITA BLAKE, VAMPIRE HUNTER COLLECTION 16-19
BLOOD NOIR
SKIN TRADE
FLIRT
BULLET
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Table of Contents
Bood Noir
Skin Trade
Flirt
Bullet
A BERKLEY BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2008 by Laurell K. Hamilton
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hamilton, Laurell K.
Blood noir / Laurell K. Hamilton.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-101-14748-2
1. Blake, Anita (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Werewolves—Fiction. 3. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 4. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A443357B57 2008
813'.54—dc22 2008006371
To Jonathon,
who loves me when I am at my most dark
and helps me light a candle when it all grows too black to endure.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Darla, who has made herself simply indispensable. Sherry, for organizing a house full of artists. Mary, for bringing order, and someone to call for advice. Charles, for security, research help, shooting range trips, and reminding both Jon and I that this really is cool. Shawn, for research questions answered, and for simply being the only other human being on the planet who understands. Marshal Moriarity, whose input came too late for this book, but we’ll fix it next time. Happy retirement.
To the winners of the Jason stage name contest:
Kim Montano, Maitland, FL
R. Malinen, Finland
Sarah Shelton, Arlington, TX
My writing group, The Alternate Historians: Tom Drennan, Rett MacPherson, Marella Sands, Deborah Millitello, Sharon Shinn, and Mark Sumner. Never give in; never give up.
And Lieutenant Robert J. Cooney, Commander of Mobile Reserve, HRT, and K-9 1964–2008.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
1
I CAME HOME to find two men sitting at my kitchen table. One of them was my live-in sweetie. The other was one of our best friends. One of them was a wereleopard; the other was a werewolf; both of them were strippers. At least once a month they took off more than just their clothes on stage. They changed shape on stage in front of a live audience. Those nights the club was standing room only. I mean, you can go to other clubs to see men take their clothes off, but their entire skin and body…well, that was unique.
Nathaniel came to greet me with a kiss and a hug. I let my hands play in the long, thick auburn hair that trailed down his broad shoulders, the curve of his waist, the tightness of his ass, and the long muscular legs. He was five-seven now, an inch taller than when I’d met him. In my three-inch heels I was still an inch shorter than him. At twenty-one he was finally growing into the promise of those shoulders. His face was less soft than it had been, and more masculine. He would always be beautiful rather than handsome, but the bone structure had changed minutely so he just suddenly looked his age, instead of like jailbait.
He blinked down at me with the soft lilac of his eyes. On his driver’s license it said his eyes were blue, because they wouldn’t let him put lavender, or purple. His eyes were different shades of color, depending on his mood, or what he wore, but blue was never the color of his eyes.
His hands slid underneath the jacket of my suit, and a little lower to trace the top of my skirt. His hands hesitated a little at the Browning BDM in its shoulder holster. Guns do get in the way of cuddling.
I wrapped my arms around the bareness of his upper body, breathed in the scent of his skin. He was wearing what he usually wore in his off time in the summer, little bitty jogging shorts. Most of the wereanimals would go around nude if you let them. I wasn’t quite comfy with that, so he wore the shorts to save my delicate sensibilities. There were some who thought I didn’t have any of those left, but they would be wrong, and they would be jealous.
Holding him, breathing in the warmth and sweet vanilla of his skin, I understood the jealousy. Though frankly, not all of it was about sex or even having found love at last. It was about power and them wanting it, and me and mine having it. It was about me being the human servant of Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of St. Louis. It was about body count, and me having the highest kill count among the vampire executioners in the good ol’ U. S. of A.
“I would give a less favored body part to have a woman greet me at the end of the day like that,” Jason’s voice said.
I had to peer around Nathaniel’s body to see Jason. He was still at the kitchen table nursing a coffee mug. It even smelled like coffee, but he huddled over it, as if it were something harder and more intoxicating.
Jason was two years older than Nathaniel, which made him twenty-three now. Strangely, I’d met them both when they were nineteen. Jason was my height, give or take a half inch or so. His hair was that shade of yellow blond that movie stars are fond of, but his was real, and didn’t have to come from a good salon. His hair was cut businessman short. I liked long hair, but I had to admit that Jason’s face looked cleaner, better, more handsome even, without the hair to distract. He was wearing a blue T-shirt that made his eyes even bluer than they were. The color not of spring, but of summer skies, before the heat has gotten too hot, b
The clothes hid what I knew, that he looked even better out of them. It wasn’t for lack of cuteness and desirability that Jason wasn’t my sweetie. He was my friend, and I was his.
“What about Perdita, Perdy? You and she are going steady, right?”
He grinned at me. “Going steady, you’re so cute.”
I frowned at him. “What else do you call it?”
Nathaniel kissed me on the forehead. “You really are cute.”
I moved away from him and scowled at them both. “I’m serious, what else do you call it? You aren’t just fuck buddies. She isn’t a one-night stand. She’s a serious girlfriend. If it’s not going steady, what do you call it?”
“You make it sound like I gave her my class ring, Anita. Perdy and I were lovers, and she wanted it to be exclusive.”
“I thought you were exclusive.”
“Except for you, I was.”
“Wait, you’re talking past tense. Are you saying you and Perdy broke up?”
“She gave him an ultimatum,” Nathaniel said. He trailed his hand down my arm as he moved away. “I’ll get you coffee.”
I went to the table and took the seat that Nathaniel had started in. “What kind of ultimatum?” I asked.
Jason stared into his coffee cup while he answered. “She wanted me to stop having sex with Jean-Claude and Asher, and you.”
“Wait, you aren’t having sex with Jean-Claude and Asher, unless there’s something I don’t know.”
He smiled at me. “The look on your face, man.” He raised his fingers in the Boy Scout salute. “I am not now, nor have I ever been having sex with Jean-Claude or Asher.”
Nathaniel set fresh coffee down in front of me and took a chair across the table on the other side of Jason, so we’d both be able to look at him. It also meant we wouldn’t be able to do more than hold hands, which was probably good; we tended to distract each other.
“But she didn’t believe you,” I said.
“Nope, she didn’t.” He took a sip of coffee.
“Why wouldn’t she believe you?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“If my feeding the ardeur off you through sex bugged your steady girl, you should have said something.”
“I am Jean-Claude’s pomme de sang, his apple of blood. I am his blood donor, and I go where my master tells me to go. The ardeur is your version of a blood feed and you’re his human servant. Jean-Claude shares me with Asher, his second-in-command, for blood and you for sex, and it’s his right to share me. I am his. I belong to him. Perdy knows that. She got kicked out of Cape Cod because she wanted to be more than just a blood donor to the master vampire there.”
“Samuel didn’t say anything about that. In fact, his son, Sampson, said that Perdy was here to spy on him for his mother.”
“Yeah, but Sampson went home, and Perdy didn’t.”
Sampson had gone home because St. Louis got invaded by some of the scariest vampires in the world. Jean-Claude had thought it was a bad idea to risk getting the eldest son of his friend and ally killed. Besides, Sampson was a merman, and they aren’t big on offensive abilities, at least not this far inland. Perdy was a mermaid, too. Though I’d never seen either of them turn all fishy. They just looked like people to me.
“Perdy stayed for you,” Nathaniel said.
Jason nodded. “She wanted me to be hers. She’s very jealous, very possessive. I’m just not into that.”
“So you have a woman who greets you like Anita greets me, but the rest doesn’t work.”
“No, Nathaniel. She used to greet me sort of like that, but for weeks now it’s been, Where have you been? Who have you been with? You fucked the master again, didn’t you? You fucked Asher, didn’t you? You were with Anita again, weren’t you?”
“I’ve put you on the back burner for feeding me,” I said. “I got the impression Perdy didn’t want to share you that much, but I had no idea she thought you were doing more than just donating blood to the vampires.”
“She’s like crazy jealous, and she won’t believe me when I tell her I haven’t been with anyone else. It’s why I asked Jean-Claude to take me out of your feeding schedule for a while. I thought if I stopped having sex with the only other person I was really having sex with that Perdy would calm down.”
Nathaniel and I exchanged glances across the table. He shrugged. I asked the question. “Did it work?”
“No,” he said. He took another drink of coffee, and it must have finished the cup because he got up and went for the French press beside the sink. He took the coffee cozy off of it, then put it back on without filling his cup. He set the cup in the sink.
“I don’t want more coffee.”
“You can never have too much coffee,” I said.
He turned and smiled at me. “You think so, but the rest of us get a little OD’ed on your level of caffeine.”
“What happened, Jason?” I asked.
The smile slipped a little more. He was solemn when he turned to us. He leaned his back against the cabinets, crossed his arms across his chest, and again didn’t quite meet our eyes.
“She wanted me to marry her. Till death do us part and all that. She’s a mermaid, which means she’ll outlive me. She can live for hundreds of years, not immortal like a vampire, but close.”
“You didn’t want to marry her,” I said, softly.
He shook his head. “She’s obsessed with me. She says she loves me, but it doesn’t feel like love. It feels like I’m smothering.”
“She’s not the right one, then.”
He grinned, and it almost reached his eyes. “Look who’s talking about the right one. You can’t pick just one either.”
“That’s different.”
“Why, because you’re a living vampire who feeds off sex, so you have to have a bevy of lovers? The ardeur is like the perfect excuse to never have to say you’re sorry.”
“I’d change it if I could, you know that.”
He came to me then, put his arms around my shoulders, and rested his cheek on the top of my head. “I didn’t mean to make you sad, Anita. God knows I didn’t. Please, don’t tell me you’d change it if you could. You love Nathaniel, and Micah. They love you. You love Jean-Claude and Asher, and they love you. You’re still a little confused about what to do with Damian, but you’ll get there.”
I shook my head and stood up, moving away from him. “Don’t forget Requiem, and London, and sometimes Richard. Oh, wait, and the swan king pops in now and then, no pun intended.” It sounded angry and bitter, and I was glad.
“I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, or to have another woman mad at me tonight. Please, Anita, please, don’t be mad. I’m upset. You have no idea how upset. Please, please, I’m a bastard, but don’t be mad.”
He held his hand out to me. His face pleaded along with his words. I’d never seen his eyes full of quite this kind of pain. The look in his eyes was more than just losing a girlfriend he didn’t want anymore.
I held out my hand, but made him take the step to close our fingers around each other. His eyes glittered in the overhead lights.
I took his hand, held it. His breath came in a soft gasp, and I thought for a second he was going to cry, but he just looked at me. His eyes that had glistened a moment before were almost dead, as if whatever he was feeling he’d locked away somewhere. In a way, to me, that was worse. I went to him, and he wrapped his arms around me as if he were at the edge of a cliff and I were his only handhold. That quiet holding on was so…male. A woman would have cried, or talked more, but for a man, after a certain point this is their pain.
