The Lunatic Cafe

  This was the first time I'd been badly hurt since I lost Jean-Claude's marks. They had made me harder to hurt, faster to heal. Not a bad side effect. One of the other effects had been an ability to meet a vampire's eyes without them being able to bespell me. Like I had met Gretchen's eyes.

  How had I met her eyes with impunity? Had Jean-Claude lied to me? Was there some lingering mark? Another question to ask him when I saw him. Of course, after I told him the news bulletin, all hell would break loose and there would be no more questions. Well, maybe one question. Would Jean-Claude try to kill Richard? Probably.

  I sighed, closing my eyes. I was suddenly tired, so tired I didn't want to open my eyes. Sleep sucked at me. I opened my eyes and slid up in the seat. Maybe it was just tension, adrenaline draining away, or maybe it was a concussion. I clicked on the overhead light and checked on Louie again. Breathing and pulse were steady. His head was to one side, neck stretched in a long line that showed the wound. The bite marks were healing. I couldn't see it happening, but every time I looked it was better. Like trying to watch a flower bloom. You see the effect, but you never actually see it happening.

  Louie was going to be all right. Would Richard be all right? I'd said yes because in the heat of the moment I meant it. I could see spending my life with him. Before Bert found me and showed me how to use my talent for money, I'd had a life. I'd gone hiking, camping. I'd been a biology major and thought I'd go on for my master's and doctorate and study preternatural creatures for the rest of my life. Sort of the preternatural Jane Goodall. Richard had reminded me of all that, of what I'd originally thought my life would be like. I hadn't planned on spending my life ass deep in blood and death. Really.

  If I gave in to Jean-Claude, it would be admitting that there was nothing but death, nothing but violence. Sexy, attractive, but death all the same. I'd thought with Richard I had a chance at life. Something better. After last night I wasn't even sure of that.

  Was it too much to ask for someone who was human? Hell, I knew a lot of women in my age bracket that couldn't get a date at all. I'd been one of them until Richard. All right, Jean-Claude would have taken me out, but I was avoiding him. I couldn't imagine dating Jean-Claude as if he were an ordinary guy. I could imagine having sex with him, but not dating. The thought of him picking me up at eight, dropping me off, and being satisfied with a good-night kiss seemed ridiculous.

  I stayed kneeling in the seat, staring down at Louie. I was afraid to turn around and get comfortable, afraid I'd fall asleep and not wake up. I wasn't really afraid, but I was worried. A trip to the hospital might not be a bad idea, but first I had to tell Jean-Claude about Richard. And keep him from killing him.

  I laid my face on my arms, and a deep, throbbing pain started behind my forehead. Good. My head should hurt after the beating it had taken. The fact that it hadn't been hurting had worried me. A good headache I could live with.

  How was I going to keep Richard alive? I smiled. Richard was an alpha wolf. What made me think he couldn't take care of himself? I'd seen what Jean-Claude could do. I'd seen him when he wasn't human at all. Maybe after I saw Richard change I'd feel differently about him. Maybe I wouldn't feel so protective. Maybe hell would freeze over.

  I did love Richard. I really did. I'd meant that yes. I'd meant it before last night. Before I felt his power creep over my skin. Jean-Claude had been right about one thing. Richard wasn't human. The snuff film had excited him. Was Jean-Claude's idea of sex any stranger than that? I'd never let myself find out.

  Someone knocked on the window. I jumped and whirled. My vision swam in black streamers. When I could see again, Richard's face was outside the window.

  I unlocked the doors, and Richard opened one. He started to reach for me and stopped. The hesitation on his face was painful. He wasn't sure I'd let him touch me. I turned away from the hurt on his face. I loved him, but love isn't enough. All the fairy tales, the romance novels, the soap operas; they're all lies. Love does not conquer all.

  He was very careful not to touch me. His voice was neutral. "Anita, are you all right? You look awful."

  "Nice to know I look like I feel," I said.

  He touched my cheek, fingers sliding just over the skin, a ghost of a touch that made me shiver. He traced the edge of the scrape. It hurt and I jerked away. A spot of blood decorated his fingertips, gleaming in the dome light. I watched his eyes stare at the blood. I saw the thought trail behind his true brown eyes. He almost licked his fingers clean, as Rafael had done. He wiped his fingers on his coat, but I'd seen the hesitation. He knew I'd seen it.

  "Anita..."

  The back door opened, and I whirled, going for the last knife I had on me. The world swam in waves of blackness and nausea. The movement had been too abrupt. Stephen the Werewolf stood in the half-open door staring at me. He was sort of frozen there, blue eyes wide. He was looking at the silver knife in my hand. The fact that I'd been blind and too sick to use it seemed to have escaped him. It might have been that I was kneeling, moving towards him. I'd been willing to strike blind as a bat, not considering that whoever it was had a right to be there.

  "You didn't tell me you brought someone with you," I said.

  "I should have mentioned that," Richard said.

  I relaxed, easing back to kneel in the seat. "Yeah, you should have mentioned that." The knife gleamed in the dome light. It looked razor sharp and well tended. It was.

  "I was just going to check on Louie," Stephen said. He sounded a little shaky. He had a black leather jacket with silver studding snapped tight around his throat. His long, curling blond hair fell forward over the jacket. He looked like an effeminate biker.

  "Fine," I said.

  Stephen looked past me to Richard. I felt more than saw Richard nod. "It's okay, Stephen." There was something in his voice that made me turn slowly to look at him.

  He had a strange look on his face. "Maybe you are as dangerous as you pretend to be."

  "I don't pretend, Richard."

  He nodded. "Maybe you don't."

  "Is that a problem?"

  "As long as you don't shoot me, or my pack members, I guess not."

  "I can't promise about your pack."

  "They're mine to protect," he said.

  "Then make sure they leave me the hell alone."

  "Would you fight me over that?" he asked.

  "Would you fight me?"

  He smiled, but it wasn't happy. "I couldn't fight you, Anita. I could never hurt you."

  "That's where we're different, Richard."

  He leaned in as if to kiss me. Something on my face stopped him. "I believe you."

  "Good," I said. I slipped the knife back in its sheath. I stared at his face while I did it. I didn't need to look to put the knife away. "Never underestimate me, Richard, and what I'm willing to do to stay alive. To keep others alive. I never want us to fight, not like that, but if you don't control your pack, then I will."

  He moved away from me. His face looked almost angry. "Is that a threat?"

  "It's out of control, and you know it. I can't promise not to hurt them unless you can guarantee that they'll behave. And you can't do that."

  "No, I can't guarantee that." He didn't like saying it.

  "Then don't ask me to promise not to hurt them."

  "Can you at least try not to kill them, as a first option?"

  I thought about that. "I don't know. Maybe."

  "You can't just say, 'Yes, Richard, I won't kill your friends'?"

  "It would be a lie."

  He nodded. "I suppose so."

  I heard the rustle of leather from the backseat as Stephen moved around. "Louie's out of it, but he'll be okay."

  "How did you get him into the Jeep?" Richard asked.

  I just stared at him.

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. "You carried him. I knew that." He touched the cut on my forehead, gently. It still hurt. "Even with this, you carried him."

  "It was either that or let the cops have hi
m. What would have happened if they'd piled him into an ambulance and he'd started healing like that?"

  "They'd have known what he was," Richard said.

  Stephen was leaning on the back of the seat, chin resting on his forearms. He seemed to have forgotten that I'd nearly stabbed him, or maybe he was used to being threatened. Maybe. Up close his eyes were the startling blue of cornflowers. With his blond hair spilling around his face he looked like one of those china dolls that you buy in exclusive shops, that you never let children play with.

  "I can take Louie to my place," he said.

  "No," I said.

  They both looked at me, surprised. I wasn't sure what to say, but I knew that Richard could not come with me to Guilty Pleasures. If I had any hope of keeping us all alive, Richard could not be on the spot when I broke the news.

  "I thought I'd drive you home," Richard said, "or to the nearest hospital, whichever you need."

  It would have been my preference to, but not tonight. "Louie's your best friend. I thought you might want to take care of him."

  He was staring at me, lovely brown eyes narrowed into suspicious squints. "You're trying to get rid of me. Why?"

  My head hurt. I couldn't think of a good lie. I didn't think he'd buy a bad one. "How much do you trust Stephen?"

  The question seemed to throw him off balance. "I trust him."

  His first reaction was to say yes, I trust him, but he hadn't thought about it first. "No, Richard, I mean do you trust him not to talk to Jean-Claude or Marcus?"

  "I wouldn't tell Marcus anything you didn't want me to," Stephen said.

  "And Jean-Claude?" I asked.

  Stephen looked uncomfortable, but said, "If he asked a direct question, I'd have to give a direct answer."

  "How can you owe more allegiance to the Master of the City than to your own pack leader?"

  "I follow Richard, not Marcus."

  I glanced at Richard. "A little palace revolt?"

  "Raina wanted him in the movies. I stepped in and stopped it."

  "Marcus must really hate you," I said.

  "He fears me," Richard said.

  "Even worse," I said.

  Richard didn't say anything. He knew the situation better than I did, even if he wasn't willing to do the ultimate deeds.

  "Fine, I'd planned to tell Jean-Claude that you proposed."

  "You proposed," Stephen said. His voice held a lilt of surprise. "Did she say yes?"

  Richard nodded.

  A look of delight swept over Stephen's face. "Way to go." His face fell into sadness. It was like watching wind over a grassy field, everything visible on the surface. "Jean-Claude is going to go ape-shit."

  "I couldn't have said it better myself."

  "Then why tell him tonight?" Richard asked. "Why not wait? You're not sure about marrying me anymore. Are you?"

  "No," I said. I hated saying it, but it was the truth. I loved him already, but if it went much further it would be too late. If I had any doubts I needed to work them out now. Staring into his face, smelling the warm scent of his aftershave, I wished I could have thrown caution to the wind. Falling into his arms. But I couldn't. I just couldn't, not unless I was sure.

  "Then why tell him at all? Unless you're planning to elope and didn't tell me, we have some time."

  I sighed. I told him why it had to be tonight. "You can't go with me."

  "I won't let you go alone," he said.

  "Richard, if you are Johnny-on-the-spot when he finds out, he'll try to kill you, and I'll try to kill him to protect you." I shook my head. "If the shit hits the fan, this could end up like Hamlet."

  "How like Hamlet?" Stephen asked.

  "Everybody dead," I said.

  "Oh," he said.

  "You'd kill Jean-Claude to protect me, even after what you saw last night?"

  I stared at him. I tried to read behind his eyeballs to know if there was anybody home I could really talk to. He was still Richard. With his love of the outdoors, any activity that would get you messy, and a smile that warmed me to my toes. I wasn't sure I could marry him, but I was positive I couldn't let anybody kill him.

  "Yes."

  "You won't marry me, but you'll kill for me. I don't understand that."

  "Ask me if I still love you, Richard. That answer's still yes."

  "How can I let you face him alone?"

  "I've been doing just fine without you."

  He touched my forehead, and I winced. "You don't look fine."

  "Jean-Claude won't hurt me."

  "You don't know that for sure," he said.

  He had a point there. "You can't protect me, Richard. Your being there will get us both killed."

  "I can't let you go alone."

  "Don't go all manly on me, Richard. It's a luxury that we can't afford. If saying yes to marriage is going to make you behave like an idiot, it can be changed."

  "You took back your yes."

  "It's not a definte no, either," I said.

  "Just trying to protect you would make you say no?"

  "I don't need your protection, Richard. I don't even want it."

  He leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. "If I play the white knight, you'll leave me."

  "If you think you need to play the white knight, then you don't know me at all."

  He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at me. "Maybe I want to be your white knight."

  "That's your problem."

  He smiled. "I guess so."

  "If you can drive the Jeep back to my apartment, I'll take a cab."

  "Stephen can drive you," he said. He volunteered him without even wondering what Stephen would say about it. It was arrogant.

  "No, I'll take a cab."

  "I don't mind," Stephen said. "I'm due back at Guilty Pleasures tonight anyway."

  I glanced at him. "What do you do for a living, Stephen?"

  He laid his cheek on his forearm and smiled at me. He managed to look winsome and sexy at the same time. "I'm a stripper," he said.

  Of course he was. I wanted to point out that he'd refused to be in a pornographic movie, but he still stripped. But taking your clothes off down to tasteful undies was not the same thing as having sex on screen. Not even close.

  23

  LILLIAN WAS A small woman in her mid-fifties. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut short and neat in a no-nonsense style. Her fingers were as quick and sure as the rest of her. The last time she'd treated my wounds, she'd had claws and greying fur.

  I was sitting on an examining table in the basement of an apartment building. A building that housed lycanthropes and was owned by a shapeshifter. The basement was the makeshift clinic for the lycanthropes in the area. I was the first human they'd ever allowed to see the place. I should have been flattered, but managed not to be.

  "Well, according to X-rays you don't have a skull fracture."

  "Glad to hear it," I said.

  "You may have a mild concussion, but a mild one won't show up on tests, at least nothing we have the equipment for here."

  "So I can go?" I started to hop down.

  She stopped me with a hand on my arm. "I didn't say that."

  I eased back on the table. "I'm listening."

  "Grudgingly," she said, smiling.

  "If you want grace under pressure, Lillian, I'm not your girl."

  "Oh, I don't know about that," she said. "I've cleaned the scrapes and taped up your forehead. You were very lucky not to need stitches."

  I didn't like stitches, so I agreed with her.

  "I want you to wake up every hour for twenty-four hours." I must not have looked happy, because she said, "I know it's awkward, and probably unnecessary, but humor me. If you go to sleep and are injured more severely than I think you are, you might not wake up. So humor an old rat lady. Set the alarm or have someone wake you every hour for twenty-four hours."

  "Twenty-four hours from the injury?" I asked hopefully.

  She laughed. "Normally I'd say from
now, but you can do it from the time of the injury. We're just being cautious."

  "I like being cautious." Richard pushed away from the wall. He came to stand with us under the lights. "I volunteer to wake you every hour."

  "You can't go with me," I said.

  "I'll wait for you at your apartment."

  "Oh, no driving for the night," Lillian said. "Just as a precaution."

  Richard's fingertips touched the back of my hand. He didn't try to hold my hand, just that touch. Comforting. I didn't know what to do. If I was going to say no, eventually, it didn't seem fair to flirt. Just the weight of his fingers was a line of warmth all the way up my arm. Lust, just lust. Don't I wish.

  "I'll drive your Jeep to your apartment, if you agree. Stephen can drive you to Guilty Pleasures."

  "I can take a cab."

  "I'd feel better if Stephen took you. Please," he said.

  The "please" made me smile. "All right, Stephen can drive me."

  "Thank you," Richard said.

  "You're welcome."

  "I would recommend you go straight home and rest," Lillian said.

  "I can't," I said.

  She frowned at me. "Very well, but rest as soon as you can. If this is a mild concussion and you abuse yourself, it could worsen. And even if it isn't a concussion, rest will do you more good than gallivanting around."

  I smiled. "Yes, Doctor."

  She made a small umph sound. "I know how much attention you're going to pay to my orders. But go along with you, both of you. If you won't listen to good sense, then be gone."

  I slid off the table, and Richard did not offer to help me. There were reasons why we had been dating this long. A moment of dizziness and I was fine.

  Lillian didn't look happy. "You promise me that this dizziness is less than it was."

  "Scout's honor."

  She nodded. "I'll take your word for it." She didn't look really pleased about it, but she patted my shoulder and walked out. She had made no notes. There was no chart to check. Nothing to prove I'd ever been here, except for some bloody cotton swabs. It was a nice setup.

  I had gotten to lie back and relax in the car on the way here. Just not having to tote around naked men or drive helped a lot. I really was feeling better, which was great since I had to see Jean-Claude tonight regardless of how I felt. I wondered whether Gretchen would have given me a night of grace if she had put me in the hospital. Probably not.