aware of, but we do hospital protocol anyway."
The curtains parted, and Jean-Claude stepped through. He still looked perfect in his black leather pants and matching jacket, only the white shirt in the middle of all that leather was his typical lacy shirt. It was like an echo of his original century, though I had enough memories of that time through him to know that the shirt was modern material and sewn tight to the body, rather than loose and billowy. It looked antique in style, but it wasn't. It was like a lot of his clothes, touches of olden days, but they were all actually sexy club wear, or at least sexy everyday wear. I'd never seen Jean-Claude in anything that wasn't theatrical and/or sexy.
"Anita," Dr. Lillian said, voice sharp.
I startled and turned away from Jean-Claude and looked at her.
She made a little unhappy mew of her lips, then turned to Jean-Claude. "She's a little shocky. I think it's a combination of the police work earlier, then the fight, being injured, and worried about Cynric, and..." She paused, looked down, and then said softly, "I'm sorry about Asher. I know he means a great deal to both of you."
"Thank you, Lillian; I know that you do not care for him."
"I try never to question who my friends fall in love with, Jean-Claude."
"I'm happy that you think of me as a friend," he said. His voice was lovely to listen to, but unemotional, as if he could have used the same tone to say almost anything. It wasn't necessarily that he wasn't happy about Lillian thinking of him as a friend, but more that it was the voice he used when he was being very careful not to show any emotion. It was his version of a cop voice and face, except that where my cop affect was hard to read, a little brittle and cynical, his "cop face" was beautiful, almost seductive. You had to know him like I did to realize that it was as empty and meaningless as the smile I could pull out of the air for customers at Animators Inc., when I had time to raise zombies. Lately, police work was taking all my time.
Lillian smiled, but studied his face, as if trying to see behind the pleasant mask. She was harder to fool than most people. "Take Anita to that big bathtub of yours and help her clean up. Enjoy the fact that she's bleeding, before the wounds heal."
"How many stitches would she have needed if she had been more human?"
Lillian looked down, then up, and met his eyes. No, I was wrong on that, she was staring steadily at the corner of his jaw, and not meeting his gaze. It was standard practice with vampires not to meet their eyes, unless you had natural resistance to vamp gaze like I did. Being a wererat didn't keep you from being bespelled by a vampire, it just made you a little harder to "magic" than a standard human. Even though she considered Jean-Claude a friend, she still wouldn't meet his eyes full on; interesting. But it was interesting in an almost disinteresting way; Lillian had said I was shocky, and she was right. Everything felt a little distant and unimportant.
"Ten, maybe fifteen stitches," she said, as if she hadn't wanted to answer the question. "Don't let that make you angrier with Asher, please."
"Why do you care how angry I become with him?"
"Because you've been fair, and just, and haven't overreacted. I like that about you. It's part of what makes you such a very good leader."
"You flatter me, to try and get me to do what you want."
She smiled, and all the lines in her face suddenly showed themselves as smile lines. It was a glimpse of a younger Lillian before sixty got so close. She was suddenly pretty. I hadn't thought about her one way or the other, until that moment. I realized she was blushing, just a little. Jean-Claude did have that effect on most women.
"My feminine wiles aren't up to your standards, but yes, I want you to keep being patient and fair, and the leader we need."
"As you say, ma petite will heal. There is no permanent harm done." But his voice was still that pleasant, empty charm. I couldn't blame Lillian for wondering what he was really feeling.
"Exactly," she said.
Jean-Claude came to me and took my hand in his. I didn't really need help down from the table, but I'd learned