Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,140

same health standards as his patrol officers. He sat behind his desk glaring at us. The ‘us’ didn’t include Rickman. He was on the way to the hospital. The ‘us’ was U.S. Marshal Susan Hatfield, Edward, and me. Apparently my doing something bad enough to get called on the carpet by Jonas had renewed Hatfield’s fighting spirit and she was trying to get me kicked off the case again.

Hatfield was about five foot six, which made her almost as tall as Edward. He gained about two inches from his cowboy boots and she was in the same flat treaded boots as I was, so she seemed shorter, or he seemed taller. Her chestnut-brown hair was back in a small, neat ponytail. She moved her head as she gesticulated angrily, and the overhead lights picked out deep red highlights in her hair. She was about two tones off from going from chestnut to a nice deep auburn. She was thin, but it was a thinness that came from genetics and working out, not starving herself. Her forearms had lean muscle on them as she gestured, and what I could see of her upper arms wasn’t bulk. She was all long, lean muscle, almost mannish hips, and small breasts. She was one of those women who managed to look delicate and feminine without having the curves to go with the triangular face. Her chin was a little sharp for my tastes, but then I wasn’t shopping to date her, I was just noticing things while she ranted. She was basically accusing me of being too close to the monsters to make good choices. I wasn’t really listening, because I’d heard it all before, and I was a little tired of hearing it from anyone. I just stood there and let her words wash over me like white noise.

It was Edward saying, ‘Anita, Anita, the captain is talking to you,’ that made me blink and pay attention again.

I looked at Edward standing a little behind and to the other side of Hatfield, and then I looked at Jonas behind his desk. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I didn’t hear what you said.’

‘Are we boring you, Blake?’ he asked.

‘I’ve heard the song and dance before, sir.’

Edward stepped forward in his best good-ol’-boy Ted persona. ‘There’s a beaut of a bruise blossoming out on Anita’s face. I think she got her chimes rung pretty good when Rickman hit her.’

‘Are you making excuses for her?’ Jonas asked.

‘No, sir, just pointing out that she just got released from the hospital and she may heal like a son of a bitch, but the healing isn’t perfect or instantaneous. I’m just wondering if she’s more hurt than she’s letting on.’

Jonas narrowed his eyes at Edward and then looked back at me. ‘You hurt, Blake?’

‘My face hurts,’ I said, but my voice was as empty of emotion as Hatfield’s had been full of it.

‘I can’t see the bruise from here. Turn so I can.’

I turned to give him the right side of my face where the throbbing was beginning to spread into the beginnings of a really nice headache. It put me looking at Hatfield, who glared back at me.

I heard Jonas’s chair slide back. ‘It’s swelling a lot for just a bruise.’ He’d come around the desk so he could see it better. He pursed his lips, scowling. ‘Ricky hit you just on the bone there. You think he cracked the bone?’

‘I didn’t hear it break,’ I said.

‘How bad does it hurt?’

‘Not bad enough to be broken, I don’t think.’

‘You had broken bones?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So you know what it feels like,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir, I do.’

He let out a big huff of air. ‘You need some ice on it at least before it swells into your eye. Can’t send you out looking beat to hell.’ He went to his door, opened it, and yelled out at someone. ‘Need an ice bag and some towels wrapped around it.’ He seemed to expect it would get done, because he closed the door and went back to sit at his desk. He steepled his fingers, elbows resting on his stomach, because he’d gained too much weight to use the chair arms for it. It looked like a habitual gesture from before the stomach came on. He looked at us over his fingers.

‘Marshal Hatfield holds the warrant of execution on these vampires, and she wants you and Marshal Forrester to mind your own damn business.’

‘That much I heard,’ I said.

‘Technically, I’m not in