Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,161

once and for all.’

She nodded, and like Dev downstairs it was a little too rapid and a little too often. ‘Forrester persuaded me not to kill them earlier, but if you tell me they’re more valuable alive than dead, I’ll believe you, Blake. I didn’t believe you once and people died. It’ll be dawn soon; what can we do until the vamps wake up to be questioned?’

‘They’ve lawyered up,’ Edward said. ‘Questioning them won’t be as easy as normal.’

‘That fucking new law,’ Hatfield said, and then she looked at me. She studied me as if she were trying to see inside my head. ‘Knowing all that you know about them, how could you help draft a law that gave these bastards rights?’

‘I’ve worked serial killer cases where the perp was human, but I still support human rights.’

‘That’s not the same,’ she said.

‘How many serial cases have you worked?’ I asked.

‘Every vampire case I’ve ever worked had multiple deaths.’

I shook my head. ‘Most vamps kill to eat or because they’re trying to make more vampires. They don’t have the same kind of pathology as a serial killer, even though that’s technically what they’re classed as a lot.’

‘What does that even mean?’ Hatfield said, and she sounded irritated, a hint of her earlier attitude.

‘It means I’ve seen human serial killers who did things so awful that as horrible as the vampires and shapeshifters can be, it’s not as terrible to me.’

‘Why not?’ she asked, and the irritation was melting with something that was almost tears.

‘Because we’re human beings, damn it, and we’re supposed to remember that and act accordingly. Serial killers don’t remember that.’

‘It can be worse than we saw tonight.’

I didn’t know whether to pat her on the head or laugh in her face. Edward saved me from either. ‘Marshal Hatfield, the worst monsters I’ve ever seen have all been human.’

Her eyes were shiny. ‘I don’t want to believe that.’

‘No one wants to believe that,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t make it any less true.’ He sounded sympathetic, kind even, and I knew he wasn’t, not about this kind of thing. He was the consummate actor when he needed to be, and he had his Ted act down to an Oscar-worthy performance. I still didn’t understand how he did it, but watching Hatfield look at him with her eyes held wide so the tears wouldn’t fall, I watched her buy his sympathy, hook, line, and sinker.

She said, ‘I need to go … do something. I’ll …’ She went for the doors and the outside air. Maybe she needed air, but I was betting she just didn’t want anyone to see her cry. No cop wanted the other cops to see them cry, but as a woman, once you cried at a crime scene you never really lived it down. Throwing up at a crime scene was better than crying at one.

‘What next?’ Dev asked.

‘Kiss Nathaniel and Micah, and then I’d like to finally see the hotel, clean up, and get a few hours of sleep.’

‘I usually have to make you sleep on a job,’ Edward said.

‘Maybe I’m getting old,’ I said.

‘You’re younger than I am,’ he said.

I smiled. ‘Maybe I just got out of the hospital after being shot and spent the last few hours in a brutal fucking battle against killer zombies, and so I’m a little tired.’

He grinned and settled his hat a little lower on his head. ‘A little tired,’ he said.

‘A little tired,’ I said, and smiled.

‘Well, I’m fucking exhausted,’ Nicky said.

‘I thought lions were supposed to have stamina,’ Dev said, and his eyes were wide and innocent, too innocent.

Nicky raised an eyebrow at him. ‘We’ve got more stamina than tigers, but that’s not saying a lot.’

Dev grinned. ‘I can think of one way to prove what cat has the most stamina.’

Nicky grinned back.

‘I don’t know whether to put my fingers in my ears and go la-la-la or find more of your guards so we can take bets,’ Edward said.

I frowned at him.

He grinned, and with all of them grinning at me, what else could I do but grin back. ‘Fine, but I’m not sure I’m up to anything bet-worthy tonight.’

Dev pretended to pout. Nicky just looked smug. I narrowed my eyes at them. ‘Pouting I get, but why smug?’

Nicky grinned again. ‘You’re dead tired, and you just got out of the hospital, and you’ve already fed the ardeur, but you still didn’t say no.’

I rolled my eyes.

He leaned in close and whispered, ‘I love you, too.’

It