Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,21

powers and titles is too long, and thanks to your request that we not be formal I do not have to list them all, but normal you will never be, Ms Blake.’

It was hard to argue with him, though I wanted to, but at that moment Micah came to us. He’d left Juliet at her truck. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked, his voice low so it didn’t carry back to his cousin.

‘No problem,’ I said.

Alfie bowed to Micah and said, ‘Mr Callahan, I am sorry to meet you under such trying circumstances. My name is Alfie and my master has put me at your disposal in the evenings.’

I thought it was interesting that Micah and I both got a bow, but Nathaniel hadn’t rated one, or any acknowledgment until I made a point of it. No matter how hard they tried, there were going to be vampire politics involved.

‘Thank you, Alfie,’ Micah said. He turned to me and I knew the look. He was asking me if there was something wrong.

I felt, more than heard, some of our people coming up behind us. The look on Alfie’s face as he looked up and past the three of us confirmed that the biggest, baddest-looking people with us were now right behind us. The fact that the vampire couldn’t keep his worry off his face made me shave another ten years off his undead age: thirty years dead, tops.

I glanced back to see our remaining bodyguards coming up behind us. Bram and Ares looked like dark and light halves to a whole, both six feet, both built tall and lanky; muscle from the mandatory guard workout showed, but neither one of them bulked up fast. They were built for speed and strength. Both still had that military stamp on them, one that lingers if you were in long enough and haven’t been out long enough. Ares’ desert tan had mostly faded, though he tanned darker than most blonds I’d met. Bram couldn’t really tan any darker, though I’d learned that even very dark African American skin could burn; it just took a lot. Bram had been quietly disdainful when he found out that my black curls and dark brown eyes hadn’t come with my mother’s Mexican skin tone, but my father’s blond German so that I just didn’t tan worth a damn. Bram’s hair was still cut military short. He complained that the tight curl bugged him when it grew out. Ares had let his dark blond hair grow out a little, enough that a woman could run her hands through it, as he’d said, but it was mostly longer on top and still left his neck in no danger of being touched by hair. They partnered each other a lot on guard duty.

Ares grinned at us. ‘How are we supposed to guard your bodies if you keep talking to the bad guys without us?’

‘One, they aren’t bad guys, they’re our hosts. Two, not a danger,’ I said.

Nicky said, ‘I told you.’ He walked toward us, the spread of his shoulders making him look shorter than the other two guards, though he wasn’t really. His haircut was actually the thing you noticed after the muscles. His hair was short except for half his bangs, which hung in a long yellow triangle down the right-hand side of his face, covering the eye and halfway down the cheek. He used the hair to hide that the eye on that side was missing. He’d lost it when he was a teenager, years before he became a werelion, or he’d have still had the eye. The one eye that was left was a clear blue.

‘You told them what?’ I asked.

‘That you could handle yourself against anything that was on this side of the hangar,’ Bram said, in his clear, strong voice. He didn’t talk nearly as much as Ares, but when he did it was usually to the point. Ares would joke and tease, Bram almost never.

‘Should I be insulted?’ Alfie asked.

I said, ‘No.’

Ares said, ‘Yes.’

Micah said, ‘No.’

Alfie looked from one to the other of us, smiling slightly. ‘I don’t know what I expected from you, Ms Blake, Mr Callahan, but this easy camaraderie is unexpected.’

‘Pleasant, I hope,’ Micah said.

‘Yes,’ the vampire said, ‘most illuminating.’

‘Illuminating, why illuminating?’ I asked.

‘To shed light upon something; I thought it was a very appropriate word.’

I would have asked more, but Micah’s cousin chose that moment to come up and say, ‘Who’s riding with me?’

‘Juliet, this is Anita and Nathaniel.’

I