Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,34

of states where if someone killed Micah, or Dev, or Nicky, all they had to do was say they had feared for their life, and if the blood test on the dead body came back positive for lycanthropy, it would qualify as self-defense, without a trial or anything. If you had witnesses who said the shooting had been unprovoked you could be up on charges, but if the only other witness besides the shooter was conveniently dead, then it was a clean kill. I hadn’t thought what that might mean for my men. My stomach tightened, my shoulders tensing, as I thought about that for everyone I’d brought with me. I was so used to the local police who worked with me seeing my boyfriends as people that I hadn’t thought that not all police would be as understanding. That really had been stupid and careless.

I looked at the policemen in the hallway. Two of them were in a uniform like Al’s, but the rest were a mix of different uniforms and two were in street clothes. They were all armed, and all had that cop look in their faces as they looked at Micah, Nicky, and Dev for threat evaluation. Was there a time in my career when I would have done the same thing? You hear someone is a wereanimal and you just automatically assume they’re dangerous, right? Well, yeah. The cops in the hallway had just been told that Micah and two big, obviously physical, armed men were all faster, stronger, and harder to kill than any of them. I tried to see it from their point of view, but I just couldn’t. The men in question meant too much to me for me to be okay with the evaluating looks from the cops. I knew that if anything went wrong they would probably shoot first and ask questions later. There’d been a time in my life when I might have done the same thing.

‘Everybody take a deep breath,’ I said, my voice calm but clear. ‘I’m Marshal Anita Blake and the men who you’re sizing up right now are with me.’

‘We know who you are,’ an older guy in a state trooper uniform said, and he didn’t sound thrilled.

‘The other beasts are with you in what way?’ Jamie asked what the cops probably wanted to ask anyway, so they let him. Except for the beast part, I’d give the police the benefit of the doubt on that.

‘First, don’t ever call them beasts again,’ Micah said.

‘That’s what they are,’ he said, and he raised his hand and pointed at Micah. ‘Just like you are.’ His silver crosier winked in the light.

‘Oh, God, you’re wearing the shepherd’s crook. Please tell me that the two of you didn’t become Shepherds of the Flock?’ Micah sounded disgusted.

I thought, The nut jobs on the news, but I didn’t say it out loud. They were his relatives and I’d do my best not to make things worse, but the Shepherds were a new zealot group that went around to victims of preternatural attacks and tried to ‘save’ them by telling new lycanthropes they were now animals without souls and new vampires that they were demon-inhabited corpses, so becoming one of those made you an agent of the devil.

‘We are here to be guardians for the victims of the beasts and demons,’ Jamie said, which was a big yes.

‘Sheriff Callahan wasn’t bitten by a shapeshifter or a vampire,’ Al said, ‘so you shouldn’t be up here.’

‘We’re Rush’s family. We have every right to be here,’ Jamie said.

‘Then be here as family, not as Shepherds,’ Al said.

‘We’re here to protect Rush, in case the monster that attacked him comes back,’ Aunt Bertie said.

‘Leave that to the police,’ Al said.

‘Not when the police consort with devil worshippers and soulless beasts. You cannot use the devil to protect you from the devil.’

I moved up beside Micah. ‘Who are you calling a devil worshipper?’ Nathaniel came with me, because he wouldn’t let go of my hand. In fact, he had a double grip on my arm now, as if he thought I’d do something unfortunate.

‘Don’t feel bad, Anita, he just called his own nephew a soulless beast,’ Micah said, and now his voice held an edge of anger. The first trickle of power slithered across my skin, raising the hair on the arm closest to him. He had the best control of any shapeshifter I’d ever been around, and sometimes he’d flare power to back down another