I stood with my back to the closed door, the others fanned out around me. Soft filtered light came down from the high, high windows. The midway looked dark and tired in the morning sunlight. The Ferris wheel towered over the haunted house and mirror maze and the game booths. It was a complete traveling carnival that didn't travel. It smelled like it was suppose to: cotton candy, corn dogs, funnel cakes.
Two men stepped out of the huge circus tent that took up one entire corner. They walked towards us side by side. The taller man was about six foot, square-shouldered, with hair that was somewhere between blond and brown. The hair was straight, thick, and just long enough to trail the edge of his shirt collar. White dress shirt tucked into white jeans, complete with white belt. He wore white loafers, no socks. He looked like he should have been walking along a beach in a credit-card commercial, except for his eyes. Even from a distance there was something odd about his eyes. They were orange-ish. People didn't have eyes that color.
The second man was about five foot seven, with dark gold hair cut very short. A brownish mustache graced his upper lip and curved back to meet brownish sideburns. Nobody had worn a mustache like that since the 1800's. His white pants were tight and slid into polished black boots. A white vest and a white shirt peeked out from beneath a red jacket. He looked like he should have been riding to the hounds, chasing small furred animals.
His eyes were a nice normal brown. But the first man's eyes just got stranger the closer he came to us. His eyes were yellow--not amber, not brown--yellow with orange spikes radiating from the pupil like a pinwheel of color. They were not human eyes, no way, no how.
If it hadn't been for the eyes, I wouldn't have recognized him as a lycanthrope, but the eyes gave it away. I'd seen pictures of tigers with eyes like that.
They stopped a little distance from us. Richard moved up beside me, Zane and Jamil at our backs. We all stood looking at each other. If I hadn't known better. I'd have said that the two men looked uncomfortable or embarrassed.
The smaller man said, "I am Captain Thomas Carswell. You must be Richard Zeeman." His voice was British and upper-crust, but not too upper-crust.
Richard took a step forward. "I'm Richard Zeeman. This is Anita Blake, Jamil, and Zane."
"I am Gideon," the man with the eyes said. His voice was almost painfully low, as if even in human speech he growled. The sound was so low that it made my spine thrum.
"Where are Vivian and Gregory?" I said.
Captain Thomas Carswell blinked and looked at me. He didn't look happy about the interruption. "Nearby."
"First," said Gideon, "we need your gun, Miss Blake."
I shook my head. "I don't think so."
They exchanged glances. "We cannot allow you to go forward with a gun in your hand, Miss Blake," Carswell said.
"Every time someone wants to take my gun, it means either they don't trust me or they're planning to do something I don't like."
"Please," Gideon said in his gravelly voice. "Surely you must understand our reluctance. You do have a certain reputation."
"Anita?" Richard said, half-question, half-something else.
I clicked the safety on the gun and held it out to Gideon. I had two more guns and two knives left. They could have the Browning.
Gideon took the gun from me and stepped back to stand beside Carswell. "Thank you, Miss Blake."
I nodded. "You're welcome."
"Shall we go?" Carswell said. He offered me his arm as if he were escorting me to dinner.
I stared at him, then back at Richard. I raised my eyebrows, trying to ask what he thought without asking.
He gave a half-shrug.
I slid my left arm through Carswell's arm. "You're being very civilized about this," I said.
"There is no reason to lose all good manners just because things have become... somewhat extreme."
I let him lead me towards the tent. Gideon fell into step with Richard. They were almost the same height, and the roil of energy that came off them made the hair on my neck stand up. They were trying each other's power, tasting each other without doing anything at all but lowering their hard-won control. Jamil and Zane brought up the rear like good soldiers.
We were almost at the tent when Carswell stopped, hand tightening on my arm. I slid my right hand behind my back, under the coat, touching the machine gun.
"There is something heavy on your back, Miss Blake. Something that is not a purse." His grip on my left arm grew tighter, not hurting, but I knew he wouldn't let go, not without a fight.
I swung the machine gun around on its strap with my right hand and put the barrel into his chest, not shoving, just there, like his hand on my other arm.
"Everybody be calm," I said.