Hit List(19)

“I’ll need a new room,” I said.

“You’ll be in our room,” he said.

I raised eyebrows at that.

“I can get another room,” Tilford said, and fought for blank face.

“No, you as a chaperone is a good idea,” Edward said, and again his Ted voice was sliding away.

“So you’re just going to sleep together, I mean . . .” Tilford looked embarrassed.

“We’re not lovers,” I said.

Tilford looked even more uncomfortable. “I didn’t say otherwise.”

“I know the rumor mill has me screwing most of the men I’m close to, Tilford; it’s okay.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable, or if regulations even allow us to sleep in here with a woman,” he said.

“Karlton is lucky to be alive. I’m not risking Anita. She stays with me tonight. If you aren’t comfortable with that, then you do need another room,” Edward said. He didn’t even try to be Ted; it was just Edward stating facts.

“I’ll check and see if they’ll even let us stay with a woman in the room they’re paying for,” Tilford said.

“We can pay for our own room,” Edward said.

Tilford checked, and sometimes mixed-sex marshals were forced to share a room by finances. Raborn threw a fit and all but accused me of seducing both Tilford and Edward, but he stopped just short of anything I could really bitch about or that would get him into trouble with anyone listening. He was too senior a man on the scene to sweat much.

In the end Tilford opted not to share the room with us, something about his wife not allowing it. By that time I was so tired my eyes burned, and I just didn’t give a damn. Edward was supposed to take Tilford’s bed, and I was taking his, farther from the door, but the moment the door was locked behind us, he said, “Help me move the bed in front of the window.” We put the second mattress and bedspring up against the big and only window.

“It won’t keep them out,” I said.

“It will slow them down,” he said, “and give us time to shoot.”

I nodded. “Agreed.” I looked at the bare bed frame. “You know this leaves us with one bed.”

“It’s for a couple of hours.” He frowned. “Or are you saying that you’ll need to feed the ardeur when you wake up?”

I took the question seriously. “I’ve gotten better at controlling it. I’ll need solid food, protein. Staying fed physically helps control all the other hungers.”

“Good,” he said, and began to lay his guns on the bedside table.

“How am I ever going to reach a handgun on the floor?” I asked, as I climbed onto the far side of the bed by the wall.

He handed me a P90 carbine, though submachine gun was always what I wanted to say when I saw one. “Try this.”

“My MP5 is in the other room,” I said as I checked out the feel of the new gun. I’d shot one, in fact this one, but only at the shooting range with Edward. It was a sweet gun, but the MP5 was a nice gun, too. I put the bigger gun on the side of the bed, practiced rolling over, and I could reach it better than the handgun.

Then came that awkward moment when we were actually supposed to get into a twin bed together. I slept with and had sex with a dozen men on a regular basis, but suddenly it was awkward. Edward and I weren’t lovers, and never would be. We were friends and damn near family.

I sat up on my side of the bed by the wall. “Am I the only one who feels a little awkward here?”

“Yes,” he said, and sat down on his side of the bed. He grinned at me suddenly, that smile that was all that was left of a younger man before his life went hard and cold. “You know, you may be a succubus and a living vampire, but part of you will always be the small-town girl who isn’t sure she should be doing all this.”

I scowled at him. “Should I be insulted?”

“No, it’s part of your charm that no matter how many men you have in your life, you never quite get comfortable with it.”

I scowled harder. “Why is it charming?”

He shrugged. “Not sure, but it’s very you.”

I frowned at him. “And being all mysterious and vague is very you.”

The grin faded a little, to almost his normal smile. It was a colder smile.

I had a thought. “What would you have done if I’d said that I’d need to feed the ardeur when I woke up?”

He lay down, spilling the sheet over him. I already had the sheet over me. He turned and looked at me with the lamp still on. “Dealt with it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we would have dealt with it.”