Hit List(69)

She handed him back some bills and coins. He handed them to me. I started unfolding it all and counting change against the receipt in my hand.

“Is this your girlfriend?” she asked.

“No, we just work together,” he said, smiling.

The blush had begun to fade, and now it climbed up her neck and face again. “I get off at five o’clock.”

“Sorry, babe, but you’re way too young for me, and I’ve gotta work anyway.”

“I’m eighteen,” she said.

I doubted that. Apparently, Bernardo did, too.

“You got ID that proves that?” he said.

She dropped her eyes, and finally shook her head. The car behind us honked. A man with a badge that said Manager came into her little cubicle. She mumbled, “Please drive to the next window, sir.” He was talking to her about her conduct as we drove forward to the suddenly empty line in front of us. The other cars had gotten their food and left while he was flirting.

“You have to be really careful with the younger women,” he said. “They’ll lie about being over eighteen and it’s never them that gets in trouble. Police always believe that the young, innocent girl was taken advantage of. I had one sixteen-year-old who kept sending me lingerie shots of herself. In some states my receiving that kind of shit in my email could get me up on child pornography charges.”

“What’d you do?”

“I turned her in to the cops. Told them I was concerned that she’d send this stuff to someone who wasn’t as moral as I was and get herself hurt.”

“You didn’t,” I said.

“Oh, yeah I did. The girls think it’s a game, or something, but it’s not them that goes to jail. I don’t like them that young anyway.” Then he looked at me, and the moment I saw the look I knew whatever he said next would be some kind of teasing, and I wouldn’t like it. “But you do, don’t you?”

“I do what?” I asked.

“Like them that young, or is it just a rumor that you’ve got that weretiger, Sydney, or something, from Vegas living with you now?”

“His name’s Cynric, and it’s not a rumor.”

“Sixteen is too young even for me, Anita.” But he smiled as he said it, enjoying being able to be morally superior. “And he was a young sixteen, Anita, what little I remember of him.”

What was I supposed to say, that I hadn’t meant to have sex with Cynric? That we’d been possessed by the biggest, baddest vampire of them all, Marmee Noir? It was true, but after a while the explanations just sounded hollow, because I kept having to make them.

“He’s seventeen, and he’s legal, and he’s in St. Louis because he’s the only male blue tiger alive today that we can find. He’s on the Harle . . . bad vampires hit list.”

Then I realized that wasn’t true anymore. Ethan was blue, and he was all grown up. Could I send Cynric home to Vegas? And if I could, should I? He was already my blue tiger to call, but Alex was my red and he didn’t live in the same state. Of course, the Harlequin might kill him to hurt me. Shit.

“So you’re keeping Cynric safe,” Bernardo said.

“Trying to.”

“By fucking him?”

I glared at him. “Thanks a lot, Bernardo.”

He grinned at me as he pulled out onto the main street.

I glared at him as I unwrapped my burger. I so didn’t want to try to eat while we had this conversation, but I did want to have food in me before we got to Edward and Olaf. I definitely didn’t want to see Olaf on an empty stomach. I’d need all the strength I could muster.

I tried to decide if I should be angry with him for real, and if I did get angry, why was I angry? Because I felt guilty about Cynric, and that made me defensive about him. I ate my burger without tasting it, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell to do about Cynric.

“That’s it?” Bernardo said. “That’s all you’re going to say to me? You used to be easier to bait.”

I drank some Coke and picked up a French fry. “Were you trying to pick a fight?”

He smiled. “Not a real fight, but it’s fun to get you riled up.”

I ate the French fry, knowing it was all grease and salt, but then that was what made it taste so good. Why did so many things that were bad for you taste so good?

He glanced at me, then back to the road. “Either you really like the kid, or he bothers you for real.”

I sighed, eating my yummy fry and trying not to hunch in the passenger seat. I so didn’t want to have this conversation with Bernardo, but then he’d met Cynric the same time I did.

“You met him when I did, Bernardo. He was a virgin, because the white clan is like all the clans, it’s all about purity of bloodline, and their queen tiger, Bibiana, likes her men to be monogamous.”