He didn’t answer for so long that I was almost at the blind corner turn at the halfway point of the stairs. I didn’t prompt him. I just listened to him breathe and concentrated on my heels on the uneven stones.
“I wouldn’t blame you for staying home.”
“But you would think less of me,” I said.
He was quiet. “I’d try not to.”
“Yeah, and the rest of the cops who already think I’m a girl, and that I’m sleeping with vampires, and that I’m sleeping around with other cops, they wouldn’t think less of me?”
“Don’t get yourself killed because of pride, Anita. That’s a guy reason to die. You’re a girl; think like a girl for once.”
“Edward, if they’ve been watching me in St. Louis, I may not be safe here, either.”
“Maybe, or maybe he’s luring you out, Anita. Maybe he would have come back to St. Louis for you, but with all the people Jean-Claude has around him he couldn’t get to you.”
I walked around the corner, thinking about that. “Shit, I hope you’re wrong about that.”
“You knew it was a trap, Anita.”
“Yeah, but knowing Vittorio is throwing down the gauntlet in Vegas is one thing. Believing that he’s picked somewhere far away so I’ll be away from Jean-Claude and his guards is… frightening.”
“Good, I want you scared on this one, because you should be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Vittorio has been watching you, or having someone else do it. He sent the head on a day you’d be there. He sent it early in the morning before your vampire lover will be awake, so no one can tell you to take guards, or not to go. In St. Louis, if Jean-Claude is still down for the day, you’re in charge.”
“We’ve been working really hard at making me more human servant and Jean-Claude more master.”
“Yeah, so hard that you’ve moved into the Circus with him. The other marshals don’t think much of you shacking up with the master of your city.”
“Prejudiced bastards.” I was at the big cell-like door that led into the underground proper.
“I also heard that Jean-Claude and your boyfriends have come out of the closet. I take it that the idea that Jean-Claude is fucking you and your boyfriends was to explain why he was letting you fuck other men.”
“We told the vampire community that, not the marshals. How do they know all this?”
“You aren’t the only one who’s a little close with their local vampires, Anita.”
“I’ve met your local vampires, and I know that you are not talking to Obsidian Butterfly. She’s so scary that the worldwide vampire community has made Albuquerque, New Mexico, off limits.”
“I live in Santa Fe.”
“Yeah, and it’s still too close to Obsidian Butterfly and her group. It’s why you have to travel out of state to hunt vampires; your local master is too scary to share.”
“She thinks she’s an Aztec goddess, Anita. Gods don’t share.”
“She’s a vampire, Edward, but she may actually be what the Aztecs worshipped under her name.”
“She’s still a vampire, Anita.”
“I don’t like the tone in your voice, Edward. Promise me if you ever get a warrant of execution against her or any of her vampires that you’ll let me come help.”
“You’d have flown to Vegas without me.”
“Maybe, or maybe getting a human head in a box was weird even for me. Maybe I am afraid of Vittorio, and I don’t like running into a trap like some rabbit. Maybe I just hadn’t had time to think to call you.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Anita.”
“I may lose the phone signal if I go any farther underground, Edward, but I have to pack, so…”
“It’s a shorter flight for me to Vegas, so I’ll see you on the ground.”
“Edward,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you really think Vittorio planned me to have to fly to Vegas before Jean-Claude could be awake to argue with me, or make me take guards?”
“I don’t know, but if he did plan it this way, then he’s afraid of your guards. He’s afraid of you with Jean-Claude. He’s afraid of you with all your shapeshifter friends. But he’s not as afraid of you on your own.”
“I won’t be on my own,” I said.
“No, you won’t be,” he said.
“I don’t mean just you, Edward. Vittorio killed police officers. I don’t think he understands how serious that can be.”
“We’ll explain it to him,” Edward said, voice gone empty of accent, empty of almost anything. It was the voice that he used when he was at his most deadly.