Skin Trade(28)

“The vest and helmet will save your life,” Grimes said.

“If I weren’t hunting things that could peel the vest like an onion and crush the helmet, with my head in it, like an eggshell, maybe. I love having a badge and being part of the Marshals Service, but whoever is making the rules keeps making us rig up like we’re hunting human beings. Trust me, what we’ll hunt here in Vegas isn’t human.”

“What would you wear if you had your choice?” Grimes asked.

“Maybe something that was better at stopping slashing. Nothing works good enough against a stabbing attack yet. But honestly, I’d carry the weapons and leave the protective gear at home if I were going in with just me. I move faster without the vest, and speed will usually save my life more than the vest.”

“Do you have trouble moving in full gear?” Grimes asked.

“The damn thing weighs around fifty pounds.”

“Which is what, half your body weight?” he asked.

I nodded. “About that, I weigh one-ten.”

“That would be like putting a hundred-pound vest on most of us. We wouldn’t be able to move, either.”

Hooper was the one to ask it. “How badly do you move in the vest?”

“I can’t tell what’s going on with you guys. I keep expecting you to rush me to the hospital to see your men, or to Shaw to get this started, but you’re checking me out.”

“We’re about to trust you with our lives on a hunt that’s already killed three of our operators. Speed won’t bring them back. Rushing things won’t wake up the men in the hospital. All speed will do is get more of my team killed, and that is not acceptable. You’re a strong and controlled practitioner, but if you can barely move when you’re in full gear, you’re going to be an obstacle to overcome, not a help.”

I looked into Grimes’s very serious face. He had a point. The vest was very new, and when I wasn’t working with SWAT, I did my best not to wear it, but it wasn’t because I couldn’t move in it.

I sighed again, laid the vest with my other gear, and walked toward the weight area. The men were using the weights, but they were watching us, too. I went to the weight bench where tall, dark, and handsome Santa was bench-pressing. Mercy of the straight brown hair was spotting him, which meant the weight was heavy for the big man. Both Santa and Mercy had to weigh well over two hundred pounds, most of it muscle.

I watched Santa’s arms bulge with the effort to push the bar up and back into its cradle. Mercy’s hands hovered nearby, and at the end he had to guide the bar. That meant it was close to the other man’s limit on this exercise.

“Can I jump in for a minute? The lieutenant wants to see if I’m going to slow you guys down.”

The two men exchanged a look, and then Santa sat up, smiling. “Tell us what weight you want, and we’ll put it on.”

“What’s on it now?”

“Two-sixty; I was doing reps.” He had to add that last so I wouldn’t think it was the max weight he could bench. It was a guy thing; I got it.

I stared at the weights, thinking. I was about to do something that the guys would both like, a lot, and hate. I knew I could bench-press the weight; I’d done it at home. Thanks to vampire marks and several different kinds of lycanthropy floating around in my body, I could do things that were amazing even to me. I hadn’t been this strong long enough for it to lose its novelty. But I’d never showed it off to human cops before. I debated, but it was the quickest way I could think of to make my point.

The other men had started gathering around. Mercy reached for the weights. “What weight do you want, Blake?”

I waved him away. “This will do.”

They exchanged a look, all of them. Some of them smiled. Santa stood and waved at the bench as if to say, It’s all yours.

I went to the back of the bench. Mercy moved out of my way. The others moved back and gave me room. I knew I could bench-press it, and that would impress them, but I knew something that would impress them more, and I was tired of having my credentials checked. I wanted to be done with the tests and be out hunting vampires before it got dark. What I needed was something fairly spectacular.

I put my hands on the bar and braced my legs wide enough to get a good stance. I knew I was strong enough to lift it, but my mass wasn’t enough to counterbalance it, so I had to rely on other muscles to keep me steady and upright while my arms did the other work.

I got my grip on the bar, worked my stance.

Santa said, “That’s two hundred and sixty pounds, Blake.”

“I heard you the first time, Santa.” I lifted the bar, tensing my stomach and leg muscles to hold me while I curled it. Making it a controlled, pretty curl was the hard part, but I did it. I curled it, then set it back down with a tiny clink.