“You’re hunting vampires; my necromancy could help you do that.”

   “The dead do not walk in Ireland, except as ghosts, Marshal Blake.”

   “Bullshit, and you know it. You have a vampire problem.”

   “We concede that,” he said.

   “Then let Anita come in and help me help you,” Edward said.

   “Sorry, Forrester, and no insult meant to Blake here, but necromancy doesn’t work here.”

   “Is it outlawed?” I asked.

   “No, not exactly.”

   “Ireland is supposed to be one of the most magically tolerant countries in the world. I’m feeling seriously picked on,” I said.

   “It’s nothing personal, Blake.”

   “I do not think that means what you think it means,” I said.

   He gave a small laugh. “Thanks, we needed that.”

   “Anita can help us,” Edward said.

   “Are you admitting that the high-and-mighty Ted Forrester, the one that the vampires have nicknamed Death, can’t handle things here without his sidekick, the Executioner?”

   “Death and the Executioner—has a nice ring to it,” I said.

   “So does Death and War,” he said.

   “That’s catchy, too.”

   “War is Anita’s newest nickname from the vampires and wereanimals,” Edward explained.

   “Why didn’t you get a new nickname?” Sheridan asked.

   “Death suits me,” he said, and I could almost see him give her that terribly direct eye contact from his pale blue eyes. It was like having a winter sky stare at you.

   I could hear the shiver in Sheridan’s voice over the speakerphone when she said, “Yes. Yes, it does.” Her tone told me that our bid to get her to back off the crush by talking about Donna and the wedding hadn’t worked. Edward was handsome, but this level of persistence made me wonder what he’d done to impress her this much.

   “Go back to sleep if you can, Anita.”

   “I don’t feel like I’ve been that big a help.”

   “You’ve helped as much as you can when they won’t let me share information with you freely.”

   “Yeah, because they wouldn’t want the big bad necromancer to fuck up their case.”

   “There’s no need for that, Marshal.”

   “What?”

   “Cursing like that.”

   “Logan cursed.”

   “But he didn’t say that.”

   I realized he was upset that I’d said fuck. “If you don’t let me cuss when I talk, I may have to just smile and nod.”

   He laughed as if he thought it was a good joke. I hadn’t been kidding, but since they didn’t want me to help them any further I wouldn’t have to shock them with my language anymore.

   “Don’t mind Pearson,” Sheridan said. “The rest of us curse. He just doesn’t like the F-word and we are having the meeting in his office.”

   “I’ll try to be better if we talk again. Best of luck with your vampire problem.”

   “Thank you, Marshal. That’s most kind,” Pearson said.

   “Don’t mention it.”

   Edward picked up the phone and went off speaker so at least they couldn’t hear my side of the conversation. “What did you do to cause Sheridan to have such a crush on you?”

   “I don’t know.” I didn’t press, because it was probably the truth. Since Edward could flirt and seduce to get information out of people without any emotional qualms, I knew he meant it.

   “You just don’t know how charming you are.”

   “I will try to use this superpower for good, or personal gain, or to hunt down my enemies and slaughter them so I can dance in their blood.”

   “You have the most cheerful analogies, Edward.”

   “We all have our strengths, Anita. Sleep well. I’ll call you again if everyone will agree to it.”

   “Okay, be safe and watch your back like a motherfucker.”

   “I always do.” He hung up. I hung up. We were done. We could go back to bed for a couple of hours.

   I opened the door for Micah. He was one of the men in my life who didn’t argue over which of us got the door. I valued that, because sometimes you just want to open the damn door. We were in the corridor and it was just as empty as it had been an hour and a half ago. We all mostly worked nights here, so six or seven a.m. wasn’t a time that any of us expected to be awake to enjoy.

   “Do you think the smallest bite is a child vampire?”

   “I really hope not.”

   “Why?”

   “I’ve told you this before. All the child vampires go crazy eventually. Jean-Claude says that some of them go nuts immediately after rising from the dead. They just never adjust to it.”

   We had a couple of child vamps that we’d inherited from Europe. They were both constant reminders of why it was a bad idea.

   “At least Bartolome is old enough for everything to function like a grown-up,” Micah said.

   “Yeah, but he still looks eleven to twelve, a young twelve.”

   “Valentina is worse,” he said.

   I nodded. “Five to seven years old forever.”

   “Her mind isn’t the mind of a child,” he said.

   “Just her body. I know.”

   “I know the other vampires killed the one who made Valentina, but it didn’t really save her,” he said.

   I took his hand in mine and said, “I really hope that she’s the youngest vamp I ever meet.”

   “She’s older than Jean-Claude.”

   “Her body isn’t,” I said.

   I prayed that the vampires in Ireland were just female with small bite radiuses. I prayed that no one was creating more child vampires, because if any vampires were damned, it was them. Please, God, no more.

          Laurell K. Hamilton is a full-time writer and the author of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, and Merry Gentry series.

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