Cerulean Sins

He opened his mouth, but Dolph answered, "Why, so you can give the perfect alibi?"

"Gee, Zerbrowski, I don't see your hand up Dolph's ass, but it must be, because every time I ask you a question, the answer comes out his mouth." I was leaning across the table now, too.

"His scratches are older than yours, Anita," Dolph said, voice almost a growl of its own, "more healed. You'll never prove in court that they happened at the same time."

"He's a shape-shifter. He heals faster. I taught you that. Remember?"

"Are you really admitting that you fucked him?" Dolph said.

I was too angry to flinch at his choice of words. "I prefer the term made love to fucked, but yeah, we did the nasty."

"If that was true, the marks would have healed completely by now. If you're only human, like you keep telling me."

The headache between my eyes felt like something was trying to stab its way out of my skull. I really wasn't in any mood for this. "What I am, or what I am not, is none of your damn business. But I'm telling you that I marked him up in the heat of passion. More than that, chances are good he was with me when the second murder took place. We can give you times, if you want."

"Times would be good," Zerbrowski had scooted his chair a little farther down the table, but he hadn't deserted his post. He'd stayed closer to all that quivering rage than most people would have.

I had to think about it, but I managed to give him approximate times for the last two days. Truthfully, I wasn't much good on alibiing Jason for the first murder, but on the second, I was pretty sure I had him covered.

Zerbrowski was doing his best to give blank cop face while he wrote down what I said. The entire interview was being recorded, but Zerbrowski, like Dolph, liked to write things down. I hadn't really thought about it before, but Zerbrowski might have learned that habit from Dolph.

Dolph stayed standing near the table, looming over all of us, as I spoke. Zerbrowski asked small questions to nail the times as clearly as possible.

Jason stayed as quiet and still as he could through all of it. His hands clasped together on the table, head down, eyes taking small quick glances at all of us, without moving his head or body. He reminded me of a rabbit hiding in the long grass, hoping that if he just stayed quiet enough, still enough, that the dogs wouldn't find him. The analogy should have been laughable. I mean, he was a werewolf. But it wasn't fu

A shape-shifter accused of murdering a human got a speedy trial and an execution. If a shape-shifter was declared rogue, one that was actively hunting humans, and the police couldn't capture it, then you could get a court order of execution, just like for a vampire. It worked almost the same way. A vampire that was suspected of murder but was still eluding capture and deemed a danger to the public could have an order of execution issued by a judge. Once you had the order of execution in hand you could kill it when you found it. Just insert shape-shifter for vampire into the formula and it worked the same way. There was no trial, no anything—just hunt it down and kill it. I'd done a few jobs like that. Not many, but a few.

There'd been a movement a few years ago to make a magic-using human subject to orders of execution, but too many human right's organizations had kicked a fit. As a magic-using human, I was happy. As someone who had executed people on orders of the court, I wasn't sure how I would have felt about hunting a human being down and killing them. I'd killed humans before when they threatened my life, or the lives of those I held dear. But self-defense, even proactive self-defense wasn't quite the same thing. A human witch or wizard got a trial, but if they were convicted of using magic for murder, it was an automatic death sentence. Ninety-nine percent of the time the witch or wizard was convicted. Jurors just didn't like the idea of people who could kill by magic walking around free. One of my goals in life was to stay the hell out of a courtroom.

I knew Jason hadn't done anything wrong, but I also knew enough about the way the system worked to know that for those of us who weren't exactly human, sometimes i

"Can anyone else verify these times?" Zerbrowski asked.

"A few people, yeah," I said.

"A few people," Dolph said. He looked disgusted, and I didn't understand this emotion either. "You don't even know who the father is, do you?"

That made me give him a deer in headlights blink. "I don't know what you mean."

He gave me a look, as if I'd already lied to him. "Detective Reynolds told us her little secret."

I looked at him across the table. He was still leaning over, and I was still standing, so we were almost eye-to-eye. "So?"

He gave a sound between a snort and a cough. "She wasn't the only one who passed out at the murder scene, and she wasn't the only one who threw up." He looked as if he'd made a great point, driven it home with a surgeon's precision.

I frowned and blinked at him. "I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" I let myself look as confused as I felt.

"Don't be coy, Anita, you're not good at it."

"I'm not being coy, Dolph, you're making no fucking sense." Then an idea popped into my head, but that couldn't be it. Dolph wouldn't think…

I looked at him, and thought, maybe he would think that. "Are you implying that I'm pregnant?"

"Implying, no."

I relaxed a little. I shouldn't have.

"I'm asking, do you know who the father is, or have there been too many to guess?"

Zerbrowski stood, and he was close enough to Dolph that it forced him to move a little way from the table. "I think you should go now, Anita," Zerbrowski said.

Dolph was glaring at me. I should have been angry, but I was too surprised. "I've thrown up at murder scenes before."

Zerbrowski moved a little back from the table. He had a resigned look on his face, like someone who saw the train coming down the track and knew nobody was going to get off in time. I still didn't think things were that bad.

"You've never passed out before," Dolph said.

"I was sick, Dolph, too sick to drive myself."

"You seem fine now," he said, voice low and rumbling, filled with that anger that seemed always just below the surface lately.

I shrugged. "I guess it was just one of those viruses."

"It wouldn't have anything to do with the fang mark on your neck would it?"

My hand went up to it, then I forced myself not to touch it. Truthfully, I'd forgotten about it. "I was sick, Dolph, even I get sick."

"Have you been tested for Vlad's syndrome, yet?"

I took in a deep breath, let it out, then said, fuck it. Dolph wasn't going to let this one go. He wanted to fight. I could do that. Hell, a nice uncomplicated screaming match sounded almost appealing.

"I'll say this once, I'm not pregnant. I don't care if you believe me, because you're not my father, you're not my uncle, brother, or anything. You were my friend, but even that's up for grabs right now."

"You're either one of us, or you're one of them, Anita."

"One of what?" I asked. I was pretty sure of the answer, but I needed to hear it out loud.

"Monster," he said, and it was almost a whisper.

"Are you calling me a monster?" I wasn't whispering, but my voice was low and careful.

"I'm saying you're going to have to choose whether you're one of them, or one of us." He pointed to Jason when he said them.

"You join Humans against Vampires, or some other right wing group, Dolph?"

"No, but I'm begi

"The only good vampire is a dead one, is that it?"

"They are dead, Anita." He took that step closer, that Zerbrowski's moving had given him. "They are fucking corpses that don't have enough sense to stay in their godforsaken graves."

"According to the law, they're living beings with rights and protection under the law."

"Maybe the law was wrong on this one."

Part of me wanted to say, you know that this is being recorded? part of me was glad he'd said it. If he came off sounding like a bigoted crazy then it would help keep Jason safe. The fact that it wouldn't help Dolph's career did bother me, but not enough to sacrifice Jason. I'd like to save all my friends, but if someone is bent on self-destruction, there is only so much you can do. You can't shovel other people's shit for them, not unless they're willing to pick up a shovel and help.

Dolph wasn't helping. He got down low, hands flat to the table and pushed his face into Jason's. Jason moved back as far as he could in the chair. Zerbrowski looked at me, and I gave wild eyes. We both knew that if Dolph touched a suspect the way he'd touched me earlier his career was well and truly over.

"It looks so human, but it's not," Dolph said.

I didn't like the use of the it for one of my friends.

"Did you really let him touch you?"

Him. See, even if you hate the monsters, it's hard to keep straight in your own head what's an it, and what's a him. "Yes," I said.

Zerbrowski was moving around Dolph, trying to get to Jason, to get between them, I think.

Dolph turned to look at me, still bent over low, way too close to Jason for anyone's comfort. "And the bite on your neck, was that the bloodsucker you're fucking?"

"No," I said, "that was a new one. I'm fucking two of them now."

He staggered almost as if he'd taken a blow. He leaned heavily on the table, and for just a second I thought he'd fall into Jason's lap, but he recovered himself with a visible effort. Zerbrowski touched the big man's arm. "Easy there, Lieutenant."

Dolph let Zerbrowski sit him down. He made no reaction when the sergeant eased Jason out of the chair and farther away from Dolph. Dolph wasn't looking at them. His pain-filled eyes were all for me. "I knew you were coffin bait, I didn't know you were a whore."

I felt my own face go hard and cold. Maybe if I hadn't been so tired, so stressed—but there was no real excuse for what I said next, except that Dolph had hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him. "How's that grandchildren problem coming Dolph? You still got a vampire for a soon-to-be daughter-in-law?"