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Zerbrowski chuckled. "Blake, I have seen everything now. The heap-big vampire slayer in luuv."
I shook my head. "I don't suppose it would help to ask you to keep this to yourself?"
He grinned. "Makes the teasing more fun."
"Damn you, Zerbrowski."
"Loverboy seemed sort of tense, so I didn't say anything before, but now that we're alone, what the hell
happened to you? You look like someone took a meat cleaver to your face."
Actually, I didn't. I'd seen that done once and it was a lot messier. "Long story. You know my secret.
Where were you tonight all dressed up?"
"Married ten years tonight," he said.
"You're kidding?"
He shook his head.
"Big congrats," I said. We clattered down the stairs.
"Thanks. We hired a baby-sitter and everything. She made me leave my beeper home."
The cold bit into the sores on my face and made my head ache worse.
"Door's not locked," Zerbrowski said.
"You're a cop. How can you leave your car unlocked?" I opened the door and stopped. The passenger
seat and floorboard were full. McDonald's take-out sacks and newspapers filled the seat and flowed
onto the floorboards. A piece of petrified pizza and a herd of pop cans filled the rest of the floorboard.
"Jesus, Zerbrowski, does the EPA know you're driving a toxic waste dump through populated areas?"
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"See why I leave it unlocked. Who would steal it?" He knelt in the seat and began shoveling armfuls of
garbage into the backseat. It looked like this wasn't the first time he'd cleaned out the front seat by
shoveling things in back.
I brushed crumbs from the empty seat onto the empty floorboard. When it was as clean as I could get it,
I sat down.
Zerbrowski slid into his seat belt and started the car. It coughed to life. I put on my seat belt, and he
pulled out of the parking lot.
"How does Katie feel about your job?" I asked.
Zerbrowski glanced at me. "She's okay with it."
"Were you a cop when she met you?"
"Yeah, she knew what to expect. Loverboy didn't want you to come out tonight?"
"He thought I was too hurt to go out."
"You do look like shit."
"Thanks."
"They love us, they want us to be careful. He's a junior high school teacher, for God's sake. What does
he know about violence?"
"More than he'd like to."
"I know, I know. The schools are a dangerous place nowadays. But it isn't the same, Anita. We carry
guns. Hell, you kill vampires and raise the dead, Blake. Can't get much messier than that."
"I know that." But I didn't know that. Being a lycanthrope was messier. Wasn't it?
"No, I don't think you do, Blake. Loving someone who lives by violence is a hard way to go. That
anybody'll have us is a miracle. Don't get cold feet."
"Did I say I was getting cold feet?"
"Not out loud."
Shit. "Let's drop it, Zerbrowski."
"Anything you say. Dolph is going to be so excited that you've decided to tie the noose ... ah, knot."
I sank down into the seat as far as the belt would let me. "I am not getting married."
"Maybe not yet, but I know that look, Blake. You are a drowning woman, and the only way out is down
the aisle."
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I would have liked to argue, but I was too confused. Part of me believed Zerbrowski. Part of me
wanted to stop dating Richard and be safe again. Okay, okay, I wasn't exactly safe before, what with
Jean-Claude hanging around, but I wasn't engaged. Of course, I still wasn't engaged.
"You okay, Blake?"
I sighed. "I've lived alone a long time. A person gets set in her ways." Besides he's a werewolf. I didn't
say that part out loud, but I wanted to. I needed a second opinion, but a police officer, especially
Zerbrowski, wasn't the person to ask.
"He crowding you?"
"Yeah."
"He want marriage, kids, the whole nine yards?"
Kids. No one had mentioned children. Did Richard have this domestic vision of a little house, him in the
kitchen, me working, and kids? Oh, damn, we were going to have to sit down and have a serious talk. If
we did manage to get engaged like normal people, what did that mean? Did Richard want children? I
certainly didn't.
Where would we live? My apartment was too small. His house? I wasn't sure I liked that idea. It was his
house. Shouldn't we have our house? Shit. Kids, me? Pregnant, me? Not in this lifetime. I thought
furriness was our biggest problem. Maybe it wasn't.
Chapter 29 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]