Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,2

so the deal was I’d text and call more like a regular Joe or Jill. Also, the other police were giving me enough grief about dating supernaturals, which was one of the politically correct terms for vampires, wereanimals, and anything else that wasn’t strictly human. Once I’d have said straight human, but I’d been chastised for using the word straight. Between actual vocabulary guidelines for the job and civilians getting butt-hurt because of my word choices, I was thinking of just substituting the word fuck for the word they didn’t like to see if they liked that better. If I was going to be offensive, I might as well go for broke.

I erased several texts and finally settled for “Landed safe. Love you. Miss you already.” It seemed inadequate, but it was all true, and at least I’d remembered to text. Staying in touch when I was on the job out of town wasn’t one of my best things, to say the least. Micah Callahan, one of my fiancés, was as bad as I was about it and traveled as much. Our mutual lovers had recently done an intervention to let us know we needed to do better.

The first return text binged on my phone. I wasn’t surprised that it was Nathaniel Graison, one of my other fiancés, because he had been one of the main instigators of the intervention. His text said simply, “Thank you for texting. I know you don’t understand why I need it. Love you back. I like that you miss me. Looking forward to the call tomorrow, or you back home before that.” And there it was, the loving text turned into a nagging push. We had all agreed that I’d text when I arrived and that I’d call once a day if possible, or text again. Nathaniel was reminding me of what I’d agreed to do, which turned a loving text or phone call into an obligation, which kind of bugged me. The return texts came fast and furious after that, because the group text contained eight people, not including me. I’d actually been surprised at some of the lovers who had insisted on getting more long-distance attention and at the ones who were content with the status quo. Some of them answered in the group text, but others answered privately. I typed an answer to each one of them; only two made me smile. Jean-Claude’s “Je t’aime, ma petite,” and Nicky Murdock’s “I know you love me. You don’t have to keep texting me to prove it.”

“I know it’s none of my business, but how many people are you having to text while you’re gone?”

“Enough,” I said, and sighed. I scrolled through all the texts and realized I wasn’t sure whom I had to call tomorrow morning if I was still here. I wouldn’t know how long I’d be on the ground here until I knew more about the case. I put my phone away and said, “You didn’t invite me here to talk about our personal lives, so what’s up first on the crime busting?”

He smiled as he said, “Sheriff Leduc requested I introduce you before we head to the crime scene. We have to drive right by the sheriff’s office, so it’s not out of the way. Hell, you can see Bobby Marchand. Maybe you’ll think of smarter questions to ask than I did.”

“You were exactly what your name says when I met you, Newman, but that was a couple of years ago. You do okay on your cases.”

“You checked up on me?” he asked, glancing away from the night black road; the headlights seemed to carve their way through the moonless night.

“I keep an eye on the newbies I meet.”

“And I keep an eye on the careers of the marshals that I want to grow up to be,” he said.

That made me laugh. “If you grow up any more, I’ll need a ladder to shake your hand.”

He joined me in the laughter, and we drove for a few minutes in companionable silence.

“It’s a dark night up here,” I said.

“The cloud cover is thick tonight, but if it clears off, you’ll see stars here like I’ve never seen outside of the desert or the ocean.”

“It’s not just cloud cover, Newman. Last night was the dark of the moon, and tonight won’t be much brighter. If Bobby Marchand has been a wereleopard—sorry, Ailuranthrope—for this long, he shouldn’t even shift form this far from a full moon.”

“It’s one of the things that bothered