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The comment pissed me off, and I let some of the anger into my voice. “I thought he was going to kill me, Newman, and so did you.” I gave him the look that went with the tone in my voice.
Newman glared back for a second or two, and then all his defiance seemed to wash away. “Damn it, Blake, we’re trying to save him.”
“I know that, but if what we saw in that cage is all the control he has during the change, then I’m amazed he hasn’t hurt anyone before now.”
“You saw all the pictures of him in leopard form with the family,” Newman said.
“I did, but all I can tell you is the wereanimals with good control that I know don’t change form like that.”
“What do you mean?” Kaitlin asked from outside the door. There just wasn’t room for all of us in the hallway in front of the cells.
“He does the really painful, violent change where you see all the parts rearrange themselves. It’s grotesque, like a medical textbook where a body is dissected and put back together. If that was the way they all changed form, no one would want to see it onstage.”
“Don’t go bringing up the unnatural businesses that your fiancé has in St. Louis,” Leduc said.
I turned and stared at him. “Did you miss the point of all the new politically correct speech, Duke? Because calling supernatural citizens unnatural sounds awfully insensitive.” My words were calm; my tone was a little warm.
“One of the perks of being the boss on a small force like this is that I don’t have to read the latest memo about the new politically correct vocabulary. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone by calling them what they actually are, now, would we?”
“The men in my life are fine with being called vampire or shapeshifter. Hell, none of the werewolves in my life has bitched about being called lycanthropes.”
“How about calling them soulless demons and rampaging beasts? Let’s call a spade a spade,” Duke said.
I shook my head, not even angry anymore. “The only people who throw around the term demon are people that have never met one for real.”
“You haven’t met a real demon,” Duke said, but his tone wasn’t as sure as his words.
“The fuck I haven’t.” I stepped into him then, and I let myself get angry as I said, “You can live here like this and insult the men I love because people like me are hunting shit down and keeping it away from you and this nice little town of yours.”
“Win doesn’t hunt shit like that.”
“I can’t speak to what cases Newman gets called up on, but I can tell you that I deal with shit like that and worse. I’m War, and Otto is Plague. You don’t call in the horsemen unless it’s some apocalyptic shit.” I was angrier than I’d meant to get, angry enough that my beasts s
wirled inside me like a rainbow of shapes. I had to step back from Leduc and take some nice even breaths. I hated that I’d let his racist, intolerant assholery get to me like that. I knew better.
Leduc watched me regain control of myself. I couldn’t hide that he’d gotten to me, but he didn’t look pleased by it. I expected him to gloat, but he didn’t. “I don’t know about all that, Blake, but I guess you and the big guy here have earned your reputations. I’ll try not to use words like demon unless one pops up for real.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
“Open the door to the cell, Duke,” Newman said.
“And what will you do once I open it?” He’d apologized for his words, but his actions continued to be just as obstructionist as before. One apology doesn’t an open mind make.
“I’ll check on Bobby,” Newman said.
“I can call an ambulance and tell them what we’ve got for them, but they can’t take him to the hospital. The local one doesn’t have an area rated for supernaturals, and since he’s already under a death penalty for murdering someone, they cannot transport him to the nearest supernatural trauma center. It’s too far away for them to risk him waking up on the way, Win.”
“Open the door, Duke,” Newman said, and he sounded like he meant it.
Leduc came forward with the keys. “It’s your funeral.”
I touched Newman’s arm. “I hate to agree with Duke—you know I do—but he’s right about one thing.”
“What is he right about?”
“Newman, come on. You’ve seen me in there with him twice.”
“You risked your life to save him twice.”
