Crimson Death
Page 8

   “We’re not playing here, Forrester. We’re trying to catch these vampires before they kill more people. That’s not a game.”
   “What good is playing if the stakes aren’t high, Logan?”
   “What does that even mean, Forrester?”
   “It means that life and death are the ultimate stakes to play for.”
   “Ted, you might want to tone down the big-and-bad routine a little.” It was the best I could do to warn him that he was being all too much Edward and not enough Ted. It was like Superman putting on Clark Kent’s glasses but showing up to the Daily Planet in his super suit. If you’re dressed up like Superman, the glasses aren’t going to hide who you are.
   “Yeah, Ted, tone it down for your girlfriend,” Logan said.
   “What are your rules on sexual harassment, Superintendent Pearson?”
   “Why do you ask?”
   “Logan just seems like he’s going to keep pushing on this until it falls down around his ears.”
   “Nothing’s going to be falling on me, Blake. This little problem goes one way, and that’s your way.”
   “I’m glad we agree on something, Logan.”
   “What are you talking about?”
   “You just said the problem is going to go my way; that means I win.”
   “That is not what I meant.”
   “Your language is imprecise, Logan. It has been the entire time I’ve been here,” Edward said.
   “Fuck you, Forrester.”
   “No, thanks.”
   “That is not what I meant, damn it, and you know that.”
   “I don’t know anything about you, Logan, except you are an incredible pain in the ass,” Edward said.
   “If you can’t work civilly with Marshal Forrester, then you may need off this case,” Pearson said.
   “I’ve been on this case from the beginning.”
   “We want the Americans to help us find and contain our vampires.”
   “We don’t need some cowboy cop from the States to help us do our jobs,” Logan said.
   “I’ll take all the help we can get. These vampires are killing innocent people, Logan, and all you can do is pick at Ted,” Sheridan said.
   “So it’s Ted now, is it?”
   I suddenly had a clue: Logan liked Sheridan, God help us and her. She had reacted to Edward in such a way that Logan thought Sheridan liked Ted. We never really leave junior high and that he-likes-the-girl-who-likes-someone-else game, or reverse the sexes and get the same story. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was right, but it was worth a try.
   “How long have you been in Ireland?” I asked.
   “A week.”
   “Donna and the kids must be missing you.”
   “I’m missing them, too.”
   “She must be frantic having you gone in the middle of all the wedding planning.”
   “Our wedding is just about finalized. It’s your wedding that’s taking forever to plan.”
   “The wedding has gotten huge,” I said, and felt that familiar tightening of my stomach whenever I let myself think too hard about the size of the guest list.
   “Looks like you’ll be my best man before I get to be yours, at this rate.”
   “Wait. Did you say that Blake is going to be your best man?”
   “Yep,” Edward said, trying to get back into Ted-space, and failing worse than I’d ever seen him before. He was usually the master of disguise, but something about Logan just threw the hell out of his usual suave self.
   “And your fiancée isn’t bothered by Blake being in your wedding?”
   “Donna encouraged it.”
   “Well, you know what they say: all the good ones are taken,” Sheridan said, which meant she hadn’t been subtle about being attracted to Edward. He was five-eight, blond, blue-eyed, naturally slender but in great shape, and if you went by the reaction from other women, very attractive. I didn’t see it, but then he’d threatened to torture or kill me, which put a real damper on me seeing him as cute. Now we were so close as friends that it was almost an incest taboo.
   I tried to swipe for more pictures on the computer, but we were done. “This can’t be all the pictures, Ted.”
   “It’s not, but it’s the ones they’ll let me share with you.”
   “Gentlemen and lady, are you really that prejudiced against my psychic gift?”
   “It’s nothing personal, Blake,” Pearson said.
   “The hell it’s not.”
   “The hell it is,” he said, and then he seemed to think about what he’d just said. “I’m having one of those flashbacks to that American cartoon where it’s always duck season and never rabbit season.”
   “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.