"You really did poke at anything that made you happy, didn't you?" Brice said.
"You have no idea," I said.
Zerbrowski laughed. "I do, and no one f**ked up their own love life weirder than you did."
I glared at him, but the look of sympathy and real concern on his face made it impossible to hold. I finally just sighed, and poked at my cooling French fries.
"You're not going to argue?" he asked.
I shook my head. "It's the truth, why argue?"
He stood up, leaned over the table, and tried to feel my forehead. I jerked back, batting his hand away. "What are you doing?"
"Checking for a fever," he said, "because you just gave in, and said, Why argue? You have to be sick."
I glared at him now.
He grinned. "That's my grumpy partner; I knew you were in there somewhere."
I fought it, but finally grinned back. "Damn you, let me be in a bad mood for a minute or two."
"I'm your partner. I'm supposed to keep your mood up so you can continue being the biggest, baddest bull in the damn shop. You like knocking stuff off the shelves and letting the pieces fall where they may. You like being the bad-ass, and that rubs people the wrong way. I help rub them the right way."
"You make me sound like a bully."
"No, never that," he said.
"Are you really as good as your reputation?" Brice asked.
I gave him the full attention of my big, brown eyes. "Yes," I said.
"I'd accuse you of bragging, but if half of what I've heard is true..."
"I don't know what you've heard," I said.
"That you have the highest kill count of any Marshal."
"True," I said.
"That you've got some kind of super lycanthropy that makes you faster, stronger, harder to hurt, impossible to kill, but you don't shapeshift."
"Everything but the impossible to kill; I wouldn't bet my life on that rumor," I said.
"That you're a living vampire."
I shrugged. "Not sure what to say to that one. I don't drink the blood of the living, if that's what you mean."
"How about the blood of the dead?" he asked.
Zerbrowski and I both stared at him. "Are you serious?" I asked.
He nodded. "Rumor says that you feed off vampires the way they feed off us."
I shook my head. "Not true."
"That you're some kind of succubus and feed off sex with vampires."
"I hadn't heard that one," I said, and it was true I hadn't. I'd heard that I was accused of feeding off sex, but not that my "victims" were exclusively vampires. I was really trying to never admit out loud that I actually did feed on sex, thanks to sharing Jean-Claude's ardeur, which translated roughly to fire, passion, and was the blood right, extra-special gift of the bloodline of vampires descended from Belle Morte, Beautiful Death.
"I take it that's not true either."
I was giving him blank cop face, because I'd known that one was coming and it was almost true, except that I could feed off sex in general; it didn't have to be with vampires. "Let's cut to the chase," I said. "Sum up the rumors, I'm bored with the list."
"That your ability to raise zombies from the grave gives you an edge with all the undead, including vampires. That being a shapeshifter that doesn't shift gives you the best of being human and animal. That the reason you're better than the rest of us is that you're better than any human could ever be, and stay human."
"I'm sensing a theme," I said to Zerbrowski.
"Don't say it," he said.
"I'm better at killing the monsters, because I'm one of them, is that it?"
"I never said that."
"But that's what some of the others are saying, right?" I asked.
He sort of shrugged, and looked uncomfortable.
"Remember that some of the people saying that are jealous of my success rate, and others are just plain jealous like Arnet."
"Some of them are scared, Blake," he said.
"Scared of me," I said, and I pushed my food away. I was so done.
"Not of you, of becoming you. They're afraid that the only way to get as good as you is to become like you."
"You mean become one of the monsters," I said.
"You were on the case where Marshal Laila Karlton caught lycanthropy."
"Yes." It had been Laila's first vampire hunt, and it could have been her last. She survived the werewolf attack, but she became one of them.
"She fought for her badge, and she's still a Marshal. She's the first one who was ever allowed to stay after they shifted."
"I was the first they let stay who tested positive," I said.
"But you don't change form," he said.
"There is that."
"Some people say you encouraged her to fight for her job."
"It could have happened to any of us, Brice. The only reason I'm not in the same boat is that I don't change forms."
"That's why she still has a badge, because it could be any of us next. They're afraid if she sues that she'll win. Right now she's riding a desk, but if they put her in the field again, then that opens the way for people who are already wereanimals to try to join up."
I nodded. "I think it's a great idea. I know some ex-cops and military people who are only ex- because they got attacked on the job and that's an instant medical discharge."
He looked at me, and then at Zerbrowski. "Would you partner with someone who shifted completely?"
"If it were Anita, sure."
Brice looked at his plate; there wasn't much left of his food. He ate like a lot of male cops, like he was inhaling. "Just how good are you, Blake?"
I glanced at Zerbrowski. He used his hands to make a little tell-him gesture, like an usher uses to guide people to their seats, but what was I guiding Brice to: the truth, a lie, what?
"I'm a good cop, if you don't make me follow orders too closely."
Zerbrowski laughed into his water.
I didn't bother frowning at him. "But when it comes to killing, it's one of my best things, and my best is very, very good."
"Anyone else I might accuse of bragging, but it's not bragging if it's true," Brice said.
"She's not bragging," Zerbrowski said.
I glanced at him. We exchanged one of those long looks that men are so fond of, and most women are puzzled by - the one that said everything we needed to say about working together, being friends, holding each other's lives in our hands. I had literally held his internal organs inside his body after a shapeshifted and very non-Wiccan witch had gutted him. When you've literally held someone's life in your hands, it's more than the word friend can hold, but a look, one look can hold it all.
"Then I want to learn how to hunt monsters from you, not Kirkland."
"You can tag along some of the time," I said.
"Sure," Zerbrowski said, "the more the merrier."
"Now, how do I keep Arnet from obsessing about dating me?"
I shook my head. "I have no idea."
Zerbrowski said, "I only ever understood one woman, and she was kind enough to marry me so I didn't have to decipher anyone else."
Brice nodded. "Fair enough." Then he smiled that lopsided charming smile, and it blossomed into a grin. His teeth were white and even like a commercial for dental care. He was strangely perfect in a down-home sort of way. "I'll date Arnet, and see if that takes the heat off you and your men."
"Won't that make her obsess about you, which you were trying to avoid?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I'll date her and a few others. I can date around for a few months and sometimes by then I've been moved to another state, but maybe Arnet will get jealous enough that I'll have to swear off dating anyone at work, and then it will be her fault, not mine."
"Not a bad idea," I said.
"And maybe it will stop her obsessing about your Nathaniel, and the rest of your men."
"You volunteering to take one for the team?" I asked.
He gave me that smile of his.
"You know the smile doesn't work on me, right?"
The smile faltered around the edges, which let me know he knew just how charming it was to have it aimed at someone. "Sorry, I'll remember not to waste smiles on you."
That made me smile and Zerbrowski shake his head. "You just can't help but try to flirt with women, can you?" Zerbrowski asked.