03 Circus of the Damned Anita Blake

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The radio clock beside the bed read 2:00 P.M. I'd been asleep for ten hours. I should have felt better,
but I didn't. It was as if I'd been running from nightmare to nightmare, and hadn't really gotten to rest. The
only dream I remembered was the last one. If they had all been that bad, I didn't want to remember the
rest.
Why was Jean-Claude haunting my dreams again? He'd given his word, but maybe his word wasn't
worth anything. Maybe.
I stripped in front of the bathroom mirror. My ribs and stomach were covered in deep, nearly purple
bruises. My chest was tight when I breathed, but nothing was broken. The burn on my chest was raw,
the skin blackened where it wasn't covered in blisters. A burn hurts all the way down, as if the pain
burrows from the skin down to the bone. A burn is the only injury where I am convinced I have nerve
endings below skin level. How could it hurt so damn bad, otherwise?
I was meeting Ronnie at the health club at three. Ronnie was short for Veronica. She said it helped her
get more work as a private detective if people assumed she was male. Sad but true. We would lift
weights and jog. I slipped a black sports bra very carefully over the burn. The elastic pressed in on the
bruises, but everything else was okay. I rubbed the burn with antiseptic cream and taped a piece of gauze
over it. A man's red t-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut out went over everything else. Black biker
pants, jogging socks with a thin red stripe, and black Nike Airs completed the outfit.
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The t-shirt showed the gauze, but it hid the bruises. Most of the regulars at the health club were
accustomed to my coming in bruised or worse. They didn't ask a lot of questions anymore. Ronnie says I
was grumpy at them. Fine with me. I like to be left alone.
I had my coat on, gym bag in hand, when the phone rang. I debated but finally picked it up. "Talk to
me," I said.
"It's Dolph."
My stomach tightened. Was it another murder? "What's up, Dolph?"
"We got an ID on the John Doe you looked at."
"The vampire victim?"
"Yeah."
I let out the breath I'd been holding. No more murders, and we were making progress; what could be
better?
"Calvin Barnabas Rupert, friends called him Cal. Twenty-six years old, married to Denise Smythe
Rupert for four years. No children. He was an insurance broker. We haven't been able to turn up any ties
with the vampire community."
"Maybe Mr. Rupert was just in the right place at the wrong time."
"Random violence?" He made it a question.
"Maybe."
"If it was random, we got no pattern, nothing to look at."
"So you're wondering if I can find out if Cal Rupert had any ties to the monsters?"
"Yes," he said.
I sighed. "I'll try. Is that it? I'm late for an appointment."
"That's it. Call me if you find out anything." His voice sounded positively grim.
"You'd tell me if you found another body, wouldn't you?"
He gave a snort of laughter. "Make you come down and measure the damn bites, yeah. Why?"
"Your voice sounds grim."
The laughter dribbled out of his voice. "You're the one who said there'd be more bodies. You changed
your mind on that?"
I wanted to say, yes, I've changed my mind, but I didn't. "If there is a pack of rogue vampires, we'll be
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seeing more bodies."
"Can you think of anything else it could be besides vampires?" he asked.
I thought about it for a minute, and shook my head. "Not a damn thing."
"Fine, talk to you later." The phone buzzed dead in my hand before I could say anything. Dolph wasn't
much on hello and good-bye.
I had my back-up gun, a Firestar 9mm, in the pocket of my jacket. There was just no way to wear a
holster in exercise clothes. The Firestar only held eight bullets to the Browning's thirteen, but the
Browning tended to stick out of my pocket and make people stare. Besides, if I couldn't get the bad guys
with eight bullets, another five probably wouldn't help. Of course, there was an extra clip in the zipper
pocket of my gym bag. A girl couldn't be too cautious in these crime-ridden times.
12
Ronnie and I were doing power circuits at Vic Tanny's. There were two full sets of machines and no
waiting at 3:14 on a Thursday afternoon. I was doing the Hip Abduction/Hip Adduction machine. You
pulled a lever on the side and the machine went to different positions. The Hip Adduction position looked
vaguely obscene, like a gynecological torture device. It was one of the reasons I never wore shorts when
we lifted weights. Ronnie either.
I was concentrating on pressing my thighs together without making the weights clink. Weights clinking
means you're not controlling the exercise, or it means you're working with too much weight. I was using
sixty pounds. It wasn't too heavy.
Ronnie lay on her stomach using the Leg Curl, flexing her calves over her back, heels nearly touching her
butt. The muscles under her calves bunched and coiled under her skin. Neither of us is bulky, but we're
solid. Think Linda Hamilton inTerminator 2 .
Ronnie finished before I did and paced around the machines waiting for me. I let the weights ease back
with only the slightest clink. It's okay to clink the weights when you're finished.
We eased out from the machines and started running on the oval track. The track was bordered by a
glass wall that showed the blue pool. A lone man was doing laps in goggles and a black bathing cap. The
other side was bordered by the free weight room and the aerobics studio. The ends of the track were
mirrored so you could always see yourself running face on. On bad days I could have done without
watching myself; on good days it was kind of fun. A way to make sure your stride was even, arms
pumping.
I told Ronnie about the vampire victim as we ran. Which meant we weren't running fast enough. I
increased my pace and could still talk. When you routinely do four miles outside in the St. Louis heat, the
padded track at Vic Tanny is just not that big a challenge. We did two laps and went back to the
machines.
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"What did you say the victim's name was again?" She sounded normal, no strain. I increased our pace to
a flat-out run. All talking ceased.
Arm machines this time. Regular Pull-over for me, Overhead Press for Ronnie, then two laps of the
track, then trade machines.
When I could talk, I answered her question. "Calvin Rupert," I said. I did twelve pullovers with 100
pounds. Of all the machines, this one is easiest for me. Weird, huh?
"Cal Rupert?" she asked.
"That's what his friends called him," I said, "Why?"
She shook her head. "I know a Cal Rupert."
I watched her and let my body do the exercise without me. I was holding my breath, which is bad. I
remembered to breathe and said, "Tell me."
"When I was asking questions around Humans Against Vampires during that rash of vampire deaths. Cal
Rupert belonged to HAV."
"Describe him for me."
"Blond, blue or grey eyes, not too tall, well built, attractive."
There might be more than one Cal Rupert in St. Louis, but what were the odds that they'd look that
much alike? "I'll have Dolph check it out, but if he was a member of HAV, it might mean the vampire kill
was an execution."
"What do you mean?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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