"07 - Burnt Offerings 4.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

"Hey, don't get grumpy at me."
I sighed. "Sorry." Larry was slowly wearing me down on my aggression threshold.
He was, by sheer repetition, teaching me to be nicer. Anybody else and I would
have fed them their head in a basket. But Larry managed to push my buttons just
right. He could caution me to be nicer and I didn't slug him. The basis of many
a successful relationship.
We were only minutes from Larry's apartment. I'd tuck him into bed and answer
the call. If it wasn't the police or a zombie-raising, I was going to be pissed.
I hated being beeped when it wasn't important. That's what beepers are for,
right? If it wasn't important stuff, I was going to rain all over somebody's
parade. With Larry asleep, I could be as nasty as I wanted to be. It was almost
a relief.




Chapter 3



When Larry was safely tucked in bed with his Demorol, so deeply asleep that
nothing short of an earthquake would have woken him, I made my phone call. I
still didn't have the faintest idea who it was, which bothered me. It wasn't
just inconvenient, it was unnerving. Who was giving out my private numbers and
why?
The phone didn't even finish a ring before it was picked up. The voice on the
other end was male, soft, and panicked. "Hello, hello."
All my irritation vanished in a wash of something very close to fear. "Stephen,
what's wrong?"
I heard him swallow on his end of the phone. "Thank God."
"What's happened?" I made my voice very clear, very calm, because I wanted to
yell at him, to force him to tell me what the hell was going on.
"Can you come down to St. Louis University Hospital?"
That got my attention. "How bad are you hurt?"
"It's not me."
My heart slid up into my throat, and my voice came out squeezed and tight.
"Jean-Claude." The moment I said it, I knew it was silly. It was just after
noon. If Jean-Claude had needed a doctor, they would have had to come to him.
Vampires did not travel well in broad daylight. Why was I so worried about a
vampire? I happened to be dating him. My family, devout Catholics, are simply
thrilled. Since I'm still a little embarrassed about it, it's hard to defend
myself.
"It's not Jean-Claude. It's Nathaniel."
"Who?"
Stephen's breath went out in a long-suffering sigh. "He was one of Gabriel's
people."
Which was another way of saying he was a wereleopard. Gabriel had been the
leopards' leader, their alpha, until I killed him. Why had I killed him? Most of
the wounds he'd given me had healed. It was one of the benefits of the vampire
marks. I didn't scar quite so easily anymore. But there was a curl of scars high