Last Impressions (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (5 page)

Batten narrowed his eyes and strode across the kitchen to take another beer out of the fridge. I very pointedly did not check out his
ass and the broad spread of his shoulders as he did so. His
flamboyant shirt was doing wonders for my self-control.

“I once tracked you down using nothing more than a spork, a
bowl of chili, and some fancy words, pal. I’m capable of some
freaky-
ass shit. Might wanna keep that in mind.” I gave him my best
warning point. “I’m on vacation, too, so don’t drop dead fish into my pool of light and goodness.”

He exhaled long and steady through his mouth, rolled one shoulder like the tension was causing him pain, and repeated, “Vacation.”

“Does it bother you that much?” I asked.

“That you’re a walking disaster?” He sighed, returning to his chair. “I try to work through the pain.”

“Va-ca-tion,” I said, monitoring the tension disappearing around his eyes, the way his shoulders were softening. He might be null to my empathic Talents, but I could see the fight leaving him.
Mission accomplished.
“And hey, how about not taking this out on me? It’s not my fau—Well, it’s not
all
my fault.”

He just stared at me. There was a long moment of silence, during which our unspoken words played back and forth in twitches around the eyes and lip tension. He opened his mouth, and I was sure I was about to get a second dressing-down, when the front door opened with a hard gust of winter air, accompanied by Harry’s haughty, vexed gasp.

“'Tis frigid as the depths of — oh!” Harry had one arm out of his overcoat when he spotted Batten at the kitchen table, and the sight stopped him cold. “Oh, my
God
, Magnum.” His Higgins impression was, of course, impeccable. The worry in his cashmere grey eyes shifted to abrupt delight.

“Hullo, Harry,” I greeted, instantly cheered by the influx of his amusement, which spilled through our Bond like a cascade of fresh fruit in an oversaturated produce commercial. He, in turn, was warmed by the presence of his DaySitter, and the pleasure of this caused delight to pinball through us both.

“Good evening, ducky. Fully clothed, I see? Could it be that your
elastics are working?” Harry smirked and ignored my desperate
attempt to shush him with the power of panic-wide eyes. “Bully for you. If you don’t mind terribly, you might tear yourself away from your verbal sparring and foreplay to attend to a small matter at the door, my chirping cricket.”

Hmmm.
A noisy insect. Not the best compliment, but a lot better than what I was getting from Kill-Notch, so I’d take it. I lifted from my seat and went to the hall. Upon hearing Harry’s voice, Bob the Cat hurried from the office with an excited
brrrrip
; I had to do some nifty footwork to dodge the furry missile underfoot. Harry finished removing his coat, hung it on the coat rack, took a moment to brush
a speck of lint off the tweed, then bent to scoop the kitty up and
cradle him like a baby. Bob attempted to purr and nibble Harry's caressing fingertips simultaneously. I couldn't blame him; that was always a good time.

“Your invitations are needed, love,” Harry said.

He wore one of his many impeccable dark suits, looking like he’d just arrived home from the Oscars but for the smudge of road grit on one knee. I looked past his dark shoulder at the front door, propped open to the cold night. Two unhappy paramedics waited with an unzipped black body bag on a stretcher. An ambulance sat
quietly in the yard behind them. The dark-haired paramedic
couldn’t meet my eyes. The other, a blond with a tight military buzz cut and tighter lips, had a glare that was sliding from
hurry-the-hell-up
to
get-me-out-of-here.

“Oh, Harry.” My shoulders fell. “I hate when you bring work home.”

Harry’s chin lifted, and he wiggled some fingertips at me as if to
show me how clean they were. “I am a gentleman, young lady; this is the first night I’ve had to work in three centuries. Besides, this
began as
your
work, not mine.”

I whispered, “Tell me there’s not half a revenant in that bag.”

“Such a fuss you make,” he said. “You have already met our guest-to-be, Krystof Duchoslav, no middle name. Please do get on
with it. I’m certain our medic friends would like to flee as soon as
possible.” I opened my mouth to argue and Harry cut me off,
prompting, “Krystof Duchoslav, you are…?”

“Yes, I know how it goes,” I snapped. “What do you suggest we
do
with him?”

“Wesley will care for Mr. Duchoslav during his recovery from
this terrible incident,” Harry scolded, as though I were suggesting we dump him out back in the lake to sink or swim. “It will take your brother’s mind off his own injury.”

“I—it’s just…” I floundered, and finally settled on, “Krystof
Duchoslav, you are welcome in my home.”

“Very nice, ducky.” Harry turned on the medics suddenly, who flinched at his eye-blurring speed. “Gentlemen, if you will kindly follow me into the basement.”

Both paramedics stalled, and the Blue Sense opened to reveal a quiver of uncertainty tilting toward perfectly normal mortal fear. I’m sure that was Harry’s intention, and from the amused twinkle in his
eye, he was enjoying toying with them. Harry stroked the kitten’s
fuzzy belly and swept past me with a wink, Oxfords padding linoleum softly, leaving a lemony waft of 4711 cologne in his wake.

I waved the paramedics in with a smile. “It’s okay, he’s just teasing; he won’t hurt you,” I assured them. “Thank you for bringing
Mr.
Duchoslav to Marnie’s All Night Vamp Camp
cum
Blood and
Breakfast. I promise I almost never get people killed.” The Blue Sense reported that the humor wasn’t working. I spread my gloved hands as if to say
no-weapons-for-realsies
, although I’m sure it wasn’t me making them wary. “If it makes you feel safer, the guy at my kitchen table who looks like he’s auditioning for a porn reboot of
Magnum P.I.
is actually an FBI agent and vampire hunter.”

The glaring blond in the rear got impatient and shoved the stretcher forward, bumping the guy who still wouldn’t look at me.
Once in motion, they didn’t slow down. They hauled the stretcher past me into the pantry, where the door to Harry’s basement bedchamber was, and while they clattered down the stairs, pausing to lift the stretcher higher, and I returned to the kitchen to stare down Batten.

 He smirked around the mouth of his beer bottle, not bothering to hide his amusement.

“Don’t even say a word,” I warned him. “I want to hear
no words
coming out of your blurt-hole right now, Pornstache
McFucknoodle.”

He shrugged mutely, but his smile grew. He drank, smacked his lips with satisfaction, and put the second bottle down next to his
empty. He was silent through the exodus of men from the cellar.
Ever the psychic null for me, he gave away no hints of his feelings, but I didn’t need any psychic Talents to pick up how hilarious he thought
this development was. Apparently, I was running a hospice for
wounded
dead guys. Agent de Cabrera would encourage me to see the
positives. I took a second to scrounge for some positivity. I came up with
tax break for turning half my cabin into a mortuary
and
I certainly won’t be lonely at night,
and gave myself two points for effort
.

“My heavens, Mr. Batten,” Harry exclaimed upon returning. “Firstly, I’ll thank you to remove that valise of murder and mayhem from my nice, clean table.” He stroked the cat’s belly then indicated with the same elegant brush of his hand at Batten’s hunting kit and his mustache. “Secondly, this follicular mockery of masculinity absolutely must not stand.”

“I’ve been telling him it looks ridiculous,” I said, reclaiming my
seat. I needed some espresso and a cookie, but no longer had the
energy to fetch either. “Short of that, I can’t do anything about it.”

“Nake the blade, Dearheart,” Harry advised, his solemnity negated somewhat by the subsequent diddling with Bobcat’s air-paddling paws, “and your agent shall pay the healsfang for his transgressions.”

“Totally what I was planning next.” I nodded. “What does it mean?”

“Never you mind. There is too much on the line here to entrust it to the likes of you. I’ll play the scaredevil for you, shall I?”

I shifted my squint from Harry to Batten uncertainly. “Are we still talking about Batten’s face?”

Harry huffed his displeasure at me.

“Harry, your upper lip!”

His pale hand flew to it.

“Dear God, man, it’s not stiff!” I teased.

“My cherub, I am an Englishman,” he chided, setting the kitten down. “Stiffness is not hard to come by.”

“Too many jokes,” I choked, clutching the edge of the table. “Must…resist…”

Harry touched my hair as he passed me on his way to the
espresso machine, and gave me a gentle pat. A push of his tolerant sarcasm licked at me through the Bond. “Oh, how your comedy does share the bite of the Silver Maiden, my goose. Ripping good stuff.”

I shrugged. “It was the best I could do this late.”

“Should you require additional caffeine by cock-shut time, it is certainly not occasioned by any sort of neglect on my part.” When I opened my mouth to comment on
cock-shut
, he placed a single finger to his lips and shook his head. “Nevertheless, I shall be pleased to attend your needs whilst you explain this tomfoolery to me. Why is there a scruffy-lipped jingle-brains sitting at my kitchen table with murder in his gaze?”

“Why is there a badly wounded revenant in my basement?” I volleyed.

“Mr. Duchoslav lives without a DaySitter, love. Would you have
me leave him to the ministrations of the sun?” Harry’s voice
softened. “We may find that it would have been a kinder fate, in the end, to let him cast a final shadow, but your good sheriff said that you insisted quite fixedly upon saving Mr. Duchoslav, if possible. Only, I wonder
if that was before you thought the life-saving might inconvenience
you.”

The worm of guilt squirmed in my belly; there wasn’t any reply I could give that wouldn’t make me sound like a total jerk, and Harry knew it.

“Observe, won’t you, Mr. Batten, the generosity of my
companion.
A genuine angel of mercy,” Harry declared with satisfaction, and I
knew the matter had been settled. Duchoslav was here until he
recovered,
or didn’t. “Now, kindly explain this situation.” Harry aimed a
finicky
grimace at Batten. “Shruff and cinders, it’s enough to curl one’s
liver.”

Batten looked at me for a translation. I mouthed
curl one’s liver?
with a baffled shrug.

“The PCU is on forced vacation, Harry. As you can see,” I shook a leather-gloved thumb at Kill-Notch’s wild shirt and hairy mouth. “Batten’s more vacated than I am.”

Harry’s thrice-pierced eyebrow inquired for him while he
whisked the cinnamon duster from the cupboard and pulled fresh espresso into my demitasse cup. While Batten tucked his kit under his chair, I
gave Harry a brief and fairly defensive explanation of Assistant
Director Johnston’s concerns and the investigation of Internal
Affairs, which
degenerated quickly into F-bombs and enthusiastic arm-waving,
with a
moistly vigorous raspberry as an exclamation point. Batten and
Harry
exchanged a quiet moment of barely tolerant eye contact, during
which they came to some agreement.

“She has no idea how broken she is, does she?” Batten asked Harry.

“Yes, I do,” I shot back.

“One might suggest that it is her absolute lack of self-awareness which provides the comic fodder,” Harry said, placing the newly-filled mug in my hand.

“I’m agreeing with a vampire,” Batten said, casually dropping the V-word again and helping himself to yet another beer. “There’s a first time for everything.” He tipped the beer toward Harry, who put one hand up to refuse the offer.

“Thank you, no.” His eyes shifted subtly from cashmere grey to chrome and he eyeballed my throat. “I prefer a warmer libation.”

Batten took his seat with a thud and a wince.

“Don’t taunt the vampire hunter, Harry,” I said. “We were all getting along so nicely.”

“Do forgive my behavior, Mr. Batten. How ungentlemanly of me,” he said without a trace of sincerity. “Now, dearest chickadee, I trust you had the opportunity to conclude your romantic pursuits to a satisfactory end?”

I froze, wide-eyed, with my espresso at my mouth, and when I tried to answer it came out as, “
Erp
.”

Batten cut his stormy blue eyes at me. Was it my imagination, or were they twinkling? “A date?” One corner of his lips twitched. “With a man?”

I mumbled something to Harry about it being cut short, but he shushed me and leaned bodily toward Batten to report his gossip in an eager, conspiratorial rush.

“Not a man. A
lawyer
.”

Batten choked on his beer and had to put the bottle down to wipe foam off his retina-injuring Hawaiian shirt.

Harry agreed with Batten’s unspoken assessment with a curt
nod. “A solicitor,” he repeated. “Bezonter me! Who could have imagined a bootless jackleg sporting ivory at my darling minion over oysters?”

“Bootless jackleg?” Batten said, looking at me for translation.

I shrugged and added, “Sporting ivory?” to our mutual
need-to-know
list. I thought that might be a dick joke, but Binswanger hadn't been sporting anything elephantine as far as I'd been able to spot, except for his ego.

“A lawyer,” Harry huffed again, in no mood to fill us in. “Which of course renders him unsuitable to kiss a whore, never mind my precious DaySitter.”