Anita Blake 24 - Dead Ice
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Authors: Laurell K. Hamilton
Copyright © 2015 Laurell K. Hamilton
The right of Laurell K. Hamilton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in the United States of America in 2015 by
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
This Ebook edition was first published by Headline Publishing Group in 2015
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 0 7553 8909 4
Jacket photograph © Clayton Bastiani/Trevillion Images
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Contents
© Stefan Hester
Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Novels. She lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish. She invites you to visit her website at
www.laurellkhamilton.org
.
‘Hamilton remains one of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field’ Charlaine Harris
‘Anita Blake is one of the most fascinating fictional heroines since Scarlett O’Hara’
Publishers Weekly
‘What
The Da Vinci Code
did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel’
USA Today
‘Wildly popular’
Entertainment Weekly
‘Hamilton’s complex, enthralling world is utterly absorbing’
Booklist
‘A hardcore guilty pleasure’
The Times
‘Always very, very sexy and exciting’
Dreamwatch
‘This fast-paced, tough-edged supernatural thriller is mesmerizing reading indeed’
Locus
‘The action never stops’
The New York Review of Science Fiction
‘Supernatural bad guys beware, night-prowling Anita Blake is savvy, sassy and tough’ P N Elrod
‘I was enthralled by a departure from the usual type of vampire tale’ Andre Norton
‘A real rush . . . a heady mix of romance and horror’ Jayne Ann Krentz
My name is Anita Blake and I have the highest kill count of any vampire executioner in the country. I’m a U.S. Marshal who can raise zombies with the best of them. But ever since master vampire Jean-Claude and I went public with our engagement, all I am to anyone and everyone is Jean-Claude’s fiancée.
It’s wreaking havoc with my reputation as a hard ass – to some extent. Luckily, in professional circles, I’m still the go-to expert for zombie issues. And right now, the FBI is having one hell of a zombie issue.
Someone is producing zombie porn. I’ve seen my share of freaky undead fetishes, so this shouldn’t bother me. But the women being victimised aren’t just mindless, rotting corpses. Their souls are trapped behind their eyes, signalling voodoo of the blackest kind.
It’s the sort of case that can leave a mark on a person. And my own soul may not survive unscathed . . .
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Novels
GUILTY PLEASURES
THE LAUGHING CORPSE
CIRCUS OF THE DAMNED
THE LUNATIC CAFE
BLOODY BONES
THE KILLING DANCE
BURNT OFFERINGS
BLUE MOON
OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY
NARCISSUS IN CHAINS
CERULEAN SINS
INCUBUS DREAMS
MICAH and STRANGE CANDY
DANSE MACABRE
THE HARLEQUIN
BLOOD NOIR
SKIN TRADE
FLIRT
BULLET
HIT LIST
KISS THE DEAD
AFFLICTION
JASON
DEAD ICE
eSpecials
BEAUTY
DANCING
I could not be with someone who did not understand my darkness
as deeply as they understand my light,
for one without the other is only half of me,
and if you love me, love all of me, or love me not at all.
To Jonathon, my husband,
who loves all of me, as I love all of him.
To Genevieve, our lady love, and her husband, Spike,
two other walkers in the darkness of the light,
who have joined us on this journey
to find ourselves and each other.
To Shawn, who has been a constant in my life, as I have been in his—friendship forged in fire, loss, and laughter. To Jessica, who taught me competency is a superpower! Will, who helps with research, and answers odd questions without thinking them odd. They saw a book from inception to completion for the first time. Welcome to the literary salt mines. Sherry who feels she has allies at last in the battle to organize a house full of artists. Mary, my mother-in-law, whom we love. To the Word Posse—my writer’s groups new venture. I hope it makes all your dreams come true! And last, but not least, to Sasquatch, who sits by my side as I write, and has sat with me through many a long night for fourteen years. To Keiko and Mordor, who have been sitting at my side for only a couple of years, new furry muses to help me write.
Thanks to Peter Orca for the title
Dead Ice
, and to Isis Maria Hess for naming the jewelry store creating Anita and Jean-Claude’s rings: Étoile du Soir, or “Evening Star.”
And for Susan Allison, my editor for over a decade. She was able to retire early and I’m happy for her, but sad that this is the last book she will be ferrying through for me. Enjoy the horses, dog(s), your husband, and yourself, as you embark on the next great adventure.
“S
O, YOU’RE ENGAGED,”
Special Agent Brenda Manning said. She wore a black pantsuit with a heavy belt that could wrap around her waist and hold the gun at her side. She was FBI and didn’t have to worry about concealed carry, so the fact that her gun flashed when her suit jacket flared out, which was every time she moved, wasn’t an issue. The gun looked very stark against her white button-down shirt.
“Yep,” I said. My own gun was at the small of my back, underneath a suit jacket made to hide the gun from the clients at my other job. I’d also started getting belt loops added to my skirts so I could wear a belt that could stand up to the weight of a gun and holster. I’d come straight from Animators Inc., where the motto was “Where the Living Raise the Dead for a Killing.” Bert, our business manager, didn’t believe in hiding the fact that raising the dead was a rare talent, and you paid for talent. But lately my job as a U.S. Marshal for the Preternatural Branch had been taking more and more of my time. Like today.
The other very special agent, Mark Brent, tall, thin, and looking barely old enough to be out of college, was bent over the portable computer they’d brought with them, which was sitting on the room’s only desk. He was dressed in a suit almost identical to Manning’s except his was brown to match his holster, but his gun was still a black bump, stark against his white shirt. We were in the office of our head honcho, Lieutenant Rudolph Storr. Dolph was currently somewhere else, which left me alone with the FBI and Sergeant Zerbrowski. I wasn’t sure which was more dangerous to my peace of mind, but I knew Zerbrowski would mouth off more. He was my partner, my friend; he was entitled. I’d just met Special Agent Manning, and I didn’t owe her my life story.
“The article I read made the proposal sound amazing, like something out of a fairy tale,” Manning said. She smoothed her shoulder-length hair back behind one ear and it stayed put, because it was straight as a board. My own curls would never have behaved that well.
I fought the urge to sigh. If you’re a cop and a woman, never date a celebrity; it ruins your reputation for being a hardass. I was a U.S. Marshal, but ever since we’d gone public with our engagement I’d become Jean-Claude’s fiancée, not Marshal Blake, to most of the women I met, and a lot of the men. I’d really had hopes that the FBI would be above such things in the middle of crime-fighting, but apparently not.