Read Online [Anita Blake Collection] - Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

pregnant?” She lowered her mask to hang like a necklace. “My God, do you realize we’ve just seen the first birth of a lake monster ever?” Her voice held that hushed awe that you reserve for cathedrals and hospitals.
    I held my bleeding hand up out of the water and didn’t know quite how to feel. Irving was dead, and the way he died was awful, but I had held a newborn monster in my arms. I would have the scars to prove that. Even if we couldn’t find the baby to get pictures, the bite radius would prove how small it was. I laughed then, spitting out my regulator. Sometimes I think I’ve been around Susan too long. It hadn’t even occurred to her yet that I was hurt.
    Something else had occurred to her, though. She turned in the black water, looking toward shore. The humor, the awe had left her face. Her face was stiff and pale with anger, eyes like black holes.
    â€œSusan,” I said, reaching out to her, trying to touch her shoulder. She moved out of reach, with a smooth flow of ripples. “Susan, what are you going to do?”
    She turned onto her back as much as the air tanks would allow, kicking backward. “I’m going to hurt them.”
    â€œYou can’t do that,” I said.
    â€œWatch me.”
    I started paddling after her, but she was going to get to shore first. My adrenaline rush was over: Irving’s death, the birth, and the bite wound. Blood was running down my hand, and with the blood, pain. I was tired. Susan was still running on rage.
    She was sitting down in the shallows taking off her flippers. Priscilla, the other junior ranger, moved over to help Susan take off the tanks.
    Priscilla towered over Susan, heck, she towers over me. Priscilla is six foot one and has the strength to match the size.
    Susan was free of the tanks and going toward the prisoners. I yelled, “Stop her!”
    Priscilla looked toward me, but didn’t move.
    â€œStop her! Susan!”
    Priscilla laid the tanks on the ground and moved toward my wife.
    I lay panting in the shallows, struggling one-handed to get out of my diving gear. The shot echoed, loud enough to make me jump. I twisted around, one flipper on and one off.
    Susan had Jordan’s rifle. She was pointing it at the two men. Another shot rang out, and the men started screaming. She was shooting into the ground, right next to them.
    Jordan was trying to talk to her, but she motioned him away with the rifle.
    Priscilla knelt beside me in the water, undoing the last strap of my equipment. “Talk to her, Mike. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
    I nodded, shrugged out of the buoyancy vest, and walked toward Susan. She was firing into the ground, in a pattern around them. So far, I don’t think she had hit either of them, but only skill and plain luck had saved them. Luck would run out. Part of me wanted them bleeding, hurt. Maybe we could hang their dead bodies near the entrance to the park with a sign: “These Men Killed One of Our Animals.” Yeah, maybe that would convince the tourists to behave.
    â€œSusan, give the rifle back to Jordan.”
    â€œThey killed him, Mike. They killed Irving.”
    â€œI know.”
    One of the men said, “She’s crazy.”
    â€œShut up,” Susan said.
    â€œI’d do what she says, mister,” I said.
    The man huddled against his companion. Both of them looked white in the moonlight. They stank of beer and urine.
    â€œThey slaughtered him,” Susan said.
    â€œGive me the rifle, Susan, please.”
    â€œWhat’s going to happen to them? If I don’t hurt them, what will the law do?”
    â€œA hundred-thousand-dollar fine, or a mandatory ten-year prison sentence.”
    â€œDo either of you have a hundred thousand dollars?” she asked.
    The men looked at each other, then at me. “Answer her,” I said.
    â€œHell, no. We haven’t got that kind of money.”
    â€œSusan gave a thin, tight