Mercy Killing
By Eve B Hart
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Disclaimer: All characters that are not from the Anita Blake series belong to me, while those that do belong to Laurell K. Hamilton.

Chapter One
“I can’t wait to meet your first wife.”
A hand came up and connected with the back of my head. “Another comment like that, Mercy, and-"
“Sorry, sorry. You’re right. I just need to get it out of my system.” I hesitated. “One more?”
“No.” The one word was very cold.
“Fine,” I acquiesced.
My father was getting married. I didn’t want him to marry her. From what I’d heard, she was way too innocent, too hearts-and-flowers-and-butterflies, too optimistic for me to like her. I would get stepsiblings, a brother and sister, and two dogs with the most horrific names on the planet: Peeka and Boo. I had wondered vaguely, when I’d first heard their names, if they thought that Donna Parnell was as much of an idiot as I did.
I sighed and leaned back on the couch, crossing my arms and putting my feet up on the coffee table. Van Cleef looked up at me from his desk, gray eyes appraising me with disapproval.
“Feet off the coffee table, Genovese.”
I frowned indignantly, but put my feet back on the floor. See, I could follow orders like a good little soldier. Mentally, I added ‘yes, sir’ in the most sarcastic tone I could manage.
“How long does she have?” Dad asked.
“Two weeks furlough. I want her back on the thirteenth.” Van Cleef finished penning his signature on all of my release forms. Dad stood, and I followed suit. Van Cleef handed him the papers. “Take her to the shooting range when you can. I don’t want my star pupil forgetting how to pull the trigger.”
No fear of that. I hated it when he called me his star pupil. Most seventeen year-olds would relish the title from their teacher, but being Van Cleef’s ‘star pupil’ meant that I had more kills than anyone else in my year. Just another reminded that I am my father’s daughter.
We left Van Cleef’s office for the empty halls of the compound. The air conditioner had cooled the corridors to the high fifties, and I was suddenly glad that I had remembered my leather jacket, since I was wearing my red tank top. A few rooms behind us, a door opened.
“Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack,” Mark Avery’s voice mimicked the sound of my boot heels on the white-tiled floor.
“Dad?”
“Go ahead,” he said, stopping. “But no bloodletting, or Van Cleef’s not going to let you go.”
I gave a curt nod and turned around. Avery’s hand suddenly held a switchblade, and I wasn’t about to get cut up because he was being immature. I sighed, turned back around, and continued walking. Dad didn’t say anything, but then again, I hadn’t expected him to – he understood my actions and motives without even needing to ask.
“I don’t have to spend a lot of time with her, do I?”
Anger flashed through my father’s eyes. “Mercy.”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.”

_*_*_*_*_

I liked Donna Parnell even less when I met her. I wanted to pull out my knife and slice up that smiling face. Bitch. As puerile as it may sound, I wanted my mother.
“I’m not in the wedding, am I?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“I am!” Becca announced proudly. “I get to be the flower girl.” Becca was too cute for me. At six years old, she was Shirley Temple without the curls, and she annoyed the hell out of me.
Peter, on the other hand, was not so bad. He didn’t mind my dad now, though he used to, but he was still sullen about the wedding. Nice to know I wasn’t the only one gunning for this marriage.
“Why don’t you want to be in the wedding?” Donna asked me.
The five of us sat at the kitchen table for a dinner of fried chicken. A pan of peach cobbler cooled on the stove. This was too homey for me – I was used to a dining hall with a hundred and fifty others, and fighting off rivals with my steak knife.
“I don’t like messing with matrimonial procedures. The more I get involved, it seems, the less marital bliss shared by the bride and groom. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to the wedding, now, would we?” I couldn’t contain the sarcasm from seeping out with every word. A stern expression decorated my father’s face. If he thought it would daunt me, he was sorely mistaken. He knew how much I hated this, and I’d be damned if didn’t get to say something snide.
“Mercy, you and I are going to have a chat tonight,” he said. I’d expected that.
“Now, Ted, don’t be upset with her. It can’t be easy for Mercy. I’m sure we’ll get along well when we know each other better.” She smiled at me, and my hand twitched, aching to pull the knife from my boot.
I smiled back, grinding my teeth. “Yeah, of course, we will.” Dad’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and I shrugged. He switched the topic of the conversation, and I added mentally, When pigs fly.

_*_*_*_*_

After dinner, we went home so that I could unpack. I flipped open my suitcase to find my mother’s face staring at me, smiling with a light in her eyes like she knew something that no one else did. She was looking directly into the camera lens – Dad had once told me that she did it so people in the room felt like her eyes followed them everywhere. She was thirty-one in the picture, a year and a half before she went and got herself killed. We looked remarkably alike – fairly small, high cheekbones, dark olive skin, and wavy dark brunette hair – except for the eyes. Hers were deep brown and warm, while I had Dad’s eyes, a bright and clear ice blue. I was an interesting combination of Nordic and Italian blood that had plenty of people at the academy calling me “half-breed.”
“Mercy.”
I twisted my head around to find Dad in the doorway. His face was blank, devoid of all expression. He had to have seen Mom’s photo – it was pretty much the only time that he was emotionless when we were alone, when we talked about Mom. They’d practically grown up together, gone through hell together. They never got married, but Dad loved her more than anything. It’s no wonder he felt so guilty, since he’s the one who got her killed.
Dad had been hired to take out a kiss of a dozen vampires, all two hundred years old or under. He had two backups – Hershel and Willem – helping him with it. But Hershel got cold feet the night before the actual attack and killed himself, so Dad asked Mom to assist them. Mom had also trained under Van Cleef, but she had stopped being a hit woman when she’d had me. Nevertheless, Dad needed help, and she was going to give it to him. I was eight at the time, so I understood pretty well what was going on. They killed all but two of the vampires, and the pair remaining took my mother captive. About four days later, we found out that she’d been made into one of them. Dad found out where they were, went in, and staked them all, including my mother. I blamed him, but I’d forgiven him, even if he hadn’t.
Dad came to stand beside me. “Think she would have liked Donna?”
I looked up at him and frowned. What kind of question was that? He already knew the answer. “She’d have hated her.”
He nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, too.” He cleared his throat softly and said, “Look, Mercy, I want you to stay over with Donna and the kids.”
Donna and the kids? What, like the kids were his? They weren’t, I was. Me. Had he forgotten that? “I’m not staying over there. I can’t. By the end of the week, I’ll be singing ‘raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.’ Becca will want me for her tea parties, and I keep half-expecting her to launch into Animal Crackers in My Soup. And I suppose that Donna will want to stay up late, eat popcorn, and ‘bond.’ Uh uh, Dad, nothin’ doin’.”
“I notice you don’t expect much aggravation from Peter.”
“Peter hasn’t done anything yet to piss me off. However, Donna and Becca’s mere existence is annoyance enough. I don’t know why you dragged me into this.” I propped my mother’s photograph up on the bureau and began shoving clothes into the drawers. I tucked my gun – 9mm Heckler & Koch USP9 Compact– into the top drawer. I felt safe enough with Dad here to go without wearing it on me. Of course, Dad was showing an all-around lack of good judgment lately . . .

 

Title: Mercy Killing

Author: Eve B. Hart

Rating: PG-13

Summary: If Death had a daughter, what would she be like and how would she handle her father’s engagement?

Disclaimer: All characters that are not from the Anita Blake series belong to me, while those that are belong to Laurell K. Hamilton.

 

I think I forgot to mention this in Chapter One, but feedback is like air.

 

Chapter Two

 

            I got to bed around midnight. About ten minutes between dinner and sleep was spent talking with Van Cleef. The rest of the evening after dinner was spent doing homework for the academic portion of school that was taken concurrently with my weapons and assassination training. Dear God, I hated physics.

 

            I woke up at four in the morning, like usual. I run pretty well on four hours of sleep, especially if I take a cold shower – at the academy, you have to wake up by three o’clock to get a decent amount of hot water. I dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt before heading down the hall to make breakfast. Dad was drinking coffee when I got into the kitchen. When I stepped through the doorway, he looked up at me.

 

            Most mornings, he got up at five-thirty, drinking four cups of black coffee before truly beginning his day. When Mom was alive, she’d whip up a loaf of fig focaccia and asparagus mushroom frittatas, adding a lot of rosemary. I’d tried making the bread, but failed miserably – apparently, the culinary arts are not my forte. I think I’ll stick with guns.

 

            I wondered why he was up so early, but I brushed off the bemusement and went to pour myself a cup of coffee.

 

            “Bad dream last night?” he asked.

 

            I frowned, adding sugar. “What are you talking about?”

 

            “You were tossing and turning all night.” I didn’t know that he watched me sleep anymore.

 

            I shrugged. “Just restless, I guess.” Lie. And he could smell it. Dad could always tell when I was lying. It’s not that I’m not good at it, but Dad was the one who’d taught me how to lie and he knew what to look for. Actually, last night, I’d had a very disturbing dream that felt much too prophetic for my tastes. Peter killed me, and Dad commended him for it; Becca was there in a bright red dress with a starched-white pinafore and Shirley Temple curls, singing and dancing to On the Good Ship Lollipop; Donna and Dad sang Something Good; and in the end, they all gathered together around a bonfire, broke my mother’s picture, and burned it. When the nightmare woke me, I took Mom’s photograph and tucked it safely under my pillow along with my gun – it didn’t take Freud to interpret this one.

 

            “What did Van Cleef have to say?”

 

            I shrugged and drank some more coffee. “Not much,” I answered. Once again, lie. Van Cleef had listened to me go on and on, ranting about the future Mrs. Ted Forrester. I didn’t usually discuss personal angst with my mentor, but I could make an exception when he disliked the prospect of my father marrying as much as I did. He suggested I do something about her. I couldn’t hurt or kill her – Dad would never forgive me. I was well and officially screwed. Driving a wedge between them was not a possibility, either.

 

            “What do you plan to do?”

 

            “Well, any type of maiming or killing is out.”

 

            At first, for less than a split second, Dad looked slightly puzzled, then realization and anger shone in his eyes. It just then dawned on me that he wasn’t talking about Donna.

 

            “You won’t so much look at her sideways, Mercy,” he said matter-of-factly, like we were talking about something no more significant than the weather. I nodded and he set his mug down on the table carefully. His face was blank, and I knew I had to answer whatever he asked. “What did Van Cleef say?”

 

            I stayed over by the coffee pot. He was my father, but I still didn’t want to be within strangling distance. Of course, if he wanted to shoot me, he could have just pulled his gun right then and there and been done with it. “He said if she bothered me so much to do something about it.”

 

            “And?”

 

            I laughed acrimoniously. “Yeah, right. I might be a smart-ass enough to make you wanna shoot me, but I’m not that stupid.”

 

_*_*_*_*_

 

            I spent the day at home. It was Friday in September at a quarter till five in the afternoon. I would normally be in the Maze right about now. It was a technique that Van Cleef used every week. Four of us were partnered up, then we drew straws to see which two were predator and which two were prey. The four of us were put into the Maze at different starting points. The two preys tried to make it to the end without getting injured by the predators. The first out went right along to dinner without dressing the wounds, but the second was punished in whatever way the overseer saw fit. The two chosen as predator got away with a free pass, unless they never hit their target at all. Then they were punished.

 

            But I felt like fishing today. I’d spent two years of my life after Mom died in Genoa, Italy. My great-grandparents had never left the city – no one on my mother’s side had left before my grandparents. Dad had thought it best that I live with them, keep me out of any trouble that he might get into. It was the longest I’d ever been away from either of my parents, and I hated every minute of it. Except when Augustine, my great-grandfather, took me fishing.

 

            We’d go down to the docks and might spend an entire afternoon fishing. Around three o’clock in the afternoon, we paused to get some panera, ice cream cakes made with coffee and whipped cream, and then went back to fishing. It was the only thing I looked forward to in Genoa, except for Dad’s return, of course.

 

            Unfortunately, I had promised my dad that I would stay home today, either stay home or go over to Donna’s. And I sure as hell wasn’t doing the latter.

 

            I was curled up in a corner of the couch, reading Mom’s favorite book, Catcher in the Rye – Holden Caulfield was one of my favorite characters, aside from Dallas Winston in The Outsiders – when Dad walked through the front door. He stood in the doorway of the living room.

 

            “You wanna go out to eat?”

 

            Maybe he wanted to smooth things over, make peace with each other before he went off to start his new life. Or maybe he was just hungry and thought I might be, too. Who could tell with Dad?

 

            “Sure,” I said. “Where?”

 

            “Your choice.”

 

            I said immediately, “Julian’s Restaurant.” Julian’s had the best Italian food in Santa Fe. I couldn’t visit Dad without going at least once, though Dad couldn’t stand Italian food anymore.

 

            “Only you, Mercy,” he said, shaking his head and turning to leave. I pondered what he meant by that when he stuck his head back in the room. “Coming?”

 

_*_*_*_*_

 

            We’d finished lunch pretty quickly, mostly because we didn’t carry on a long conversation. Neither Dad nor I liked engaging in smalltalk. Companionable silence – or in this case, awkward silence – was always the way to go. Dad had ordered the capellini con gamberi alla marinara. I’d ordered the taglierini con aragosta and asperagi alla parmagiana. We both ordered tiramisu afterwards.

 

            “Mercy.”

 

            I looked up from my dessert. It was very plain on his face, what he was about to say. “You’re going away.”

 

            He nodded.

 

            “On a contract?”

 

            Again, he nodded.

 

            “A week before your wedding?” He opened his mouth to reply, but I added, “And you’re sticking me with ‘Donna and the kids.’” He didn’t answer, and I scoffed. “Jesus, I knew it.” I scooted the chair back and stood up.

 

            “Where are you going?” he demanded.

 

            “Calling Van Cleef,” I said, moving the chair back under the table, “telling him I’m coming home early.”

 

Author: Eve B. Hart

Rating: PG-13

Summary: If Death had a daughter, what would she be like and how would she handle her father’s engagement?

Disclaimer: All characters that are not from the Anita Blake series belong to me, while those that are belong to Laurell K. Hamilton.

 

Please send me feedback!

 

Chapter Three

 

            “Not having fun, Genovese?”

 

            I held my tongue. It wouldn’t do to be punished before I even returned to the academy.

 

            “Jesus H. Christ. Do you realize how hard it was to get you a leave of absence? I’m gonna warn you, Genovese, you gotta be better than good this time. In fact, you better be fucking spectacular this semester, or you can kiss your kneecaps goodbye. Got it?”

 

            “Got it,” I said obediently, though I didn’t believe for a minute that he’d blow out my knees. He needed students like me to prove to his superiors that he wasn’t losing his touch.

 

            “All right,” he said, and I heard the phone click.

 

            I hung up the payphone, staying for a few moments. God, I didn’t want to go back to that table. I was pretty sure that Dad was going to cuff me when we were alone, and I didn’t want to speed up the process. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to move, because Dad came to me, face completely blank.

 

            “Let’s go home, Mercy,” he said, voice even. I was afraid of that voice, always had been. I knew not to give him an excuse when he spoke in that voice.

 

            I followed him out of the restaurant to the Hummer. We’d been sitting in the car for about three minutes and he still hadn’t put the key in the ignition. He stared out the window with his hand on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly enough that his knuckles were off-white.

 

            “Dammit, Mercy,” he said finally. He sounded tired.

 

            I sat with my hands in my lap, the middle and index fingers of my right hand messing with a hole in my jeans just above the knee, unsure of what to do. I could apologize profusely, or I could wait to see what his follow-up would be. Waiting was probably the best option at the moment.

 

            “I don’t know why you have to make this a battle. What do you want, me to leave Donna?”

 

            That’d be a start, I muttered to myself. God, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my “feelings.” “I want to know that I’m still a priority.”

 

            “You are,” he said firmly. “But I’m not going to soothe your ego just because you feel threatened by Donna.” He put the key into the ignition. “I’m taking you home. Then I’m going to drive around for a while, maybe go to the shooting gallery, clear my head. Then I’m coming home and we are going to talk about this.”

 

            He didn’t wait for my reply as he pulled out of the parking lot. We spent the entire drive in silence. I got out of the car when we got home and he took off again. I was going to read until he came home, but I realized that I was tired and opted for sleep.

 

            I woke about three hours later, around nine o’clock, and started packing up. When everything was packed away in my suitcase, I retrieved Mom’s photo from under the pillow and tucked it under my blue sweater, forcing the top down. I set my gun beside the suitcase and ventured out to find Dad.

 

            He sat on the couch in the living room, reading the newspaper. I stood in the doorway, waiting. He already knew that I was there. When he was finished with the article he was reading, he folded the section, and tossed it on the table, looking up at me. Sighing, he patted the spot of the sofa beside him. “Come here, Mercy.”

 

            Hesitantly, I padded across the room from the doorway to the couch. I sat down and put my feet up on the coffee table, crossing my ankles and folding my arms across my ribs, patiently waiting for him to speak.

 

            “I considered it," he said, “and I talked with Donna, and she agreed. Here’s the deal: I leave for this contract and you stay with Donna and Peter and Becca. If you behave yourself while I’m gone, Donna and I will postpone the wedding and see how you feel about things in a year.”

 

            I was fighting an internal battle. On one hand, I was grateful that he would give me more time. On the other hand, more time wasn’t going to do shit for how I felt about this marriage. However, I knew it was the best deal I was getting and by Dad’s standards it was downright benevolent.

 

            “Deal.”

 

_*_*_*_*_

 

            Donna Parnell’s guest room was pink. Granted, it was a soft pink, like the cotillion dresses of Civil War belles, but it was still pink. I hated pink. The blinds were pink, the walls were pink, the bedspread was pink, the furniture was painted pink. The only things in the room not pink were the carpet, the doors, the windowpanes – which were all white – and my stuff.

 

            I propped my mother’s picture up on the bureau beside the door. I didn’t feel like unpacking, but I wanted Mom to be with me.

 

            “That your mom?”

 

            I turned to find Peter just outside the doorway. “Yeah,” I said quietly, turning back. It seemed like mom’s smirk was telling me something, but I didn’t know what. Sometimes the photograph did that, and it always managed to be true. It had done that when Mom died, when Dad came back after he sent me to Genoa, when I got sent to the academy and when I exceeded Dad’s third-year body count by my second year, and when Dad announced his engagement to Donna. Sometimes I hated that smirk.

 

            “What kind of gun do you use?”

 

            I raised an eyebrow at him. Dad had told me that Peter, while not weapon-savvy, could handle a piece. It made me respect him more. But still, I hadn’t expected him to come right out and initiate that particular topic, especially with Donna and Becca just down the hall.

 

            “Heckler & Koch,” I answered, just as straightforward, leaning against the dresser. “Nine millimeter.”

 

            He nodded. “You ever use it on someone?”

 

            I met his eyes, trying to bleed all the feeling from mine. “Yes,” I replied, voice neutral.

 

            “How many?”

 

            I opened my mouth to speak when Donna stuck her head into the room. Her expression was a monitory one. She shook her head. “Not in this house,” she said sternly.

 

            I glared at her. She caught the glare. Here we go.

 

            “Peter, I want to talk with Mercy.”

 

            Peter frowned at both of us, but backed out of the room and headed down the hall. Donna watched him leave before looking back at me. She didn’t look happy.

 

            “I agreed to postpone the wedding because I love your father and I want him to be happy. However, I won’t tolerate any talk of guns and violence, and you are going to stay far away from my little girl. Got it?”

 

            “My dad warned you that I’m a bit of a live wire, didn’t he?” I said smartly.

 

            Donna frowned at me crossly. “Listen here, Mercy Alesandra Genovese-"

 

            He’d told her my middle name? That was it. I pulled my gun from its holster beneath my jacket and held it steady, pointed at her forehead. Her brown eyes widened, her mouth opened slightly, and her breathing was careful. “No one,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral and failing, “can call me ‘Alesandra’ but my mother. Got it?”

 

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