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Front Cover
MICAH
By
Laurell K. Hamilton
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Micah
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Laurell K. Hamilton
JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
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(a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
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(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
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New Delhi—110 017, India
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uin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New
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Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over
and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
MICAH
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author.
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove mass market edition/March 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Excerpt from
Danse Macabre
copyright © 2006 by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Cover design by Judith Murello.
Cover illustration and stepback art by Craig White.
Text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
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N: 0-515-14087-2
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JOVE®
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The "J" design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
My idea of love is
not everyone's ideal.
Some have broken
under the strain
of it. This one's for
Jon, who sees love
not as a burden,
but as a gift.
Chapter 1
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It was half past dawn when the phone rang. It shattered the first dream of the night into a thousand pieces
so that I couldn't even remember what the dream had been about. I woke gasping and confused, asleep
just long enough to feel worse but not rested.
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aniel groaned beside me, mumbling, "What time is it?"
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Micah's voice came from the other side of the bed, his voice low and growling, thick with sleep. "Early."
I tried to sit up, sandwiched between the two of them where I always slept, but I was trapped. Trapped in
the sheets, one arm tangled in Nathaniel's hair. He usually braided it for bed, but last night we'd all gotten
in late, even by our standards, and we'd just fallen into bed as soon as we could manage it.
"I'm trapped," I said, trying to extract my hand from his hair without hurting him or tangling worse. His
hair was thick and fell to his ankles; there was lots of it to tangle.
"Let the machine pick up," Micah said. He'd raised up on his elbows enough to see the clock. "We've had
less than an hour of sleep." His hair was a mass of tousled curls around his face and shoulders. His face
was dim in the darkness of the blackout curtains.
I finally got my hand free of Nathaniel's warm, vanilla-scented hair. I lay on my side, propped on my
elbow, waiting for the machine to kick in and let us know whether it was the police for me or the Furry
Coalition hotline for Micah. Nathaniel, as a stripper, didn't get emergency calls much. Just as well; I
wasn't sure I wanted to know what a stripper emergency call would be. The only ideas I could come up
with were either silly or nefarious. Ten rings, and the machine finally kicked on. Micah spoke over the
sound of his own voice on the machine's message. "Who set the machine on the second phone line to ten
rings?"
"Me," Nathaniel said. "It seemed like a better idea when I did it."
We'd put in the second phone line because Micah was the main help for a hotline that new wereanimals
could call and get advice or a rescue. You know,
I'm at a bar and I'm about to lose control, come get me
before I turn furry in public
. It wasn't technically illegal to be a wereanimal, but new ones sometimes lost
control and ate someone before they came to their senses. They'd probably be shot to death by the local
police before they could be charged with murder. If the police had silver bullets. If not… it could get
very, very bad.
Micah understood the problems of the furred, because he was the local Nimir-Raj, their leopard king.
There was a moment of breathing on the message, too fast, frantic. The sound made me sit up in bed,
letting the sheets pool into my lap. "Anita, Anita, this is Larry. You there?" He sounded scared.
Nathaniel got the receiver before I did, but he said, "Hey, Larry, she's here." He handed me the receiver,
his face worried.
Larry Kirkland—fellow federal marshal, animator, and vampire executioner—didn't panic that easily
anymore. He'd grown, or aged, since he'd started working with me.
"Larry, what's wrong?"
"Anita, thank God." His voice held more relief than I ever wanted to hear in anyone's voice. It meant he
expected me to do something important for him. Something that would take some awful pressure or
problem off their hands.
"What's wrong, Larry?" I asked, and I couldn't keep the worry, out of my own voice.
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