AN: Ever since I read the first Anita Blake novel and saw that her best friend was a blonde PI named Ronnie, I've wanted to write a story in which Ronnie was actually Veronica Mars. It took a decade for me to get around to it, but here we finally are. For VMars fans, familiarity with the AB verse will help you understand certain things, but isn't necessary to enjoy this story.

On a continuity note, we're pretending that book one of Anita Blake takes place in 2014, a decade after season 1 of Veronica Mars, so that I don't have to spend any time figuring out what kind of technology and other anachronisms there are from 1993. This fic begins before that book, and then will continue on into the series. Also, VMars season 3 didn't happen because fuck season 3. And I love the movie and subsequent books, but clearly they didn't happen either.

Chapter One: the fact that i'm alive is why i still believe in miracles

Veronica wondered, sometimes, what her life would have been like if Neptune had been a bit more like St. Louis. What the hellscape of her teenage years would have looked like if she hadn't just had human monsters to deal with. How would Madison Sinclaire or Dick Casablancas have reacted to being bitten by a shifter? Not well, although she could picture Madison as a vampire groupie. One of the women who frequented Guilty Pleasures in giggling packs, not even bothering to take off their gigantic wedding rings as they stuffed twenties into g-strings and swooned when a vampire fed on stage.

The already high murder rate would have spiked. There definitely would have been more sex shops, nightclubs, paparazzo, and other sleazeballs taking advantage of the preternatural craze. Don Lamb would have been so far out of his league that maybe he'd have actually gotten fired, or killed, instead of losing to her father's reelection campaign during Veronica's first year at Stanford.

She didn't know if the class warfare would have been worse, or better. As far as she could tell, being a shifter or a vampire didn't exempt you from the have-have not divide.

It might have just made things bloodier.

"What's going on in that devious little brain of yours?" her boyfriend asked, stepping up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

She pouted at him, visible in their reflection in the sliding glass door. "Little? I think I'm offended."

Logan chuckled, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, making her shiver. "Size doesn't matter. I thought you knew that by now, Ronnie."

She turned at that, squirming in his arms until her chin was propped on his sternum and her hands were curled around his exposed hip bones. "Oh doesn't it? And here I thought you were spoiling me, size and skill."

"Well I have to bring a lot to the table, to match up to Veronica Mars," he teased, his smirk less sharp than it had been in high school, but still more than enough to make her heart race.

Veronica rose up on her toes, not quite tall enough to reach his lips. But he bent to meet her and they were both smiling when they kissed. Ten years, college and careers, life changing tragedies, none of it had dulled the heat between them, the electric sizzle under her skin she'd craved ever since that day at the Camelot.

When she pulled back, breathless, his eyes were green and gold. Inhuman. It didn't surprise her anymore, just another facet of the man she loved with more confidence than she'd known how to have when she was sixteen. It did, however, remind her of things she was less comfortable with, and she grimaced, settling back on her heels.

"Do you really have to go to that meeting tomorrow? You can just be my kept man. Look pretty, wear no clothes, feed my endless appetite."

"For sex or food?" he asked, the skin around his vivid eyes crinkling.

"Both of course."

He laughed, leaning down to kiss her again, a soft, slow teasing brush of lips before pulling away faster than she could follow. "I have to go. There's an established pard here, and the only way for me to live here without causing more trouble than we need to deal with is for me to become a part of it.

"Fine," she said with an overly-dramatic sigh, the kind that would heave bosoms if she'd had enough bosoms to heave. "I suppose I can share you with the rest of the world. If I must."

"Your generosity will be remembered," Logan told her with a grin, then picked her up, guiding her legs around his waist. "But tonight, you don't have to share me with anyone at all."

"Good," Veronica said, twining her arms around his neck possessively as she dragged her teeth over his bottom lip and relished the soft growl that rumbled in his chest. "I was never the type to share my toys.

"That does not surprise me at all," Logan murmured against her lips. His hands slid beneath her t-shirt and his thumbs brushed over her rib cage, making her squirm. "I'm choosing not to comment on being one of your toys."

Veronica looked at him through her lashes, coy. "Well you're definitely more fun than my other toys."

"Oh, is that so? How are you judging this? Is there a scale of enjoyment? Does having multiple orgasms break the scale? Have you run tests?" Logan asked as he carried her down the hall toward their bedroom, mouth curved into a suggestive smirk.

"Well now I want to run tests. Of course, if you're the one using them… well that might skew the results." Veronica managed to keep her voice steady, just the right amount of implication in her tone. Her skin was flushed, arousal heightened by the image of Logan teasing her with some of the toys that had kept her company during the months he'd spent recovering from his attack.

Even now, after nearly a decade together only broken by the months costs to them by her foolish pride or his, and there were still new experiences to be had. New pleasures to discover.

Logan's answering laugh was low, rougher than it would have been before his change, and it, combined with the hunger in his eyes, made her toes curl. "We'll have to be thorough. Exhaustive. Make sure to explore every variable."

"I think we can manage that," she said, her voice breathy from genuine desire instead of her usual teasing.

His mouth found hers, hot and wet and everything she wanted, and he tumbled them onto the bed. Veronica knew any such tests were going to have to wait; neither of them had the patience for games tonight.

~x~

The next day was a Saturday. Veronica woke up before Logan and, in an act of kindness that was part satiated gratitude from their activities the night before, and part wanting him to be rested before his meeting, she didn't wake him up.

She skipped her usual coffee and had a light breakfast of an orange and two hard boiled eggs before heading out the door with her car keys and a water bottle. Saturday mornings were set aside for one of her regular runs with Anita, her best friend in Missouri besides Mac.

Anita Blake had been one of her first professional contacts when Veronica set up shop in St. Louis—her Animating firm had Mars and Mackenzie on retainer—and she was one of the few that had become a genuine friend outside of work.

Their histories couldn't have been more different in the details; Veronica didn't have the slightest bit of magical talent and Anita's involvement with law enforcement didn't start until her mastery of her abilities made her uniquely suited for the job of an executioner. But trauma and its aftermath was something they were both far too familiar with in their personal lives, and their careers. Not to mention a shared and unfortunate tendency to end up in the limelight with the kind of reputation that was more infamous than anything you could call benign.

They had recognized something in each other almost immediately.

The only thing she and Anita had in common physically was their height, one of the things that made them perfect jogging partners. Anita had more curves, was dark where Veronica was fair, and cared far less than even pre-Lilly Veronica about clothes and makeup. She also had a significantly more lethal arsenal than Veronica's trusty taser. It was kind of refreshing to have a friend who put herself in dangerous situations even more often than Veronica did.

Beneath those surface discrepancies, however, they were plenty similar. The kind of women who diplomatically got called difficult, and heard bitch from everyone else. Women who were at the top of their game in male dominated fields despite falling in the tiny and adorable category. Throw in their mutual distaste for alcohol, and ability to kick ass, and they were a match made in somewhere that definitely couldn't be called heaven.

Anita was waiting for her on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, her mouth stretched in a yawn.

"Late night?" Veronica asked with a wide, leering grin. "Execution? Or another kind of staking?"

Anita gave her a sour look. "You're not going to be one of those friends who gets all sickeningly happy about their significant other and tries to meddle in her friends' love lives, right?

Veronica laughed. "Definitely not. Your romantic satisfaction, or lack thereof, is your business."

"Definitely a lack thereof," Anita said with a sigh, then raised a challenging eyebrow in Veronica's direction. "You ready? Or did the boy-toy where you out?"

"Oh I'm not the one who will have trouble keeping up," Veronica told her, bouncing on the toes of her running shoes. In high school, her only physical exertions had been the result of having to run for her life, clandestine makeouts with Logan, or keeping up with Backup on the beach. But she wasn't seventeen anymore, and these days if she wanted to be able to keep up with, or away from, the assholes involved in her cases, a regular exercise routine was mandatory.

Luckily Anita was in the same boat, and, unlike her ever-loving boyfriend, Anita wasn't a natural athlete who'd gotten turned into a preternatural predator who could bench press a small car.

Running with Logan only exercised her temper. Running with Anita was fun. Especially since they were both overly competitive and liked to talk shit.

"Four extra blocks?" Anita taunted.

"You're on."

They grinned at each other, sharp smiles and bright eyes, and then they were off. It wasn't a true race, they weren't sprinting, but their steady pace, just on the outside edge of comfort ensured that they could sprint when needed.

Anita beat her, and Veronica conceded victory with a minimum of excuses, most based on her exertions the night before. Her friend had all the prudishness Veronica had once had, before Lilly, and Veronica enjoyed playing the world wise seductress role for a change. Once she'd gotten Anita's face to a satisfactory shade of red, they parted ways—Anita to her day off while Veronica headed for the offices of Mars and Mackenzie.

PI's didn't have a normal work week. Most of the time, she didn't have weekends at all. Cheaters, bail jumpers, con artists, and others of their ilk didn't tend to keep their illicit activities to a convenient 9-5 schedule. Luckily her once idle rich boyfriend had turned into a successful novelist, albeit under a pseudonym, so he could work around her schedule.

She'd meant it when she told Anita that she wouldn't meddle, but she did empathize with the difficulties of obtaining and maintaining relationships with careers like theirs. And she was old enough and mature enough now to appreciate the fact that she had a partner who knew and understood all the quirks of her life.

Mac was there when she arrived, fingers flying over the keyboard in the dim coolness of her office. She looked up when Veronica poked her head in and tilted back in her chair, reaching for her ever present coffee mug. "You and Anita have fun with your weird exercising rituals?"

"It's called jogging, Mac," Veronica said dryly. "You're the one with rituals."

Mac grinned, waving her free hand dismissively at the other side of the room, where she kept her witchcraft tools and supplies. "Hey, Anita has rituals too. Hers just involve more blood than mine do."

"And I am forever grateful for that," Veronica told her, folding her hands together and bobbing a small bow. "I know exactly how expensive it is to get blood out of upholstery."

"And how is Logan settling in?" Mac asked, eyes sparkling wickedly over the rim of her mug.

Veronica's lips twitched, holding in a chuckle. "Nice segue."

"I have a gift," her partner told her placidly.

"You have something, alright," Veronica said with mock offense. "And Logan is settling in just fine."

"Mmmhmm. I wonder what sort of stains you have to get out of your upholstery?" Mac asked, one brow arching upwards.

Veronica gave up the fight and laughed, then winked at her friend. "Let's just say I've probably actually earned my score on the purity test by now."

Mac's grin sharpened. "Did you know that's still making me money? Neptune never changes. You should have your boyfriend take it again, let me publish it as an example of the lowest possible score."

Before Veronica could retort, her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out to see Logan's face on the screen. She held up a finger and put the phone to her ear. "I was just talking about you," she said, with as much of a verbal leer as she could muster.

Logan cut her off with a tone of voice she associated with high school, with Aaron Echolls and Cassidy Casablancas and the nightmares that still woke both of them shaking.

"Veronica. I need you."

Veronica sucked in a sharp breath, her fingers tightening on the phone until it creaked. "Where?"

He gave her an address, the same address he'd left on the fridge the night before so she wouldn't have to snoop to find out where he was meeting his new pard.

"I love you," she told him as she hung up, then stared at Mac's worried face for a long second before shaking herself. "I have to go. If I haven't called in two hours," she hesitated, not sure what instructions to give, then clenched her fists. "Use your witchy mojo to see if I'm still alive and use your best judgment from there I guess. Maybe call Anita."

Mac nodded, her lips tight with strain and her eyes dark with memories neither of them wanted to revisit.

Veronica broke a few speed limits on her way to the address Logan gave her, her heart rabbiting in her chest like it hadn't since she first got the call about Logan's attack.

She'd known, even before he was attacked, before he changed, that her life would never be free of terrifying phone calls and crisis situations. She'd known when she gave up on law school because she itched with the urge to figure things out, chase people down, to do, not talk. Her father hadn't been pleased, had been even less so when she'd been drawn to the still emerging preternatural community and the murky legal situation surrounding it. Mac had just been discovering her magic, wanting to use it in ways her silicon valley career wouldn't allow, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to partner up.

And then Logan had been bitten and her new career was no longer a choice, but a necessity, a way to feel in control of this new facet of their lives.

The quiet suburban street she pulled onto made her feel nothing like control.

She smelled the blood as soon as she walked in the door, thick and coppery, almost cloying. It made the ravaged body on the floor at Logan's feet less of a surprise. Logan's shirt and pants were splattered with streaks of red. The blood on his arms and hands was turning brown as it dried. Veronica was relieved there wasn't drying blood on his face, and was ashamed of herself for wondering if there had been and her boyfriend had just cleaned it off before she got there.

Logan wasn't alone. There were others in the room. Most looked human, though she knew they weren't; she was surrounded by glowing irises and slit pupils. Two were showing more of their leopards than just eyes, and one was in leopard form entirely. Veronica had seen Logan in leopard form. She knew how much larger they were than normal animals, how much presence he had. Which didn't make it any more comfortable to be in a room with a giant leopard she didn't know.

She took a deep breath and gave Logan a smile that was only partially forced. "So, honey, how was your day?"