Obsidian Butterfly ab-9

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Anita," he said.

  "Edward," I said.

  The smile turned into a grin. "You don't seem happy to see me."

  "You being this happy to see me makes me nervous, Edward. You're relieved I'm here, and that scares me."

  The grin faded, and I watched all the humor, all the welcome, drain out of his face like water leaving a glass through a crack -- empty. "I'm not relieved," he said, but his voice was too bland.

  "Liar," I said. I would have liked to say it softly, but the noise of the airport was like the crash of the ocean, a continuous roar.

  He looked at me with those pitiless eyes and gave one small nod. An acknowledgment that he was relieved I was here. Maybe he would have verbalized it, but suddenly a woman appeared at his side. She was smiling, her arms sliding around him until she cuddled against him.

  She looked thirtyish, older than Edward appeared, though I wasn't sure of his actual age. Her hair was short, brown, a no-nonsense style, but flattering. She wore almost no makeup, but was still lovely. I here were lines at her eyes and mouth that had made me jump her from thirty to forty something. She was smaller than Edward, taller than me, but still petite, though she didn't look soft. She was tanned darker than was healthy which probably explained the lines on her face. But there was a quiet strength to her as she stood there smiling at me, holding Edward's arm.

  She wore jeans that looked so neat they must have been pressed, a white short-sleeved shirt that was sheer enough that she'd put a spaghetti strap tank top under it, and a brown leather purse almost as large as my carry-on bag. I wondered for a second if Edward had picked her up from a plane, too, but there was something too fresh and unhurried about her. She hadn't come off a plane.

  "I'm Donna. You have to be Anita." She held out her hand, and we shook. She had a firm handshake, and her hand wasn't soft. She'd worked, this one had. She also knew how to shake hands. Most women never really got the knack of it. I liked her instantly, instinctively, and mistrusted the feeling just as quickly.

  "Ted's told me so much about you," Donna said.

  I glanced up at Edward. He was smiling, and even his eyes were full of humor. The entire set of his face and body had changed. He slouched slightly, and the smile was lazy. He vibrated with good ol' boy charm. It was an Oscar-winning performance, as if he'd traded skins with someone else.

  I looked at Edward/Ted and said, "He's told you a lot about me, has he?"

  "Oh, yes," Donna said, touching my arm while still holding onto Edward. Of course, she would be a casual toucher. My shapeshifter friends were getting me accustomed to touchie-feelie stuff, but it still wasn't my best thing. What the hell was Edward -- Ted -- doing with this woman?

  Edward spoke, but there was a slight Texas-like drawl to his voice like an old accent almost forgotten. Edward had no accent whatsoever. His voice was the cleanest and hardest to place I'd ever heard, as if even his voice was never touched by the places and people he saw.

  "Anita Blake, I'd like you to meet Donna Parnell, my fiancée."

  My jaw dropped to the carpet, and I just gaped at him. I usually try and be a little more sophisticated than that, or hell, more polite. I knew that astonishment, nay shock, showed, but I couldn't help it.

  Donna laughed, and it was a good laugh, warm and chuckly, a good mom laugh. She squeezed Edward's arm. "Oh, you were right, Ted. Her reaction was worth the trip."

  "Told ya, honey-pot," Edward said, hugging her and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

  I closed my mouth and tried to recover. I managed to mumble, "That's ... great. I mean really ... I ... " I finally extended my hand and said, "Congratulations." But I couldn't manage a smile.

  Donna used the handshake to draw me into a hug. "Ted said you'd never believe he'd finally agreed to tie the knot." She hugged me again, laughing. "But, my god, girl, I've never seen such pure shock." She retreated back to Edward's arms and his smiling Ted face.

  I am not nearly as good an actor as Edward. It's taken me years to perfect a blank face let alone outright lying by facial expression and body language. So I kept my face blank and tried to tell Edward with my eyes that he had some explaining to do.

  With his face slightly turned from Donna, he gave me his close, secretive smile. Which pissed me off. Edward was enjoying his surprise. Damn him.

  "Ted, where are your manners. Take her bag," Donna said.

  Edward and I both stared at the small carry-on bag I had in my left hand. He gave me Ted's smile, but he said Edward's line, "Anita likes to carry her own weight."

  Donna looked at me for confirmation as if this couldn't possibly be true. Maybe she wasn't as strong and independent as she appeared, or maybe she was a decade older than she appeared. A different generation, you know.

  "Ted's right," I said, putting a little too much emphasis on his name. "I like to carry my own bags."

  Donna looked like she'd have liked to correct my obviously wrong thinking but was too polite to say it out loud. The expression, not the silence, reminded me of my stepmother Judith. Which made me push Donna's age over fifty. She was either a mightily well preserved fifty-something, forty-something, or a sun-aged thirty-something. I just couldn't tell.

  They walked ahead of me through the airport, arm in arm. I followed behind them, not because my suitcase was too heavy but because I needed a few minutes to recover. I watched Donna bump her head against Edward's shoulder, her face turning to him, smiling, glowing. Edward/Ted bent over her, face tender, whispering something that made her laugh.

  I was going to be sick. What the hell was Edward doing with this woman? Was she another assassin, as good an actor as he was? Somehow I didn't think so. And if she was exactly what she appeared -- a woman in love with Ted Forrester, who didn't exist -- I was going to kick Edward's metaphorical ass. How dare he involve some innocent woman in his cover story! Or -- and this was a very strange thought -- was Edward/Ted really in love? If you'd asked me ten minutes ago, I'd have said he wasn't capable of such depth of emotion, but now ... now I was just plain confused.

  The Albuquerque airport broke my rule that all airports look nearly identical and you can't really tell what part of the country, or even the world, that you're in just from the airport. If there are decorations, they're usually from a different culture entirely, like inland bars having seaside motifs. But not here. Here there were hints of a southwestern flavor everywhere. Multi-colored tile or paint leaning to turquoise and cobalt blue lined most of the shops and store fronts. A small covered stand sold silver jewelry in the middle of the large hallway leading from the gates to the rest of the airport. We'd left the crowd behind and with it the noise. We moved in a world of neatly ringing silence, heightened by the white walls and the large windows on either side. Albuquerque stretched outside those windows like some great flat plain with a ring of black mountains at the edge, like the backdrop to a play, somehow unreal. The heat pressed down even through the air conditioning, not really hot, but letting you know it was going to be. The landscape was totally alien, adding to my sense of having been cut adrift. One of the things I liked about Edward is that he never changed. He was what he was, and now Edward, dependable in his own psychotic way, had thrown me a curve ball so wild I didn't even know how to swing at it.

  Donna stopped and turned, drawing Edward with her. "Anita, that bag is just too heavy for you. Please let Ted carry it." She gave him a little good-natured push in my direction.

  Edward walked towards me. Even his walk was a rolling sort of gait like someone who spent a lot of time on horseback or on a boat. He kept Ted's smile on his face. Only his eyes slipped and showed through the mask. Dead those eyes, empty. No love shone in them. Damn him. He actually leaned over, his hand started to close over mine and the handle.

  I hissed, "Don't." I let that one word hold all the anger I was feeling.

  His eyes widened just a bit, and he knew I wasn't talking about just the carry-on bag. He straightened up and called back to Donna, "She doesn't want my hel
p." He put emphasis on the "my."

  She tsked under her breath and walked back to us. "You're just being stubborn, Anita. Let Ted help you."

  I looked up at her and knew my face wasn't neutral, but I couldn't drain all the anger out of my face.

  Donna's eyes widened just a bit. "Have I offended you in some way?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "I'm not upset with you."

  She looked at Edward. "Ted, dear, I think she's angry with you."

  "I think you're right," Edward said. His eyes had gone back to sparkling with love and good humor.

  I tried to salvage the situation. "It's just that Ted should have told me about the engagement. I don't like surprises."

  Donna put her head to one side, giving me a long considering look. She started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. "Well, I'll try and make sure you don't get any more surprises from me." She settled herself a little more securely on Edward's arm, and the look in her brown eyes was just a tad less friendly than it had been before.

  I realized with a sigh that Donna now thought I was jealous. My reaction wasn't normal for a mere friend and business acquaintance. Since I couldn't tell her the real reason I was upset, I let it go. Better she think Ted and I had been an item once, than the truth. Though Heaven knew she'd probably prefer we'd been lovers to the real truth about her "Ted." She was in love with a man who did not exist, no matter how real the arm she was holding happened to be.

  I tightened my grip on my bag and moved up so I was walking on the other side of Donna as we moved up through the airport. She wasn't comfortable with me trailing behind so I'd keep up. I'm not good at small talk at the best of times, but now, I couldn't think of a damn thing to say, so we moved in a silence that grew progressively uncomfortable for me, and for Donna. Her, because she was a woman and naturally friendly. Me, because I knew silence would make her uncomfortable. I didn't want to make her more uncomfortable.

  She broke first. "Ted tells me you're an animator and vampire hunter."

  "I prefer vampire executioner, but yeah." In a desperate attempt to be polite I asked, "What do you do?"

  She flashed me a brilliant smile that showed the smile lines on either side of her mouth like a frame for her thin, oh-so-slightly lipsticked mouth. I was I glad I'd worn no makeup. Maybe that would help her realize I wasn't after Edward/Ted. "I own a shop in Santa Fe."

  Edward added, "She sells psychic paraphernalia." He gave me a smile over her head.

  My face hardened, and I fought to keep it blank. "What sort of paraphernalia?"

  "Crystals, tarot decks, books, everything and anything that catches my fancy."

  I wanted to say, "But you're not psychic," but I didn't. I'd met people before that were convinced they had psychic gifts when they didn't. If Donna was one of the successfully deluded, who was I to burst her bubble? Instead, I said, "Is there much of a market for that sort of thing in Santa Fe?"

  "Oh, there used to be a lot of shops like mine. The new age was really big in Santa Fe, but the property taxes have skyrocketed and most of the new psychics have moved further into the mountains to Taos. Santa Fe's energy has changed in the last five years, or so. It's still a very positive place, but Taos has better energy now. I'm not sure why."

  She talked about "energy" like it was an accepted fact, and didn't try to explain it, as if I would understand her. She was assuming, like so many people did, that if you raised the dead for a living you were psychic in other areas, too. Which was often true, but not always. What she called "energy," I called the "feel" of a place. Some places did have a "feel" to them, good or bad, energizing or draining. The old idea of genius loci was alive and well in the new age movement under a different name.

  "Do you read cards?" I asked. It was a polite way of finding out if she believed she had powers.

  "Oh, no," Donna said. "My gifts are very small. I'd love to be able to read cards or crystals, but I'm only a proprietor. My talent in this life is helping others discover their strengths."

  It sounded like something a therapist who believed in past lives would have said. I'd been meeting enough of them at graveside to know the lingo. "So you're not a psychic," I said. I just wanted to be sure she knew it.

  "Oh, heavens no." She shook her head for emphasis, and I noticed her small gold earrings were ankhs.

  "Most people that go into the business usually are," I said.

  She sighed. "The psychic I'm going to now says that I'm blocked in this life because of misuse of my gifts last time around. She says I'll be able to work magic next time."

  Again, she assumed I believed in reincarnation and past life therapy, probably because of what I did for a living. Either that or Edward/Ted had been lying to her about me just to amuse himself. But I didn't point out that I was a Christian and didn't believe in reincarnation. There are, after all, more religions on the planet that believe in reincarnation than ones that don't. Who am I to quibble?

  I just couldn't help the next question. "And have you met Ted before in a past life?"

  "No, actually he's brand new to me, though Brenda says he is a very old soul."

  "Brenda, your psychic?" I asked.

  She nodded.

  "I'll agree with the old soul part," I said.

  Edward gave me a look over her head where she couldn't see him. It was a suspicious look.

  "You've felt it, too, then, the way he resonates. That's what Brenda calls it, like a great heavy bell in her head whenever he's around."

  Alarm bells more likely, I thought. Aloud I said, "Sometimes you can make your soul heavy in one lifetime."

  She gave me a puzzled look. She wasn't stupid. There was intelligence in those brown eyes, but she was naive. Donna wanted to believe. It made her an easy mark for a certain kind of liar, like would-be psychics and men like Edward. Men who lied about who and what they were.

  "I'd like to meet Brenda before I go home," I said.

  Edward's eyes widened where she couldn't see them.

  Donna smiled delightedly. "I'd love to introduce the two of you. She's never met an animator before. I know she'd get a kick out of meeting you."

  "I'll bet," I said. I did want to meet Brenda, because I wanted to see if she was truly a psychic or just a charlatan. If she was professing to abilities she didn't possess, it was a crime, and I'd turn her in. I hated seeing supposed psychics take advantage of people. It was always amazing to me with the number of genuine talents around, how many fakes still managed to prosper.

  We were passing a restaurant decorated in more blue and fuchsia tiles with small daisy-like flowers painted in the edges. There was a mural on one wall showing Spanish conquistadors and breechcloth-clad Native Americans as we came down the escalators. I was still managing to balance my carry-on without any trouble, all that weightlifting I guess.

  There was a bank of pay phones set to one side. "Let me try to get hold of the kids one more time," Donna said. She kissed Edward's cheek and moved off towards the phones before I could react.

  "Kids?" I said.

  "Yes," he said, voice careful.

  "How many?" I asked.

  "Two."

  "Ages?"

  "Boy, fourteen; girl, six," he said.

  "Where's their father?"

  "Donna is a widow."

  I looked at him, and the look was enough.

  "No, I didn't do it. He died years before I met Donna."

  I stepped close to him, turning my back so that Donna wouldn't see my face from the phones. "What are you playing at Edward? She has children and is so in love with you, it makes me gag. What on God's green earth could you be thinking?"

  "Donna and Ted have been dating for about two years. They're lovers. She expected him to propose so he did." His face was still smiling Ted, but the voice was matter of fact and totally unemotional.

  "You're talking like Ted's a third person, Edward."

  "You're going to have to start calling me Ted, Anita. I know you. If you don't make it a habi
t, you'll forget."

  I stepped into him in the relative silence, lowering my voice to a furious whisper.

  "Fuck that. He is you, and you're fucking engaged. Are you going to marry her?"

  He gave a small shrug.

  "Shit," I said. "You can't. You cannot marry this woman."

  His smile widened, and he stepped around me holding his hands out to Donna. He kissed her and asked, "How are the munchkins?" He turned her in his arms so he was half-hugging her, and had her turned away from me. His face was Ted, relaxed, but his eyes were warning me, "Don't screw this up." It was important to him for some reason.

  Donna turned so she could see my face, and I fought to give blank face. "What were you two whispering about so urgently?"

  "The case," Edward said.

  "Oh, pooh," she said.

  I raised eyebrows at Edward. Oh, pooh. The most dangerous man I'd ever met was engaged to a mother of two that said things like, "Oh pooh." It was just too weird.

  Donna's eyes widened. "Where is your purse? Did you leave it on the plane?"

  "I didn't bring one," I said. "I knew I'd have the bag and pockets."

  She looked at me as if I'd spoken in tongues. "My god, I wouldn't know what to do without my monstrosity in tow." She pulled the huge purse around in front of her. "I'm such a pack rat."

  "Where are your kids?" I asked.

  "With my neighbors. They're a retired couple and are just great with my little girl, Becca." She frowned. "Of course, nothing seems to make Peter happy right now." She glanced at me. "Peter's my son. He's fourteen going on forty, and seems to have hit his teenage years with a vengeance. Everyone told me a teenager was hard, but I never dreamed how hard."

  "Has he been getting into trouble?" I asked.

  "Not really. I mean he's not into anything criminal." She added the last a little too quickly. "But he's just stopped listening to me. He was supposed to come home two weeks ago from school and watch Becca. Instead, he went to a friend's house. When I came home after the shop closed, the house was empty, and I didn't know where either of them were. The Hendersons had been out so Becca wasn't there. God, I was frantic. Another neighbor had taken her in, but if they hadn't been home, she'd have just had to wander the neighborhood for hours. Peter came home and just wasn't sorry. By the time he came home, I'd convinced myself he'd been abducted by someone and was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Then he just comes strolling in as if nothing's wrong."