[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Yep.”

  “So we go visit the Master of the City and his wife.”

  I nodded. “Yep, Max and his wife, the queen tiger of Las Vegas. Though the actual title is Chang and her name. Chang-Bibiana, in this case.”

  “Wait,” Bernardo said. “Are we walking in there and accusing one of their tigers of killing a police officer and helping massacre three more?”

  I looked at Edward; he looked at me. “Something like that,” I said.

  Bernardo looked unhappy. “Can you please not get me killed until after I’ve had a date with Deputy Lorenzo?”

  I smiled at him. “I will do my best.”

  “To get us all killed,” he said.

  “Not true,” I said. “I always do my best to keep us alive.”

  “After you endanger us all,” he muttered.

  “You whine like a baby,” Olaf said.

  “I’ll whine any way I damn well please.”

  Memphis came out and asked, “Marshal, are you well?”

  I nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “What animal did you sense?”

  Did I lie, or tell the truth? “Tiger.”

  “Our Master of the City will not like that.”

  “No, but truth is truth.”

  “You will need a warrant to enter their home.”

  “We had this talk already, Memphis. We’ll call up and have one faxed to us, but I think I’ll try just asking for a visit first.”

  “You think he’ll just let you waltz in and accuse his people of murder?”

  “I think Max told Sheriff Shaw to invite me to come play and that I’d sort things out.”

  Memphis’s eyes went wide. “Did he now?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “It doesn’t sound like our master.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, “but if he invited me, why wouldn’t he want to help me sort things out?”

  “You won’t get in without a warrant. The Master of Vegas is old-time mob; it makes him cautious,” Memphis said.

  “We’ll apply for several,” Edward said.

  Memphis looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “We have a lycanthrope kill confirmed. Nevada still has varmint laws on the books. We’ll be able to get a warrant of execution on the lycanthrope that did this.”

  “But you don’t have a name for the lycanthrope,” Memphis said.

  Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister. “You know we don’t need a name. The warrant will read a little vague. I keep forgetting about the varmint laws in the western states; it makes it actually easier to get a vague warrant for a shapeshifter than for a vampire,” I said.

  “I still believe it’s a legal excuse for murder,” Memphis said.

  I stepped close to the doctor, and he held his ground. “Randall Sherman was your friend, not mine. Don’t you want his murderer caught?”

  “Yes, but I want to make sure it’s the right weretiger, not just the one that pisses you all off.”

  I grinned at him, but could feel it was more a snarling flash of teeth. The tigers were still a little close. “If you don’t like the way I do my job, then file a complaint. But in the dark when the big bad monsters come to get you, you always want us. You see us standing here. You know what we are, what we do, and it makes you feel uncivilized. Even with your friends on gurneys in the morgue, you flinch. Well, we don’t flinch, doctor. We do what the rest of you are afraid to do”—I leaned in close and whispered—“we’ll be your vengeance, doc, so you can keep your lily-white hands clean.”

  He stepped back as if I’d struck him. “That’s not fair.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want vengeance for what it did to your men? Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t look forward to weighing their murderer’s liver on a scale?”

  His eyelids flickered behind his glasses. He opened his mouth, closed it, licked his lips. He finally said, “You are a hard woman, Blake.”

  I shook my head. “No such thing as a hard woman, Memphis, just soft men.” With that, I turned, and the others followed me. We went for the doors, and a phone, and a judge who would give us warrants.

  Edward said, “What did the doctor do to piss you off that badly?”

  “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  “Then what’s with the super bitch act?” Bernardo asked.

  I laughed. “Who was acting, Bernardo, who the fuck was acting?” The tigers swirled inside me, happy that I was angry, looking forward to more anger, more emotion. They wanted out. They wanted out so badly.

  20

  I GOT OUTSIDE in the breath-stealing heat, and Edward grabbed my arm, swinging me around to face him.

  I stared up at him.

  “Anita, are you all right?”

  I started to say Fine, but Edward didn’t ask questions like that unless something wasn’t right.

  I looked at his hand on my arm until he let me go. “I’m fine.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then I forced myself to stop and take a few deep breaths. I tried to think past the feeling of eagerness and anger. I was angry. Why? Memphis had done nothing to piss me off that much. So he was a liberal who didn’t approve of DPEA; so what? There were lots of people who felt that way. So why had I pulled him up by the short hairs?

  Why was I angry? Okay, scratch that, I was almost always angry. Rage was like fuel for me. It always bubbled just below the surface. It was probably one of the reasons that I could feed on other people’s anger. It was my drink of choice. The real question was, why was I being a shit to someone who hadn’t earned it? That wasn’t like me.

  I was about to run off and see the weretigers; a lot of them. The tiger energy inside me was happy about that and just a little too eager. Just because I hadn’t shapeshifted for real didn’t mean I wouldn’t. The only other person I’d met with this many different kinds of lycanthropy in his body had been able to shift to all the forms. He’d also been insane, but that may have been from other things.

  What would happen if, with my tigers that close to the surface, I suddenly found myself surrounded by a whole bunch of weretigers? I wasn’t sure, and that was reason enough to take it slower.

  “Thanks, Ed . . . Ted. I needed that.”

  “You seem calmer now.”

  I nodded. “You made me think. First, I’ll go back inside and apologize to Dr. Memphis. Second, I’ll see if he knows where we can find Officer Randall Sherman’s high priestess.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I told them about the pentagram and my theory that Sherman had been trying a spell when the weretiger killed him.

  “Spells don’t work against wereanimals,” Bernardo said.

  “No, they don’t,” I said.

  “A practicing witch would know that,” Edward said.

  “He would.”

  “Which means something else besides vampires and weretigers may have been in that warehouse,” he said.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “If Memphis doesn’t know Sherman’s high priestess?”

  “Then we find someone who does. You call Washington and get started on those warrants. One for a wereanimal that killed Sherman, and the other for searching homes and businesses of the Master of Vegas.”

  “That second one may be tricky; Max is pretty well connected here and is one of the major funders of the pro-vampire lobby in DC.”

  I hadn’t known that last part. “Then he should want to cooperate with the police.”

  Edward gave me that smile of his. “He’s a vampire, Anita, they always have something to hide.”

  I smiled back. “Don’t we all.”

  To that, he didn’t answer, just got his cell and started working on the warrants. Me, I went for the door back inside.

  Olaf followed me, but I stopped him. “You stay with Edward, I mean, Ted.”

  “The vampire Vittorio made a threat against
you. You really shouldn’t be alone, not if he has wereanimals on his side.”

  I couldn’t fault his logic. “Bernardo,” I called, “you’re with me.”

  Bernardo gave Olaf a speculative look but came to my side. “Anything you say, little lady.”

  “Don’t call me that, ever again,” I said, and reached for the door.

  “Why him and not me?” Olaf said.

  I glanced back at the tall, black-clad man. He’d put the black wrap-around sunglasses back on. He stood there, looking like a Hollywood idea of a bad guy. “Because he doesn’t creep me out, and you do.”

  “I am better in a fight than he is.”

  “I’ll let you guys debate that some time, but for right now, I have an apology to make.”

  “You’re really going to apologize to the doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “An apology is a sign of weakness.”

  “Not if you’re in the wrong, and I was.” I actually got to the door before he interrupted again.

  “You were short with him, but not wrong.”

  I finally looked at the big guy. “What’s with all the chatter, Otto? Afraid you’ll miss me?”

  That did it. He turned and walked away. Bernardo came up to stand next to me like a tall, dark, handsome shadow. I pressed the button to let someone know we needed inside.

  “Otto isn’t better in a fight than I am. He’s better with explosives, and he’s got me beat all hollow when it comes to interrogation, but he’s not better in a fight.”

  “I didn’t say he was.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  I glanced up at him, that nearly heartbreakingly perfect bone structure. He had his long dark hair pulled back in a braid. With the heat, I was beginning to debate what to do with my hair, too.

  “I know you’re good in a fight, Bernardo. Edward doesn’t hang with people who aren’t good.”

  We had to press the button again and wait to be let inside. “Then why don’t you like me?”

  I gave him a frowning glance. “I don’t dislike you.”

  “But you don’t like me either.”

  The door opened. It was Dale, with his short brown hair and his glasses. He let us in but wasn’t entirely pleasant. I couldn’t blame him. “You forget something?” he asked.

  “An apology to Dr. Memphis. The case is getting to me more than I thought.”

  Dale’s face softened. “It’s getting to all of us.” He let us go past and told us where to find Memphis.

  I turned to Bernardo. “I don’t not like you.” I wasn’t sure on the grammar, but it said what I meant.

  “Okay, then you’re neutral. You don’t like or dislike me; that’s weird.”

  “Why is it weird?”

  He actually stopped walking to spread his hands and do a voilà movement. I realized he was showing himself off. “I’ve had women not like me because I’m too ethnic for them. I’ve had women not like what I do for a living. Some chicks hate the violence. But that’s not it for you. You don’t care about any of that.”

  “Are you asking why I don’t think you’re scrumptious?” I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  I shook my head and fought not to smile more. “I’m not, but I just find this an odd thing in the middle of a murder investigation.”

  “I know, business first, and I’d have behaved myself if you hadn’t started getting all sexual tension around the big guy.”

  “I am not reacting to Otto,” I said.

  He held his hands up, like he was surrendering. “No offense meant.”

  “I do not like him like that.”

  “I didn’t say you liked him; I said you’re reacting to him.”

  “And what’s the difference between liking and reacting?”

  “You like Ted, but you don’t react to him. I know you’re getting all cuddly, but it’s to get Otto off your back.”

  I gave him a hard look.

  “Hey, I won’t spoil it. I agree that it’s creepy that Otto likes you the way he does. I can’t even argue with what you and Ted said at the crime scene.”

  “Then what are you bitching about?”

  Two women in the little gowns walked by. One stared outright, and the other did a more covert checking out as she walked past us. I might as well have been invisible. Bernardo wasted a smile on them both, then turned back to me as if nothing had happened.

  I had a clue. “You’re used to women reacting to you, and I’m not reacting, and that’s bugging you.”

  “Yeah, I know it’s shallow as hell, but it’s like you don’t see me, Anita. I’m not used to that.”

  “I’m dating or living with six men, Bernardo.”

  He gave me raised eyebrows.

  “My plate is beyond full, okay? It’s nothing personal.”

  “I don’t want to date you, Anita, I just want you to react to me.” He smiled, and it was a good smile. “I mean, sex would be great, but I think Ted would kill me, and that takes a lot of the happy out of it for me.”

  “You really think he’d kill you for sleeping with me?”

  “He might, and might is good enough from him.”

  “So, if I just tell you how beautiful you are, then we can go back to work?”

  “If you mean it,” he said, and sounded offended.

  “You know, this is usually a girl problem.”

  “I’m vain, so sue me.”

  I smiled, and it was my turn to hold my hands up. I took a deep breath and made myself look at Bernardo. I started at his face. His eyes were that dark solid brown, almost black, darker even than mine. The hair was shiny and black, and I knew it had blue highlights in the right light. The skin was that nice even dark that only certain genetics can give you. But it was the curve of those perfect cheekbones, the line of that nose that plastic surgeons only gave movie stars after lots of money changed hands, the lips full and wide, kissable. His neck was long and smooth, and I could see his pulse in the side of his neck like something that needed kissing. The broad shoulders under his white shirt were nice, and the chest looked like he’d been hitting the gym; so did the arms. My gaze slid to the slimness of his waist, and then the hips. I let myself linger, and had to admit to myself that the bulge in his pants was distractingly bulgy. I knew that the bulge got bigger because I’d seen him nude once. I knew he was actually so well endowed that even I might find it a bit much, and I didn’t say that about most men.

  I forced myself to keep going down the muscular legs in their jeans, to the boots. I came back up to his eyes.

  “You’re blushing,” he said, but he was smiling.

  “I was remembering that time in the bar.”

  He grinned wider, obviously pleased. “Thinking about seeing me naked.”

  The blush that had been fading flushed back to life. I nodded and started walking. “Happy now?” I asked.

  “Very,” he said, in a voice that showed it. He glided beside me, to the stares of every woman we passed, and some of the men. I would have thought they might be looking at me, but Bernardo was a treat both coming and going. I’m used to being the plain Jane when it comes to the men in my life. If it had bothered me to be less pretty than a man, I could never have dated Jean-Claude . . . or Asher . . . or Micah . . . or Richard, or Nathaniel. Hell, Bernardo made me feel right at home.

  21

  I APOLOGIZED TO Dr. Memphis and got the name of Sherman’s high priestess. She was in the phone book. We hit the heat outside, sunglasses sliding over our eyes like some sort of science fiction shield. The gesture was already automatic, and I hadn’t been in town a day.

  There was music playing, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was my phone. It was playing “I’m Not in Love,” by 10cc, but it was not a ring tone I’d chosen. I was really going to have to learn to do my own ring tones. Nathaniel’s sense of humor was beginning to get on my nerves.

  I hit the button and said, “What’s with the choice of songs, Nathanie
l?”

  “It is not your pussycat, ma petite,” and just like that, I was standing in the Vegas heat talking to the Master Vampire of St. Louis and my main squeeze. He never called me when I was working with the police unless something really bad had happened.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. My pulse was suddenly in my throat.

  Bernardo looked at me, and I waved a hand, shaking my head, moving toward Edward and Olaf by the car.

  “Why should anything be wrong, ma petite?” But his voice held anger, which it didn’t usually do. He could say nothing was wrong, but his voice said otherwise, and since he could make his voice as empty of emotion as a blank wall, either he wanted me to know he was angry, or he was so pissed that he couldn’t hide it. He was more than four hundred years old; you learned to hide a lot of emotion in that much time. So what had I done to piss him off? Or what had someone else done?

  I suddenly wanted privacy for the call. So I got in the SUV and the men stood out in the heat. I offered to do it the other way around, but Edward had insisted, and when he insists there’s usually a reason for it. I’ve learned not to argue when he insists; we all live longer.

  I turned on the air-conditioning and got comfortable while the three men seemed to be talking, quietly but intensely. Hmm.

  “Ma petite, I wake and find you far away.”

  “I’m not happy about it either,” I said. I thought about him, and that was enough to see him lying in our bed, the sheets draped carelessly across his body, one long leg clear of the sheets. One hand held the phone, but the other was playing idly along Asher’s back. He would be dead to the world for hours yet, but it never bothered Jean-Claude to touch another vampire when they were still “dead.” I found it disturbing. Maybe I’d been at one too many crime scenes.

  He looked up into the air, as if he felt me watching him. “Would you like to see more?”

  I drew my mind and attention back to the SUV, the Vegas heat pressing against the car. “I think it would distract me.”

  “There are those who would give all they have to be distracted by me.”

  “You’re angry at me.”