[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Phoebe looked from one to the other of us, then finally came back to Ted. “What do you want to know, Marshals?” There was the slightest of hesitation before she called us by our titles.

  She poured tea into our cups. She put sugar in two, and left two plain. Then she handed them to Michael and directed where they should go.

  Edward took his tea, as did the others. I got mine last. Neither she nor Michael got cups. I had absolutely no reason to mistrust Phoebe Billings, but unless she drank the tea, I wasn’t touching it. Just because you’re a witch doesn’t mean you’re a good witch.

  She smiled at us all as we sat with our untouched cups, as if we’d done exactly what she’d known we would do. “Randy wouldn’t have taken the tea, either,” she said. “Police, you’re all so suspicious.” She dabbed at her eyes and gave a ladylike sniff.

  “Then why did you give us the tea if you knew we wouldn’t drink it?” I said.

  “Call it a test.”

  “A test of what?” I asked, and I must have sounded a little more unfriendly than was called for, because Edward touched my leg, just a nudge to let me know to bring the tone down. Edward was one of the few people I’d take the hint from.

  “Ask me again in a few days, and I’ll answer your question,” she said.

  “You know, just because you’re Wiccan and psychic doesn’t mean you have to be mysterious,” I said.

  “Ask me your questions,” she said, and her voice was sad and too somber to match the bright room we sat in, but then grief comes to every room, no matter what color its painted.

  Edward sat back a little more on the couch, giving me the best view of her he could give without changing seats. It let me know he was letting me take the lead, like he’d said in the car. Fine.

  “How good at magic was Randall, Randy, Sherman?”

  “He was as competent at magic as he was at everything he did,” she said. A woman appeared from farther into the house. She carried a tray with another cup and saucer on it. She had the priestess’s long brown hair, but the body was slender and younger. I wasn’t surprised when Phoebe introduced her as her daughter, Kate.

  “Then if Sherman started to say a spell in the middle of a firefight, he’d have a reason to think it would help?”

  The woman poured tea for her mother from the pot and handed it to her. “Randy never wasted things, neither ammo, nor physical effort, nor a spell.”

  She drank from the cup. Bernardo followed suit and did a pretty good job of not leering at the daughter as she walked back toward the kitchen with the empty tray. Edward sipped his tea, too.

  Phoebe glanced from Olaf to me. “Still don’t trust me?”

  “Sorry, but I’m a coffee drinker.”

  “I do not like tea,” Olaf said.

  “Kate could fix you some coffee.”

  “I’d rather just ask our questions, if that’s all right.” I meant that, but it’s also been my experience that tea drinkers make bad coffee.

  “Why do you think that Randy was saying a spell during a shooting?”

  I glanced at Edward, and he took over. I just wasn’t sure how much to tell her. “We can’t really share too much information on an ongoing investigation, Phoebe. But we have good reason to think that Randy was saying a spell in the middle of a fight.”

  “Saying?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Randy was very good; he could have simply thought a blessing in the middle of a fight.”

  “What kind of spell would he have had to say out loud?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Some witches need to speak aloud to help focus; Randy didn’t. So if he was chanting aloud, then it was something ritualistic and old. Something he’d memorized, like an old charm. I don’t know how much any of you know about our faith, but most ritual is created for the purpose of an individual event. It’s a very creative, and fluid, process. When you’re talking about set words, then it’s more ceremonial magicians then Wiccans.”

  “But Randy was Wiccan, not a ceremonial magician,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  “What would he have known, or thought, to say in the middle of a fight? What would have prompted him to think of an old chant, a memorized piece?”

  “If you have a recording of what he said, then I can help, or even some of the words, and I can give you some hint.”

  I looked at Edward.

  “We don’t have anything we can let you listen to, Phoebe; I’m sorry.” It was neatly done, not that we didn’t have a recording but that we couldn’t let her listen to it. I’d have just told her we didn’t have one, which is why I’d let Edward answer.

  She looked away from all of us and spoke in a voice that was shaky. “Is it that awful?”

  Shit. But Edward moved in smoothly, even touching her hand. “It’s not that, Phoebe. It’s just that it’s an ongoing investigation, and we have to be cautious what information we let out.”

  She looked at him from inches away. “You think someone in my coven could be involved?”

  “Do you?” he asked, in a voice that was not the least surprised, as if to say, yes, we had suspected it, but we’d let her tell us the truth. I’d have sounded surprised and spooked her.

  She looked into his eyes from inches away, and his hand on hers was suddenly more important. I felt the prickle of energy, and knew it had nothing to do with wereanimals or vampires.

  He smiled, and pulled back his hand. “Trying to psychically read a police officer without permission is illegal, Phoebe.”

  “I need to know more than you’re telling me to answer your questions.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” he asked, with a smile.

  She smiled and put her teacup on the coffee table beside the rest. “I’m psychic, remember. I have information that you need, but I don’t know what it is. I only know that if you ask the right question, I’ll tell you something important.”

  I jumped in, “You know psychically.”

  “Yes.”

  I turned to the men with me and tried to explain. “Most psychic ability is pretty vague. Phoebe knows she has information that will be important, but there’s a question we need to ask to spark that knowledge in her.”

  “And she knows this, how?” Bernardo asked.

  I shrugged. “She couldn’t tell you how, and I couldn’t either. I’ve just worked with enough psychics to know that this is as good as the explanation gets sometimes.”

  Olaf scowled. “That is not an explanation.”

  I shrugged again. “The best we’ve got.” I turned back to the priestess. “Let’s go back to Marshal Forrester’s question. Could anyone in your coven be involved?”

  She shook her head. “No.” It was a very firm no.

  I tried again. “Could anyone here in the magical community be involved?”

  “How can I answer that? I don’t know what spells were used, or why you believe that Randy was trying to say something. Of course, there are bad people in every community, but without more information, I can’t tell you whose talents this could have been.” She sounded impatient, and I guess I couldn’t blame her.

  I looked at Edward.

  “Do you have a priest’s seal of the confessional?”

  She smiled. “Yes, the Supreme Court upheld that we are truly priests, so what you tell me is covered under the law.”

  He looked at Michael’s looming figure. “Is he a priest?”

  “We are all priests and priestesses if we are called by Goddess,” she said. It was a very priestess answer.

  I answered for her. “He’s her black dog.”

  Both Phoebe and Michael looked at me, as if I’d done something interesting. “They come here pretending not to know anything about us, but they’ve checked us out. They’re lying.”

  “Now, Michael, you should know not to jump to conclusions.” She turned those gentle brown eyes to me. “Have you checked us out?”

  I shook my head. “I swear to you that other than finding out
you are Randy Sherman’s priestess, no.”

  “Then how did you know Michael was not my priest?”

  I licked my lips and thought about it. How had I known? “There’s a bond between most of the priests and priestesses I’ve met. Either they are a couple, or the magical working as a team just forms a bond. There’s no feel of that between you and him. Also, he just screams muscle. The only job in a coven that is all about muscle, either spiritual or physical, is the black dog.”

  “Most covens don’t have them anymore,” she said.

  I shrugged. “My mentor is into the history of her craft.”

  “I see the cross, but is it your sign of faith, or merely what the police make you wear?”

  “I’m Christian,” I said.

  She smiled, and it was a little too knowledgeble. “But you find some precepts of the Church limiting.”

  I fought not to squirm. “I find the Church’s attitude toward my own flavor of psychic ability limiting, yes.”

  “And what is your flavor?”

  I started to answer, but Edward made a motion and I stopped. “It doesn’t matter what Marshal Blake’s gifts are.”

  I didn’t know why Edward didn’t want me to share with her, but I trusted his judgment.

  Phoebe looked from one to the other of us. “You are very much a partnership.”

  “We’ve worked together for years,” he said.

  She shook her head. “It’s more than that.” She shook her head as if shaking the thought away. Then she looked back at me, and the eyes were no longer gentle. “Ask your questions, Marshal Blake.”

  “If Michael leaves the room, then we’ll talk more freely,” Edward said.

  “I will not leave you with them,” the big man said.

  “They are policemen, like Randy was.”

  “They have badges,” he said, “but they are not policemen like Randy.”

  “Does my grief make me blind?” she asked him.

  His face softened. “I think, it does, my priestess.”

  “Then tell me what you see, Michael.”

  He turned dark eyes on us. He pointed at Olaf. “That one’s aura is dark, stained by violence and evil things. If you could not feel him at your door, then you are head-blind with grief, Phoebe.”

  “Then be my eyes, Michael,” she said.

  He turned to Bernardo. “I don’t see any harm in that one, though I wouldn’t trust him with my sister.”

  She smiled. “Handsome men are seldom trustworthy with people’s sisters.”

  He skipped me and went to Edward next. “That one’s aura is dark, too, but dark the way Randy’s was dark. Dark the way some people that have seen combat are dark. I would not want him at my back, but he means no harm here.”

  I have to admit that my pulse was up. Michael looked at me, and I fought not to look down but to meet those too-perceptive eyes.

  “She is a problem. She is shielding, very tightly. I cannot read much past those shields. But she is powerful, and there is a feel of death to her. I don’t know if she brings death, or if death follows her, but it’s there, like a scent.”

  “Destiny lies heavy on some,” Phoebe said.

  He shook his head. “It’s not that.” He stared at me, and I felt him pushing at my shields. After what had happened with Sanchez, I did not want my shields down again.

  “Stop pushing at my shields, Michael, or we’re going to have words.”

  “Sorry,” and he looked embarrassed, “but I don’t find many who aren’t Wiccan who can shield from me.”

  “I’ve been trained by the best,” I said.

  He glanced at the men with me. “Not by them.”

  “Never said I learned psychic shielding from the other cops.”

  “They aren’t cops; there’s something unfinished, or wilder, about you all. The only other cop I’ve met who felt close to you was one who had been undercover so long he’d almost become one of the bad guys. He got out, he got the job done, but it changed him. It made him less cop and more criminal.”

  “You know what they say,” I said, “one of the things that makes us good at getting bad guys is that we can think like one.”

  “Most cops can, but there’s a big difference between thinking like one and being one.” He studied us all. “The badges are real, but it’s like putting a leash on a tiger. It never stops being a tiger.”

  And that was a little too close to home.

  56

  MICHAEL WOULDN’T LEAVE. He thought we were too dangerous. We asked questions, but Edward didn’t want to tell about the crushed jaw, and other things, so it was like walking in a pitch-black room. You knew what you wanted was in there somewhere, but without a little light, you might never find it.

  I believed that Phoebe knew something, but we needed the right question to unlock it. She couldn’t tell us what she didn’t know we needed to know, or something like that. It was one of the most frustrating interrogations I’d ever done, though I let Edward take over before I completely lost patience. If I’d been alone, would I have told her everything I thought she needed to know? Maybe. I’d almost certainly have told her things that the other police wouldn’t want a civilian to know. Did that make me a bad cop? Maybe. Did that make Edward a better cop? Probably.

  I was actually pacing the far side of the room. She was a magical practitioner; for all we knew, she or Michael there could be involved. It wasn’t likely, but . . . and yet I would have spilled the beans to her. I was second-guessing myself about everything. It wasn’t like me, so if it wasn’t like me, then who was it like?

  Then I felt it: vampire. I just knew one was out there; I could feel it. “There’s a vampire outside,” I said.

  I heard the guns clear the holsters. I had my hand on my Browning out, too, but . . .

  “Is it a good vampire, or a bad vampire?” Bernardo asked.

  Edward came close to me, where I stood next to the big picture window and its pulled drapes. He whispered, “Can you tell who it is?”

  I put my left hand against the drape, hard enough to press it into the glass behind it. I concentrated, just a little, and thought at that push of energy. I had a choice of pushing back or simply opening enough to taste it. I was pretty sure it was Wicked, because whoever it was hadn’t tried to hide his presence from me. Vittorio was able to hide not just from me but from Max, and if he could hide his energy signature from the Master of the City, then he sure as hell could avoid my radar.

  But it was better to be sure, so I reached out a little more to that cool, wind-from-the-grave power. I touched that energy, found a taste of Jean-Claude’s power. All the vampires bound to him had a flavor of him, like a spice that had touched all their skins. Then my power touched Wicked, and him I could feel, like the word should be in bold letters. I felt him look into the air, as if he should be able to see me hovering. If it had been Jean-Claude, I could have used his eyes to look where he was looking; with Wicked it was just a feeling.

  “It’s him,” I said, low to Edward. I started to say, louder, “It’s okay, he’s on our side,” but stopped in midbreath, because a different power had pushed through the opening in my shields. The opening I’d had to make to sense the vampire. I’d forgotten about Michael. I’d forgotten that he was a psychic and that his priestess had ordered him to sense my abilities.

  There was a moment where I was caught between sensing the vampire outside and trying to push the witch out of my shields. It should have been simply a matter of closing the door that I’d opened, but something about Michael’s power made the door wider. It was like I’d opened a door, and he turned it into a tunnel mouth big enough to drive a semi through. The door I could guard, but the other opening was too large. And all tunnels are dark.

  Darkness boiled toward me. I could see her in my mind’s eye like a cloud of night, ready to pour into that opening. Michael stood in that vision with me, if vision was the word for it. He could see it, too. He didn’t waste time asking, What is it? He acted. He was t
he black dog, the black man, and he did his job. It is an old, old custom that no guest be harmed in your house.

  A golden glow appeared in his hand and grew like lightning to form a sword. He faced the coming dark with that burning sword in his hand. There was a second shadow over him, if a shadow could glow with light; it was larger than the man, and as the blackness framed him, rising up and up to eat the room I knew we had to be standing in, the glowing figure was more clear, and I saw for a moment the shadow of great, burning wings.

  My first thought was demon; then I knew that was just the front of my brain. I knew what the demonic felt like, and this was not it. It was power, raw and real, and destruction was in that fire, but it was holy fire, and only the unholy need fear it. But it takes faith to stand that close to the flame and not be afraid. How strong was my faith? What did I believe in as the darkness swept upward and Michael stood there with his sword and the shadow of angels at his back? I had a heartbeat to think, Oh, Michael, I get it.

  The man stood there between me and the dark, and I could not let him stand alone. I moved to stand with the man, Michael, and that glowing shadow, reciting as I moved, “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle”—the fire burned brighter against the dark—“be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.” It was like the fire in holy objects that came when faith was all you had against the vampires. “May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host . . .” It was as if I were seeing the source of every glowing holy object I had ever seen, burning before me. “By the power of God, cast into hell Satan . . .” I was at the edge of those burning wings, and for a moment I hesitated. The darkness swept up and over the man and the glow, and I knew that I had seconds to decide. What was I; whose side was I on? Was I holy enough to step into that light?