[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Yeah, I know, I need to work on it.”

  She smiled, then turned to the sink. “Then I will not waste more of your time.” She turned the water on and waited a few moments for it to run, while her eyes were closed and she looked upward at nothing that I could see or feel.

  She passed the charm and chain under the running water. She turned the water off, then held the charm in her hands and closed her eyes again. “It is cleansed, and ready for use.”

  I gave her a look.

  She laughed. “What, you were expecting me to put it on the altar and take you out to dance naked in the moonlight?”

  “I’ve seen my teacher cleanse jewelry, and she does the four elements: earth, air, water, fire.”

  “I thought I would see if I could cleanse it doing something that you might actually do yourself.”

  “You mean just wash the bad stuff off?”

  “I let the water run for a few minutes, as I thought, ‘All water is sacred.’ Surely you know that running water is a barrier to evil.”

  “I’ve actually never found that a vamp couldn’t cross water to get to me. I’ve had ghouls run through a stream.”

  “Perhaps the stream, like your cross, needs you to believe.”

  “Why isn’t the water like the stones, and works on its own?”

  “Why should water be like stone?” she asked.

  It was one of those irritating questions that Marianne would ask occasionally. But I’d learned this game. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She smiled. “I see why you worked so quickly and seamlessly with Michael. You both have a certain exasperating quality to you.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  She dried the medallion carefully on a clean kitchen towel, then handed it to me. “This is not like your cross, Marshal. It is not an item that automatically keeps the bad things at bay. It is a neutral object; do you understand what that means?”

  I let the medallion and chain pool into the palm of my hand. “It means that it isn’t evil or good; it’s more like a gun. How it’s used depends on who’s pulling the trigger.”

  “The analogy will do, but I have never seen anything like this. You do not know me, but I don’t say that very often.”

  I looked at the dull gleam of the metal in my hand. “I was told it would keep Marmee Noir out of me.”

  “Did they tell you anything else about it?”

  I thought, then had to shake my head.

  “They may not have known, but I think as it keeps the Dark Mother out of you, it may also call things to you.”

  “What kind of things?” I asked.

  “There’s something very animalistic, almost shamanic, to the energy of the piece, but that’s not quite it, either.”

  I wanted to ask, did it call the tigers to me? Was it the medallion itself that was causing me to be drawn to them? Would asking be giving her too much information?

  “Why did you ask how good a witch Randy was?”

  I felt the compulsion to simply tell her. She was right, I wanted to tell her, felt we should enlist some help from the local talent, but it wasn’t my call. Edward was senior on this, and I bowed to his expertise. What could I say?

  “The bad guys, or things, didn’t go in for a killing blow. Their first strikes were to keep him from talking. He was a fully armed, fully trained, special teams guy. That’s dangerous enough to just kill, but whoever struck the blows saw his ability to speak as more dangerous than the weapons.”

  “You asked me about a spell, but I can’t think of anything that would force Randy to speak out loud. You saw Michael and what he did. His invocation was soundless.”

  “Yeah, but it takes concentration to do that kind of summoning, doesn’t it? Could Randy call up that kind of energy in the middle of a firefight?”

  She seemed to think about it. “I don’t know. I have never tried to do a working in the middle of combat. We have other brothers and sisters who are soldiers. I can email them and ask.”

  “Just ask if they’ve tried doing magic in the middle of a firefight. No details.”

  “I give you my word.”

  Had I said too much? It didn’t feel like I had. “Let’s say for argument’s sake that your people tell you they can’t do magic, silent and normal, during combat. What would come up against an armed unit, a SWAT unit, that Randy Sherman would have thought words, a spell, would be more effective against than silver-coated bullets?”

  “Are you certain it was silver bullets?”

  “It’s standard ops that tac units like SWAT have silver-coated ammo to be carried at all times, in case one of the bad guys turns out to be a vampire or shapeshifter. They were backing up a vampire hunter; they’d have silver ammo.”

  “But you didn’t check,” she said.

  I nodded. “I will, but I’ve seen these guys work, and they wouldn’t make that big a mistake.”

  She nodded. “Randy would certainly not have made such an error.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Phoebe.”

  “I was thinking,” she said. She frowned, rolling her lip under just a little. It looked like an old nervous habit that she’d almost lost. I wondered if it was her tell. Did it mean she was lying, or more nervous than she should be? Could she have some tie to what was happening? Well, yeah, duh, but it didn’t feel right. But then, how much was her magic and the house itself with all its wards affecting my reaction to her? Shit, I wished I hadn’t thought of that, or that I’d thought of it sooner. That I hadn’t thought sooner meant I was being messed with again. Shit.

  “The demonic, some evil spirits, as you saw with your Mother Dark.” She frowned.

  “You’ve thought of something,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s just, it could be almost anything. You haven’t even told me how they stopped Randy from speaking. I assume it was some kind of gag or damage that made speech impossible.”

  Honestly, for her to really be a worthwhile information source, she needed more clues, but Edward had expressly told me not to give her any. Crap.

  “I know you don’t trust me, Marshal.”

  “Why should I? You’ve got this house so wired with magic that you’ve taken most of our natural cynicism away. We’ve talked more openly around you than we should have already.”

  “Cynicism is not always conducive to studying and performing magic.”

  “But for cops, it’s essential.”

  “I did not ward my house with the idea that police would come and question me.”

  “Fair enough, but how can we tell what was on purpose and what wasn’t? I can’t even tell if we were talking too much before you redid the wards, or only after. If it was after, you did it on purpose to try to get us to tell you more about Randy Sherman’s death.”

  “That would be a very gray thing for a Wiccan priestess to do, Marshal.”

  I smiled, and it was a real smile. “You did, didn’t you? You used the emergency to tweak the spells so we’d be more chatty.” I shook a finger at her. “That’s illegal. Using magic on police in the middle of an investigation is automatic arrest. I could charge you with magical malfeasance.”

  “That would be an automatic jail sentence of at least six months,” she said.

  “It would,” I said.

  We stared at each other. “Grief makes me foolish, and I apologize for that, but I want to know what happened to Randy.”

  “No,” I said, “you don’t.”

  She frowned, and then her face clouded over. “Is it that awful?”

  “You don’t want your last”—I hesitated—“image of your friend to be the crime scene photos, and definitely not a visit to the morgue.” I reached out to lay a comforting hand, but stopped myself. I was a little fuzzy on human psychic abilities. Did they grow with touch, like a vampire’s? Mine didn’t, but mine were pretty specialized. I let my hand fall back. “Trust me on this one, Phoebe.”

  “How can I trust you when you’re threatening to pu
t me in jail?” There was a thread of anger in her voice now. I guess I couldn’t blame her.

  I actually hadn’t said I’d put her in jail. I’d just mentioned that I could put her in jail. Big difference, actually, but if she assumed it was a threat, fine. If it got me more information on the killings, or Randy Sherman, or anything, then even better. I wasn’t here to win popularity contests; I was here to solve crimes.

  There was movement in the doorway from farther inside the house. My gun was suddenly in my hand. Thought and action are one, grasshopper.

  “It’s my daughter,” Phoebe said, but she was staring at the gun. Staring at it like it was a very bad thing. I wasn’t even pointing it at anyone, and already she was scared. From powerful priestess hooked up to deity and magic to frightened civilian in one move.

  “Can I talk to you, or do you just want to shoot me?” Kate’s voice held fury. A nice red wave of anger, tinged with fear, came off her. It made my stomach clench tight, as if I were still hungry, but I knew it wasn’t that kind of hunger.

  I stepped back from both the mother and the daughter. I put myself so that my empty hand would open the door, and I could get away from that tempting anger, if the hunger rose too fast and too hard to control. I had Wicked outside, and if I had to choose between the ardeur with him or psychic rape on a witch, then I’d choose sex and the vampire. At least he was willing.

  “Are you afraid of me?” Kate asked, as she stepped carefully into the room. She’d added a short jacket over her jeans, and she had her hands stuffed in her pockets.

  “Let me see your hands,” I said, voice low and even.

  She made a face, but her mother said, “Do what she says, Kate.”

  The girl couldn’t have been much younger than me, five years or less, but she’d lived a different life. She didn’t believe I’d shoot her, but her mother did.

  “Kate, as your priestess, I tell you to do what she says.”

  The girl let out a breath, then took her hands, carefully, out of her pockets. The hands were empty. Her anger welled off her like some rich, thick scent, as if her rage would taste better than most.

  “I won’t let her put you in jail,” she said, dark eyes all for her mother, as if I weren’t standing there with a gun in my hand. I hoped I didn’t have to shoot her; it would be like winging an angry Bambi. She just didn’t know any better. The very naïveté of her helped me regain control of the hunger. I took deep, even breaths and thought soothing, empty thoughts.

  “Kate,” Phoebe said, “I let my grief get in the way of my better judgment. That is not the marshal’s fault.”

  Kate shook her head hard enough for her brown ponytail to whirl around her shoulders. “No.” Then she turned those angry eyes to me. “If I gave you a name of someone who could have done this, would you leave my mother alone?”

  “Kate, no!”

  “We don’t owe him enough for you to go to jail, and what if he did have something to do with this? Then the next time he killed someone, it would be part of our karma, too. I don’t owe him that.”

  “I was his priestess, Kate.”

  She shook her head again. “I wasn’t.” She turned back to me. “I’m dating a cop. He said something about the bodies being torn up, and not all of it was wereanimal. I mean, that always makes the news anytime you get a mutilated body. They always blame the local wereanimals first.”

  I just nodded. She was in a mood to talk, if I didn’t spoil it somehow.

  “But he said that some of the bodies were cut with blades. That the ME had never seen anything like it, and neither had you guys.”

  Her boyfriend was way too talkative, but if she’d give me the name, I wouldn’t tell. I might try to find out who it was and tell him to keep his mouth shut, but I wouldn’t rat him out. If she’d just say the name.

  “Is that true?” she asked, at last.

  “I’m not free to discuss an ongoing investigation. You know that.”

  “If it’s true, then you need to talk to Todd Bering.”

  “He’s off his meds again,” Phoebe said. “You have to understand that. He’s a good man when he takes his meds, but when he goes off . . .”

  “What’s he on meds for?”

  “He was diagnosed with schizophrenia because he heard voices and saw things. He may have been mildly ill, but he is also one of the most powerful natural witches I’ve ever met.”

  “What does that mean, ‘natural witch’?” I asked.

  “Like you,” Kate said, “your power just came, right? You didn’t have to study, you could just do it.”

  “I had to have training to control it,” I said.

  “And that’s what we tried to do for Todd.” Kate didn’t sound angry now, she sounded a little sad. I was happy about the sad; it made the receding edge of anger less yummy.

  “It didn’t work?” I asked.

  “It worked,” Phoebe said, and she sighed, “but when he started getting sick again, he called up things that are never to be touched on our path. There are some things you cannot do and be a good witch.”

  I nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

  “He called a demon. It felt so awful, like you couldn’t breathe past the evil of it,” Kate said; she was looking at the ground, but her eyes were haunted, as if she could still feel it.

  “I’ve felt the demonic before,” I said.

  “Then you know,” she said, raising those haunted eyes to me.

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “It had these big blade-like hooks for hands. As far as I know it’s still inside the circle in his house, but if he gained control of it . . .” She shrugged.

  I looked at them both. “The most likely scenario is that when it gets out of the circle, it just kills him and goes back to where it came from. How likely is it that this Todd Bering is powerful and sane enough to control something like this?”

  Phoebe nodded. “He would be capable.”

  “You should have reported this to the authorities as soon as you saw it,” I said.

  “I thought, like you, that it would escape the circle and kill him. It would be instant karma. I didn’t dream that he would be able to control it, or that he would attack policemen. Rumor says that it was that vampire serial killer and wereanimals. No one said demon or blades. The news reported that the police had been torn apart by claws and fangs.”

  We had a serious leak at the Vegas PD, and I would have to report it. Talking to your girlfriend is one thing; talking to the press is another. I couldn’t take the chance that her boyfriend wasn’t our Mr. Chatty.

  “Blades, Mom, blades.”

  I didn’t correct her that it was both. No need for me to share, too. “I appreciate the information.”

  “If you had simply told me that he was cut with blades—Randy, I mean—I would have told you about Todd.”

  “I know, but it’s hard to know who to trust. I need his address.”

  They exchanged a look, then Phoebe got a notepad by the telephone and wrote it down for me. “May Goddess forgive me if he did these terrible murders.”

  I holstered the Browning and took the paper from her with my left hand. “I can’t hide where I got the information from.”

  “They’ll investigate us all!” Kate yelled, and took a step toward me. Her anger was just suddenly so there, so close, so . . .

  I felt the door behind me opening, and moved so Edward could come through. “You guys all right in here?”

  I shook my head, then nodded. “We have a crazy witch who raised a demon with blades for hands. The last time they saw it, it was inside the summoning circle. We need to see if it’s still there.”

  “If it’s still there, then he didn’t do it,” Kate said.

  I gave her a look, and then had to look away, but sight wasn’t what was sending her anger toward me like some sweet scent. My stomach clenched again, and I eased around the edge of the open door. “Just because it’s in the circle now doesn’t mean he didn’t let it out and put it back,�
� I said.

  “You’ll ruin our reputation. You’ll ruin everything we’ve built; every good thing my mother has done will be lost in the news that one of our coven members raised a murdering demon!” Kate was yelling again and advancing on me.

  I couldn’t let her touch me because I wanted to feed. I wanted to suck all that anger off her. “I’ve got the address, and I need some air.”

  Edward gave me a look.

  “It would be wicked of me to stay inside right now,” I said softly.

  “Go,” he said, equally softly, then turned to calm the enraged girl and her sad mother.

  Michael was being kept out of the kitchen by Olaf and Bernardo. No one was in handcuffs, yet.

  I said as I walked past them all, “You should have told us about Bering and the demon.” I handed the piece of paper to Bernardo as I moved past.

  He took it and said, “What is it?”

  “The address to a demon with claws for hands.”

  “Anita,” Olaf called.

  I shook my head and was at the door. I felt the wards like a physical presence, almost like warm water or some thick bubble that clung to me as I moved. But it was designed to keep things out, not in, and I slid out of that warm, protective barrier to find the cool, desert night, and Wicked leaning against our car.

  57

  WICKED PUSHED AWAY from the car, almost coming to attention. Every inch of height was suddenly there, making the broad shoulders look even more impressive. He had a tan trench coat on over a suit of similar color. His blond hair was silvered with moonlight, the edges of it trailing over the shoulders of the coat. His face was almost painfully masculine, the moonlight and streetlights cutting the high cheekbones and dimpled chin into angles and planes, sharper and even more masculine than I knew was true. His eyes were blue and gray; in this light they were silver and gray. Those eyes widened as he felt me coming for him.

  It didn’t matter that he’d never been food before; it didn’t matter that we’d never had sex. All my good intentions were gone by the time I crossed the yard and hit the sidewalk.

  I heard the sound the key made to unlock the doors of the car, and glanced back enough to see Edward on the porch. He’d unlocked the car. Always practical, my Edward.