Obsidian Butterfly ab-9

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Dallas knelt beside me, keeping a hand on my arm, but she watched the stage. The jaguar men held him, and you could see their grip tighten, sec them take in their collective breaths. Cesar's face showed nothing, not fear, not anticipation, just waiting for it.

  The priest drove the blade into the flesh just below the ribs. Cesar's body jerked in reaction, but he didn't cry out. The blade tore across him, digging into the meat, widening the hole. His body danced with the wound, but he never made a sound. Blood poured across Cesar's pale skin, bright and almost unreal under the lights. The priest reached his hand into the wound nearly up to his elbow, and Cesar cried out.

  I grabbed Dallas's arm. "He can't survive without his heart, not even a shapeshifter can survive that."

  "They won't take his heart, I swear it." She stroked my hand where it gripped her like you'd soothe a nervous dog.

  I leaned in close to her, and whispered, "If they take his heart when I could have stopped it, I'll have your heart on a knife before I leave New Mexico. You still willing to swear?"

  Her eyes had gone wide. I think she was holding her breath, but she nodded. "I swear it."

  The funny thing was that she believed the threat instantly. Most people you tell them you're going to cut their heart out and they won't believe you. People believe you'll kill them, but get too graphic and they take it like a joke or an exaggeration. Professor Dallas believed me. You could see it in her face. Most college professors wouldn't have. Made me wonder about Dallas more than I already did.

  The priest's voice came into the utter silence that had filled the room. "I hold his heart in my hand. In the long gone days we would have torn it from his chest, but those days are gone," and you heard, felt the regret in his words. "We worship as we can, not as we would." He slid his hand out slowly, and I was close enough to hear the wet, fleshy sound as his hand pulled out of the wound.

  He raised a hand covered in blood above his head, and the audience cheered.

  They cheered. They fucking cheered.

  The jaguar men lifted Cesar from the altar and tossed him down the steps. He tumbled bonelessly coming to rest on the floor directly in front of the steps. He lay on his back, gasping, fighting to breathe and I wondered if the priest had damaged a lung or two when he went fishing for the heart.

  I just sat there, staring at him. He did this twice a month. It was part of his job. Shit. Not only didn't I understand it, I didn't want to. If he was into pain and death, I didn't need to know anything else about him. I was eyeball deep in sadomasochistic wereleopards back home. I didn't need another one.

  The priest was talking, but I didn't hear him. I didn't hear anything but a great roaring like white noise in my ears. I watched the wereleopard twitch, body jerking, blood pouring down his sides, across the floor, but even as I stared, the blood was slowing. It was hard to tell through all the blood and torn flesh, but I knew he was healing.

  Two of the human bouncers came and picked him up, one taking his ankles, the other lifting under his arms. They carried him through the tables, past us. I stood, stopping them. Dallas stood with me, as if afraid of what I'd do. I stared into Cesar's eyes. There was real pain there. He wasn't having a good time or didn't seem to be. But you don't do shit like this on a regular basis unless you enjoy it on some level. His hands were lying on his chest, as if he were trying to hold himself together. I pried one hand up. The skin was slick with blood. I pressed the jade earrings into his hand, closed his fingers around them.

  He whispered something, but I didn't bend down to hear. "Don't ever come near me again."

  I sat back down, and they carried him away. I started to reach for a napkin to wipe my hands, but Dallas grabbed my arm. "She's ready to see you now."

  I hadn't seen anyone talk to her, but I wasn't questioning it. If she said it was time, fine. We could meet the Master of the City and get the hell out of here.

  I started to reach for the napkin again, but she moved it out of reach. "It is fitting that you meet her with the blood of sacrifice on your hands."

  I looked at her and grabbed the napkin out of her hands. She actually struggled to keep it, and we had a little tug of war before I jerked it away from her. But a woman appeared at my elbow. She wore a red-hooded cloak and came up only to my shoulder, but even before she turned her head so I could see the face that lay inside that cloak, I knew what she was. Itzpapalotl, Obsidian Butterfly, Master of the City, and self-proclaimed goddess. I hadn't felt her coming. I hadn't heard her or sensed her. She just appeared beside me like magic. It had been a long time since a vampire had been able to do that. I think I stopped breathing for a second or two as I met her eyes.

  Her face was as delicate as the rest of her, her skin a milk-pale brown. Her eyes were black, not just brown, but truly black like the obsidian blade she was named for. Most master vamp's eyes are like drowning pools, things to fall into and be trapped, but her eyes were like solid black mirrors reflecting back, not something to fall into, but something to show you the truth. I saw myself in those eyes, a miniature reflection perfect in every detail like a black cameo. Then the image split, doubling, tripling. My face stayed in the center with a wolf's head on one side, and a skull on the other. As I watched, the three images grew closer until the wolf and skull were superimposed over my face, and for a split second I couldn't tell where one image left off and the others began.

  One image floated above the rest. The skull rose above the first two, spilling upward through the blackness, filling her eyes until the skull filled my vision, and I was able to stumble back, nearly falling. Edward was there, catching me. Dallas had moved to stand beside the vampire.

  Bernardo and Olaf were at Edward's back, and I knew in that instant that if he'd given the word, they'd have both drawn guns and fired. It was a comforting thought. Suicidal, but comforting. Because I could feel her people now, which meant she had to have been blocking me, hiding them. I felt the vampires underneath the building, around it, through it. There were hundreds of them, and most of them were old. Hundreds of years old. And Obsidian Butterfly? I glanced at her but was careful not to meet her eyes this time. It had been years since I'd had to avoid a vampire's eyes. I'd forgotten how hard it is to look someone in the face without making eye contact, like some elaborate game. Them trying to catch my glance and bespell me, me trying to keep away.

  She had a fall of straight black bangs, but the rest of her hair was pulled back from her face to reveal delicate ears set with jade ear spools. She was a delicate thing, petite even standing next to me and Professor Dallas, but I wasn't fooled by the packaging. What lay inside was a vampire not that old. I doubted she was a thousand years yet. I'd met older, much older, but I'd never met any vampire under a thousand that echoed in my head with the power that this one did. Power breathed off her skin like a nearly visible cloud, and I'd learned enough of vampires to know that the echo of power wasn't on purpose. Some of the masters with special abilities, like causing fear or lust, just gave off that power constantly like steam rising from a pot. It was involuntary, partially at least. But I'd never met one that leaked power, pure power.

  Edward was talking to me, probably had been talking to me for a while. I just hadn't heard. "Anita, Anita, are you all right?" I felt the press of a gun not pointed at my back, but drawn, using my body to shield it from the room. Things could get ugly really fast.

  "I'm all right," but my voice didn't sound all right. It sounded hollow and distant, like I was in shock. Maybe I was, a little. She hadn't exactly rolled my mind, but she knew things about me in that first contact that most vampires never figured out. I realized suddenly that she knew what kind of power I was. That was her gift, to be able to read power.

  Her voice when it came was heavily accented and much deeper than that fragile throat should have held, as if the voice was an echo of that immense power. "Whose servant are you?"

  She knew I was a vampire's human servant, but not whose servant I was. I liked that, made me feel better. She r
ead only power, not details, unless of course, she was only pretending not to know. But somehow I didn't think she'd pretend ignorance. No, this was one that liked showing off her knowledge. She breathed arrogance as she breathed power. But why not be arrogant? She was, after all, a goddess, self-proclaimed anyway. You'd have to be either absolutely arrogant or crazy to claim godhood.

  "Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis."

  She cocked her head to one side as if listening to something. "Then you are the Executioner. You did not give your true name at the door."

  "Not all vampires will talk to me if they know who I am."

  "What is it you wish to speak with me about?"

  "The mutilation murders."

  Again, she turned her head to one side as if listening. "Ah, yes." She blinked and looked up at me. "The price for an audience is what lies on your hands."

  I must have looked as puzzled as I felt, because she elaborated. "The blood, Cesar's blood. I wish to take it from you."

  "How?" I asked, just call me suspicious.

  She simply turned and started walking away. Her voice came like the sound to a badly dubbed film, sound long after it should have been heard. "Follow me, and do not clean your hands."

  I glanced at Edward. "Do you trust her?" I asked.

  He shook his head.

  "Me either," I said.

  "Are we going or staying?" Olaf asked.

  "I vote for going," Bernardo said. I hadn't really looked at him since the sacrifice began. He was looking a little pale. Olaf wasn't. Olaf looked fresh and bright-eyed, as if he were enjoying the evening.

  Dallas said, "It would be a grave insult if you refuse her invitation. She rarely gives personal interviews voluntarily. You must have impressed her."

  "I didn't impress her. I attracted her," I said.

  Dallas frowned. "Attracted her. She likes men."

  I shook my head. "She may have sex with men, but what attracts her is power, Professor."

  She looked at me, searching my face. "You have that kind of power?"

  I sighed. "We'll find out, won't we?" I started walking in the direction that the cloaked figure had gone. She hadn't waited for us to decide. She'd just walked away. Like I said, arrogant. Of course, we were about to follow her into her private lair. That was arrogance, too, or stupidity. Arrogance or stupidity, sometimes there's not much difference between the two.

  25

  I DIDN'T KNOW where to go, but Dallas did. She led us to a small door set to one side of the temple steps, hidden by curtains. The door was still open, like a black mouth. Steps led down. Where else? Just once I'd like to see a vamp whose major hideout was up instead of down.

  Dallas walked down the steps with a spring in her step and a song in her heart. Her ponytail bounced as she skipped down the steps. If she had a single misgiving about going down into that darkness, it didn't show. Dallas confused me. On one hand she didn't see that Olaf was dangerous, and she wasn't afraid of any of the monsters in the club. On the other hand, she'd believed me when I told her I'd cut her heart out. I'd seen it in her eyes. How could she believe that threat from a total stranger and not see the other dangers? Didn't make sense to me, and I didn't like what I didn't understand. She seemed utterly harmless, but her reactions were weird, so I put a question mark by her. Which meant, I wouldn't be turning my back on her or treating her like a civilian until I was convinced that that was what she was.

  I was going too slowly for Olaf. He pushed past me and followed Dallas's bouncing ponytail down the stairs. He had to stoop to keep from bumping his head on the ceiling, but he didn't seem to mind. Fine with me. Let him take the first bullet. But I followed them down into the dark. No one had offered me violence, not really, not yet. So it seemed rude to have a gun naked in my hand, but ... I'd apologize later. Unless I knew the vampire personally I liked having a loaded gun in hand the first time I paid a call. Or maybe it was the narrow stairs, the close press of stone as if it would close around us like a fist and crush us. Have I mentioned that I'm claustrophobic?

  The stairs didn't go down very far, and there was no door at the end of them. Jean-Claude's retreat in St. Louis was something of an underground fortress. The barely hidden doorway, the short stairs, no second door -- arrogance, again.

  Olaf blocked my view of Dallas, but I saw him reach the dimly lit doorway at the bottom. He had to stoop even further to get through the door and hesitated before standing up on the other side. There was a sense of movement around him or rather to either side of him. Quick, almost not there, like things you see out of the comer of your eyes. It reminded me of the hands that had stripped Cesar as he walked between light and darkness.

  He stayed just in the doorway, his body nearly filling it completely, blocking what little light there had been. I caught the faintest edge of Dallas. She led him away from the door further into the firelit dark.

  I called down, "Olaf, are you okay?"

  No answer.

  Edward tried. "Olaf?"

  "I am fine."

  I glanced back at Edward. We had a moment of staring into each other's eyes, both of us thinking the same thing. This could be a trap. Maybe she was behind the murders. Maybe she just wanted to kill the Executioner. Or maybe she was a centuries-old vampire, and she just wanted to hurt us for the hell of it.

  "Could she make Olaf lie?"

  "You mean mind tricks?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "Not this fast. I may not like him, but he's stronger than that." I looked at him, searching his face in the dim light. "Could they force him to lie?"

  "You mean a knife at his throat?" Edward said.

  "Yeah."

  He gave a faint smile. "No, not this quick, not ever."

  "You're sure of that?" I asked.

  "My life on it."

  "We're betting all our lives on it."

  He nodded. "Yes, we are." But if Edward said that Olaf wouldn't sell us out on fear of death or pain, then I believed him. Edward didn't always understand why people did what they did, but he was usually right about the fact that they were going to do it, Motive evaded him, but he was seldom wrong. So ... I kept walking down the steps.

  I strained my peripheral vision, trying to see on either side of the doorway as I walked through it. I didn't have to bend over to go through. The room was square and small, maybe sixteen by sixteen. It was also packed nearly corner to corner with vampires.

  I put my back against the wall to the right of the door, gun clutched two-handed, pointed at the ceiling. I wanted badly to point it at someone, anyone. My shoulders ached with the tension of not doing it. No one was threatening me. No one was doing a damn thing except standing, staring, milling around the way people do. So why did I feel like I should have entered the room shooting?

  Tall vampires, short vampires, thin vampires, fat vampires, every size, every shape, and almost every race, moved around that small stone room. After what had happened upstairs with their master, I was careful not to make eye contact with any of them. My gaze swept over the room, taking in the pale faces, and getting a quick head count. When I got over sixty, I realized the room was at least twice the size I'd originally thought. It had to be just to hold this many of them. It only looked small because it was packed so tight. The torchlight added to the illusion, flickering, dancing, uncertain light.

  Edward stayed in the doorway, his back to the doorframe, shoulder touching mine lightly. His gun was up like mine, his eyes searching the vamps. "What's wrong?"

  "What's wrong? Look at them." My voice was breathy, not because I was trying to whisper -- that would have been useless -- but because my throat was tight, my mouth dry.

  He scanned the crowd again. "So?"

  My gaze flashed to him, then back to the waiting vampires. "Shit, Ed ... Ted. Shit." It wasn't just the number of them. It was my own ability to sense them that was the problem. I'd been around a hundred vamps before, but they hadn't affected me like this. I didn't know if having walled off my lin
k to Jean-Claude made me more vulnerable to them, or if my necromancy had grown since then. Or maybe Itzpapalotl was just that much more powerful than the other master had been. Maybe it was her power that had made them so much more than most vamps. There were close to a hundred in this room. I was getting impressions from all of them, or most of them. My shields were great now, I could keep out a lot of the preternatural stuff, but this was too much for me. If I had to guess, there wasn't a vamp in the room under a hundred. I got flashes from individual ones if I looked at them too long, a slap in the face of their age, their power. The four females in the right corner were all over five hundred years old. They watched me with dark eyes, dark-skinned, but not as dark as they would have been with a little sun. The four of them watched me with patient, empty faces.

  Her voice came from the center of the room, but she was hidden behind the vampires, shielded by them. "I have offered you no violence, yet you have drawn weapons. You seek my aid, yet you threaten me."

  "It's not personal, Itz ... " I stumbled over her name.

  "You may call me Obsidian Butterfly." It was odd talking to her without being able to glimpse her through the waiting figures.

  "It's not personal, Obsidian Butterfly. I just know that once I put up the gun, chances of drawing it again before one of your brood rips my throat out is damn small."

  "You mistrust us," she said.

  "As you mistrust us," I said.

  She laughed then. Her laughter was the sound of a young woman, normal but the strained echoes from the other vampires were anything but normal. The laughter held a wild note to it, a desperation, as if they were afraid not to laugh. I wondered what the penalty was for not following her lead.

  The laughter faded away, except for one high pitched masculine sound. The other vampires went still, that impossible stillness where they seem like well-made statues, things made of stone and paint, not real, not alive. They waited like a host of empty things. Waited for what? The only sound was that high, unhealthy laughter, rising up and up like the sounds the movies have you hear in insane asylums, or mad scientists' laboratories. The sound raised the hair on my arms, and it wasn't magic. It was just creepy.