He swallowed like he was having a little trouble keeping down his own breakfast. "I won't kill him."
"Good." I drew the knife from between my knees right-handed. "Now gather round, boys and girls, because I'm only going to do this trick once."
There was a general movement as the wolves moved forward. I spared a glance for the boys I'd come in with. They hadn't put their guns up, but they had them pointed at the floor or the ceiling. Edward was watching the wolves, Bernardo was watching the wolves, too, though he looked pale. Olaf was watching me. I really, really, didn't like him.
"I give honor to the Ulfric and lupa of the Broken Spear Clan. I give the most precious of gifts to the Ulfric, but not being true lukoi, I cannot share this gift with the lupa in her present form. For that, I apologize most sincerely. If I come back this way, I'll shop better." I sat the blade on the bar and leaned over the edge until I could reach a clean glass. One of those thick chunky ones that people are so fond of putting scotch in. It was a strain to get back into a sitting position on the bar, but I managed it with the glass in one hand. I put the glass beside me on the bar and picked the knife up. I laid the blade against my left arm, just above the wrist, and stared at the whole, pale, unscarred flesh. There were scars just above it where a shapeshifted witch had clawed me, and the cross-shaped burn scar that was now a little crooked from the claw marks, but this one patch was still pure. I hoped it didn't scar, but what was one more.
I took in a deep breath and sliced the blade down my skin. A sigh ran through the watching werewolves, and whimpers from a few of the furrier throats. I ignored them. I'd known it would get a crowd reaction. I kept looking at my flesh and the damage I'd just done to it. The wound didn't bleed immediately. It was just a thin red line, then the first drop spilled from the wound, and the rest of the wound spilled in crimson rivulets down my arm. Deeper than I'd wanted it, but probably about what was needed. I held the wound over the glass. Some of it splashed around the edges, trailing down the sides, but I managed to get it going into the cup. I didn't even need to squeeze the wound much to encourage the flow. Deeper than I wanted it, oh yeah.
The Ulfric had moved closer, close enough that he was standing with his body touching my legs. The wolf that he'd introduced as his lupa moved up to nuzzle at my knee, and he hit her. He backhanded her the way you'd hit a dog you didn't like much. Where was women's lib when you needed it? She went to her belly, crying in doggy fashion, telling him she hadn't meant any harm with her tail tight curled to her rump.
No one else tried to move forward. If the lupa couldn't share, the rest of them knew better than to try.
The Ulfric stayed pressed against my legs. "Let me take it out of your arm." He stared at my bleeding arm like I'd stripped for him, something beyond sex, beyond hunger, and yet a little of both. I raised the arm so the blood trickled down it in fast little streams of red, splashing down into the glass. His gaze followed the movement like a dog after a piece of food.
The truth was that letting people lick a wound directly tended to distract me. Through the marks I was bound to a werewolf and a vampire. Both of which found blood exciting. The thoughts that filled me when I shared blood with anyone were too primitive, too overwhelming. Especially now with my shields in ruins, I couldn't risk it. "Is the gift worthy?" I asked.
"You know it is," and his voice had that peculiar hoarseness that men get when sex is in the air.
"Then drink, Ulfric, drink. Don't waste it." I held the bloody glass out to him. He took it reverently in both hands. He drank, and I watched his throat convulse as he swallowed my blood. It should have bothered me more, I guess, but it didn't. The numbness was back, a distant almost comfortable feeling. I fished under the bar until I found a stack of clean napkins and pressed them to my arm. The napkins soaked crimson in moments.
The Ulfric had waded into the pack with my blood in his hands. They surrounded him, touching him, caressing, begging for him to share. He dipped his lingers in the nearly empty cup and held them down for the wolves to lick.
Edward came to stand near me. He said nothing, just helped me put pressure on the wound, got more napkins from under the bar and a clean cloth to tie it tight. Our eyes met, and he just shook his head, the faintest of smiles playing on his face. "Most people pay money for information."
"Money doesn't interest most of the people I deal with."
The Ulfric called back to me through the reaching werewolves. His mouth was bloodstained, his neat beard and mustache thick with my blood. He stared at me with his golden eyes and said, "If you want to talk to Nicky, help yourself."
"Thank you, Ulfric," I said. I hopped down off the bar, and Edward had to catch me or I'd have fallen. Fresh blood loss on top of everything else was not what I had needed. I waved him away, and he didn't argue.
Edward undid Nicky's gag, and took a step back. The werewolves had pulled back, giving us the illusion of privacy, though I knew that every werewolf in the room would hear us, even if we whispered.
"Hi, Nicky," I said.
He had to try twice before he said, "Anita."
"I was here before ten." I put my hands on the bar and propped my chin on them so he wouldn't have to strain. The movement hurt my back, but somehow I wanted to be on eye level with him. The bulky makeshift bandage seemed to be in the way, but I wanted to keep the arm elevated. Nicky looked even worse up close. One eye was completely closed, blackened and bloodfilled. His nose looked broken, blood bubbling from it when he breathed.
"He came back into town early."
"I figured as much. You've been a very bad boy, Nicky. Pissing off your Ulfric, power play behind his back when you're just human, not even a werewolf, and that thing. That's not voodoo. How the hell did you do that?"
"Older magic than voodoo," he said.
"What kind of magic?" I asked.
"I thought you wanted to talk about the monster that's killing innocent citizens?" His voice was strained, pain-filled. Normally, I'm against torture, but I just couldn't find much pity in my heart for Nicky. I'd seen his creation, and I felt the torment of its parts. Nope, I just couldn't spare much sympathy for Nicky. He'd never take enough damage to make up for what he'd done, not at least while he was alive. Hell might be a very nasty place for Nicky Baco. I trusted the divine to have a better sense of justice and irony than I did.
"Okay, what do you really know about the thing that's out there?" I asked.
He lay there on the bar, wrists and ankles bound together, blood trickling from his mouth, and talked as if he were sitting behind a desk. Except for the little pain sounds he made every once in a while, which spoiled some of the effect.
"I felt it years ago, maybe ten. I felt it wake."
"What do you mean wake?"
"Have you had it in your mind yet?" he asked, and this time I heard the fear in his voice.
"Yeah," I said.
"It was sluggish at first, as if it had been asleep or imprisoned, dormant for a very long time. It grew stronger every year."
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"Ten years ago the police didn't have any psychics or witches working for them. And I already had a criminal record." He coughed and spat blood, and a tooth out on the bar. It made me raise my head up, which forced Nicky to roll his head a little. "What was I going to tell them? That there was this thing out there somewhere, this voice in my head, and it was getting stronger. I didn't know what it could do at first. I didn't know what it was."
"What is it?"
"It's a god."
I raised eyebrows at him.
"It was worshipped as a god once. It wants to be worshipped again. It says that gods need tribute to survive."
"You got all this from just a voice in your head?"
"I've had ten years with the thing whispering in my head. What have you learned in less than that many days?"
I thought about that. I knew it was killing to feed, not just for sport. Though it enjoyed the slaughter, that I'd felt, too. I kn
ew it both feared me and wanted me. It feared another death worker on the opposite side, but it wanted to drink my powers and would have if Leonora hadn't stopped it.
"Why has it just started to kill people now? Why after a decade?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Why does it slaughter some and skin others?"
"I don't know."
"What is it doing with the body parts that it takes away from the scenes?" Which was a detail that the police would not like me sharing with someone outside the investigation, but I wanted answers more than I wanted to be cautious.
"I don't know." He coughed again, but didn't spit out anything. Good. If he'd continued to spit blood, I'd have worried about internal injuries. I didn't want to have to persuade the pack to take him to the hospital. I didn't think I'd have much luck.
"Where is it?"
"I've never been there. But understand that what's been killing people is not the god. He's still trapped wherever he started. His servants have done all the murders, not him."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that if you think you've got trouble now, you ain't seen nothing yet. I can feel him in the dark, lying like some kind of bloated thing, filling up with power. When he's full enough, he'll rise, and it'll be hell to pay."
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"You had the police with you the first time. If you turn me over to them I'm dead. You've seen what I do. There wouldn't even need to be a jury."
He had a point. "When this is over, you have to dismantle it. You have to free their souls, agreed?"
"When I can walk again, agreed."
I glanced at his legs and saw that there was a lump under his pants leg. It was the bone of the leg, a compound fracture. Jesus. Some days there are so many stones to throw in so many different directions that I don't even know where to start.
"Does this god have a name?"
"He calls himself the Red Woman's Husband."
"That can't be an original English phrase."
"I think he knows what his victims know. By the time he came to me, he spoke in English."
"So you think he's been here a long time."
"I think he's always been here."
"What do you mean, always? Like eternity, or a really, really long time."
"I don't know how long he's been here." Nicky closed his good eye, as if he were tired.
"Okay, Nicky, okay." I turned to the Ulfric. "Is he telling the truth?"
The man nodded. "He didn't lie."
"Great. Thank you for your hospitality and please don't kill him. We may need him in the next few days to help kill this thing, not to mention freeing the souls of your pack mates."
"I'll lay off on the beating."
It was the closest thing I was going to get to a "yes, we are going to let him go and make sure he isn't hurt anymore."
"Great, I'll be in touch."
Edward stayed near me as we walked to the door. He didn't offer me his arm, but he stayed close enough that if I stumbled he'd be there. Bernardo already had the door open. Olaf just watched us walk towards them. I stumbled a little up the two steps to the door, and Olaf caught my arm. I looked up into his eyes, and it wasn't pride or honor or respect that I saw. It was ... hunger, a desire so great it was a physical need, a hunger.
I pulled away from him and left a smear of blood on his hand. Edward was at my back, helping me towards the door. Olaf raised his hand to his mouth and pressed it to his mouth like a kiss, but he was doing the same thing that the wolves did. He was tasting my blood and liked it. There are all kinds of monsters. Most of them crave blood. Some for food, some for pleasure, but you're dead either way.
48
EVERYONE WAS QUIET in the car. Olaf consumed by his own thoughts, which I wanted no details about. Bernardo had finally said, "Where to?"
"My house," Edward said. "I don't think Anita's up to anything else today."
For once, I didn't argue. I was so tired, I was nauseated. If I could have found a comfortable position, I think I could have slept.
We drove out of Albuquerque and headed towards the distant mountains, bright and cheerful in the morning light. I wished for a pair of sunglasses, because I suddenly was neither cheerful nor bright.
"Did you learn anything worth getting out of the hospital early?" Edward asked.
"I learned that the thing has a name, the Red Woman's Husband. It is hiding some place that it can't move from, which means if we can track it, we can kill it." I added, because just in case, they needed to know. "Nicky says it was worshipped as a god once, and that it still thinks it is one."
"It can't be a god," Bernardo said, "not a real one."
"I'm the wrong person to ask," I said. "I'm a monotheist."
"Edward?" Bernardo made a question of his name.
"I've never met anything that was truly immortal. It's just a matter of figuring out how to kill it."
I actually had met a few things that seemed immortal. Maybe Edward was right, but I'd seen things that I still couldn't figure out how to kill. Lucky me, the naga had been a crime victim and not a bad guy, and the lamia had been converted to our side. But as far as I knew they were both immortal. Of course, I'd never shoved an incendiary grenade down their pants or tried to set them on fire. Maybe I just hadn't been trying hard enough. For all our sakes, I hoped Edward was right.
We pulled onto the long road that led, as far as I could tell, just to Edward's house. It had a steeper drop off than I'd noticed at night, enough of a drop off that being an all terrain vehicle didn't mean anything unless you could fly. A white truck pulled in behind us and started following us.
"Do you know them?" Olaf asked.
"No," Edward said.
I managed to turn in the seat far enough to watch the truck. It didn't try and overtake us or anything. There was nothing wrong with the truck except for the fact that it was on the road to Edward's house and he didn't recognize it. Add to that that all four of us were paranoid by profession, and it made for tension.
Edward pulled into the turnaround in front of his house. "Everybody into the house until we find out who it is."
Everyone was quicker out of the car than I was, but then I'd just managed to get the bleeding on my arm stopped. Lucky for me, Edward had a heavy duty first aid kit in the back seat. I had a nice big bandage taped to my arm, and the wrist sheath shoved in my pocket.
Edward was at the door, unlocking it. Olaf was behind him. Bernardo had actually waited for me, as if he would have liked to offer to help me out of the car, but was afraid to. I was actually feeling rough enough that I didn't mind the babysitting, which told you how truly bad I felt.
There was a small, sharp sound, a bolt being drawn back on a rifle, and everything happened at once. Edward had his gun out and pointed at the sound. Olaf's gun was out but not pointed. Bernardo had his gun pointed, using the door as a brace. I have to admit my gun was in my hand but not pointed. I just wasn't used to the new holster, and having to lift the shirt with a wounded left hand. Damn, I was slow.
Harold of the scarred face was leaning at the far end of Edward's house with a high-powered rifle pointed at Edward. He had most of his body hidden behind the house, and held the rifle like he knew what he was doing. If he'd wanted to drop Edward, he could have done it before Edward got the drop on him. That Harold hadn't shot anyone yet meant they had come for more than just killing. Probably.
Harold said, "Nobody panics, nobody gets hurt."
"Harold," Edward said, "when did you guys make bail?" He was still staring down the barrel of his Beretta at Harold. I could almost guarantee he was sighting on the top of the other man's head, his best killing target from what little he had to shoot at. Edward did not shoot to wound.
"Only Russell got arrested," Harold said, rifle settled comfortably against his shoulder.
Speak of the devil. Russell came around the corner behind Harold. His nose was packed with white cotton and covered in a hard banda
ge. I'd broken his nose. Great.
"I thought terrorizing women and children carried more time than this," I said. I kept the gun behind the open door. I didn't want to give anyone an excuse to start shooting.
The tall silent Newt came around the other side of the house with a large shiny revolver in his hands. He held it two-handed and moved in a cross-foot glide that said he knew what he was doing. There was a woman beside him, moving like a smooth oiled shadow. She was six foot if she was an inch, and the tank top she was wearing showed off shoulders and arms that made most of the men look puny. Only her breasts pressed against the shirt showed her braless and very much a girl.
Olaf pointed his gun at them. Bernardo moved up with his gun, and the woman turned to him. Olaf turned as Newt moved across in front of him like a long distance dance. The woman and Bernardo were more practical. They just stood a little bit apart and stared at each other over their guns.
Only Russell kept walking and didn't pull a gun. I tried pulling mine and pointing it at him. He did stop, but his smile got wider and the look in his eyes got worse, as if he had plans for me, and they were all about to come true.
"You shoot me and they shoot your friends. You're the only one our boss wants," Russell said.
"But we're not here to kill anyone," Harold said, very quickly, as if he wanted to be clear on that. If I were staring down a gun barrel that Edward was holding, I'd want to be clear, too.
Russell started walking towards me, even though I had the Browning pointed at his chest.
"Our boss just wants to talk to you, that's all," Harold said. "I promise he just wants to talk to the girl."
I was backing up with the gun held out. Russell was still walking forward very confident. Unless I was willing to shoot him, he wasn't stopping. I did not want to be the one who fired the first shot. People were going to die, and I couldn't control which people that would be.
I could hear the truck now, crunching over the gravel. I did the only thing I could think of, I turned and ran. I heard a surprised, "Hey," from behind me. But I was over the edge of the slope and down the other side. I suddenly wasn't worried about tearing my stitches up, or how tired I was. My heart was in my throat, and I found that not only could I walk without falling down, I could run. My mind seemed to be working fast and faster. I saw a dry wash at the base of the slope and a clump of trees to one side. I slid into the wash in a rush of small stones. I landed on all fours, heavy, and was scrambling to my feet before I felt the first trickle of blood down my back. I was behind the trees as I heard Russell slither down the slope behind me.
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