[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He had a point, but . . . What I wanted to say was that I didn’t understand why all the men wanted to be on the feeding list. I had a mirror; I knew what I was seeing, and though I was pretty, and maybe even beautiful given the right outfit, it wasn’t the same level of gorgeous of the men that were chasing me. But every time I tired to say it out loud, they accused me of being humble, or lying. I didn’t think it was humility, just honesty.

  “I will not apologize for trying to keep my list of feeds from growing, Wicked. Jean-Claude made noises that he didn’t want to share me with any new men, and now he sends me nothing but, almost. What’s with that?”

  “He’d rather see you and all his people back home in St. Louis, alive, then save his ego.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that he agreed with your assessment of Vittorio. If he sent anyone who could be used as a hostage and couldn’t handle themselves in a fight, it might be too tempting. Especially considering that his choice of victims is mostly strippers, and most of your closest lovers are also strippers.”

  That made my stomach clench tight.

  “I feel your fear, Anita. He thought you’d reasoned that out.”

  “I had, just not that bluntly.”

  “I’m surprised; usually you’re the more blunt of the two of you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, “but I don’t feel like I’m about to lose control right now.”

  “Then I will ride back with you and the nice executioners. But when you get back to a hotel, you are going to have to feed on someone.” His careful vampire voice held self-mockery, and I knew that wasn’t how he felt. It was his tone when he was hiding what he felt. “But if you feed on vampire tonight, then in the morning you are going to have to pick one of the wereanimals, because vampire only works after dark when we’re above ground.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m just saying, be thinking about your menu choices, because I do not want you losing control of the ardeur because you’ve gone squeamish.”

  “I am not squeamish.”

  “If you weren’t, then you’d have already slept with Haven.”

  I let that go because he was probably more right than I wanted to admit. “How many other people with you are ones I’ve never slept with?”

  “Most of the wereanimals.”

  I made an exasperated sound.

  “Anita, you said not to send anyone that you’d care about too much, and only to send peole that could fight. That cuts out most of your regulars. Either they mean too much to you, or they can’t fight worth a farthing.” For a moment there was an echo of an accent, mostly lost long ago. “Fight off the ardeur, and you don’t have to touch us.”

  “It’s not that, damn it. It’s just that I’m trying to trim down the list of men, not add to it.”

  “I understand that, too, but that you not only can resist my charms, but are actively disturbed by the thought of sex with me, now that does hurt an old vampire’s heart.”

  “Damn it, Wicked, don’t make this about hurt feelings.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Wicked . . .”

  “I will wait by the car, outside the house, so I don’t compromise your investigation.” He hung up.

  “I didn’t know Wicked was on the menu for you,” Edward said.

  “He’s not.”

  Edward gave me a look, one pale eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t you start, too.” I curled into the corner of my seat, crossed my arms, and let myself pout. Yes, it was childish, but every time I thought I was getting control of my powers, I was wrong. I did not want to add to the men I was sleeping with, honest. Why didn’t I want to sleep with gorgeous men who were usually pretty good in bed? Because though I’d found I could have sex with this many men, I couldn’t “date” them. I couldn’t be their emotional rock. I was trying, and failing, but I seemed incapable of just fucking and feeding. Jean-Claude was right; I had to either stop needing so much, or stop trying for emotion with my sex. I just didn’t have a clue how to do that. If it didn’t matter emotionally, why have sex at all? Oh, because you are a succubus, and would die and drain the life out of people you loved, so they died first. Yeah, that was reason enough. I guess Wicked was right; I was still trying to pretend that it wasn’t my reality.

  “So a vampire is going to meet us at the witness’s house?” Bernardo asked.

  “Yes. He’ll be waiting by the car when we get out.”

  “Won’t his car be there, too?” Bernardo asked.

  “He’s going to fly,” I said.

  “Fly . . . oh, you mean fly.” Bernardo actually flapped his arms a little.

  “Yeah, but they don’t actually flap their arms. It’s more levitation than actually flying.”

  “Like Superman,” Olaf said.

  I glanced back at him in the darkened car. “Yeah, I guess so, like Superman.”

  “Are you feeling shaky enough to need them to meet us out here?” Edward asked.

  “No, but he’s right, it’s going on fourteen hours. Let’s just say I love you like a brother; I’d rather not have to explain that whole incest taboo to Donna and the kids.”

  “So, if you lose control . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “It could go badly,” I said. I made myself sit up straighter. I would not pout in the corner, damn it.

  “You mean, you could just lose control of this ardeur?” Bernardo asked.

  “Yes,” I said, and let the first hint of anger into that word.

  “How much loss of control?” Olaf asked.

  “Let’s hope none of you find out.”

  “We’re at the house,” Edward said.

  “Let’s put on our cop faces,” I said brightly, “and pretend that one of us isn’t a living vampire that feeds on sex.”

  “Don’t let the other cops make you feel bad about it, Anita.”

  “Edward, it is bad.”

  “Everything that has happened to you happened because you were trying to save someone else. The vampire powers are the same as a gunshot wound, Anita. You got both in the line of duty.”

  I looked into his face, studied it. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t say things I don’t mean, Anita.”

  “You lie like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, Edward.”

  He smiled. “I don’t lie to you.”

  “Really,” I said.

  The smile became a grin. “Okay, not most of the time, anymore.” His face sobered. “I’m not lying now.”

  I nodded. “I’ll take that.”

  “I feel like a voyeur,” Bernardo said.

  We both frowned at him, together. He raised his hands. “Sorry to ruin the touching moment, but honestly, if you want to have the heart-to-heart talks, let us get out of the car first. I’m not kidding on the voyeur part.”

  “Get out,” Edward said.

  He opened the door and did, without asking another thing. Olaf’s face showed clearly in the sudden overhead light. He was studying us both, as if he’d never seen us before.

  “What?” I asked.

  He just shook his head and got out, too. We were left alone in the car. Edward patted my leg. “I meant what I said, Anita. It’s like an injury, or a disease that you got on duty. Don’t let the rest of them get to you.”

  “Edward, I’ve never touched Wicked intimately, and now he’s speeding his way through the night to offer himself up for sex and maybe more.”

  He frowned at me. “What do you mean, maybe more than sex?”

  “It’s like when I feed off the preternatural men, they’re under my power, or something. It’s why his brother, Truth, doesn’t want to sleep with me. He’s afraid I’ll possess him.”

  “Would you?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “How much of this can you control?”

  “Not enough,” I said.

  We looked at each other as the overhead light dimned and went out. “I’m sor
ry, Anita.”

  “Me, too. You know, Edward, if I can’t travel without needing to feed, then I can’t travel.”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “It’s getting in the way of my doing the marshal stuff.”

  “We’ll work it out, Anita.”

  “What if we can’t?”

  “We will,” and he sounded very firm when he said it. I knew that tone; arguing wouldn’t help me. It was the tone he used when he simply expected you to listen and do what he said.

  I’d listen, but even the great Edward couldn’t solve everything. I’d like to think he’d be able to help me keep working as a marshal while I had to feed the ardeur, but some things aren’t fixable.

  “Let’s go question the witch.”

  “Most of them don’t like to be called that.”

  He flashed me a smile as he opened the door, and the light went on again. “I’ll let you take the lead. You’re our magic expert.”

  I realized he would let me take the lead not just because I was the magic expert but because he wanted me to feel in control of something. For a control freak like me, I didn’t feel in control of very much lately. But I got out; we closed the doors, locked it, and walked through the Nevada dark to the house of Phoebe Billings, high priestess and witch.

  55

  WE STOOD IN front of a modest suburban house in a street full of other modest suburban houses. There were enough streetlights that we had a good view even in the dark. People forget that Las Vegas’s famous Strip with its casinos, shows, and bright lights is only a small part of the city. Other than the fact that the house was set in a yard that ran high to rocks, sand, and native desert plants, it could have been one of a million housing developments anywhere in the country.

  Most of the other houses had grass and flowers, as if they were trying to pretend they didn’t live in the desert. The day’s heat was browning the grass and flowers nicely. They must have a limit on how much they can water, because I’ve seen yards in deserts as green as a golf course. These yards looked sad and tired in the cooling dark. It was still hot, but had the promise that as the night wore on it would get cooler.

  “A high priestess lives here?” Bernardo said.

  “According to the phone book,” I said.

  He came around the car to stand on the sidewalk beside us. “It looks so . . . ordinary.”

  “What did you expect, Halloween decorations in August?”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I guess I did.”

  Edward walked to the back of the car and opened it. He reached into his own bag of tricks and got out one of the U.S. Marshal windbreakers.

  “It’s too hot for that,” I said.

  He looked at me. “We’re armed to the teeth, and it’s all visible. Would you let us in your house if you weren’t sure we were cops? But I am running low on them. Someone keeps getting them all bloody.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  I tapped my badge on its lanyard around my neck. It was what I wore in St. Louis when the heat was too hot for a jacket. “See?” I said. “I’m legal.”

  “You look more harmless than we do,” Edward said, and started handing out jackets to the other men.

  Bernardo took his without comment and just slipped it on, pulling his braid out of the back with a practiced flip. Some gestures are not about being a girl or a boy, but just how long your hair is.

  Olaf had his badge on a lanyard around his neck, too. It bugged me that we’d both done it, but where else are you gonna put a badge when you’re wearing a T-shirt? I did have one of the clips and had put the badge on my backpack a couple of times, but I’d run into situations where I took off the backpack, and got separated from it and my badge. I had the badge on my belt by the Browning, because you always want to flash a badge when you flash a gun. Just good survival skills, and saves the other cops from being called by some panicked civilian who spotted it. You want your badge in the middle of a fight with police and bad guys. It helps the police not shoot you. Yeah, being a girl and looking so uncop helped the good guys know what I looked like, but accidents happen when you’re drowning in adrenaline. Badge visible, at least the accident wouldn’t be my fault.

  Edward clipped his badge to his clothes so that he’d be doubly visible, and Bernardo followed suit. There were still moments when Edward could make me feel like the rookie. I wondered if there’d ever come a time when I truly believed we were equal. Probably not.

  I wasn’t really a fan of desert landscaping, but someone with an eye for it had arranged the cacti, grass, and rocks so that everything flowed. It gave the illusion of water, dry water, flowing in the shape and color of stone and plant.

  “Nice,” Bernardo said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The garden, the patterns—nice.”

  I looked up at him and had to give him a point for noticing.

  “It’s just rocks and plants,” Olaf said.

  I took a breath to say something, but Edward interrupted. “We’re not here to admire her gardening. We’re here to talk to her about a murdered parishioner of hers.”

  “I don’t think they call them parishioners,” Bernardo said.

  Edward gave him a look, and Bernardo spread his hands as if to say, Sorry. Why was Edward being so tense all of a sudden?

  I took a step toward him, and suddenly I felt it, too. It was a faint hum up the skin, down the nerves. I looked around the door and finally found it on the porch. It was a mosaic pentagram in pretty colored stone, set in the concrete of the porch itself. It was charged, as in spell charged.

  I touched Edward’s arm. “You might want to step off the welcome mat.”

  He glanced at me, then where I was pointing. He didn’t argue, just stepped a little to one side. A visible tension lifted in the set of his shoulders. Maybe Edward only thought he couldn’t sense things. Being a little psychic would explain how he’d managed to stay alive all these years while hunting preternatural creepy-crawlies.

  “I didn’t see it,” he said, “and I was looking.”

  “I didn’t see it until you acted too tense,” I said.

  “She’s good,” he said, as he rang the doorbell.

  I nodded.

  Olaf was looking at both of us, as if he didn’t know what the hell had just happened. Bernardo said, “A hex sign on the porch. Step around it.”

  “It’s not a hex sign,” I had time to say before the door opened.

  A tall man answered the door. His dark hair was shaved close, and his eyes were dark and not happy to see us. “What do you want?”

  Edward slid instantly into Ted’s good-ol’-boy persona. You’d think I’d get used to how easily he became someone else, but it still creeped me.

  “U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester; we called ahead to make sure Ms. Billings would be home. Or, rather, Marshal Anita Blake called ahead.” He grinned as he said it and just exuded charm. Not that slimy charm that some men do, but that hail-fellow-well-met kind of energy. I knew some people who did it naturally, but Edward was the first person I’d known who could turn it on and off like a switch. It always made me wonder if long before the army got hold of him, he’d been more like Ted. Which sounded weird, since Ted was him, but the question still seemed worth poking at.

  The man glanced at Edward’s ID, then looked past him at us. “Who are they?”

  I held up my badge on its lanyard so it was even more visible. “Marshal Anita Blake; I did call and talk to Ms. Billings.”

  Bernardo said, in a voice as cheerful and well meaning as Ted’s, “U.S. Marshal Bernardo Spotted Horse.”

  Olaf sort of growled behind us all. “Otto Jeffries, U.S. Marshal.” He held up his badge so the man could see it over everyone’s shoulders. Bernardo did the same.

  A woman’s voice called from deeper in the house, “Michael, let them in.”

  The man, Michael presumably, scowled at us but unlatched the screen door. But before he let us cross the threshold, he spoke in a low vo
ice. “Don’t upset her.”

  “We’ll do our best not to, sir,” Edward said in his Ted voice. We went in through the door, but there was something about Michael at my back that made me turn so I could keep him in my peripheral vision. With everyone inside, I could put him at a little over six feet, which put him taller than Bernardo but shorter than Olaf. I had a moment as we all bunched into the foyer to see just how much smaller Edward was than the other men. It was always hard to remember that Edward wasn’t that tall, at five foot eight. He was just one of those people who seemed taller than he was; sometimes physical height isn’t what tall is about.

  The living room was probably as big a disappointment to Bernardo as the outside had been because it was a typical room. It had a couch and a couple of chairs and was painted in a light and cheerful blue, with hints of a pinkish orange in the cushions and some of the knickknacks. There was tea set out on the long coffee table, with enough cups for everyone. I hadn’t told her how many of us were coming, but there they sat, four cups. Psychics, ya gotta love ’em.

  Phoebe Billings sat there, her eyes a little red from crying, but her smile serene and sort of knowing. My mentor Marianne had a smile like that. It meant she knew something I needed to know, or was watching me work through a lesson that I needed to learn very badly, but I was being stubborn. Witches who are also counselors are very big on you coming to your realizations in your own time, just in case rushing you would somehow damage your karmic lesson. Yes, Marianne drove me nuts sometimes with the lack of direction, but since one of the things she thought I needed to work on was patience, it was all good for me. Irritating, but good, so she said. I found it mostly irritating.

  “Won’t you sit down. The tea is hot.”

  Edward sat down on the couch beside her, still smiling his Ted smile, but it was more sympathetic now. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Billings.”

  “Phoebe, please.”

  “Phoebe, and I’m Ted; this is Anita, Bernardo, and Otto.”

  Michael had taken up a post near her, one hand on the other wrist. I knew a bodyguard pose when I saw it. He was either her priest or her black dog—though most covens didn’t have one of the latter anymore. The covens that still had it as an office usually had two. They were bodyguards and did protection detail magically when the coven did work. Most of their work was of a spiritually protective nature, but once upon a time, the black dogs had hunted bogeys that were more flesh and less spirit. Michael had the feel of someone who could do both.