[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “Eighty.”

  “Seventy,” Rocco said.

  “Still, in a pinch, nifty.”

  He grinned, making that lovely mouth into just a happy smile. It made him look younger, fresher, somehow. “But a monster that is made of air, that I think I can mess with.”

  I was happy for him, and seventy percent success was good for some of the rarer talents, but frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go up against a giant that could rip apart someone in body armor, or cut someone to pieces with a whirlwind of blades. Seventy percent sounded like good odds until it was your life on the line; then not so good. But frankly, what else did we have? Then I realized I was being stupid. I knew that the practitioner who had died had had a spell that Vittorio had feared.

  I started searching my phone for Phoebe Billings’s number. If her coven member knew the spell, then chances were that as his high priestess, so would she, and I was standing with two other practitioners. If we could all learn it, we had a chance.

  71

  I WAS SITTING in the passenger seat of Rocco’s car when I got a glimpse of something. I thought at first I’d seen it out the window in the bright Vegas sun, but then it moved across my vision again, and I realized it was in my head.

  “I’m seeing things,” I said, out loud.

  “What kind of things?” Rocco asked. Davey leaned forward on the backseat. It was a good question; I didn’t have a good answer.

  “I don’t know; it’s gone now, but it was bright.”

  “Tell us when and what you see.”

  “Will do.” I was secretly hoping not to see anything else, but it was just nice to be working with police who didn’t think I was crazy for being psychic.

  My phone rang, and it was Phoebe Billings returning my message. She started with, “No police have come to my door. You didn’t involve me and my group.”

  “Didn’t see a purpose to it, but I found out what killed Randy, and what he was doing when he died.” I explained.

  “Jinn, truly, in America?”

  “Honest.”

  “Wait a minute, and I’ll look it up. I know the spell you mean, but it’s very old, and it’s in a book here. Randy was always very into the history of our craft. I remember a night that we talked about the jinn and how much of the legend was true.” I heard her moving around. “Here it is. Do you speak Arabic?”

  “No.”

  “Randy did; it was one of his specialties in the army. Does anyone else on the SWAT team speak Arabic?”

  I asked that out loud to the others.

  “Moon does, but then his mother’s family is from Iran,” Davey said.

  “I can read it,” Rocco said, “and Moon says my pronounciation is okay.”

  I handed the phone to him, and Phoebe repeated the spell to him. He repeated it back, and it made the hair on my arms stand up, like in my dream. “She wants you to write the spell down.”

  “I can’t write Arabic.”

  “Just write it as she tells you, one letter at a time. She’s going to try to give it to you the way it’s pronounced. She wants to see if saying it without knowing what it means will still work.”

  “Oh, like a real magic word, that has power even if you speak it by accident,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Those are really rare,” Davey said. “Most spells don’t work at all without some power behind them.”

  I was letting Phoebe dictate letters to me, one at a time. It didn’t make any more sense made into mock English than it did in Arabic, but I was willing to try. When I had it all, I repeated it back to her.

  “Now, read it faster,” she said.

  I read it faster. There was no tingle; it was just noise.

  “Tell me what it’s supposed to do,” I said.

  “It sends them back through Solomon’s shield. It traps them outside our reality again.”

  “It’s a banishing spell, like for a demon.”

  “Yes, that will do.”

  I tried again; thinking what it was supposed to do, I put intent into the sounds that were supposed to be words, and it still didn’t work for me. I handed the notes to Davey, and again there was that hair-raising energy. “I think you’re not pronouncing here and here right,” he said.

  I kept practicing as we drove, hard and fast, trying to catch up with everyone. We had Davey, and we had a spell. Guns wouldn’t stop these things.

  “Call Moon,” Rocco said, “give him the words. He’ll know how to pronounce it.”

  Davey made the call.

  I asked Rocco, as he screeched around a corner and I clutched the door, “What made you learn to read Arabic?”

  “I wanted to be able to read the Qur’an and the Bible for myself without translators messing with it. Most people don’t realize that some of the original books of the Bible were written in Aramaic.”

  “I knew that, but I don’t read it.”

  “I also read ancient Greek for the same reason.”

  “You must be a heavy churchgoer,” I said.

  “Every Sunday, unless I’m on a call.”

  I smiled at him. “Me, too,” I said.

  “I’m Lutheran, what are you?”

  “Episcopalian.”

  He wasted a smile on me. “Fat Henry’s church.”

  “Hey, I know my Church history, and I’m okay with it.”

  “As long as you know, it’s cool.”

  “Yeah, my church exists because Fat Henry couldn’t get a divorce as a Catholic.”

  I heard Davey repeat the syllables over the phone. It danced down my spine. “Wizard died trying to say those words,” Rocco said.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “This one’s for Wizard.”

  “For Wizard,” I said, and though I’d never met him alive, I meant it. Of course, I had the weretiger who had cut him up in my room, but he was as innocent as the vampires we were trying to save, and the humans we’d let go last night. Somehow I didn’t share Sebastian with Rocco and Davey. What would I have done if it had been Edward on a gurney, and the wereanimal said he had no choice, he was forced to do it? Easy answer: I’d have killed him.

  72

  WE MISSED THE party. There were three dead human servants lying on the ground with their hands and feet shackled. You shackle everyone, even the dead, just in case. It’s SOP. Edward, Olaf, and Bernardo came out with more blood on them than on the other operators. But then it’s a bitch to put the coveralls over all the weapons, so you get blowback. Olaf had the most blood on him.

  Bernardo said, as he walked past me, “He staked his vampires, and defucking-capitated them. Ted and I shot ours.” He kept walking, as if he didn’t want to be around Olaf right that moment.

  Edward said, “Vittorio wasn’t there, Anita. There’s a coffin that’s empty, but he’s not there.”

  “Shit!” I got another glimpse of something. I saw someone in white, kneeling.

  Edward grabbed my arm. “Anita?”

  “Did you have another vision?” Rocco asked.

  “Someone in white, kneeling. I’m tall, much taller than I am. I’m seeing through someone else’s eyes, I think.”

  “Who?”

  “Vittorio,” Edward said.

  “What?” Rocco said.

  “He messed with you, right? He wants you to be his human servant.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know how it is when a vamp messes with you, Anita. The more they play, the more likely you are to acquire their powers, at least temporarily.”

  “Yeah, she did that with me,” Rocco said.

  Either Edward didn’t catch that the sergeant had implied he was a vampire, or it didn’t matter to him. “Concentrate, Anita, try to see it.”

  I closed my eyes and thought about Vittorio. I thought about the look of his face, the depth of the scars on his chest and stomach. The world wavered, and I was looking at Bibiana, chained and gagged on the floor, beside a bed. Vittorio turned his head, and Max was tied spread-eagled on that bed,
covered in holy objects. The bed was red velvet and huge. I knew that bed. I knew where they were. I fought not to be excited but to be calm. I fought to break away, without him knowing.

  “Don’t go yet, Anita; stay, and see who else I have.” He turned toward the kitchenette area. Rick the guard was chained with his arms above his head. His naked upper body was already bloody. “Don’t feel so bad for Maximillian; they had the hooks in the ceiling. I’m betting that he’s put his share of enemies here.” Beside him was the stripper who had offered to give me a lap dance. Bri-something, Brianna. Vittorio held up a small butane torch. It burned blue-hot.

  “She’s nothing to me.”

  “Then you won’t care that we ruin her beauty.”

  “Why? You know we know where you are now.”

  “Are the police with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have one more guest, Anita.” He turned and I saw the big table that I’d slept on with Victor. Someone was tied to the top of it. He walked closer and it was Requiem. My stomach fell into my feet, and only Edward’s hands kept me from my knees.

  “Fuck.”

  Vittorio moved so I could look down with him at those sea-green eyes. There was tape across the mouth I’d kissed only hours ago. He was bound with chains and holy objects. They’d stripped him of his shirt, as they had Rick, so that he was nude from the waist up. But whereas Rick was already hurting, Requiem was still untouched, pale and perfect against the wood.

  I finally whispered, “His coffin was in my room.”

  “But did you check to see he was in it this morning?”

  Shit. “No.”

  “We brought him out in a large bag while he was dead to the world, while the rest of you in the room were very busy. But I woke him up. I used to be able to wake any vampire early. I’m glad it’s returned as a power. So much better when they can scream.” He touched Requiem’s face.

  Requiem jerked away, and Vittorio backhanded him, casually. A cut opened on his cheek. Vittorio looked at the big ring on his hand. “This will make a mess of that pretty face, but I wouldn’t want to damage the ring. Not when I have something so much better for the task.” He reached into his suitcoat pocket and drew out a small vial of holy water.

  I couldn’t stop myself. “Don’t.”

  “Say please.”

  “Please.”

  “Good, then if you want to see him whole again and the others alive, come into the back room alone, and unarmed. Leave your holy objects behind, too.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you know what I’ll do if you refuse me, and I can feel that you care about him, that it would hurt you to see him burned.”

  I repeated what I saw, what he said. Rocco said, “We won’t let her go in alone.”

  I repeated, “They won’t let me.”

  “The police, I think they might.” He walked to the door that opened into the main part of the club. There were dancers, customers; it was full. “I came last night, and detained them all.” He turned toward the only two doors that led out, and the air shimmered before one, and there looked like there were swords floating in front of the main door. Something moved on the stage, like a shimmer of summer heat. It was a third jinn, and we didn’t know what this one did. Shit.

  “If the police do not let you come in alone and unarmed, I will have my servants kill all these nice people. You come to me, and I will release all the customers.”

  “You release the customers, and I’ll come in.”

  “Not alone,” Edward said.

  “Can I bring one person in with me?”

  “By all means, but not one of your marshals—one of the SWAT. They seem to die easily enough.”

  “No,” Edward said.

  “Oh, that’s Death, I know his reputation. He isn’t allowed inside.”

  I repeated what he said.

  “Pick carefully, Anita; it will simply be another hostage to use against you, but by all means help me torture you more.” He sounded so cheerful about it, and I realized he was; he had a room full of victims. What more could a serial killer ask for than that?

  “But you’ll release the customers first.”

  “Agreed, as soon as I see you outside with your SWAT friend. Now, I think I will shut this down between us. I thought to control you, and I did peek this morning; quite a show.”

  I was too scared and too angry to be embarrassed. “Then you know what happened to your other servant.”

  “Yes, you broke my hold on him, just like the Darkness could do. Her talents as a human were very similar to yours; I should have thought, but you don’t expect to meet two necromancers of such power in one lifetime.”

  “Lucky you,” I said.

  “I will leave you with a parting image, to inspire you to do exactly as I’ve asked.” He went back to the other room, and I didn’t want him to, because nothing he was about to do would be good.

  He went to Requiem, as I’d known he would. He unstoppered the little vial of holy water. “I’m coming, damn it, you’ve made your point.”

  “Oh, I’m not doing this to make my point, Anita. I’m doing this because I want to, and because it will hurt you, and because he is beautiful and I hate him for it.”

  “Vittorio!”

  He trickled the water along Requiem’s ribs. It smoked instantly, and Requiem’s spine bowed, a scream coming even through the tape.

  Vittorio capped the vial. “I will wait on the rest. You have a half hour to arrive, Anita, or I will try a more tender piece of him.”

  “I’m coming, you son of a bitch, I’m coming.”

  “Temper, temper.”

  “This isn’t mad, Vittorio, you haven’t seen me mad.”

  “Nor you me, Anita, nor you me.” He pushed me out, closed the link down, and left me blinking in the sunlight, clinging to Edward’s arms.

  “Who’s going in with you?” Bernardo asked.

  “Cannibal is,” I said. I looked and found Rocco. He met my gaze, no flinching.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Speak Arabic for me, and then we eat these sons of bitches.”

  A smile crossed his face, it was pleased and slightly Olaf-ish. I knew that smile, because there’s something about having an ability when you always have to be good that makes you wonder what it would feel like to be bad. I was about to give Cannibal the chance to be as bad as he wanted to be, as bad as he had the stomach to be. There was more than one way to skin a cat; well, there was more than one way to eat a vampire.

  73

  GRIMES DIDN’T LIKE me going in, and he sure as hell didn’t want Rocco to go in with me. Edward didn’t like me going in without him. But we had the arguments in the cars, so we could argue on the way and make the half-hour deadline.

  “Lieutenant,” Rocco said, “I can say the spell that will banish the jinn, and Anita can’t.”

  “I know her pronunciation isn’t good enough.”

  “I speak Arabic,” Edward said.

  “But you’re not a practitioner, and we need a little magic with the words,” Rocco said.

  “What aren’t the two of you telling me?” Grimes asked.

  We both fought not to look at each other, and it showed. “What are you planning to do in there?”

  “The phrase you’re looking for, sir,” Edward said, “is plausible deniability.”

  Grimes frowned at us. “Are you planning to do anything illegal?”

  Again, we fought not to look at each other. “No, sir,” Rocco said, “everything will be perfectly legal.”

  “Promise,” Grimes said.

  “It’s legal,” I said.

  “But I don’t want to know anyway, is that it?”

  “What answer will get me in there with Sergeant Rocco?”

  “Well, at least that’s honest. Max’s inner room at Trixie’s interferes with electronics.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew that, just accepted it as true. It didn’t surprise me; as Vittorio
said, the hooks in the ceiling for hanging people up had been in the ceiling when he got there. I was betting this was where Max did some of his dirty work.

  “So you’re going in there with no way to call for help,” Grimes said.

  “If we need to call for help, Lieutenant,” I said, “you won’t be able to get to us in time.”

  He studied my face. “I think you mean that.”

  “I do.”

  “You seem calm.”

  “I’ve got my goals.”

  “Your objectives,” he said.

  “If you like.”

  “And they are?”

  “Rescue my friend before he gets more hurt. Save all the civilians. Send the jinn back to where they belong. Rescue Max and his charming wife, their bodyguard, and any other weretigers who are good guys. Oh, and kill Vittorio before he can manifest enough power to make a nuclear explosion over Vegas look like the better idea.”

  “Is he really capable of that much damage?”

  “Think of an army of the things that killed your officers loosed on the city. Think of Vittorio able to broadcast his mind control over the populace.”

  “You think he’s that good?”

  “Not yet, and we have to keep it that way. I believe that we have to do everything within our power to make certain he dies today.”

  “You might be interested to know, Marshal Blake, that the governor signed off on the stay of execution for the vampires at last night’s club.”

  “That’s good, Lieutenant. I mean that; they don’t deserve to die.”

  “Your report carried weight.”

  I nodded, but was already looking up the street to the police cars, the barricades, and the next fight.

  74

  ROCCO AND I were standing outside Trixie’s with our hands clasped on our heads. We’d stripped down to T-shirts, pants, and boots for him, jogging shoes for me. A man who looked human but talked like Vittorio had his hand up his ass was saying, “Turn around, slowly, so we can see.”

  We did what he said to do.

  The man seemed to be listening to something in his head. He nodded, and walked forward. He patted us down, thoroughly, top to bottom. “You have no weapons, very good,” he said, but it was Vittorio’s inflections. “Now, come join us.”