Skin Trade

by Hamilton, Laurell K.

Domino tried to move forward, with that we’re-about-to-have-a-fight energy. Rick grabbed his shoulders, and Ava moved in front of him, facing us. Crispin came to my outstretched left hand, and I moved him behind me, so I’d have both hands free, but he’d be protected. He was quick, and he could fight when he had to, but this was a fight he could not win. The black-and-white tiger had the feel to him of death contained and waiting. I knew that with a certainty that made me want to go for a gun.

  “You should have gone upstairs as our queen told you to,” Ava said.

  “Anita needed me,” he said, and his six-foot-plus frame towered over me, just a little. It seemed wrong that so much tall, athletic grace was hiding behind my short, not so athletic, and definitely not so graceful self.

  “You’re hiding behind her,” Domino growled. Rick’s pale hands tightened visibly on the other man’s shoulders. They both had to look up at Crispin, which should have lessened their tough-guy act but didn’t, because it wasn’t an act.

  “She doesn’t need any help with violence,” Crispin said.

  Edward said, “We’re attracting a crowd.”

  He was right. The tourists were getting a show, or anticipating one. We were drawing them away from the slot machines, and that takes a lot in Vegas. I didn’t think we’d done anything that interesting yet. Of course, it could be the three of us in our U.S. Marshal windbreakers and badges, with weapons peeking out all over the place; yeah, that might be enough to attract some attention. Olaf would have looked dangerous anywhere with all the black clothing and leather.

  “Let us continue this upstairs,” Ava said, and motioned us all farther into the room, in the general direction of the elevators.

  I looked at Domino still in Rick’s grasp, so angry. Was it a good idea to get in the elevator? Probably not, but nothing scary enough had happened yet to make me willing to back down.

  “Fine,” I said, “lead the way.”

  29

  DOMINO CALMED DOWN enough to stand beside Rick and Ava in the big elevator. It was one marked Private, and seemed to go only to one floor. The penthouse, I was assuming.

  “Sorry,” Rick said, and sounded like he meant it, “but they can’t go into the private chambers with this many weapons on them.”

  “We can’t leave the weapons in the car,” I said. “New rules. Once a warrant is in play, we have to be able to do our jobs at full capacity at any minute, and we are not allowed to leave our weapons in a place where civilians could get hold of them.”

  “You lie,” Domino said.

  The black and white tigers growled inside me. It was hint enough. The tigresses didn’t like me backing down to any of the males. I took a step closer to him, which put Ava between us. Rick put a hand back on the other man’s arm, just sort of automatically. “Domino, if you can’t smell that I’m telling the truth, then you aren’t dominant enough to be this much trouble.”

  He growled at me, low and rumbling, like close thunder. “I will not answer your call, little queen.”

  “I haven’t called you anywhere.”

  “You did,” he said, “you called us all.”

  Rick put an arm across the other man’s chest, moving smoothly into a more solid hold. “You did, Ms. Blake. A few months back, you did do that.”

  I sighed, and the anger began to fade, until the tigers inside me swatted at me from the inside out. I flinched, couldn’t help it. I was getting used to the sensation of invisible claws cutting me up, but it was almost impossible not to react a little. It wasn’t real damage. I knew it was metaphysical pain. It hurt, but it did not bleed me. They’d actually put me through medical tests to make certain of that, at one point. It was just pain. I could ignore it, sort of. When the tigers got this bitchy, I had to pay some attention, or it got worse.

  The elevator, which I’d expected to be quick but wasn’t, opened. Two more uniformed security guards were there, replacements for the two we’d left downstairs. None of the tigers stepped out; they were all looking at me.

  “I didn’t mean to put out the welcome mat to everyone, but I won’t apologize for it either.” The tigers were creeping closer inside me. I said what I hoped they wanted to hear. “If I was queen enough to call you, then it’s not up to you if you answer that call.”

  Ava and Rick sandwiched Domino between them, as he tried to move forward. “You bitch.”

  There was another swat inside me, as if the white and black tigers were trying to play basketball with my spine. Fuck, it hurt.

  Crispin touched my shoulders, and the touch helped. The white tiger eased back. He wasn’t as dominant as she wanted, but he was one of hers. The black tiger, and I mean black, like a black leopard, with stripes showing only in bright light, came forward, growling and hissing, flashing those huge canines.

  “Please, tell me that Domino here isn’t the only black tiger you’ve got.”

  “The black clan is nearly extinct,” Ava said.

  I drew one of Crispin’s hands across my face until I could smell the warm scent of his wrist. I rubbed my cheek against the heat of him. The white tiger rose closer to the surface and pushed the black one down. There were other colors of tiger inside me. I had a damn rainbow, impossible colors that had never occurred in any zoo, though I had learned that every tiger inside me had once existed as a real animal. It had just been a few thousand years for some of the subspecies. They were just legends now.

  “Maybe if we get out of the elevator and get a little more room,” Edward said.

  “You do not order us about, human,” Domino said.

  “He’s got a badge; you don’t,” I said, still being too up close and personal with Crispin’s arm and hand. It was hard to be tough as nails when kissing someone’s hand, but some days you do the best you can.

  “The marshal is right, let’s step outside.” Rick’s voice sounded just a little strained, which meant he was holding on to his friend even tighter than it looked. That wasn’t good.

  “What will your friend do once we’re somewhere without security cameras?” I asked around the sweet smell of Crispin’s arm.

  “He’ll do what Chang-Bibi tells him to do,” Ava said.

  “And that would be what?” I asked.

  “What?” Ava asked.

  “What does she want him to do? Obviously he’s not happy about it, whatever it is.”

  “You,” Crispin said.

  Ava said, “Crispin!”

  I said, “What?”

  “You,” he repeated from behind me, “our queen wants them both to do you.”

  “Crispin,” Ava said, and her face wasn’t friendly anymore, almost angry.

  Bernardo leaned in and said, “I’d really rather have more room for the fight than the elevator.”

  I stepped out of the elevator, and everyone followed. I knew why Crispin and the other marshals waited for me, maybe, but I finally realized that at some level the weretigers were treating me like what Domino had said, a little queen. They weren’t doing it on purpose, I’d have bet on that. It was all unconscious, which made it both useful and a little scary.

  The hallway was white and cream, and much more elegant than the casino or the elevator. I waited until everyone was standing in the cool, wide hallway.

  “Look, Domino, this is news to me. I’ll make you a deal. You tone it down and I’ll promise you won’t be on the menu for sex.” In my head, I thought, Food for anger, maybe, but not sex.

  He frowned at me.

  Crispin tried to help. “She means she won’t do you if you don’t want to do her.”

  “You can’t speak for anyone,” Ava said.

  The uniformed guards were looking at us, with their hands on the butts of their guns. They saw the badges, but they saw the guns, too, and they’d picked up that we might not be getting along with the weretigers. It would be interesting to see where their loyalties would divide.

  Edward leaned in. “Either we leave or we go with them. Your call.”

  I sighed. Leaving was such
a good idea. But the bodies in the morgue would still be dead. The head they’d mailed to me would still be waiting to come back to its body for burial. I had smelled tiger on the body in the morgue here. I wasn’t wrong, and for clues about weretigers, this was the place to come.

  “Anita,” Edward said, softly.

  “With them, we go with them.”

  “What about their weapons?” Domino said.

  “We have a gun room, if we could lock up some of them?” Rick said.

  “We don’t give up our weapons,” Olaf said.

  “Your warrant excludes us, and you don’t have other police with you. You do not go before our queen with automatic weapons on you,” Rick said, and it was matter-of-fact.

  “Would you let someone see your Master of the City armed like this?” Ava asked.

  I thought about it, then shook my head. “Probably not.”

  “Let’s get some privacy, and we’ll discuss the weapons,” Edward said. He’d glanced up at the hallway, near the ceiling. His gaze had found the security cameras. I wondered if it was a law in Vegas, the cameras?

  “Sure.”

  I put Crispin’s hand more firmly in my left hand. He squeezed back. I said to Domino, “I’m not into rape; if you don’t want me, fine. I’m not crazy about you either.”

  He almost snarled, and Rick suddenly had a two-armed grip on him. “I must obey my queen,” Domino growled. The energy of his beast pushed off him. I braced for it to hit me like a kidney punch thrown from inches away, but it was completely different. No violence, no electric rush. It was like being bathed in a pool of warm, expensive perfume. Except the scent didn’t hit my nose. Can something have a scent that hits your brain but not your nose? It was as if the “perfume” hit something deeper inside me. The white tigress and the black paced closer to the surface, opening their mouths in that grimace/growl, so they could taste the scent on the tops of their mouths where the Jacobson organ is located. He smelled . . . good.

  I backed up and slid my arm around Crispin. His arm hesitated at the touch of the MP5 on its sling, then just kept moving until he held me close, our bodies touching all the way down side to side. Touching Crispin helped clear my head, but the tigers growled at me. They liked Domino better now.

  Domino had gone quiet in Rick’s grip. Those orange-fire eyes were looking at me differently now. “You smell . . . like home.” He didn’t sound angry now, more puzzled.

  I needed to leave. It was a bad idea to get closer to any of the tigers. But . . . all that seemed at risk was my virtue; somehow that didn’t seem worth another cop’s life. If I got a clue here that saved lives, would it be worth it? Hell, yes. Did I want to add another man to my menu? Hell, no. But sometimes a girl’s got to do what a man’s got to do, or something like that. In that moment, I was angry. Angry that metaphysics would probably help solve the crime, but it was going to fuck me up again. Probably literally.

  30

  THE ANTECHAMBER HAD white tile and white walls; it was all so pale it was almost disorienting. The only thing that saved it was that the white had more wallpaper on it. The paper had raised designs in silver and gold. It was like standing inside a delicate Christmas ornament. It was almost too elegant for comfort, as if I were afraid I’d break something just by breathing too hard. The chairs were all those delicate, spindly-backed ones that only very small people fit into, if at all, and even if you fit, they won’t be comfortable.

  We’d come through a big door from the hallway, and there was another set of double doors in the far wall. Behind them, where Ava and Domino had gone, was Bibiana and her inner circle. Ava went to talk to Bibiana, but I think Domino went because they didn’t trust him around me and all the guns. Rick was adamant that we weren’t going before his queen armed to the teeth.

  Crispin was sitting, waiting for us all to finish the debate. He seemed peaceful with all of it, as if it didn’t matter to him what we decided. If the delicate chair was uncomfortable, it didn’t show. He seemed more at ease than he had in the casino.

  “The warrant excludes the weretigers, so you can keep us out of the inner room. But you can’t force us to disarm,” I said.

  “Then you don’t get in,” Rick said. “But frankly, I thought at least one of you wouldn’t be armed. Ava said one of these guys was supposed to be food. We don’t arm our food.”

  “I’ve been personally threatened by a serial killer here in your town; I thought it was smart to bring food that could take care of itself.”

  He made a can’t-argue-with-that face and said, “Fair enough, but you still don’t get inside with all the shit you’re carrying.”

  There were two more uniformed guards by the double doors. The two who had met us at the elevator were still outside in the hallway. Four armed guards, cool, but all human; interesting. If I had a choice of guards, I’d have picked weretigers to guard weretigers. I thought it was an interesting decision to use regular human guards like you’d see at any casino. There were more of them than normal, but still, it was pretty ordinary for the Master Vampire of the City.

  “Then we’re at an impasse,” I said. “You won’t let us in without the weapons, and we won’t give them up.”

  “Then you leave,” Rick said, “sorry.”

  Edward said, “What if two of us strip off most of our weapons, while the other two keep the weapons and stand at this door?”

  I looked at him.

  “You said we needed to come here, Anita. How badly do you want this interview?”

  I met his eyes, so blue, so cold, so real. I nodded. “I want it. I want it before dark when the vampires will hunt again.”

  “Tactical units do this sometimes, when they have to negotiate,” he said.

  I wanted to say, But you had a bad feeling downstairs, but I couldn’t say that out loud in front of the guards from the other side. I sighed. “Okay.” I took off the windbreaker and lifted the MP5 in its sling over my head. “Who gets to hold for me?”

  Edward held out his hand.

  I gave him wide eyes. “No, you’re going in with me.”

  “No,” he said, “I’m staying out here with all my weapons, so that if you yell for help I’ll come through like the cavalry.”

  We stared at each other for a minute. I thought about what he’d said, tried to be logical, instead of paying attention to my suddenly speeding heart rate. I gave him the MP5.

  “Thank you,” and I knew he meant not the gun but the level of trust that the gun represented for me.

  “You’re welcome, but how will you hear me when I yell for help?”

  “I’ve got earbuds and radios.”

  Of course he did. It was Edward; he always brought the right toys for the play date. I stopped stripping off weapons and said, “Wait, who goes in with me, if you stay here?”

  “Shit,” Bernardo said, with real feeling to the word. He started taking off the jacket.

  “Hold a minute,” Edward said. He turned to Rick. “How clean do you want them to be?”

  “They can keep the knives and one handgun.”

  “Thanks for the handgun,” I said.

  Rick grinned. “You’ll do a hideout anyway. This way I know where the gun is.”

  “You could just search us,” I said.

  “I waited for you to get out of the elevator. All of us did. I don’t think I want to touch you, little queen. In fact, the less I have to do with you physically, the better.”

  “You aren’t on the meal plan?” I asked.

  “I was, but I’m going to ask to be reassigned.”

  “Should I be offended?”

  “No, it’s a compliment. If you were just good sex, then no problem. I like sex. But you aren’t just good sex. You’re power. You’re things I can’t even name. But I know one thing for damn sure: you are dangerous, and it isn’t the guns and badge that make you dangerous to me and Domino, and even Crispin.” He nodded toward where he was sitting patiently in one of the uncomfortable chairs. “His gaze follows you lik
e he’s a devoted dog.”

  I glanced at Crispin, who gave me a peaceful face, as if the comment didn’t faze him. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” was all I could think to say.

  “I believe that. You’re like a survivor of an attack by one of us. You don’t know what you are yet.”

  “She’s gaining powers as if she were a born tiger,” Crispin said, from his chair.

  Rick nodded. “I noticed that. Now, whoever is going inside, take off the weapons.”

  I started taking stuff off and handed it to Edward. Bernardo did the same, handing his gear to Olaf.

  Edward handed earbuds and waist radios to the four of us. Rick never protested the radios. Again, not doing what I thought he’d do.

  “I’ve got it set to broadcast continuously, so Otto and I will hear whatever is going on.”

  I had a thought. “What’s the range on these? I wouldn’t want just anyone to overhear.”

  Edward smiled. “I’d rather not say in front of our host.”

  Rick said, “Don’t mind me.”

  “But it’s small enough that if our local friends are trying to listen in, they’d have to be standing in the room with us to overhear.”

  “Okay.” I understood that he didn’t want to tell Rick, and thus all the weretigers, how far they’d have to take Bernardo and me so that we could yell for help and not be heard, but . . . I’d have liked to know the range. But I trusted Edward. I trusted him with my life and my death. I had no higher compliment to pay to another executioner.

  I had to readjust my straps on the holsters, to settle the guns again without all the other stuff to get in the way, and with the addition of the radio. Adjustable holsters are a wonderful thing. Bernardo was doing similar things to his guns and knives.

  “How did you know Edward was going to pick you to go in with me?” I asked, as I checked the last knife.

  Bernardo gave me a look. It wasn’t a happy one. In fact, those dark eyes were downright sullen. He straightened up, hands doing one last check on the new location of all his weapons, automatically. “Because if it’s the cavalry you want, the heavy hitters stay out here, and neither of you thinks I’m a heavy enough hitter.”