Skin Trade

by Hamilton, Laurell K.

  Olaf said, “But all the years I have known you, Edward, you have sought to test yourself against the biggest and baddest monsters. You seek to be tested. This would have been the ultimate test.”

  “Probably,” he said, in a low, careful voice.

  “I never thought I’d live to see it,” Bernardo said. “The great Edward’s nerve finally fails.”

  Olaf and I both glared at him, but it was the big guy who said, “His nerve did not fail him.”

  “Then what?” Bernardo said.

  “He didn’t want to chance dying on Donna and the kids,” I said.

  “What?” Bernardo said.

  “They make you fearful,” Olaf said, quietly.

  “I said his nerve had failed, and you yelled at me,” Bernardo protested.

  Olaf gave him the full weight of that flat, dark gaze. Bernardo wiggled a little in his seat, as if he fought not to back off from the inches-away gaze, but he held his ground. Point for him.

  “Edward’s nerve will never fail him. But you can still be afraid of something.”

  Bernardo looked to me. “Did that make sense to you?”

  I thought about it, let it roll around in my head. “Yeah, actually it did.”

  “Explain it to me, then.”

  “If Marmee Noir comes here and attacks us, then Edward will fight. He won’t run away. He won’t give up. He’ll fight, even if it means dying. But he’s chosen not to hunt down the biggest and baddest anymore because they’re more likely to kill him, and he doesn’t want to leave his family behind. He’s stopped courting death, but if it comes looking for him, he’ll fight.”

  “If you fear nothing,” Olaf said, “then you are not brave; you are merely too foolish to be afraid.”

  Bernardo and I looked at the big man. Even Edward took enough time to glance back at him. “What scares you, big guy?” Bernardo asked.

  Olaf shook his head. “Fears are not meant to be shared; they are meant to be conquered.”

  Part of me wanted to know what could scare one of the scariest men I’d ever met. Part of me didn’t want to know at all. I was afraid it would either be another nightmare for me, too, or make me feel sorry for Olaf. I couldn’t afford to feel sorry for him. Pity will make you hesitate, and one day I would need to not hesitate with him. A lot of serial killers have pitiful childhoods, hideous stories where they were the victims—most of them are even true. But none of it matters. It does not matter how horrible their childhoods were, or whether they were victims themselves. It does not matter when you are at their mercy, because one thing that all the serials have in common is that for their victims, there is no mercy.

  When you forget that, they kill you.

  42

  EDWARD SPILLED OUT into the line of flashing police vehicles to find that the show was almost over. The second weretiger was on her knees in the yard with guns pointed at her, and Hooper and his men were piling on top of her. I got only a glimpse of white hair, cut short, and a flash of tiger-blue eyes before they bundled her into the truck.

  “You start without us?” Edward called out to Hooper, in his best good-ol’-boy Ted voice. Good that he had a nice voice because I was ready to be pissed.

  Hooper answered as they closed the doors on the truck. “She was kneeling in the yard, waiting for us.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Why shit? This was easy and quick.”

  “They know, Hooper. The other tigers know.”

  I watched his face get it. “Our bad guy may run.”

  I nodded.

  “Alert your surveillance on them,” Edward said.

  “What surveillance?” I asked.

  Edward and Hooper got a glance between them, and then Hooper was on his radio. Edward explained, “The moment we put their name in the hat, there was surveillance on them. It’s standard ops.”

  “Fuck, no wonder they know.”

  Edward shrugged. “It’s a way to follow them if they run.”

  “It’s a way to spook them and get them to run. And no one mentioned this to me because . . . ?”

  “Hooper either didn’t want you to know, or figured you’d realize it was standard ops.”

  I took a deep breath in and let it out slow, or tried to. “Fuck standard ops, the idea was surprise.”

  It was Shaw who came up. “We don’t have to pass everything by you, Marshal. If a dangerous suspect runs, we want to know where.”

  “You don’t get it,” I said. “These guys can hear your blood in your veins. They can smell you, though admittedly a tiger’s sense of smell is a lot less than, say, a wolf’s, but still, they will know the cops are out there.”

  “My men are good at their jobs, Blake.”

  “Shaw, it’s not about being good. It’s about being human and hunting things that aren’t human. Don’t you get that yet?”

  “They’ll do their jobs,” he said, and gave me those persistently unfriendly eyes.

  “Yeah, I know they will. I just hope that it doesn’t get them killed.”

  I don’t know what Shaw would have said to that, because Hooper came back. “We’ve got radio confirmation on three of the other houses, but no answer on one.”

  “Shit,” Shaw said.

  I kept my mouth shut; an I told you so wouldn’t go over well.

  Shaw glared at me, almost as if he’d heard me thinking too hard. “Radios break, Blake. It doesn’t have to be bad.”

  Edward touched my arm lightly. I understood the gesture. I kept my voice even. “You’re a cop, Shaw; you know always to assume the worst. Then if it’s not true, great, but if it is, you have a plan.”

  “Officers are already on the way to check on the men,” Hooper said.

  “Take us there, Hooper,” I said.

  “I think my men can take it from here,” Shaw said.

  “This is a preternatural case,” I said, “we don’t need your permission to be here.”

  Officers came out of the mob surrounding us, as if Shaw had already tapped them for the duty. He probably had. They were almost all in uniform, except for Ed Morgan. He nodded at me, smiling. It made the little crinkles at his eyes look pleasant and smiley, too. I wondered if the eyes behind the glasses were actually smiling, or if his face just went through the motions?

  “Morgan here is chief of detectives at homicide,” Bernardo said, smiling. His face looked just as pleasant as Morgan’s had a moment ago. The announcement of his real title made the chief detective’s smile falter a little around the edges. I wondered how Bernardo had found out Morgan’s actual rank. I’d ask him later, when it wouldn’t make us look less smart.

  “Just because I’m chief of detectives doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” he said, recovering himself.

  Hooper came up. “We’ve heard back. The car’s empty. Blood, but no bodies.”

  “Shit,” Shaw said.

  “Let us help you,” Edward said.

  “You weren’t any help with Minns; in fact, you slowed the operation down.”

  Edward looked at Hooper. “Is that how you see it, Sergeant?”

  Hooper gave him his blank face. “No, but he outranks me.”

  “Nice of you to remember that,” Shaw said.

  “Which weretiger went rogue?” I asked.

  “Martin Bendez,” Hooper said.

  “Sergeant,” Shaw said, “we don’t need to share with the marshals anymore.”

  “Is it your team going after him?” I asked Hooper.

  “Henderson’s team has point.”

  “Sergeant Hooper,” Shaw said, “I gave you a direct order not to share with the marshals.”

  “Now it’s a direct order,” Hooper said, and he walked away to gather his men and his equipment and leave. He never looked back, but I knew that whatever he had told Shaw and his other “superiors,” it hadn’t been that we slowed them down. But he had to report that I’d gone all weird on them. They might have hired psychics for their force, but I wasn’t one of their pra
ctitioners. They might be open minded, but the fact that something had happened that their own practitioner didn’t understand would count against me. I had an idea.

  “Can the other marshals go to the next scene?”

  “I told you, you slowed us down,” Shaw said. He started to walk away.

  “You mean I went all metaphysical on you and creeped everyone out. Fine, punish me, keep me out of it, but no one is better at tracking these guys than Marshal Forrester. Let the other marshals go on to the next scene. I’ll sit it out.”

  Edward was looking at me. Not saying anything, just looking at me.

  “No,” Shaw said.

  Morgan said, “Why not, Sheriff? It’ll keep the Marshals Service from getting pissy, and I’ve heard nothing but good about the others.”

  Shaw looked at him, and again there was that feeling that Morgan carried more weight than he should have, even as chief of detectives.

  Shaw came to stand over me, trying to intimidate me, like I cared. “Why do you want the other marshals to go?”

  “Because I don’t want another crime scene in Vegas like the warehouse.”

  “You think we can’t handle it?” Shaw asked, already getting angry.

  “I think that I’d trust Ted to lead me into hell itself and get me out the other side. Marshals Spotted Horse and Jeffries are both good men in a fight. If the shit hits the fan, you couldn’t do better. Let them help you, and I will stand down, Shaw.”

  “What could it hurt?” Morgan asked.

  “Fine,” Shaw said, reluctance so strong in the one word it sounded like cussing.

  Edward leaned in and spoke soft and fast. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

  “I’m surrounded by uniforms, so I’m not alone,” I said.

  I knew the look I was getting even behind his sunglasses. “If I help the locals but Vittorio finds a way to get to you, that won’t make either of us happy.”

  “Nice way to put it, but it’s daylight, and if I keep my shields in place, then I’m vampire proof.”

  “And once darkness falls?”

  “One disaster at a time.” I gave him a little push. “Go find Martin Bendez. If we can get information from him, best, but just help keep our police friends alive.”

  “Why?” he whispered.

  I realized he meant that. Sometimes I forget that when I first met Edward, he scared me almost as much as Olaf. Then he’ll say something like this, and I’ll remember that he’s still a predator. He’s my friend, and he likes me, but most other people are just things to him. Tools to use or obstacles to overcome.

  “If I said it’s the right thing to do, would you laugh at me?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “You coming, Forrester, or is chatting up your girlfriend more important?” Shaw called.

  We let it go, and Edward moved away with the officers still left on the scene. Most of them had vanished when the officer down call came through.

  Bernardo followed Edward, but Olaf hung back and said, “I would stay with you.”

  I yelled, “Ted?”

  He looked back, saw the big guy, and called, “Jeffries, catch up.”

  Olaf hesitated, then turned and started at a march/trot to catch up. Training will tell, and he’d fallen back into that fast march without thinking about it.

  I watched them get into the SUV. Edward never looked back. I trusted him to take care of himself and wished I were going along. There was also that small part of me that felt if I were there he’d be safer; everyone would be. God complex, me? Surely not. Paranoia? Maybe. All I knew was that more than almost anything else in the world, I did not want to explain to Donna and the kids why Edward would never come home to them.

  Another uniform led Victor over to stand with me and Morgan and the handful of officers still with us.

  I looked at Victor in his designer suit. He looked so much more elegant than the rest of us, but it didn’t matter. No matter what we looked like on the outside, the police had labeled us freaks, and they were done playing with us for the day. Now it was left to the humans to chase the monster down and kill it, if they could. The fact that I was standing here with Victor said, clearly, that at least some of the Vegas PD considered me one of the monsters. You don’t let monsters hunt monsters. Why? Because there’s a part of every human being that believes that the monster’s sympathy lies with its fellow freaks. Because that’s where their sympathy would lie. In the end, it’s not us they don’t trust; it’s themselves.

  43

  VICTOR WENT TO stand in front of Morgan. “Detective Morgan, without Marshal Blake and me, you have no hope of taking Martin alive.”

  I said, “We have two officers missing, presumed injured or dead. It’s not about taking him alive anymore, Victor.”

  “But if he dies, we lose the chance to find Vittorio’s daytime lair,” Victor said.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We could pretend that it does, but your tiger gave up his safety when he touched the officers.”

  “You won’t even try to get them to bring him in alive?”

  “They don’t trust me anymore, Victor. I went too weird on them.”

  “Your friend Forrester, then.”

  “Until they find the missing officers, it doesn’t matter.”

  “What if killing Martin means you never find the officers’ bodies?”

  I turned to Morgan. “What about that? That Martin Bendez may know where your officers are?”

  “I’ll radio it in, but you called it, Blake. The moment he touched our officers, we’re not going to be able to contain this.”

  “He is a very powerful weretiger,” Victor said. “He will not be easy to kill.”

  “That a threat?” Morgan asked.

  “No, honesty. If Martin has gone rogue, and you won’t allow us to try to use metaphysics to contain him, then killing him from a distance is your only hope.”

  “So you’re telling me to try to get our men to take him alive, and to shoot him from a safe distance.” Morgan smiled and shook his head, and I knew the smile for what it was now, his version of blank face. “You can’t have both, Victor.”

  “I know that, Detective. I’m telling you I’d rather bring him in alive for the information he holds, but without the marshal and me, you have no hope of taking him alive. So if we are truly to be sidelined, then you must get a sniper in place with silver ammunition and take him out.”

  “I’ll give your advice to my superiors.” Morgan was still smiling, but his tone made it clear he either wouldn’t do what Victor asked or thought the advice was amusing.

  I didn’t find him amusing; I found him honest. Morgan walked away, maybe even to do what Victor wanted done, but I doubted it.

  I looked around at the other officers. “Sorry you’re missing out on the tiger hunt babysitting us.”

  “My wife won’t be sorry,” one man said. His name tag read Cox. He was older, maybe late thirties.

  “I’m sorry,” one of the other officers said, “I mean a real hunt for a weretiger. How often does that happen?” I turned to find that this officer, Shelby by his name tag, looked bright and eager. I fought the urge to sniff the air and go, Hmm, rookie.

  “When you’ve been on the job long enough,” Cox said, “you’ll know that going home alive is win enough.”

  “Getting married made you a wussy,” Shelby said.

  Other officers joined in the good-natured ribbing. Cox took it like the ten-year veteran he probably was; I knew what he meant. I didn’t even have my ten years in, but getting home alive to the people I loved had become more important to me than catching the bad guy. It’s a grown-up attitude, but sometimes it means it’s time to change jobs. Or ride a desk. I’d suck at desk work.

  It made me feel less wussy that Edward had turned down a contract to hunt Marmee Noir. When Death himself, his nickname among the vamps, starts turning down hunts so he can get home alive to his family, the world has become a different place. Or maybe the wo
rld is the same, and it was Edward and I who had changed.

  Everyone’s radios went off at the same time: handheld, shoulder mic, all of it. I caught the dispatcher’s words. Someone had hit the emergency button on their handheld. The next thing we heard was a full-out officer down call.

  Everyone ran for their cars. I stuck at Cox’s heels. Shelby, too; apparently they were riding together. “Take me with you, Cox.”

  He hesitated at the door of his car while car after car squealed away, sirens and lights roaring. “Orders say you stay here.”

  “Forrester is my partner.”

  “You guys don’t run in pairs,” Cox said.

  “He’s my rabbi.”

  “I heard he was more your Svengali,” Shelby said.

  Cox said, “Shut up, Shelby.”

  Shelby did.

  Cox and I had one of those long stares, and then he nodded. “Get in.”

  Victor glided up beside me.

  “Not him,” Cox said as he opened the door.

  “If one of my tigers has attacked officers, I might be able to stop him.”

  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but . . . “Let him ride; if we leave him behind and he gets hurt, we’ll get shit for that, too.”

  Cox cursed softly.

  “I know,” I said, “some days you just choose which ass-chewing you’re gonna get.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” He got in, and Shelby got in with him. Since he hadn’t said no, Victor and I got in the back. Lights and sirens went, and we were screaming out after the other cars. I was still hunting for the seatbelt when we went around a corner fast enough to throw me into Victor.

  He put an arm around me, held me close, and I was left with another problem. How do you make someone who can bench-press a small car let go of you, short of bleeding him? Answer: you don’t.

  44

  I SPOKE OVER the noise of the sirens. “Let go of me.”

  He leaned his mouth in closer and spoke next to my ear. “We have little time, and there are things you need to know.”

  I fought my muscles not to tense and keep trying to push him away. I tried to relax into him, but finally had to settle for just nodding. “Talk.”