Skin Trade

by Hamilton, Laurell K.

  “So I am the bitch.”

  “Picture Shaw’s face when you do it.”

  I smiled, and knew it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Well, there is that. Fine, I’ll be the bad cop, but it’s your turn next time.”

  “You don’t damage your rep by doing this.”

  “And you might,” I said.

  “Ted is a very nice guy,” he said.

  “You know, it always creeps me when you talk about Ted in the third person.”

  He laughed, and it was a good Edward laugh. “Just get here as soon as possible. Do you have a badge?”

  My hands went to my belt and found that the belt, badge, and empty holster had survived the night. “Surprisingly, yes.”

  “Then flash it, and come explain to everyone why we don’t have to wait on Shaw and the judge.”

  “Isn’t this going to make you and the other marshals look weak?”

  “They already think we’re pussy-whipped; why disappoint them?”

  I shrugged, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “Okay, but please warn Bernardo and Olaf what we’re doing so that they don’t blame me.”

  “I’ll tell them. Just get here.” I heard noise on the other end of the phone, and his voice trailing away, “Hello, Detective Morgan, yes, it is Marshal Blake.” Movement, then, “Ask nicely, and maybe I will.”

  Apparently, he asked nicely. “Where the hell are you, Blake?”

  “Following up a lead,” I said.

  “What kind of lead?”

  “Vampires,” I said.

  “And what kind of vampire lead would that be?”

  “One that didn’t lead anywhere.”

  “So you just wasted an hour and a half of our time,” and his voice was hostile.

  “Most leads don’t pan out, you know that. Besides, it’s not me that’s trying to double-paper my ass.”

  “Just get your ass back here.”

  “You aren’t my boss, Morgan. Put Ted back on.”

  “Is he your boss?”

  “Closest thing Vegas has to one, yeah.”

  There was more noise, and movement, and then Edward came back on. “Sorry, about that, Blake,” he said in his cheerful Ted voice. I heard him walking, cowboy boots hitting some hard surface, and then he spoke in his normal voice. “Morgan didn’t agree with Shaw going to a judge. He thought we should throw Bering to the wolves.”

  “So he’s taking his mad-on at Shaw out on us?”

  “Yelling at us won’t get him fired or demoted.”

  “I’m getting really tired of being everyone’s whipping girl, Edward.”

  “Yeah.” He stopped walking. “Get here, Anita. We need this done.”

  I was left with a buzzing phone. Actually, I’d have rather tackled the demon in the daylight, but two problems with that. One, some demons didn’t show up in daylight, so if you wanted to kill it or send it back, you needed it to be dark. Two, if the vampires were in there, again, I’d rather wait until daylight, but while we waited and played it safe, they might kill someone else. Not acceptable. So much of my job, lately, was just a choice of disasters. I guess that was true of a lot of police work, though.

  I turned back to the vampires. “I need to get back to Vegas and help us push our warrant for a house.”

  “I thought your warrant covered any house you needed,” Wicked said.

  “It does, but we’ve got a pissy undersheriff and a judge who doesn’t like the execution warrants. A lot of judges don’t.”

  “Why would they not like it? It’s only a nearly perfectly legal excuse to kill anything in your path,” Wicked said.

  “You sound like you don’t approve.”

  “Not my job to approve or disapprove.”

  “Fine, Truth, you take me to Vegas.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Wicked said.

  “Then stop bitching. I’ve had enough of that from the locals.”

  His face softened. “I’m sorry, Anita, but I am a vampire, and the executioners could kill me tomorrow with almost no proof of a crime and no trial.”

  “Hey, at least you guys can’t be killed on sight in this country; better than most of the rest of the world.”

  Wicked and Truth came to stand in front of me, giving me that mirrored look as if they were thinking the same thought. “We’ll take you where you need to go,” Truth said.

  “Aren’t you afraid to touch me?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  I studied that serious face. “Aren’t you afraid of the ardeur?”

  “Yes.”

  Wicked answered, “He’s not afraid of you, Anita. We know you meant what you said. Belle would never ask that of anyone. She likes being the monster.”

  I shivered, and it wasn’t pleasure this time. “I’ve felt her touch.” I thought about her dream visit. I was almost sure that she’d kept Victor the weretiger from doing something to me in the dream, but in return she’d done something to the ardeur. Had it been her who caused the ardeur to spread to Truth from a distance? I didn’t know, and if I asked her, she’d lie.

  “Whoever’s up for it, let’s fly me to Edward.”

  “She’s afraid of heights,” Wicked said.

  “How afraid?” Truth asked.

  “Pretty,” he said.

  Truth looked down at me, considering. “We would never drop you.”

  I waved the thought away. “It’s a phobia, not logic. Just decide who’s taking me before I lose my nerve.”

  They laughed, and it was like hearing it in stereo. Wicked said, “You may lose a lot of things, but you’ll never lose your nerve.”

  “Pretty to think so; now who’s pilot for the return trip?”

  “Why don’t you just order one of us?” Truth asked.

  “Because I can’t fly, and I don’t know if Wicked is tired from carrying me here and then feeding the ardeur. So I trust you two to decide who’s up for it.”

  Wicked smiled at me. “I’m almost more honored that you trust us, rather than order us, than I am about the sex.”

  I shrugged. “You’re welcome, I guess. Now, whoever, but I need to get back to town.”

  “I’ll take her,” Truth said.

  “I’ve had more recovery time,” Wicked said.

  “I’ll take her,” Truth repeated. The brothers looked at each other for a long moment. One of those unreadable moments that you can simply feel on the air like a weight of unspoken things, and you suddenly feel like a voyeur in someone else’s life. I realized why Bernardo had said something similar earlier about Edward and me. He was right.

  Finally, Wicked said, “As you like.”

  “I do,” he said.

  Again, I felt like I was listening to shorthand, and that there were a dozen things going on below the surface of those few words, but you’re never supposed to let people know that you hear the unspoken things. It makes them nervous. I scare people enough without going all girl-intuitive, too.

  Truth looked at me. “Are you ready?”

  I took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, fighting to keep it from trembling, then nodded.

  He closed the distance between us. He hesitated, then said, “I need to carry you.”

  I nodded again. “I know.” My voice sounded just the tiniest bit unhappy. I could do this, damn it. It was just heights, and flying, and . . . Oh, hell, I did not want to do this, but we were too far out for driving, even if we had a car. This was the quickest way, and Edward had stalled for me long enough.

  Truth picked me up in his arms, as if he meant to walk with me. Something must have shown on my face because he said, “It’s the most secure way for you.”

  “It’s just that Wicked carried me differently.”

  Wicked said, “I was afraid you might’ve started struggling with the hunger on you. Carrying you against my body, I had more control if you had gone . . . mad while we were flying.”

  Truth turned with me in his arms and asked, “You said hunger, not ardeur.”


  “The first hunger that came to her was blood and flesh. She had turned toward the humans when she asked me to take her someplace where she would not be tempted.”

  Truth looked down at me, his face blank and serious, which I’d begun to realize was his blank face. It was what he hid behind when he didn’t want anyone knowing what he was thinking.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I will take you to your friends, but if the other hungers are rising more than the ardeur, then you need to be even more careful to eat solid food, and . . .” He faltered.

  “What he’s trying to say is that to make certain you don’t try to attack your human friends, you need to feed the ardeur more regularly, as well as eat more real food.”

  “You think I should eat before I go to sleep tonight?”

  “I think a midnight snack wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Wicked said.

  “Agreed,” Truth said.

  “Crap,” I said, “I really didn’t want to do some of the people you brought from St. Louis.”

  “I think a little sex with willing men is the lesser evil here, Anita.”

  I nodded. Let’s see, sex with more men, or trying to tear the throats out of Edward, Olaf, and Bernardo. Let me think . . . out loud I said, “I know it’s the lesser evil, but I still don’t have to be happy about it.”

  “If you were happy about it, you wouldn’t be you,” Truth said.

  “But if you were a little more happy about it,” Wicked said, “you’d have better control of the ardeur in the first place. You have to embrace your vampire powers to truly use them well.”

  “You know, if we’re just going to chat, then put me down.”

  “I think the lady is tired of talking,” Wicked said.

  “Then to action,” Truth said, and I felt that push of energy skyward. The sand and tiny gravel swirled upward from the force of it so that we left the ground in a cloud of it.

  I had a dizzying glimpse of the ground falling away beneath his boots. A wave of nausea tried to crawl up my throat. I closed my eyes tight and leaned in against his chest. The nausea was less, though my pulse was still trying to crawl out the side of my throat, my heart beating so fast it hurt my chest. I fought not to tighten the arm around his neck too much. But I couldn’t keep myself from getting a handful of his shirt, as if the thin T-shirt would really help if everything went to hell. But sometimes, when you’re really scared, illusion is all you’ve got. Cling to it, baby, cling to it.

  60

  I WAS ACTUALLY able to open my eyes before we got to Vegas. I just had to keep my gaze very steady on Truth’s shoulder or the sky. I could even admit that being up in the dark, surrounded by stars, was beautiful. It was the ground being so far away that spoiled it for me.

  Truth had asked only once if I was all right. When I’d answered yes, he had let it go. I knew he felt the fear in my body. There was no way to hide my heart rate and pulse from him. But before we landed, those had both quieted. I was still scared, but I guess I couldn’t stay at that level of fear without either a full-blown panic attack or fainting.

  The stars began to fade, and at first I thought it was daylight, even though I knew the time was completely wrong for it; then I realized it was the lights of Vegas. They rose against the sky like a false dawn, draining the light from the stars, turning the black sky pale. The city rose above the night like a permanent dawn, always pushing against the dark, keeping the stars at bay.

  Truth had to go higher just to keep above the buildings. Some of the roofs were so close, I think if I’d leaned out I could have touched them. As afraid as I was of heights, I still had that perverse urge to reach out. I made my hands cling tighter to Truth, and he seemed to think that meant I was more afraid.

  “We will be there soon,” he said, and his voice sounded strained.

  I looked at him and almost asked if he was all right, but if he wasn’t, what could I do? We left the tall buildings of the Strip behind and flew over normal houses and shops. We were flying over Anywhere, USA. Then the land began to open up, and the first thing I saw was the twinkling runway lights at the airport. For one moment, I thought Truth was going to use them, but then he began to angle toward buildings that were on the edge of it. I wouldn’t have recognized the building from the air, in the dark. I was a little worried about that whole rolling-on-the-ground part, with concrete and buildings to hit. The ground rushed up, and I had to close my eyes or be sick. Then I realized it wasn’t just the visual but the swooping feeling in my stomach. I opened my eyes to find a building at our side, and Truth hit the ground running. He stumbled slightly on impact, but kept moving forward, with me in his arms. The run slowed, and finally he was able to stop, still hidden in the shadow of the building. I had a glimpse of the street with a spattering of cars driving by, their headlights cutting the electric-kissed dark. Truth moved us back a short way into the shadow of the building, so we’d be less visible from the street. At our back was the open area that surrounded the airport.

  He leaned his back against the building, as if he were tired, hugging me closer the way you would a child.

  “You can put me down, Truth,” I said.

  He opened his eyes and blinked at me, as if he’d been far away in his head. He put me down and let me slide out of his hands. He leaned against the building, his chest rising and falling as if he’d been running. Vampires didn’t always breathe, or have to, so the fact that he was breathing heavily meant either he was tired or something else.

  I touched his bare arm with my fingertips. His skin was warm to the touch. “You’re warm.”

  “Touch me where I wasn’t holding you against me,” he said, voice breathy.

  I reached up and touched the side of his face. His skin was cool. “So it was just my body heat warming you up?”

  He nodded.

  “Why are you breathing like that? How much energy did this use up for you?”

  He swallowed hard enough for me to watch his throat work. “Enough.”

  “Shit, you should have let Wicked bring me.”

  He shook his head, still leaning shoulders and arms against the building. “It wouldn’t have mattered. You fed more deeply than I thought, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked at me with those gray eyes that almost never looked as blue as his brother’s. “Just as we can take less blood, or more, in a feeding, so with the ardeur. You were like a vampire that had not fed in too long. You needed more.”

  “But a vampire can only drink as much blood as his stomach can hold,” I said. “The ardeur doesn’t work like that, does it?”

  He just looked at me.

  Shit. “How hurt are you?”

  “Not hurt, just tired.”

  “Fine, how tired are you?”

  “You need to go to your police friends,” he said.

  “I can’t leave you on the street this weak. You can’t even stand up. If Vittorio’s people found you now, you’d just be a victim for them.”

  His eyes went all vampire on me, gray light shining in his gaze. “I am no one’s victim,” and he was angry when he said it, and then his eyes went back to normal and he began to slide down the wall. I caught him, steadied him. He put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his body fight to stay upright.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  “No, it’s me that’s sorry.”

  “Flying takes a great deal of energy, and carrying someone takes more. I had forgotten how much more.”

  “So it’s not that I fed, but that you did something strenuous afterward,” I said.

  “Yes, it would have been good to simply sleep afterward, or feed myself.”

  “Would feeding help?” I asked.

  He nodded, while his body trembled in an effort to stay leaning against the wall. Even with my hands to steady him, he was still in trouble.

  “I can’t leave you like this, Truth. Either you have to come with me, and let the cops keep you safe, or . . .�
� I did not want to open a vein for him. I’d done it once before to save his life when he’d been stabbed with a silver blade trying to help me and the police catch a very bad vampire, but I didn’t like playing walking blood bank. But there was no way that Grimes and his men would want a vampire inside their place. How would I explain him to the other cops, and how did I explain what was wrong with him? When opening a vein is the lesser evil, you need to rethink your priorities.

  “Take blood from me,” I said.

  “You don’t donate to anyone.” His voice was rough, and his legs began to give. I helped ease him to a sitting position, with his back solid against the building.

  “Not usually, but this is an emergency, just like me needing to feed the ardeur on you.”

  He gave me fluttery eyes.

  I held his face between my hands. “Damn it, Truth, don’t you dare pass out on me!”

  His eyes opened wide, and I watched him fight to do what I’d ordered. I did the only thing I could think of; I offered him my left wrist. It would hurt more than the neck, but it would be easier to hide from the other policemen.

  “I am not vampire enough to cloud your mind. I can only hurt you.”

  “Feed, damn it,” I said.

  He raised shaky hands and wrapped one of them around my wrist at the hand, and used the other to scoot the sleeve of his jacket away from the wrist. The sleeves were big enough on me that he had no problem pushing the leather out of the way and baring my lower arm.

  I braced for the bite, then blew out a breath and tried to relax into it. If I tensed up it would hurt more, just like a shot.

  Truth opened his mouth wide, so I had a glimpse of fangs before he struck. I tensed at the last minute; I just couldn’t help it. I was caught between the sharp immediacy of the pain and the sensation of his mouth locked around my wrist, forming a tight seal, while the fangs dug in deeper. The deeper part hurt, but his mouth on my wrist, and the sucking, felt good. I’d been feeding Jean-Claude and Asher more often in the last few months, and apparently my body had started translating feeding into pleasure. I’d started associating it with sex, because with Jean-Claude and Asher, we’d made the blood part of our foreplay, and sometimes part of our intercourse. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much that had colored how I felt about this whole thing.