Skin Trade

by Hamilton, Laurell K.

  He reached his other hand out, and a man came to it. He was tall, taller than the vampire. His gray eyes were almost a match for the girl’s; even his short hair was the same shade of brown. He gazed forward, seeing nothing.

  Vittorio began to unzip his sweatshirt, exposing his chest. I knew what it would look like, because that was the worst of Asher’s scars. But again, it was worse. The holy water hadn’t just scarred the skin, it had eaten into the deeper tissue, exposing ligaments and the bones of his ribs. It looked like his body had tried to regrow some tissue over it, but the right side of his chest and stomach looked like a skeleton with a hard covering of scars. His stomach was a little concave, where there’d been no bone to support the healing.

  If he had wanted to hurt me in that moment, he could have, because I was mesmerized with the damage and that he’d survived it.

  “If I could have died of infection, I would have, for there were no antibiotics when they did this to me.”

  “If you want to die, wait here, I’ll get a gun and help you out.”

  “There was a time when that was what I sought, but no one was powerful enough to slay me. I took it as a message that I was death, because death could not touch me.”

  “Everything dies, Vittorio,” I said, and I couldn’t keep my gaze from flicking between the daughter and the father.

  “So fragile, humans, aren’t they?”

  “Did you bring them with you to use as hostages?”

  “I found them in the crowd. I thought at first”—he hugged the girl—“she was a whore, but she is only pretending.” He kissed the top of her head, and she snuggled against him. “She reeks of innocence and untried things.”

  “What—do—you—want?” And I let each word hold the anger that I was really having trouble fighting off. I’d have given almost anything in that moment for a gun.

  He stared down at the girl as she cuddled against him, her arms deep inside the sweatshirt, wrapping her arms completely around him. She gazed up at him like he was the best thing since sliced bread.

  “She sees what I was before. I was beautiful once.”

  “Then you do the big reveal, and that’s part of the thrill for you. I get it.”

  He spoke looking at me, not her. “I can leave this place with this family or with you. Will you trade your freedom for theirs?”

  “Don’t do this,” I said, voice softer.

  “You will come with me to save them?”

  I looked at the man, with his unseeing gaze, and the besotted girl. “You don’t kill children or men. Unless the men are strippers. These aren’t your victims of choice. Let them go.”

  “Should I wake the father up enough to see and know what we do to his daughter?”

  “What do you want, Vittorio?” I asked.

  “You,” he said.

  We stood staring at each other. He had a slight smile on his face; I didn’t. “Me, in what way?”

  He laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Oh, your virtue is safe, Anita; the Church took care of that long ago.”

  “Is it about your vampires in St. Louis? Is that why you wanted me here?”

  “Revenge is for the small-minded, Anita. You will learn that I think larger thoughts, grander ones.”

  The girl began to kiss the ruined side of his chest. She began to make small eager sounds in her throat.

  He’d done something else to her, mind to mind, and I hadn’t felt it. I was standing feet away from him, and I hadn’t felt a damn thing. I hadn’t met a vampire in years that could do that to me.

  “I have spies in Maximillian’s camp. He knows, and I know now, that Jean-Claude has not given you the fourth mark.”

  I fought to keep my face blank and knew I failed by a widening of the eyes, a catch of the breath, a speed of pulse.

  “Your master has left the door open for others, Anita. Bibiana wants Max to walk through that door. She believes that if you loved Jean-Claude you would have allowed it and married him by now. She sees your indecision as proof that you haven’t found your true love.”

  “She’s old-fashioned that way,” I said, because what else could I say? He’d know if I was lying. Vampires and wereanimals are like walking lie detectors if they’re powerful enough, and he was.

  “But do not worry about Max and his bride, for I have decided it is my door to open, not his.”

  I blinked up at him, the anger dying under the confusion. I’d thought of a lot of things this nut-bunny could have wanted from me; that hadn’t been one of them. “You want to make me your human servant?”

  “I do.”

  “Why?” I asked, “Everyone knows what a pain in Jean-Claude’s ass I am. Why do you want to deal with that?” I couldn’t call for help in any way, or someone else died. I couldn’t go all lycanthrope, because it wouldn’t help me. What could I do? What the fuck could I do without a gun?

  He laughed again, but this time it was lower, more attractive, more seductive. “The power, Anita. You are the first necromancer in centuries, and with so many other powers.” He moved a little closer, drawing the girl with him. The man followed a step behind like some kind of robot.

  Vittorio reached out with the hand not wrapped around the girl. I stepped back. All vampire powers increase by proximity, and especially touch. He’d done things that were almost impossible; I did not want to find out what his touch could do.

  “Anita, you will make me the most powerful Master of the City in all of the new world.”

  “So you take me, and then we take Vegas from Max?” I was thinking furiously, going over my options. There didn’t seem to be a lot of them. I only knew I wasn’t leaving the area with him. One rule with serial killers: make them kill you in public, because whatever they’ll do to you in private will be worse. I also couldn’t let him leave with the girl and her father. But he couldn’t fly with two people; he’d have to simply walk away. I could stop that, couldn’t I? Shit. Think, Anita, think.

  “Tiger is my animal to call, Anita. We slay Max and his wife, and it is over.”

  “Victor, you’d have to kill their son, too,” I said.

  He smiled, and he moved toward me again. I moved out of reach again.

  “Yes, of course. What a queen you will make for our empire of blood and pain.” His voice was cheerful, as if we weren’t talking about murder.

  “Allow me but a touch, just to lay these fingers alongside your cheek.” He held the hand up, like a magician; nothing up my sleeve. Riiight.

  “Don’t move.” It was Edward’s voice. It took almost everything I had not to turn and search for where he was, but I kept my eyes on the vampire in front of me. Help was here, if I didn’t fuck up.

  The father moved up beside Vittorio, and I’d have bet everything I had that he was blocking Edward’s shot.

  “The man’s bespelled, Edward,” I said, and again had to fight not to look for him, but Vittorio was too powerful to look away, for even a second. I wasn’t sure what his touch would do to me. Maybe nothing, or maybe something bad. I was faster than human-normal, thanks to Jean-Claude, so if I just kept looking at him, I could stay out of reach, or that was the plan.

  “My friends, come to me,” he said, and this time I felt the smallest tug of power. The crowd at the barrier turned toward us and spilled out toward him.

  “He’s bespelled the crowd!” I started to turn to run, but the girl was still in his arms. It made me hesitate. The crowd spilled around us. They shielded him from any gunfire, but they also tried to grab me. It was as if they were zombies, sightless eyes, reaching hands, no thought. How had he mind-rolled this many people? How the fuck had he done it?

  I tried not to hurt them, at first, but when I realized they were trying to hold me down by sheer numbers, I stopped being nice. I kicked a knee and felt it give. A man screamed and then said, “What’s happening? Where am I?”

  I hit the nearest face, seeing my target as the opposite side of that face, the way you’re taught in martial arts. He simply went
down and vanished in the crowd. I brought down two more with joint hits and one bloody nose. The pain brought them out of it, and they crawled away, no longer a threat, but I’d waited too late, and there were just too many.

  I yelled, “Pain, they snap out of it when they hurt!” I wasn’t sure anyone heard me, until I heard cries of pain from the outside of the mob. Someone was coming, someone on my side. But the hands held me down, the sheer weight of all the people, and I couldn’t move.

  Vittorio knelt by my head. He laid his hand on my face. I tried to keep moving, but there was nothing I could do. His eyes filled with brown fire. I knew what he was going to do.

  I screamed, “Edward!”

  One moment I heard bodies hitting the ground, the next there was nothing but the touch of the vampire and his eyes, like brown glass flame, hovering in front of my face. They pressed against my face. I closed my eyes and screamed.

  63

  I WAITED FOR that flame to sink into me, to take me over, but nothing happened. The hands were still holding me down, I could still feel the press of power, of that brown flame, but that was it. I opened my eyes a slit, and the brown-gold of the flame was dazzling, but it wasn’t coming closer.

  A gunshot sounded so close that I was deaf for a second. Then the flame was gone, and Vittorio’s face was above mine. I thought he meant to kiss me, but realized from the way he held himself that he was ducking. Another shot sounded, and then the people who’d been pinning me let me up and moved to form a human shield by the kneeling vampire.

  “Another night,” he said, and he was suddenly standing and running in a movement that I couldn’t follow with my eyes. I sat up, watching him go, my heart in my throat. I’d seen only one other vampire that could move like that without mind tricks: Truth.

  Men were yelling, “Fuck, where’d he go! There! Did you see that!”

  Edward was suddenly standing above me, his hand held out. I took it, and he lifted me to my feet. I swayed a little, and he steadied me.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He gave me a look.

  “He tried to mark me, but he couldn’t get past my shields in the time you gave him.”

  Olaf loomed over us. “Is she hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and forced myself to let go of Edward’s hand, when what I really wanted to do was collapse into his arms and hold on.

  Green uniformed SWAT guys were there now, moving the crowd around as the people began to wander around, asking what happened.

  Hooper was there, his face the only pale thing in the outfit. “What the hell happened, Blake?”

  “The hostages, the club, it was a trap.”

  “A trap for what?” Hooper asked.

  “Me.”

  Georgie came up beside his sergeant. “Nothing personal, Blake, but then why didn’t he kill you?”

  “He doesn’t want me dead.”

  “What does he want?” Hooper asked.

  “Me, as his human servant.”

  “You already belong to the master in St. Louis, right?” It was Cannibal, coming up from the other side of the dispersing crowd.

  What was I supposed to say? “Something like that.”

  “Then he’s too late,” Cannibal said.

  “He thinks he’s powerful enough to take me away.”

  Hooper was standing there, not moving but watching my face. “Is he?”

  “Not tonight, he wasn’t.”

  Hooper’s mouth made a small movement; maybe it was a smile, maybe not. “Let’s not give him another night.”

  “Amen to that,” I said.

  I turned to Cannibal, alias Sergeant Rocco. “Some heap-big psychic you are. Didn’t you sense Vittorio working the crowd?”

  “Sorry, Anita, but I only do memories.”

  “Shit, can’t any of you sense this kind of thing? Where’s Sanchez?” I asked.

  “Why?” Olaf asked.

  “I thought he might have sensed the metaphysics.”

  “He’s with the second team. They’re going to scout Bering’s house,” Edward said. “Grimes wanted his practitioners to see if they could sense the demon.”

  “Why aren’t you with Sanchez?” I asked Rocco.

  “My ability is touch and memories. I’m not touching a demon on purpose, and I don’t want those memories.”

  Edward said, “They’re trying to see if they can sense the demon, so we can make entry closer to the targets or farther away from them, depending on what they find.”

  “Give me a gun, and let’s get out there.”

  Edward was beside me; he handed me my own backup gun from a pocket in his tac pants.

  Rocco said, “You have vampires right here; why chase demons?”

  “This is a hostage situation. I’m not a negotiator.”

  Bernardo came up. He had blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead; apparently someone had hit back.

  The people from the crowd who had tried to beat the hell out of police officers were being given blankets and hot drinks by Red Cross workers. The team doctor was checking them out, with his med tech by his side. I heard a man say, “I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I had to do what the voice in my head told me to do. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t.”

  I stepped in front of Rocco, and he stopped, looking at me. “If Sanchez and the other practitioners can sense the demon, it can sense them. If it’s what killed the other operators, it could come out and trail them by their own magic.”

  “Most demons aren’t that bright,” Edward said.

  “We’re aware that some preternatural beings can sense psychic ability, Marshal. We’ve got them warded so their”—he made a waffling motion with his hand—“signature is garbled.”

  I was impressed and said so.

  “Psychic ability is just another part of the job for us,” he said. His radio crackled to life, and he turned to listen. He started to do a slow jog, and the rest of us just fell into step with him. All right, the men slow-jogged; I had to fast-jog. My legs were shorter. “The vampires have given up. They’ve freed the hostages, and they surrendered.”

  “What’s the catch?” I asked. If anyone heard me, they didn’t answer, but I knew there was a catch; with vampires there was always a catch.

  64

  SOMEONE HAD HIT the lights in the club so that it was bathed in bright lights. Lower-rent strip clubs are not meant to see bright lights; they reveal all the cracks and bad paint patch-up jobs. They show the illusion for what it is: a lie. A lie about sex, and the promise of having it, if you just pay a little bit more money. Nathaniel, my live-in sweetie, had explained to me that dancers make their living on the customer’s hope that real sex is possible. It’s all about advertising but never really selling. Under the harsh overhead lights, the scarlet women looked like even if they were selling, you wouldn’t want to buy.

  The dancer who had lost an ear was being rushed to the hospital, with the idea that they might be able to sew the ear back on; the wound was fresh enough. The other dancers were in the back rooms being interviewed, because we had the vampires in the front area between all the little stages. The vampires were chained in shackles with the new special metal that some of the bigger, more well-funded police forces had for preternatural criminals. It was some uber-space-age metal. I hadn’t seen it put to the test yet, so I’d wait before putting my faith in it too completely.

  The vampires sat in a sad-looking row, their hands held awkwardly in front of them because the chain went to their waist and their ankles. I had to admit that even if they broke the metal, they probably wouldn’t be able to break enough chain to attack before we could get a shot off. Maybe just shackles were a good idea, though you had to get up close and personal to shackle a prisoner, and to my knowledge, the only person in this room who was immune to vampire gaze was me.

  Olaf was circling the chained vampires. He was staying out of reach, but he paced them, like a cattleman looki
ng over a herd that he was thinking of buying. Or maybe that was just me projecting. Maybe.

  Edward and Bernardo were interviewing the dancers. Why was I with Olaf? Because the dancers knew a predator when they saw one, and even after an evening of being held prisoner by vampires, some of them spotted him for what he was, and it wasn’t helping to settle their nerves. For a good interview, Olaf needed to be elsewhere. Why didn’t I interview the women? Because I could get as up close to the vampires as possible and not risk being bespelled. My specialty led me squarely to the other room. But Edward had said something to Sergeant Rocco, aka Cannibal, because either he or one of his men were at my side at all times. They were careful not to give the vamps direct eye contact, but they stayed close. Frankly, Rocco made me a little nervous after our encounter at SWAT HQ, but the first time he moved his body between me and Olaf—subtly, but just enough to make the bigger man have to walk wide around me—I just enjoyed that someone had my back.

  “Okay, guys, this is the drill. We’re going to escort you one at a time into another room and ask you what happened. Don’t talk amongst yourselves while we’re gone. Marshal Jeffries and some of the nice SWAT operators will still be in the room, so mind your manners.”

  They all promised like eager kindergarteners. There wasn’t a vampire in the room that I would have been afraid of, one on one. But there were ten of them, and ten was a lot. Ten of any kind of vampire would have been scary. Hell, ten human beings all rush you at once and you won’t get them all.

  Officers helped the first vampire up to shuffle into a small room behind the bar. It was where the liquor was kept, and they put him in a chair that they’d found just for this. I knelt by the first vampire and found myself gazing into the face of a slightly plump man with pale brown eyes and hair to match. He smiled at me, careful not to show fang. He was trying to be all harmless, friendly, helpful, but I knew that of all of them, he was the oldest. I could feel him in my head, like an echo of time. He was three hundred if he was a day. He was dressed neatly, too neatly for the heat, for the town, for what he was pretending to be. He had pale slacks and a slightly darker tan shirt tucked in and buttoned up. The belt was good leather and matched the shoes. His nondescript brown hair had been cut recently and well. The watch on his wrist was gold and expensive, though once it doesn’t say Rolex, I can’t tell you what it is, but thanks to Jean-Claude I know quality when I see it.