Olaf blinked at me. “You do not fear me?” He made it a question and seemed disappointed. There was something almost little-boyish about his disappointment.
“I’m not afraid of anything I can kill,” I said.
“Edward can be killed,” Olaf said.
“Yes, but can he be killed by anyone in this room? That’s the question.”
Olaf looked at me, puzzled now more than angry. He began to lower the blade, slowly.
Edward said, “Drop it,” in a quiet voice.
Olaf dropped the blade to the floor. It hit with a ringing clang.
I got to my knees and then scuttled backwards along the edge of the table, lowering the gun as I moved. I got to my feet at the head of the table near Bernardo. I looked at him. “Move over around by Edward.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“Just do it, Bernardo. I need a little space right now.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but Edward cut him off. “Do it.”
Bernardo did it.
When they were all at the other end of the room, I put the gun up.
Edward had an armful of cardboard box. It was brimming over with files. He set it down on the tabletop.
“You didn’t even have a gun,” Olaf said.
“I didn’t need one,” Edward said.
Olaf pushed past Edward to the hallway beyond. I hoped he was going to pack and leave, but doubted we’d get that lucky. I hadn’t known Olaf for an hour, and I already knew why he was no one’s sweetie.
20
A MURDER ALWAYS BREEDS a lot of paper, but a serial murder, you can drown in the paperwork. Edward, Bernardo, and I were swimming upstream. We’d been at it for about an hour, and Olaf hadn’t come back. Maybe he had decided to pack up and go home. Though I hadn’t heard any doors or cars, but I wasn’t sure how soundproof the house was. Edward didn’t seem bothered by Olaf’s absence, so I didn’t give it much attention either. I had read one report through back to front. One to get an overview and see if anything jumped out at me. One thing did. There were slivers of obsidian in the cut-up bodies. An obsidian blade, maybe. Though we were in the wrong part of the world for it, or were we?
“Did the Aztecs ever get up this far?” I asked.
Edward didn’t treat it like a weird question. “Yes.”
“So I’m not the first one to point out the obsidian clue might mean Aztec magic?”
“No,” he said.
“Thanks for telling me that we’re looking for some sort of Aztec monster.”
“The local cops talked to the leading expert in the area. Professor Dallas couldn’t come up with any deity or folklore that would account for these murders or the mutilations.”
“You sound like you’re quoting. Is there a report around here somewhere?”
He looked out over the mound of papers. “Somewhere.”
“Isn’t there an Aztec deity that the priests skinned someone as an offering, or is that Mayan?”
He shrugged. “The good professor couldn’t make a connection. That’s why I didn’t tell you. The police have been looking into the Aztec angle for weeks. Nothing. I brought you down here to think different thoughts, not follow old ones.”
“I’d like to talk to the professor all the same. If that’s okay with you.” I made sure he got the sarcasm.
“Look at the reports first, try to find what we’ve missed, then I’ll introduce you to Professor Dallas.”
I looked at him, trying to read behind those baby blues and failing as usual. “When do I get to see the professor?”
“Tonight.”
That raised my eyebrows. “Gee, that is quick, especially since you think I’m wasting our time.”
“She spends most nights in a club near Albuquerque.”
“She, being Professor Dallas,” I said.
He nodded.
“What’s so special about this club?”
“If your career was Aztec history and mythology, wouldn’t you just love to interview a real live Aztec?”
“A live ancient Aztec in Albuquerque?” I didn’t try and keep the surprise out of my voice. “How?”
“Well, maybe not live,” he said.
“A vampire,” I said.
He nodded again.
“Has this Aztec vamp got a name?”
“The Master of the City calls herself Itzpapalotl.”
“Isn’t that like an Aztec goddess?” I asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Talk about delusions of grandeur.” I was watching his face, trying to catch a hint. “Did the cops talk to the vamp?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She wasn’t helpful.”
“You didn’t believe her, did you?”
“Neither did the cops. But she was on stage at her club during at least three of the murders.”
“So she’s cleared,” I said.
“Which is why I want you to read the reports first, Anita. We’ve missed something. Maybe you’ll find out what, but not if you keep looking for Aztec bogeymen. We raised that rock, and as much as the police would like it to be the Master of the City, it isn’t.”
“So why the offer to take me down to see her tonight?”
“Just because she’s not doing the murders, doesn’t mean she can’t have information that could help us.”
“The police questioned her.” I made it a statement.
“Yeah, but funny how vampires don’t like talking to the police, and how much they like talking to you.”
“You know you could have just told me that we were seeing the Master Vamp of Albuquerque tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to take you down there tonight unless you got bitchy about it. I was actually hoping you wouldn’t make the Aztec angle until you’d read everything first.”
“Why?”
“I told you, it was a blind alley. We need new ideas. Things we haven’t thought of, not things the police have already crossed off the list.”
“But you haven’t crossed this Itza-whatever off your list, have you?”
“The goddess will let you call her by her English translation, Obsidian Butterfly. It’s also the name of her club.”
“You think she’s involved, don’t you?”
“I think she knows something that she might share with a necromancer, but not a vampire executioner.”
“So I go down off duty, so to speak.”
“So to speak.”
“I’m Jean-Claude’s human servant, one third of his little triumvirate of power. If I go visiting the Master of this City without police credentials, then I’ll have to play vamp politics. I hate vamp politics.”
Edward looked out over the table. “When you’ve read your hundredth witness report tonight, you may change your mind. Even vampire politics look good after reading enough of this shit.”
“Gee, Edward, you sound almost bitter.”
“I’m the monster expert, Anita, and I don’t have a fucking clue.”
We looked at each other, and again I had the sense of his fear, his helplessness, things that Edward just didn’t feel. Or so I’d thought.
Bernardo came in with a tray of coffees. He must have caught something in the air because he said, “Did I miss something?”
“No,” Edward said, and he went back to the papers in his lap.
I stood and started sorting papers. “You haven’t missed anything yet.”
“I just love being lied to.”
“We’re not lying,” I said.
“Then why is the tension level so high in here?”
“Shut up, Bernardo,” Edward said.
Bernardo didn’t take it as an insult. He just shut up and handed out the coffee.
I sorted out all the witness reports I could find, then spent the next three hours reading them. I’d read one report back to front and found out nothing the police and Edward hadn’t known weeks ago. Now I was looking for something new, something that the police, Edward
, the experts they’d called in, nobody had found. It sounded egotistical, but Edward seemed sure I’d find it, whatever it was. Though I was beginning to wonder if it was confidence in me or sheer desperation on Edward’s part that made him so sure I’d find something. I’d give it my best shot, and that was all I could do.
I looked down at several stacks of witness reports and settled in to read. I know most people read each report in full, or almost in full, then move to the next, but in a serial crime you were looking for a pattern. On serial murders I’d learned to divide the files up into parts: all the witness statements, then all the forensic reports, then the pictures of the crime scene, etc. . . . Sometimes I did the pictures first, but I was putting it off. I’d seen enough in the hospital to make me squeamish. So the pictures could wait, and I could still do legitimate work on the case without having to see all the horrors. Procrastination with a purpose, what could be better?
Bernardo kept making us all coffee and continued to play host, going back and forth when the coffee ran low, offering food, though we both declined. When he brought me my umpteenth cup of coffee, I finally asked, “Not that I’m not grateful, but you didn’t strike me as the domestic type, Bernardo. Why the perfect host routine? It’s not even your house.”
He took the question as an invitation to move closer to my chair until his jean-clad thigh was touching the arm, but it wasn’t touching me so that was fine. “You want to ask Edward to go for coffee?”
I looked across the table at Edward. He didn’t bother to look up from the papers in his hands. I smiled. “No, I was more thinking I’d get my own.”
Bernardo turned and leaned his butt against the table, arms crossed over his chest. Muscles played in his arms as if he were flexing just a bit for my benefit. I didn’t think he was even aware he was doing it, as if it were habit.
“Truthfully?” he asked.
I looked up at him and sipped the coffee he’d brought me. “That would be nice.”
“I’ve read the reports more than once. I don’t want to read them again. I’m tired of playing detectives and wish we could just go kill something, or at least fight something.”
“Me, too,” Edward said. He was watching us now with cool blue eyes. “But we have to know what we’re fighting, and the answer to that is in here somewhere.” He motioned at the mounds of papers.
Bernardo shook his head. “Then why haven’t we, or the police, found the answer in all this paper?” He ran his finger down the nearest stack. “I don’t think paperwork is going to catch this bastard.”
I smiled up at him. “You’re just bored.”
He looked down at me, a little startled expression on his face, then he laughed, head back, mouth wide as if he were howling at the moon. “You haven’t known me long enough to know me that well.” Laughter was still sparkling in his brown eyes, and I wished it were a different pair of brown eyes. My chest was suddenly tight with missing Richard. I looked down at the papers in my lap, not sure if it would show in my eyes. If my eyes showed sorrow, I didn’t want Bernardo to see it. If my eyes showed longing, I didn’t want him to misinterpret it.
“Are you bored, Bernardo?” Edward asked.
Bernardo turned at the waist so he could see Edward with a minimum of movement. It put his bare chest facing me. “No women, no television, nothing to kill, bored, bored, bored.”
I found myself staring at his chest. I had an urge to rise up out of my chair, spill the papers to the floor and run my tongue over his chest. The image was so strong, I had to close my eyes. I had feelings like this around Richard and Jean-Claude, but not around strangers. Why was Bernardo affecting me like this?
“Are you all right?” He was bending over me, face so close that his face filled my entire vision.
I jerked back, pushing the chair and rising to my feet. The chair crashed to the floor, papers spilled everywhere. “Shit,” I said with feeling. I picked up the chair.
He bent down to help pick up the papers. His bare back made a firm curved line as he started shoveling the papers back into a pile. I watched the way the small muscles in his lower back worked, fascinated by it.
I stepped away from him. Edward was watching me from across the table. His gaze was heavy, as if he knew what I was thinking, feeling. I knew it wasn’t true, but he knew me better than most. I didn’t want anyone to know that I seemed to be unwarrantedly attracted to Bernardo. It was too embarrassing.
Edward said, “Leave us alone for a while, Bernardo.”
Bernardo stood with a bundle of papers, looking from one to the other of us. “Did I just miss something?”
“Yes,” Edward said, “Now get out.”
Bernardo looked at me. He looked a question at me, but I gave nothing back. I could feel my face unreadable and empty. Bernardo sighed and handed me the papers. “How long?”
“I’ll let you know,” Edward said.
“Wonderful. I’ll be in my room when Daddy decides to let me come out.” He stalked through the nearest door where Olaf had vanished through.
“No one likes being treated like a child,” I said.
“It’s the only way to deal with Bernardo,” Edward said. His gaze was very steady on my face, and he looked way too serious for comfort.
I started sorting the papers in my hands. I used the cleared space on the table that I’d made hours ago when I was still leaning over the table instead of slumping in the chair to read. I concentrated on sorting and didn’t look up until I felt him beside me.
I looked then and found his eyes weren’t blank. They were intense, but I still couldn’t read them. “You said you hadn’t been dating either of the guys for six months.”
I nodded.
“Have you been dating anyone else?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No sex, then,” he said.
I shook my head again. My heart was beating faster. I so did not want him to figure this out.
“Why not?” he asked.
I looked away then, unable to meet his eyes. “I don’t have any moral high ground to preach from anymore, Edward, but I don’t do casual sex, you know that.”
“You’re jumping out of your skin every time Bernardo comes near you.”
Heat climbed up my face. “Is it that noticeable?”
“Only to me,” he said.
I was grateful for that. I spoke without looking at him. “I don’t understand it. He’s a bastard. Even my hormones usually have better taste than that.”
Edward was leaning against the table, arms crossed over his white shirt. It was exactly how Bernardo had been sitting, but it didn’t move me, and I didn’t think it was just the shirt. Edward just did not affect me in that way and never had.
“He’s handsome, and you’re horny.”
The heat that had been fading, flared until it felt like my skin would burn. “Don’t say it that way.”
“It’s the truth.”
I looked at him then, and let the anger show in my eyes. “Damn you.”
“Maybe your body knows what you need.”
I widened eyes at him. “Meaning what?”
“A good uncomplicated fuck. That’s what I mean.” He still looked calm, unmoved as if he’d said something entirely different.
“What are you saying?”
“Fuck Bernardo. Give your body what it needs. You don’t have to go back to the monsters to get laid.”
“I cannot believe you said that to me.”
“Why not? If you were having sex with someone else, wouldn’t it be easier to forget Richard and Jean-Claude? Isn’t that part of their hold on you, especially the vampire. Admit it, Anita. If you weren’t celibate, you wouldn’t be missing them as much.”
I opened my mouth to protest, closed it, and thought about what he’d said. Was he right? Was part of the reason I was still mooning over them the lack of sex? Yeah, I guess it was, but it wasn’t just that. “I miss the sex, yeah, but I miss the intimacy, Edward. I miss looking at them both an
d knowing they’re mine. Knowing I can have every inch of them. I miss Sunday after church and having Richard stay over to watch old movies. I miss watching Jean-Claude watch me eat a meal.” I shook my head. “I miss them, Edward.”
“Your problem, Anita, is that you wouldn’t know an uncomplicated fuck if it bit you on the ass.”
I wasn’t sure whether to smile or be mad, so my voice was a little amused and a little angry. “And your relationship with Donna is so uncomplicated?”
“It was at the beginning,” he said. “Can you say that about either of yours?”
I shook my head. “I’m not a casual person, Edward, not in anything.”
He sighed. “I know that. When you give your friendship, it’s for life. When you hate someone, it’s forever. When you say you’re going to kill someone, you do it. One of the things making you squirm about your boys is the fact that for you, love should be forever.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
He shook his head. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means you complicate your life, Anita.” He raised a hand before I could say it, and said it for me. “I know I’ve screwed up with Donna, but I went into it meaning to be casual, meaning it to just be part of the act. You always go into everything like it’s life or death. Only life and death are life and death.”
“And you think that sleeping with Bernardo would fix all that.”
“It’d be a start,” he said.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Your final word?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Fine, I won’t bring it up again.”
“Great,” I said and looked into that blank, Edward face. “Being with Donna has made you more personal, more warm and fuzzy. I’m not comfortable with the new Edward.”
“Neither am I,” he said.
Edward went back to his side of the table, and we both started reading again. Usually, silence between us was companionable and not strained. But this quiet was full of unsaid advice: me to him about Donna, and him to me about the boys. Edward and I playing Dear Abby to each other. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad.
21
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 146