Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  Edward wasn’t holding onto my arm anymore; maybe that was it, or maybe I’d just had enough for one night. “You’ve scared him shitless. It’s hard to get it up when you’re scared.”

  She and Chualtalocal looked at me, and their black eyes held nearly identical expressions, not that I chanced looking into the eyes long, but it was still there, disdain. How dare I interfere?

  Edward made as if to grab me again. I held up a hand to him. “Don’t touch me.”

  He let his hand fall back, but his eyes were not happy with me. Fine, I wasn’t happy with anyone right now.

  “And are you offering to help him overcome his fear?” Itzpapalotl asked. The look on her face said plainly that she didn’t expect me to offer.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I don’t know who looked the most surprised, but I think it was Edward, though Bernardo was a close second from the doorway. Olaf just watched me like a fox watching a rabbit through the fence, who’s just spotted a hole big enough to crawl through. I ignored him. It was probably best to always ignore Olaf, if possible. Ignore him or kill him. That was my vote.

  I held my hand out to the werejaguar. He hesitated, glancing from the vamp in front of him, to me, to the goddess behind him. I wiggled my fingers at him. “Come on, Seth. We don’t have all night.”

  “Go with her, do as she says, as long as you offer fitting sacrifice.”

  He took my hand, tentatively, and though he was a six foot plus, naked man, there was something very little boyish on his face. Maybe it was the near panic in his baby blues. He was scared, scared that he was going to end up on the floor, meat for the four weird sisters. I didn’t blame him for worrying. I think if I hadn’t stepped in, that was exactly what was about to happen. But I’d had all the torture I could handle for one night. It wasn’t moral outrage. It was just plain outrage. I wanted to ask my questions and get the hell out of here. Vampires can live a very long time, theoretically forever, which means their idea of getting down to business can be damn leisurely. The vamps might have had eternity. I didn’t.

  I led Seth the werejaguar off to the other side of the room. The easiest thing would have been to work him by hand, but I was like so not doing that. The option I was voting for wasn’t that simple, but it was something I was willing to do. I was going to call that part of me that was Richard’s mark. Not the connection to him—that was safely walled away. I’d packed it so tight, I wasn’t even sure I could open to the mark even on purpose. But I held a part of it inside me. The same part that had recognized César, the same part that let me deal with the wereleopards back home. That electric rush of energy was a turn-on to wereanimals. I’d discovered it accidentally. Now I was going to try and do it on purpose.

  But it wasn’t like a switch. Maybe someday it would be, but right now it took some preparation to get it going. It was maddening that something that came out at odd moments when I didn’t want it, would refuse to come out when I did, but psychic shit is like that, unpredictable. It’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to study in laboratory conditions. X does not always equal Y.

  I put my hands on my hips and looked at him, from head to foot, and didn’t know where to start. My life would be both easier and harder if I was into casual sex, but for better or worse, it wasn’t my cup of tea.

  “Can you undo your hair?”

  “Why?” He sounded suspicious, and I didn’t blame him.

  “Look, I could have let her turn you over to her pet torturers, but I didn’t. So work with me here.”

  His hands went to the knot at the back of his head. He pulled long pins out of his hair, and finally a comb that was made of bone. The hair uncurled slowly as if it were stretching from some long sleep, sliding down his back in a heavy mass. I walked behind him and he started to turn and watch me. I touched his shoulder, made him face front. “I’m not going to hurt you, Seth. I’m probably the only person in this room who won’t.”

  He kept his face front, but there was a tension to his shoulders, his back that said he didn’t like it. I didn’t care. We needed to do this fast. Call it a hunch but the goddess didn’t strike me as patient.

  I unrolled his hair, helping it slide down his back. The colors were extraordinary, bright yellow, rich gold, a pale almost white, all of it streaked together, each color blending into the next the way sea water blends one color into the next, distinct but making a whole. I ran my hands through the thick warmth of his hair until it lay spread across his back, an inch past his waist. I grabbed two handfuls of hair and pressed it to my cheek. There was the close smell of sweat and the scent of the fur he’d worn. He had a cologne, faint on his skin, something so sweet, it smelled like candy. I spread the hair apart until I could see the skin of his back, and laid my face against the warmth of him. He smelled warm, as if you could sink your teeth into him like something fresh from the oven. I walked around him, hands trailing lightly over his skin, touching mostly the fall of that sun-streaked hair.

  I came to stand in front of him, looked up into those wide, still half-afraid eyes, but a glance down his body showed that I’d made some progress, not enough, but some.

  I didn’t look at the vampires, or Edward, or anybody. I concentrated just on the man in front of me. To look elsewhere was to lose ground. I took his hand, and that pale golden tan looked darker against the paleness of my skin. I lowered my face over his hand as if I’d kiss it, but I brushed my lips barely against his skin, moving up his arm, breathing in the scent of his skin. I opened my mouth, laying my breath like a warm touch just above the skin of his arm. It raised the pale hairs on his arm in a march of goosebumps.

  He flexed the hand I was holding, rolling me into his body with my back resting against the front of him. His other arm wrapped around from the other side, enfolding me in the warmth of his body. He laid his face on the top of my head, and a spill of his hair fell across me like a warm sweet scented curtain. The firelight danced through the gold of his hair, turning it into an amber cage, carved of light. He kissed the top of my head, then laid a gentle kiss against my temple, the top of my cheekbone, my cheek. He was so tall that in bending over he enveloped me in his body, covering me in the feel of him. The candy smell of his cologne breathed along his skin, and my body constricted with it. The smell was the key. The power spilled upward in a warm liquid rush that brought me to tiptoe, made me luxuriate against his body like a cat with catnip, wanting to roll my body in the scent. My body writhed against his as the power rode in almost painful waves, so warm, it was almost hot, rising off my body like invisible steam.

  One hand stayed around my waist, the other touched my chin, turning my face back to meet his mouth. He kissed me, and for a second I stiffened, but I’d learned that if you called the power, you didn’t fight it. You embraced it. If you fought it, then you had less control. I kissed him back. I expected the power to push out my mouth into his like it had with César, but it didn’t. The kiss was nice, but it was just the feel of his lips on mine. His warmth pushed against mine, his power like a trembling shadow spilling along mine. We stood wrapped in a curtain of his hair, a circle of arms, and a vibrating blanket of that skin-dancing power that was all shapeshifter.

  He shuddered against me, arms hugging me close. I could tell he was ready for sacrifice without looking, but I had to glance down anyway. He was ready. I pulled free of him, gently. “You’re ready to go back to the vamps, Seth. I think you’re ready to make a sacrifice.” I made myself look him in the eyes.

  He bent and kissed my forehead, gently. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We walked back to the vamps hand in hand. But it wasn’t the vampires that made me uncomfortable as we crossed the room. It was the humans. Bernardo looked like he was reconsidering my status as untouchable Madonna. Olaf had an almost hungry look on his face. It was closer to the way werewolves looked at you on the night of full moon than the way a man looks at a woman. Edward had a slight frown between his eyes, which for him meant he was
bothered by something. The vampires looked about like I’d expected. Itzpapalotl looked serious, as if she hadn’t known I could call the power up on purpose. It’s why they’d apologized for dragging me up onstage earlier.

  I gave Seth over to Chualtalocal like a father handing the bride to the groom. Then I moved back to stand by Edward. He looked at me, as if he was the one trying to read me for a change, and failing. It was almost worth it, if I could confuse Edward.

  “Did you enjoy yourself, my cat?” the goddess asked.

  “Yes, holy mistress, I did.”

  “Are you ready to make sacrifice?”

  “Yes, holy mistress.”

  “Then do so.” She looked past him to me, as if she didn’t like what she saw. Something about what I’d done with Seth had disturbed her. Had she expected me to take him off in the corner and just do him by hand like a fluffer in a porno movie? Had the fact that I’d used power as well as mild sex disturbed her? Or had she seen something I hadn’t, or understood something I did not? No way of knowing short of asking, and admitting that kind of ignorance to master vamps is a good way to get killed. So no questions about magic, just eventually, hopefully about the case.

  Seth picked up the small silver blade again. He cradled his flesh in his hand and set the tip of the blade against himself. I caught Bernardo turning back towards the door. The blade tip bit into flesh, and I looked away. I think we all did, except for Olaf. It might have startled him the first time, but he was over the shock. Blood was being spilled, flesh being cut. Olaf couldn’t miss that.

  He watched the cutting, but then I caught him turning away out of the corner of my eye, and I had to look. I had to see what was bad enough for Olaf not to be able to stomach it.

  The vampire had gone to his knees. I guess maybe I’d expected him to just lick the blood off, but he wasn’t. He was sucking at it the way that Diego had sucked at Seth’s ears, except this wasn’t an ear. The vampire had covered almost every inch of Seth with his mouth. Seth’s eyes were closed, and there was a look of concentration on his face.

  I looked away again and found myself meeting the dead eyes of the four fallen nuns. Those empty, angry faces were almost harder to stare at than a vampire going down on someone. I literally turned my back on all of them and found that Olaf had done the same thing. He was hugging himself and staring at nothing. His discomfort rose off of him in almost visible waves. Even with his back turned, the sounds carried. I wished for the ringing in my ears to get worse.

  Soft, sucking sounds, wet sounds, the sound of flesh in flesh, and the sharp intake of breath that was probably Seth. His breath came in three fast pants, and he spoke, “Please, holy mistress, I am not sure of my control tonight.”

  “You know the punishment,” she said. “Surely, that is incentive enough to hold yourself in check.”

  I glanced back then and found that Seth was staring back over his shoulder at the four women in the corner. When he turned back, he looked scared. The vampire was still feeding, sucking, throat swallowing. Surely, the wound had healed by now, unless they’d made a second wound while I was being embarrassed and not looking.

  Seth dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. His hands paled with the force of squeezing nails into his own flesh. He threw his head back suddenly, breath coming fast, faster, fastest. The vampire pulled off of him, leaving him hard and still intact. “The wound has closed.”

  Chualtalocal stood and went back to his mistress. The moment there was room, Seth collapsed to his knees, opening his hands slowly as if they hurt. There were bloody half-moons where his nails had bitten into his palms. But it had worked. Any distraction to keep him out of the clutches of the goddess’s pet freaks.

  “I offer you hospitality, to you and your friends. You may have Seth if you like and finish him as his body seems to so badly need.”

  I suddenly knew what she meant by hospitality. Somehow I didn’t think that was Aztec culture, though if I remembered correctly, hadn’t some of the Aztecs sent Cortes and his men women along with food and gold? Maybe this wasn’t any different. But I didn’t want to mess with it.

  “Dawn is coming. I can feel it pressing against the darkness like a weight about to tear the night apart.”

  She turned her head to one side and seemed to think, or maybe she was sensing the night, the air, something. “Yes,” she said, “I feel it, too.”

  “Then if it isn’t too large an insult, can we skip the hospitality for tonight and get to the murders?”

  “Only if you give me your word that you will return and taste our hospitality before you go back to Saint Louis.”

  I glanced at Edward. He shrugged. I guess it was up to me. What else was new when it came to monsters? “I don’t agree to having sex with your people, but I’ll agree to a return visit.”

  “You seemed to like Seth. I would offer you César, who your power seemed to like even more, but he does not make sacrifice, nor does he act as hospitality. It is his price for letting us come so near killing him twice a month.”

  “You mean because he lets you nearly tear his heart out twice a month, he doesn’t have to make sacrifice or all the other stuff?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  It made me think better of ol’ César. I’d seen his show, and now I’d seen some of the behind the scenes stuff, and I had to say that it was a close call which was worse. Letting someone cut your chest open and touch your still beating heart, or letting vamps suck blood off of tender body parts and be offered for sex to strangers. No, come to think of it, I’d have rather had my chest cut open, as long as I knew I’d heal completely every time.

  “It’s not that Seth isn’t lovely to look at. I’m sure it would be a pleasure to be with him, but I don’t do casual sex. Thanks for thinking of me though. I know the police spoke with you.”

  “They did. I do not think they learned anything of value from me.”

  “Maybe they didn’t ask the right questions,” I said.

  “And what are the right questions?”

  I was about to do something that the police wouldn’t like at all. I was about to tell the monsters, someone they had suspected at one point of being the murderer, details of the crime. But she needed specific details or how was she to recognize the marks of some Aztec bogeyman? I knew how the cops had done it. They’d been so general, it was almost useless to show up. I understood why they did it that way. Once I opened my mouth and let out details to Itzpapalotl, then she was contaminated. They’d never be able to slip her up in an interrogation, because she got the secret details from me.

  What I knew and the police couldn’t was that they’d never interrogate the truth out of her. She was the kind of vamp that could sit in a dark room and watch the colors on the inside of her own eyeballs and be content. The only thing they could threaten her with was the death penalty, and if she was behind the murders, it was already a death penalty. One of the downfalls to a swift and certain punishment was that it took a lot of the give and play out of an interrogation. Once someone knows they are going to be executed, you can’t bargain with them.

  “Can we clear the room out a little?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can we have fewer of your people in here? I’m going to share confidential police information with you, and I don’t want it to get out.”

  “Whatever you say in this room remains in this room. No one here will talk of it to anyone else. I can promise you this.” She was utterly sure of herself, arrogant. But why not? All of her people were terrified of her. If what happened to Diego was commonplace, then think what the exotic stuff must be. If she dictated that the secrets were safe, they were safe.

  Edward stepped close to me. He lowered his voice though he didn’t try and whisper. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m sure, Edward. She can’t help if she doesn’t have enough information.” We looked at each other for a few seconds, then he gave a small nod. I turned back to the waiting vampire. “Okay,
” I said, and I told her about the survivors, and the dead.

  I don’t know what I expected, maybe for her to be titillated, or to go, a-ha, and recognize the monster responsible. What I got was serious attention, good questions at the right places, and a glimpse at a very intelligent mind behind all the games. If she wasn’t a delusional, sadistic, megalomaniac, would-be goddess, she might have been likable.

  “The skins of men are valuable to Xipe Totec and Tlazolteotl. The priests would flay the sacrifice and wear the skin. The heart had many uses for the gods. Even the flesh was used, at least in part. Sometimes, the insides of a sacrifice would have some strange thing inside it, and be an omen. Then the other organs might be kept for a time and studied, but it was rare.”

  “Can you think why they would cut out the tongues?”

  “To keep them from speaking the secrets they have seen.” She said it, like of course that was the reason. It made sense ritually, I guess.

  “Why cut off the eyelids?”

  “So they can never not see the truth, even though they cannot speak it. I do not know if this is why they have done these awful things.”

  “Why would someone remove the outward secondary sex characteristics?”

  “I do not understand,” she said, and she was holding the cloak close about her, as if she were cold. We’d been talking long enough, I had to remind myself not to look directly in her eyes.

  “The genitalia on the men, the breasts on the women, were removed.”

  She shuddered, and I knew something I hadn’t before. Itzpapalotl, the goddess of the obsidian blade, was frightened. “It sounds like some of the things the Spanish did to our people.”

  “But the flaying and taking the organs, that’s more Aztec, than European.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but our sacrifices were messengers to the gods. We caused pain only for sacred purposes, not for cruelty or a whim. All blood was holy. If you died at the hand of a priest, you died knowing it served a greater purpose. Literally, your death helped the rain to fall, the maize to grow, the sun to rise in the sky. I do not know of any god that would flay people and leave them alive. Death is necessary for the messenger to reach the gods. Death is part of the worship of the deity. The Spaniards taught us to kill for the sake of killing, not as a sacred trust, but just for slaughter.” She stared past me at the four women that waited patiently for her to notice them, for her to give them a purpose. “We have learned the lesson well, but I would rather have stayed in a world where it was not true.” I saw in her face that she had some clue to what she’d lost, to what her vampires had lost when she decided they would become as cruel as their enemies. “The Spaniards killed so many of our people along the road to Acachinanco that they tied white handkerchiefs over their noses because of the stench of rotting bodies.”