“You take the head first.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid if I take the knife out while the body’s still intact that he’ll sit up and start breathing again.”
Olaf raised eyebrows at me. “You are not joking me?”
“I never joke about vampires,” I said.
He gave me another long look. “You would have made a good man.”
I took the compliment because that’s what it was, maybe the best compliment he’d ever given a woman.
“Thank you,” I said.
The SWAT team came back out of the far tunnel. “There’s nothing down there. It’s empty.”
“Then it got away,” I said. I looked at the body still lying there. “Take the head. I want out of this damn cave.”
The SWAT team leader didn’t like us cutting up the body. He and Ramirez went into a yelling match. While everyone was watching the argument, I nodded to Olaf and he beheaded the corpse in one blow. Blood gushed out onto the cave floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” one of the SWAT cops asked, bringing his gun pointed at us.
“My job,” I said. I put the tip of the blade under the ribs.
The policeman brought the gun up to his shoulder. “Get away from the body until the captain tells you it’s okay to do it.”
I kept the knife against the body. “Olaf.”
“Yes.”
“If he shoots me, kill him.”
“My pleasure.” The big man turned his eyes to the policeman, and there was something in that gaze that made the heavily armed man take a step back.
The captain in question said, “Stand down, Reynolds. She’s a vamp executioner. Let her do her job.”
I plunged the blade into the skin, and it slid home. I cut a hole just below his ribs and reached into the hole. It was tight and wet and slick, and it took two hands to get the heart out, one to cut it free of the connecting tissue, and one to hold onto it. I drew it from the chest, bloodstained to my elbows.
I caught Ramirez and Bernardo both looking at me, with nearly identical looks on their faces. I didn’t think either of them would be wanting a date any time soon. They’d always remember watching me cut a man’s heart out, and that memory would stain anything else. With Bernardo, I didn’t give a shit. With Ramirez, it hurt to see that look in his eyes.
A hand touched the heart. I stared at that hand, then looked up to meet Olaf’s eyes. He wasn’t repulsed. He stroked the heart, hands sliding over mine. I pulled away, and we looked at each other over the body we’d butchered. No, Olaf wasn’t repulsed. The look in his eyes was that pure darkness that only fills a man’s eyes in the most intimate of situations. He raised the severed head up by the hair and held it almost as if he’d let me kiss it. Then I realized he was holding it over the heart, like a matched pair.
I had to turn away from what I saw in his face. “Does anyone have a bag that I can carry this in?”
Someone finally found an empty equipment bag and let me spill the heart into it. The policeman told me I could keep the bag. He didn’t want it back.
No one offered Olaf a bag, and he never asked.
63
THEY FOUND MY GUNS in the chest with the rest of the weapons, though the holsters were missing. I just couldn’t keep a holster intact on this job. But I stuffed the guns down my jeans. The knives weren’t in the chest. Ramirez drove me personally to a crematorium so that I could see the heart and head burned down to ash. When I had two little containers of ash, it was almost dawn. I fell asleep in the seat beside him, or he’d have had a fight about taking me to the hospital. But he insisted that the doctors check me out. Amazingly enough, none of the cuts were even deep enough for stitches. I wouldn’t even have any new scars. Miraculous.
One of the men had given me a jacket that said FBI on it to cover my nearly naked upper body. Several of the uniforms and most of the hospital staff assumed I was a federal agent. I kept having to correct people, and I finally realized that the emergency room doctor thought my denial meant I had a concussion and didn’t know who I was. The more I argued the more concerned he got. He ordered a series of head X-rays, and I couldn’t talk him out of it.
I was actually sitting in a wheelchair waiting to be escorted to X-ray when Bernardo came up. He touched the FBI jacket. “You’re moving up in the world.”
“When the nurse comes back, he’ll be taking me down to X-ray.”
“You okay?”
“Just precautionary,” I said.
“I just came back from checking on the invalids.”
“Olaf said Edward would live.”
“He will.”
“How are the kids?”
“Peter is okay. They put Becca in a room. She’s got a cast to her elbow.”
I stared at his cast stained a dirty brown. “That thing is going to start stinking with all that blood dried into it.”
“The doc wants me to get a new cast, but I wanted to check on everyone first.”
“Where’s Olaf?”
Bernardo shrugged. “I don’t know. He disappeared once the monsters were all dead and Ramirez had you in his car. He said something about the job being done. I guess he went back under whatever rock Edward found him under.”
I started to nod, then remembered something that Edward had said. “Edward told you that you couldn’t have a woman because he’d forbidden Olaf to have women, right?”
“Yeah, but the job’s over, babe. I am headed for the first open bar.”
I looked at him, nodding. “Maybe that’s where Olaf is.”
He frowned at me. “Olaf’s at a bar?”
“No, he’s out getting his ashes hauled, his way.”
We both looked at each other, and there was a moment when horror dawned on Bernardo’s face, and he whispered, “Oh, my god, he’s out killing someone.”
I shook my head. “If he’s just out killing at random, there’s no way to find him, but what if it’s not random?”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember how he looked at Professor Dallas?”
Bernardo looked at me. “You don’t think. . . I mean he wouldn’t . . . oh, shit.”
I got up out of the wheelchair and said, “I’ve got to tell Ramirez what we’re thinking.”
“You don’t know he’s there. You don’t know he’s doing anything wrong.”
“Do you believe he just went home?” I asked.
Bernardo seemed to think about that for a second, then shook his head.
“Neither do I.”
“He saved your life,” Bernardo said.
“I know.” We went to the elevator.
The elevator doors opened and Lieutenant Marks was standing there. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Marks, I think that Professor Dallas is in danger.” I got into the elevator.
Bernardo followed.
“You think I’d believe anything you say, witch?” He hit the button that kept the doors open.
“Hate me if you want, but don’t let her die.”
“Your pet FBI agent kept me out of the big raid.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I was pretty sure who he meant. “Whatever Bradley did, he did without me knowing, but that’s not the point.”
“I can make it the point.”
“Did you hear that Dallas is in danger? Did you hear that part?” I asked.
“She’s as corrupt as you are.”
“So it’s okay that she dies a horrible death,” I said.
He just looked at me. I moved as if to go towards the buttons. Bernardo caught his clue. He hit Marks in the head with his cast. The man went down, and I hit the door close button. The doors hushed closed as Bernardo lowered Marks to the floor.
“You want me to kill him?” Bernardo asked.
“No.” But now if I went to Ramirez for help, Marks would think he’d been in on it. Shit. “Do you have Edward’s car?”
“Yeah.”
“How
did Olaf drive off, then?”
Bernardo looked at me. “If he’s really doing this, he’ll steal a car and ditch it away from the murder scene. He won’t chance using Edward’s car.”
“He’ll go back to Edward’s house for his goody bag,” I said.
The doors opened on the floor that he’d parked on. We got out. “What do you mean goody bag?”
“If he’s going to cut her up, then he’ll want the tools he normally uses. Serial murderers are very anal when it comes to how the victims are treated. They spend a lot of time planning exactly what they’ll do and how.”
“So he’s at Edward’s?”
“How long has he been gone?”
“Three hours, maybe three and a half.”
“No, he’ll be at Dallas’s, if that’s where he is at all.”
Bernardo opened the car, and we got in. I had to take the Browning out of my pants. The barrel’s just too long for sitting down like that. I ended up holding it in my lap. I watched Bernardo drive with his cast-wrapped arm. “You need me to drive?”
“I’m fine. Just tell me where Dallas lives, and I’ll drive us.”
“Shit!”
He put the car in park and looked at me. “The police would know the address.”
“When Marks wakes up, we’ll be lucky to stay out of jail,” I said.
“We don’t even know that Olaf’s at her house,” he said.
“I got a better one. How to explain that we know he was a serial murderer and didn’t warn the police sooner.”
“Do you have Edward’s cell phone?” I asked.
He didn’t argue, just leaned across and opened the glove compartment. I got the phone out.
“Who you going to call?”
“Itzpapalotl. She’ll know the address.”
“She’ll eat Olaf’s face.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way you better get us out of the parking area before Marks wakes up and starts screaming.”
He drove us out of the parking lot and started slowly down the street. I dialed information, and the operator was happy to dial The Obsidian Butterfly for me. It was daylight. I knew better than to ask for Itzpapalotl herself, so I asked for Pinotl and told them it was an emergency and it was Anita Blake. I think it was my name that got me through, as if they’d been expecting the call.
Pinotl came on the line with his rich voice. “Anita, my mistress said you would call.”
I was betting that she’d been wrong on the why, but . . . “Pinotl, I need the address for Professor Dallas’s house.”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“She’s in danger, Pinotl.”
“Then we will take care of it.”
“I’m going to have to call the police in on this, Pinotl. They’d shoot your werejaguars on sight.”
“You are worried about our people?” he said.
“Give me the address, and I’ll take care of it for you, Pinotl.”
Silence except for his breathing.
“Tell your mistress, thanks for her help, Pinotl. I know I’m alive now because she helped me.”
“You are not angry that she did not tell you all she knew?”
“She’s a centuries old vampire. They can’t help themselves sometimes.”
“She is a goddess.”
“We’re just arguing semantics, Pinotl. We both know what she is. Please give me the address.”
He gave it to me. I read the directions to Bernardo, and off we went.
64
I CALLED THE POLICE on the way. I made it an anonymous call. Saying I’d heard screams. I hung up without giving my name. If Olaf wasn’t there, then they’d scare the hell out of Dallas, and I’d apologize. I’d even pay for any busted locks.
“Why didn’t you tell them the truth?” Bernardo asked.
“What? I think that some serial killer is there murdering her. And how do you know this, ma’am? Well, officer, you see it’s like this. I’ve known he was a serial killer for days now, but our mutual friend Ted Forrester had forbidden him from attacking women while he was here helping us solve the mutilation murders. You’ve heard of the mutilation murders. Who is this? It’s Anita Blake, the vampire executioner. And what does an executioner know about serial murderers? More than you’d think.” I looked at Bernardo.
“All right, all right. They’d still be asking questions when we arrived at the house.”
“This way they’ll send an Albuquerque PD car there ASAP. They’ll get there before we can even come close.”
“I didn’t think you even liked Dallas when we met her.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like her or not.”
“Yes, it does,” he said.
“If I don’t like her, then we just let Olaf butcher her, is that it?”
“He saved your life. He saved mine. We don’t owe this woman anything.”
I looked at him, trying to read his face from just the profile. “Are you saying that you won’t back me on this, Bernardo? Because if you’re not on my side on this, then I need to know because if we go up against Olaf, and you hesitate, then you’re going to get yourself killed, and maybe me.”
“If I go in, I’ll go in ready to kill him.”
“If?” I said.
“I owe him my life, Anita. While we were at Riker’s, we saved each other’s lives. We counted on each other and knew the other one would be there. I don’t owe this Dallas chick anything.”
“Then stay in the car.” A thought occurred to me. “Or are you saying that you’re on his side, really on his side?” I had the Browning out in my hand already. I clicked the safety off, and he heard it. I saw him stiffen.
“Well, that’s not fair. If I take my left hand off to pull a gun, then we wreck.”
“I didn’t like the way the conversation was going,” I said.
“All I’m saying, Anita, is that if we can save Dallas and let Olaf get away we should let him go. It’d make things even between us all.”
“If Dallas is unharmed, I’ll think about it. That’s the best I can do. But let me remind you, if you plan on killing me to help Olaf, that Edward is going to live. He’d hunt you both down, and you know it.”
“Hey, I never said anything about pulling down on you.”
“Just trying to test the limits of our misunderstanding, Bernardo, because trust me, you don’t want me to misunderstand you.”
“There’s no misunderstanding,” Bernardo said, and there was no teasing in his voice, just a dry seriousness that reminded me of Edward. “I think it’s shitty to turn Olaf in to the cops.”
“They’ll already be there, Bernardo.”
“If there’s only two uniforms, we can help him get away.”
“Are you talking about killing the policemen?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Don’t. Don’t go there because not only will I not follow you, I’ll bury you there.”
“For two cops you don’t even know.”
“Yeah, for two cops I don’t even know.”
“Why?” he said.
I shook my head. “Bernardo, if you have to ask that, you wouldn’t understand the answer.”
He glanced at me. “Edward said that you were one of the best shooters he’d seen, quick to kill. He said you only had two faults. You got too up close and personal with the monsters, and you thought too much like an honest cop.”
“An honest cop, I like that,” I said.
“I’ve seen you, Anita. You’re as much a killer as Olaf, or me. You’re not a cop. You never were.”
“Whatever I am, we are not killing the cops on sight. If Dallas is unhurt, we’ll discuss letting Olaf go, but if he’s hurt her, then he pays. If you don’t like the plan, then give up your weapons and wait in the car. I’ll go in alone.”
Bernardo looked at me. “What’s to keep me from lying to you, keeping my guns, and shooting you in the back?”
“You’re more afraid of Edward than you are grateful to Olaf.”
“You know that for a fact,” he said.
“I know that Olaf has more rules of honor than you do. If you’d really felt all that damn grateful you’d have said something before I called the cops. Being protective of Olaf wasn’t your first thought, or your second, or even your third.”
“Edward said you were one of the most loyal people he’d ever met. So why aren’t you protecting Olaf?”
“He preys on women, Bernardo. He preys on them not because he’s paid to or owes them vengeance, but because that’s what he does. He’s like a vicious dog that keeps attacking people. Eventually, you have to put it down.”
“You’re going in there planning to kill him,” Bernardo said.
“No, no I’m not. Remember, if I kill either of you, I’ll either owe Edward another favor, or I’ll have to draw a gun on him and finally find out which of us is better. I don’t think I’ll survive the latter, and I have not had a good time honoring Edward’s favor. I got a glimpse of his other life at Riker’s place. I don’t want to be in another firefight. It’s not my cup of tea.”
“It’s not anyone’s cup of tea,” Bernardo said. “You just get used to it.”
“You don’t get used to shit like that.”
“Like you don’t get used to cutting out people’s hearts? You did that like an old pro.”
I shrugged. “Practice makes perfect.”
“This is the street,” Bernardo said.
The street had that just past dawn silence. The cars still sat unmoved in their driveways, but there were people standing in their driveways peering out at the marked police car that was sitting in front of Dallas’s house. One of the doors was open, filling the quiet neighborhood with the radio squawk. The lights rotated pale and underdone like a child’s toy in the heavy morning light.
Professor Dallas’s house was a small ranch with those faux adobe walls that everyone was so fond of here. In the earlier morning light it looked almost golden, as if it glowed. Bernardo parked by the road.
“Well?” I asked.
“I’m with you.” But before we could draw guns, the two uniforms came out of the house with Dallas in a robe. We sat there staring at her, smiling at the policemen while they apologized for bothering her. She looked up, noticed us. She looked puzzled but waved at us.
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 193