[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (44 page)

I tried to think of what to say, or do, that wouldn't make things worse, and finally tried to concentrate on the job. “They would have run him for priors, just routine.” I looked at Victor as I said it, because I couldn't bear to look at Olaf anymore. I wanted him to stop touching me, but he'd enjoy fear, or even revulsion. I didn't know a reaction that would lessen his pleasure except ignoring him.

“But Marshal Forrester is right, I should have mentioned it.”

“The claw marks prove that it's someone else, most likely Paula Chu,” I said.

“But we can't explain to the police how we know that without explaining your wounds,” Edward said. “They might yank your badge. We get a lot more leeway in the preternatural branch, but if they think you might turn furry for real on the job, they'll want you out.”

“I know.”

“So,” Bernardo said, “we know something they need to know, but we aren't sharing.”

“Would they understand and believe us even if we shared?” I asked.

Everyone was silent. Finally, Edward said, “Sanchez might, but I don't know about the rest. If Anita is going to lose her badge, I'd rather it be for something that the cops would take seriously, not something that they'd blow off.”

“They have their bad guy,” Bernardo said. “They aren't going to want to believe they killed the wrong guy.”

“But if it is Paula, then we could get the daytime retreat from her,” I said.

Olaf surprised most of us in the car by saying, “Ted, can you take over?”

Edward didn't argue, just moved up on his knees to put pressure to the wounds. But he gave me wide eyes, as if to say,
What the hell?
I agreed. Olaf had voluntarily given up a chance to touch me bleeding and hurt. What was wrong?

Olaf was staring at his hands. They were bloody. “Do you remember, Anita, how you could not do your job in the morgue with me there?”

“Yes,” I said.

He licked his lips, closed his eyes, and let a shudder go through him from that bald head to the tips of his boots. He opened his eyes and let out a breath that shook. “I cannot do my job, touching you like that. I cannot think of anything but you, and the blood, and the wounds.” He closed his eyes again, and I think he was counting, or doing whatever he did to regain control.

We were all staring at him except Bernardo, who had to drive. “Is this it?” he asked Victor.

“Yes,” he said.

Olaf opened his eyes. “Some of us need to go back and watch over the woman, Paula Chu.”

“Agreed,” Edward and I said, together.

“Bernardo and I can go back,” he said.

“Thanks for volunteering me, big guy.”

“You are welcome,” Olaf said, as if he didn't get the sarcasm at all.

We were in a part of town that was more downscale than the Strip, but beyond that, I couldn't tell much more from where I was half reclined on the seat.

Bernardo and Victor got out; Bernardo opened the door behind Edward. I started to try to scoot out, but the pain grabbed me like a sharp hand and made me stop in midmotion. “Just let me do it, Anita,” Edward said. He started to pull me out, as gently as he could.

Victor peered in and said, “We're being watched. Maybe even photographed.”

“Then why bring us here?” Edward asked.

“It was closer, and you can legitimately say you're here to question Paula Chu's coworkers, but we need Anita to walk in on her own power, if possible.”

“Can you walk?” Edward asked.

“How far?”

“Ten yards.” Just like that, he knew exactly the distance to the door. I'd have never been able to be that precise.

“Let me lean on someone's arm and be all girly, and I'll do it.”

I got upright, and the leather jacket fell to the floor. Olaf crawled over the seat and picked it up, as Edward let me take his arm and begin to try to get out of the truck on my own power.

Olaf reached out and helped arrange my shirt over the wounds. Though red and blue made a lot of purple on my shirt. We tucked the ends into my pants to hide the slice.

I got standing, though my grip on Edward's arm was as serious a hold on any man's arm that I'd ever had. It hurt just to stand, and I could feel the blood begin to trickle down my stomach. Not good, and if it hurt to stand, it was going to hurt more to walk. Perfect.

Edward had tucked some of my weapons in and around his body, but a lot of them and my vest were on the floor. “Weapons,” I said, in a voice that was a little strained.

“Leave them,” Victor said.

“No,” I said.

Olaf simply started gathering them up and tucking what he could into his waistband. Edward had already added my backpack to his load. He picked up the leather jacket. “To hide my hands,” he said.

I realized that his hands were spattered with my blood. I'd seen it moments before, but something about the sight of it, and standing at the same time, made the desert heat swim around me.

“Inside,” I whispered, “need inside soon.”

Edward didn't ask any questions, just helped me turn for the walk. Things in my stomach pulled wrong when I turned. My inside stomach rolled threateningly. I prayed that I would not throw up while my outside stomach was cut up. That would be very painful. I took shallow breaths through my mouth of the hot, still air, and concentrated on each step. Concentrated on making the movement as natural as possible for the cameras, and not moving so fast that I ripped the wounds open more. It was one of the most careful walks I could remember. I was concentrating so hard that I wasn't really aware of the building until Victor was holding the door for us. Then I looked up, and saw the sign that said
Trixie's
, which had a neon-formed seminude woman sitting in a huge martini glass. The sign was enough, but they'd felt compelled to put more neon in the window by the door that simply said,
Girls, girls, girls—all nude, all the time.

I gave Victor a look as we walked slowly past him. He whispered, “The doctor is waiting inside, and this is where Paula Chu works. You can find a clue that lets you tell them to keep holding her without giving away your secret.”

I couldn't argue with his logic, and the air inside the door was cool. At this point if I could lie down and have air-conditioning, I didn't care where we did it. I swallowed past the nausea one more time and let Edward help me into the cool twilight of Trixie's; all nude, all the time. At least hell was cool.

 

 

THE MUSIC WAS loud, though not the ear-jarring loud of some clubs. The music sounded tired, or maybe that was just me. My eyes adjusted and saw small tables scattered around a surprisingly large room. There was a main stage and smaller table/stages with seats around them. It was before seven o'clock, and men were already sitting in the darkened room. Women crawled around on the table/stages, as nude as the sign promised. I averted my eyes, because some views should be seen by only your gynecologist or a lover.

The main stage was empty, but huge. It had a small runway and a circular area with seats around it. I'd never seen a stage like it in any strip club, outside an old movie.

Victor led us through the tables, and we followed, because having me carried in front of the customers would not help our cover story.

Edward didn't try to comfort me; he just kept his arm flexed and solid under my double-handed grip and walked slowly. Olaf and Bernardo were still behind us. Victor got to a small door to one side of the main stage long before I managed to get there. The pain had gone past just pain and was dizziness. My vision was beginning to spot, and that was not good. How much blood had I lost, and how much was I losing?

The world narrowed down to concentrating on moving my feet. The pain in my stomach was growing distant, as my vision started to blur and run in light and dark streamers around me. I had a death grip on Edward's arm and trusted him to keep me from running into anything.

Edward's voice. “Anita, we're through. Anita, you can stop walking.” He had to grab my shoulder, make me look at him. I just stared at him, seeing his face but not understanding why the lights were brighter.

A hand touched my forehead. “Her skin is cool to the touch,” Olaf said.

Edward picked me up, and that hurt, too, enough that I cried out, and the world swam in bright streamers. I concentrated on not throwing up, and that helped me through the pain. Then we were in a room that was dim again, but not as dark as the club. They laid me on a table underneath a light. There was cloth underneath me, and the crinkle of plastic underneath that.

Someone was fumbling at my left arm. I saw a man I didn't know, and said, “Edward.”

“I'm here,” and he came to stand by my head.

Victor's voice. “This is our doctor. He really is a doctor, and he's patched a lot of my people up. He's very good at sewing us up so we don't scar.”

“This will sting a little,” the doctor said. He put an IV in me and started fluids. I was in shock. I had only an impression of dark hair and dark skin, and that he was more ethnic than either Bernardo or me. Beyond that, he was sort of blurry.

“How much blood did she lose?” he asked.

“It didn't look like that much in the car,” Edward said.

There was movement, and I started to try to look at it, but Edward caught my face between his hands. “Look at me, Anita.” It was the way a parent would try to keep you from seeing the big bad doctor.

“Oh,” I said, “that's not good.”

He smiled. “What, I'm not interesting enough? I can get Bernardo for you to gaze up at. He's prettier.”

“You're teasing me, trying to distract me. Shit, what's about to happen?”

“He doesn't want to give you painkillers, between the blood loss and the shock. If we were in a hospital with more equipment, he'd chance it, but without it, he doesn't want to take that risk.”

I swallowed hard, and this time it wasn't nausea, but fear. “There are four claw marks,” I said.

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes and tried to slow my pulse, and fought off the urge to get off the table and run for it. “I don't want to do this.”

“I know,” he said, but he kept his hands on my face, not exactly holding me but keeping me looking at him.

Olaf said, from somewhere off to the right, “Anita has healed worse than this. They did not have to sew her wounds in St. Louis.”

“That's because she was healing too fast to need it,” Edward said.

“Why can't she do that now?” he asked.

I'd fed off the swan king, and through him every swanmane in all of America. It had been an amazing rush of power. Enough to save my life, and Richard's, and Jean-Claude's. We'd all been terribly hurt. So much energy that even later when I'd been cut up much worse than this, I healed it scar free in record time, almost like a real lycanthrope. But I didn't want to explain that to strangers, so out loud I said, “Don't have the energy.”

“She'd need a really big feed,” Edward said.

“Ah,” Olaf said, “the swans.”

“Do you mean the
ardeur
?” Victor asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“How big a feed would you need?” he asked.

“She fed before she was hurt. I don't think sex in this condition would be that fun.”

I seconded that.

Hands raised my shirt back, away from the wound.

I tried to see, and said, “What's happening? What is he doing?”

The doctor's voice. “I'm just cleaning the wound. Okay?”

“No, but yes.”

“Just look at me, Anita.” Edward's pale blue eyes were staring at me upside down. I'd never have said his face was kind, but now there was sympathy where I'd never thought to see it.

Hands began to clean the wound with something cold and stingy. “Crap,” I said.

“I was told that she isn't to be scarred. If she moves this much, I can't promise that.”

“Who made you promise that?” Victor asked.

“You know who,” he said, and sounded frightened enough for me to catch it.

Edward pressed my face a little harder, “Anita, you need to hold still.”

“I know,” I said.

“Can you do it?” he asked.

“Who?” Victor asked the doctor.

“Bibiana.”

“We need to hurry,” Victor said, “my mother knows. Someone has talked to her. I'd rather not have Anita here when she arrives.”

“Hold still,” Edward said.

The doctor cleaned a little too deep, and I moved again, my hands convulsing on the table. “I can't not move,” I finally admitted.

“Bernardo, Olaf,” he said.

“Shit,” I said. I did not want to be held down, but . . . there was no way I wasn't going to fight some. I couldn't not.

It was funny how none of us argued that we didn't want to be here when Victor's mom arrived. She'd almost rolled me under her power when I was well; this weak, this hurt . . . I didn't know if I could keep her out of my head.

Bernardo took my right arm and held it in two places. Victor took my other arm with the IV drip still in it. When I felt a hand on either of my thighs, I knew whose hands were left to touch me: Olaf.

“Shit,” I said.

“Just look at me, Anita. Talk to me.”

“You talk to me,” I said.

I felt hands on my stomach.

“What are you doing?” And I hated how high and frightened my voice sounded.

“I'm going to start stitching. I am sorry to cause you pain.” Then I felt the prick of the first needle pass, but it would not be the last. To avoid scars they'd use a finer needle, a finer thread. It would take more time, more stitches all together. I wasn't sure my vanity was worth it.