[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (56 page)

“No,” I said, “you don't.”

She frowned, and then her face clouded over. “Is it that awful?”

“You don't want your last”—I hesitated—“image of your friend to be the crime scene photos, and definitely not a visit to the morgue.” I reached out to lay a comforting hand, but stopped myself. I was a little fuzzy on human psychic abilities. Did they grow with touch, like a vampire's? Mine didn't, but mine were pretty specialized. I let my hand fall back. “Trust me on this one, Phoebe.”

“How can I trust you when you're threatening to put me in jail?” There was a thread of anger in her voice now. I guess I couldn't blame her.

I actually hadn't said I'd put her in jail. I'd just mentioned that I
could
put her in jail. Big difference, actually, but if she assumed it was a threat, fine. If it got me more information on the killings, or Randy Sherman, or anything, then even better. I wasn't here to win popularity contests; I was here to solve crimes.

There was movement in the doorway from farther inside the house. My gun was suddenly in my hand. Thought and action are one, grasshopper.

“It's my daughter,” Phoebe said, but she was staring at the gun. Staring at it like it was a very bad thing. I wasn't even pointing it at anyone, and already she was scared. From powerful priestess hooked up to deity and magic to frightened civilian in one move.

“Can I talk to you, or do you just want to shoot me?” Kate's voice held fury. A nice red wave of anger, tinged with fear, came off her. It made my stomach clench tight, as if I were still hungry, but I knew it wasn't that kind of hunger.

I stepped back from both the mother and the daughter. I put myself so that my empty hand would open the door, and I could get away from that tempting anger, if the hunger rose too fast and too hard to control. I had Wicked outside, and if I had to choose between the
ardeur
with him or psychic rape on a witch, then I'd choose sex and the vampire. At least he was willing.

“Are you afraid of me?” Kate asked, as she stepped carefully into the room. She'd added a short jacket over her jeans, and she had her hands stuffed in her pockets.

“Let me see your hands,” I said, voice low and even.

She made a face, but her mother said, “Do what she says, Kate.”

The girl couldn't have been much younger than me, five years or less, but she'd lived a different life. She didn't believe I'd shoot her, but her mother did.

“Kate, as your priestess, I tell you to do what she says.”

The girl let out a breath, then took her hands, carefully, out of her pockets. The hands were empty. Her anger welled off her like some rich, thick scent, as if her rage would taste better than most.

“I won't let her put you in jail,” she said, dark eyes all for her mother, as if I weren't standing there with a gun in my hand. I hoped I didn't have to shoot her; it would be like winging an angry Bambi. She just didn't know any better. The very naïveté of her helped me regain control of the hunger. I took deep, even breaths and thought soothing, empty thoughts.

“Kate,” Phoebe said, “I let my grief get in the way of my better judgment. That is not the marshal's fault.”

Kate shook her head hard enough for her brown ponytail to whirl around her shoulders. “No.” Then she turned those angry eyes to me. “If I gave you a name of someone who could have done this, would you leave my mother alone?”

“Kate, no!”

“We don't owe him enough for you to go to jail, and what if he did have something to do with this? Then the next time he killed someone, it would be part of our karma, too. I don't owe him that.”

“I was his priestess, Kate.”

She shook her head again. “I wasn't.” She turned back to me. “I'm dating a cop. He said something about the bodies being torn up, and not all of it was wereanimal. I mean, that always makes the news anytime you get a mutilated body. They always blame the local wereanimals first.”

I just nodded. She was in a mood to talk, if I didn't spoil it somehow.

“But he said that some of the bodies were cut with blades. That the ME had never seen anything like it, and neither had you guys.”

Her boyfriend was way too talkative, but if she'd give me the name, I wouldn't tell. I might try to find out who it was and tell him to keep his mouth shut, but I wouldn't rat him out. If she'd just say the name.

“Is that true?” she asked, at last.

“I'm not free to discuss an ongoing investigation. You know that.”

“If it's true, then you need to talk to Todd Bering.”

“He's off his meds again,” Phoebe said. “You have to understand that. He's a good man when he takes his meds, but when he goes off . . .”

“What's he on meds for?”

“He was diagnosed with schizophrenia because he heard voices and saw things. He may have been mildly ill, but he is also one of the most powerful natural witches I've ever met.”

“What does that mean, ‘natural witch'?” I asked.

“Like you,” Kate said, “your power just came, right? You didn't have to study, you could just do it.”

“I had to have training to control it,” I said.

“And that's what we tried to do for Todd.” Kate didn't sound angry now, she sounded a little sad. I was happy about the sad; it made the receding edge of anger less yummy.

“It didn't work?” I asked.

“It worked,” Phoebe said, and she sighed, “but when he started getting sick again, he called up things that are never to be touched on our path. There are some things you cannot do and be a good witch.”

I nodded. “So I've heard.”

“He called a demon. It felt so awful, like you couldn't breathe past the evil of it,” Kate said; she was looking at the ground, but her eyes were haunted, as if she could still feel it.

“I've felt the demonic before,” I said.

“Then you know,” she said, raising those haunted eyes to me.

I nodded. “I know.”

“It had these big blade-like hooks for hands. As far as I know it's still inside the circle in his house, but if he gained control of it . . .” She shrugged.

I looked at them both. “The most likely scenario is that when it gets out of the circle, it just kills him and goes back to where it came from. How likely is it that this Todd Bering is powerful and sane enough to control something like this?”

Phoebe nodded. “He would be capable.”

“You should have reported this to the authorities as soon as you saw it,” I said.

“I thought, like you, that it would escape the circle and kill him. It would be instant karma. I didn't dream that he would be able to control it, or that he would attack policemen. Rumor says that it was that vampire serial killer and wereanimals. No one said demon or blades. The news reported that the police had been torn apart by claws and fangs.”

We had a serious leak at the Vegas PD, and I would have to report it. Talking to your girlfriend is one thing; talking to the press is another. I couldn't take the chance that her boyfriend wasn't our Mr. Chatty.

“Blades, Mom, blades.”

I didn't correct her that it was both. No need for me to share, too. “I appreciate the information.”

“If you had simply told me that he was cut with blades—Randy, I mean—I would have told you about Todd.”

“I know, but it's hard to know who to trust. I need his address.”

They exchanged a look, then Phoebe got a notepad by the telephone and wrote it down for me. “May Goddess forgive me if he did these terrible murders.”

I holstered the Browning and took the paper from her with my left hand. “I can't hide where I got the information from.”

“They'll investigate us all!” Kate yelled, and took a step toward me. Her anger was just suddenly so there, so close, so . . .

I felt the door behind me opening, and moved so Edward could come through. “You guys all right in here?”

I shook my head, then nodded. “We have a crazy witch who raised a demon with blades for hands. The last time they saw it, it was inside the summoning circle. We need to see if it's still there.”

“If it's still there, then he didn't do it,” Kate said.

I gave her a look, and then had to look away, but sight wasn't what was sending her anger toward me like some sweet scent. My stomach clenched again, and I eased around the edge of the open door. “Just because it's in the circle now doesn't mean he didn't let it out and put it back,” I said.

“You'll ruin our reputation. You'll ruin everything we've built; every good thing my mother has done will be lost in the news that one of our coven members raised a murdering demon!” Kate was yelling again and advancing on me.

I couldn't let her touch me because I wanted to feed. I wanted to suck all that anger off her. “I've got the address, and I need some air.”

Edward gave me a look.

“It would be wicked of me to stay inside right now,” I said softly.

“Go,” he said, equally softly, then turned to calm the enraged girl and her sad mother.

Michael was being kept out of the kitchen by Olaf and Bernardo. No one was in handcuffs, yet.

I said as I walked past them all, “You should have told us about Bering and the demon.” I handed the piece of paper to Bernardo as I moved past.

He took it and said, “What is it?”

“The address to a demon with claws for hands.”

“Anita,” Olaf called.

I shook my head and was at the door. I felt the wards like a physical presence, almost like warm water or some thick bubble that clung to me as I moved. But it was designed to keep things out, not in, and I slid out of that warm, protective barrier to find the cool, desert night, and Wicked leaning against our car.

 

 

WICKED PUSHED AWAY from the car, almost coming to attention. Every inch of height was suddenly there, making the broad shoulders look even more impressive. He had a tan trench coat on over a suit of similar color. His blond hair was silvered with moonlight, the edges of it trailing over the shoulders of the coat. His face was almost painfully masculine, the moonlight and streetlights cutting the high cheekbones and dimpled chin into angles and planes, sharper and even more masculine than I knew was true. His eyes were blue and gray; in this light they were silver and gray. Those eyes widened as he felt me coming for him.

It didn't matter that he'd never been food before; it didn't matter that we'd never had sex. All my good intentions were gone by the time I crossed the yard and hit the sidewalk.

I heard the sound the key made to unlock the doors of the car, and glanced back enough to see Edward on the porch. He'd unlocked the car. Always practical, my Edward.

I turned back to the vampire, and he spoke in a voice that was already rough with the edge of my hunger. “Anita, what's wrong?”

I wanted to simply fall upon him like some beast. It was as if all the hungers I carried through the vampire marks, and my own magic, had surfaced in one huge swirling, drowning need.

I looked at that tall, handsome body and thought
food
. I thought
flesh
and I thought
blood
—and, only distantly,
sex
. I closed my eyes and tried to crawl into something resembling control. If I touched him like this, I wasn't sure whether I was going to try to fuck him or take a bite out of him—a real one.

The thought of sinking teeth into flesh until that hot, red liquid burst into my mouth . . . But vampire was cold food for that. The wind blew against my back, and I could scent Edward still on the porch. That was warmer. I started to turn around and stopped in midmotion.

I whispered, “Wicked.”

“I'm here.”

“Something's wrong.”

“I feel your hunger. If you were a vampire, I'd take you to hunt now.”

“Help me feed.”

“Can you turn the bloodlust into the
ardeur
?”

“I don't know.” And that was the truth. It scared me enough that I started taking my weapons off and dropping them on the ground. I called back, “Edward, get them after we're in the car.”

“Done,” he said.

I slipped the vest off last, and once its weight was removed, it was as if I could breathe better. My skin was running with heat, as if I'd burn when touched. Some lycanthropes spike a temperature before they shift.

“Anita,” Wicked's voice said from much closer.

I opened my eyes and he was standing in front of me. This close the light fell full upon him, and I could see every line, curve, of his face. I could stare into those silvered eyes. Staring full into that face, inches from his body, and my gaze dropped to his neck, where the collar and tie kept it safe and neat. I stared at the side of his neck and searched for that pulse, but the skin was quiet. His heart didn't beat. I stepped back; this wasn't right. This wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something . . . hot.

I turned back to the house, the porch, the warmth. He grabbed my arm, pulled me hard in against his body. Something about the abruptness of it, the strength of it, startled me. I could think for a second. “Get me away from them, Wicked. Take me somewhere. Make me think of sex and not meat.” I put my hands in the front of that button-down shirt and pulled, sending the middle buttons flying. I tore at his shirt until I could wrap my arms around his naked skin. The touch of that much muscled flesh helped me think of other things than what the blood in my friend's veins would taste like.