Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 9)

9

MARKS' OFFER OF ESCORTING me to the crime scene seemed to have evaporated with his temper. Edward drove me. We drove in almost complete silence. Edward never sweated small talk, and I just didn't have the energy for it. If I could have thought of something useful to say, I'd have said it. Until then, silence was fine. Edward had volunteered that we were on our way to the latest crime scene, and we'd meet his other two backups in Santa Fe. He told me nothing else about them, and I didn't press it. His lip was still swelling because he'd been too macho to put ice on it. I figured the busted lip was all the slack Edward was going to give me for one day. I'd told him in the strongest terms I could manage, short of pulling a weapon, to stop the competitive crap, and nothing would change that, least of all me.

Besides, I was still riding in a ringing bell of silence as if everything echoed and nothing was quite solid. It was shock. The survivors, if that was the word for them, had shaken me down to my toes. I'd seen awful things, but nothing quite like that. I was going to have to snap out of it before we had our first fire fight, but frankly if someone had pulled a weapon on me right that second, I'd have hesitated. Nothing seemed truly important or even real.

"I know why you're afraid of this thing," I said.

He glanced toward me with the black lenses of his eyes, then back to the road, as if he hadn't heard. Anyone else would have asked me to explain, or made some comment. Edward just drove.

"You don't fear anything that just offers death. You've accepted that you're not going to live to a ripe old age."

"We,"he said. "We'veaccepted that wearen't going to live to a ripe old age."

I opened my mouth to protest, then stopped. I thought about it for a second or two. I was twenty-six, and if the next four years were anything like the last four, I'd never see thirty. I'd never really thought about it in so many words, but old age wasn't one of my biggest worries. I didn't really expect to get there. My life style was a sort of passive suicide. I didn't like that much. It made me want to squirm and deny it, but I couldn't. Wanted to, but couldn't. It made my chest squeeze tight to realize that I expected to die by violence. Didn't want it, but expected it. My voice sounded uncertain, but I said it out loud. "Fine, we'veaccepted that we'renot going to make it to a ripe old age. Happy?"

He gave a slight nod.

"You're afraid that you'll live like those things in the hospital. You're afraid of ending up like them."

"Aren't you?" His voice was almost too soft to hear, but somehow it carried over the rush of wheels and the expensive purr of the engine.

"I'm trying not to think about it," I said.

"How can you not think about it?" he asked.

"Because if you start thinking about the bad things, worrying about them, then it makes you slow, makes you afraid. Neither of us can afford that."

"Two years ago, I'd have been giving you the pep talk," he said, and there was something in his voice, not anger, but close.

"You were a good teacher," I said.

His hands gripped the wheel. "I haven't taught you all I know, Anita. You are not a better monster than I am."

I watched the side of his face, trying to read that expressionless face. There was a tightness at the jaw, a thread of anger down the neck and into his shoulders. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself, ... Ted?" I made the name light and mocking. I didn't usually play with Edward just to get a rise out of him, but today, he was unsure, and I wasn't. Part of me was enjoying the hell out of that.

He slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop on the side of the road. I had the Browning pointed at the side of his head, close enough that pulling the trigger would paint his brains all over the windows.

He had a gun in his hand. I don't know where in the car it had come from, but the gun wasn't pointed at me. "Ease down, Edward."

He stayed motionless but didn't drop the gun. I had one of those moments when you see into another person's soul like looking into an open window. "Your fear makes you slow, Edward, because you'd rather die here, like this, than survive like those poor bastards. You're looking for a better way to die." My gun was very steady, finger on the trigger. But this wasn't for real, not yet. "If you were really serious, you'd have had the gun in your hand before you pulled over. You didn't invite me here to hunt monsters. You invited me here to kill you if it works out wrong."

He gave the smallest nod. "Neither Bernardo or Olaf are good enough." He laid the gun very, very slowly on the floorboard hump between the seats. He looked at me, hands spread on the steering wheel. "Even for you, I have to be a little slow."

I took the offered gun without taking either my eyes or my gun off of him. "Like I believe that's the only gun you've got hidden in this car. But I do appreciate the gesture."

He laughed then, and it was the most bitter sound I'd ever heard from Edward. "I don't like being afraid, Anita. I'm not good at it."

"You mean you're not used to it," I said.

"No, I'm not."

I eased my own gun down until it wasn't pointing at him, but I didn't put it up. "I promise that if you end up like the people in the hospital I'll take your head."

He looked at me then, and even with the sunglasses on I knew he was surprised. "Not just shoot me or kill me, but take my head."

"If it happens, Edward, I won't leave you alive, and taking your head we'll both be sure that the job's done."

Something flowed across his face, down his shoulders, his arms, and I realized it was relief. "I knew I could count on you for this, Anita, you and no one else."

"Should I be flattered or insulted that you've never met anyone else coldblooded enough for this?"

"Olaf's blood is plenty cold enough, but he'd just shoot me and bury me in a hole somewhere. He'd have never thought about taking my head. And what if shooting didn't kill me?" He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I'd be in some stinking hole somewhere alive because Olaf would never think to take my head." He shook his head as if chasing the image away. He slid the glasses back on, and when he turned to look at me, his face was blank, unreadable, his usual. But I'd seen beneath the mask, further than I'd ever been allowed before. The one thing I'd never expected to find was fear, and beneath that, trust. Edward trusted me with more than his life. He trusted me to make sure he died well. For a man like Edward there was no greater trust.

We would never go shopping together or eat an entire cake while we complained about men. He'd never invite me over to his home for dinner or a barbecue. We'd never be lovers. But there was a very good chance that one of us would be the last person the other saw before we died. It wasn't friendship the way most people understood it, but it was friendship. There were several people I'd trust with my life, but there is no one else I'd trust with my death. Jean-Claude and even Richard would try to hold me alive out of love or something that passed for it. Even my family and other friends would fight to keep me alive. If I wanted death, Edward would give it to me. Because we both understand that it isn't death that we fear. It's living.