Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 9)

Probably best to be out of earshot, but I didn't want to be alone with Ramirez right now. It bothered me that he hadn't told me what Marks had said about me. He was a virtual stranger. He didn't owe me anything, but it made me think less of him.

An African-American nurse walked past us and went into the room. Since all I'd seen were her eyes the first time, I couldn't be sure if she was the same nurse I'd glimpsed earlier in the room. She was small, about the right size, but in full surgical scrubs, who knew?

The men had fallen silent as she walked past. As soon as the door closed safely behind her, the laughter sounded again.

Ramirez looked at me with that honest face, a line of concern between his eyebrows like a tiny wrinkle of discontent. He looked even younger when he frowned. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asked.

"What?" I asked.

He glanced back at the two officers. They were still smiling. "Jakes and Jarman."

"You mean the teasing?"

He nodded.

"When I kissed Marks in front of all of them, I sort of invited a little teasing. Besides, I sort of started it, or rather you did." I shrugged. "It blows off steam, and we all need that right now."

"Most women don't see it that way," Ramirez said.

"I'm not most women. But frankly, one reason a lot of women don't stand for any teasing is that some men don't know when teasing crosses the line to harassment. If I had to work day in and day out with them, I might be more careful. But I don't, so I can afford to push the line a little."

"What is your line, Anita?" He was standing just a little too close for comfort.

"I'll let everyone know when they've reached it. Don't worry." I stepped back from him, giving myself the distance I wanted.

"You're mad at me." He sounded surprised. I half smiled.

"Believe me, Detective, when I'm mad at you, you'll know."

"Detective. Not even Ramirez. Now I know you're upset. What did I do?"

I looked at him, studying that open, honest fact. "Why didn't you tell me what Marks said about me? What he was telling the other cops about me? It would carry a death sentence."

"No way was Marks going to push that through, Anita."

"You still should have told me."

He looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. "I didn't know I was supposed to."

I frowned. "I guess not." But I wasn't happy with his answer.

He touched my arm again, every so lightly. "I didn't believe that Marks could get you arrested. I was right. Isn't that enough?"

"No," I said.

He let his hand fall away from me. "What good would it have done to tell you? You'd have worried for nothing."

"I don't need my feelings protected. I need to feel that I can trust you."

"You don't trust me because I didn't tell you everything that Marks said?"

"Not as much as I trusted you before."

The first hint of anger hardened his eyes. "And you told me everything that happened in Los Duendos? You didn't hold anything back about your interview with Nicky Baco?" His eyes weren't kind now. They were cool and searching, cop eyes.

I looked down once, then fought to maintain eye contact when what I desperately wanted to do was duck my head and say, aw shucks, you caught me. Push me into a corner, and I usually get angry. But somehow looking into his deep brown eyes, I couldn't pull up much moral indignation. Maybe it was having no moral high ground to stand on. Yeah, that might be it.

"I didn't kill anybody, if that's what you're implying." It was one of my usual comments with less than my usual force.

"That's not what I'm implying and you know it, Anita."

There was something familiar, almost intimate, about the conversation. We'd known each other for two days, and yet we interacted as if we'd known each other much longer. It was unnerving. I didn't usually bond this quickly with people or monsters.

But if it had been my longtime police friend Sergeant Rudolph Storr himself standing in front of me, I'd have lied. If Nicky Baco got a whiff of cops, he'd back off, and he'd never trust me again. People like Baco don't give second chances when it comes to the police.

"Baco knew you and Rigby were outside the bar, Hernando. He has the entire area wired with magical ... " I waffled my hand back and forth, seeking the right word " ... wards, spells. He knows what happens in his streets. If I go back in with police as backup, no matter how distant, he won't help us."

"Are you so sure he can help?" Ramirez asked. "He may just be stringing you along, trying to find out what you know."

"He's scared, Hernando. Baco is scared. Call it a feeling, but I don't think much frightens him."

"You've just told me you're withholding information from an ongoing murder investigation."

"If you wire me up or insist on sending someone under cover with me we'll lose Baco. You know I'm right on this."

"We may lose Baco, but you're not right," he said, and the anger was back. A frustrated anger that I'd seen before in other men that I'd known longer and in more intimate ways. That anger that I can't just be a good girl and play by their rules, and be what they want me to be. It made me tired to hear that thread in Ramirez's voice after only two days.

"The most important thing to me right this second is stopping these murders. That is my goal. That is my only goal." I thought about what I'd said and added, "And staying alive. But other than that I don't have any other agenda. Stop the bad guys. Stay alive. It makes things simple, Hernando."

"You told me earlier that you wanted your life to change, to be more than blood and horror. If you want that to change, you are going to have to complicate your life, Anita. And you are going to have to start trusting people, really trusting them again."

I shook my head. "Thanks for using my moment of weakness against me. Now I remember why I don't confide in strangers." I was finally angry myself. It felt good. It felt familiar. If I could just stay angry, I could stop being so damned confused.

He grabbed my arm, and the grip wasn't gentle this time. It didn't hurt, but I could feel the press of his fingers in my flesh. For the first time since I'd met him, he let me see the hardness underneath. That core of harshness that you either have or acquire if you stay with the cops. Without that core to protect yourself, you may stay on the job, but you won't thrive.

I smiled. "What next, rubber hoses and bright lights?" It was meant to be a joke, but my voice wasn't light when I said it. We were both angry now. Underneath all those smiles and mild manners was a temper. We'd see whose was worse, his or mine.

He spoke low and carefully, the way I do sometimes when to do anything else will start me yelling. "I could just tell Marks about the meeting. Tell him you're holding out on us."

"Fine," I said, "do it. Marks will probably have him arrested, search his bar. He might even find enough magical paraphernalia to get him jailed on suspicion of magical malfeasance. And what will that get us, Detective? Baco in jail, and a few days from now more people dead. More bodies gutted." I leaned into his angry face and whispered, "How will your dreams be then, Hernando?"

He let me go so abruptly that I stumbled. "You really are a bitch, aren't you?"

I nodded. "If the situation warrants it, you bet."

He shook his head, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. "If I hold out on this and it goes wrong, it could be my career."

"Just say you didn't know."

He shook his head. "Too many people know I was your police escort." He managed to make the last two words heavy with irony. "You've got another meeting planned with him, haven't you?"

I tried to keep the surprise off my face, but a blank face was just as bad. It was like when you were asked if you were sleeping with someone, and you refused to answer. Not answering was as good as a yes.

He stalked from one side of the hallway to the other. "Dammit, Anita, I can't sit on this."

I realized he meant it. I stood in his path, so he had to stop pacing and look at me. "You can't tell Marks. He'll screw it up. If he thinks I'm dancing with the devil, he'll have hysterics when he meets Nicky Baco."

The anger was beginning to leak from his eyes. "When's the meeting?"

I shook my head. "Promise first that you won't tell Marks."

"He's in charge of the investigation. If I don't tell him and he finds out, I might as well hand in my badge."

"He doesn't seem very popular around here," I said.

"He's still my superior."

"He's your boss," I said. "He is in no way your superior."

That earned me a smile. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me."

"It's not flattery, Hernando. It's the truth."

He was finally quiet, standing there looking at me. His expression was almost his normal one, or what I thought was normal for him. For all I knew he dissected puppies in his spare time. All right, I didn't believe that, but I didn't really know him. We were strangers, and I was having to remind myself of that. I kept wanting to treat him like a friend or better. What was the matter with me?

"When is the meeting, Anita?"

"If I won't tell you, then what?"

A shadow of that hardness seeped into his eyes. "Then I tell Marks you're withholding evidence."

"And if I tell you?"

"Then I'll go with you."

I shook my head. "No way."

"I promise not to show up looking like a cop."

I looked at him from shined shoes to short, clean hair. "In what alternate reality would you notlook like a cop?"

I heard the door open behind us, but neither of us turned. We were too busy making major eye contact.

Jarman yelled, "Ramirez!"

There was a tone in that one word that whirled us both around. Doctor Evans was leaning against the wall, holding his wrist upright. Blood gleamed like a scarlet bracelet around his arm.

Ramirez and I started running at the same time down that short space of hallway as if we had farther to go and less time to get there. Jarman and Jakes were disappearing through the door. Bernardo hesitated at the door, holding it open long enough for the screams to cut through the hospital silence. Low and wordless and panicked, and I knew without knowing that it was a man screaming. I was almost at the door, almost to Bernardo, Ramirez pacing me like a shadow.

Bernardo said, "This is a bad idea." But he went through the door, a heartbeat before we reached it. God, I hated being right all the time.