Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 9)

I doubted the club would have tolerated this level of abuse if the performer had been a woman and the audience member a man. Some forms of sexist double standards do not work in a man's favor. A woman they would have rushed on stage and saved her, but he was a man, and he was on his own.

I touched Ramona's shoulders and moved her to one side like she was furniture. She moved where I put her, eyes still closed. Made me feel worse that she was that pliant. But one problem at a time. I put my hand on top of his and moved his hand away from the blonde's wrist. His hand didn't move at first, then he looked at me, really looked at me. His eyes were large, a soft pure gray with a circle of black around the iris like someone had used the same eye pencil to trace his eyes that they'd used on the sweep of eyebrow and dark lashes. Strange eyes. But whatever he saw in my eyes seemed to reassure him because he let go of the blonde. There's a nerve in the arm about three fingers down from the bend of the elbow. If you hit it right, it's pretty painful. I dug my fingers into her flesh, as if I'd find that nerve and drag it to the surface. I was pissed, and I wanted to hurt her. I succeeded.

She gave a small scream, her hand opened, and I was able to move her arm back, fingers digging into the nerve. She didn't struggle, just whimpered and stared up at me with large unfocused eyes, but the pain was chasing the liquor away. If I kept it up long enough, I could have sobered her up in, oh, fifteen minutes or so, if she didn't pass out first.

I spoke low, but my voice carried. The stage had great acoustics. "My turn."

The tall Hispanic woman crawled away from the man, scuttling in her tight skirt until she fell flat on her face. You have to be pretty drunk to fall from a crawling position. She got to one elbow, and her voice came thick, but panicked. "He's yours."

I drew the blonde a few steps farther away from the man, and slowly let go of her arm. I told her, "Stay." She cradled her arm against her body, huddling over it. The look she gave me was not friendly, but she didn't mouth off. I think she was afraid of me. I wasn't having a great night. First, I let the nice lady be mind-raped, then I terrorize drunken tourists. I would have said, how could the night get worse, but worse was waiting. I looked back at the nearly naked man and didn't know what to do with him.

I walked back over to him because I couldn't figure a graceful way off stage. I'd probably blown my cover as a tourist, but Edward had let me bring a gun and knives into the club. In fact, we were all loaded for bear or vampire or whatever. The bouncers, unless they were idiots, had to have seen some of the weapons. I was just not supposed to be a vamp executioner, but I've never played victim well. I should never have come on stage, but too late now.

The man and I stood facing each other, his back still to the audience. He leaned into me, breath warm against my hair. He whispered, "My hero, thank you"

I nodded, and that small movement brushed my thick hair against his face. My mouth was dry, and it was hard to swallow. My heart was suddenly beating too hard, too fast, as if I'd been running. It was a ridiculous reaction to a strange man. I was horribly aware of how close he was, how little he was wearing, and how my hands just hung at my sides because to move at all would brush against him. What was the matter with me? I had not been noticing men this badly in St. Louis. Was there something in the air in New Mexico? Was it just lack of oxygen from the elevation?

He rubbed his face against my hair, whispered, "I am Cesar." That small movement put the curve of his jaw, the skin of his neck next to my face. There was a trace of the women's perfume mixing along his face, overlaying the clean scent of his skin, but underneath it all was a sharper scent. It was the smell of warmer flesh than human, slightly musky, so rich it was almost a damp smell, as if you could bathe in the scent like water, but the water would be hot, hot as blood, hotter. The scent was so strong that I swayed, and for a second I could feel the brush of fur against my face like rough piled velvet. The sensory memory poured through me, and overwhelmed all my careful control. The power poured upward in a spill of heat along my skin. I'd managed to cut the direct links to the boys so that I was alone in my own skin, but the marks were still there, coming to the surface at odd moments, like this one. Shapeshifters always recognize each other. Their beasts always know, and though I had no beast of my own, I had a piece of Richard's. That piece reacted to Cesar. If I'd been expecting it, I might have been able to prevent it, but it was too late now. It wasn't dangerous, just a spill of heat, pulsing along my skin, a dance of energy that didn't belong to me.

Cesar had jerked back from me as if I'd burned him, then he smiled. It was a knowing smile like we shared a secret. He wasn't the first shapeshifter to mistake me for one of them. To my knowledge I was one of only two humans in the world that had this close a tie to a shapeshifter. The other man's tie was to a weretiger, not a werewolf, but the problems were similar. We were both part of a vampire's triumvirate, and neither of us seemed happy.

Cesar's hands went to either side of my face, hesitating just above my skin. I knew he was feeling the push of that otherworldly energy like a veil that had to be pushed aside to touch. Except he didn't. He spilled his own power into his hands, so that he held me in a pulsing shell of warmth. It made me close my eyes, and he hadn't even touched me yet, not with his hands.

I opened my mouth to tell him not to touch me, but as I drew breath to speak his hands touched my face. I wasn't ready. He pushed his power into, mine. It hit like a jolt of electricity, raising the small hairs on my body, tightening places low on my body, raising gooseflesh in a wash down my skin. The power flowed towards Cesar like a flower turning towards the sun. I couldn't stop it. The best I could do was ride the power instead of letting it ride me.

He bent his face towards me, still cradling my face between his hands. I put my own hands on top of his as if I was going to hold on. Power poured from his mouth as he hovered over my lips. The power ran through my body and spilled out of half-parted lips like a hot wind. Our mouths met and the power flowed into each of us, mingling as it brushed like two great cats rubbing furred sides along each other's bodies. The warmth grew to heat, until it almost hurt to stay tied to his lips, as if any second now our flesh would burn into each other, melting through skin, muscle, bone, until we fell into the center of each other like molten metal cutting through layers of silk.

The energy had turned sexual, as it usually did ... for me. Embarrassing but true. We drew back from the kiss at the same time, blinking at each other like sleepwalkers awakened too early. He gave a nervous laugh and leaned into me as if to kiss me again, but I put a hand on his chest, and held him away. I could feel his heart thudding against my palm. I could suddenly feel the blood racing in his body. My eyes were drawn to the big pulse in his throat, I watched that rapid rise and fall in the side of his neck as if it were some sort of jewel, something to watch sparkle and glitter in the lights. My mouth was suddenly dry, and it wasn't sex. I actually stepped into him, pressed my body down the front of his, brought my face close to his neck and that jumping beat of life. I wanted to go down on that soft skin, sink teeth into his flesh, taste what lay beneath. I knew with a knowledge that was not mine that his blood would be hotter than a human's. Not warm but hot, a scalding rush of life to warm cold flesh.

I had to close my eyes, turn my head, step away with my hands over my eyes. I had no direct link to either of the men, but I held their power in me. Richard's burning warmth, and Jean-Claude's cold hunger. For a space of heartbeats I had wanted to feed on Cesar. This when I had walled up the marks, boarded them up, chained them, locked them with everything I had. When the marks were open between the three of us, the desires that ran through me, the things that I thought, were too horrible or maybe just too alien. Not for the first time I wondered what piece of me each of them held in their bodies. What dark desire or strange urge did I leave behind? If I ever talked to either of them again, maybe I'd ask, or then again, maybe I wouldn't.

I felt someone hovering close. I shook my head. "Don't touch me."

"Let us get back stage, then I can apologize." It was the priest's voice.

I lowered my hands and found him standing beside me. He held out his hand to me. I didn't touch him. "We meant no harm." I laid my left hand in his and found his skin quiet. There was nothing but human warmth and the solid feel of him.He led me towards an area to the far left of the stage. Cesar was already there with the three other women.

The werejaguars were there like guards, and it seemed to have made the blonde and the one with all the hair brave again. They were pawing Cesar, and he was kissing Ramona, who was kissing him back with enthusiasm.

The priest led me towards them, and I hung back. I whispered, "I can't." I meant that I couldn't touch Cesar again so soon. I didn't trust myself, and I didn't want to have to say it out loud. I didn't have to. The priest seemed to understand.

He leaned close. "Please, just stand near them. No one will touch you." I don't know why I believed him, but I did. I stood near the near-orgy, trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. Then a large white screen came down out of the ceiling, and before it was solidly in place, the priest drew me to one side. A woman my size with hair my length appeared and moved towards the mini-orgy. I watched her join the group, and a jaguar dragged the blonde out. A woman that matched the blond came to take her place. They replaced everyone, even Cesar, with actors, who did a shadow orgy against the white screen, thrown large for the audience. The actresses matched all the women chosen, at least for a shadow play. Which is what Dallas had meant when she said they needed someone my size with long hair to complete the brides.

The actors weren't really doing anything, but it must have looked awful from the audience's point of view. Clothes flew and the women were topless. I wondered if the shadows looked as topless as the real thing.

The priest drew me away until we stood in a small curtain area. He spoke low but clearly, so I guess we could talk without being heard on stage. "You would never have been chosen if we didn't think you human. Our deepest apologies."

I shrugged. "No harm done."

He looked at me and there was a weight of knowledge in his eyes that I couldn't lie to. "You are frightened of what lies inside you, and you have not made peace with it."

That much was true. "No, I haven't made peace with it."

"You must accept what you are, or you will never know what your true place in the world is, your true purpose."

"Don't take this wrong, but I don't need a lecture tonight."

He frowned at that, and there was a flash of anger. He wasn't used to being talked to like that. I was betting that everyone was afraid of him. Maybe I should have been, but what fear I had of him or them had vanished when I realized I wanted to take a bite out of Cesar's neck. That scared me more than anything they could do to me tonight. All right, almost anything they could do tonight. Never underestimate the creativity of a being that is hundreds of years old. Most of them know more about pain than we poor humans will ever know. Unless we are very, very unlucky. I was either feeling lucky or stupid.

He made a small motion and the werejaguar that had chosen me came to us. He dropped to one knee, head bowed. The priest said, "You chose this woman."

"Yes, Pinotl."

"Did you not feel her beast?"

His head lowered even more. "No, my lord, I did not."

"Choose," the priest said.

The kneeling man drew a knife from his belt. The handle was turquoise in the shape of a jaguar. The blade was about six inches of black obsidian. The man held the blade up to the priest who took it as reverently as it had been offered. The man undid some hidden catch on the jaguar skin, and pushed the hood back so that his head was bare. His hair was thick and long, tied in a long club at the back of his head. He raised a dark face that was so square and chiseled, it looked like he could have poised for Aztec temple carvings. If you were into Meso-Americans, his profile was perfect.

He raised his face up to the priest. His face was empty of all expression, just a calm waiting.

There was a roar from the audience that made me glance at the actors, but I turned back to the priest and the man before I'd really seen anything. I had a glimpse of seminude bodies, and an impression of something large and phallic strapped around the man. Normally, that would have made me take a second glance, just to make sure I was seeing what I thought I'd seen, but no matter what was happening out there, the real show was here. It was in the serene, upturned face of the man, and the serious eyes of the priest, the dull gleam of the black blade. They could use all the props they wanted, no matter how big, but it wouldn't come close to the two men and the quiet intensity stretching between them.

I didn't know exactly what was about to happen, but I had an idea. He was being punished because he'd chosen a lycanthrope from the audience, instead of a human. But I was human, or at least not a lycanthrope. I couldn't let him get sliced up, not even if it meant admitting who I was. Could I?

I touched the priest's arm, lightly. "What are you going to do to him?"

The priest looked at me, and his eyes seemed like deep caves, a trick of shadows. "Punish him."

My fingers tightened on his arm, trying to feel it through the slick softness of feathers. "I just want to make sure you're not going to slit his throat or something really dramatic."

"What I do with our men is my business, not yours." The force of his disapproval was strong enough that I took my hand off his arm. But I was worried now what he was going to do. Damn Edward and his undercover idea. It never worked for me, pretending. Reality always screwed it up.

The priest laid the blade point against the man's cheek. There was no fear in his face, nothing but an eerie serenity that made my throat tight, and a thrill of fear slide down my spine. God, I hated zealots, and that's what I was seeing.

"Wait," I said.

"Do not interfere," the priest said.

"I'm not a lycanthrope," I said.

"Lies, to save a stranger," nothing but contempt in his voice.

"I'm not lying."

The priest called, "Cesar."

He appeared like a well-trained dog coming to his master's call. Maybe the analogy was unfair, but I wasn't feeling particularly charitable right now. If I blew our cover, had to say who I was, I didn't know if I was going to be blowing something that Edward had planned. By saying who and what I was, I didn't know if I was endangering us. Edward hadn't shared enough of his plans, which I would take up with him when the evening was over, but my first concern was safety. Was saving a stranger from being sliced up worth our lives? No. Was keeping a stranger from being killed worth maybe risking our lives? Probably. I had so many unanswered questions and so little real information that I felt like I must be killing brain cells thinking around all the things I didn't know.

Cesar appeared beside me, on the far side of me away from the priest. I think he'd spotted the blade. "What has he done?"

"He picked her out of the audience and did not sense her beast," the priest said.

"I don't have a beast," I said.

Cesar laughed, and it was too loud, He covered his mouth with his hand for a moment, as if to remind himself we had to be quiet. "I saw the hunger in your face." He said hunger like it should have been in capital letters. Great, more shapeshifter slang that I didn't know.

I tried to think of a short version that would make sense. I made two starts, before I finally said, "There is too much. I will sum up." I even threw in the bad Spanish accent.

The priest's face stayed blank and unhappy. He did not get the movie reference. Cesar choked back another laugh. He'd probably seen The Princess Bride."The hunger you saw was not from some beast," I said.

The priest gave his full attention to the man kneeling in front of him. It was as if I'd been dismissed. He sliced the man's cheek open. The thin cut spread and blood welled in liquid lines down the dark skin.

"Shit," I said.

He placed the knife against the man's other cheek. I grabbed his wrist. "Please, listen to me."

The priest turned his dark eyes to me. "Cesar."

"I am not your cat to call," Cesar said.

The priest's dark gaze slid from me, to the man beside me. "Be careful that what is pretense does not become real, Cesar."

It was a threat, though I didn't understand exactly what the threat had been, but I knew a threat when I heard one. Cesar moved up beside me. "She merely wishes to speak, my lord Pinotl. Is that so much to ask?"

"She also touches me." They both stared at my hand on his wrist.

"I'll let go if I have your word that you won't cut him until you've heard me out."

Those eyes came back to rest fully on my face, and I felt the force of him thundering down on me. I could almost feel his skin vibrate under my hand. "I can't let you bleed him for something that wasn't his fault."

He never said a word, but I felt movement behind me, and I knew it wasn't Cesar, because he turned toward the movement. I looked back and found two of the jaguar men coming towards us. They were probably not going to hurt me, just stop me from interfering. I turned back to the priest, met his eyes. I let go of his wrist. I had a few seconds to decide whether to draw a gun or a knife. They weren't trying to kill me, so the least I could do was return the favor. I slipped a knife out, holding it against my leg, trying to he unobtrusive. I'd made the decision to go for the knife and not the gun. I hoped it was the right decision.

One of jaguars was the tanned, blue-eyed one. The other was the first African American I'd seen in the club, his face very contrasting with all the pale spotted fur. They advanced on me in a roil of energy, a low growl escaped from one of their throats, the faintest of threats. That one faint sound raised the hair at the back of my neck. I backed up, putting the kneeling man between me and the two jaguars.

The priest had laid the obsidian blade against the man's right cheek. He hadn't started cutting yet. "Are you just going to cut each cheek, is that it? Will it stop there?"

The blade tip bit into his cheek. Even in the dark I could see the first liquid drop, a faint gleam, like a dark jewel. "If you just want to slice him up a little, fine. It's your business. I just don't want to see him mutilated or killed for something he couldn't have sensed."

The priest sliced the other cheek, slower this time. I think I was making things worse. I asked it out loud, of everyone and no one. "Am I making things worse ?"

The cheek closest to me began to heal, the skin reknitting as I watched. I had an idea. I stepped closer to the priest and the kneeling man. I kept an eye on the two jaguars across from them, but they just stood watching. They'd backed me off, maybe that's all they were supposed to do.

I touched the kneeling man's chin, turned his face towards me. The other cheek was completely healed. I'd never seen an obsidian blade used and hadn't been a hundred percent that it didn't act like silver. But it didn't. Shapeshifters healed the damage. The priest was still holding the obsidian knife upright in his hand.

The audience broke into thunderous applause, the sound rising like thunder through the small backstage area. The actors were pouring away from the white screen. The act was almost over. Everyone had turned at the noise and the movement, even the priest. I put my finger against the tip of the obsidian knife and pressed. The tip was like glass, the pain sharp and immediate. I drew back with a hiss.

"What have you done?" the priest demanded, and his voice was too loud, it must have carried out into the crowd.

I spoke lower. "I won't heal, not as fast as he did. It'll prove that I'm not a lycanthrope."

The priest's anger filled the air like something hot and touchable. "You do not understand."

"If someone would talk to me, instead of hugging their secrets so damn close, I wouldn't be blundering into things."

The priest handed the blade back to the kneeling man. He took the knife and bowed his forehead to it. Then he licked the blade, carefully around the sharp edges, until he came to the point and my blood. Then he slid the tip between his lips, into his mouth, sucking it down like a woman taking a man into her mouth. His mouth worked around the blade and I knew it was cutting him, as he swallowed it. I knew it was cutting him up, but he made it look as if it were something wonderful, orgasmic, as if he were having a very good time.

He watched me as he did it, and his eyes weren't serene anymore. They had filled with heat. It was the same heat you could see in any man's eyes when was thinking about sex. But not when the man was sucking on a glass sharp blade, cutting his mouth, tongue, throat, drinking his own blood, with a taste of my blood as a chaser, Someone grabbed my hand, and I jumped. It was Cesar. "We must be on stage. You must take your seat." He was watching the kneeling man, all the men, carefully. He eased me around the group of them, and all eyes followed like I was some wounded gazelle.

The other three women were already in place, standing behind the now dim white screen. They'd taken off some clothing. The giggling blonde was down to pale blue bra and panties, still laughing her head off. The Hispanic had taken off her skirt and was down to a pair of crimson panties that matched the red camisole she was still wearing. She'd kept the matching red high heels, She and the blonde were leaning against each other, swaying and laughing. Ramona wasn't laughing. She still stood quietly, unmoved and unmoving.

The priest's voice came from backstage. "Disrobe for our audience." His voice was soft, but Ramona grabbed the bottom of her shirt and lifted. Her bra was an ordinary bra, white and simple. It wasn't meant to be lingerie, and I doubted she'd planned on anyone seeing it tonight. She let her shirt fall to the floor. Her hands went to the top button of her pants. I pulled away from Cesar and grabbed Ramona's hands. "No, don't."

Her hands went slack in mine, as if even that small interference had broken the spell, but she didn't look at me. She didn't see what was in front of her, just the internal landscape that I couldn't see.

I picked her shirt back up and placed her hands over it. She clutched it automatically, covering most of the front of her.

Cesar took my arm. "The screen is going up. There is no time."

The screen began to slowly lift.

"You can't be the only one dressed," he said. He tried to slide the jacket from my shoulders, and bared the shoulder holster.

"We'll scare the audience," I said.

The screen was to our knees. He grabbed the front of my shirt, jerking it out of my pants, baring my stomach. He dropped to his knees and was licking my stomach as the screen came up completely. I tried to grab a handful of hair to pull him off me, but there wasn't enough hair to grab. The hair was much softer than it looked, much softer than my hair would have been if you shaved it to stubble. His teeth bit gently into my skin, and I put my hand under his chin, raising his face, so that he either had to take his teeth out of my skin, or bite deeper. He let go, let me raise his face to stare upward at me. There was a look in his eyes that I couldn't read, but it was something large and more complex than you see in a stranger's eyes. Complex I didn't need tonight.

He was on his feet in a movement so liquid and graceful that I knew that Edward would spot him for what he was, not human. He went to the one with all the hair first, giving her a tonsil-cleaning kiss, as if he'd crawl into her from the mouth down. Then he spun her like a dance move, and jaguar men were there to escort her and her arm full of clothes back to her table. The blonde was next. She kissed him, running pale nails down his back. She gave a little jump and wrapped her legs around his waist, forcing him to hold her weight or fall. The kiss was long, but she was in control of it. Cesar walked her to the edge of the stage, still clinging to his body like a limpet.

The jaguar men pried her away from his body, one pale limb at a time, until they had to carry her above their heads while she struggled, and then finally went limp, laughing as they carried her back to her table.

Ramona seemed to wake up. She blinked around her as if she'd woken and wasn't sure where she thought she should be. She stared down at her blouse clutched to the front of her and screamed. Cesar tried to help her on with her blouse, and she slapped at him. I went to her, trying to help her, but she seemed afraid of me, too, now, as if her panic had spread to include all of us.

The jaguar men tried to help her off stage, and she fell trying to keep them from touching her. It was finally a man from her table who came and escorted her out of the lights, out of the ring of strangers.

She was crying and speaking softly in Spanish as he led her back to the table. I would have to talk to someone about her. I couldn't leave town without knowing that the mind tricks weren't permanent. If it had been a vampire with a one on one call like that, he could have called her any time, any night, and she would answer his call. She would have no choice.

Cesar stood in front of me. He raised my hand, I think to kiss it, but it was the hand that I'd cut to prove I wouldn't heal. Not that anyone had cared, Cesar raised my hand and stared at the small wound in the tip of my finger. It was a small cut and didn't bleed much, but it wasn't healing either. If I'd been a lycanthrope, the small prick would have closed up and healed by now.

He looked at me over the still bleeding finger. "What are you?" he whispered.

"Long story," I whispered back.

He kissed the wound like a mother with a child's scrape, then his mouth slid over my finger, down to my hand. He drew it slowly back out. Fresh blood welled to the tip of my finger, bright and sparkling under the lights. His tongue flicked out, rolling the drop of blood into his mouth. He leaned close as if to kiss me, but I shook my head and moved towards the steps that would lead me off the stage and away from him.

The jaguar men were there to help me off the stage, but I looked at them, and they backed off, letting me walk down the steps by myself. Edward held my chair for me, and I let him. Food had been served while I was on stage. Edward handed me a linen napkin. I wrapped it around my finger, holding pressure to it.

Dallas actually got up from her chair and came to talk to me, hanging over the back of my chair. "What happened back there? I've been a volunteer before, and I've never seen anyone hurt."

I looked up at her, her face close in the dimness, all serious and concern. "If you think no one gets hurt, then you haven't been paying attention."

She frowned, looking puzzled.

I shook my head. It was too late, and I was suddenly too tired to try and explain. "I cut myself shaving."

She frowned harder, but also got the point that I didn't want to talk.

I sat back down, leaving me to Edward. He leaned into me, laying his mouth against my ear and whispering so low it was like he was breathing into my ear. He knew how good a shapeshifter's hearing was, not to mention vamps. Do they know who you are?"

I turned, putting my mouth against his ear, having to raise on one knee in my seat, putting my body in a line against his. It looked intimate, but it allowed me to whisper to him in a voice so low I wasn't sure he would hear. "No, but they know I'm not human, not a tourist." I put my arm across his shoulders, one hand on his shoulder, holding him because I didn't want him to move away. I wanted the next question answered. "What are you planning?"

He turned to me, a look on his face that was far too intimate, too teasing for the conversation. He leaned into me, mouth pressed so close to my ear that it must have looked to the others like he had his tongue down it. "No plan, just thought you being you might scare the monsters from talking to us."

It was my turn to whisper, "No plan, you promise?"

"Would I lie to you?"

I jerked back from him and slugged him in the shoulder, not hard, but he got my point. Would Edward lie to me? Would the sun rise tomorrow? Yes to both.

The actors that had taken our places were finally on stage, in robes. The priest in his feathers was introducing them, getting the applause they deserved. was glad they ruined the effect and didn't leave poor Ramona convinced she'd done terrible things. I was actually surprised that they'd spoiled the trick, like a magician revealing his secrets.

"We'll allow you to eat before the next and last act of our show."

The lights came up, and we all turned to our meals. I'd thought the meat was beef, but when I put the first bite in my mouth the texture told me I was wrong. The waitress had brought me an extra napkin, and I used that to spit the bite into.

"What's wrong?" Bernardo asked. He was eating the meat and enjoying himself

"I don't eat ... veal," I said. I took a forkful of an unrecognizable vegetable, then realized it was sweet potatoes. I didn't recognize the spices in them. Of course, cooking wasn't exactly my area of expertise.

Everyone was eating the meat except me, and strangely, Edward. He'd taken a bite, but then he concentrated on the flat bread, and the vegetables, too.

"You don't eat veal either, Ted?" Olaf asked. He put another bite in his mouth and chewed slowly, as if trying to draw every ounce of flavor.

"No," Edward said.

"I know it's not moral indignation about the poor little calves," I said.

"And you worry about the poor little calves?" Edward said. He gave me a long look as he asked. I couldn't read his eyes, but they weren't blank, I just couldn't read them. What else was new?

"I don't approve of the treatment of the animals, no, but truthfully I just don't like the texture."

Dallas was watching us all as if we were doing something a lot more interesting than discussing meat. "You don't like the texture of ... veal?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't."

Olaf had turned to the other woman. He took his latest bite of meat and offered it to her on the end of his fork. "You like veal?"

She got a strange little smile on her face. "I eat veal here almost every night." She didn't take his bite that he offered but took another bite from her own fork.

I felt like I was missing something, but before I could ask, the lights went down again. The final act was about to begin. If I was still hungry, surely there'd be something open on the way home. There usually was.