Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 9)

"I'll let you know," I said.

He smiled, so patient, so kind. So full of it. He started moving the needle towards my left ear. I could have fought him with my free hand, but if all he was going to do was pierce my earlobe like I'd seen at the nightclub, then he could do that. I didn't like the idea, but I wasn't going to fight him. If I fought now, they might chain my hand back up. I wanted the free hand more than I wanted to keep him from sucking on my ear.

Truth is, I don't like needles, not just doctor needles, any of them. I have a phobia about small pointed things in my body. Knives don't seem to bother me, but needles do. Go figure. It was a phobia. To keep from struggling, I finally had to close my eyes because otherwise I'd have fought. I just couldn't help it.

The pain was sharp and immediate. I gasped opening my eyes, watching his face lean over me. For a second I thought I'd blown it. I thought he was going straight to the kiss, then his mouth passed by my mouth. He turned my face to the right, gently, exposing the ear, and the long line of my neck. It reminded me of vampires, except that this mouth licked my ear, one quick movement. He made a small sigh, as he swallowed the first blood, then his mouth closed over my earlobe, mouth working at the wound, tongue coaxing blood from the wound. He pressed his body the length of mine, one hand cupping my turned head, the other playing down the line of my body. Maybe it was just blood, but I never stroked my steak while I was eating it.

The line of his jaw was pressed to my face. I could feel his mouth moving as he swallowed. I'd had vampires take blood without me being under their spell, so it had hurt. This didn't hurt nearly as much. It was more like an overzealous lover with an ear fetish. Disturbing, but not really painful. His hand moved from my face to slide inside my bra. That I didn't like.

"I thought you said you weren't offering sex."

He drew his hand out of my bra and drew back from my ear. His eyes were wide and unfocused and drowning in turquoise glow like the eyes of any vampire when its bloodlust is up. "Forgive me," he said, "but it has been so very long since I felt life in my body."

I thought I understood what he meant, but I was asking every question I could think of tonight. Anything to keep him talking. "What do you mean?"

He laughed and rolled on his side to prop himself up on his elbow again. He jabbed the needle into his finger again, and gasped. Blood welled up from the wound, crimson blood. He laughed again. "Your blood runs through my body, and I am mortal once more, with all the appetites of a mortal man."

"You need blood to have blood pressure," I said. "You've got your first hard on in centuries. I get it."

He looked down at me with drowning eyes. "You could have it." He moved so that his body was pressed against mine, and I could feel him pressed against my jeans, eager, and ready.

I started to say my usual, no, then stopped. If my choices were being raped or being killed, when I thought that help was on the way ... I debated, and I really don't know what I would have said, because another of the skin-men ran in from behind us where the silent flayed ones waited.

I heard the man's running footsteps and turned to watch him push his way through the flayed ones. He dropped to one knee in front of the Red Woman's Husband. "My lord, armed strangers are approaching. The little brujo is with them, leading them this way."

The Red Woman's Husband looked at him. "Kill them. Delay them. When I have come into my power, it will be too late."

The skin-men got weapons out of a chest and went running. I turned my head to watch the flayed ones trail after them. Only Tlaloci the priest stayed behind. It was just the three of us. Ramirez was coming. The police were coming. Surely, I could delay a few more minutes.

Fingers touched my face, moving me to look at him. "You could have been the first woman in centuries for me, but there is no time." He began to lower his face towards me. "I am sorry that I must take you as an unwilling sacrifice because you have not harmed me or mine."

I slipped my hand into my pocket. Fingers closed on the pen. I turned my head to the side so he couldn't kiss me, but I was really looking to see where Tlaloci was in the room. He'd moved back to the altar. He'd thrown Paulina's body off to one side like so much garbage. He was cleaning the altar, preparing I think for his god's death.

The Red Woman's Husband stroked my face, trying to turn me gently towards him. He whispered, breath warm against my face. "I will wear your heart on the necklace of tongues, so that all my followers may remember your sacrifice for all eternity."

"How romantic," I said. I started easing the pen out of my pocket.

"Turn to me, Anita. Do not make me hurt you." His fingers closed on my chin and began to turn my face slowly towards his. I felt his strength in his fingers and knew he could crush my jaw with only a flexing of his hand. I couldn't keep him from turning my face up to him. I couldn't stop it, but I had the pen in my hand now. I had my finger on the button that would release the blade. I just had to make sure it was over his heart.

Gunfire sounded from outside the cave, and it sounded close as if the entrance wasn't that far away. Then there was a sound like a roaring, and I knew what it was because I'd heard it before. The police had brought flame-throwers or found some National Guard to join the party. I wondered whose idea it had been. It was a good one. I hoped they all burned.

I stared up at him, his fingers keeping my face looking at him. "Does your heart really beat for me?" I asked.

"My heart beats. Blood runs through this body. You have given me life, and now you will give me immortality."

The Red Woman's Husband leaned over me like Prince Charming about to bestow the kiss that would make everything all right again. His mouth hovered an inch above mine. The memory of how Seth's body had dried, died, was too vivid. I must have rushed to get the pen in position just above his heart. He pulled back a fraction of an inch, eyes questioning. I hit the button, and the blade took him through the heart.

His eyes flew wide, all that turquoise fire fading, leaving his eyes human looking. "What have you done?"

"You're just another kind of vampire. I kill vampires."

He rolled off the stone, fell to the floor. He held a hand out to Tlaloci. The priest rushed over to him. I didn't wait to see if there was a cure for the "god." I undid my left wrist and reached down for my ankles.

The Red Woman's Husband collapsed to his knees, and the priest collapsed with him. He was crying. "No, no, no." He pressed his hands around the hilt, trying to stop the blood from pouring out. His "god" fell into convulsions on the floor. He tried to hold his hands over the wound, to staunch the blood.

I got my ankles freed and rolled off to the other side of the stone. Call it a hunch, but I thought that Tlaloci would be upset with me.

He rose to his feet, bloodstained hands held out in front of him. I'd never seen anyone look so horrified, so desolate, as if I had destroyed his world. And maybe I had.

He never said a word, just drew the obsidian blade at his waist and stalked towards me. But the rock I'd been chained to was the size of a large dining room table, and I kept it between him and me. I kept the distance between us even, and he couldn't catch me. The gunfire was coming closer. He must have heard it, too, because he suddenly rolled over the stone to slash at me with the knife. I ran away from the stone, out into the open, which was what he wanted.

I turned and faced him. He came for me in a crouch, knife held loose but firm, as if he knew what he was doing. I'd left the blade in the vampire. I faced him hands out from my body, not sure what to do, except not get cut. I thought of one thing. I screamed, "Ramirez!"

Tlaloci rushed me, blade slashing. I turned, feeling the rush of air as the blade passed. There were screams from the stairs, the sounds of in-close fighting. Tlaloci slashed at me like a madman. All I could do was keep backing up, trying to stay out of reach. I was bleeding from both arms, and one cut on my upper chest, when I realized he'd backed me up by the altar.

I tripped over Paulina's body about the second I started looking for it, to avoid it. I went down on my side, her body trapped under my legs. I kicked out at him without looking to see where he was, anything to keep him at a distance.

He grabbed my ankle, pinning my leg against his body. We stared at each other, and I saw my death in his face. He tossed the knife one-handed so that the grip changed from slashing, to a downward stab. He had my left leg pinned, but my right leg was still on the floor. I braced my upper body with my arms, leaned my shoulders downward and drew back my right leg. I lined up his kneecap. Tlaloci started the downward stroke. I kicked the downward edge of his kneecap with everything I had. I saw the kneecap slide sideways, dislocated. His leg crumbled, he cried out in pain, but the blade kept coming.

Tlaloci's head exploded in a shower of brains, and bone. The pieces rained down on me, and the body fell to one side, obsidian blade scrapping along the stone floor as the hand convulsed around the hilt.

I stared across the cave and saw Olaf standing at the foot of the stone steps.

He was still standing in his shooting stance, one-handed, gun still pointed at where the priest had been standing. He blinked, and I watched the concentration leave his face, watched something close to human spill across his face. He started walking towards me, gun at his side. The other hand held a knife, bloody to the hilt.

I was wiping Tlaloci's brains off my face when Olaf came to stand in front of me. "I never thought I'd say this, but damn I'm glad to see you."

He actually smiled. "I saved your life."

That made me smile. "I know."

Ramirez came down the stairs with what looked like a SWAT team in full battle gear behind him. They spilled out to either side, nasty-looking guns pointed at every inch of the cavern. Ramirez just stood there, gun in hand, looking for something to shoot. National Guardsmen in flame-thrower gear came next, nozzle of the flame-thrower pointed up at the ceiling.

Olaf cleaned his knife on his pants, sheathed it, and offered me a hand. The hand was stained red, but I took it. His skin was sticky with blood, but I squeezed his hand and let him pull me to my feet.

Bernardo came into the room with more cops behind him. His cast was red with blood, the blade sticking out of it so dark with blood, it looked black. He said, "You're alive."

I nodded. "Thanks to Olaf."

He gave a small pressure to my hand, then let me go.

"I was late again," Ramirez said.

I shook my head. "Does it matter who saves the day, as long as it gets saved?"

The other cops were starting to relax as they realized there was no one to shoot.

"Is this all?" one of the black-decked cops asked.

I looked back at the far tunnel. "There's a Quetzalcoatl down that tunnel."

"A what?"

"A ... dragon."

Even through the battle gear you could see them all exchange glances.

"Monster, if you like the word better, but it's still down there."

They got into ranks and went past me to the tunnel at a crouched run. They hesitated at the tunnel entrance, then slipped through one at a time. For once I let them go. I'd done my part for one night. Besides, they were a hell of a lot better armed than I was. One of them ordered Ramirez and some of the other more civvie looking policemen to escort the civilians to the surface.

Ramirez came to stand in front of me. "You're bleeding." He touched the cut on my arm.

I turned so he could see some of the other cuts. "Pick one."

Bernardo and the other cops that had been ordered to stay behind came to look at the two dead men. "Where's this Red Woman's Husband that the little creep kept talking about?" one of the cops asked.

I pointed at the body with the blade sticking out of its chest.

Two of the cops went to stand over the body. "He doesn't look much like a god."

"He was a vampire," I said.

That got everyone's attention. "What did you say?" Ramirez asked.

"Let's concentrate on the important details here, hoys. We need to make sure that body doesn't get back up. Trust me. He is one powerful son of a bitch. We want him to stay dead."

A cop kicked the body, which rolled limply as only the true dead move, "Looks dead to me."

Watching the body roll limply made me jump, as if I expected him to sit up and say, just kidding, I'm not really dead. The body stayed still, but it hadn't done my nerves any good.

"We need to take the head and cut out his heart. Then we burn them separately and scatter the ashes over different bodies of water. Then we burn the body to ash, and scatter it over a third body of water."

"You've got to be kidding," one of the cops said.

"The flayed ones just fell down and stopped moving," Ramirez said. "Did you do that?"

"Probably when I put the knife through his heart."

"Bullets hadn't worked on any of them until the flayed ones fell down, then the bullets killed everything."

"She did that?" the cop asked. "She made our bullets work?"

"Yes," Ramirez said, and probably he was right. Probably it had been me. Regardless, I wasn't going to raise any doubts. I wanted them to listen to me. I wanted to make sure that the 'god' stayed dead.

"How exactly do we chop off the head?" the same cop asked.

Olaf went to the chest that the men had gotten their weapons out of and lifted a large flat club with bits of obsidian embedded in it. He holstered his gun and walked to the body.

"Shit, that's one of those damn things they used on us," the cop said.

"Nicely ironic to use it on their god, don't you think?" Bernardo asked.

Olaf knelt beside the body.

"Hey, we didn't say you could do that," the cop said.

Olaf looked at Ramirez. "What do you say, Ramirez?"

"I say we do whatever Anita says."

Olaf whirled the club as if getting the feel for it. It also made the cops back up. He looked at me. "I'll take the head."

I pulled the knife out of Tlaloci's hand. He wasn't going to be needing it anymore. "I'll take the heart." I walked toward him, blade in hand. The cops kept backing away from us.

I stood over the vampire. Olaf knelt on the other side, looking up at me. "If I'd let you get killed, Edward would have thought I failed."

"Edward's alive then?"

"Yes."

A tightness left my shoulders that I hadn't even realized was there. "Thank God."

"I don't fail," Olaf said.

"I believe you," I said.

We stared at each other, and there was still something in his eyes that I couldn't read or understand, a step beyond whatever I'd become. I stared into his dark eyes and knew that here was a monster, not as powerful as the one that lay on the ground, but just as deadly in the right circumstances. And I owed him my life.

"You take the head first."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid if I take the knife out while the body's still intact that he'll sit up and start breathing again."

Olaf raised eyebrows at me. "You are not joking me?"

"I never joke about vampires," I said.

He gave me another long look. "You would have made a good man."

I took the compliment because that's what it was, maybe the best compliment he'd ever given a woman.

"Thank you," I said.

The SWAT team came back out of the far tunnel. "There's nothing down there. It's empty."

"Then it got away," I said. I looked at the body still lying there. "Take the head. I want out of this damn cave."

The SWAT team leader didn't like us cutting up the body. He and Ramirez went into a yelling match. While everyone was watching the argument, I nodded to Olaf and he beheaded the corpse in one blow. Blood gushed out onto the cave floor.

"What the fuck are you doing?" one of the SWAT cops asked, bringing his gun pointed at us.

"My job," I said. I put the tip of the blade under the ribs.

The policeman brought the gun up to his shoulder. "Get away from the body until the captain tells you it's okay to do it."

I kept the knife against the body. "Olaf."

"Yes."

"If he shoots me, kill him."

"My pleasure." The big man turned his eyes to the policeman, and there was something in that gaze that made the heavily armed man take a step back.

The captain in question said, "Stand down, Reynolds. She's a vamp executioner. Let her do her job."

I plunged the blade into the skin, and it slid home. I cut a hole just below his ribs and reached into the hole. It was tight and wet and slick, and it took two hands to get the heart out, one to cut it free of the connecting tissue, and one to hold onto it. I drew it from the chest, blood stained to my elbows.

I caught Ramirez and Bernardo both looking at me, with nearly identical looks on their faces. I didn't think either of them would be wanting a date any time soon. They'd always remember watching me cut a man's heart out, and that memory would stain anything else. With Bernardo, I didn't give a shit. With Ramirez, it hurt to see that look in his eyes.

A hand touched the heart. I stared at that hand, then looked up to meet Olaf's eyes. He wasn't repulsed. He stroked the heart, hands sliding over mine. I pulled away, and we looked at each other over the body we'd butchered. No, Olaf wasn't repulsed. The look in his eyes was that pure darkness that only fills a man's eyes in the most intimate of situations. He raised the severed head up by the hair and held it almost as if he'd let me kiss it. Then I realized he was holding it over the heart, like a matched pair.

I had to turn away from what I saw in his face. "Does anyone have a bag that I can carry this in?"

Someone finally found an empty equipment bag and let me spill the heart into it. The policeman told me I could keep the bag. He didn't want it back.

No one offered Olaf a bag, and he never asked.