Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 3

IN THE MOVIES, you always see the hero just getting on a plane and going off to fight the bad guys; in reality, you've got to pack first. Clothes I could probably have bought in Vegas, but the weapons... those I needed.

Home, for the moment, was underneath the Circus of the Damned. Sort of like the old idea of a store owner living above his shop, except when you're shacking up with a vampire, windows are bad; cavernous underground, good. Besides, it was also one of the most defensible places in all of St. Louis. When your vampie sweetie is also the Master of the City, you have to worry about defense. Not humans anymore, but other vampires wanting to take a bite of your action. Okay, once it had been a group of rogue shapeshifters, but the problem was the same. Monsters outside the law were as dangerous as humans outside it, but with more skills.

Which was why I knew there were guards watching me as I parked and went to the back door. I always had to resist the urge to wave. It was supposed to be a secret that they were watching, so waving was out.

My cell phone rang as I was digging out my keys for the back door. The music had changed again; now it was "Wild Boys" by Duran Duran. Nathaniel found it amusing that I couldn't figure out how to program my own ring tone, so he changed it periodically without warning. Apparently, this was my default ring tone now. Boys.

"Blake here."

The voice on the other end of the phone stopped me dead in the parking lot. "Anita, it's Edward."

Edward was an assassin who specialized in killing monsters because humans had become too easy. As Ted Forrester he was a U.S. Marshal and fellow vampire executioner. By any name he was one of the most efficient killers I'd ever met. "What's wrong, Edward?"

"Nothing on my end, but I hear you're having a hell of an interesting time."

I stood there in the summer's heat, keys dangling from my hand, and was scared. "What are you talking about, Edward?"

"Tell me you were going to call and have me meet you in Vegas. Tell me you weren't going to hunt this one without inviting me to come play."

"How the hell did you know about it?" Once upon a time, not that long ago, if anyone died, especially spectacularly, Edward was a good bet for it. I had a moment to wonder if he knew more about Vegas than I did.

"I'm a U.S. Marshal, too, remember?"

"Yeah, but I only found out less than an hour ago. How did you rate a call, and from whom?"

"They killed one of our own, Anita. Cops take that hard." In one sentence he'd said our own and then talked about the police like he wasn't one. Edward was like me; we had a badge, but sometimes we didn't quite fit.

"How did you find out about it, Edward?"

"You sound suspicious."

"Don't fuck with me, just talk to me."

He took in a deep breath, let it out. "Fair enough. I live in New Mexico, remember? It isn't that far from Nevada. They'll probably call up all the western-state executioners."

"How did you know to call me?" I asked.

"They're only holding the message back from the media, not from other marshals."

"So, you know about the writing on the wall; that's why you called me." The question was, did he know about the head? How good were his sources these days? Once he'd been like a mysterious guru to me. All-knowing, all-seeing, and better at everything than I was.

"You telling me that you aren't going to fly to Vegas to hunt this bastard?"

"No, I'm definitely going."

"There's something you're not telling me," he said.

I leaned against the side of the building and said, "You know about the head?"

"That the vampires took the head of Las Vegas 's executioner, yeah. I've been wondering why they took his head. They're vampires, not ghouls or a rogue zombie. They don't eat flesh."

"Even ghouls that cache food almost never take the head. They prefer meatier bits."

"You've seen ghoul food caches?" he asked.

"Once," I said.

He gave a small laugh. "Sometimes I forget that about you."

"What?"

"That you are one of the only people who run into weirder shit than I do sometimes."

"I don't know whether to be insulted, flattered, or scared," I said.

"Flattered," he said, and I knew he meant it.

"They didn't take the head for eating," I said.

"You know what happened to it?"

"Yep."

"What, I need to ask?"

I sighed. "No," and I told him about the little present I'd gotten at work this morning.

He was quiet for so long that I continued talking. "We're just lucky it came in on the only morning that I do client meetings all day. God knows what Bert, my business manager, would have done with it if I hadn't been there to make him wait for forensics."

"You really think it was coincidence that the package got there on the only morning that you'd be in?" Edward said.

I leaned a little harder against the wall, clutching the cell phone with one hand and my keys with the other. I suddenly felt exposed out there in the parking lot, because I understood exactly what Edward meant.

"You think Vittorio's been monitoring me. That he knows my schedule." I looked out into the daylit parking lot. There was no place to hide. Daylight meant there weren't that many cars. I had this sudden desire to be inside, out of sight.

I put my key in the door and used my shoulder to hold the phone while I opened the door.

"Yes," he said. That was Edward: high on truth, low on comfort.

I spilled in through the door and got it closed behind me before the two guards inside could do much more than push themselves off the wall. They were both in black T-shirts and jeans, only the guns and holsters ruining the casual look. They tried to talk to me, and I waved at them that I was on the phone. They went back to holding up their section of wall, and I went for the far door. The door was one of only two ways into the underground area where Jean-Claude and his vampires slept. It was why we had two guards in the storage room at all times. Boring duty, which meant they were two of the newer hires; I remembered that one of them was Brian, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the other one's name.

"Anita, you still there?" Edward asked.

"Give me a minute to find some privacy."

I opened the door leading down and closed it behind me. I was standing at the head of stone steps that led down and down. I kept one hand on the wall as I started down. High heels were not meant for these steps. Hell, they seemed carved for something that didn't walk quite like a human being at all. Something bigger than a person, with different legs maybe.

"Vittorio wouldn't have come back to St. Louis," I said.

"Probably not, but you know better than most vampire hunters that the vampires have other resources."

"Yeah, I'm Jean-Claude's human servant, so Vittorio could have one, too."

"Hell, Anita, he could have humans with just a couple of bites. You know that once a vampire uses its gaze on someone and does the whole bite thing, they'll do anything for their master."

"I wouldn't sense a human with a few bites on them. They hit the radar as just human."

"So, yeah, I think you've been spied on. I'd tell you not to come, Anita, but I know you won't listen."

I stumbled on the steps and had to catch my balance before I said, "You honestly would tell me to stay home on this one? You, who are always inviting me out to hunt bigger and badder monsters?"

"This one's made it personal, Anita. He wants your head."

"Thanks for that imagery, after my little present this morning."

"I said it on purpose, Anita. You're like me now; you've got people you love, and you don't want to leave them. I'm just reminding you, like you remind me, that you really do have a choice. You can sit this one out."

"You mean stay safe in St. Louis while the rest of you guys hunt this bastard?"

"Yes."

"And you can tell me, honestly, that you wouldn't think less of me for playing it that safe?"

He didn't answer for so long that I was almost at the blind corner turn at the halfway point of the stairs. I didn't prompt him. I just listened to him breathe and concentrated on my heels on the uneven stones.

"I wouldn't blame you for staying home."

"But you would think less of me," I said.

He was quiet. "I'd try not to."

"Yeah, and the rest of the cops who already think I'm a girl, and that I'm sleeping with vampires, and that I'm sleeping around with other cops, they wouldn't think less of me?"

"Don't get yourself killed because of pride, Anita. That's a guy reason to die. You're a girl; think like a girl for once."

"Edward, if they've been watching me in St. Louis, I may not be safe here, either."

"Maybe, or maybe he's luring you out, Anita. Maybe he would have come back to St. Louis for you, but with all the people Jean-Claude has around him he couldn't get to you."

I walked around the corner, thinking about that. "Shit, I hope you're wrong about that."

"You knew it was a trap, Anita."

"Yeah, but knowing Vittorio is throwing down the gauntlet in Vegas is one thing. Believing that he's picked somewhere far away so I'll be away from Jean-Claude and his guards is... frightening."

"Good, I want you scared on this one, because you should be."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means Vittorio has been watching you, or having someone else do it. He sent the head on a day you'd be there. He sent it early in the morning before your vampire lover will be awake, so no one can tell you to take guards, or not to go. In St. Louis, if Jean-Claude is still down for the day, you're in charge."

"We've been working really hard at making me more human servant and Jean-Claude more master."

"Yeah, so hard that you've moved into the Circus with him. The other marshals don't think much of you shacking up with the master of your city."

"Prejudiced bastards." I was at the big cell-like door that led into the underground proper.

"I also heard that Jean-Claude and your boyfriends have come out of the closet. I take it that the idea that Jean-Claude is fucking you and your boyfriends was to explain why he was letting you fuck other men."

"We told the vampire community that, not the marshals. How do they know all this?"

"You aren't the only one who's a little close with their local vampires, Anita."

"I've met your local vampires, and I know that you are not talking to Obsidian Butterfly. She's so scary that the worldwide vampire community has made Albuquerque, New Mexico, off limits."

"I live in Santa Fe."

"Yeah, and it's still too close to Obsidian Butterfly and her group. It's why you have to travel out of state to hunt vampires; your local master is too scary to share."

"She thinks she's an Aztec goddess, Anita. Gods don't share."

"She's a vampire, Edward, but she may actually be what the Aztecs worshipped under her name."

"She's still a vampire, Anita."

"I don't like the tone in your voice, Edward. Promise me if you ever get a warrant of execution against her or any of her vampires that you'll let me come help."

"You'd have flown to Vegas without me."

"Maybe, or maybe getting a human head in a box was weird even for me. Maybe I am afraid of Vittorio, and I don't like running into a trap like some rabbit. Maybe I just hadn't had time to think to call you."

"That's a lot of maybes, Anita."

"I may lose the phone signal if I go any farther underground, Edward, but I have to pack, so..."

"It's a shorter flight for me to Vegas, so I'll see you on the ground."

"Edward," I said.

"Yeah."

"Do you really think Vittorio planned me to have to fly to Vegas before Jean-Claude could be awake to argue with me, or make me take guards?"

"I don't know, but if he did plan it this way, then he's afraid of your guards. He's afraid of you with Jean-Claude. He's afraid of you with all your shapeshifter friends. But he's not as afraid of you on your own."

"I won't be on my own," I said.

"No, you won't be," he said.

"I don't mean just you, Edward. Vittorio killed police officers. I don't think he understands how serious that can be."

"We'll explain it to him," Edward said, voice gone empty of accent, empty of almost anything. It was the voice that he used when he was at his most deadly.

"Yes," I said, "we will."

Edward hung up.

I hung up and went through the door into Jean-Claude's living room.