Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 50

I DREAMED, AND in the dream I walked down a white hallway with doors on either side. I knew there was something behind the doors, but I didn't know what. One of the doorknobs rattled, and it frightened me. I started to move faster down the hallway and realized I was wearing some long, white dress. It was heavy and hard to move in. I'd never owned anything like it. Mirrors showed between the doors, and I caught glimpses of myself in them. Pale oval face, black hair piled high on top of my head, curls artfully around my shoulders. There was a feather in my hair, and jewels around my throat. This was not my dream.

The next mirror showed a second figure keeping pace with me. She wore red, the color of crushed velvet and rose petals. Gold flashed here and there as she moved. She'd put me in white and silver, with the flash of diamonds. She wore gold and rubies.

I forced myself to stop running down the hallway that never seemed to get any shorter. I faced one of the mirrors, and there she was looking back at me, standing just over the shoulder of my reflection.

"Belle Morte," I whispered, and it was as if her name conjured her, because I felt her hand slide around my shoulders, draw my back against her front. She was a touch shorter than I was, but heels gave her height. Our hair was nearly the same shade of black, but where my eyes were deepest brown, hers were almost amber.

"Ma petite, you have been a very busy girl." She whispered it, and laid crimson lips against the white of my neck.

"No," I said.

She left only a perfect print of her lipstick on my skin. She smiled at me over my shoulder, putting our faces together. "Didn't you enjoy our time together, ma petite?"

I wanted to say no, but her ego was too large, and too strangely fragile for truths. If it was a truth. She'd come to me when I was unconscious, near death, and we'd had sex. She'd fed me enough energy to come to, and feed in the real world and save myself and Jean-Claude and Richard, though I wasn't sure how much she cared about our wolf king. But she had wanted to save me and Jean-Claude. I still wasn't entirely certain why she'd done it. Belle never did anything without a gain for herself.

Her hand slid down the white front of my dress until her fingers started to slide into the bodice. I grabbed her wrist to stop the movement. "If you'd wanted sex, you'd have put us in a bed. What's behind the doors?"

She pouted at me, that soft mouth, bowed and petulant. Through Jean-Claude's memories I remembered loving that pout. I remembered thinking that she had the most kissable mouth in the world.

"Open a door and see."

"I'm afraid."

"They are parts of yourself, Anita. Why be afraid of them?"

They were my beasts. "I just got sewed back together from one of them. I'd rather not repeat it."

She wrapped her arms tight around my waist; at least she wasn't trying to grope me. "You know why you couldn't heal it, don't you?"

"I didn't have enough energy."

"You have been feeding the ardeur barely, just enough to keep it sated but not enough to grow it stronger."

"I don't want it stronger."

"But I do, ma petite."

"I am not your ma petite."

"You are anything I say you are," and her eyes were drowning in amber fire.

I closed my eyes like a child hiding under the covers from a monster, but vampire gaze really can be avoided by just not looking.

Her voice whispered in my ear. "The Mother of All Darkness is trying to turn you into her instrument by raising your tigers. I don't know why that is so important to her, but I've felt what she's been doing to you. You must embrace the ardeur because it is a power she does not understand. You must grow strong in the parts of your power that are my bloodline, ma petite, or the Darkness will win you from me and from Jean-Claude."

"Why do you care?"

"Because She is trying to use your body as her vessel. I want her dead here and now, not escaped into you. She must die here, so you must be strong enough to keep her out. Embrace the ardeur, Anita, and you will have power such as you have never dreamt. I will help you."

"I don't want..."

She breathed in my ear. "I hear you thinking. You don't want to feed on your friend. I don't understand that; he's handsome enough. I think he would be skilled."

The thought made me open my eyes. "No"-my anger flared, and it felt good-"he's family; you don't do family."

"So prudish, but very well, the tigers will do."

"No," and I could look her in the sparkling eyes because my anger helped push that soft, insistent power back.

"You really can feed on anger, how interesting. It does not come from my bloodline."

The first spurt of fear washed through me and drowned the anger. That was something we hadn't wanted anyone else to know.

"It is dark, and the vampires rise where your body sleeps, ma petite."

"Stop calling me that."

"The tiger queen was kept away from you by your friend and her son, but now the vampires rise, and they will be naughty. If they are as naughty as I think they will try to be, I will give you the ability to fight back."

"What are you going to do?" I asked, and the fear was real. I needed to break the dream before she finished whatever she had planned.

"You cannot slip away unless I allow it, Anita, please. You are powerful, but you have not had even a lifetime to practice your skills. You cannot win against me, and without my help, you cannot hope to win against the Mother of All Vampires."

"What are you going to do?" I asked again.

"You don't trust me."

"No," I said.

"After I saved you and my Jean-Claude, still you doubt me?"

"I'm afraid of you."

She was suddenly in front of me, pressing us together, coming for her kiss. "Good, that's good. I would rather you love me, but if not love, fear will do."

"Machiavelli," I said.

"Where do you think he got it from?" she laughed, as she pressed her mouth to mine. Her voice eased through my head, or maybe it echoed in the hallway. "If they do not attack you, then my gift lies dormant. I can be no more fair than that, ma petite."

It was a kiss, but it was also heat. Vampires are supposed to be a cold thing, but she was not. She burned with all the life she had fed on for centuries, and she pushed that fire inside my mouth, into my body. One minute I was kissing Belle Morte, the next I was awake, gasping, staring up at a ceiling I didn't know, and had an arm across my shoulders. For a moment the dream and reality met, and then I saw the muscles and that it was male. It wasn't Belle, but what the fuck?

Edward was standing over me and whoever belonged to the arm. "You started to go into shock, and they said being close to the aura of another wereanimal like yourself would help."

I turned my head to find Victor blinking at me, as if he, too, had slept. From the feel of things, I wasn't sure he was wearing any clothes. "And this seemed like a good idea to you, Ed... Ted?"

"It helped, Anita. The moment he touched you, like this, it helped."

"See, you are one of us, Anita." It was Bibiana's voice.

Edward handed me the Browning BDM before he took the blankets off me, which let me know that things were not good. Victor tightened his body around me, where he'd curled into place. The sudden tension let me know that he might not have known his mom was there either. Me in a drugged sleep was one thing, but why had Victor slept through it all?

Edward helped me sit up. "How does it feel?"

I waited for it to hurt. "Not bad." It felt way too good, actually. "What time is it? How long?"

"It's been four hours."

Victor's arm wrapped around my waist, and I had to admit that it felt solid and real and not bad. But then when I was channeling my beasts, touch was always good.

I could see more of the room now. Bibiana sat on a little couch that was to one side of the room. This was the first time I'd really seen the room. It was a little apartment complete with a round bed that would have looked fine in a red velvet whorehouse. The couch was the same red velvet. There were chairs and cushions and a small kitchenette. The table I was lying on was the dining table, with carved chairs pulled back from it to make room for the doctor and everyone else.

The doctor was still there. He came forward to check me out, and Edward let him check my pulse. I was shirtless, so checking the stitches was easy enough. He had to move Victor's arm to move bandages aside. "It's almost healed." He looked at me. "I saw that the claw marks had come from inside you, like it was clawing its way out; you're not human, are you?"

"I shared my energy with her," Victor said. He sat up on his side of the table, drawing the blanket around the bareness of him.

"But if she had not had her own white tiger for you to share with, it would not have worked," Bibiana said.

"Whatever," I said. I let Edward help me stand. I could stand. Yea!

Edward looked at me, then moved his hand away. I stood on my own. "Good, we're out of here then." He put my backpack over his shoulder.

He'd already added some of my weapons to his visible arsenal. We started for the door.

Then I felt it, like a cold breeze down my back. I said, "Vampire."

Edward grabbed my arm and hustled us for the door, where Rick and some of the other white tigers blocked the way. We aimed our guns at them in unison. "We'll just say you jumped us," I said. "With all the dead cops in this town, they'll buy it."

"Anita Blake, so good of you to visit my little family."

I didn't even turn around. "Hi, Max. Thanks for the hospitality." Then I screamed at the men blocking the door. "Move, or bleed!"

Max's voice. "Move out of the marshals' way. She's a federal cop; you don't mess with the Feds. It's bad for business."

The tigers at the door looked to another part of the room. They were looking at Bibiana.

"I am master of this city, and I say get the fuck out of the marshals' way." His voice had gone ugly with rage.

The weretigers moved, a little.

"Keep going," I said, and we waited for them to move well away from the door. As they moved, I moved sort of with them, so I had my back to Edward and my empty hand on his back, so I could feel his movement and still watch the room. Edward would know that left him the door and the room beyond.

He opened the door with an audible click, and we eased through it. I looked away from the weretigers long enough to see Max in a doorway on the other side of the big bed. He was dressed in 1940s gangster chic, mostly bald, tall, but solid. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you'd say fat, but it was all hard and muscled. Bibiana was glaring at him.

"Thanks, Max," I said.

"Tell Jean-Claude that I know the rules."

"I'll do that." And Edward was through the door, and my hand on him took me with him. We were into the other room; all we had to do was get the door shut.

Bibiana had to have the last word. "You have slept with my son. Tell me, what did you dream?"

The question was so odd that it made me stumble at the doorway. "Anita," Edward said.

"It's okay," I said. I concentrated on the gun in my hand and watching the room. I kicked the door shut behind us, and we were suddenly in the dimness and noise of the club beyond.

Edward moved up beside me, both putting his arm around me and lowering my gun hand down to my side. He leaned over and whisper-shouted into my ear, "Ease down."

The club was crowded, mostly with men at the tables and stages. The only women were the waitresses and the dancers.

Edward started leading me through the crowd. He slipped into that half-drunk-boyfriend-who-brought-my-girlfriend-to-the-strip-club act like someone had turned a switch. He was suddenly a good ol' boy who was having a good ol' time. The best I could do was not look too uncomfortable under his arm and try not to let anyone bump the gun in my hand. Though no one noticed the guns once we were away from the door, or they pretended they didn't. I'd noticed that a black gun against black jeans in a dark club was pretty invisible.

I was still trying to keep the door in my peripheral vision, though I was pretty sure that neither Max nor Bibiana would want to mess up the front of the club. They'd hide the dirty laundry.

What had she meant about my dreams? I pushed the thought away and tried to push that itchy feeling between my shoulder blades away, too. I wanted to sprint for the far door, but we were pretending, and that means you blend in, so I pretended to help my drunk boyfriend through the crowd. Though I knew that Edward was watching everything and would go from this act to action in the blink of an eye.

A hand came out of nowhere and tried to grope my breasts. I had grabbed his wrist and twisted before I'd had time to think.

"Hey," he said, and his face had that soft, confused look of the very drunk.

Edward leaned over my head, leering drunkenly, "Mine," he yelled.

"Sure, man, sure," the drunk said, as if it had been Edward who'd protected my honor and not me. Maybe if I shot the drunk he'd look at me as if I were a real person, but that would probably be overkill for one attempted grope. It wasn't the grope, though, it was the attitude that the women weren't real; none of us in the club were truly people to most of this crowd. I'd seen it with the female customers at Guilty Pleasures and how they treated the male strippers. Dancers weren't quite the same as real people, or you'd never be able to act like you do at a club. It was probably one of the reasons I had never been comfortable at one of them; even before I was dating a stripper, I never forgot that everyone was real.

We stopped at the little bar/gift shop area and bought me a T-shirt. It was white and had Trixie's in swirling script right across the breasts, but it was better than the black one with the nude girl in the martini glass on the front.

"Nice fit." This from one of the dancers who was wearing a short robe and, since it was open, proving that it was all she was wearing. She had short brown hair and an open, pretty face, like the high school sweetheart that everyone's supposed to have but never does.

"Thanks," I said. If the T-shirt had fit any tighter across my chest it would have ripped like the Incredible Hulk's pants.

She moved closer, stroking her hand down my side, not exactly touching my chest, but the edge of it all. "Come to the stage, I'll give you a lap dance for free." She gave a smile that managed to contain both innocent friendliness and the promise of something evil, hidden in the quirk of that one dimple and deep in those hazel eyes.

Edward drew me into his body with a slightly sloppy movement and grinned at the woman. "Sorry, but we gotta go. But next time, I'd love to watch."

She smiled at him, bright, lovely, and empty as a lightbulb. I had a smile like that for difficult customers. She switched to flirting with him, putting an arm as far as she could with the backpack in her way. "Promise."

"Oh, yeah," and he laughed.

The dancer leaned in and whispered, "Ask for Brianna. I'm here six nights a week after six."

I nodded. "I'll remember."

Her hand lingered down my arm until we actually held fingertips, as Edward pulled me toward the outer door. We got outside, and Edward kept up his drunk act for half a block; then he straightened and we could walk normally. "I know you attract wereanimals and the undead, but now human women. What was that all about?"

"Let's find a dark alley and you give me all my weapons. I'll re-arm and explain."

We did what I suggested. It was the part of town that had a lot of dark alleys. He handed me the first layer of holster, and the re-arming began. "If you can get a female customer to shed some clothes while you're playing with her, the men love it. You can make a lot of money."

"The old lesbian fantasy," he said.

"Yep." I had the Browning's holster with its extra ammo, and the big knife down the spine settled in place. My backpack next, tightened enough so it didn't move around.

"She seemed to like you better than she liked me," he said.

"You noticed that, too." I had the MP5 dug out of the backpack, where it didn't quite fit, and on the tactical sling around me. "I've seen it with some male dancers; even the straightest of them can get pretty disgusted with the way the female customers act. I imagine it's the same for the women with the male customers. If your experiences are bad enough, it can turn you a little bisexual."

"Interesting; does that go for some of the men in your life?"

"I think the sexuality of the men in my life was set before anyone of them started working as strippers. Besides, only Nathaniel and Jason actually strip, and Jason is just our friend in bed."

"What about Jean-Claude?"

"He doesn't strip anymore."

"He does get on stage, Anita. I've seen him offering kisses for money."

That was a fairly recent act of his, and the question made me look at Edward. "When were you in the club to see his act?"

He stepped out into just enough light that I could see that smile. The one he used when he knew something I wanted to know, but he wasn't going to tell me.

"Are you spying on us?"

"Not exactly."

"What exactly?" and my voice was just a little grumpy.

"I don't trust him, and just in case one day you decide you don't trust him either, I just want to know what's happening in St. Louis."

"Don't treat Jean-Claude like a mark, Edward." I had all my weapons in place and had stepped away from him, given myself a little room.

"Is that a threat?" he asked.

"You're the one spying on one of the loves of my life. I'm not coming into Donna's shop and pretending to be a customer."

He nodded. "Fair enough." But his voice was careful, cold.

I heard a car stop before the light hit the mouth of the alley. I shielded my eyes. Edward stepped back farther into the shadows. If it had been an ambush, I'd have died, and he wouldn't. There are still moments when his more standard training and my learn-as-you-go method show the holes in my education. I tried to fade out of the light and into the shadows, but the light followed me.

"Hands where I can see them, right now!" A male voice, very serious. Then belatedly, "Police."

Other way around would have been better, but I had already done what he wanted before he added it. I was pretty sure about the police part before he said it. I clasped my hands on top of my head without being told, then moved, slowly, so that the badge on its lanyard would catch the light, or that was the plan. I was carrying some serious, visible firepower. If I didn't know me, I'd be nervous, too.

Edward stayed where he was, invisible in the shadows. Hell, I knew he was there and had to stare to see him. How did he do that? But I had other things to worry about, like the nervous cop.

"Come out, slow."

I did what he said, hands still firm on my head. I did try to identify myself. "U.S. Marshal. I'm a U.S. Marshal." He didn't seem to have heard me the first time.

"On your knees, now!"

Either he couldn't see the badge, or the amount of weapons he could see made him blind to anything else. I guess I couldn't blame him. It was probably the MP5, or maybe the visible tac vest, or maybe the two hand-guns, or shit, all of it. I was loaded for monster, which meant I was way overloaded for human.

I dropped to my knees, trying not to hit too heavy; no need to bruise. I did keep trying to talk to him. "I am U.S. Marshal Anita Blake; I am serving an active warrant of execution."

"On the ground, now!"

I'd caught a glimpse of the gun silhouette aimed at me. I got on the ground, wondering what Edward was planning on doing. Of course, if he stepped out of the alley now, he might get shot. The cop was well and truly into making me safe to be around. Another person armed this heavily and, well, accidents happen.

The sidewalk was not as clean as I would have liked it to be against my cheek. I wasn't scared, and probably should have been. A good guy's bullet would kill me just as soon as a bad guy's. This was one of those moments when I wondered if the people who wrote the laws understood how it looked to be walking around with this much firepower on us. We were going to need badges on our tac vests or somewhere more prominent than normal, or some vampire executioner was going to get shot by the police.

I stayed passive under his knee, while he handcuffed me. He started patting me down and found the second badge next to the gun on my waist. He unclipped it and brought it out into the light.

"Shit," he said, with real feeling.

I did not say I told you so. I was still handcuffed, and he was still armed. I did try, one more time, to say, "I'm U.S. Marshal Anita Blake, I am with the preternatural branch, and I am serving on an active warrant of execution."

"You're hunting vampires down here?" he asked.

"That is my job, officer." I was really wanting to raise my cheek off the concrete to talk, but wasn't sure if he'd take that for me trying to get up. I did not want another misunderstanding.

He knelt again, but this time his knee wasn't in my back. "I saw all the weapons, and then you tried to hide." He uncuffed me, then stepped back from me.

"Can I get up?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I got up, carefully. There is always that urge after one of these misunderstandings to do something startling to the guy who just cuffed you and made you eat pavement. I fought off the urge because it can lead nowhere good.

He handed me my badge back. I took it and clipped it back next to the Browning. "My partner is down the alley. Marshal Forrester, can you come out where the officer can see you?" I wasn't sure this was what Edward would want, but we had badges, and when you have badges you have to play by at least some of the rules.

Edward came out with his hands very visible to his side and a little up, so they showed empty. He'd fastened his windbreaker with the big U.S. Marshal written across it. I didn't even know what had happened to the windbreaker he'd loaned me.

"Officer," Edward said in his Ted voice, and even managed a smile.

"Marshal," the uniform said. He'd put his gun up, but the holster was unclipped. "I'm going to check on the radio. Nothing personal."

"If I saw people with this much firepower, I'd check, too," Edward said, still easy and smiling. He so would not have checked; he'd have taken care of it himself, or ignored it as not his problem.

Officer Thomas, according to his nameplate, walked just a little away from us, without turning his back on us. He hit his shoulder mic and spoke quietly into it. He was far enough away that we couldn't quite hear him, which was fine. He was trying to get someone to vouch for us. As long as he didn't talk to Undersheriff Shaw, we'd be safe enough.

He made uh-huh noises; just from a distance you could tell he was simply agreeing. He took his hand off his mic and walked toward us. "You check out. Sorry about the misunderstanding."

"Don't worry about it," I said, and meant it. I was going to have to find someone to give a memo to about the thought that the new law on carrying a small arsenal on our person was going to get us vampire executioners shot.

Edward put his hands down and, still looking pleasant, said, "We could use a ride back to the station, though."

"No problem," Thomas said. He took a breath as if he was going to ask something, then stopped himself. I was betting he wanted to ask where our car was, but he didn't. It's both a cop and a guy thing to not ask too many questions. Besides, he'd already made me kiss pavement; he probably was going to try for best behavior.

"I call shotgun," Edward said.

"Fine," I said.

Something in that one word had let him know I wasn't happy. We just knew each other too well to hide much of anything. He looked at me, his face half in shadow and half in the light from a distant streetlight.

He called to Thomas, "Give us a minute." Then it was our turn to step far enough away from the officer to not be overheard.

I wanted to tell Edward about at least part of my dream, and ask what he thought about Bibiana asking about it. How had she known? What did she know? Had Belle Morte changed the dream, or was she in touch with the Vegas tigers? Cats were her animals to call, just like Marmee Noir. But metaphysics like this wasn't really Edward's forte. He wouldn't know more about this than I did. I needed to talk to someone who might. I needed to talk to Jean-Claude, alone.

"You all right?" he asked quietly, his back to Officer Thomas.

"Not sure. I need to ask Jean-Claude some stuff in private, soon."

"She asked you about your dreams."

I looked at him and realized that he had caught it and understood more than most. "I had a dream, and it was a doozy."

He smiled, "A doozy, okay. Can you wait to talk to Jean-Claude, or do you need me to entertain Thomas?"

I thought about that. "Let's get back to Olaf and Bernardo. Let's see what's happening with Paula Chu and the case. I'll try to put the metaphysics on the back burner for a while."

"Okay, if you're sure."

"Am I sure? Not really, but I'm here with a badge; let's act like I'm a real marshal and not some freak."

He touched my shoulder. "Anita, this isn't like you."

"Yeah, it is, Edward. I'm wondering if I can do my job, or if the metaphysics is getting too deep for a badge."

"The metaphysics helps you be better at the job."

"Sometimes, but we've just spent four hours with me in a healing sleep wrapped around a naked weretiger, so that the other cops couldn't see that my own internal beast had cut me from the inside out. We had to take both you and me off the case while we did it. That's not good, Edward. Now it's full dark, and Vittorio is out there. We lost important time because we were trying to hide what I am."

"Then let's stop arguing about it and go to the station. Bernardo will catch us up."

"Don't you see, Edward, Ted, whatever, that for you and me for the last four hours, healing me, hiding me, was more important than the case. That's not how cops think."

"We think just fine, Anita."

I don't know what showed on my face, but he grabbed my arm. "Don't do this to yourself. Don't tear yourself down."

"It's the truth."

"It's only the truth if you buy into it. Yeah, we lost four hours, but you're healed, and we know that Max doesn't agree with what Bibiana is doing. We know that Victor isn't happy with his mother and sides with his father. Knowing the politics of a city's monsters is valuable, Anita."

I wanted to argue, and might have, but Thomas said, "Sorry to interrupt, but if I'm leaving patrol, I need to get you guys to the station, then get back."

"We're coming," Edward called. He still had my arm. "Do you need to call Jean-Claude now?"

I shook my head. "It can wait. We've lost enough time."

He looked at me a moment longer; I met his eyes clear and straight. He let go of my arm and stepped back, then turned back to Thomas all smiles. "Sorry, Thomas, didn't mean to keep you."

"It's okay, but I gotta answer to my supervisor, you know?"

"We know," I said. Actually, we didn't. One of the reasons the U.S.

Marshals Service didn't like having us on their team was that we'd be grafted on without any extra support staff. Bascially, we were marshals, but we didn't have to answer to their hierarchy much. The preternatural branch was almost a law unto itself. While the other marshals were filling out tons of paperwork every time they fired their guns in the line of duty, we were blowing people away with no paperwork required. Our warrants of execution were the only paperwork. They'd experimented with having some of us do reports, but the details were so grim, so disturbing, that some suit up the line decided the Marshals Service wasn't sure it wanted the preternatural branch's exploits immortalized on paper. In normal police work, reports are supposed to cover your ass, but sometimes when it's really bad, they can be used against you later. We'd never had to do reports before, and so far still didn't. That might change, but for now, it was a sort of don't ask, don't tell policy.

I sat in the back of the squad car musing on what it meant to have a badge when your job description hadn't changed. We were assassins. Legal, government-sanctioned assassins. Some of us tried to be good marshals, but in the end, the other marshals saved lives, and all we did was take them. In the end, all the badges in the world didn't change what we were and what we did. I rode through the darkened city until light hit and I saw the Strip rising over the buildings like some force of nature glowing against the night. We weren't headed that way, but I knew it was there, like being able to feel the ocean even though you can't see it.

Thomas drove us away from the bright lights, and that was about how I felt tonight, like I was getting pushed further from the light, further from what it meant to be human, further from who I thought I was and who I thought I'd be. I sat in the back letting Edward's and Thomas's soft voices wash over me. They were talking shop; all cops do it. Talk about crime or women, and with me in the car, they wouldn't do that. Edward would see to it, and Thomas would still be on his best behavior.

I sat there and let my confusion wash over me until it was a kind of depression. I didn't know how to be a good cop and a good monster at the same time. My two worlds were beginning to clash, and I had no idea how to stop it.