Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 60

I WAS ACTUALLY able to open my eyes before we got to Vegas. I just had to keep my gaze very steady on Truth's shoulder or the sky. I could even admit that being up in the dark, surrounded by stars, was beautiful. It was the ground being so far away that spoiled it for me.

Truth had asked only once if I was all right. When I'd answered yes, he had let it go. I knew he felt the fear in my body. There was no way to hide my heart rate and pulse from him. But before we landed, those had both quieted. I was still scared, but I guess I couldn't stay at that level of fear without either a full-blown panic attack or fainting.

The stars began to fade, and at first I thought it was daylight, even though I knew the time was completely wrong for it; then I realized it was the lights of Vegas. They rose against the sky like a false dawn, draining the light from the stars, turning the black sky pale. The city rose above the night like a permanent dawn, always pushing against the dark, keeping the stars at bay.

Truth had to go higher just to keep above the buildings. Some of the roofs were so close, I think if I'd leaned out I could have touched them. As afraid as I was of heights, I still had that perverse urge to reach out. I made my hands cling tighter to Truth, and he seemed to think that meant I was more afraid.

"We will be there soon," he said, and his voice sounded strained.

I looked at him and almost asked if he was all right, but if he wasn't, what could I do? We left the tall buildings of the Strip behind and flew over normal houses and shops. We were flying over Anywhere, USA. Then the land began to open up, and the first thing I saw was the twinkling runway lights at the airport. For one moment, I thought Truth was going to use them, but then he began to angle toward buildings that were on the edge of it. I wouldn't have recognized the building from the air, in the dark. I was a little worried about that whole rolling-on-the-ground part, with concrete and buildings to hit. The ground rushed up, and I had to close my eyes or be sick. Then I realized it wasn't just the visual but the swooping feeling in my stomach. I opened my eyes to find a building at our side, and Truth hit the ground running. He stumbled slightly on impact, but kept moving forward, with me in his arms. The run slowed, and finally he was able to stop, still hidden in the shadow of the building. I had a glimpse of the street with a spattering of cars driving by, their headlights cutting the electric-kissed dark. Truth moved us back a short way into the shadow of the building, so we'd be less visible from the street. At our back was the open area that surrounded the airport.

He leaned his back against the building, as if he were tired, hugging me closer the way you would a child.

"You can put me down, Truth," I said.

He opened his eyes and blinked at me, as if he'd been far away in his head. He put me down and let me slide out of his hands. He leaned against the building, his chest rising and falling as if he'd been running. Vampires didn't always breathe, or have to, so the fact that he was breathing heavily meant either he was tired or something else.

I touched his bare arm with my fingertips. His skin was warm to the touch. "You're warm."

"Touch me where I wasn't holding you against me," he said, voice breathy.

I reached up and touched the side of his face. His skin was cool. "So it was just my body heat warming you up?"

He nodded.

"Why are you breathing like that? How much energy did this use up for you?"

He swallowed hard enough for me to watch his throat work. "Enough."

"Shit, you should have let Wicked bring me."

He shook his head, still leaning shoulders and arms against the building. "It wouldn't have mattered. You fed more deeply than I thought, that's all."

"What do you mean?"

He looked at me with those gray eyes that almost never looked as blue as his brother's. "Just as we can take less blood, or more, in a feeding, so with the ardeur. You were like a vampire that had not fed in too long. You needed more."

"But a vampire can only drink as much blood as his stomach can hold," I said. "The ardeur doesn't work like that, does it?"

He just looked at me.

Shit. "How hurt are you?"

"Not hurt, just tired."

"Fine, how tired are you?"

"You need to go to your police friends," he said.

"I can't leave you on the street this weak. You can't even stand up. If Vittorio's people found you now, you'd just be a victim for them."

His eyes went all vampire on me, gray light shining in his gaze. "I am no one's victim," and he was angry when he said it, and then his eyes went back to normal and he began to slide down the wall. I caught him, steadied him. He put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his body fight to stay upright.

"I am sorry," he said.

"No, it's me that's sorry."

"Flying takes a great deal of energy, and carrying someone takes more. I had forgotten how much more."

"So it's not that I fed, but that you did something strenuous afterward," I said.

"Yes, it would have been good to simply sleep afterward, or feed myself."

"Would feeding help?" I asked.

He nodded, while his body trembled in an effort to stay leaning against the wall. Even with my hands to steady him, he was still in trouble.

"I can't leave you like this, Truth. Either you have to come with me, and let the cops keep you safe, or..." I did not want to open a vein for him. I'd done it once before to save his life when he'd been stabbed with a silver blade trying to help me and the police catch a very bad vampire, but I didn't like playing walking blood bank. But there was no way that Grimes and his men would want a vampire inside their place. How would I explain him to the other cops, and how did I explain what was wrong with him? When opening a vein is the lesser evil, you need to rethink your priorities.

"Take blood from me," I said.

"You don't donate to anyone." His voice was rough, and his legs began to give. I helped ease him to a sitting position, with his back solid against the building.

"Not usually, but this is an emergency, just like me needing to feed the ardeur on you."

He gave me fluttery eyes.

I held his face between my hands. "Damn it, Truth, don't you dare pass out on me!"

His eyes opened wide, and I watched him fight to do what I'd ordered. I did the only thing I could think of; I offered him my left wrist. It would hurt more than the neck, but it would be easier to hide from the other policemen.

"I am not vampire enough to cloud your mind. I can only hurt you."

"Feed, damn it," I said.

He raised shaky hands and wrapped one of them around my wrist at the hand, and used the other to scoot the sleeve of his jacket away from the wrist. The sleeves were big enough on me that he had no problem pushing the leather out of the way and baring my lower arm.

I braced for the bite, then blew out a breath and tried to relax into it. If I tensed up it would hurt more, just like a shot.

Truth opened his mouth wide, so I had a glimpse of fangs before he struck. I tensed at the last minute; I just couldn't help it. I was caught between the sharp immediacy of the pain and the sensation of his mouth locked around my wrist, forming a tight seal, while the fangs dug in deeper. The deeper part hurt, but his mouth on my wrist, and the sucking, felt good. I'd been feeding Jean-Claude and Asher more often in the last few months, and apparently my body had started translating feeding into pleasure. I'd started associating it with sex, because with Jean-Claude and Asher, we'd made the blood part of our foreplay, and sometimes part of our intercourse. I hadn't realized until this moment how much that had colored how I felt about this whole thing.

I stood there, caught between pain and pleasure, while my body tried to decide which box to put it in. Truth sat up, away from the wall, his hands so strong around my arm, his mouth feeding harder, his throat swallowing, swallowing me down.

I had to put a hand on the wall to keep me kneeling and not falling over, because my head had finally decided that it felt good. Good enough that I was getting weak-kneed.

It was Truth who stopped, pulling his mouth away from my wrist. He kept his hands on my arm and laid his forehead against my skin. I leaned into the cool concrete of the wall, heavier, fighting not to give into that weak-kneed feeling. I was wet, my body prepped for what usually came afterward. When was the last time I'd let a vampire take blood when sex wasn't involved? I couldn't remember. I didn't donate blood outside sex. Shit.

Truth's voice was still rough but not breathy, a little deeper. It wasn't sickness or tiredness that deepened his voice. "You taste... your energy... You didn't taste this way when you fed me last."

"You were dying. You just don't remember."

He raised his face and looked at me. His eyes glowed flat silver-gray in the dimness. "A vampire doesn't forget the taste of blood, Anita. Something has changed in you since we first met." He licked the wound on my arm, one long, sensual movement. He closed those shining eyes and licked his lips, as if to catch every drop of blood. The wound was still bleeding, and would for a while, because of the anticoagulant in vampires' saliva.

"Let go of my arm, Truth," I said, and my voice was a little uncertain. He wasn't acting like himself, and I didn't like the idea that my blood tasted different. What did that mean?

He opened his eyes but didn't move his hands. He stared up at me with his eyes gone blind with vampire powers. "I feel amazing, Anita. Your blood has more kick to it than a shapeshifter's does."

"Let go of me, Truth, now." My voice was firmer this time.

He smiled and let me go.

I pushed away from him, using the wall to stand. I'd never seen Truth smile, not like that.

He just sat there against the wall, smiling up at me.

"Are you drunk?" I asked.

"Maybe." He smiled happily.

I'd seen only one vampire react like that, and that one had taken a feeding from both Jason and me. Werewolf with a chaser of necromancer had made Jean-Claude giggling drunk.

"I need to go, Truth."

"Go," he said, his smile wide.

"I need to know you're all right before I leave you."

"Oh," he said, and he stood, in one of those too-fast-to-see movements. One minute on the ground, the next standing. Vampires are quicker than human-normal, but for the standing trick, they have to use vampire mind powers to appear that fast. If I'd had a gun, I'd have tried to aim it, just out of habit.

I had moved back out of reach, but after that speed, I knew that it did me no good. "Shit," I said.

"I didn't mean to frighten you, but as you can see, I'm very all right."

My heart was in my throat. "That wasn't mind tricks," I managed to say.

"You mean the speed?" he asked.

"Yeah, the speed."

"No," he said.

"I've never seen a vampire that could move quite like that."

He gave a little bow from the neck. "High praise from you, but it was a trait of our bloodline."

"You mean the speed without mind tricks, all of your bloodline could do it?"

"Yes."

"No wonder you were the warrior elite. That's faster than most lycanthropes."

"Once, if the vampire council wanted shapeshifters killed, they sent our bloodline."

"But now you and Wicked are the last, right?"

He nodded.

"I've seen you fight; you weren't this fast."

"I haven't felt this good in a long time." He stretched his arms skyward, making the muscles in his arm bunch and move. "I feel made new. I feel"-he looked at me, as his eyes drained from silver glow to normal-"like I did before we killed the head of our line." He frowned. "You bound me to Jean-Claude with your blood and his power. What have you done, or what has been done to you, since that last feeding?"

"I don't know what you mean by that," I said.

He was frowning harder, thinking harder. "I mean, Anita, that I feel born again, as if our old master should walk down the street and greet us." He moved toward me, and I moved back, keeping our distance. It made him stop. "Are you afraid of me?"

"I don't know what just happened, so let's just say I'm being cautious."

He nodded, as if that made perfect sense to him. "I will see you safely to your friends, and then I will go back to the hotel."

"Good," I said, and then because it was me, I couldn't leave it alone. "No offense, but you don't seem bothered that I'm nervous about you now."

He shrugged those broad shoulders. "I startled you, and I don't know what happened just now, either. Until we know whether it was your blood, your power, or mine, caution is not a bad thing."

"Okay," I said, "then just watch me walk around the corner, and you can go."

"Agreed." He gestured me forward. I walked wide around him, and we sort of circled each other until we got to the corner of the building. All I had to do was walk around the corner, and a few yards away were Edward and all the rest. A cluster of cars whirred by on the street, oblivious to what we were doing. It was almost startling to see the cars and know there were people just over there, as if we'd been in some little pocket world of our own for the last few minutes.

One thing I noticed in the circling dance we were doing was that Truth's gun in its belt holster showed without the leather jacket. The black T-shirt wasn't long enough or wide enough to hide the gun.

Did he have a carry permit for this state? I didn't know, but I did know that being a big guy all in black, flashing a gun, could make some eager cop stop him. Being a vampire would not help him when it happened.

I took off the leather jacket and held it out toward him.

He shook his head. "I told you, I don't feel the cold like you do."

"It's to hide your gun," I said, "I'd rather not have you stopped by a cop for brandishing."

He almost touched the gun at his back, but stopped himself in midmotion. He took his jacket, being careful not to touch me while we made the exchange. That let me know that the fact that I was still spooked showed. Oh, well.

He took the jacket and slipped it on. He hugged the leather around him. I thought he was cold for a moment, then realized he was smelling the coat. Smelling me on it. Again, it was more a shapeshifter gesture than a vampire one. I stared at him in the stronger light of the streetlights, and he looked rosy cheeked and healthy. If I hadn't known what I was looking at, even I might have said human. What the fuck?

I stood on the sidewalk and asked, "Did your bloodline have any other superpowers?"

"We could pass for human, even to witches."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"A few, why?"

"Nothing. I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Aren't you planning to be home before dawn?"

"I wouldn't count on it."

"I feel torn, Anita. I should be by your side, guarding you, yet I must let you go into danger without me. It seems backward."

"It's my job, Truth."

He nodded. "I will await you at the hotel. I hope you get home before dawn." He turned and said over his shoulder, "You're still bleeding."

I looked down to find blood trickling down my hand to drip on the sidewalk. I put pressure on the wound and held it up. How had I not felt that?

"How are you going to explain the wound?"

"I'll think of something. Now go, Truth, just go."

Classical music played, a little high-pitched but recognizable as Beethoven. Truth reached into his jacket pocket and drew out his cell phone. He answered with, "Yes."

I waved good-bye and started for the corner.

Truth called, "Anita, it's for you."

I stopped and looked back at him. "Who is it?"

"Your marshal friend, Ted Forrester."

I went back to him, taking the phone he was holding out to me. "Ted, I'm just around the corner from you."

"I don't think so," he said. I heard noises.

"Are you in your car?"

"We got a call out."

"What's happened now?"

"Club invaded by vampires. They let some of the customers go but kept all the dancers. The released hostages described a vampire that fits the holy water scars that you described on Vittorio."

"Shit," I said.

"You said he'd up the body count tonight, Anita. You were right."

"Believe me, Edward, I didn't want to be right on this one."

"I'll give you the address."

"Is there anyone home to drive me?" I asked.

"It was an all hands, Anita."

"Shit."

"Don't you have transport?"

"Yeah, Truth is still here. I'll let him bring me to you."

"Make sure he sets you down well behind the police barriers. I wouldn't want the uniforms on the barriers to see a vampire flying with a woman in his arms tonight."

"I understand."

"We're here, but I can't wait for you, Anita. They sent the ear of one of the dancers out with the customers they released. The vampires are threatening to send the rest of the dancer out, a piece at a time."

"I will be there ASAP, Edward." But I was talking to empty air. He'd hung up.

"Fuck," I said, and put a lot of feeling into it.

"I heard most of it. What's the address?"

I told him. He asked for his phone back, and did some things on the screen. I peered at the screen and found a little map. He studied it for a few minutes, then said, "I've got it. Are you ready?"

"I can't feed you again this soon, Truth."

"I feel fine, Anita; trust me, I won't need to be fed when we land."

I just had to take his word for it. I let him pick me up again, and I had to keep pressure on the wrist bite instead of holding on to him. I was hoping if I kept pressure on it, the bleeding would stop before we landed. If it did, it would be the only thing that had gone right tonight.