Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 6

ROCCO AND I slipped our shields back up the way others would have shrugged their jackets on. We were both professionals; nice.

Grimes told Hooper, "Take us in through the garage. The briefing room should be ready for the meeting."

Hooper pulled out of the parking spot and maneuvered around to a really big garage door. We drove the whole SUV inside, and suddenly I could see why the door was big.

I would say the garage was full of trucks, but the word didn't do them justice. I'd seen the equipment that St. Louis SWAT had, and I was suddenly filled with serious equipment envy.

We all got out. I noticed sort of peripherally that there was a carpeted exercise area to the left, but I mostly looked at the vehicles. I recognized the Lenco B.E.A.R., because St. Louis had one, but the rest were new to me. There were two smaller trucks that looked like the little brothers of the B.E.A.R., and probably were, but the rest of them, I had no idea. I mean, I could guess what they did, but I didn't know the names. They had one of the biggest RVs I'd ever seen. The vehicles alone were intimidating and strangely masculine. I know that most men talk about their favorite cars as if they were beautiful women, but there was nothing feminine about anything sitting in that garage.

"Marshal Blake," Grimes said, with some force to it.

I turned and looked at them, clustered and looking back at me. "Sorry, Lieutenant, but I just had a minute of equipment envy."

He smiled. "If there's time before you leave, we'd be happy to give you a tour."

"I'd appreciate it."

The garage door lowered. "Your weapons are secure in the back of Sonny's truck."

"Agreed," I said.

He motioned. "Briefing room then."

I nodded, and followed them around the edge of the exercise area. I noticed the beige storage lockers with locks against the wall. I was guessing weapons lockers, and eventually we'd lock up my stuff, but frankly, if the bad guys got in here, I was betting on us. The back of Sonny's truck was dandy.

The briefing room was a largish room with long tables and chairs in rows. There was a whiteboard at the front of the room. It was all very classroom. The six men waiting in the room for us didn't look like students, though. No one had called from the truck, so either Rocco was even more psychic than I thought, or they had planned on introducing me to their practitioners from the beginning. I couldn't decide if I felt ambushed or would have done the same thing in their place. Would I have trusted me?

They all had the same short haircuts as the rest, as if they went to the same barber, but I had Shaw's high and tight to compare them to, which meant they all had plenty of hair, it was just short. They were all tall, the shortest maybe five-ten, most six feet or above. They were all broad of shoulder, and the uniform couldn't hide that everyone worked out. But they were SWAT; either they stayed in shape or they lost their spot. The main difference between them all was the color of hair, eyes, and skin tone. Even just standing there, doing nothing, they were very much together, a unit, a team. Did I feel left out? Naw. Did I feel like I was the exhibit for show-and-tell day? A little.

Sergeant Rocco stepped into the room and introduced me. The lieutenant and Hooper stayed by the door, which was now closed. "This is Davis, Davey."

Davey was yellow-blond, with clear blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that helped frame a nice mouth. Should I have not noticed Davey's mouth? Probably.

I offered my hand; he took it and shook it nice and solid. Since his hand was at least twice the size of mine, it was nice that he didn't hesitate on the shake. Some big men have trouble with my small hands, as if they're afraid to break me. Davey seemed confident he wouldn't hurt me. Good.

"This is Mercer, Mercy."

Mercy had medium-brown hair and large, pale eyes that couldn't decide if they were blue or gray. Looking right at me as he shook my hand, they were blue, but it was an uncertain color, as if the light would change it. He had a good handshake, too. Maybe they all practiced.

The next man's hair was almost the same color, but it had more curl that even the short haircut couldn't hide completely. His eyes were a pure, solid milk-chocolate brown. There'd be no color change here.

When he was introduced as Rusterman, I'd have expected his nickname to be Rusty, but it wasn't. "Spider."

I fought the urge to ask, Why Spider, and let Rocco move me down the line. Next up was Sanchez, who matched the name, but still managed to look so much like all the other men that it was like looking at Army Man, now in new Hispanic. It wasn't just that they were all tall and athletic, but there was a sameness to them, as if whoever hired for the unit had a type he liked and stuck to it.

Sanchez's name was Arrio, and I wasn't sure if it was his real first name or another nickname. I didn't ask because, frankly, it didn't matter. They were giving me their names, and I took them.

Sanchez's hand in mine gave a little spark, like a small jolt of electricity as we touched. We both fought not to jump, but the others noticed, or maybe they felt it. I was standing in a room full of trained psychics.

"You spiked her, Arrio; bad practitioner, no cookie," Spider said. The other men gave that masculine chuckle that women, even butch women, can never quite imitate.

"Sorry, Marshal," Sanchez said.

"No harm, no foul," I said.

He smiled and nodded, but he was embarrassed. I realized that the handshake had been a test not just for me but for all of us. Just as the men would test their bodies in weight training, the gun range, drills, this was a test, too. Could you hide what you were, hand to hand with another psychic? I'd met a lot who couldn't have done it.

"You need to work at your contact shielding, Arrio," Rocco said.

"Sorry, Sarge, I will."

Rocco nodded and moved to the next man. He was Theodoros, very Greek sounding and looking, but he was Santa, though Santa never looked like that when I was a little girl. His hair was straight and as black as Sanchez's and my own. He was the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, if you were into jocks. I wondered how in hell he'd earned the nickname "Santa." It was Spanish for saint, but somehow I didn't think that's what they were going for.

Santa didn't have any trouble shaking my hand and not letting me feel anything but a firm handshake. It would be a point of pride for him and the last man. Sanchez had blown it; they'd work harder because of it.

The last man was also ethnic, but I wasn't entirely sure what flavor. His short hair was curly enough to be African American, but the skin tone and facial features were not quite that. He, too, was tall, dark, and handsome, but in a different way. His eyes couldn't decide if they were dark brown or black. They were somewhere in between my dark brown and Rocco's almost black. But either color, they were framed by strangely short but very, very thick lashes, so that his eyes looked bigger and more delicate than they were, like something edged in black lace.

"Moonus, Moon," Rocco said.

We smiled; we shook. Rocco motioned me to follow him to the front of the room. We stood in front of the whiteboard. "I'm Cannibal." Like Spider, Cannibal made me wonder why that name.

"If we're doing first names and nicknames, then I'm Anita."

"We heard you had a nickname," Cannibal said.

I just looked at him, waited for him to say it.

"The Executioner."

I nodded. "The vampires call me that, yeah."

Davey called out, "You look a little short to be the Executioner."

"Everyone looks short to you, Davis," I said. "What are you, six-four?"

"Six-five," he said.

"Jesus, most of the human population must look short to you, unless you're at work."

They laughed at him, and with me, which was good. The sergeant quieted the laughter with a gesture and said, "We do use nicknames, Marshal; do you want us to use yours?"

I looked at him. "You mean have you guys call me the Executioner, instead of Anita or Blake?"

He nodded.

"No, hell no. First, it's too long for a call sign. Second, it's not a name that I've ever heard spoken in a happy way."

"Are you embarrassed by the name?" he asked.

"No, but it's like Ivan the Terrible. I doubt seriously that anyone ever called him that to his face."

"The vampires call you that to your face," and Cannibal said it like he knew for sure. Maybe he did.

I nodded. "Sometimes they do, but it's mostly Executioner when they're talking to me. They just leave off the the."

"We can call you Executioner," he said.

I sighed. "I'd rather you didn't, Sergeant. I've had too many bad guys call me that while they tried to kill me. They look at the package and call me Executioner to make fun of me. How small, how delicate, how not deadly looking."

"And after they make fun of you?" he asked, voice serious, eyes studying my face.

I met his gaze. "Then they die, Sergeant, or I wouldn't be here."

"I promise never to call you short again," Davey said.

That broke the serious mood, and I was happy to laugh with everyone else.

"Anita, then, if you go out with us."

"Whether you let me go with your team depends on how this little test goes, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

Lieutenant Grimes spoke from the door, and everyone swiveled to give him attention. It was automatic for them. "There are a lot of psychics in the world, Marshal Blake, but there aren't many that are powerful enough to be useful and controlled enough to take into a firefight with you. We need to know how good your control is, and exactly what type of psychic you are. Some types of abilities clash, and if you clash with one of the men in this room, we'll make certain you aren't put on the same team."

"I appreciate all the thought you've put into this, Lieutenant, but I also know that Cannibal here is testing your men at the same time he tests me. He wants to know if they can stay in the room while he tastes my power and not be affected. Yeah, you want to know if my powers clash with your men's, but it's also another test for your own practitioners."

"We lost one of them, Marshal. One of our best. We have precious little time to get you up to speed, and for you to get us up to speed. You hunted this vampire before, and we need to know what you know."

"It's in the reports," I said.

He shook his head. "Cannibal's abilities will tell us whether your reports were accurate."

"You mean, if I lied."

He smiled and shook his head. "Left out things, not lied. You're dating the master of your city, Marshal, living with him; we need to know if that has compromised your loyalties."

"Thanks for the politeness, Lieutenant; the last Vegas cop who asked me accused me of fucking everything that moved."

Grimes made a face of distaste. "None of my men would ever have said that to you, but I apologize to you for the abuse of our city's hospitality."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, I appreciate that."

"Wizard was Cannibal's second-in-command for this squad."

"Wizard was the man you lost," I said.

He nodded. "We need to see how you fit in here, and we have maybe an hour to do it, before we have to deliver you back to Shaw." Not Sheriff Shaw, I noticed; I wondered if he'd figured out who'd insulted me.

Cannibal spoke, turning me back to look at him. "If you were like our own executioner and just used weapons, we'd try to find time to put you on the range, but it's your psychic abilities that will mess us up the most. We can always take your weapons away, but we can't take the rest."

"If I don't pass your test, what then?"

"I won't endanger my men," Grimes said, "if you are the danger, Marshal Blake."

"If I do pass?" I asked.

"Then we'll help you serve your warrant," Grimes said.

"If you don't pass, there are other vampire hunters in town," Cannibal said, "ones that aren't psychic enough to be a problem."

"They also won't be psychic enough to be a help, either," I said.

"We can help ourselves," Cannibal said.

"Can any of you sense the living dead?" I asked.

"None of us has a talent with vampires in particular, no."

I stared into Cannibal's dark eyes as I said, "The dead come in lots of flavors, not just vampires, Cannibal." I took that small step closer to him, not quite invading his personal space. I spoke low. "Just as vampires come in different flavors, too."

Cannibal smiled, and again I got that flash of anticipation from him. "Let's do this, then."

"Let's."

Louder, for the room-his lieutenant and his men-he said, "Are you ready, Anita?"

"How ready do you want me to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want me to try to keep you out, or do you want me to cooperate with your little mind-reading act?"

"I'd love to try to breach your shields sometime, but we don't have time, and the last psychic who played that game with me had to be taken out in an ambulance."

"Are you that good, or that bad?" I asked.

One of the men made a noise, like ooh. We ignored him. "I'm good," Cannibal said, "unless you fight me; then it's bad for you."

"If we had time I'd make you prove that, but we don't, so I'll drop my shields enough to let you in, but I won't drop them completely. Please, don't try to force them all the way down."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because not only can I sense the dead, but sometimes they can sense me. If you breach all my shields, I'll shine like a beacon, and all the vampires in the area will know something supernatural is in town. I'd rather not advertise quite that loudly yet."

"I don't think you're lying about that, which means you're not exaggerating."

"I try not to exaggerate, Sergeant; the truth is strange enough without that."

"I'll be careful of your shields, Anita."

"Okay, how do we do this?"

"Sitting down," he said.

"In case one of us falls down," I said.

"Something like that."

"You really do believe you're the strongest psychic in this room, don't you?" I asked.

"Yes."

I shrugged. "Fine, let's get chairs."

The men handed us up a chair apiece. We sat down facing each other. I lowered my shields a little, like partially opening a door. Not only could I feel Cannibal's energy humming along my skin now, but there were buzzes and flashes and heat from some of the other men. I fought not to concentrate on them, just to ignore it the way I did ghosts. Ignore it and it will go away.

"It works better if I can touch you," he said.

I gave him a look.

He smiled. "So young to be so cynical."

I held out my hands, still frowning. "Fine."

He took my hands in his, and only then did he lower his own shields, only then did he reach out to me with that humming energy of his. Only then did I realize that touch makes all vampire powers worse, more, even if the vampire in question wears a uniform and has a heartbeat.