Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 70

THE ONLY THING that kept it from being one of the most socially awkward moments of my life was that the boy didn't wake up. I got dressed in the bathroom, and told my reflection in the mirror that hysterics would not help the situation. My reflection did not believe me, but I won the argument.

When I came out, dressed in black from head to toe to match my mood, Crispin was awake and so was the redhead. Okay, not red, like human red, or even orangey tiger red, but red. His hair was actually more red than Damian's, my vampire servant back home. Yes, vampire servant, you heard me. To our knowledge, I'm the first human servant to ever manage that. Damian's hair was the red of not having seen sun for centuries, but with lamps lit, the tiger's hair was the red of a Crayola crayon. It was the red that they tell you in school is red, except there was an edge of black to it, like someone had thrown a little bit of extra color into the pot.

The face was a little long for my taste, but he was handsome enough. His eyes were yellow, as if someone had melted autumn leaves into his face. It was when he turned and I saw all that muscled grace walking toward me, that I blushed and turned away. I got busy putting on weapons.

Crispin came up to me and hugged me briefly. "You okay?"

"No."

"My father and mother are missing," Victor said.

I turned to him. "What?"

"The Master planned on taking them. I told Victor, but it's too late, they're gone."

"How the hell did he take Max and Bibiana? I mean, your parents aren't exactly easy pickings."

"He said he would wait until he was powerful enough to take them both together."

I looked at Sebastian. "How much has he regained?"

"I do not know."

The red tiger came over to me. I wasn't embarrassed anymore. I was too worried for that. "I'm Hunter," he said.

I nodded. "Good for you, sorry I don't remember much. It'll come back to me."

His face went from arrogant to disappointed. "You don't remember?"

"Look, Hunter, if that's your real name and not a stage name, do you understand that the Master of the City and the head of the local tigers are missing? I'm about to call SWAT and go vampire hunting."

"Sorry, just trying to be nice."

"We'll be nice tomorrow. Today, let's stay alive, okay?"

He looked a little hurt, and I wondered how bright he was-or how unbright. But, again, not important this minute. I asked Victor, "Do you want me to tell the police about your parents, or do you guys want to handle it yourself?"

"Don't tell them yet. If he's got them at the daytime lair, great, they'll be rescued, but we may want to be a little less legal in the search."

"Okay, it's got to be your call; I'll leave it out for now." Then I called the first number in my phone that I'd put in for SWAT. It was alphabetical, so it was Lieutenant Grimes.

"Marshal Blake, we've been trying to call you for about an hour; are you all right?"

"Yes, in fact I've got the daytime resting place of Vittorio."

"Give me the address," he said.

I did. "We can roll a team now. The other marshals are already here."

"Shit, I'd rather you wait for me."

Grimes spoke to someone off the phone, then came back on. "Ted seems confident that we can move without you."

"Really? Okay. Can you put Ted on the phone for just a second?"

Edward came on. "Forrester here." He sounded cold and not himself.

Fuck it. "Edward, Vittorio isn't his real name. It's the name he took after the Mother of All Darkness stripped him of his powers and cast him out. He's originally the Father of the Day, or the Day Father. He's as old as the dark, and he's been gaining powers as she's been losing them."

"How do you know all this?" he asked, and he didn't sound mad now.

"He visited my dreams last night, and so did she."

"Anita, are you..."

"Okay, for now. Someone else took your job, and I think they blew her up last night."

"Can he walk in the day?"

"Not last we know, but if he can't, he's close, but that's not the worst part." I told him about the jinn.

"If he gets all his power back, we'll have a vampire in this city as powerful as the Mother of All Darkness," he said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Grimes sent Rocco and Davey to check on you. I wish we had Davey going in with us if the jinn show up."

"Why, what's his skill set?"

"He can do weather change, but what he really does is move air."

"What?"

"He can harden air to make temporary shields that are bulletproof."

"Well, fuck, that's nifty," I said, "like a combination of weather magic and telekinesis."

"Yeah, but what would happen if he hardens the jinn, if they're really made of air?"

"Good question, I'll think on it. When they get here, we'll head your way."

"Do that, and Anita..."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right, Edward."

"See you there."

"Save some for me," I said.

"I read the reports from St. Louis. At least one female vamp and a human servant male."

"Yeah."

"Gotta run."

"Bye," but I was listening to nothing. He'd hung up, but he'd apologized. It might be a first.

I decided to check on my bodyguards next door. I actually called Haven's number. He answered, "Anita, thought you'd be busy all day. If you wanted a party, we have enough men over here." He sounded disgusted.

"Some bodyguards you are, I spent the morning being mind-fucked by Vittorio."

"What?"

"Didn't you think it was weird, all the weretigers going into my room?"

"You came to the door and told me that it was fine. You invited them all."

"Didn't you notice I looked weird?"

"No, you looked fine, normal. I swear."

"I would not have agreed to everyone that came in here."

"You mean the teenager," he said, and so matter-of-fact, it pissed me off.

"Yeah, the illegal one."

"Hey, first, sixteen is legal in Vegas, and second, as long as it's legal, what's wrong with young?"

"Ah." I handed the phone to Victor. "Tell him the bad news about your family."

I went to Sebastian, who was still nude. "Does anyone have clothes left?"

"It looks like someone ripped me out of my clothes," he said.

"Then get a robe." He turned obediently toward one of the bathrooms. "Wait, is there any other plan, or something you should tell me about Vittorio?"

"The policemen in the hospital who are asleep. Vittorio could see through my eyes when they attacked, and he ordered me to kill the witch, but he said to only incapacitate the others. It gave me enough room to put them to sleep."

"Is there a way to bring them out of it?"

"Yes, love's kiss."

"What?"

"They just need a kiss by someone who loves them."

"You mean like Sleeping Beauty?"

He nodded. "Yes, it's the original power that started Belle Morte's line: a vampire power that was powered by love." He frowned. "I really thought that someone's wife would have kissed them by now, just by accident."

"Does it have to be on the lips?"

"Yes."

"Does it have to be a thorough kiss?"

"More than a peck, and some emotion to it."

"Like think of how much you love them, or lust them?"

"Yes."

Every time I thought I'd heard the weirdest vampire power, I was wrong. I started to reach for my cell phone so I could call SWAT and tell someone, but the door sounded.

I went for it, but Crispin got there first. "Let me check, Anita."

He was right. So I let him. He turned from the peephole, smiling. "It's SWAT. Do you want us to hide?"

"Yes."

They hid. I told them to get dressed and not to leave Sebastian on his own. I opened the door to Rocco and Davey. "We have a daytime lair address for them."

"Shit, did you call it in?"

"Yes, and we'll meet them there, but I got other news." I locked the door behind me, checked to see it closed, and walked off with the two operators listening to me fill them in. I got a glimspe of Haven's Cookie Monster-blue hair around the cracked door. I nodded at him, and that was the best I could do. Haven had a police record and had been until lately a mob enforcer. You couldn't play with him and the cops. We'd try legal first; then if that failed us, there was always going outside the law. I kept that thought to myself as I filled in Rocco and Davey on the morning news.

Davey grinned. "For bullets, it's not a hundred percent reliable yet."

"What's your percentage?"

"Eighty."

"Seventy," Rocco said.

"Still, in a pinch, nifty."

He grinned, making that lovely mouth into just a happy smile. It made him look younger, fresher, somehow. "But a monster that is made of air, that I think I can mess with."

I was happy for him, and seventy percent success was good for some of the rarer talents, but frankly, I wasn't sure I wanted to go up against a giant that could rip apart someone in body armor, or cut someone to pieces with a whirlwind of blades. Seventy percent sounded like good odds until it was your life on the line; then not so good. But frankly, what else did we have? Then I realized I was being stupid. I knew that the practitioner who had died had had a spell that Vittorio had feared.

I started searching my phone for Phoebe Billings's number. If her coven member knew the spell, then chances were that as his high priestess, so would she, and I was standing with two other practitioners. If we could all learn it, we had a chance.