Skin Trade

32

EDWARD WAS YELLING in our ears. “Anita, Bernardo! Damn it!”

“We’re here,” I said.

“We’re cool,” Bernardo said.

“What happened?” Edward asked.

“The first room is a box that’s soundproof and electronics proof. We had to play twenty questions before they let us in.” I was looking around us as I spoke. It was a living room, just a living room. It was white and elegant, with windows that gave an amazing view of the Las Vegas Strip. There were huge white couches with cream and silver cushions. There were even a few touches of shiny gold in small cushions. The coffee table in the middle of the couches was glass and silver. I realized that it looked like a bigger version of Jean-Claude’s living room. It didn’t make me feel at home. It actually kind of creeped me.

“Talk to me, people,” Edward said in my ear.

“We’re in the living room,” I said.

“Nice view of the Strip,” Bernardo said.

“Thank you,” Rick said. He walked back to a hallway that was on the other side of the room. But before he got there, Ava walked out. They spoke low together, then she came on into the room, and Rick walked back until he vanished through the door at the end of the short hallway. It was like a changing of the guard.

I called after Rick and to Ava. “Where’s Crispin?”

“He’s safe,” Ava said, “I promise. We just want to talk to you without him for a few moments.”

“More tests?” Bernardo said.

“Not exactly.”

“Ava,” I said, partially so Edward would know she was here, “when do we get to talk to Chang-Bibiana?”

“Rick will tell her what you said in the outer room. Then either she will come out to meet you, or we will take you in to meet her.”

“What decides who goes where?” I asked.

“Chang-Bibi does.”

“When does Crispin join us?”

“When Chang-Bibi wishes him to.”

“She is the queen,” I said, and fought to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I probably failed.

“She is,” Ava replied. “Would you like to sit down?”

Bernardo and I exchanged glances. He shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

We took opposite corners of the couch. It put neither of our backs to a door, and it gave us the maximum view of the surroundings. We did it without asking each other. Bernardo looked at me as we settled into the overstuffed couch, and I looked back. He gave a small smile, not his flirting smile, but I think a smile at how we’d divided the room up.

“Would you like coffee, tea, water perhaps?” she asked.

“Coffee would be great,” I said.

“Water for me, if it’s bottled.”

“Of course.”

She left us alone in the huge, pale room, with the Vegas sun beating against the nearly solid wall of windows. Even with the air-conditioning blasting, you could feel the heat pressing in against the room, like something almost alive and with malevolent intent.

“Why bottled water?” I asked.

“Because if you travel, the new water is the thing most likely to make you sick. Stick to bottled and you can eat almost anything.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

Bernardo began to report the room through the headset. Which direction the windows were, the lay of the land, including doors and all exits.

Edward spoke in my ear. “You want to add anything, Anita?”

“Nope. He covered everything I see.”

“Thank you,” Bernardo said.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

A disgusted sound came through the earbud. “I wish you were in here with us, big guy,” Bernardo said.

“Yes,” was all that deep voice said, but it was enough to make me shiver, and not in a good, happy way.

“How do you really feel about Otto?” Bernardo asked.

I gave him a disgusted look. “Oh, right, like I’m going to discuss my personal feelings about team members over an open radio.”

He grinned at me. “I had to try.”

“Why?”

Whatever his answer was, I never heard it, because Ava came back from the hallway. Rick was with her, and Domino was back. Bernardo and I both stood up.

Ava spoke in a clear, ringing voice. “Chang-Bibi of the White Tiger Clan!”

The doors at the end of the short hallway behind the tigers opened. Chang-Bibi strode through the door, with Crispin on her arm. She was taller than me, because her head was a little above his shoulder, and then I had to revise that, because I saw her heels. Four-inch spike heels, and I was back to being unsure of her height. But other things were very sure.

White hair fell to her waist in perfect waves. She was wearing makeup that emphasized the pale, perfect blue of her tiger eyes in that human face. Her eyes tilted up at the edges, and there was something in the bone structure. It was as if her face held some genetic link to the long-ago Chinese origins of her ancestors. But, as I’d learned a few months back, the weretigers had been forced to flee China many centuries ago, in the time of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He’d seen all the preternatural races as a danger to his authority and had them slaughtered on sight. The weretigers had fled to other countries and been forced to marry outside the purity of their race, so most of them looked like the country they’d fled to.

There was something very exotic about Bibiana, and though they had similar hair and eyes, Crispin came off looking more ordinary. If you could have changed the eyes to human, he would have looked at home at any bar or club on a Saturday night. Chang-Bibi would have stood out anywhere, as if the aura of her difference was something that couldn’t be hidden.

She wore a white dress with long silky sleeves, and a V-neck so it showed off the spill of white breasts. The belt at the waist emphasized how tiny her waist, how curvy the body. She came from a time when being too thin was not in, and she looked voluptuous. That was the only word I had for it. She was voluptuous.

Someone touched my arm, and it was Bernardo. I looked at him, startled. “You okay?” he asked.

I nodded, but had to take a shaky breath. Fuck, she had bespelled me like some kind of vampire, but it hadn’t been eye contact. It was as if her very being attracted me. Fuck, again.

I called wolf again, but the white tiger snarled in front of the wolf. I didn’t want the beasts to fight inside me. One, it hurt-a lot. Two, I didn’t want the weretigers to know that I didn’t have perfect control of my beasts.

I let the wolf slide back inside. I was left with white tiger pacing inside me, and she was going to be no help against the fascination of the white queen.

“I am Bibiana, wife of Maximillian, Master Vampire of the City of Las Vegas, Nevada.”

Bernardo touched my arm again, and I nodded. “I am Anita Blake”-I hesitated-“girlfriend of Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City of St. Louis, Missouri, and U.S. Marshal.”

“Ava said you come on a social visit.”

“I do, but I would ask questions about the crime we are here to investigate. Solving it helps both your people and the humans.”

“Have you come here to visit with me, Anita, or to interrogate me, as a marshal?”

I licked suddenly dry lips. Why was I having such trouble concentrating? What was she doing to me? I’d never had this kind of trouble around a wereanimal that wasn’t one of the men in my life.

“I…” Why couldn’t I think?

Bernardo touched me again. That helped. I moved around so that I could take his right hand in my left one. It left both our gun hands free. He raised eyebrows at me, but didn’t take his hand back. I was just glad it was Bernardo; anyone else on our little team, and one of us would have had to compromise their gun hand. The moment his hand was warm and real in mine, I could think a little more clearly. Interesting. I hadn’t even had to call up the ardeur, just another human hand to touch, and Chang-Bibi’s fascination was less.

“I am honored that you agreed to see me, but would you honor me with answering some questions that are more my job than social? I beg your indulgence, but it is a most… frightening crime.”

“It is most sad that our good policemen have been so slaughtered.” Her face showed distress, and she hugged Crispin’s arm a little tighter to her. She moved first, and he escorted her to the couch opposite us. She sat down, smoothing her skirt out.

Crispin took a step toward me. I let go of Bernardo and held out my hand. Crispin started for me with a smile.

“Crispin,” she said, “sit by me.”

His face looked less happy, but he did what she told him. He sat beside her, and the moment she laid her hand on his thigh, I was fascinated again. I could almost feel the weight of her hand on my own thigh.

“Shit,” I whispered, and took Bernardo’s hand again. The touch helped steady me, but I was beginning to realize what was wrong.

“What’s wrong?” Bernardo asked.

“I think she’s using Crispin to get to me.”

“Very good, Anita. I am his queen, and though he is your tiger to call, I am still his queen. Through your tie to him, I am your queen, too, so it seems.”

I shook my head. “I need your help to solve these crimes. Your husband, Max, told the police here that I’d help sort things out.”

“Max wanted you here, and so did I,” she said. She began to trace small circles on Crispin’s thigh. I could feel it on my leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“She’s not going to help us,” I said, and turned for the far door, Bernardo still hand in hand with me.

“I have every intention of helping you, Anita,” she said.

I turned back, putting my other hand higher on Bernardo’s arm. The reality of his muscled warmth helped me think. I wasn’t sure why, but it was almost as if anyone and anything that wasn’t tiger was useful. Then I had a thought: was it tiger, or was it white tiger?

“Then stop the mind games.”

“I needed to know if Crispin was more yours than mine. But not only can he not resist my touch, but through him, I also have a door into you. Very nice.”

“Why do you want a door into me?” I asked.

“Because it is there,” she said, and looking into her face, there was nothing there to talk to. It was a human face, but the expression in it gave me the feeling I’d gotten a couple of times when I stared into the face of a wild animal. There was that same neutrality. Bibiana didn’t want to hurt me, but she didn’t not want to hurt me either. It didn’t move her either way. It’s not the same thing as being a sociopath, but it’s close. It meant that she wouldn’t think like a human being. She’d think more like a tiger with a human brain. It changed everything about this interview. It meant that I couldn’t reason with her the way I could have with Max. It might mean I couldn’t reason with her at all.

“What’s happening, Anita?” Edward said in my ear. It startled me, made me jump.

“If your friends wish to join us, by all means bring them in. Listening devices are so impersonal,” she said.

I licked my lips again and tried to fight down my rising heartbeat. “The other marshals are holding our weapons for us. Rick didn’t want us to bring in an arsenal.”

She glanced back at Rick. “Are they that dangerous?”

“Yes, Chang-Bibi, I believe they are.”

She nodded, and turned back to us. “I trust Roderic’s judgment on such things.” She touched Crispin’s bare hand, and the power jumped like an electric charge through me.

Bernardo jumped, too. “What was that?”

“Power,” I said, “her power.”

“She sent it through the kid, to you?”

I didn’t argue with Crispin being “the kid”; it wasn’t just his age but the feel of him. “Yeah,” I said.

“Will you stop the power games long enough to answer some questions?” I asked.

“I will, if you do one thing first,” she said.

I knew it was a bad idea, but… “What do you want me to do?”

“Call Crispin to your side. If you can call him away from me, then I will answer your questions with no more games.” She smiled as she said it, but it was like watching the tiger in the zoo smile. You knew it didn’t mean it.

I squeezed Bernardo’s hand, then let go. He leaned in and whispered, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not,” I said.

“Then why do it?”

“Because she’ll keep her word. If I can call Crispin to me, away from her, she’ll answer our questions.”

“It’s still a bad idea,” he said.

I nodded. I took the Browning BDM out of its holster and handed it to him. “Bibiana seems to fascinate me like a master vampire, sort of. Just in case she decides to try to see how much control she has over me, I’d rather you have all the guns.”

“You think she’s going to mind-fuck you that badly?” he asked.

“I think she’s going to try.”

Edward was in my ear. “Just get out of there, Anita. We can find this information out somewhere else.”

I said, “Excuse me” to our hosts, and turned my back to talk out loud to Edward. “Night is going to come, Edward. Whatever killed these cops was deadly in the daylight. When you add their vampire masters to the mix, it’s going to be even worse. There is nowhere else to go for weretigers in Vegas.”

“Can she roll you, completely?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bernardo,” Edward said.

“Yeah, boss,” he said.

“If she goes, don’t be a hero, yell for us.”

“Don’t worry, Ted, I’m no hero.”

“Fine, we’ll be listening. Be careful, Anita.”

“As a virgin on my wedding night.”

There was a sound, I think it was Olaf. Maybe I had amused him, or maybe he just thought I was being stupid. He might be right on that second part.