Skin Trade

44

I SPOKE OVER the noise of the sirens. “Let go of me.”

He leaned his mouth in closer and spoke next to my ear. “We have little time, and there are things you need to know.”

I fought my muscles not to tense and keep trying to push him away. I tried to relax into him, but finally had to settle for just nodding. “Talk.”

“I felt your power in Gregory’s house.”

“That wasn’t just my power. Sanchez had messed with me.”

“I do not mean when the energy changed and was not you.” So he had felt Marmee Noir. I wondered if he knew what it had been, if he’d sensed Her. “I felt your energy, Anita. Together we might be able to force Bendez out into the open.”

“How?” The car careened around another corner, and only Victor’s death grip on the door and me kept us still. I wondered, if we wrecked, would he be able to hold me? I needed my seatbelt, but he kept whispering in my ear, kept holding me close, and I kept not moving away.

“I can sense him, and combined, you and I might force him into the open.”

“How do we combine?”

“I read the article you wrote for The Animator about combining powers between yourself and your two fellow animators for raising more and older dead. It is not dissimilar to that.”

I wanted to turn, to see his face, because he’d read the business journal for my profession. The only reason to do that was to research me. But turning my head would have put those whispering lips from ear to mouth, and that didn’t feel like an improvement. The car was going about a hundred miles an hour, and Cox drove like a maniac in a line of maniacs. The speed, the driving, put my pulse in my throat and scared the hell out of me, but still I let Victor hold me, still I hadn’t pushed away and gone for a seatbelt. I wore a seatbelt like a religion, but it was like I couldn’t move. I could only listen to that soft, masculine voice in my ear. It all sounded so reasonable, and in that moment, I was no longer certain if it was really reasonable or if Victor was rolling me like some sort of vampire. I couldn’t tell anymore. That couldn’t be good, could it?

The car slid to a screeching stop. Cox opened all the doors, and Victor let me slide away from him, though his hand slid down to hold mine. But just the hand was better. I could think without him wrapped around me. Fuck.

Cox put a hand on Victor’s shoulder, shaking his head. “Civilian, stay in the car.”

I kept pulling on Victor’s hand. He kept trying to hold on. Officer Cox said, “Let go of Marshal Blake, Mr. Belleci.”

Victor’s fingers fell away from me, and I pulled to make it happen sooner. Something was wrong when he touched me. Something that had never happened with any other wereanimal, not even the ones that were my animals to call.

The moment Victor wasn’t touching me, it was as if I could draw a deeper breath. Surrounded by sirens, lights, police officers, guns, and not yet knowing what officer was down and how deep the shit; and it was already better. I moved the MP5 on its tactical sling to my hands, ready to go, and followed at Cox’s heels. He was tall enough that his back was my view, but that was okay. He was letting me come along, and eventually I’d find Edward.

Then something flew over our heads. We all ducked instinctively, and it took a moment for my mind to catch up to what my eyes had seen. Someone in Vegas PD uniform had just been thrown completely over our heads, to hit on the far side of a second line of cars.

“Fuck!” Shelby said.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.