Skin Trade

53

THE BODY LAY in a broken heap in an alley behind the club she worked at, as if when they dumped the body they’d brought her home. The last body dump in St. Louis had been just outside the club where the dancer worked, too. But that one had been clean compared to this, just vampire bites. Death by exsanguination. This woman hadn’t had time to bleed to death.

I realized that this one, like most of the body dumps in St. Louis, was in a place where shadows would hide some of the damage. Almost as if even the killer couldn’t face what he’d done in bright light.

The woman’s neck was at an angle so sharp that I could see spine poking against the skin of the neck, not quite through the skin, but close. The neck was ugly and wrong, but that was nothing compared to what he, or they, had done to the rest of the… body.

There were burns on half her face, and going down one side of the body. The skin was red and angry and blackened and peeling, and the other half of her body was perfect. Pale and young and beautiful, paired with the blackened ruin of the other half of her.

Bernardo took a sharp breath in and walked a little way down the alley. I forced myself to stay squatted by the body, and tried not to smell anything. The alley didn’t smell that good to begin with, but usually burned flesh overpowers everything else. This didn’t. The burns weren’t that fresh, or they would’ve smelled more.

I swallowed hard and stood up, letting myself look at the people around me instead of the body. I had to keep thinking of it, really hard, as the body, because to humanize it at all would be too much. It wouldn’t help me solve this crime to think about what this woman had gone through. Honest, it wouldn’t.

Shaw stood there, staring down at the body, with a look on his face that I could only describe as lost. Morgan had rejoined us, telling us that he had the subpoenas in the works. He now seemed to think it was his idea, and was back to not being all that friendly with me. I was actually relieved. Whatever I’d done to him seemed to be short acting. Detective Thurgood had joined us in her ill-fitting skirt suit, sensible high heels, and bad attitude. But no one’s attitude was particularly rosy, so it was okay.

I asked them, “Have the other bodies looked like this?”

“Not like this,” Shaw said.

“No,” Morgan said.

Thurgood just shook her head, lips in a line so thin that her mouth was almost invisble in her face. From the lips and the lack of talking, I was betting she was fighting off nausea.

“Were the other bodies burned?” I asked.

“The last two, but not nearly this bad,” Shaw said.

“Are you even sure it’s the same guy from St. Louis? He never did anything like this in your city,” Morgan said.

“How do you know what he did in my city?” I asked.

“We talked to Lieutenant Storr, and he filled us in,” Shaw said.

I didn’t want to tell them that Dolph had not told me about the inquiry from Vegas. I didn’t want to admit that someone who I was supposed to be working with had cut me out of the loop completely. So I pretended like this wasn’t news and went back to trying to pretend that half the cops I worked with weren’t treating me like a perp.

“Vittorio and his people didn’t burn any of the bodies, but yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s him.”

“How can you be sure, if this wasn’t his MO in St. Louis or any of the other towns?” Morgan asked.

Edward had moved up beside me, not too close, but close enough to let me know that he had understood that Dolph hadn’t told me. That he understood how much that might bother me.

“Because this is what the Church used to do to vampires they could capture alive. They used holy water, which burns like acid. It was supposed to burn the devil out of them. But the only two I know of personally that were treated like this were both beautiful, very beautiful. It’s a lot about the dark side of the Church; they say they did it to save the soul, but they usually pick victims that satisfy some need in them.”

“Are you saying the Church was like a serial?” Thurgood finally spoke in a voice that was a little choked but still nicely angry.

“I guess; I just find it interesting that the only two men I know who were treated like this were very fair of face and body, and they were burned like this. I’ve never heard of a vamp that started life as plain that they did this to. I’d be interested to know if it was the same priest, or group of priests.”

Thurgood again. “Are you saying that beautiful men were some priest’s victim profile?”

“I guess two isn’t a pattern, maybe a coincidence, but if I find a third, than yeah, that’s what I’d be saying.”

“That’s a monstrous lie,” she said.

“Hey, I’m Christian, too, but there are bad guys in every profession.”

“What does it matter what some priest that has been dead for hundreds of years did or didn’t do?” Bernardo said. He’d walked back to join us at the body. “We can’t catch him; he’s already dead. We need to catch Vittorio.”

“The marshal’s right,” Shaw said. For a minute it was a little unclear which marshal he meant; then he said, “We need to catch the live ones.”

“Are you saying that this vampire is trying to duplicate his own injuries?” Morgan asked. It was almost like he was ignoring them both.

“Looks like,” I said.

“The others died of blood loss; there was no broken neck,” Shaw said.

“Maybe they took pity on her,” Bernardo said.

We all looked at him.

He nodded toward the body. “Maybe one of Vittorio’s people put her out of her misery.”

“Or maybe they got tired of her screaming,” Olaf said.

We looked at him then; I think anything was better than looking at the body. Olaf was still staring at the body. If it bothered him, it didn’t show.

“Or maybe she passed out from the pain, and it wasn’t fun anymore,” Shaw said.

“You don’t pass out from this,” Bernardo said. “You don’t sleep. You don’t rest. You don’t do anything but hurt unless they can get enough drugs in you, and even then, sometimes the pain overrides it.”

“You talk like you know,” Shaw said.

“I had a friend that got burned bad.” He looked away so that he wasn’t looking at any of us. Whatever experession was on his face, he wanted to keep it to himself.

“What happened?” Shaw asked.

“He died.” Then Bernardo walked away from us. This time he walked farther, pushing his way through the crowd, until he found a piece of alley to lean against. It put him closer to the reporters, who started shouting out questions when they saw his badge and the gloves on his hands. He ignored them all, just closing his eyes and leaning back. Whatever he was seeing, or trying not to see, cut out anything they could shout at him.

“Is he right,” I asked Olaf, “you never stop screaming or pass out?”

“I do not know,” Olaf said. “I do not like fire.”

I realized that though it didn’t seem to bother him to look at the body, he wasn’t enjoying it the way he had the bodies in the morgue. He liked blades and blood, but not fire. Good to know, I guess.

I turned to Shaw. “We need to see the other photos, the other victims. Especially the last two.”

He looked at me, frowning. I was getting a lot of that in Vegas. “There’s nothing in the reports from St. Louis that you guys actually saw Vittorio. How do you know he’s burned?”

I fought to keep my face even, empty, not to widen even my eyes, because I had forgotten. I knew Vittorio’s fate from a letter from his lady love, who had left him after St. Louis, afraid for her life and her new lover’s life. She hadn’t been able to deal with his madness anymore. She’d even helped us in St. Louis, putting the bodies where’d we’d find them sooner, trying to leave clues. The letter had come to Jean-Claude, as Master of the City. It had never occurred to me to share it with the cops.

Jean-Claude had checked with the vampire council about Vittorio and had it confirmed. But again, I hadn’t shared it with the police. It hadn’t seemed important then.

I thought about what to say now. “I asked some of my vampire informants if they had any background on him.” Even to me it sounded lame.

“What else did your vampires tell you?” Shaw said, and disbelief was firm in his voice.

“Just that the holy water burns are bad enough that he’s probably unable to perform sex, so he puts all that energy into this.”

“The vampires told you that?” This from Thurgood. She gave good disdain. The alley’s shadows couldn’t hide the scorn, or maybe it was just that with the short hair you could see it clear and hard. Or maybe I was just being overly sensitive.

“No, they told me the burns are bad enough he can’t function. I made the logical leap about what that kind of anger might do to someone who was going to have to live forever in a body that damaged.”

“You should leave the profiling to the professionals, Blake,” Shaw said.

“Fine, but I’ve told you what I know.”

“Why isn’t it in the notes on the case?”

“Because I didn’t find it out while the case was going on. In fact, for a while they said the case was closed.”

“You told me why you were the only one who believed you hadn’t killed Vittorio in that condo in St. Louis.”

“No one we killed was powerful enough to be him,” I said.

Shaw stepped close, looming over me. “You know what I think, Blake? I think you saw Vittorio. I think you saw him face to face. I don’t think you learned any of this from your vampire friends. I think you learned it in person.”

“Then why isn’t he dead?”

“You’re so sure you could kill him?”

“Fine, then why aren’t I dead? Because I promise you this, Shaw, if we met face to face, it would be one or the other.”

“Maybe he was one of your vampire lovers.”

I looked down at the ground, trying not to get angry.

“You aren’t going to deny it, then?”

I finally looked up and didn’t try to hide that I was pissed. “I’ve tried to be a good sport here, but I’ve already told you, if reports are accurate, then he’s not capable of sex. And trust me, if I’d seen him, I’d have tried to whack his ass.”

“Intercourse isn’t possible, but a girl as busy as you are should know there are other things you can do.”

Thurgood and Morgan came up by Shaw. Thurgood said, “Sir, why don’t we step back a little.”

Edward touched my shoulder, which meant I’d probably made some involuntary movement toward him. Edward leaned over and whispered, “File a complaint.”

I nodded. “Do you want me to file an official complaint for sexual harassment? Is that what you want?”

“File and be damned, but you know more than you’re sharing with the humans, Blake.”

“Even if that’s true, Sheriff,” Morgan said, now actually standing between us, “this isn’t the way. We have reporters watching us.”

Shaw glanced back, then forward. “I was willing to believe the rumors weren’t true until I saw you hand in hand with one of Max’s weretigers and then kissing his son, also a weretiger. You claim that you just met him, and just met Gregory Minns, but no one, no one, makes friends that fast. You managed to convince some of my best men that you’re telling the truth. But I know”-he hit his big chest hard-“you fucked at least one of Bibiana’s guards, maybe more. I know that you’re no more human than the things that tortured that girl.” He pointed dramatically at the body.

What he’d just said was wrong, odd. “Which guard did I fuck?” I asked, watching his face.

He seemed to hear himself and shook his head. “How do I know, all cats are gray in the dark,” he said.

“How do you know I fucked anyone when I went to visit Bibiana?” I asked.

He fought to put his cop face back on, but it was shaky around the edges. “You came out holding hands with one of her tigers.”

“Crispin’s a stripper, like you said, not a guard. If you’re going to accuse me in front of the other policemen, you need more proof than just me holding hands with someone.”

“Maybe your reputation precedes you, Blake.” He made it mean, but it lacked a certain edge.

I was pretty sure I knew now why Shaw had gone from distrustful to hostile, and it wasn’t just issues with his wife. He’d heard tapes from our visit to Bibiana, which meant that someone had the apartments bugged. It had to be federal of some flavor, and they’d let Shaw hear just enough to smear my reputation to hell.

I tried to hear what it might have sounded like if all you had was the sound with Domino and Crispin and the rest. Would it sound like sex? Maybe. It would if that’s the interpretation you wanted to put on it. You often find what you’re looking for if that’s all you look for; expectation becomes truth.

Bernardo had come up behind us all when it looked like it was going to get interesting. He’d heard, so he got to say, “What flavor of Fed are you friends with, Shaw?”

Morgan and Thurgood had moved back from him, as if he were suddenly contagious, and maybe he was. Some Fed had let him listen in to an ongoing investigation, and he’d just spilled the fact that they had successfully bugged Max’s home to people that Shaw thought had fucked their people and were maybe more on their side than the cops.

“Shaw,” Morgan said.

Thurgood just stood there, hands at her sides, not quite looking at him, as if that would make it better. If you don’t see it, then it didn’t happen, maybe.

He knew he’d fucked up; it was there in his eyes, caught in a line of light in all the shadows. He talked to us then. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marshals. With Blake’s rep, why wouldn’t I think she’d fucked every tiger in the place?”

He’d tried for mean, but I smiled sweetly at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“You can still save this,” I said, “just ask.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was going to pretend that he hadn’t said too much. Thurgood and Morgan would probably back him on it. Did he trust that I’d play ball just because I had a badge?

“Ironic,” I said, “you’ve just finished telling me I’m more on the side of the monsters, but you’re counting on me being a good cop. You’ve accused me of fucking multiple weretigers, but you’re depending on me honoring the badge above my supposed lovers. Or is it just that you’ll pretend you didn’t say it, and it will go away? I didn’t think cops did that. I thought cops looked things in the face.”

“You said it yourself, Blake; you’re an assassin, not a cop.”

I smiled, but this one wasn’t sweet. “Perfect, Shaw, perfect.”

Edward moved me back with a hand on my shoulder, so he was facing Shaw. “Bernardo, take Anita for a walk, that direction.” He pointed away from the reporters.

Bernardo started walking, and I fell in step beside him. I half-expected Olaf to protest that he wanted to go on the walk, but he moved up to be at Edward’s back. Good to know that we were there to back each other up. I wasn’t sure about some of the Vegas cops anymore.

Bernardo led me past the body, and as if we’d agreed, we didn’t look at it much. We just walked until the alley was a little darker without the lights they’d set up at the far end. Though what got me to stop was that the smell was less sour here, and a few more feet and we’d run into another group of cops holding the other end of the alley.

“That was interesting,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“They’ve got the place bugged.”

I nodded again. I tried to think of everything I’d said in the apartment. I couldn’t remember all of it, but it had been enough.

“You’re trying to remember everything you said, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“If all I had was the sound, I might think sex, and I’d so believe that you could shapeshift for real.”

“Which will cost me my badge.”

“Not until they’re willing to admit how they got the recording,” he said.

“With Shaw blabbing, who knows?”

“Do you feel conflicted?”

I looked up at him, studying his face in the dim light for what little it did me. “Do you mean, am I going to go tattle to the tigers?”

He shrugged.

“No,” I said.

“You wouldn’t want Jean-Claude’s place bugged.”

“No, but we sweep for listening devices on a regular basis. Max should, too.”

“So you won’t tell because it’s sloppy business practices on Max’s part?” He started to lean against the wall, then thought better of it and stopped in midmotion.

“Partly, but I am a federal officer. I do have a badge. Max is into criminal activities. How can I blow an operation that may save lives?”

“So, badge first,” he said, softly.

I glared up at him, not sure he could see it in the dimness. “What, you believe what Shaw was saying, that I’m more loyal to the monsters than the police?”

He held up his hands as if holding me off. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that if I had all your issues, I might feel conflicted.”

I sighed. “Sorry, but I’m tired, Bernardo. I’m tired of having the other police think I’m one of the freaks.” I shook my head. “Hell, I’m not sure they’re wrong. I’ve begun to wonder if I can serve the badge and my other master at the same time.”

He leaned forward. “Are you thinking of hanging it up?”

It was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“I can’t see you not doing this, Anita.”

“Neither can I, but… Shaw isn’t the first cop to think my loyalties are divided. He won’t be the last. I’m a walking sexual harassment suit lately. It’s like sleeping with vampires and shapeshifters offends the police at some really basic level.”

“Oh, I know that one.”

I looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He grinned, and I could see the flash of it even in the shadows. “It’s the idea that if you prefer the monsters, then the rumor that they’re better in bed than us mere mortals may be true. That would squick a lot of men, and a badge doesn’t change that. In fact, maybe cops are more guy than most guys, so it bothers them more.”

“That sounds… childish for a cop.”

“I didn’t say they were thinking it in the front of their heads, but somewhere in the back, where all those Neanderthal urges still live, they are wondering if just being human makes them less in every way than the monsters.”

I tried to look past that flash of smile and see what was underneath, but it was too much shadow. I finally said, “Is that how you feel?”

He shook his head. “I had a lady leave her wereanimal lover for me.”

I smiled; I couldn’t help it. “That must have happened in the last two years because when we first met, you were a little insecure about my werewolf lover.”

He shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I say, I am as good as I think I am.”

That made me laugh. “Oh, nobody’s that good.”

“Are you saying I’m conceited?”

“Yep.”

He laughed, then his face sobered, and he turned so that some stray patch of light caught his face. He was suddenly serious, painted in shadows and light like some abstract photo. “No brag, Anita, just fact. I’d love to prove that to you someday.”

“I do not need to have the other cops hear that kind of shit from another man right now.”

“I’m still willing to help you feed.”

“I thought you were creeped by what happened with Morgan.”

He frowned, thinking about it. “I was.”

“I thought that would make you take the offer to feed the ardeur off the table.”

He frowned harder, making creases between those big, dark eyes. “Yeah, actually I thought it had changed my mind.”

“So, why the renewed offer?”

“Habit, maybe.” But the frown stayed.

I had an idea, and not a good one. I did need to feed soon. In fact, I should have felt more energized, less “hungry,” because Victor was supposed to have helped share his energy with me. But maybe all he’d been able to do was help me heal. I’d used up a lot of energy healing and fighting, and Belle Morte had been right about me feeding only the minimum to get by lately. We were also past the twelve-hour mark, when food was usually a good thing. Then I realized that I hadn’t eaten any solid food, either. Shit, I knew better than that. One hunger did feed the other, and if I didn’t eat enough real food, both my beasts and the ardeur rose faster and stronger. I knew this, but in the middle of a case, it was hard to find time to be human. Was I accidentally shopping for food now? Was I trying to bespell Bernardo without knowing it? It was the not knowing that creeped me the most.

“I need to get some food.”

“You can eat after seeing that?” He didn’t motion at the body; it was just implied really loudly.

“No, I’m not hungry.”

“Then I…”

“If I don’t eat solid food often enough, it makes it harder to control all the other hungers,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, then frowned. “I’m thinking something really inappropriate, even for me.”

“Do I want to know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You’d be pissed.”

If it was bad enough that Bernardo wouldn’t say it out loud, then it was bad. That he’d thought of it, then thought better of it, was a sign that something was wrong. I was betting that I was what was wrong. Was the ardeur calling to Bernardo? I didn’t even know how to tell.

“Okay, let’s get back to… Ted, and see if we can get the files we need from the locals.”

“If you want to eat tonight, it has to be before we see more crime photos.”

“Agreed,” I said.

We turned and started walking back toward the knot of men and the remains of Vittorio’s latest victim.