Skin Trade

65

IT WAS LESS than two hours before dawn. I was so tired I ached, but the vampires were all still alive. They were chained to gurneys in the morgue, and since the morgue had a room designed for only one vamp at a time, the coroner and all of his people hadn’t been too happy to see ten of them, but Grimes had used his own men to act as extra guards. The guard duty was volunteer only, but his men had looked at him like he was crazy; if he said it was a good thing, it was. Besides, he’d explained it like this: “No one died tonight; if we do this, no one dies tomorrow either.”

Edward hadn’t been happy with me. Bernardo had been amused. Olaf had left me alone, caught in his own thoughts that I wanted no part of. I’d actually let Sergeant Rocco drop me at my hotel because Edward didn’t offer. Normally, it would have hurt my feelings, but not over this.

“I’ve never tried my talent on a real vampire before,” he said in the quiet of the car.

“How different was it?” I asked, still gazing out at darkened buildings on the street. Like most streets in most cities, everything was closed on this street. Just before dawn, even the strippers get to go home.

“They’re still people, but it’s as if their thoughts are slower. No,” he said, and something about how he said it made me look at him. His profile in the light and shadow of the streetlights was very serious. “It was like those insects frozen in amber, as if the memories that were clearest to them were old, and what happened tonight with our killer was mistier for them.”

“I’ll bet that was only true of Henry Jefferson and Sarah,” I said.

He glanced away from the road to me. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“They were the oldest. You know how with some people, when they get old, the past is more clear than the present to them?”

He nodded.

“I think for some vampires, it’s like that, too. The ones who haven’t succeeded but just survived. I think they look back on their glory days.”

“Does your vampire boyfriend do that?”

I resisted the urge to ask, Which one? and played nice. “No, but then he’s the master of his city.”

“You’re saying he’s happy now.”

“Yeah.”

“Henry was wearing a watch that cost more than this truck. He’s not doing bad, so why was his most vivid memory of a time when women wore long dresses and curls, and he was in vest and suit with a pocket watch and a top hat?”

“Did he love the woman?” I asked.

Rocco thought about that, then said, “Yes.” He looked at me again. “I’ve never been able to pick up love images before, Anita. I’m good at violence, hate, the dark stuff, but tonight I got soft images and had to work at the harsh. Did you do something to me when I read you?”

“Not on purpose,” I said, “but I tend to have an effect on vampire powers.”

“I’m not a vampire,” he said.

“We’re alone, Rocco, and you wanted to talk to me alone, so no more lies. You know, and I know, and your men know, that you feed on the memories you gather.”

“They don’t know.”

“Cannibal is your call sign. They know; at some level, they know.” I settled back into the seat, and we turned onto the Strip, and I suddenly knew where everyone was; they were here. The street looked the same at hours before dawn as it had closer to midnight. “I thought New York was the city that never slept,” I said.

Rocco laughed. “I’ve never been there, but the Strip doesn’t sleep much.” He glanced at me again, then back to the bright lights and the animated billboards. “You fed on my memory, too.”

“You showed me how.”

“By me feeding on one memory, you learned how to turn it on me, just like that?”

“Apparently,” I said.

“Where are you staying?”

“The New Taj,” I said.

“Max’s place.” He said it like it was a bad thing.

“Max knows if he lets anything happen to us, it might be a bad thing. He’ll keep us safe to keep the peace.”

“Your boyfriend that big in the vampire world?”

“We do okay,” I said.

“That didn’t answer the question.”

“Nope, it didn’t.”

“Fine.” We were at the light in front of the Bellagio, with the fake skyline of New York close by and the Eiffel Tower in sight. It was like the world had been pared down and squished into one street.

“Ask the question you wanted to ask, Rocco.”

I half-expected him to protest, but he didn’t; he finally asked, “You’re like me. You feed from your power.”

“From raising the dead? I don’t think so.”

“It’s something to do with sex or love. I feed on violence, the memory of it, but you feed on softer emotions, don’t you?”

I debated on how to answer; maybe I was just tired because I told the truth. “Yeah.”

“Am I going to keep seeing softer things?”

“I don’t know. It’s like we traded a little power.” I looked at the pirate ship, the fire, and it was surreal, unreal, like some dream where nothing makes sense.

“Have you ever shared power like that before?”

“I can act as a focus for psychic ability for raising the dead.”

“What does that mean?”

“I can share power with other animators, and combined we can raise more, or older, dead.”

“Really,” he said.

“Yeah, I wrote it up for the magazine The Animator a few years back.”

“Email me the back issue, and I’ll read up on it. Maybe practitioners here can do something similar.”

“Your abilities aren’t very similar.”

“Ours weren’t either.”

“We’re both living vampires, Cannibal; that’s similar enough.”

He glanced at me, and it was a longer look. “The law hasn’t expanded to psychic vampires yet.”

“They don’t want to understand it enough to regulate it.”

He grinned. “Too many politicians would be on the wrong side of it.”

“Probably,” I said.

He gave me that glance again. “You know any?”

“No, just being cynical.”

“You’re good at it.”

“Why thank you, always high praise from a cop.” I had the feeling that he still hadn’t asked all of his questions. I waited in the bright neon silence, punctuated by darkness between the lights, as if the night were thicker anywhere the light didn’t shine. My mood was showing in my head.

He pulled into the big circular drive at the New Taj. I realized I should have called ahead and had some of our people meet us. I’d expected to be dropped off by Edward and the boys, and I would have been safe enough. Now it was just me.

“You want me to walk you up?”

I smiled at him, hand on the door. “I’m a big girl.”

“This vampire has a serious hard-on for you, Anita.”

“You ask all the questions you wanted privacy for?” I asked.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re blunt?”

“All the damn time.”

He laughed again, but there was an edge of nerves to it. “Do you ever get tempted to feed on more than you should?”

The doorman, or the valet, or someone, was at the door. I waved them off. “What do you mean, Rocco?”

“I can take a memory, Anita. I can take it and erase it from their mind. I did it accidentally a few times. It’s like it becomes my memory, not theirs, and it’s a high. It’s a rush. I think if I let myself, I could take it all, every bad memory they’ve ever had. Maybe more. Maybe I could take everything and leave them blank. I think about how it might feel to take it all.”

“Tempts you, doesn’t it?” I said.

He nodded and wouldn’t look at me.

“Have you ever done it?”

He gave me a look of shock, of horror. “No, of course not. It’d be evil.”

I nodded. “It’s not about being able to do something, Rocco. It’s not even about thinking about doing it. It’s not even about being tempted to go too far.”

“Then what is it about?” he asked.

I looked into that very grown-up, very competent face, and watched the doubt in his eyes. I knew that doubt. “It’s about deciding not to do it. It’s about being tempted but not giving in. It isn’t our abilities that make us evil, Sergeant, it’s giving in to them. Psychic ability isn’t any different from being good with a gun. Just because you could walk into a crowd and take out half of them doesn’t mean you will.”

“I can lock my gun up, Anita. I can’t take this out of me and put it somewhere safe.”

“No, we can’t, so every day, every night, we make the choice to be good guys and not bad guys.”

He looked at me, hands still on the steering wheel. “And that’s your answer: we’re good guys because we don’t do bad things?”

“Isn’t that what a good guy is?” I asked.

“No, a good guy does good things, too.”

“Don’t you do good things every day?”

He frowned. “I try.”

“Rocco, that is all any of us can do. We try. We do our best. We resist temptation. We keep moving.”

“I have to be older than you by a decade; why is it that I’m asking you for advice?”

“First, I think I’m older than I look. Second, I’m the first one you’ve met that you thought might be tempted in the same way. It’s hard when you think you’re the only one, no matter how old you are.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience,” he said.

I nodded. “Sometimes, sometimes I’ve got so much company I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Like that,” and he nodded toward the window. It was Truth and Wicked, patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation. Had they been watching for me, or had they just known I was here? Did I want to ask? Not unless I was ready for the answer.

“Yeah, like that. I turned back to him and offered him my hand. “Thanks for the lift.”

“Thanks for the talk.”

We shook, and there was no magic between us now. We were both tired, our fires dimmed behind use and emotion. He got out and helped us unload the car. The overeager bellman was allowed to touch my suitcase and nothing else. Most of my really dangerous stuff was still locked up at SWAT, but there was enough here that I didn’t want the staff carrying it. Wicked and Truth took the extra bags. Sergeant Rocco offered his hand to them. They were surprised by the offer, though he probably didn’t see the signs of it. They shook his hand. He said good night to me, and “See you tomorrow.”

“We’ll start in the area where he found all his vampire victims tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe his lair will be in the area.” He got in his truck. We went for the doors. I wished I felt more secure that Vittorio only hunted near his lair. It seemed like an obvious mistake, and he didn’t strike me as the kind to make those.

Wicked and Truth didn’t say much until they got to the elevator and we were alone. “You seem tired,” Truth said.

“I am.”

“You fed on both of us, and you’re tired already,” Wicked said. “Should we be insulted?”

I smiled and shook my head. “It was a stressful night, and no, it’s no reflection on either of you. You know just how good you both are.”

“A backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it,” Wicked said.

“I wasn’t fishing, I was just saying you seem tired.”

“Sorry, Truth, sorry, just a long damn night.”

They exchanged a look, which I did not like. “What was that look about?”

Wicked said, “Requiem is waiting in your room.”

“I figured that my room would have the coffins, or the adjoining room.”

“That’s not what he means,” Truth said.

“Look, I’m beyond tired, just tell me.”

“He’s waiting to feed you,” Wicked said.

“I fed on both of you less than”-I squinted at my watch-“less than six hours ago. I don’t need to feed the ardeur.”

“Jean-Claude gave instructions that you needed to have food available more often if you wanted it.”

“Did he now?”

The elevator doors opened. “He’s worried that you’ll lose it with the police as your only food, Anita,” Wicked said.

I thought about that and couldn’t argue that it wouldn’t be very bad. “I do not feel in the mood, guys.”

“We’re just giving you a heads-up, Anita,” Wicked said.

“Did you guys tell him I fed on you both?”

They exchanged that look again.

“What?”

“We came through the door, and he said, ‘She fed on you. She fed on you both.’ ”

“How did he know?” I asked.

They shrugged, and it was like a mirrored gesture. “He said he could smell you on our skin.”

“He’s a vampire, not a werewolf.”

“Look,” Wicked said, “don’t shoot the messenger. But he’s waiting in your bed, and if you turn him down, I don’t know how he’s going to take it.”

I leaned my back against the wall between two doors that were not ours. “Are you saying he’s jealous that I fed on you guys?”

“Jealous may be too strong a word,” Wicked said.

“Yes, he was jealous,” Truth said.

Wicked frowned at his brother. “You don’t have to live up to your name all the time.”

Truth shrugged again.

“And this is exactly why Jean-Claude put you in charge during the night shift, and not Requiem,” I said.

“Because he’s a moody bastard,” Truth said.

I nodded. “Yeah.” I pushed away from the wall and looked at my watch. “We’ve got an hour until dawn. Shit.” I stopped walking, because I was in the lead. “Gentlemen, I don’t know what room we’re in.”

Wicked led the way, and Truth brought up the rear, with me in the middle. We got to the room. Wicked used the little key card, pushed the door open, and held it for me.

It was a nice room. Big, a little too red and lush for my tastes, but it was a nice suite. We’d have no complaints about Max’s hospitality on rooms when we got back home. The outer room was a real living room with a table for four near the windows that looked out over the brightness of the Strip. There was a coffin near the door, but only one.

“Where are you sleeping?”

“Our coffins are in the other room for tonight. You have less than an hour; enjoy.” They put my bags by the closed door that had to lead into the bedroom, and then they left.

“Cowards,” I hissed.

Wicked stuck his head back around the door. “He doesn’t like guys, and neither do we.”

“You didn’t mind an audience earlier,” I said.

“We don’t, or I don’t, but Requiem does. Good night.” He closed the door, after taking the privacy sign with him. I realized that Jean-Claude hadn’t put Wicked in charge of just the vampires at night but me, too. I guess, in fairness, that Requiem wasn’t the only moody bastard still in the room.

But this kind of thing was exactly what had gotten Requiem moved lower down the food chain for me. He was like one of those boyfriends that the harder you try to break up with them, the harder they hang on. This was also the kind of thing that made me want to go back to my own house and leave most of them somewhere else.

I just wanted to get some sleep before I had to get back up and go out and hunt Vittorio again.

The door to the bedroom opened, just enough to show the line of his body, one hand, an arm, a spill of long, thick, dark hair. In the dimness of the room, with the backlight, the waist-length hair looked very black. It was hard to tell where the black robe he wore ended and the hair began. The skin that showed at chest and neck and face was pale as the first light of dawn, a cold beauty like snow. The Vandyke beard and mustache were black, darker than the hair. They framed his mouth the way you would frame a work of art, so that your eye was drawn to it.

I let my eyes rise higher, because that was my real failing. I was an eye man, or woman. A pretty pair of eyes really did it for me, always had. His eyes were blue and green like Caribbean seawater in the sun, one of the most startling shades of blue that I’d ever seen outside contact lenses, and his were natural. Belle Morte had a thing for blue-eyed men, and she’d tried to collect him, as she had Asher and Jean-Claude, so she’d have the darkest blue, the palest blue, and the greenest blue that was still blue. Requiem had fled the continent of Europe so he didn’t become another of her possessions.

A minute ago, I’d wanted to say, “I’ve been hunting serial killers all day, honey, can’t I take a pass?” Now all I could do was stare at him, and know that there was nothing to do but admire the artwork.

I dropped the bags in my hands and went to him. I slid my hands inside the half-opened robe to caress that smooth perfection of skin. I laid a kiss on his chest and was rewarded with the sound of his breath sighing outward.

“You were angry with me when you first came in the room.”

I gazed up at his six-foot-even frame, hands on his chest. I was still wearing too much weaponry to fall into his arms. “Then I saw you standing there, and I realized that you’d worried all night. You’d wondered where I was, and what was happening, and I didn’t call. You were left wondering if dawn would come and you still wouldn’t know I was safe.”

He nodded, silently.

“I’m a bad husband, Requiem, everyone knows that.”

His hands found my shoulders, traced my upper arms, as he said, “… the heart’s tally, telling off / the griefs I have undergone from girlhood upwards, / old and new, and now more than ever; / for I have never not had some new sorrow, / some fresh affliction to fight against.”

“I don’t know the poem, but it sounds depressing.”

He gave a small smile. “It’s a very old poem; the original was Anglo-Saxon. It’s called ‘The Wife’s Complaint.’ ”

I shook my head. “I’m trying to apologize, and I don’t know why. You always make me feel like I’ve done something wrong, and I’m tired of it.”

He dropped his hands away. “Now I’ve made you angry.”

I nodded, and started moving past him into the bedroom. No one was pretty enough for this level of need. I just didn’t know what to do with it. I kept my back to him while I stripped out of the vest, the weapons, all the paraphernalia of my day. It made quite a pile on my side of the bed. It was the side I slept on when there was only me and one man in the bed. Lately, that hadn’t been often. I didn’t mind being in the middle, God knew, but some nights there were too many, and this was one night when just one more was feeling like too many.

I heard the robe on the carpet; silk has such a distinctive sound. I felt him just behind me, felt him reach for me. “Don’t.”

I felt him go very still behind me. “I know you do not love me, my evening star.”

“I have too many men in my life that I love, Requiem; why can’t we just be lovers? Why do you have to remind me constantly that you love me, and I don’t love you? Your disappointment is like a constant pressure, and it’s not my doing. I never offered love, never promised it.”

“I will serve my lady in any way she will have me, for I have no pride left where she is concerned.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’re quoting; just go.”

“Look at me and tell me to go, and I will go.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “No, because if I see you, I won’t. You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful in bed. But you’re also a pain in the ass, and I’m tired, Requiem. I am so tired.”

“I didn’t even ask you how your night had gone. I thought only of my own feelings, my own needs. I am no true lover, to have thought of only myself.”

“I was told you were here to feed the ardeur.”

“We both know that’s a lie,” he said, voice soft and close. “I’m here because it broke my heart to know that you slept with the Wicked Truth.”

I started to say something angry. He said, “Hush, I can’t help feeling the way I feel, my evening star. I have asked Jean-Claude to find me a new city, one where I can be someone’s second-in-command rather than a distant third.”

I turned around then and searched his face. “You’re telling the truth.”

He gave that slight smile. “I am.”

I hugged him then, molding our bodies together the way you do with someone when you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been together. You know each other’s bodies. You know the music of their breathing when sex perfumes the air. I hugged him to me and realized that I would miss him. But I also knew he was right.

He stroked my hair. “It helps to know that you will miss me.”

I raised my face to look into those blue eyes with their flash of green around the pupils. “You know I find you beautiful and amazing in bed.”

He nodded and gave that sad smile again. “But all your men are beautiful, and all of them are good in bed. I want to go somewhere that I have a chance to shine. A chance to have a woman love me, Anita, just me. You will never love just me.”

“I’m not sure I will ever love just anyone,” I said.

He smiled a little wider. “That is something, to know that you frustrate Jean-Claude, too. I never thought to see anyone who could resist him.”

I frowned up at him. “I haven’t exactly resisted.”

“You are his lover, his human servant, but you are not his.”

I started to step back, and he hugged me closer. “He said almost the same thing on the phone. Do I have you to thank for that little talk?”

“I told him why I needed to leave, and he agreed. That is why I am here in Las Vegas, to see if I would like to visit.”

“I don’t think it’s your kind of town.”

“Nor I, but it is a start. I will see their show, and I will dance, and women will think me beautiful, and they will want me, and eventually I will want them.”

“There isn’t enough of me, Requiem, not to date all of you. I can have sex with this many men, but I can’t be everyone’s lady love; no single woman could.”

He nodded. “I know. Now, kiss me, kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me like you’ll miss me. Kiss me, quick before dawn, because when you finish hunting your killer, I won’t be going back with you. If I don’t like Vegas, then the Master of Philadelphia is looking for a second, and she’s requested a man of Belle’s line if she can get it.”

I looked up into his face and realized this really was it. He meant it. I went up on tiptoe, and he lowered his face to mine. I kissed those lips, gently at first, like you’d touch a work of art, afraid to scratch it, and then I let my hands and mouth kiss him the way he was meant to be kissed. Kiss him the way you kissed someone when the touch of their mouth, the weight of their hands, the rise of their body was like food and drink to you. I couldn’t give him my heart, but I gave him what I could, and it wasn’t a lie. I loved his body, and the press of his sad poetry; I just didn’t love him. God knows I’d tried to love them all, but my heart just didn’t seem to stretch that big.

He drew away first, laughing, eyes bright with the attention. “It is too close to dawn for me to do justice to such a kiss. I know you do not let even our master sleep in your bed once he dies for the day, so I will go to my box. I will send warmer bed partners to you, so that you will not be alone, and you can feed when you wake.”

“Requiem,” I started, but he touched fingertips to my lips.

“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I felt the first hard, hot tear trail down my face. He moved his fingers from my lips to catch my tears. He kissed them from his skin, then kissed them from my face. “That you would cry for my parting means much.” Then he left, closing the door gently behind him.

I went to the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. I’d wash the tears away. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. I was just tired. I heard noises and turned off the water, to have Crispin call out. “It’s us, Anita.”

I had a moment to wonder who “us” was, because Crispin didn’t know any of the other wereanimals who had come from St. Louis, or not well enough to bring them to bed with him. I’d found that heterosexual men are very picky about who they bring to bed, boywise. It’s more about friendship than sex. More about trust, than lust. I thought about peeking out and seeing, but it seemed like too much trouble. So tired. Crispin and whoever would still be there when I was done. I came out of the bathroom wearing the robe off the door, which covered me from shoulder to my toes. The two men in my bed were wearing nothing but the bedsheet at their waist. Two naked men in my bed, both cute enough. Problem was, one of them I’d never seen nude.