Obsidian Butterfly

"I would be a fool if I wasn't," I said.

He cocked his head to one side in an almost bird-like movement. "And you are not a fool, are you, Anita?"

"I try not to be."

He motioned to the woman still standing behind the bar. "Paulina does not like you. Do you know why?"

It was my turn to shake my head. "Nope."

"She's my wife."

I must have still looked blank. "Sorry, I don't understand."

"She knows I have a weakness for women with power."

I frowned at him. "She doesn't have to worry. I'm sort of taken."

He smiled. "No more lies, Anita. You and he are not lovers." He took my hand again and gazed up at me with those black eyes. I realized for the first time that he considered himself a ladies man. And that his wife had reason to worry, not about me, but about other women. It was there in his eyes, the way he stroked my hand.

I drew my hand away from him and moved back to stand with Bernardo. I actually reached out my hand, and he took it. Both our hands were sticky from the bar, but I clutched at him.

Baco was half a body-length shorter than I was, but he made me nervous. Part of it was the push of his magic like a thick curtain filling the room. But part of it was the way any man can make you nervous. I didn't like how blatant he was, with us unarmed. I glanced at Paulina, and her harsh face was stricken. Was it a game he played with her? Tormenting her? Who knew, but I wanted out of here.

"I need to be somewhere before dark. If you don't want to talk to me, fine. We'll go." I started moving backwards, using my body to push Bernardo behind me towards the door.

"Without your weapons?" Baco made it a question, his voice lilting upward.

Bernardo and I froze. We were close enough to the door that we could have made a rush for it, probably made it, but … "Our weapons would be nice," I said.

"All you had to do was ask," Baco said.

I said, "May we have our weapons back?"

He nodded. "Harpo, give them back."

Harpo never questioned it, just gave us back the guns, the knives. Then he stepped back to join the rest of the silent watchers. The guns and wrist knives were easy to slide into place. The knife in its spine sheath was another matter. I had to use my left hand to feel for the sheath, then feel the blade's tip at the mouth of the sheath. I'd gotten in the habit of closing my eyes so that all I concentrated on was touch. It actually took only a few seconds now to put it away. The real trick was not chopping off a hunk of my hair as the blade slid home.

When I opened my eyes, Baco was looking at me. "So nice to see a woman who doesn't rely exclusively on sight. Touch is such an important sense for intimate occasions."

Maybe being armed again made me brave, or maybe I was just tired of the tension level. "Men who turn everything into a sexual come on are such bores."

Distaste, anger filled his face, turning his charming eyes to black mirrors, like the eyes of a doll. "Too good to fuck a dwarf?"

I shook my head. "It's not your height that's the problem, Baco. Where I come from, you don't do shit like this in front of your wife."

He laughed then, and it sparkled through his eyes, his face. "The sacrament of marriage? You're offended for my wife's sake? You are a fu

"Yeah, me and Barbara Streisand."

The humor faded a little from his face. I don't think he got the joke. Strangely, it was the young girl in her short-shorts that met my eyes. I think she got the joke. If she liked early Streisand movies, maybe she wasn't a completely lost soul.

Bernardo touched my shoulder, and I jumped. "We're leaving now, Anita."

I nodded. "I'm with you."

"You never asked your questions," Baco said.

"Have you felt it?" I asked.

His face was suddenly serious. "There is something new here. It is like us. It deals in death. I have felt it."

"Where?" I asked.

"Between Santa Fe and Albuquerque though it began closer to Santa Fe.

"It's moving closer to Albuquerque, to you," I said.

For the first time he looked uncertain, not quite afraid, but not happy either. "It knows that I am here. I have felt that, too." He stared up at me and now there was no teasing in his eyes. "It knows that you are here, too Anita. It knows you are here, too."

I nodded. "We might be able to help each other, Nicky. I've seen the bodies. I've seen what this thing does. Trust me, Nicky. You don't want to go out that way."

"What do you propose?" he asked.

"That we pool our resources and see if we can stop this thing before it gets here, to you. And that we stop playing games. No more teasing. No more power plays."

"Just business between us?" he said.

I nodded. "We don't have time for anything else, Baco."

"Come back later tonight, and I will do what I can to help you. Though the police will not want you to share information with me. I am a very bad man, you know."

I smiled. "You're a bad man, Nicky, but not a stupid one. You need me."

"As you need me, Anita," he said.

"Two necromancers are better than one," I said.

He nodded, face solemn. "Come back tonight when you are finished with your police business. I will be waiting."

"It may be late," I said.

"It is already later than you think, Anita. Pray, if you are the praying sort, that it is not too late."

"Anita?" Bernardo said.

"We're going." I let Bernardo back us out the door, his hand on my shoulder guiding me backwards. I got to watch the room, trusting him to make sure nothing was coming up behind us through the door. The werewolves just watched us, not happy, but willing to take orders. Baco had to be their vargamor, their resident witch. I'd just never met a pack that feared its vargamor before.

It was Paulina's face that stayed with me. She was staring at Baco, and the hatred on her face was raw. I knew in that instant that once she had loved him, really loved him, because only true love could twist to such hatred. I'd looked into Paulina's eyes across the barrel of a gun. I think Nicky Baco had more problems than just monsters in the desert. If I were him, I'd be sleeping with a gun.

38

WE ARRIVED AT THE hospital with the world wrapped in a heavy blue dusk. A twilight so solid it was like cloth, something you could wrap around your hands or wear like a dress. I'd called ahead using Ramirez' cell phone. How do you prove that someone is really dead? I'd seen the "survivors." They drew breath. I assumed they had a heart beat or the doctors would have mentioned it. Their eyes looked at you and seemed to be aware. They reacted to pain. They were alive.

But what if they weren't? What if they were only vessels for a power that made Nicky Baco and I look like backstreet charlatans? There might have been a spell to prove it, but you couldn't take the results of a spell to court and get permission to burn the bodies. And that was what I wanted.

I finally came up with brain waves. I was betting that the higher functions of the brain weren't working. It was the only thing I could think of that might show that something was wrong with the survivors other than not having skin and missing body parts.

Unfortunately, Doctor Evans and company had done monitored brain wave activity long ago. They all had higher brain functions. So much for my brilliant idea. Doctor Evans had wanted to talk in the doctor's lounge, but I'd insisted we talk closer to the survivors' room than that. We talked in low tones in the hallway. He wouldn't let me talk in front of the survivors about the fact that they might be dead. Because if I was wrong, it might cause them distress. He had a point. But I didn't think I was wrong.

The survivors already at the hospital had become agitated and violent, snapping at the hospital staff like dogs on chains. No one had been hurt, but the timing coincided with the last murders. Why had the ski