Obsidian Butterfly

I had a peripheral sense of the how full the room was of crowding bodies. The energy was thick enough to choke on. I heard a noise to the right and did three things almost simultaneously. I pointed the Browning at the noise, drew the Firestar left-handed to point at the man with the ponytail, and let my eyes flick to the side to see what I'd heard. Good that I'd been practicing left-handed firing drills. The heavy slithering sound came again from behind the bar. The bar was in my section of the room. It was my ball, so to speak. I felt the others surging forward like a trembling tide about to swallow us all. We could shoot a lot of them, but there had to be over a hundred in this room and we were dead if they all came at once.

Fear tightened my stomach, jerking my pulse into my throat. Just like that the numbness was gone, chased away by adrenaline, and the musky scent of wolves. There were more wolves than just the two in front of me out in that packed, darkened room. I could smell them. My stomach jerked again, but not from fear. The mark that tied me to Richard, tied me to his pack, was alive again. It flared in my body like a tiny flame reborn, waiting to be fed so it could grow. Great, just great. I had to worry about it later. My concentration was all used up.

The ponytailed man just stood there smiling. He was handsome in a rough around the edges, tattooed prison sort of way. Even in the dimness his eyes flashed wolf amber, not human. I also knew what, or would that be who, I was looking at. This was their Ulfric, their wolf king. He stood in a space of emptiness with most of the pack huddled further back into the room, and yet his power made up for theirs. His power filled the nearly empty side of the room with a flesh-creeping energy like thunder just before it strikes.

The tension was thick enough that I had to swallow some of it before I could speak. "Greetings, Ulfric of the Los Lobos clan. What's shaking?"

He threw his head back and laughed, a big hearty, good-natured sound that ended with a howl that crawled out of his human throat and down my spine. "Nice effect," I said, "but this is an official police investigation into the mutilation murders. I'm sure you've heard about them."

He turned those startling pale eyes to me. "I've heard."

"Then you know that we aren't investigating your pack."

He laid a casual hand on Nicky, who whimpered even though I don't think it really hurt. "Nicky is my vargamor. If the police wish to speak with him, then they must ask me first." He smiled, and I was close enough to notice that his teeth were human, no fangs for the Ulfric.

"Sorry. The only other pack I've ever met that had a vargamor doesn't make you talk to the Ulfric first. My apologies on the oversight." I hoped whatever we were doing was going to be over soon, because I couldn't keep up the gun in each hand stance for long. I'd practiced left-handed, but it was still my weak hand, and the bite in it was already starting a faint tremble in the muscles. I had to be able to lower my hand soon or it would begin to shake.

"If you were the police, then I would accept your apologies. We are always ready to help the police." That last brought a wave of snickers from the packed house. "But I don't see any police in this room."

"I'm Anita Blake. I'm a vampire executioner …»

He cut me off. "I know who you are. I know what you are." I didn't like that last, made me nervous.

"And just what am I?"

"You are the lupa of the Thro

But I understood the rules now. I'd insulted him, and he had to wipe out that insult. I'd try sweet reason, but I didn't have much hope for it. Besides, my left arm was getting tired. Hell, so was my right. Whatever was behind the bar moved in a huge roll of motion that you could feel and hear. It sounded bigger than a werewolf.

"I flew down here on police business. I did not enter your lands as lupa of the Thro

"But you contacted my vargamor." He slapped Nicky's thigh, and that did seem to hurt, because he closed his eyes and writhed at the touch, straining through his gag to scream.

"I didn't know Nicky was your vargamor until after I'd talked to him. No one told me that this bar was your lair. You're Ulfric. You can smell that I'm not lying."

He gave a small nod. "You tell the truth." He looked at the small man on The bar, ru

"Lupa's often just another word for the Ulfric's girlfriend," I said.

He turned those golden eyes to me, more gold because of the heavy black eyebrows that framed them. "Nicky agreed to help you without asking me later, or even telling me about your visit." He gave a low growl that refreshed the fading goosebumps on my skin. "I am Ulfric. I lead here." He slapped Nicky and fresh blood trickled from his nose.

I badly wanted to put a stop to the abuse, just out of principle, but I didn't want it badly enough to die for it, so I waited and watched Nicky Baco bleed. I didn't like it, but I let it happen. My left hand was begi

"Anita," Edward said, and just the tone of my own name was enough. He was quietly telling me to hurry it up.

"Look, Ulfric, I didn't mean to walk into some i

"Humans are fun," he said. "Sex and a meal and you never have to leave your car. But-you-do-not-make-them-your-queen!" His voice rose until with the last word he was screaming. Howls echoed him from the mob that was pressing close and closer.

"Anita," Edward said, and this time there was more of a warning to his voice.

"I'm working on it, Edward."

"Work faster," he said.

"You're a racist, Ulfric," I said.

He stared at me. "What?"

"I'm human so I'm good enough to fuck, good enough to kill but not good enough to be your equal just because I'm human. You're a racist chauvinistic big bad wolf."

"You come into my lands, ask aid of my pack, give no tribute to me or my lupa, and now you're calling me names." I don't know if he made some kind of psychic signal or his anger was enough, but the two giant wolves at his feet began to stalk forward on stiff legs.

My left hand was begi

"What?" and he sort of laughed when he said it.

"The first thing that jumps any of us, and I shoot you. No matter what else happens today, you'll be dead. Your two pony wolves better stop right where they are."

"Your hand is shaking so badly, I don't think you've got it in you to kill anyone."

It was my turn to laugh. "You think my hand is shaking because I feel remorse about the thought of shooting you. Boy, have you got the wrong girl. Look at my right hand, Ulfric. It's not shaking. A walking corpse took a bite out of my left hand a couple of days ago, so I'm a little shaky with my left, but trust me. I hit what I aim at." This is usually when I give my victim full eye contact and let them know I'm not bluffing, but I was divided between the Ulfric and his entourage, and the bar. "How many of your wolves are you willing to sacrifice for your wounded pride?"