Skin Trade

“What does he want?” Hooper asked.

“Me, as his human servant.”

“You already belong to the master in St. Louis, right?” It was Ca

What was I supposed to say? “Something like that.”

“Then he’s too late,” Ca

“He thinks he’s powerful enough to take me away.”

Hooper was standing there, not moving but watching my face. “Is he?”

“Not tonight, he wasn’t.”

Hooper’s mouth made a small movement; maybe it was a smile, maybe not. “Let’s not give him another night.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

I turned to Ca

“Sorry, Anita, but I only do memories.”

“Shit, can’t any of you sense this kind of thing? Where’s Sanchez?” I asked.

“Why?” Olaf asked.

“I thought he might have sensed the metaphysics.”

“He’s with the second team. They’re going to scout Bering’s house,” Edward said. “Grimes wanted his practitioners to see if they could sense the demon.”

“Why aren’t you with Sanchez?” I asked Rocco.

“My ability is touch and memories. I’m not touching a demon on purpose, and I don’t want those memories.”

Edward said, “They’re trying to see if they can sense the demon, so we can make entry closer to the targets or farther away from them, depending on what they find.”

“Give me a gun, and let’s get out there.”

Edward was beside me; he handed me my own backup gun from a pocket in his tac pants.

Rocco said, “You have vampires right here; why chase demons?”

“This is a hostage situation. I’m not a negotiator.”

Bernardo came up. He had blood ru

The people from the crowd who had tried to beat the hell out of police officers were being given blankets and hot drinks by Red Cross workers. The team doctor was checking them out, with his med tech by his side. I heard a man say, “I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I had to do what the voice in my head told me to do. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t.”

I stepped in front of Rocco, and he stopped, looking at me. “If Sanchez and the other practitioners can sense the demon, it can sense them. If it’s what killed the other operators, it could come out and trail them by their own magic.”

“Most demons aren’t that bright,” Edward said.

“We’re aware that some preternatural beings can sense psychic ability, Marshal. We’ve got them warded so their”-he made a waffling motion with his hand-“signature is garbled.”

I was impressed and said so.

“Psychic ability is just another part of the job for us,” he said. His radio crackled to life, and he turned to listen. He started to do a slow jog, and the rest of us just fell into step with him. All right, the men slow-jogged; I had to fast-jog. My legs were shorter. “The vampires have given up. They’ve freed the hostages, and they surrendered.”

“What’s the catch?” I asked. If anyone heard me, they didn’t answer, but I knew there was a catch; with vampires there was always a catch.

64

SOMEONE HAD HIT the lights in the club so that it was bathed in bright lights. Lower-rent strip clubs are not meant to see bright lights; they reveal all the cracks and bad paint patch-up jobs. They show the illusion for what it is: a lie. A lie about sex, and the promise of having it, if you just pay a little bit more money. Nathaniel, my live-in sweetie, had explained to me that dancers make their living on the customer’s hope that real sex is possible. It’s all about advertising but never really selling. Under the harsh overhead lights, the scarlet women looked like even if they were selling, you wouldn’t want to buy.

The dancer who had lost an ear was being rushed to the hospital, with the idea that they might be able to sew the ear back on; the wound was fresh enough. The other dancers were in the back rooms being interviewed, because we had the vampires in the front area between all the little stages. The vampires were chained in shackles with the new special metal that some of the bigger, more well-funded police forces had for preternatural criminals. It was some uber-space-age metal. I hadn’t seen it put to the test yet, so I’d wait before putting my faith in it too completely.

The vampires sat in a sad-looking row, their hands held awkwardly in front of them because the chain went to their waist and their ankles. I had to admit that even if they broke the metal, they probably wouldn’t be able to break enough chain to attack before we could get a shot off. Maybe just shackles were a good idea, though you had to get up close and personal to shackle a prisoner, and to my knowledge, the only person in this room who was immune to vampire gaze was me.

Olaf was circling the chained vampires. He was staying out of reach, but he paced them, like a cattleman looking over a herd that he was thinking of buying. Or maybe that was just me projecting. Maybe.

Edward and Bernardo were interviewing the dancers. Why was I with Olaf? Because the dancers knew a predator when they saw one, and even after an evening of being held prisoner by vampires, some of them spotted him for what he was, and it wasn’t helping to settle their nerves. For a good interview, Olaf needed to be elsewhere. Why didn’t I interview the women? Because I could get as up close to the vampires as possible and not risk being bespelled. My specialty led me squarely to the other room. But Edward had said something to Sergeant Rocco, aka Ca

“Okay, guys, this is the drill. We’re going to escort you one at a time into another room and ask you what happened. Don’t talk amongst yourselves while we’re gone. Marshal Jeffries and some of the nice SWAT operators will still be in the room, so mind your ma

They all promised like eager kindergarteners. There wasn’t a vampire in the room that I would have been afraid of, one on one. But there were ten of them, and ten was a lot. Ten of any kind of vampire would have been scary. Hell, ten human beings all rush you at once and you won’t get them all.

Officers helped the first vampire up to shuffle into a small room behind the bar. It was where the liquor was kept, and they put him in a chair that they’d found just for this. I knelt by the first vampire and found myself gazing into the face of a slightly plump man with pale brown eyes and hair to match. He smiled at me, careful not to show fang. He was trying to be all harmless, friendly, helpful, but I knew that of all of them, he was the oldest. I could feel him in my head, like an echo of time. He was three hundred if he was a day. He was dressed neatly, too neatly for the heat, for the town, for what he was pretending to be. He had pale slacks and a slightly darker tan shirt tucked in and buttoned up. The belt was good leather and matched the shoes. His nondescript brown hair had been cut recently and well. The watch on his wrist was gold and expensive, though once it doesn’t say Rolex, I can’t tell you what it is, but thanks to Jean-Claude I know quality when I see it.

I smiled at him. He smiled back. “Name?”

“Jefferson, Henry Jefferson.”

“Well, Mr. Henry Jefferson, tell me what happened.”

“Honestly, officer, I was in the casino, playing poker, and he came to stand by the table, just outside the ropes.”