Skin Trade

“I do.”

“You seem calm.”

“I’ve got my goals.”

“Your objectives,” he said.

“If you like.”

“And they are?”

“Rescue my friend before he gets more hurt. Save all the civilians. Send the ji

“Is he really capable of that much damage?”

“Think of an army of the things that killed your officers loosed on the city. Think of Vittorio able to broadcast his mind control over the populace.”

“You think he’s that good?”

“Not yet, and we have to keep it that way. I believe that we have to do everything within our power to make certain he dies today.”

“You might be interested to know, Marshal Blake, that the governor signed off on the stay of execution for the vampires at last night’s club.”

“That’s good, Lieutenant. I mean that; they don’t deserve to die.”

“Your report carried weight.”

I nodded, but was already looking up the street to the police cars, the barricades, and the next fight.

74

ROCCO AND I were standing outside Trixie’s with our hands clasped on our heads. We’d stripped down to T-shirts, pants, and boots for him, jogging shoes for me. A man who looked human but talked like Vittorio had his hand up his ass was saying, “Turn around, slowly, so we can see.”

We did what he said to do.

The man seemed to be listening to something in his head. He nodded, and walked forward. He patted us down, thoroughly, top to bottom. “You have no weapons, very good,” he said, but it was Vittorio’s inflections. “Now, come join us.”

“Let the customers go first, like you promised.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I did.” The man was speaking, but it was really Vittorio using his body to do the talking. His ability to manipulate humans had grown more complex, more complete, in less than twenty-four hours. He had to die.

The man walked back through the doors. A few minutes later, people ran out. Dozens of them spilling out into the street into the arms of the waiting police, who hurried them to safety.

The man was in the door. He motioned toward it. “After you, Anita, and Sergeant Rocco, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Come on down,” he said, in a mock a

“Let the man go, too,” I said.

“I said customers; he works behind the bar,” the man said, talking about himself in the third person. He even had the smile Vittorio had used in the dream. It was an unsettling echo on the stranger’s face, like a face on the wrong person.

The body he was using held the door for us. “Come inside, out of the heat.”

Rocco and I looked at each other; then we lowered our hands, slowly, and went for the door. Neither of us looked back; we wanted to give our eyes as much time as possible to adjust to the darker interior of the club.

The dancers were huddled in the center of the room, at the chairs where the customers usually sat. They looked up hopefully as we entered, but the ji

I felt the air move close to me and jerked back instinctively. I felt the passage of wind. A different ji

I ignored the question, but I swear that the ji

Rocco whispered, “I don’t think they like you now.”

“You feel it, too.”

“Oh, yes.”

The man opened the door and held it for us, with a smile. I moved ahead of Rocco, as we’d discussed. Vittorio wanted me alive; he didn’t have the same feeling about the sergeant. So he had to bite his pride and let me take the most chances. Besides, we needed him alive to say the words over the ji

The back room was as I’d seen it through Vittorio’s eyes. Rick and Bria

Ava was near Rick. She had a knife in her hand and played it along his skin as I watched. She didn’t cut him, just caressed him with it. There were weretigers scattered throughout the room. Their energy hummed through the air like wires stripped down, so you could feel the bite of it if you got too close. Most of them looked blank, as if waiting for instructions. How many people could he control at once, and how well?

I forced myself to see the room slowly, and not go straight to Requiem. I didn’t want to give Vittorio any more reason to hurt him. The more I cared, the more danger Requiem was in.

But Vittorio wasn’t standing by the table; he was sitting on the edge of the bed with Max and Bibiana. He’d stripped from the waist up so that his scars were very, very visible. They’d transferred Bibiana to the bed, she was tied with her hands above her head, around one bedpost, so that her body crossed one of Max’s arms, where his one arm was still tied to the one post. Her feet were chained to one of the bed legs, but she was short enough that her legs didn’t cross her husband’s body at the legs. She looked pale and delicate, a cliché princess waiting for rescue. Max was missing his shirt. Apparently, we’d had a little striptease while they waited, but he had kept his word. There was no new damage to their bodies, just some of their clothes.

“We’re here. Now what?”

“I want what I’ve wanted since I invited you to Vegas with my gift.”

“You mean the human head in a box?”

He smiled happily and nodded.

“Next time, just send a box of chocolates,” I said.

“Oh, but any man can do that. I thought my gift would be unique.”

I smiled, and could feel that it wasn’t a good smile. “Actually, I did receive a head in a basket once, as a gift.”

The smile was just gone, like it hadn’t existed. The old ones could do that-expression, then nothing in the blink of an eye. “Well, then, Anita, I will have to do something to prove myself unique among your admirers.”

I would have given a lot to take back that smart-ass comment. It had been true, but I could still have kept it to myself.

“Oh, trust me, this invitation was unique.”

“No, Anita, you’re right, I must try harder.” He was angry with me, as if I’d insulted him. “Let us play a game.”

“We came here to negotiate for the release of hostages,” Rocco said.

“And so we shall, Sergeant.” He patted Max’s bare stomach. “Come closer so you can see.”

We hesitated.

“Here is the first rule. When you make me repeat myself, something happens to one of your hostages.”

There was a sound from the other side of the room. Ava was carving a new cut down Rick’s chest. He didn’t scream, but a small sound had escaped him. Ava raised the blade to her mouth and licked the blood delicately away.

I turned back to Vittorio.