Skin Trade

“And the men screamed for a long time,” Shaw said.

“Yeah, ghouls, but yeah, they did.” I heard my voice utterly cold. I couldn’t afford to feel anything yet.

“I thought modern phosphorus didn’t do all that,” he said.

“Everything old is new again,” I said.

“I’m begi

“The grenades aren’t what make me scary, Shaw.”

“What does?” he asked.

“That I’m willing to use them.”

“It’s not being willing to use them, Blake. It’s being willing to use them again.”

I thought about that, and finally said, “Yeah.”

“Call me when you have your flight arranged.” His voice was unhappy with me, as if I’d said something else that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I know. Give me your direct number, if you’re my go-to guy.”

He sighed loud enough for me to hear it. “Yeah, I’m your go-to guy.” He gave me his extension and his cell phone number. “We’re not going to wait for you, Blake. If we can catch these bastards, we will.”

“The warrant of execution died with your vampire executioner, Shaw. If you guys kill them without me or another executioner with you, then you’ll be looking at charges.”

“If we find them, and we hesitate, they’ll kill us.”

“I know that.”

“So what are you telling me to do?”

“I’m reminding you of the law.”

“What if I said I don’t need a fucking executioner to remind me of the law?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have a friend with a private plane. That’s probably the fastest way to get to you.”

“Your friend, or your master?”

“What did I say to piss you off, Shaw?”

“I’m not sure; maybe you just reminded me of something I didn’t want to remember. Maybe you just made sure I know what may have to happen in my town before this is over.”

“If you want pretty lies, you have the wrong marshal.”

“I heard that about you, that and that you’ll fuck anything that moves.”

Yeah, I’d pissed him off. “Don’t worry, Shaw, your virtue is safe.”

“Why, not pretty enough for you?”

“Probably not, but I don’t do cops.”

“What do you do?”

“Monsters.” I hung up. I shouldn’t have. I should have explained the rumors, and how it wasn’t true, and how I had never let sex interfere in a case, much. But there comes a point when you just get tired of explaining yourself. And, let’s face it, you can’t prove a negative. I couldn’t prove I didn’t sleep around. I could only do my job to the best of my ability and try to stay alive, oh, and try to keep everyone else alive. And kill the bad vampires. Yeah, mustn’t forget that part.

I had other phone calls to make before I could leave town. Cell phones are wonderful things. First call was to Larry Kirkland, fellow U.S. Marshal and vampire executioner. He answered his own cell phone on the second ring. “Hey, Anita, what’s up?” He still sounds young and fresh, but in the four years we’d known each other, he’d acquired his first scars, along with a wife and baby, and was still the main person for the morgue stakings. He had also refused to kill the shoplifter. In fact, he’d been the one who called me from the morgue to ask what the hell to do about it. He’s about my height, with bright red hair that would curl if he didn’t cut it so short, freckles, the works. He looks like he should be going out with Tom Sawyer to play tricks on little Becky, but he’s stood shoulder to shoulder with me in some bad places. If he had one fault, other than that I wasn’t entirely a fan of his wife, it was that he wasn’t a shooter. He still thought more like a cop than an assassin, and sometimes that wasn’t good in our line of work. Oh, and what did I have against his wife, Detective Tammy Reynolds? She didn’t approve of my choices in boyfriends, and she kept wanting to convert me to her sect of Christianity, which was a little too Gnostic for me. In fact, it was one of the last Gnostic-based forms of Christianity to have survived the early days of the church. It allowed for witches, read psychics in this case. Tammy thought I’d be a fine Sister of the Faith. Larry was now a Brother of the Faith, since he, like me, could raise zombies from the grave. It’s not evil if you’re doing it for the church.

“I’ve got to fly to Vegas on a warrant.”

“You need me to cover while you’re gone?” he made it a question.

“Yep.”

“Then you’re covered,” he said.

I thought about giving him more details, but I was afraid he’d want to come with me. Endangering myself was one thing, endangering Larry was another. Part of it was that he was married and had a baby; the other part was that I just felt protective of him. He was only a few years younger than me, but there was something still soft about him. I valued that, and feared it. Soft either goes away in our business or gets you killed.

“Thanks, Larry. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Be careful,” he said.

“Aren’t I always?”

He laughed. “No.”

We hung up. He’d be pissed when he learned the details about Vegas. Pissed that I hadn’t confided in him, and pissed that I was still protecting him. But pissed I could live with; dead, I wasn’t sure about.

I also called New Orleans. Their local vampire hunter, Denis-Luc St. John, had made me promise that if Vittorio ever resurfaced I’d give him a chance to get a piece of the hunt. St. John had almost been one of Vittorio’s victims. Months in the hospital and rehab after had made him pretty adamant about helping kill the vampire that put him through all that.

It was a woman’s voice on the other end of the phone, which surprised me. To my knowledge, St. John didn’t have a wife. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I have the right number. I’m looking for Denis-Luc St. John.”

“Who is this?” the woman asked.

“U.S. Marshal Anita Blake.”

“The vampire executioner,” and she made it sound like a bad thing.

“Yes.”

“I’m Denis-Luc’s sister.” She said Denis-Luc with an accent I couldn’t match.

“Hi, could I speak to your brother?”

“He’s out, but I’ll give him a message.”

“Okay.” I told her about Vittorio.

“You mean the vampire that nearly killed him?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why would you even call him?” Her voice was definitely hostile now.

“Because he made me promise that if this vampire resurfaced I would call him and given him another crack at it.”

“That sounds like my brother.” Again, she didn’t sound happy about it.

“Will you give him the message?”

“Sure.” Then she hung up on me.

I wasn’t sure I believed that the sister would give him the message, but it was the only number I had for St. John. I could have called the local police and probably gotten a message to him, but what if I did, and this time Vittorio killed him? What would I say to his sister then? I left it in her hands. If she gave him the message, fine; if she didn’t, then not my bad. Either way, I’d kept my promise and wouldn’t be getting him killed. It seemed like a win-win to me.