Skin Trade

She answered my thought. “My body sleeps, but I am no longer trapped by flesh.”

“What is she?” Sanchez asked.

“Shall we show him, necromancer?”

“No,” I said.

“Let us see if his mind survives.”

“NO!” I screamed it, and tried to bring us back out, but she flung her arms wide, and the cloak was darkness, because it stretched out and out, up and up, until we knelt staring into the perfect blackness of a starless night. The scent of jasmine choked me. I couldn’t taste anything else.

Sanchez clung to my hand. “Anita, Anita, are you all right?”

I couldn’t talk, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. I clung to him because he was all I had to cling to, but she was pouring herself down my throat. Once I’d thought she meant to kill me that way, but now I saw her thoughts too clearly. She didn’t want to kill me, she wanted to possess me. Her body upstairs had lain too long unused, and she could not mend it. She wanted a new one. She wanted me.

There was a light in the dark, suddenly, like a bright hot star. The light came like the rising of the sun, and she screamed as she fell back. I came to myself in the living room in Sanchez’s and Edward’s arms. The room was full of crosses, glowing bright like stars. Everyone’s cross was glowing as I fought to breathe. Edward turned me over so I could cough out onto the carpet. I spat out something clear and too thick for water. It smelled like flowers.

Edward held me until I was done and too weak to move.

“Was that our killer?” Hooper asked at last. “Was that our vampire?”

“It was a vampire,” Sanchez said, “but I don’t think it’s here in Vegas.”

I shook my head. My voice came out hoarse. “It’s nothing to do with Vegas.”

Sanchez said, “The Darkness wants to eat you.”

“Yeah, she does. I have my shields for a reason, Sanchez. Don’t fuck with them again.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What the fuck is she?”

I shook my head. “Nightmares.”

“Fuck,” he said.

“Sanchez, talk to me,” Hooper said.

“Marshal Blake is powerful enough, Sarge. She’s powerful enough, if you see through her shields, she’s powerful enough to make the tigers call her A

“What did you see, Sanchez?” Hooper said.

He looked at me, and we had a moment of understanding. He said, “Nightmares, Sarge. She fights nightmares, and they fight back.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Sanchez shook his head and clung to his sergeant’s arm as he helped him stand. “It means I want to feel the sun on my face, and I never, ever want to make Blake drop her shields again. I really didn’t mean to do that, by the way, Marshal. I’m sorry.”

I tried to sit up and found that I could, though Edward’s hand was a good thing to steady against. “I would say it’s okay, but it’s not. You almost got me hurt, Sanchez, bad hurt.”

“I know”-Sanchez gave a little laugh that sounded wrong-“I saw what wanted to hurt you, Blake. I wish I hadn’t seen it. How the fuck do you sleep at night?”

Edward helped me stand, and I almost fell. It was Olaf who took my other arm, but I wasn’t steady enough to pull away. In that moment, help was okay. “I sleep fine,” I said.

“Then you are an iron-willed motherfucking bastard.” He started toward the door, so shaky that Hooper called another officer over to help him to the door.

When he was outside, Hooper turned to me. “Sanchez is solid. What the fuck did he see to shake him that bad?”

“You don’t want to know,” I said.

“Our holy items lit up like the freaking Fourth of July; what kind of vampire can cause that from a distance?”

“Pray that you never find out, Sergeant.” I took a deep breath and let go of both men. When Edward let go, so did Olaf.

Hooper looked from me to Edward. “Do you know what it is, Forrester?”

Edward just said, “Yes.”

“What is it?”

“The ultimate vampire,” he said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“She’s the queen of them,” I said, “and she’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt. She’s still in Europe somewhere. Pray that she never comes to America.”

“She did all that from Europe?” Hooper sounded skeptical.

I glared at him. “Yeah, she did. Your man stripped my shields, like taking away your vest just before shooting a gun at your chest. You saw what happened to me.”

“I didn’t mean for Sanchez to fuck you up today, Blake.”

“Sure,” I said.

He frowned at me. “I fucking hate the psychic shit, but I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.” With that, he walked toward the door.

Edward leaned over me. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head, then said, “Sure.”

“Liar,” Bernardo said. But I noticed he’d been standing farther away than either Edward or Olaf. There were a lot of reasons that I didn’t count on him.

“Fuck you,” I said.

He gri

I rolled my eyes at him, but it helped put things in perspective. The Mother of All Darkness was apparently just waiting outside my shields for a chance to eat me. I was so scared my skin was cold. I’d go out into the desert heat. I’d warm up. It would be all right. I tried to believe that, but I stared down at what I’d spit up on the carpet.

I asked, “What is that shit?”

Edward said the one thing I hate to hear him say. “I don’t know.” When Edward doesn’t know the answers, we are so fucked.

41

I CALLED JEAN-CLAUDE from the car while Edward drove. I was way past caring what Olaf and Bernardo heard. The Mother of All Darkness was waiting just outside my shields to eat me. I could still feel some of her emotions. The primary one was fear. What the fuck could she be afraid of?

Jean-Claude answered a little breathlessly. “Ma petite, I felt something reach out to you. Something dark and terrible. If it is Vittorio, you must leave Las Vegas now, right now, before nightfall.”

“It wasn’t him,” I said.

“Then who?” he asked.

I clung to the cell phone and the sound of his voice like a lifeline. I was still so scared I could taste metal on my tongue. “Marmee Noir.”

“What I felt was different than ever before. It was smaller, more…” He seemed to search for the right word. “Human.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “She was small like in the church in St. Louis. She had those damned little slippers with the pearls on them.”

“Perhaps they are what is on her real body up in the room where she rests.”

“She wasn’t in the room, Jean-Claude. You need to call Belle Morte, or whomever, and tell them she was walking around in the bottom room of the cavern. The part of the cave where her windows overlook. She was down there.”

He cursed long and elegantly in French. In English he said, “I will call the others. I will call you back as soon as I can. I would tell you to hide in a church with holy items until this is done.”

“I’ve got a murderer to catch.”

“Ma petite, please.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Okay?”

“That is something. I love you, Anita; do not let her take you from me.”

“I love you, too, and I won’t. I’m shielding like a son of a bitch. I had to drop the shield for her to get through.”

“Ma petite, Anita… Merde, I will call you back as soon as I have reached someone in Europe.” He hung up with more French, too rapid for me to catch.

The SUV went around the corner a little rapidly, keeping up with the police car in front of us. They hadn’t turned on sirens or lights, but we were breaking several speeding laws. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones spooked by what had happened back in the house. I wondered what Sanchez had told them. I wondered what the cops who saw it all had told everyone? Had they, like Jean-Claude, blamed it all on Vittorio? Had it spurred them on to get this done before the vampires in Vegas rose for the night?