Skin Trade

“Most covens don’t have them anymore,” she said.

I shrugged. “My mentor is into the history of her craft.”

“I see the cross, but is it your sign of faith, or merely what the police make you wear?”

“I’m Christian,” I said.

She smiled, and it was a little too knowledgeble. “But you find some precepts of the Church limiting.”

I fought not to squirm. “I find the Church’s attitude toward my own flavor of psychic ability limiting, yes.”

“And what is your flavor?”

I started to answer, but Edward made a motion and I stopped. “It doesn’t matter what Marshal Blake’s gifts are.”

I didn’t know why Edward didn’t want me to share with her, but I trusted his judgment.

Phoebe looked from one to the other of us. “You are very much a partnership.”

“We’ve worked together for years,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s more than that.” She shook her head as if shaking the thought away. Then she looked back at me, and the eyes were no longer gentle. “Ask your questions, Marshal Blake.”

“If Michael leaves the room, then we’ll talk more freely,” Edward said.

“I will not leave you with them,” the big man said.

“They are policemen, like Randy was.”

“They have badges,” he said, “but they are not policemen like Randy.”

“Does my grief make me blind?” she asked him.

His face softened. “I think, it does, my priestess.”

“Then tell me what you see, Michael.”

He turned dark eyes on us. He pointed at Olaf. “That one’s aura is dark, stained by violence and evil things. If you could not feel him at your door, then you are head-blind with grief, Phoebe.”

“Then be my eyes, Michael,” she said.

He turned to Bernardo. “I don’t see any harm in that one, though I wouldn’t trust him with my sister.”

She smiled. “Handsome men are seldom trustworthy with people’s sisters.”

He skipped me and went to Edward next. “That one’s aura is dark, too, but dark the way Randy’s was dark. Dark the way some people that have seen combat are dark. I would not want him at my back, but he means no harm here.”

I have to admit that my pulse was up. Michael looked at me, and I fought not to look down but to meet those too-perceptive eyes.

“She is a problem. She is shielding, very tightly. I ca

“Destiny lies heavy on some,” Phoebe said.

He shook his head. “It’s not that.” He stared at me, and I felt him pushing at my shields. After what had happened with Sanchez, I did not want my shields down again.

“Stop pushing at my shields, Michael, or we’re going to have words.”

“Sorry,” and he looked embarrassed, “but I don’t find many who aren’t Wiccan who can shield from me.”

“I’ve been trained by the best,” I said.

He glanced at the men with me. “Not by them.”

“Never said I learned psychic shielding from the other cops.”

“They aren’t cops; there’s something unfinished, or wilder, about you all. The only other cop I’ve met who felt close to you was one who had been undercover so long he’d almost become one of the bad guys. He got out, he got the job done, but it changed him. It made him less cop and more criminal.”

“You know what they say,” I said, “one of the things that makes us good at getting bad guys is that we can think like one.”

“Most cops can, but there’s a big difference between thinking like one and being one.” He studied us all. “The badges are real, but it’s like putting a leash on a tiger. It never stops being a tiger.”

And that was a little too close to home.

56

MICHAEL WOULDN’T LEAVE. He thought we were too dangerous. We asked questions, but Edward didn’t want to tell about the crushed jaw, and other things, so it was like walking in a pitch-black room. You knew what you wanted was in there somewhere, but without a little light, you might never find it.

I believed that Phoebe knew something, but we needed the right question to unlock it. She couldn’t tell us what she didn’t know we needed to know, or something like that. It was one of the most frustrating interrogations I’d ever done, though I let Edward take over before I completely lost patience. If I’d been alone, would I have told her everything I thought she needed to know? Maybe. I’d almost certainly have told her things that the other police wouldn’t want a civilian to know. Did that make me a bad cop? Maybe. Did that make Edward a better cop? Probably.

I was actually pacing the far side of the room. She was a magical practitioner; for all we knew, she or Michael there could be involved. It wasn’t likely, but… and yet I would have spilled the beans to her. I was second-guessing myself about everything. It wasn’t like me, so if it wasn’t like me, then who was it like?

Then I felt it: vampire. I just knew one was out there; I could feel it. “There’s a vampire outside,” I said.

I heard the guns clear the holsters. I had my hand on my Browning out, too, but…

“Is it a good vampire, or a bad vampire?” Bernardo asked.

Edward came close to me, where I stood next to the big picture window and its pulled drapes. He whispered, “Can you tell who it is?”

I put my left hand against the drape, hard enough to press it into the glass behind it. I concentrated, just a little, and thought at that push of energy. I had a choice of pushing back or simply opening enough to taste it. I was pretty sure it was Wicked, because whoever it was hadn’t tried to hide his presence from me. Vittorio was able to hide not just from me but from Max, and if he could hide his energy signature from the Master of the City, then he sure as hell could avoid my radar.

But it was better to be sure, so I reached out a little more to that cool, wind-from-the-grave power. I touched that energy, found a taste of Jean-Claude’s power. All the vampires bound to him had a flavor of him, like a spice that had touched all their skins. Then my power touched Wicked, and him I could feel, like the word should be in bold letters. I felt him look into the air, as if he should be able to see me hovering. If it had been Jean-Claude, I could have used his eyes to look where he was looking; with Wicked it was just a feeling.

“It’s him,” I said, low to Edward. I started to say, louder, “It’s okay, he’s on our side,” but stopped in midbreath, because a different power had pushed through the opening in my shields. The opening I’d had to make to sense the vampire. I’d forgotten about Michael. I’d forgotten that he was a psychic and that his priestess had ordered him to sense my abilities.

There was a moment where I was caught between sensing the vampire outside and trying to push the witch out of my shields. It should have been simply a matter of closing the door that I’d opened, but something about Michael’s power made the door wider. It was like I’d opened a door, and he turned it into a tu

Darkness boiled toward me. I could see her in my mind’s eye like a cloud of night, ready to pour into that opening. Michael stood in that vision with me, if vision was the word for it. He could see it, too. He didn’t waste time asking, What is it? He acted. He was the black dog, the black man, and he did his job. It is an old, old custom that no guest be harmed in your house.

A golden glow appeared in his hand and grew like lightning to form a sword. He faced the coming dark with that burning sword in his hand. There was a second shadow over him, if a shadow could glow with light; it was larger than the man, and as the blackness framed him, rising up and up to eat the room I knew we had to be standing in, the glowing figure was more clear, and I saw for a moment the shadow of great, burning wings.