Skin Trade
Chapter 55-56

Chapter 55
WE STOOD IN front of a modest suburban house in a street full of other modest suburban houses. There were enough streetlights that we had a good view even in the dark. People forget that Las Vegas's famous Strip with its casinos, shows, and bright lights is only a small part of the city. Other than the fact that the house was set in a yard that ran high to rocks, sand, and native desert plants, it could have been one of a million housing developments anywhere in the country.
Most of the other houses had grass and flowers, as if they were trying to pretend they didn't live in the desert. The day's heat was browning the grass and flowers nicely. They must have a limit on how much they can water, because I've seen yards in deserts as green as a golf course. These yards looked sad and tired in the cooling dark. It was still hot, but had the promise that as the night wore on it would get cooler.
"A high priestess lives here?" Bernardo said.
"According to the phone book," I said.
He came around the car to stand on the sidewalk beside us. "It looks so... ordinary."
"What did you expect, Halloween decorations in August?"
He had the grace to look embarrassed. "I guess I did."
Edward walked to the back of the car and opened it. He reached into his own bag of tricks and got out one of the U.S. Marshal windbreakers.
"It's too hot for that," I said.
He looked at me. "We're armed to the teeth, and it's all visible. Would you let us in your house if you weren't sure we were cops? But I am running low on them. Someone keeps getting them all bloody."
"Sorry about that."
I tapped my badge on its lanyard around my neck. It was what I wore in St. Louis when the heat was too hot for a jacket. "See?" I said. "I'm legal."
"You look more harmless than we do," Edward said, and started handing out jackets to the other men.
Bernardo took his without comment and just slipped it on, pulling his braid out of the back with a practiced flip. Some gestures are not about being a girl or a boy, but just how long your hair is.
Olaf had his badge on a lanyard around his neck, too. It bugged me that we'd both done it, but where else are you gonna put a badge when you're wearing a T-shirt? I did have one of the clips and had put the badge on my backpack a couple of times, but I'd run into situations where I took off the backpack, and got separated from it and my badge. I had the badge on my belt by the Browning, because you always want to flash a badge when you flash a gun. Just good survival skills, and saves the other cops from being called by some panicked civilian who spotted it. You want your badge in the middle of a fight with police and bad guys. It helps the police not shoot you. Yeah, being a girl and looking so uncop helped the good guys know what I looked like, but accidents happen when you're drowning in adrenaline. Badge visible, at least the accident wouldn't be my fault.
Edward clipped his badge to his clothes so that he'd be doubly visible, and Bernardo followed suit. There were still moments when Edward could make me feel like the rookie. I wondered if there'd ever come a time when I truly believed we were equal. Probably not.
I wasn't really a fan of desert landscaping, but someone with an eye for it had arranged the cacti, grass, and rocks so that everything flowed. It gave the illusion of water, dry water, flowing in the shape and color of stone and plant.
"Nice," Bernardo said.
"What?" I asked.
"The garden, the patterns-nice."
I looked up at him and had to give him a point for noticing.
"It's just rocks and plants," Olaf said.
I took a breath to say something, but Edward interrupted. "We're not here to admire her gardening. We're here to talk to her about a murdered parishioner of hers."
"I don't think they call them parishioners," Bernardo said.
Edward gave him a look, and Bernardo spread his hands as if to say, Sorry. Why was Edward being so tense all of a sudden?
I took a step toward him, and suddenly I felt it, too. It was a faint hum up the skin, down the nerves. I looked around the door and finally found it on the porch. It was a mosaic pentagram in pretty colored stone, set in the concrete of the porch itself. It was charged, as in spell charged.
I touched Edward's arm. "You might want to step off the welcome mat."
He glanced at me, then where I was pointing. He didn't argue, just stepped a little to one side. A visible tension lifted in the set of his shoulders. Maybe Edward only thought he couldn't sense things. Being a little psychic would explain how he'd managed to stay alive all these years while hunting preternatural creepy-crawlies.
"I didn't see it," he said, "and I was looking."
"I didn't see it until you acted too tense," I said.
"She's good," he said, as he rang the doorbell.
I nodded.
Olaf was looking at both of us, as if he didn't know what the hell had just happened. Bernardo said, "A hex sign on the porch. Step around it."
"It's not a hex sign," I had time to say before the door opened.
A tall man answered the door. His dark hair was shaved close, and his eyes were dark and not happy to see us. "What do you want?"
Edward slid instantly into Ted's good-ol'-boy persona. You'd think I'd get used to how easily he became someone else, but it still creeped me.
"U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester; we called ahead to make sure Ms. Billings would be home. Or, rather, Marshal Anita Blake called ahead." He grinned as he said it and just exuded charm. Not that slimy charm that some men do, but that hail-fellow-well-met kind of energy. I knew some people who did it naturally, but Edward was the first person I'd known who could turn it on and off like a switch. It always made me wonder if long before the army got hold of him, he'd been more like Ted. Which sounded weird, since Ted was him, but the question still seemed worth poking at.
The man glanced at Edward's ID, then looked past him at us. "Who are they?"
I held up my badge on its lanyard so it was even more visible. "Marshal Anita Blake; I did call and talk to Ms. Billings."
Bernardo said, in a voice as cheerful and well meaning as Ted's, "U.S. Marshal Bernardo Spotted Horse."
Olaf sort of growled behind us all. "Otto Jeffries, U.S. Marshal." He held up his badge so the man could see it over everyone's shoulders. Bernardo did the same.
A woman's voice called from deeper in the house, "Michael, let them in."
The man, Michael presumably, scowled at us but unlatched the screen door. But before he let us cross the threshold, he spoke in a low voice. "Don't upset her."
"We'll do our best not to, sir," Edward said in his Ted voice. We went in through the door, but there was something about Michael at my back that made me turn so I could keep him in my peripheral vision. With everyone inside, I could put him at a little over six feet, which put him taller than Bernardo but shorter than Olaf. I had a moment as we all bunched into the foyer to see just how much smaller Edward was than the other men. It was always hard to remember that Edward wasn't that tall, at five foot eight. He was just one of those people who seemed taller than he was; sometimes physical height isn't what tall is about.
The living room was probably as big a disappointment to Bernardo as the outside had been because it was a typical room. It had a couch and a couple of chairs and was painted in a light and cheerful blue, with hints of a pinkish orange in the cushions and some of the knickknacks. There was tea set out on the long coffee table, with enough cups for everyone. I hadn't told her how many of us were coming, but there they sat, four cups. Psychics, ya gotta love 'em.
Phoebe Billings sat there, her eyes a little red from crying, but her smile serene and sort of knowing. My mentor Marianne had a smile like that. It meant she knew something I needed to know, or was watching me work through a lesson that I needed to learn very badly, but I was being stubborn. Witches who are also counselors are very big on you coming to your realizations in your own time, just in case rushing you would somehow damage your karmic lesson. Yes, Marianne drove me nuts sometimes with the lack of direction, but since one of the things she thought I needed to work on was patience, it was all good for me. Irritating, but good, so she said. I found it mostly irritating.
"Won't you sit down. The tea is hot."
Edward sat down on the couch beside her, still smiling his Ted smile, but it was more sympathetic now. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Billings."
"Phoebe, please."
"Phoebe, and I'm Ted; this is Anita, Bernardo, and Otto."
Michael had taken up a post near her, one hand on the other wrist. I knew a bodyguard pose when I saw it. He was either her priest or her black dog-though most covens didn't have one of the latter anymore. The covens that still had it as an office usually had two. They were bodyguards and did protection detail magically when the coven did work. Most of their work was of a spiritually protective nature, but once upon a time, the black dogs had hunted bogeys that were more flesh and less spirit. Michael had the feel of someone who could do both.
Phoebe looked from one to the other of us, then finally came back to Ted. "What do you want to know, Marshals?" There was the slightest of hesitation before she called us by our titles.
She poured tea into our cups. She put sugar in two, and left two plain. Then she handed them to Michael and directed where they should go.
Edward took his tea, as did the others. I got mine last. Neither she nor Michael got cups. I had absolutely no reason to mistrust Phoebe Billings, but unless she drank the tea, I wasn't touching it. Just because you're a witch doesn't mean you're a good witch.
She smiled at us all as we sat with our untouched cups, as if we'd done exactly what she'd known we would do. "Randy wouldn't have taken the tea, either," she said. "Police, you're all so suspicious." She dabbed at her eyes and gave a ladylike sniff.
"Then why did you give us the tea if you knew we wouldn't drink it?" I said.
"Call it a test."
"A test of what?" I asked, and I must have sounded a little more unfriendly than was called for, because Edward touched my leg, just a nudge to let me know to bring the tone down. Edward was one of the few people I'd take the hint from.
"Ask me again in a few days, and I'll answer your question," she said.
"You know, just because you're Wiccan and psychic doesn't mean you have to be mysterious," I said.
"Ask me your questions," she said, and her voice was sad and too somber to match the bright room we sat in, but then grief comes to every room, no matter what color its painted.
Edward sat back a little more on the couch, giving me the best view of her he could give without changing seats. It let me know he was letting me take the lead, like he'd said in the car. Fine.
"How good at magic was Randall, Randy, Sherman?"
"He was as competent at magic as he was at everything he did," she said. A woman appeared from farther into the house. She carried a tray with another cup and saucer on it. She had the priestess's long brown hair, but the body was slender and younger. I wasn't surprised when Phoebe introduced her as her daughter, Kate.
"Then if Sherman started to say a spell in the middle of a firefight, he'd have a reason to think it would help?"
The woman poured tea for her mother from the pot and handed it to her. "Randy never wasted things, neither ammo, nor physical effort, nor a spell."
She drank from the cup. Bernardo followed suit and did a pretty good job of not leering at the daughter as she walked back toward the kitchen with the empty tray. Edward sipped his tea, too.
Phoebe glanced from Olaf to me. "Still don't trust me?"
"Sorry, but I'm a coffee drinker."
"I do not like tea," Olaf said.
"Kate could fix you some coffee."
"I'd rather just ask our questions, if that's all right." I meant that, but it's also been my experience that tea drinkers make bad coffee.
"Why do you think that Randy was saying a spell during a shooting?"
I glanced at Edward, and he took over. I just wasn't sure how much to tell her. "We can't really share too much information on an ongoing investigation, Phoebe. But we have good reason to think that Randy was saying a spell in the middle of a fight."
"Saying?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Randy was very good; he could have simply thought a blessing in the middle of a fight."
"What kind of spell would he have had to say out loud?" I asked.
She frowned. "Some witches need to speak aloud to help focus; Randy didn't. So if he was chanting aloud, then it was something ritualistic and old. Something he'd memorized, like an old charm. I don't know how much any of you know about our faith, but most ritual is created for the purpose of an individual event. It's a very creative, and fluid, process. When you're talking about set words, then it's more ceremonial magicians then Wiccans."
"But Randy was Wiccan, not a ceremonial magician," I said.
"Correct."
"What would he have known, or thought, to say in the middle of a fight? What would have prompted him to think of an old chant, a memorized piece?"
"If you have a recording of what he said, then I can help, or even some of the words, and I can give you some hint."
I looked at Edward.
"We don't have anything we can let you listen to, Phoebe; I'm sorry." It was neatly done, not that we didn't have a recording but that we couldn't let her listen to it. I'd have just told her we didn't have one, which is why I'd let Edward answer.
She looked away from all of us and spoke in a voice that was shaky. "Is it that awful?"
Shit. But Edward moved in smoothly, even touching her hand. "It's not that, Phoebe. It's just that it's an ongoing investigation, and we have to be cautious what information we let out."
She looked at him from inches away. "You think someone in my coven could be involved?"
"Do you?" he asked, in a voice that was not the least surprised, as if to say, yes, we had suspected it, but we'd let her tell us the truth. I'd have sounded surprised and spooked her.
She looked into his eyes from inches away, and his hand on hers was suddenly more important. I felt the prickle of energy, and knew it had nothing to do with wereanimals or vampires.
He smiled, and pulled back his hand. "Trying to psychically read a police officer without permission is illegal, Phoebe."
"I need to know more than you're telling me to answer your questions."
"How can you be sure of that?" he asked, with a smile.
She smiled and put her teacup on the coffee table beside the rest. "I'm psychic, remember. I have information that you need, but I don't know what it is. I only know that if you ask the right question, I'll tell you something important."
I jumped in, "You know psychically."
"Yes."
I turned to the men with me and tried to explain. "Most psychic ability is pretty vague. Phoebe knows she has information that will be important, but there's a question we need to ask to spark that knowledge in her."
"And she knows this, how?" Bernardo asked.
I shrugged. "She couldn't tell you how, and I couldn't either. I've just worked with enough psychics to know that this is as good as the explanation gets sometimes."
Olaf scowled. "That is not an explanation."
I shrugged again. "The best we've got." I turned back to the priestess. "Let's go back to Marshal Forrester's question. Could anyone in your coven be involved?"
She shook her head. "No." It was a very firm no.
I tried again. "Could anyone here in the magical community be involved?"
"How can I answer that? I don't know what spells were used, or why you believe that Randy was trying to say something. Of course, there are bad people in every community, but without more information, I can't tell you whose talents this could have been." She sounded impatient, and I guess I couldn't blame her.
I looked at Edward.
"Do you have a priest's seal of the confessional?"
She smiled. "Yes, the Supreme Court upheld that we are truly priests, so what you tell me is covered under the law."
He looked at Michael's looming figure. "Is he a priest?"
"We are all priests and priestesses if we are called by Goddess," she said. It was a very priestess answer.
I answered for her. "He's her black dog."
Both Phoebe and Michael looked at me, as if I'd done something interesting. "They come here pretending not to know anything about us, but they've checked us out. They're lying."
"Now, Michael, you should know not to jump to conclusions." She turned those gentle brown eyes to me. "Have you checked us out?"
I shook my head. "I swear to you that other than finding out you are Randy Sherman's priestess, no."
"Then how did you know Michael was not my priest?"
I licked my lips and thought about it. How had I known? "There's a bond between most of the priests and priestesses I've met. Either they are a couple, or the magical working as a team just forms a bond. There's no feel of that between you and him. Also, he just screams muscle. The only job in a coven that is all about muscle, either spiritual or physical, is the black dog."
"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 cannot read much past those shields. But she is powerful, and there is a feel of death to her. I don't know if she brings death, or if death follows her, but it's there, like a scent."
"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.
Chapter 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 tunnel mouth big enough to drive a semi through. The door I could guard, but the other opening was too large. And all tunnels are dark.
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.
My first thought was demon; then I knew that was just the front of my brain. I knew what the demonic felt like, and this was not it. It was power, raw and real, and destruction was in that fire, but it was holy fire, and only the unholy need fear it. But it takes faith to stand that close to the flame and not be afraid. How strong was my faith? What did I believe in as the darkness swept upward and Michael stood there with his sword and the shadow of angels at his back? I had a heartbeat to think, Oh, Michael, I get it.
The man stood there between me and the dark, and I could not let him stand alone. I moved to stand with the man, Michael, and that glowing shadow, reciting as I moved, "Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle"-the fire burned brighter against the dark-"be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil." It was like the fire in holy objects that came when faith was all you had against the vampires. "May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host..." It was as if I were seeing the source of every glowing holy object I had ever seen, burning before me. "By the power of God, cast into hell Satan..." I was at the edge of those burning wings, and for a moment I hesitated. The darkness swept up and over the man and the glow, and I knew that I had seconds to decide. What was I; whose side was I on? Was I holy enough to step into that light?
Marmee Noir's voice spoke in my head, or maybe the darkness all around us spoke. "A piece of me is inside you, necromancer; if you step into the fire of God, you will be destroyed like any vampire."
Was she right?
Then Michael the man stepped back, to put himself in harm's way again. He faced that overwhelming ocean of darkness, when it had given him the chance to be left out of it. It wasn't even thought; I moved forward, because he was trying to take my harm, my blow, my fate, and I couldn't let him do that. I stepped into that fire and expected to be blinded by the light, but it wasn't like that. It was as if the world were light, and I could only see the light, flickering and real around me. The man in front of me was real, and the fire was real, but...
"Necromancer, help me!"
I didn't understand what she meant, but it didn't matter. Evil always lies. I finished the prayer: "And all other evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."
It was as if the power around us took a breath, the way you'd do before blowing out a candle. The power took a breath, then let it out, but this breath was like standing at ground zero of a nuclear bomb. Reality blew outward, then re-formed. I half-expected the house to be destroyed around us, but we were left blinking in the living room of Phoebe Billings's house. Not so much as a teacup had moved.
Edward was standing very close to us, but Phoebe was holding him back. Telling him, "Wait, Michael knows what he's doing."
I was standing behind Michael, as I had been in the "vision"; there was no burning sword in his hand, but somehow I knew, if he needed it, it would be there.
He turned around and looked at me with dark brown eyes, but there was a glimmer in them, a hint of fire, down in their depths. Not the light of vampires but of something else.
"Anita, talk to me," Edward said.
"I'm okay, Edward, thanks to Michael." And I meant the double entendre. I'd find a church and burn a candle for the Archangel Michael. It was the least I could do.
"Someone explain what just happened," he said, and he sounded angry.
"What did you see?" I asked.
"You looked up and saw something, something that scared the hell out of you. Then he"-and he shoved a thumb in Michael's direction-"went to stand by you. I tried to go to you, but she told me it wasn't a matter of guns."
"She was right," I said.
"Then every holy object in the room burst into flame."
"You mean they glowed," I said.
"No, flame, they burned."
"Bernardo panicked," Olaf said, "and threw off his cross."
I looked at the big man. I almost asked him how he justified faith in God with being a serial killer, but didn't. Maybe later if I wanted to piss him off.
"Once I lost the cross," Bernardo said, and I realized that he was the only one not standing close to us, "I saw... things."
"What?" I asked.
"Light, darkness." He stared at me from the edge of the couch. "I saw... something." He looked pale and shaken.
I started to ask What? again, but Michael touched my arm. I looked at him. He shook his head. I nodded. Okay, let Bernardo's vision alone. It had scared the shit out of him, and that made it private. He'd tell, or he'd get drunk and try to forget it. It's not every day you see demons and angels. Marmee Noir wasn't technically a demon, but she was an evil spirit.
"What is it that hunts you?" Michael asked.
"You saw it," I said.
"I did, but I've never seen anything like it before."
I stared up at him. "You stepped in her way, twice, and you didn't know what she was, or what she could have done to you?" I couldn't keep the astonishment out of my voice.
He nodded. "I am the black dog, the circle guardian. You are our guest, and no harm shall befall anyone in my care."
"You have no idea what she could have done to you."
He smiled, and it was the smile of a true believer. "It could not have touched me."
"Is he talking about...," and Edward hesitated.
"Marmee Noir."
"Mother Dark," Phoebe said.
I nodded.
"The dark goddess is not always fearful; sometimes she is restful."
"She isn't a goddess, or if she is, there's no good side to her; trust me on that."
"This was not goddess energy," Michael said.
"Couldn't you see it?" I asked.
"I could feel it, but I concentrated on repairing the damage to our wards so that more would not follow her. I trusted Michael to chase out that which had crossed our borders and to keep you safe."
"That's a lot to trust someone with," I said.
"You've seen him armed for battle, Marshal; do you believe my trust is misplaced?"
I flashed back on the image of Michael with the burning sword and that shadow of wings over him. I shook my head. "No, it's not misplaced."
"Someone talk to me," Edward said, "now."
"I lowered my shields to see if the vampire was ours, and Michael here tried to taste my power by making the opening a little bigger."
"You mean like what happened with Sanchez earlier," Edward said.
I nodded.
"I did not damage your shields deliberately," he said.
"I believe you," I said. "And the Mother of All Darkness tried to eat me again. But Michael stopped her, cast her out."
"To hell?" Bernardo asked, still looking haunted.
I shook my head. "I don't think so, just out of here."
"How did it get through our wards?" Michael asked.
"I think I carry a piece of her inside me all the time now," I said. "Once you let me inside your wards, she had an in."
"You don't taste evil, Marshal."
"She did something to me earlier today. It's messed with my psychic abilities, opened me up, somehow."
"I think we can help there, and I would love to hear more about what she is and how you came to her attention."
"We don't have time for this, Anita," Edward said.
"I know," I said.
"The Darkness has tried to eat her twice in the same day," Olaf said. "Eventually, if Anita doesn't learn how to guard herself better, she will lose."
Edward and I stared at the big man. "How much did you see or feel?" I asked.
"Not much," he said.
"Then why are you the one encouraging me to get all metaphysical?"
"Marmee Noir wants you, Anita. I understand obsession." He stared at me with those cave-dark eyes, and I fought not to look away. I couldn't decide which was more unsettling, the intensity in his gaze or the lack of any other emotion. It was as if, in that moment, he was simply pared down to the need in his eyes. "She's chosen you for her victim, and she will have you unless you can fix what she damaged inside you, protect yourself better, or kill her first."
I gave a harsh laugh. "Kill the Mother of All Vampires? Not likely."
"Why not?" Olaf asked.
I frowned at him. "If she can do all this to me from thousands of miles away, then I do not want to see what she's capable of if I'm physically closer. All vampire powers grow with proximity."
"A bomb would do it, something with high heat yield."
I searched his face, trying to read something in it that I could really get a handle on and understand, but it was almost as bad as staring into the faces of the shapeshifters in their half-human forms. I just couldn't decipher him.
"I'd still have to get to the city she's in, and that would be too close. Besides, I don't know anything about bombs."
"I do," he said.
I finally got a clue. "Are you offering to go with me?"
He just nodded.
"Damn it," Edward said.
I looked at him. I shook my head. "I won't ask you to go."
"I can't let you go off alone with him to hunt her." He said it as if it were a done deal, a given.
I shook my head, and waved my hands as if erasing something in the air. "I'm not going either. None of us is getting any nearer to her."
"If you do not kill her first, she will surely kill you," Olaf said.
"Should we be talking about this in front of witnesses?" Bernardo asked. He had finally moved closer to us.
We looked at Phoebe and Michael as if we'd forgotten them. I almost had. Edward never forgot anything, but as he looked at me, I realized that there was guilt in his eyes. I'd never seen that for anyone but Donna and the kids.
I reached out and laid fingers on his arm, a gentle touch. "You dying trying to kill Marmee Noir would not have helped me now. You'd be dead, and I'd be alone with these two."
That almost earned me a smile. "Or she'd be dead, and you'd be safe."
I gripped his arm, tight. "Don't second-guess yourself, Edward, you're not good at it. Certainty is all we have on shit like this."
He did smile, then. "Look who's talking, Ms. Doubting-All-My-Choices."
"Are you saying that thing has a physical body, on this plane, right now?" Michael asked.
I thought about the question, then nodded. "I've seen where her body lies, so yeah."
"I thought you'd never been physically close to her."
"Only in dreams and nightmares," I said.
Music started-"Wild Boys" by Duran Duran-and it still took me a minute to realize it was my cell phone. I fumbled it out of my pocket, vowing to pick a different song for Nathaniel to put into the phone so I could get rid of this one.
"Anita," Wicked said, "are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Are you being coerced?"
"No, no, I'm fine, really."
"I cannot get inside. I cannot even step on the doorstep." Wicked's voice sounded afraid; other than for his brother's life, I'd never heard him afraid.
"You don't have to, Wicked, just wait outside. I'll come to you in a little bit."
"I felt the Mother of All Darkness, and then I felt..." He seemed at a loss for words.
I almost helped him out, but he was a vampire, and it had been angels. I wanted to know what he'd sensed.
He finally spoke again, "When I first arrived, I could have entered the house with an invitation, but now I wouldn't dare. It glows like something holy."
"The priestess had to redo the shields," I said, "to keep out Marmee Noir."
"If anything goes wrong in there, I cannot help you."
"It's covered, Wicked, honest."
"I know you have Edward with you, but I am your bodyguard, Anita. Jean-Claude charged me with your safety. If I let you die here, Jean-Claude would kill me and my brother. He'd probably kill Truth first and make me watch, and then he'd kill me. And right this second, I can't reach you. Shit."
"Isn't that usually my line?" I said.
"Don't make a joke of this, Anita."
"Look, I'm sorry you can't enter past the wards, but we are all right, and you couldn't have kept me safe from Marmee Noir even if you'd been with me."
"And that is another problem. I could see her like some black storm towering over the house. She ignored me as if I didn't exist, but I felt her power, Anita. All the weapons training in the world won't stop her."
"Apparently, magic does," I said.
"Would the wards you are behind keep her out?"
"Maybe."
"But they would also keep out every other vampire, and Vittorio has wereanimals to send for you, so Jean-Claude tells me."
"I'm pretty sure of that, yeah."
"Then we need to be with you," he said.
"Agreed."
"But we need to keep the Mother of All Darkness from you, too. How do we do both?"
That he was asking me was not a good sign. "Wolves," I said, finally.
"What?"
"Wolf, she can't control wolf, only cats."
"What about the werehyenas?"
"I don't know, I've only made wolf work for me."
"We have Graham."
"Any other wolves would be helpful," I said.
"I'll call Requiem and see what we can find." Then he hung up. I was left to turn back to the room and say, "Um, nope, no idea how to explain it, so I'm not going to try."
Phoebe said, "You are wearing something that was supposed to help you against the Darkness."
I almost touched the medallion on its chain with the cross, but stopped myself in midmotion.
She smiled.
"Fine," I said, "but it doesn't matter, since it seems to have stopped working."
"If you will permit me to look at it, I believe it only needs to be cleansed and recharged." There must have been a look on my face because she added, "Surely whoever taught you to shield well enough to keep Michael outside taught you this as well."
"She tried, but I don't put a lot of stock in jewelry."
She smiled again. "Yet you believed in the piece of metal around your neck."
I wasn't sure if she was talking about the cross or the medallion, but either way, she had a point. "You're right, my teacher has talked to me about stones and stuff. I just don't believe in it."
"Some things don't require your belief to make them work, Marshal."
"I've got stuff on me," Bernardo said, "that just works, Anita."
"Stones?" I made it a question.
He nodded.
Phoebe said, "It is supposed to help you see your prey, but when you removed your cross, you had only things that made you see more into the spirit world and nothing to protect you from it."
He shrugged. "I got exactly what I asked for; maybe I just didn't know what I needed."
I looked at him. He'd put his cross back on, but there was still a tightness around the eyes. Whatever he had seen of Marmee Noir had spooked him. "I didn't see you for the mumbo-jumbo type," I said.
"You said it yourself, Anita; most of us don't have your talent with the dead. We get what help we can."
I looked at Edward. "Do you have help?"
He shook his head.
I looked at Olaf. "You?"
"Not stones and magic."
"What then?"
"The cross is blessed by a very holy man. It burns with his faith, not mine."
"A cross doesn't work for you, personally?" I asked, then almost wished I hadn't.
"The same man who blessed the cross told me I am damned, and no amount of Hail Marys or prayers will save me."
"Everyone can be saved," I said.
"To be forgiven, you must first repent your sins." He gave me the full weight of those eyes again.
"And you're unrepentant," I said.
He nodded.
I thought about that, that his cross burned with the faith of a holy man who had told him he'd go to hell unless he repented. He didn't repent, but he still wore the cross that the man had given him, and it still worked for him. The logic, or lack of it, made my head hurt. But in the end, faith isn't always about logic; sometimes it's about the leap.
"Did you kill him?" Bernardo asked.
Olaf looked at him. "Why would I kill him?"
"Why wouldn't you?"
Olaf seemed to think about that for a moment, then said, "I didn't want to, and no one was paying me to do it."
There, perfectly Olaf, not that he didn't kill a priest because it would be wrong, but because it didn't amuse him at the moment, and no one had paid him. Even Edward at his most disturbing wouldn't have had the same logic.
"We're talking in front of you too casually," Edward said. "Why?"
"Perhaps you simply feel at ease."
He shook his head. "You've got a permanent spell of some kind on the room, or house."
"All I have cast is that people may speak freely if they desire to. Apparently, your friends feel the need, and you do not."
"I don't believe confession is good for the soul."
"Nor do I," she said, "but it can free up parts of you that are blocked, or help soothe your mind."
He shook his head, then turned to me. "If you're going to have her do something with the medallion, do it. We need to go."
I fished the second chain from underneath the vest and all. I'd tried carrying the cross and the medallion on the same chain, but there were too many times when I needed the cross visible, and I got tired of people asking what the second symbol meant. The image on the metal was of a many-headed big cat; if you looked just right on the soft metal, you could discern stripes and symbols around the edge of it. I'd tried to pass it off as a saint's medallion, but it just didn't look like anything that tame.
I held it out to Phoebe. She took it gingerly by the chain with only two fingers. "This is very old."
I nodded. "The metal is soft enough that it bends with pressure, and some with just the heat of the body."
She started walking toward the door that her daughter had come through with the tea. I expected us to go all the way to her altar room, but she stopped us in a small, bright kitchen. Her daughter, Kate, was nowhere to be seen.
Phoebe answered as if I'd asked out loud, "Kate had a date tonight. I told her she could go after the tea was served."
"So she missed the metaphysical show."
"Yes, though many gifted in the area might have felt something. You do not call down such evil and such good without alerting those who can sense such things."
"I don't usually pick up stray stuff," I said.
"But you are not trained for it. Tonight's show would have attracted either the untrained, who cannot block it out, or the trained, who are open to the alert."
I shook my head. "Are we here for me to get lectured or to cleanse the charm?"
"So impatient."
"Yeah, I know, I need to work on it."
She smiled, then turned to the sink. "Then I will not waste more of your time." She turned the water on and waited a few moments for it to run, while her eyes were closed and she looked upward at nothing that I could see or feel.
She passed the charm and chain under the running water. She turned the water off, then held the charm in her hands and closed her eyes again. "It is cleansed, and ready for use."
I gave her a look.
She laughed. "What, you were expecting me to put it on the altar and take you out to dance naked in the moonlight?"
"I've seen my teacher cleanse jewelry, and she does the four elements: earth, air, water, fire."
"I thought I would see if I could cleanse it doing something that you might actually do yourself."
"You mean just wash the bad stuff off?"
"I let the water run for a few minutes, as I thought, 'All water is sacred.' Surely you know that running water is a barrier to evil."
"I've actually never found that a vamp couldn't cross water to get to me. I've had ghouls run through a stream."
"Perhaps the stream, like your cross, needs you to believe."
"Why isn't the water like the stones, and works on its own?"
"Why should water be like stone?" she asked.
It was one of those irritating questions that Marianne would ask occasionally. But I'd learned this game. "Why wouldn't it be?"
She smiled. "I see why you worked so quickly and seamlessly with Michael. You both have a certain exasperating quality to you."
"So I've been told."
She dried the medallion carefully on a clean kitchen towel, then handed it to me. "This is not like your cross, Marshal. It is not an item that automatically keeps the bad things at bay. It is a neutral object; do you understand what that means?"
I let the medallion and chain pool into the palm of my hand. "It means that it isn't evil or good; it's more like a gun. How it's used depends on who's pulling the trigger."
"The analogy will do, but I have never seen anything like this. You do not know me, but I don't say that very often."
I looked at the dull gleam of the metal in my hand. "I was told it would keep Marmee Noir out of me."
"Did they tell you anything else about it?"
I thought, then had to shake my head.
"They may not have known, but I think as it keeps the Dark Mother out of you, it may also call things to you."
"What kind of things?" I asked.
"There's something very animalistic, almost shamanic, to the energy of the piece, but that's not quite it, either."
I wanted to ask, did it call the tigers to me? Was it the medallion itself that was causing me to be drawn to them? Would asking be giving her too much information?
"Why did you ask how good a witch Randy was?"
I felt the compulsion to simply tell her. She was right, I wanted to tell her, felt we should enlist some help from the local talent, but it wasn't my call. Edward was senior on this, and I bowed to his expertise. What could I say?
"The bad guys, or things, didn't go in for a killing blow. Their first strikes were to keep him from talking. He was a fully armed, fully trained, special teams guy. That's dangerous enough to just kill, but whoever struck the blows saw his ability to speak as more dangerous than the weapons."
"You asked me about a spell, but I can't think of anything that would force Randy to speak out loud. You saw Michael and what he did. His invocation was soundless."
"Yeah, but it takes concentration to do that kind of summoning, doesn't it? Could Randy call up that kind of energy in the middle of a firefight?"
She seemed to think about it. "I don't know. I have never tried to do a working in the middle of combat. We have other brothers and sisters who are soldiers. I can email them and ask."
"Just ask if they've tried doing magic in the middle of a firefight. No details."
"I give you my word."
Had I said too much? It didn't feel like I had. "Let's say for argument's sake that your people tell you they can't do magic, silent and normal, during combat. What would come up against an armed unit, a SWAT unit, that Randy Sherman would have thought words, a spell, would be more effective against than silver-coated bullets?"
"Are you certain it was silver bullets?"
"It's standard ops that tac units like SWAT have silver-coated ammo to be carried at all times, in case one of the bad guys turns out to be a vampire or shapeshifter. They were backing up a vampire hunter; they'd have silver ammo."
"But you didn't check," she said.
I nodded. "I will, but I've seen these guys work, and they wouldn't make that big a mistake."
She nodded. "Randy would certainly not have made such an error."
"You haven't answered my question, Phoebe."
"I was thinking," she said. She frowned, rolling her lip under just a little. It looked like an old nervous habit that she'd almost lost. I wondered if it was her tell. Did it mean she was lying, or more nervous than she should be? Could she have some tie to what was happening? Well, yeah, duh, but it didn't feel right. But then, how much was her magic and the house itself with all its wards affecting my reaction to her? Shit, I wished I hadn't thought of that, or that I'd thought of it sooner. That I hadn't thought sooner meant I was being messed with again. Shit.
"The demonic, some evil spirits, as you saw with your Mother Dark." She frowned.
"You've thought of something," I said.
She shook her head. "No, it's just, it could be almost anything. You haven't even told me how they stopped Randy from speaking. I assume it was some kind of gag or damage that made speech impossible."
Honestly, for her to really be a worthwhile information source, she needed more clues, but Edward had expressly told me not to give her any. Crap.
"I know you don't trust me, Marshal."
"Why should I? You've got this house so wired with magic that you've taken most of our natural cynicism away. We've talked more openly around you than we should have already."
"Cynicism is not always conducive to studying and performing magic."
"But for cops, it's essential."
"I did not ward my house with the idea that police would come and question me."
"Fair enough, but how can we tell what was on purpose and what wasn't? I can't even tell if we were talking too much before you redid the wards, or only after. If it was after, you did it on purpose to try to get us to tell you more about Randy Sherman's death."
"That would be a very gray thing for a Wiccan priestess to do, Marshal."
I smiled, and it was a real smile. "You did, didn't you? You used the emergency to tweak the spells so we'd be more chatty." I shook a finger at her. "That's illegal. Using magic on police in the middle of an investigation is automatic arrest. I could charge you with magical malfeasance."
"That would be an automatic jail sentence of at least six months," she said.
"It would," I said.
We stared at each other. "Grief makes me foolish, and I apologize for that, but I want to know what happened to Randy."
"No," I said, "you don't."
She frowned, and then her face clouded over. "Is it that awful?"
"You don't want your last"-I hesitated-"image of your friend to be the crime scene photos, and definitely not a visit to the morgue." I reached out to lay a comforting hand, but stopped myself. I was a little fuzzy on human psychic abilities. Did they grow with touch, like a vampire's? Mine didn't, but mine were pretty specialized. I let my hand fall back. "Trust me on this one, Phoebe."
"How can I trust you when you're threatening to put me in jail?" There was a thread of anger in her voice now. I guess I couldn't blame her.
I actually hadn't said I'd put her in jail. I'd just mentioned that I could put her in jail. Big difference, actually, but if she assumed it was a threat, fine. If it got me more information on the killings, or Randy Sherman, or anything, then even better. I wasn't here to win popularity contests; I was here to solve crimes.
There was movement in the doorway from farther inside the house. My gun was suddenly in my hand. Thought and action are one, grasshopper.
"It's my daughter," Phoebe said, but she was staring at the gun. Staring at it like it was a very bad thing. I wasn't even pointing it at anyone, and already she was scared. From powerful priestess hooked up to deity and magic to frightened civilian in one move.
"Can I talk to you, or do you just want to shoot me?" Kate's voice held fury. A nice red wave of anger, tinged with fear, came off her. It made my stomach clench tight, as if I were still hungry, but I knew it wasn't that kind of hunger.
I stepped back from both the mother and the daughter. I put myself so that my empty hand would open the door, and I could get away from that tempting anger, if the hunger rose too fast and too hard to control. I had Wicked outside, and if I had to choose between the ardeur with him or psychic rape on a witch, then I'd choose sex and the vampire. At least he was willing.
"Are you afraid of me?" Kate asked, as she stepped carefully into the room. She'd added a short jacket over her jeans, and she had her hands stuffed in her pockets.
"Let me see your hands," I said, voice low and even.
She made a face, but her mother said, "Do what she says, Kate."
The girl couldn't have been much younger than me, five years or less, but she'd lived a different life. She didn't believe I'd shoot her, but her mother did.
"Kate, as your priestess, I tell you to do what she says."
The girl let out a breath, then took her hands, carefully, out of her pockets. The hands were empty. Her anger welled off her like some rich, thick scent, as if her rage would taste better than most.
"I won't let her put you in jail," she said, dark eyes all for her mother, as if I weren't standing there with a gun in my hand. I hoped I didn't have to shoot her; it would be like winging an angry Bambi. She just didn't know any better. The very naïvete of her helped me regain control of the hunger. I took deep, even breaths and thought soothing, empty thoughts.
"Kate," Phoebe said, "I let my grief get in the way of my better judgment. That is not the marshal's fault."
Kate shook her head hard enough for her brown ponytail to whirl around her shoulders. "No." Then she turned those angry eyes to me. "If I gave you a name of someone who could have done this, would you leave my mother alone?"
"Kate, no!"
"We don't owe him enough for you to go to jail, and what if he did have something to do with this? Then the next time he killed someone, it would be part of our karma, too. I don't owe him that."
"I was his priestess, Kate."
She shook her head again. "I wasn't." She turned back to me. "I'm dating a cop. He said something about the bodies being torn up, and not all of it was wereanimal. I mean, that always makes the news anytime you get a mutilated body. They always blame the local wereanimals first."
I just nodded. She was in a mood to talk, if I didn't spoil it somehow.
"But he said that some of the bodies were cut with blades. That the ME had never seen anything like it, and neither had you guys."
Her boyfriend was way too talkative, but if she'd give me the name, I wouldn't tell. I might try to find out who it was and tell him to keep his mouth shut, but I wouldn't rat him out. If she'd just say the name.
"Is that true?" she asked, at last.
"I'm not free to discuss an ongoing investigation. You know that."
"If it's true, then you need to talk to Todd Bering."
"He's off his meds again," Phoebe said. "You have to understand that. He's a good man when he takes his meds, but when he goes off..."
"What's he on meds for?"
"He was diagnosed with schizophrenia because he heard voices and saw things. He may have been mildly ill, but he is also one of the most powerful natural witches I've ever met."
"What does that mean, 'natural witch'?" I asked.
"Like you," Kate said, "your power just came, right? You didn't have to study, you could just do it."
"I had to have training to control it," I said.
"And that's what we tried to do for Todd." Kate didn't sound angry now, she sounded a little sad. I was happy about the sad; it made the receding edge of anger less yummy.
"It didn't work?" I asked.
"It worked," Phoebe said, and she sighed, "but when he started getting sick again, he called up things that are never to be touched on our path. There are some things you cannot do and be a good witch."
I nodded. "So I've heard."
"He called a demon. It felt so awful, like you couldn't breathe past the evil of it," Kate said; she was looking at the ground, but her eyes were haunted, as if she could still feel it.
"I've felt the demonic before," I said.
"Then you know," she said, raising those haunted eyes to me.
I nodded. "I know."
"It had these big blade-like hooks for hands. As far as I know it's still inside the circle in his house, but if he gained control of it..." She shrugged.
I looked at them both. "The most likely scenario is that when it gets out of the circle, it just kills him and goes back to where it came from. How likely is it that this Todd Bering is powerful and sane enough to control something like this?"
Phoebe nodded. "He would be capable."
"You should have reported this to the authorities as soon as you saw it," I said.
"I thought, like you, that it would escape the circle and kill him. It would be instant karma. I didn't dream that he would be able to control it, or that he would attack policemen. Rumor says that it was that vampire serial killer and wereanimals. No one said demon or blades. The news reported that the police had been torn apart by claws and fangs."
We had a serious leak at the Vegas PD, and I would have to report it. Talking to your girlfriend is one thing; talking to the press is another. I couldn't take the chance that her boyfriend wasn't our Mr. Chatty.
"Blades, Mom, blades."
I didn't correct her that it was both. No need for me to share, too. "I appreciate the information."
"If you had simply told me that he was cut with blades-Randy, I mean-I would have told you about Todd."
"I know, but it's hard to know who to trust. I need his address."
They exchanged a look, then Phoebe got a notepad by the telephone and wrote it down for me. "May Goddess forgive me if he did these terrible murders."
I holstered the Browning and took the paper from her with my left hand. "I can't hide where I got the information from."
"They'll investigate us all!" Kate yelled, and took a step toward me. Her anger was just suddenly so there, so close, so...
I felt the door behind me opening, and moved so Edward could come through. "You guys all right in here?"
I shook my head, then nodded. "We have a crazy witch who raised a demon with blades for hands. The last time they saw it, it was inside the summoning circle. We need to see if it's still there."
"If it's still there, then he didn't do it," Kate said.
I gave her a look, and then had to look away, but sight wasn't what was sending her anger toward me like some sweet scent. My stomach clenched again, and I eased around the edge of the open door. "Just because it's in the circle now doesn't mean he didn't let it out and put it back," I said.
"You'll ruin our reputation. You'll ruin everything we've built; every good thing my mother has done will be lost in the news that one of our coven members raised a murdering demon!" Kate was yelling again and advancing on me.
I couldn't let her touch me because I wanted to feed. I wanted to suck all that anger off her. "I've got the address, and I need some air."
Edward gave me a look.
"It would be wicked of me to stay inside right now," I said softly.
"Go," he said, equally softly, then turned to calm the enraged girl and her sad mother.
Michael was being kept out of the kitchen by Olaf and Bernardo. No one was in handcuffs, yet.
I said as I walked past them all, "You should have told us about Bering and the demon." I handed the piece of paper to Bernardo as I moved past.
He took it and said, "What is it?"
"The address to a demon with claws for hands."
"Anita," Olaf called.
I shook my head and was at the door. I felt the wards like a physical presence, almost like warm water or some thick bubble that clung to me as I moved. But it was designed to keep things out, not in, and I slid out of that warm, protective barrier to find the cool, desert night, and Wicked leaning against our car.