Obsidian Butterfly

45

I WAS BUCKLED into the front seat of Edward's Hummer, holding myself stiff and careful, glad the ride was smooth. Bernardo and Olaf were in the back seat, dressed in someone's idea of assassin chic. Bernardo was in a leather vest. His cast looked very white and awkward, right arm at a forty-five degree angle, a white strap going from arm to around his neck. His long hair was done in a vaguely oriental style, with one large, deceptively loose knot held back with what looked like two long gold chopsticks. It held back the sides of his hair, but left most of the length swinging free down his back. Black jeans of a looser cut with holes worn through across his knees, and the black boots I'd seen him wear since I arrived. But who was I to complain? I had three pairs of black Nikes, and I had brought all three with me,

There was a swollen bump to the side of his forehead and bruises like a pattern of modern art tattoos down one side of his face. His right eye was still puffy around one edge. But he managed not to look pale or ill like I did. In fact, if you could ignore the cast and bruises, he looked dandy. I hoped he felt as good as he looked, because I looked like shit and felt worse.

"Who did your hair?" I asked, because with only one good arm, I knew he hadn't.

"Olaf," he said, and that one word was very bland, very empty.

I widened my eye and looked over at Olaf.

He sat beside Bernardo on the side behind Edward, as far from me as he could get and still be in the car. He hadn't spoken a word to me since I walked out of the hospital room and the four of us walked to the car. It hadn't bothered me at the time because I'd been too busy trying to walk without making small pain noises under my breath.

Whimpering while you walked was always a bad sign. But now I was sitting down and as comfortable as I was likely to get for a while. I was also in a momentously bad mood because I was scared. I felt physically weak and not up to a fight. Psychically, my hard-won shields were crap again, full of holes, and if the "master" tried for me again, I was in very deep shit.

Leonora Evans had given me a woven silk cord with a little drawstring bag on it. The little bag was lumpy, packed full with small hard objects that felt like rocks, and dry crumbling things that were probably herbs. She'd told me not to open the bag because that would let all the goodness out. She was the witch, so I did what she told me.

The bag was a charm of protection, and it would work without my believing in its power. Which was good since except for my cross I didn't believe in very much. Leonora had been making the charm for three days, since she saved me in the emergency room. She had not intended it to be a cure all for the holes in my defenses, but it was all she had to give me on such short notice. She was almost as angry with me as Doctor Cunningham had been for leaving the hospital early.

She had taken one of her own necklaces and placed it over my head. It was a large piece of polished semiprecious stone. A strange dark gold color, Citrine for protection and to absorb negativity and magical attacks directed at me. To say that I wasn't a big believer in crystals and the new age was an understatement, but I took it. Mainly because she was so angry and so sincerely worried about me out in the world with my aura hanging open for the bad guys to munch on. I knew I had holes in my aura. I could feel them, but it was all just a little too hocus-pocus for me.

So I turned in my seat, feeling the stitches in my back tighten, adding a little push to the pain I was already feeling, and stared at Olaf. He was staring out the window as if there was something fascinating in the rows of small houses on that side of the car.

"Olaf," I said.

He never moved, just watched the passing scenery.

"Olaf!" It was almost a yell in the small confines of the car. His shoulders twitched, but that was all. It was like I was some kind of insect buzzing around him. You might wave a hand at it, but you wouldn't talk to it.

It pissed me off. "Now I understand why you don't like women. You should have just said you were homosexual, and my feelings wouldn't have been so hurt."

Edward said, softly, "Jesus, Anita."

Olaf turned very slowly almost in slow motion as if each muscle in his neck were pulling him around in small jerks. "What ¨C did ¨C you ¨C say?" Each word was rage-filled, hot with hatred.

"You did a great job on Bernardo's hair. You made him look very pretty." I didn't believe that particular sexual stereotype, but I was betting that Olaf did. I was also betting that he was homophobic. A lot of ultramasculine men are.

He undid his seatbelt with a noticeable click and eased forward. I pulled the Firestar out of the holster that was sitting in my lap. The pants that Edward had brought to the hospital were a little too tight for my innerpants holster. I watched Olaf's hand vanish underneath the black leather jacket. Maybe he hadn't understood the movement when I'd unholstered the gun. Maybe he expected me to raise the gun and sight along the back of the car. I pointed the gun between the small space between the seats. It wasn't a perfect angle, but I had my gun pointed first, and that counted in a gun fight.

He'd pulled his gun out from under the jacket, but it wasn't pointed yet. If I'd meant to kill him, I'd have won.

Edward slammed on the brakes. Olaf slammed into the back of the seat, gun at a bad angle, driving his wrist backwards. It wasn't being thrown into the seatbelt, and nearly the dashboard that hurt. It was the being flung backwards into the seat. My breath went out in a sharp gasp. Olaf's face ended up very close to the space between the seats, and he saw the gun barrel pointed, now, at his chest. I was hurting so bad that my skin twitched with the need to writhe, but I kept my hand tight around the gun, using my free hand to brace myself and make sure I didn't move. I had the drop on him, and I was keeping it.

The Hummer skidded to a stop against the curb. Edward had his seatbelt off and was whirling around in his seat. I caught the flash of a gun in his hand and had a heartbeat to decide whether to try and take the gun off Olaf and try for Edward, or keep the gun where it was. I kept the gun on Olaf, I didn't think Edward would shoot me, and Olaf might.

Edward shoved the barrel of his gun against the back of Olaf's bald head The tension level in the car skyrocketed. Edward went to his knees, gun never moving from Olaf's head. I could see Olaf's eyes rolled up. We looked at each other, and I saw that he was afraid. He believed that Edward would do it. So did I, though I didn't know why, and with Edward there was always a why, even if it was only money.

I had a sense of Bernardo sitting very stiff on his side of the seat, trying to pull back from the mess that was about to spill all over the car.

"Do you want me to kill him?" Edward asked. His voice was quiet and empty, as if he'd asked, did I want him to pass the salt. I could do an empty uninterested voice, but not like Edward. I could never be that dispassionate, not yet anyway.

I said, "No," automatically, then added, "not like this."

Something passed through Olaf's eyes. It wasn't fear. It was more like surprise. Surprise that I hadn't said, yeah, shoot him, or surprise about something else I couldn't fathom. Who knew?

Edward took the gun from Olaf's hand, then clicked the safety off on his own gun, and leaned back still on his knees in the driver's seat. "Then stop baiting him, Anita."

Olaf sat back in his seat, slowly, almost stiffly as if afraid to move too quickly. Nothing like having a gun to your head to teach you caution. He smoothed his hands down the leather jacket, which still looked like way too much to wear in the heat. "I will not owe my life to any woman." His voice was sort of subdued, but it was clear.

I eased the Firestar back out from between the seats, and said, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Olaf."

He frowned at me. Maybe he didn't get the quote.

Edward looked at both of us, shaking his head. "You're both scared, and that makes you both stupid."

"I'm not scared," Olaf said.

"Ditto," I said.

He frowned at me. "You just crawled out of a hospital bed. Of course, you're scared. Wondering if the next time you meet the monster will be your last."

I looked back at him, and it was not a friendly look.

"So you picked a fight with Olaf because you'd rather fight him than be scared."

"Just like a woman to be so irrational," Olaf said.

Edward turned to the big man. "And you, Olaf, you're afraid that Anita is tougher than you are."

"I am not!"

"You've been quiet ever since we saw the mess at the hospital. Ever since you heard what Anita did, how much damage she took and survived. You're wondering just how good is she? Is she as good as you are? Is she better?"

"She is a woman," Olaf said, and his voice was thick with some dark emotion as if he was choking on it. "She cannot be as good as I am. She cannot be better than I am. That is not possible."

"Don't make this a competition, Edward," I said.

"Because you will lose," Olaf said.

"I'm not going to arm wrestle you, Olaf. But I will stop picking on you. I'm sorry."

Olaf blinked at me as if he couldn't quite follow the conversation. I didn't think I'd overstepped his English, more like his logic circuits were overloading. "I do not need your pity."

I moved up from being "she" or "a woman" to a neuter pronoun. It was a start. "It's not pity. I acted badly. Edward's right. I'm scared, and fighting with you is a nice diversion."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"If it's any consolation, you confuse me, too."

Edward smiled, his Ted smile. "Now kiss and make up."

We both frowned at him and said simultaneously, "Don't push it," and "I do not think so."

"Good," Edward said. He looked at Olaf's gun in his hand for a second, then handed it back with a lot of heavy-duty eye contact. "I need you to be my backup, Olaf. Can you do that?"

He nodded once and took the gun slowly from Edward's hand. "I am your backup until this creature is dead, then we will talk."

Edward nodded. "I look forward to it."

I glanced at Bernardo, but his face told me nothing, nothing except that it had gone blank and empty and confirmed what I was thinking. Olaf had just warned Edward that when the case was over, he would try and kill him. Edward had agreed to it. Just like that.

"Just one big happy family," I said into the thick silence that had filled the car.

Edward turned around in his seat and buckled back in. He gave me sparkling Ted eyes. "And just like family we'll fight among ourselves, but we're much more likely to kill an outsider."

"Actually," I said, "the vast majority of murders are done by your nearest and dearest blood relatives."

"Or spouse, don't forget the spouse," Edward said and put the car in gear, pulling carefully out into the sparse traffic.

"Like I said, your nearest and dearest."

"But you said blood relative, and there's no blood between husband and wife."

"Sharing one body fluid or another, doesn't seem to matter. We kill those we're closest to."

"We are not close," Olaf said.

"No, we are not close," I said.

"But I hate you all the same," he said.

I spoke without turning around. "Right back at you."

"And I thought the two of you would never agree on anything," Bernardo said. His voice was cheerful, joking. No one laughed.

46

THE BLACK-PAINTED FRONT of the bar looked tired in the morning sunlight. You could see where the paint was cracked and beginning to peel. The front of the bar looked almost as neglected as the rest of the street. Maybe Nicky Baco hadn't tried to run the other businesses off. Maybe it had been an accident. Standing there in the soft heat of morning, I felt something I hadn't felt at night. It was as if the street had been used up in a mystical sense. I'd felt very strongly when I'd been here last time that Baco had drained the street of vitality, caused this to happen, but if that were true, then it hadn't been enough energy to sustain him. Or maybe all that negativity was finally coming home to roost. Most systems of magic or mysticism have rules of conduct, things you do and things you do not. You break the rules at your peril. The wiccans call it the threefold law: what you do to others comes back to you threefold. Buddhists call it karma. Christians call it answering for your sins. I call it what goes around comes around. It really does, you know.

I had the Firestar tucked into the front of my pants, minus the innerpants holster, because the gun could ride higher and not dig in as much. Edward had loaned me a paddle holster for the Browning, and I had ended up with it in front, so that I looked like one of those wild west gunslingers with two guns crossed over my hips. Though actually the black polo shirt came down low enough to hide both guns. Untucked, most shirts are too long on me. It looked sloppy, but it did hide the guns if you weren't looking too close. The polo shirt was a little too close to the body not to show telltale lumps, though Edward had been thoughtful enough to bring my black suit jacket, which helped camouflage the lumps. Last time I'd been here with guns I'd had the police backing me, but now we were taking guns into a bar, very illegal in New Mexico. Strangely, it wasn't a big worry, but I did hope the cops didn't choose today for a raid.

I still had the wrist sheaths plus knives on my wrists. Ramirez had collected all my knives from the inferno and given them to Edward, who had scrubbed, cleaned, oiled, and sharpened them to an inch of their lives. I'd had to leave the big blade in the car because I couldn't figure out how to carry it concealed, and carrying what amounted to a small sword barehanded seemed a little too aggressive.

Edward had even given me an incendiary grenade for my jacket pocket. It helped balance out the derringer in my right hand pocket so that the jacket didn't swing too funny as I walked. The derringer had been his idea, too, though I had brought it with me from St. Louis. I wasn't sure I really needed it today, but I'd learned never to argue with Edward when he gave me a weapon. If he thought I might need it, I almost certainly would. Scary thought on the grenade, isn't it?

At some unknown signal, Olaf moved up and tried the bar door. It was locked. He knocked twice hard enough to rattle the door. He also stood right in front of the door. After staring down a sawed-off shotgun the last time I came to the bar, I might not have stood facing front at that black door. Either Olaf hadn't heard about the shotgun, or he didn't care. Maybe he was trying to be muy macho for my benefit or maybe for his own benefit. If he'd been more secure in himself, then he wouldn't have been so easy to piss off.

Even standing off to one side, the sound of the locks being drawn back was loud. Good, solid locks just from the sound of it. The door pushed open, slowly, showing a thick slice of darkness like a cave pressing against the sunlight. The door continued to push slowly open as if on its own power. Only at the very last did a large beefy arm come into view, spoiling the illusion.

Harpo stood in the doorway peering out at us, eyes hidden behind the same small black sunglasses he'd been wearing the first time I saw him. He had changed clothes, though. He was wearing a jean vest open over a very hairy chest and stomach. He looked more like a bear than a werewolf. He looked like a great big sleepy bear that had rolled out of bed, pulled on some clothes and rumbled out to the door. Even his otherworldly energy seemed dimmer than last time.

But he blocked the door with his bulk, and growled out, "Anita, but not the others."

I moved around Olaf, and he actually moved back so I could face Harpo. Either Olaf was being nicer, or he figured better me than him in the door. "Nicky said I could bring some friends."

Harpo peered down at me. "Looks like you need better friends."

I didn't touch the bruise. It wouldn't help. "Let's just say I was relying on police backup and they were late." Which was true, and I still wanted to know where the hell Ramirez had been while I'd been playing lone ranger. I like policemen, but I knew the comment would please Harpo.

It did. He smiled a quick baring of teeth that flashed wolf fangs in the thickness of his beard. He had definitely been spending too much time in wolf form. There was a low murmuring voice, male. Harpo turned to look over one massive shoulder towards the voice. Then he turned back to me. The smile was gone.

"Boss says you were invited but not the others."

I gave a very small shake of my head because a big one would have hurt. "Look, Nicky invited me here. He said I could bring friends. I brought them. I'm here before ten in the fucking morning. I came down here to talk about our common problem, not to be dicked around at the door."

"This ain't dicking around," Harpo said, hand cupping his groin. "I can show you dicking around."

I held up a hand. "Fine, my mistake for using the wrong word. I didn't come down here to be stopped at the door."

He was still rubbing himself, getting into it or trying to piss me off. He'd succeeded on the last. I was so not standing here with forty-plus stitches in my back watching some werewolf ape jack off before I'd even had coffee.

"I am too tired for this shit," I said.

He started to get a little body language into it, smiling at me.

I raised my voice so it would carry into the open door of the bar. "I am not going anywhere today without my friends here. If you're waiting for me to give in on that point, then we're wasting each other's time."

There was no answer from inside the bar. Harpo had gotten a little hip action into his show. I'd had enough. "When the monster sucks your life out, Nicky, don't worry. It doesn't really hurt. Have a nice day."

I turned to my friends. "They're not going to let us see Nicky."

Edward nodded. "Then let's go." He made a small motion, and Bernardo and Olaf moved off down the sidewalk. Edward lagged a little behind with me. I think we were both hoping that Harpo would call my bluff. Except it was only partially a bluff. We could have forced our way in there with weapons, but Nicky wouldn't talk at the end of a gun. I needed a dialogue, not an interrogation.

I started walking away. Edward fell into step behind me, but kept an eye on our backs. I wasn't flexible enough to do much back trailing without turning my entire body around which was awkward. Besides I trusted Edward to watch our backs.

I admit there was a tension between my shoulder blades, waiting for Harpo to come running out and say come back, let's talk. But he didn't. So I kept walking. Olaf and Bernardo were beside the Hummer waiting for Edward to unlock the doors.

We were actually getting in the car when Harpo appeared on the sidewalk and started to walk towards us. He looked unarmed, but not happy.

I sat in the seat, and closed the door. "Start the engine," I said.

Edward did what I told him.

Harpo started jogging towards us waving those big arms. Some shapeshifters run like their animal counterparts, all grace and God-given motion. Harpo was not one of those. He ran awkwardly, as if he hadn't done it in a while, at least not in human form. It made me smile.

"You just wanted to see him run," Edward said. "Petty."

"Yeah, it's petty. Fun though," I said.

He put the car in gear, and Harpo put on a burst of awkward speed. He got to the car as Edward was starting to pull away. He actually slammed a big meaty hand on the hood.

Edward stopped. My window glide down, and I looked up at Harpo. There was sweat beading on his naked chest. His breath came harsh and too quick. "Fuck," he said.

"Did you want something?" I asked.

"Boss says ¨C that you can all ¨C come inside." He was leaning his hands against the Hummer while he got his breath back.

"Okay," I said.

Edward pulled the car back into the curb, while Harpo moved so there was room. We all got back out of the car. Harpo was still not breathing right. "Aerobic exercise is the key to good cardiovascular health," I said, sweetly, as we waited for him to start walking back to the bar.

"Fuck you."

I thought about getting back in the Hummer, but I'd played the game as far as I was willing to go. I wanted to talk to Baco, but only with backup. Harpo had said I could do both. I'd achieved my goal. Anything else was pure childishness. I was feeling petty, but not that petty.

When he recovered, he was once again the sunglass-wearing muscle man, face impassive. He strode back, hands in loose fists, doing his best impression of a moving mountain of flesh. His otherworldly energy prickled along my skin. Just a whisper of power, as if it were leaking out without him meaning for it to. Which probably meant he was pissed. Strong emotions made it harder to hold all that vibrating energy inside.

None of us spoke on the short walk back. Men are usually not good at useless small talk or don't see a need for it, and I was just too busy concentrating on walking normally without giving away just how much it hurt to chitchat.

Harpo held the door for us. I glanced at Edward. He gave me blank eyes back. Fine. I walked inside and the others followed. Three days ago I'd have been nervous stepping into that dark with the vibrating energy of werewolves rising like an invisible tide. But that was three days ago, and there just wasn't that much fear left in me. My body hurt, but the rest of me was oddly numb. Maybe I'd finally crossed that line that Edward seemed to live behind. Maybe I'd never really feel anything again. When even that thought didn't scare me, I knew I was in trouble.

47

IT TOOK A SECOND for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior, but it wasn't my eyes that told me something was wrong. It was the skin on the back of my neck. I didn't argue with it. I had my hand on the Browning underneath the shirt and didn't care if it gave away the fact that I was carrying a gun. They'd be fools to think we'd come in here unarmed. Los Lobos Biker Club might have a lot of faults, but being that kind of fool wasn't one of them.

Nicky Baco was lying on the bar with his hands tied to his ankles so that the ropes formed a sort of handle like he was some kind of carry-on bag. His face was bloody and bruised, and the injuries were a lot fresher than mine.

I had the Browning out, and I felt rather than saw the other three fan out until we were the corners of a box, and each corner held a gun. Each corner watched its section of the room, and whether we liked each other or not, I trusted all of us to take care of our sections of the room, even Olaf. It was good to be sure.

My part of the room included the bar with Nicky on it; a tall man with a beard, and a curl of waist-length pony tail over one shoulder; two wolves the size of ponies; and a man's body staring sightless at the room, his throat cut like a second mouth red and screaming.

I had a peripheral sense of the how full the room was of crowding bodies. The energy was thick enough to choke on. I heard a noise to the right and did three things almost simultaneously. I pointed the Browning at the noise, drew the Firestar left-handed to point at the man with the ponytail, and let my eyes flick to the side to see what I'd heard. Good that I'd been practicing left-handed firing drills. The heavy slithering sound came again from behind the bar. The bar was in my section of the room. It was my ball, so to speak. I felt the others surging forward like a trembling tide about to swallow us all. We could shoot a lot of them, but there had to be over a hundred in this room and we were dead if they all came at once.

Fear tightened my stomach, jerking my pulse into my throat. Just like that the numbness was gone, chased away by adrenaline, and the musky scent of wolves. There were more wolves than just the two in front of me out in that packed, darkened room. I could smell them. My stomach jerked again, but not from fear. The mark that tied me to Richard, tied me to his pack, was alive again. It flared in my body like a tiny flame reborn, waiting to be fed so it could grow. Great, just great. I had to worry about it later. My concentration was all used up.

The ponytailed man just stood there smiling. He was handsome in a rough around the edges, tattooed prison sort of way. Even in the dimness his eyes flashed wolf amber, not human. I also knew what, or would that be who, I was looking at. This was their Ulfric, their wolf king. He stood in a space of emptiness with most of the pack huddled further back into the room, and yet his power made up for theirs. His power filled the nearly empty side of the room with a flesh-creeping energy like thunder just before it strikes.

The tension was thick enough that I had to swallow some of it before I could speak. "Greetings, Ulfric of the Los Lobos clan. What's shaking?"

He threw his head back and laughed, a big hearty, good-natured sound that ended with a howl that crawled out of his human throat and down my spine. "Nice effect," I said, "but this is an official police investigation into the mutilation murders. I'm sure you've heard about them."

He turned those startling pale eyes to me. "I've heard."

"Then you know that we aren't investigating your pack."

He laid a casual hand on Nicky, who whimpered even though I don't think it really hurt. "Nicky is my vargamor. If the police wish to speak with him, then they must ask me first." He smiled, and I was close enough to notice that his teeth were human, no fangs for the Ulfric.

"Sorry. The only other pack I've ever met that had a vargamor doesn't make you talk to the Ulfric first. My apologies on the oversight." I hoped whatever we were doing was going to be over soon, because I couldn't keep up the gun in each hand stance for long. I'd practiced left-handed, but it was still my weak hand, and the bite in it was already starting a faint tremble in the muscles. I had to be able to lower my hand soon or it would begin to shake.

"If you were the police, then I would accept your apologies. We are always ready to help the police." That last brought a wave of snickers from the packed house. "But I don't see any police in this room."

"I'm Anita Blake. I'm a vampire executioner ... "

He cut me off. "I know who you are. I know what you are." I didn't like that last, made me nervous.

"And just what am I?"

"You are the lupa of the Thronnos Roke clan, and you have come to my clan for help, but you have not honored me or my lupa. You enter my lands without permission. You contact my vargamor without talking to me first, and you give us no tribute." His power grew with every sentence until it was like standing in warm water up to your chin, knowing that if it got much deeper you'd drown.

But I understood the rules now. I'd insulted him, and he had to wipe out that insult. I'd try sweet reason, but I didn't have much hope for it. Besides, my left arm was getting tired. Hell, so was my right. Whatever was behind the bar moved in a huge roll of motion that you could feel and hear. It sounded bigger than a werewolf,

"I flew down here on police business. I did not enter your lands as lupa of the Thronnos Roke clan. I came down here as Anita Blake, the Executioner, that's all."

"But you contacted my vargamor." He slapped Nicky's thigh, and that did seem to hurt, because he closed his eyes and writhed at the touch, straining through his gag to scream.

"I didn't know Nicky was your vargamor until after I'd talked to him. No one told me that this bar was your lair. You're Ulfric. You can smell that I'm not lying."

He gave a small nod. "You tell the truth." He looked at the small man on The bar, running his hand over his body the way you'd stroke a dog, though the dog doesn't usually wince and try to pull back. "But he knew that he was my vargamor. Nicky knew that you were a lupa of another clan. It was the hot topic for a while, a human lupa."

"Lupa's often just another word for the Ulfric's girlfriend," I said.

He turned those golden eyes to me, more gold because of the heavy black eyebrows that framed them. "Nicky agreed to help you without asking me later, or even telling me about your visit." He gave a low growl that refreshed the fading goosebumps on my skin. "I am Ulfric. I lead here." He slapped Nicky and fresh blood trickled from his nose.

I badly wanted to put a stop to the abuse, just out of principle, but I didn't want it badly enough to die for it, so I waited and watched Nicky Baco bleed. I didn't like it, but I let it happen. My left hand was beginning to cramp. I needed to either start shooting people or put my guns up. Even holding my arms out for this long was putting a strain on my back and chest.

"Anita," Edward said, and just the tone of my own name was enough. He was quietly telling me to hurry it up.

"Look, Ulfric, I didn't mean to walk into some inner pack squabble. I'm just trying to do my job. Trying to keep more innocent people from being killed."

"Humans are fun," he said. "Sex and a meal and you never have to leave your car. But-you-do-not-make-them-your-queen!" His voice rose until with the last word he was screaming. Howls echoed him from the mob that was pressing close and closer.

"Anita," Edward said, and this time there was more of a warning to his voice.

"I'm working on it, Edward."

"Work faster," he said.

"You're a racist, Ulfric," I said.

He stared at me. "What?"

"I'm human so I'm good enough to fuck, good enough to kill but not good enough to be your equal just because I'm human. You're a racist chauvinistic big bad wolf."

"You come into my lands, ask aid of my pack, give no tribute to me or my lupa, and now you're calling me names." I don't know if he made some kind of psychic signal or his anger was enough, but the two giant wolves at his feet began to stalk forward on stiff legs.

My left hand was beginning to shake, visibly. Whatever was behind the bar thrashed, sounding large and bestial. My left hand was threatening to give out completely, and I needed both hands. "You die first, Ulfric," I said.

"What?" and he sort of laughed when he said it.

"The first thing that jumps any of us, and I shoot you. No matter what else happens today, you'll be dead. Your two pony wolves better stop right where they are."

"Your hand is shaking so badly, I don't think you've got it in you to kill anyone."

It was my turn to laugh. "You think my hand is shaking because I feel remorse about the thought of shooting you. Boy, have you got the wrong girl. Look at my right hand, Ulfric. It's not shaking. A walking corpse took a bite out of my left hand a couple of days ago, so I'm a little shaky with my left, but trust me. I hit what I aim at." This is usually when I give my victim full eye contact and let them know I'm not bluffing, but I was divided between the Ulfric and his entourage, and the bar. "How many of your wolves are you willing to sacrifice for your wounded pride?"

"If we fight, Anita, you and your friends will die."

"And you'll die, and some of your best people, so wouldn't it be nice to avoid the carnage and have you tell me what the hell you want from me. You know I'm telling the truth. I didn't know that I was stepping on your toes. If Nicky is making some kind of power play behind your back, I didn't know it. So, tell me what you want to make this ... social gaffe okay between us. Tell me before my left hand starts spasming so badly that I start shooting things just because I have to."

He was watching me very narrowly, and I saw intelligence behind all the bragging and pride. There might be somebody home to bargain with. If there wasn't, then we were going to die. We were going to die, not because of the case but because I had been at one time Richard's girlfriend. It was a stupid reason to die.

"Tribute, I want the lupa of the Thronnos Roke Clan to give me tribute."

"You mean a gift," I said.

He nodded. "If it's the right kind of gift, yeah."

If I'd been coming to Albuquerque with Richard on personal business I'd have expected to make a gift to the local pack. The gift was usually a freshly killed animal, jewelry for the lupa, or something mystical. Death, jewelry, or magic. I didn't have any jewelry on me except Leonora's necklace, and I wasn't exactly sure what it would do for someone other than me. For all I knew it might be harmful, if it was just handed out. I didn't have enough information. The charm was so not leaving my body.

I lowered my left hand. One, it was twitching so badly, I wasn't a hundred percent sure I could hit anything with it. Two, I couldn't keep pointing guns if we weren't going to kill people. Three, my hand was hurting.

"Your word that if I give you a suitable gift, we all leave here in safety."

"You'd take the word of an ex-con, drug dealing, biker gang leader?"

"No, but I'll take the word of the Ulfric of the Broken Spear Clan. That I'll take." There were rules, and if he broke his word as Ulfric, he lost brownie points. He had to be on shaky ground anyway for a human, no matter how magically powerful, vargamor to have challenged his authority. He wouldn't give his word and break it, not in front of his pack.

"I am Ulfric of the Broken Spear Clan, and I give my word that you will all go in safety, if your gift is worthy."

I didn't like the wording on that last. "I didn't have time to stop at Tiffany's and pick up something for the little lady. Didn't get to hunt on the way here from the hospital. Cops frown on you shooting animals in town. The mystical shit is beyond me today."

"Then you have nothing worthy," he said, but he looked puzzled as though he was sure I had a gift of some kind.

"Let me see what's behind the bar, and I'll put up my guns and make tribute." I'd tried to put up the Firestar, but my left hand was shaking so badly that I couldn't raise the shirt and slide it inside my pants. I needed two hands for it. Which meant I needed to be able to holster the Browning.

"Done," he said. "Monstruo, rise, greet our guest."

It rose above the bar in a thin line of pale flesh like the rising of a crescent moon, then a face came into view. It was a woman's face with one eye gone stiff and dry like some kind of mummy. Face after face, rose brown and withered like a string of monstrous beads, strung together with pieces of body, arms, legs, and thick black thread like gigantic stitches holding it all together, holding the magic inside. It rose up and up until it towered against the ceiling, curving like a giant snake to stare down at me. I estimated forty heads, more, before I lost count, or lost heart to count anymore.

The werewolves had moved back further into the room like the tide retreating backwards. They feared the thing. I didn't blame them.

I heard Bernardo say, "Fuck."

Olaf said something in German, which meant he wasn't watching his part of the room. Only Edward remained silent and on the job, ever vigilant. I have to admit that if the werewolves had wanted to jump me while that thing rose above me like some demented snake I would have been slow. It was too much horror to leave room for anything else.

I'd only seen something like it once before. That monster had been made by the most powerful vaudun priestess I'd ever met. But hers had been formed of fresh zombies and pulled seamlessly together into one monstrous ball of flesh. Pure magic. This had been stitched together like Frankenstein's monster, and the bodies being dead like that, dried, deliberately mummified, or an after effect of the spell.

I dragged my gaze from the thing to the Nicky Baco still lying on the bar, gagged and bound and bloody. I heard my voice like a distant thing, "Why, Nicky, you bad, bad boy." I'd made a joke, when what I wanted to do was put a gun to his head and blow him away. Some things you did not do. Some things you simply did not do.

"You see why he's still alive," the Ulfric said.

"Too powerful to get rid of," I said, voice still oddly detached, as if I wasn't really concentrating on what I was saying.

"I used him as my threat. He would lay his magic on a wolf that was misbehaving, and they would be turned into what you see. And he would stitch them into the monstruo. But my wolves fear him now more than they fear me."

I was nodding over and over because I couldn't think of a good thing to say. Alive, they were alive when Nicky did his magic. I had a truly awful thought. Somehow it seemed wrong to be putting away the guns, but I needed my hands for other things. I raised the shirt and slid the Browning home, though it wasn't as smooth as it would have been if the holster had been familiar. But my left hand was pretty much gone. I had to raise the shirt with my right and very carefully tuck the Firestar into the front of my pants. Even after the hand was empty, it continued to twitch uncontrollably. There was nothing I could do but wait for it to calm down on its own. I cradled the hand against my body and walked towards the monster.

I stood on the other side of the bar from it, looking at one of those dried faces. The mouth had been sewn shut on this one. I didn't know why. I took a few deep cleansing breaths, and there was an odor of herbs to it, but mostly just a dry smell like tanned leather and dust. I reached out with my left hand. Even with the bandages and the muscle cramps this was still my power hand, the hand to sense magic with. Most people have a hand that is better for sensing stuff, usually the opposite hand from the one you write with. I have no idea what ambidextrous people do.

There was an amazing amount of power pushing out from the thing, but the bar was wide and I was hurt so my concentration wasn't good, and I still couldn't answer the one question I needed answered. I used my right hand to sort of jump-sit on the bar, then got onto my knees. There was a face at eye level with me, and this one had eyes. A man's face, I think, with pale grey wolf eyes trapped in a dried mummy face. Those eyes stared out at me, and there was someone home. The walking dead don't show fear. I knew what I'd feel before I stretched my hand out toward the face. There was Nicky's power like a warm blanket of worms, squirming over my skin. It was some of the most uncomfortable magic I'd ever felt, unclean, as if the power itself would eat your flesh if you stayed too close to it for too long. This was where Nicky's energy had gone, and this was why no matter how much energy he gathered, it would never be enough. Magic this negative, this evil, is like a drug. It takes more and more energy to get the same result with worse and worse effect on the spellcaster.

I sent my own magic into that mess, not to empower, but seeking. I felt the cool brush of a soul, and before I could pull back, my power ran up that column of trapped flesh, and the souls glowed behind my eyelids with cool white light. None of them had been dead when he did this to them. I wasn't a hundred percent sure they were dead now.

I opened my eye and pulled my hand back from the thing. His power sucked at my hand like invisible mud. I pulled free with an almost audible pop. The man's face moved its withered mouth, and made a long dry sound, twice. "Help," it said, "help."

I swallowed a wave of nausea and was very glad I'd missed breakfast. I crawled on one arm and my knees to Nicky. I bent over him and whispered, "Would burning it free their souls?"

He shook his head.

"Can you free their souls?"

He nodded.

I think if he'd said yes to the first question, I'd have put the Browning to his head and killed him. But I needed him to free them, and I added that to my list of things to do before I left town. But there was nothing I could do for them today, except stay alive, and strangely, keep Nicky Baco alive. One of life's little ironies, that last.

I sat on the bar with my legs dangling over the edge, hand cradled to my chest, dazed with the sheer evil of it. I'd seen my share, but this was near the top. This was near the top after what I'd seen in the hospital. At least the corpses were just eating bodies, not souls.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the Ulfric said.

"You're closer than you know," I said.

"Where is our gift?" he said.

"Where's your lupa?"

He stroked the head of one of the wolves by his legs. "This is my lupa."

"I can't share the gift with anyone in animal form," I said.

He frowned, and it was very close to being angry. "You must honor us."

"I plan to." I rolled the sleeve of my jacket back over my left arm. The wrist sheath had to go. I undid the straps, propping the blade, sheath and all between my legs. The monster hovered behind me, peering curiously. It was distracting me. I couldn't save them today, and didn't want to see it anymore until I could fix it.

"Can you order it to leave the room?"

He looked at me. "Scared?"

"I can feel the souls crying out for help. It's sort of distracting."

He looked at me, and I watched the color drain from his face. "You mean that."

I smiled, but not like it was funny. "You didn't know that he's trapping their souls in that thing?"

"He said he was." His voice had gone softer.

"You didn't believe him," I said.

The Ulfric was gazing up at the thing as if he'd never seen it before. "You wouldn't believe something like that, would you?"

"I would." I shrugged, wished I hadn't, and said, "but then this is my line of work. Can you please send it away?"

He nodded, and spoke rapidly in Spanish. The thing folded down on itself and crept away on arms and legs and bodies like a broken centipede. Sitting on the bar, I could see it go down a trap door behind the bar. When the last segment of it had slithered out of sight, I turned back to the Ulfric. He still looked pale.

"Baco is the only one who can free their souls. Don't kill him until he's done that."

"I didn't plan to kill him," the man said.

"That was before you knew. I don't know you well enough to know if when I leave, you'll get all self-righteous and try to end this evil. Don't, please, or you condemn them all to an eternity of that."

He swallowed like he was having a little trouble keeping down his own breakfast. "I won't kill him."

"Good." I drew the knife from between my knees right-handed. "Now gather round, boys and girls, because I'm only going to do this trick once."

There was a general movement as the wolves moved forward. I spared a glance for the boys I'd come in with. They hadn't put their guns up, but they had them pointed at the floor or the ceiling. Edward was watching the wolves, Bernardo was watching the wolves, too, though he looked pale. Olaf was watching me. I really, really, didn't like him.

"I give honor to the Ulfric and lupa of the Broken Spear Clan. I give the most precious of gifts to the Ulfric, but not being true lukoi, I cannot share this gift with the lupa in her present form. For that, I apologize most sincerely. If I come back this way, I'll shop better." I sat the blade on the bar and leaned over the edge until I could reach a clean glass. One of those thick chunky ones that people are so fond of putting scotch in. It was a strain to get back into a sitting position on the bar, but I managed it with the glass in one hand. I put the glass beside me on the bar and picked the knife up. I laid the blade against my left arm, just above the wrist, and stared at the whole, pale, unscarred flesh. There were scars just above it where a shapeshifted witch had clawed me, and the cross-shaped burn scar that was now a little crooked from the claw marks, but this one patch was still pure. I hoped it didn't scar, but what was one more.

I took in a deep breath and sliced the blade down my skin. A sigh ran through the watching werewolves, and whimpers from a few of the furrier throats. I ignored them. I'd known it would get a crowd reaction. I kept looking at my flesh and the damage I'd just done to it. The wound didn't bleed immediately. It was just a thin red line, then the first drop spilled from the wound, and the rest of the wound spilled in crimson rivulets down my arm. Deeper than I'd wanted it, but probably about what was needed. I held the wound over the glass. Some of it splashed around the edges, trailing down the sides, but I managed to get it going into the cup. I didn't even need to squeeze the wound much to encourage the flow. Deeper than I wanted it, oh yeah.

The Ulfric had moved closer, close enough that he was standing with his body touching my legs. The wolf that he'd introduced as his lupa moved up to nuzzle at my knee, and he hit her. He backhanded her the way you'd hit a dog you didn't like much. Where was women's lib when you needed it? She went to her belly, crying in doggy fashion, telling him she hadn't meant any harm with her tail tight curled to her rump.

No one else tried to move forward. If the lupa couldn't share, the rest of them knew better than to try.

The Ulfric stayed pressed against my legs. "Let me take it out of your arm." He stared at my bleeding arm like I'd stripped for him, something beyond sex, beyond hunger, and yet a little of both. I raised the arm so the blood trickled down it in fast little streams of red, splashing down into the glass. His gaze followed the movement like a dog after a piece of food.

The truth was that letting people lick a wound directly tended to distract me. Through the marks I was bound to a werewolf and a vampire. Both of which found blood exciting. The thoughts that filled me when I shared blood with anyone were too primitive, too overwhelming. Especially now with my shields in ruins, I couldn't risk it. "Is the gift worthy?" I asked.

"You know it is," and his voice had that peculiar hoarseness that men get when sex is in the air.

"Then drink, Ulfric, drink. Don't waste it." I held the bloody glass out to him. He took it reverently in both hands. He drank, and I watched his throat convulse as he swallowed my blood. It should have bothered me more, I guess, but it didn't. The numbness was back, a distant almost comfortable feeling. I fished under the bar until I found a stack of clean napkins and pressed them to my arm. The napkins soaked crimson in moments.

The Ulfric had waded into the pack with my blood in his hands. They surrounded him, touching him, caressing, begging for him to share. He dipped his lingers in the nearly empty cup and held them down for the wolves to lick.

Edward came to stand near me. He said nothing, just helped me put pressure on the wound, got more napkins from under the bar and a clean cloth to tie it tight. Our eyes met, and he just shook his head, the faintest of smiles playing on his face. "Most people pay money for information."

"Money doesn't interest most of the people I deal with."

The Ulfric called back to me through the reaching werewolves. His mouth was bloodstained, his neat beard and mustache thick with my blood. He stared at me with his golden eyes and said, "If you want to talk to Nicky, help yourself."

"Thank you, Ulfric," I said. I hopped down off the bar, and Edward had to catch me or I'd have fallen. Fresh blood loss on top of everything else was not what I had needed. I waved him away, and he didn't argue.

Edward undid Nicky's gag, and took a step back. The werewolves had pulled back, giving us the illusion of privacy, though I knew that every werewolf in the room would hear us, even if we whispered.

"Hi, Nicky," I said.

He had to try twice before he said, "Anita."

"I was here before ten." I put my hands on the bar and propped my chin on them so he wouldn't have to strain. The movement hurt my back, but somehow I wanted to be on eye level with him. The bulky makeshift bandage seemed to be in the way, but I wanted to keep the arm elevated. Nicky looked even worse up close. One eye was completely closed, blackened and bloodfilled. His nose looked broken, blood bubbling from it when he breathed.

"He came back into town early."

"I figured as much. You've been a very bad boy, Nicky. Pissing off your Ulfric, power play behind his back when you're just human, not even a werewolf, and that thing. That's not voodoo. How the hell did you do that?"

"Older magic than voodoo," he said.

"What kind of magic?" I asked.

"I thought you wanted to talk about the monster that's killing innocent citizens?" His voice was strained, pain-filled. Normally, I'm against torture, but I just couldn't find much pity in my heart for Nicky. I'd seen his creation, and I felt the torment of its parts. Nope, I just couldn't spare much sympathy for Nicky. He'd never take enough damage to make up for what he'd done, not at least while he was alive. Hell might be a very nasty place for Nicky Baco. I trusted the divine to have a better sense of justice and irony than I did.

"Okay, what do you really know about the thing that's out there?" I asked.

He lay there on the bar, wrists and ankles bound together, blood trickling from his mouth, and talked as if he were sitting behind a desk. Except for the little pain sounds he made every once in a while, which spoiled some of the effect.

"I felt it years ago, maybe ten. I felt it wake."

"What do you mean wake?"

"Have you had it in your mind yet?" he asked, and this time I heard the fear in his voice.

"Yeah," I said.

"It was sluggish at first, as if it had been asleep or imprisoned, dormant for a very long time. It grew stronger every year."

"Why didn't you tell the police?"

"Ten years ago the police didn't have any psychics or witches working for them. And I already had a criminal record." He coughed and spat blood, and a tooth out on the bar. It made me raise my head up, which forced Nicky to roll his head a little. "What was I going to tell them? That there was this thing out there somewhere, this voice in my head, and it was getting stronger. I didn't know what it could do at first. I didn't know what it was."

"What is it?"

"It's a god."

I raised eyebrows at him.

"It was worshipped as a god once. It wants to be worshipped again. It says that gods need tribute to survive."

"You got all this from just a voice in your head?"

"I've had ten years with the thing whispering in my head. What have you learned in less than that many days?"

I thought about that. I knew it was killing to feed, not just for sport. Though it enjoyed the slaughter, that I'd felt, too. I knew it both feared me and wanted me. It feared another death worker on the opposite side, but it wanted to drink my powers and would have if Leonora hadn't stopped it.

"Why has it just started to kill people now? Why after a decade?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Why does it slaughter some and skin others?"

"I don't know."

"What is it doing with the body parts that it takes away from the scenes?" Which was a detail that the police would not like me sharing with someone outside the investigation, but I wanted answers more than I wanted to be cautious.

"I don't know." He coughed again, but didn't spit out anything. Good. If he'd continued to spit blood, I'd have worried about internal injuries. I didn't want to have to persuade the pack to take him to the hospital. I didn't think I'd have much luck.

"Where is it?"

"I've never been there. But understand that what's been killing people is not the god. He's still trapped wherever he started. His servants have done all the murders, not him."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you think you've got trouble now, you ain't seen nothing yet. I can feel him in the dark, lying like some kind of bloated thing, filling up with power. When he's full enough, he'll rise, and it'll be hell to pay."

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

"You had the police with you the first time. If you turn me over to them I'm dead. You've seen what I do. There wouldn't even need to be a jury."

He had a point. "When this is over, you have to dismantle it. You have to free their souls, agreed?"

"When I can walk again, agreed."

I glanced at his legs and saw that there was a lump under his pants leg. It was the bone of the leg, a compound fracture. Jesus. Some days there are so many stones to throw in so many different directions that I don't even know where to start.

"Does this god have a name?"

"He calls himself the Red Woman's Husband."

"That can't be an original English phrase."

"I think he knows what his victims know. By the time he came to me, he spoke in English."

"So you think he's been here a long time."

"I think he's always been here."

"What do you mean, always? Like eternity, or a really, really long time."

"I don't know how long he's been here." Nicky closed his good eye, as if he were tired.

"Okay, Nicky, okay." I turned to the Ulfric. "Is he telling the truth?"

The man nodded. "He didn't lie."

"Great. Thank you for your hospitality and please don't kill him. We may need him in the next few days to help kill this thing, not to mention freeing the souls of your pack mates."

"I'll lay off on the beating."

It was the closest thing I was going to get to a "yes, we are going to let him go and make sure he isn't hurt anymore."

"Great, I'll be in touch."

Edward stayed near me as we walked to the door. He didn't offer me his arm, but he stayed close enough that if I stumbled he'd be there. Bernardo already had the door open. Olaf just watched us walk towards them. I stumbled a little up the two steps to the door, and Olaf caught my arm. I looked up into his eyes, and it wasn't pride or honor or respect that I saw. It was ... hunger, a desire so great it was a physical need, a hunger.

I pulled away from him and left a smear of blood on his hand. Edward was at my back, helping me towards the door. Olaf raised his hand to his mouth and pressed it to his mouth like a kiss, but he was doing the same thing that the wolves did. He was tasting my blood and liked it. There are all kinds of monsters. Most of them crave blood. Some for food, some for pleasure, but you're dead either way.