Skin Trade

Chapter 43

VICTOR WENT TO stand in front of Morgan. "Detective Morgan, without Marshal Blake and me, you have no hope of taking Martin alive."

I said, "We have two officers missing, presumed injured or dead. It's not about taking him alive anymore, Victor."

"But if he dies, we lose the chance to find Vittorio's daytime lair," Victor said.

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. We could pretend that it does, but your tiger gave up his safety when he touched the officers."

"You won't even try to get them to bring him in alive?"

"They don't trust me anymore, Victor. I went too weird on them."

"Your friend Forrester, then."

"Until they find the missing officers, it doesn't matter."

"What if killing Martin means you never find the officers' bodies?"

I turned to Morgan. "What about that? That Martin Bendez may know where your officers are?"

"I'll radio it in, but you called it, Blake. The moment he touched our officers, we're not going to be able to contain this."

"He is a very powerful weretiger," Victor said. "He will not be easy to kill."

"That a threat?" Morgan asked.

"No, honesty. If Martin has gone rogue, and you won't allow us to try to use metaphysics to contain him, then killing him from a distance is your only hope."

"So you're telling me to try to get our men to take him alive, and to shoot him from a safe distance." Morgan smiled and shook his head, and I knew the smile for what it was now, his version of blank face. "You can't have both, Victor."

"I know that, Detective. I'm telling you I'd rather bring him in alive for the information he holds, but without the marshal and me, you have no hope of taking him alive. So if we are truly to be sidelined, then you must get a sniper in place with silver ammunition and take him out."

"I'll give your advice to my superiors." Morgan was still smiling, but his tone made it clear he either wouldn't do what Victor asked or thought the advice was amusing.

I didn't find him amusing; I found him honest. Morgan walked away, maybe even to do what Victor wanted done, but I doubted it.

I looked around at the other officers. "Sorry you're missing out on the tiger hunt babysitting us."

"My wife won't be sorry," one man said. His name tag read Cox. He was older, maybe late thirties.

"I'm sorry," one of the other officers said, "I mean a real hunt for a weretiger. How often does that happen?" I turned to find that this officer, Shelby by his name tag, looked bright and eager. I fought the urge to sniff the air and go, Hmm, rookie.

"When you've been on the job long enough," Cox said, "you'll know that going home alive is win enough."

"Getting married made you a wussy," Shelby said.

Other officers joined in the good-natured ribbing. Cox took it like the ten-year veteran he probably was; I knew what he meant. I didn't even have my ten years in, but getting home alive to the people I loved had become more important to me than catching the bad guy. It's a grown-up attitude, but sometimes it means it's time to change jobs. Or ride a desk. I'd suck at desk work.

It made me feel less wussy that Edward had turned down a contract to hunt Marmee Noir. When Death himself, his nickname among the vamps, starts turning down hunts so he can get home alive to his family, the world has become a different place. Or maybe the world is the same, and it was Edward and I who had changed.

Everyone's radios went off at the same time: handheld, shoulder mic, all of it. I caught the dispatcher's words. Someone had hit the emergency button on their handheld. The next thing we heard was a full-out officer down call.

Everyone ran for their cars. I stuck at Cox's heels. Shelby, too; apparently they were riding together. "Take me with you, Cox."

He hesitated at the door of his car while car after car squealed away, sirens and lights roaring. "Orders say you stay here."

"Forrester is my partner."

"You guys don't run in pairs," Cox said.

"He's my rabbi."

"I heard he was more your Svengali," Shelby said.

Cox said, "Shut up, Shelby."

Shelby did.

Cox and I had one of those long stares, and then he nodded. "Get in."

Victor glided up beside me.

"Not him," Cox said as he opened the door.

"If one of my tigers has attacked officers, I might be able to stop him."

I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but... "Let him ride; if we leave him behind and he gets hurt, we'll get shit for that, too."

Cox cursed softly.

"I know," I said, "some days you just choose which ass-chewing you're gonna get."

"Ain't that the truth." He got in, and Shelby got in with him. Since he hadn't said no, Victor and I got in the back. Lights and sirens went, and we were screaming out after the other cars. I was still hunting for the seatbelt when we went around a corner fast enough to throw me into Victor.

He put an arm around me, held me close, and I was left with another problem. How do you make someone who can bench-press a small car let go of you, short of bleeding him? Answer: you don't.

Chapter 44

I SPOKE OVER the noise of the sirens. "Let go of me."

He leaned his mouth in closer and spoke next to my ear. "We have little time, and there are things you need to know."

I fought my muscles not to tense and keep trying to push him away. I tried to relax into him, but finally had to settle for just nodding. "Talk."

"I felt your power in Gregory's house."

"That wasn't just my power. Sanchez had messed with me."

"I do not mean when the energy changed and was not you." So he had felt Marmee Noir. I wondered if he knew what it had been, if he'd sensed Her. "I felt your energy, Anita. Together we might be able to force Bendez out into the open."

"How?" The car careened around another corner, and only Victor's death grip on the door and me kept us still. I wondered, if we wrecked, would he be able to hold me? I needed my seatbelt, but he kept whispering in my ear, kept holding me close, and I kept not moving away.

"I can sense him, and combined, you and I might force him into the open."

"How do we combine?"

"I read the article you wrote for The Animator about combining powers between yourself and your two fellow animators for raising more and older dead. It is not dissimilar to that."

I wanted to turn, to see his face, because he'd read the business journal for my profession. The only reason to do that was to research me. But turning my head would have put those whispering lips from ear to mouth, and that didn't feel like an improvement. The car was going about a hundred miles an hour, and Cox drove like a maniac in a line of maniacs. The speed, the driving, put my pulse in my throat and scared the hell out of me, but still I let Victor hold me, still I hadn't pushed away and gone for a seatbelt. I wore a seatbelt like a religion, but it was like I couldn't move. I could only listen to that soft, masculine voice in my ear. It all sounded so reasonable, and in that moment, I was no longer certain if it was really reasonable or if Victor was rolling me like some sort of vampire. I couldn't tell anymore. That couldn't be good, could it?

The car slid to a screeching stop. Cox opened all the doors, and Victor let me slide away from him, though his hand slid down to hold mine. But just the hand was better. I could think without him wrapped around me. Fuck.

Cox put a hand on Victor's shoulder, shaking his head. "Civilian, stay in the car."

I kept pulling on Victor's hand. He kept trying to hold on. Officer Cox said, "Let go of Marshal Blake, Mr. Belleci."

Victor's fingers fell away from me, and I pulled to make it happen sooner. Something was wrong when he touched me. Something that had never happened with any other wereanimal, not even the ones that were my animals to call.

The moment Victor wasn't touching me, it was as if I could draw a deeper breath. Surrounded by sirens, lights, police officers, guns, and not yet knowing what officer was down and how deep the shit; and it was already better. I moved the MP5 on its tactical sling to my hands, ready to go, and followed at Cox's heels. He was tall enough that his back was my view, but that was okay. He was letting me come along, and eventually I'd find Edward.

Then something flew over our heads. We all ducked instinctively, and it took a moment for my mind to catch up to what my eyes had seen. Someone in Vegas PD uniform had just been thrown completely over our heads, to hit on the far side of a second line of cars.

"Fuck!" Shelby said.

Couldn't have said it better myself.