21

AN HOUR LATER, I'd finished the witness reports. I stretched my lower back while still sitting in the chair, just bending slowly at the waist until my hands touched the floor or almost touched the floor. Three stretches, and I could press my palms flat to the floor. Better. I got up and checked my watch. Midnight. I felt stiff and strange, estranged from this quiet room and the peaceful surroundings. My head was filled with what I'd read, and what I'd read hadn't been peaceful.

Standing, I could see Edward. He'd moved to the floor, lying flat on the floor, holding the reports up in front of his face. If I had lain down, I'd have been asleep. Edward always did have a will of iron.

He glanced at me. I got a glimpse of what he was looking at. He'd moved on to the pictures. Something must have shone on my face because he placed the pictures face down on his chest. "You finished?"

"With the witness reports, yeah."

He just looked at me.

I went around the table and sat in the chair he'd started the night in. He stayed lying on the floor. I would have said like a contented cat, but there was something more reptilian about him than feline; a coldness. How could Donna miss it? I shook my head. Business, concentrate on business.

"The majority of the houses are isolated ones, mostly because of the wealth of the owners. They've got enough money to give them land and privacy. But three of the houses were located in developments like the Bromwells' with neighbors all around. Those three attacks occurred on one of the few nights that all the neighbors were gone."

"And?" he said.

"And I thought this was going to be a brainstorming session. I want your ideas."

He shook his head. "I brought you down here for a set of fresh eyes, Anita. If I tell you all our old ideas, it may lead you down the same wrong paths we've already taken. Tell me what you see."

I frowned at him. What he said made sense, but it still felt like he was keeping secrets. I sighed. "If this was a person, I'd say he or they stake out the houses night after night, waiting for that one night when all the neighbors were out of the way. But do you know the odds of an entire street clearing out on any given night in the suburbs?"

"Long odds," Edward said.

I nodded. "Damn straight. A few people had plans for that night. One couple went to a niece's birthday party. Another family had their once a month dinner with the in-laws. Two couples from different crime scenes were both working late, but the rest of the people didn't have plans, Edward. They just all left home about the same time on the same night for different reasons."

He was watching me, eyes blank, but steady, intense, and neutral at the same time. From his face I didn't know whether I was saying something he'd heard a dozen times before, or something brand new. Detective Sergeant Dolph Storr likes to stay neutral and not influence his people so I was kind of used to it, but Edward made Dolph seem positively loaded with influence.

I continued, but it was like slogging through mud without any feedback at all. "The detective in charge of the second case, he noticed it, too. He went out of his way to ask why they left their houses. The answers are almost identical where the police take the time to ask details."

"Go on," Edward said, face still blank.

"Dammit, Edward. You've read all the reports. I'm just repeating what you already know."

"But maybe you'll end up someplace new," he said. "Please, Anita, just finish your thought."

"They all got restless. A spur of the moment trip to get ice cream with the kids. One woman decided to go grocery shopping at eleven o'clock at night. Some of them just got in their cars and went for a drive, no place in particular. Just had to get out for a while. One man described it as cabin fever.

"A woman, Mrs. Emma ... shit. I've read too many names in too short a space of time."

"Was it an unusual name?" Edward asked without a single change of expression.

I frowned at him and leaned across the table, lying on it to reach the reports. I shuffled through them until I found the one I wanted. "Mrs. Emma Taylor said, 'The night just felt awful. I just couldn't stand being inside.' She goes on to say, 'Outside the air was suffocating, hard to breathe.' "

"So?" he asked.

"So I want to talk to her."

"Why?"

"I think she's a sensitive, if not a psychic."

"There's nothing in the reports that say she's either."

"If you have the gift and you ignore it or pretend it's not real, it doesn't go away. Power will out, Edward. If she's a strong sensitive or a psychic that has neglected her powers for years, then she'll be either depressed or manic. She'll have a history of treatment for mental illness. How serious will depend on how gifted she is."

He finally looked interested. "You're saying that having psychic ability can drive you crazy?"

"I'm saying that psychic ability can masquerade as mental illness. I know ghost hunters that hear the voices of the dead like whispers in their ears, one of the classic symptoms of psycophernia. Empaths, people who draw impressions from other people, can be depressed because they're surrounded by depressed people, and they don't know how to shield themselves. Really strong clairvoyants can spend their lives getting visions from everything they touch, unable to turn it off, again seeing things that aren't there. Psycophernia. Demonic possession can mask itself as multiple personality. I could give you examples for the next hour matching mental illness with different types of power."

"You've made your point," he said. He sat up and didn't seem the least bit stiff. Maybe the floor was good for his back. "I still don't understand why you want to talk to this woman. The report was taken by Detective Loggia. He was very thorough. He asked good questions."

"You noticed that he took more time with why people left than the rest of the cops, just like I noticed it."

Edward shrugged. "Loggia didn't like the way everyone cleared out. Too damn convenient, but he couldn't come up with anything that tied the people together into a conspiracy."

"A conspiracy?" I almost laughed then stopped at the seriousness in his face. "Did someone actually suggest that an entire upper-middle-class to more-than-middle-class neighborhood conspired together to kill these people?"

"It was the only logical explanation for why they all left within thirty minutes of each other on the night of the murders."

"So they investigated all these people?" I asked.

"That's where some of the extra paperwork comes from."

"And?" I said.

"Nothing," Edward said.

"Nothing?" I made it a question.

"A few neighborhood squabbles over kids destroying the flowers, one affair where the husband that turned up dead was banging the next door neighbor's wife." Edward grinned. "The neighbor was lucky that the other man got cut up in the middle of a string of serial killings. Otherwise, he'd have been the top of the hit parade."

"Could it have been a copycat?" I asked.

"The police don't think so, and believe me they tried to make the pieces fit."

"I believe you. The police hate to let a good motive slide since most of the time motive isn't even one of their top priorities. Most people kill over stupid things, impulse, screw motive."

"Do you have a logical reason why all these people would vacate their houses just at the right time for the killer, or killers, to make their move?"

I nodded. "Yep."

He looked up at me, a slight smile on his face. "I'm listening."

"It's very common in hauntings for people to be uncomfortable in the area where the ghost is strongest."

"You're saying ghosts did this?"

I waved a hand. "Wait, wait until I'm done."

He gave a small nod. "Dazzle me."

"I don't know if it's dazzling, but I think it's how it was done. There are spells that supposedly can make a person uneasy in a house or a place. But the spells I read in college were for one person or one house, not a dozen homes and twice that many people. I'm not even sure a coven working together could affect that big an area. I don't know that much about actual witchcraft of any flavor. We'll need to find a witch to ask. But I think it's moot. I just mentioned it as a possibility."

"It's a possibility the cops haven't come up with yet."

"Nice to know I haven't entirely wasted the last five hours of my life."

"But you don't think it was witches," Edward said.

I shook my head. "Witches of almost any flavor believe in the threefold rule. What you give out comes back to you threefold."

"What goes around comes around," Edward said.

"Exactly, and no one is going to want this shit coming back on them three-fold. I would have said they also believe in 'do what you will, only harm none,' but you can have bad pagans just like you can have bad Christians. Just because your belief says something is wrong doesn't mean someone's not going to break the rules."

"So what do you think caused them all to leave their homes just when our killer needed it?"

"I think whatever is doing this, is big enough and powerful enough to simply arrive on the spot and want the people to go, and they went."

Edward frowned at me. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

"Our monster arrives, knows which house it wants, and he fills the rest of the houses with dread, driving the other families out. That takes a hell of a lot of power, but to then turn around and shield the murder house so that that one family doesn't flee, that's truly impressive. I know some preternatural critters that can throw a sense of unease around them. Mostly I think to keep hunters at bay. But I don't know anything that can cause this kind of controlled panic."

"So you're saying you don't know what it is," he said, and there was just a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

"Not yet, but if this is true, then it rules out a hell of a lot of things. I mean some vampires can throw out fear like this, but not on this large a scale, and if they could do the other houses, they couldn't shield the murder house."

"I know a vampire kill when I see it, Anita, and this isn't one."

I waved my hands in the air as if clearing it. "I'm just throwing out examples, Edward. Even a demon couldn't do this."

"How about a devil?" he asked.

I looked at him, saw he was serious, so I gave him a serious answer. "I won't go into how long it's been since anyone saw a devil, a greater demon, above ground, but if it were anything demonic, I'd have felt it today in the house. The demonic leave a stain behind, Edward."

"Couldn't one that was powerful enough hide its presence from you?"

"Probably," I said. "I'm not a priest, so probably, but whatever is mutilating these people doesn't want to hide." I shook my fiend. "It's not demonic, I'd almost bet the farm on it, but again I'm not a demonologist."

"I know that Donna can help us locate a witch tomorrow. I don't think she knows any demonologists."

"There are only two in the country. Father Simon McCoupen, who has the record in this century in this country for number of exorcisms performed, and Doctor Philo Merrick, who teaches at the University of San Francisco."

"You sound like you know them," Edward said.

"I attended a class taught by Merrick, and a talk given by Father Simon.

"I didn't know you were that interested in demons."

"Let's just say that I'm tired of running into them without knowing much about them."

He looked at me, sort of expectantly. "When did you run into a demon?"

I shook my head. "I won't talk about it after dark. If you really want to know, ask me again tomorrow when the sun is shining."

He looked at me for a second or two, as if he wanted to argue, but he let it go. Which was just as well. There are some stories, some memories, that if you tell them after dark, they seem to gain weight, substance, as if there are things listening, waiting to hear themselves spoken of again. Words have power. But even thinking about them is sometimes enough to make the air in a room heavy. I'd gotten better over the years at turning off my memories. It was a way to stay sane.

"The list of what our murderer isn't is getting longer," Edward said. "Now tell me what it is."

"I don't know yet, but it is preternatural." I leafed through the pages until I found the part I'd marked. "Four of the people now in the Santa Fe hospital were only found because they wondered outside their homes at night, skinned and bleeding. Neighbors found them both times."

"There's a transcript of the 911 call somewhere in this mess. The woman who found the Carmichaels had hysterics over the phone."

I thought about what I'd seen in the hospital and tried to imagine finding one of my neighbors, perhaps a friend, in that condition in the middle of the street. I shook my head and chased the image back. I did not want to imagine it. I had enough nightmares of my own, thank you very much.

"I don't blame her," I said. "But my point is this: how could they walk around in that condition? One of the survivors attacked his neighbor when the man came to help. He bit his shoulder so badly that the man was taken to the hospital with the mutilation victims. Doctor Evans said that they have to restrain all the patients in Albuquerque or they try to get up and leave. Don't you find that strange?"

"Yes, it's all strange. Is there a point in here somewhere?" And I heard that thread of tiredness in his voice.

"I think that whatever skinned them was, is, calling them."

"Calling them how?" he asked.

"The same way a vampire calls a person he's bitten and mind-raped. The skinning or something about it gives the monster a hold over them."

"Why doesn't the monster just take them with him the night he skins them?" Edward asked.

"I don't know."

"Can you prove that the skinned victims are being called by some bogeyman?"

"No, but if the doctors would okay it, I wonder where one of the survivors would go, if no one stopped him. Maybe the mutilation victims could lead us right to the thing."

"You saw the hospital today, Anita. They are not going to let us take one of their patients and set him free. Between you and me, I'm not sure I could stand to watch it myself."

"Well, the great Edward, afraid at last," another voice said.

We both turned to see Olaf standing in the far doorway. He was wearing black dress slacks, and a black polo-style shirt, the shirtsleeves a little short for his long arms. I guess there just aren't a lot of choices when you wear Jolly Green Giant sizes.

He glided into the room, and if I hadn't spent so much time around vampires and shapeshifters, I'd have said he was good at gliding. For a human, he was very good.

Edward stood as he spoke. "What do you want, Olaf?"

"Has the girl solved your mystery?"

"Not yet," Edward said.

Olaf stopped at the edge of the table closest to us. "Not yet. Such confidence you have in her. Why?"

"Four hours and that is the best question you can come up with," I said.

Olaf turned to me with a snarl. "Shut up!"

I took a step forward, and Edward touched my elbow. He shook his head. I stepped back, gave them some room. Truthfully, I wasn't up to arm wrestling Olaf, and I couldn't really shoot him just for yelling at me. It kind of limited my options.

Edward answered Olaf's question. "When you look at her, Olaf, you see just the surface, just the small, attractive packaging. Underneath all that prettiness is someone who thinks like a killer, and a cop, and a monster. I don't know anyone else who bridges all three worlds as well as she does. And all the preternatural experts you find are specialists; they're witches, or clairvoyants, or demonologists." He glanced at me as he said the last, then back to Olaf. "But Anita is a generalist. She knows a little about most of it and can tell us whether we need to find a specialist, and what kind of specialist we need."

"And what kind of magical specialist do we need?" He put a lot of sarcasm into that question.

"A witch, someone who works with the dead." He'd remembered my earlier request about finding out what I'd sensed on the road. "We're making a list."

"And checking it twice," I said.

Edward shook his head.

Olaf turned to me. "Was that a joke?"

"A little one, yes."

"Perhaps you should not try to make jokes."

I shrugged.

He turned back to Edward. "You told me all this before she came. You waxed eloquent about her abilities. But I have worked with your magical people in the past, and you never talked about them as you speak of her. What is it about her that is so God damned special?"

Edward glanced at me, then back to Olaf. "The Greeks believed that once there were no male and female, that all souls were one. Then the souls were torn apart, male and female. The Greeks thought that when you found the other half of your soul, your soul mate, that it would be your perfect lover. But I think if you find your other half, you would be too much alike to be lovers, but you would still be soul mates."

I was fighting hard to keep my face from showing the growing surprise at this little speech. I hoped I was succeeding.

"What are you trying to say?" Olaf demanded.

"She is like a piece of my soul, Olaf. "

"You are mad," Olaf said, "a lunatic. Soul mates, bah!"

I kind of agreed with Olaf on this one.

"Then why is the thought of giving her a gun while I hunt her one of my greatest fantasies?" Edward asked.

"Because you are mad," Olaf said.

Hear, hear, but I didn't say it out loud.

"You know that I have no greater compliment to give than that," Edward said. "If I wanted to kill you, Olaf, I would just do it. The same with Bernardo because I know that I'm better than both of you. But with Anita I'll never be sure unless we do go up against each other for real. If I die without knowing which of us is better, I'll regret the not knowing."

Olaf stared down at him. "You cannot mean to say that this girl, this die Zimtzickeof a girl is better than Bernardo or me."

"That's exactly what I mean."

Die Zimtzicke meant a quarrelsome or bitchy woman. Couldn't really argue with that one. I sighed. Olaf had hated me before. Now he was going to feel forced to be competitive. This I did not need. And compliment though it was, it was not reassuring to know that Edward fantasized about killing me. Oh, excuse me, hunting me while I was armed to see which of us was better. Oh, yeah, that was much more sane.

I checked my watch. It was 1:30 A.M. "Frankly, boys, I don't know whether to be flattered or frightened, but I do know one thing. It's late, and I'm tired. If we are really going to see the big bad vampire tonight, then it has to be now."

"You just don't want to look at the pictures tonight," Edward said.

I shook my head. "No, not just before trying to sleep. I don't even want to read the forensic reports tonight. I'll look at the gory remains first thing tomorrow."

"Afraid," Olaf said.

I met his angry eyes. "I need some sleep if I'm to function well while I'm here. If I see the pictures right before bedtime, I can't guarantee sleep."

He turned back to Edward. "Your soul mate is a coward."

"No, she's just honest."

"Thank you, Edward." I went to stand closer to Olaf, so that I had to crane my neck back to see his face, and he loomed over me. There was really no way to get decent eye contact, so I stepped back to a more comfortable angle for my neck, and settled for meeting his deep-set eyes. "If I'd been a man I'd have probably felt compelled to look at the pictures, to prove myself worthy of all Edward's praise. But one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's."

"Testosterone poisoning?" Olaf looked confused. Probably not a new sensation for him.

"Show me to my room, then explain it to him, Edward. I want to get some extras if I'm going to be interviewing vamps tonight."

Edward led me past the brooding Olaf and out the door that everyone seemed to disappear through. The hallway was white and so unadorned it looked unfinished. He pointed out Bernardo's room as the first door and Olaf's was right beside mine.

"Do you really think Olaf and I bunking next door to each other is a good Idea?"

"By putting you right beside him, it shows him I'm not afraid for you."

"But I am," I said.

He smiled. "Just take some basic precautions. You'll be fine."

"Nice to know one of us confident. If you hadn't noticed, he outweighs me by like a ton."

"You're talking like it would be a standup fight. I know you, Anita. If Olaf comes through your door tonight, you'll just shoot him."

I studied his face. "Are you setting him up so I will kill him?"

He blinked, and I saw for a moment that I'd surprised him. "No, no. I meant what I said to Olaf. If I wanted him dead, I'd just kill him. I put you next door to him because I know how he thinks. He'll think it's a trap, too easy, and he'll behave himself tonight."

"What about tomorrow night?"

Edward shrugged. "One night at a time."

I shook my head and opened the door. Edward called to me before I could go inside or even turn on the light. I turned back to face him.

"You know most women get all mushy when a man tells them they're his soul mate."

"I'm not most women."

His smile widened. "Amen to that."

I looked at him. "You know what you said in there scares me. The thought that you fantasize about hunting me and killing me. That's creepy, Edward."

"Sorry," he said, but he was still smiling, still amused.

"But honestly if you'd said the soul mate stuff and meant it like lovey-dovey, that could have scared me more. I've known since we met that you might kill me some day, but fall in love with me ... that would be just too weird."

The smile faded a notch or two. "You know if we could love each other, our lives would be less complicated."

"Truth, Edward. Have you ever had a romantic thought about me?"

He didn't even have to think about it. He just shook his head.

"Me, either. I'll meet you out front by the car."

"I'll wait for you here," he said.

I looked at him. "Why?"

"I don't want you smarting off to Olaf on your way out if I'm not there to stop the fight."

"Would I do that?"

He shook his head. "Get the extra firepower and let's start the drive. I'd like to get to bed before dawn."

"Good point." I went into the room, closing the door behind me. There was a knock on the door almost immediately. I opened it back up, slowly, but was pretty sure it was Edward. It was.

"We'll take you into the club as my guest, just a friend. If the vamps don't know who you are, they might be more careless around you, let something slip that would make sense to you, that wouldn't make sense to me."

"What happens if I get outted during the evening? Think Her Worship will resent you sneaking the Executioner into her club?"

"I'll tell her that you wanted to see the best show in town and thought that they might not want the Executioner around, but that you're strictly there in an unexecution work mode."

"Will you say it just like that, unexecution work mode?"

He smiled. "Probably. She likes her men to be either very serious or very cute."

"She. You talk like you know her."

"Ted only kills rogues. He is very welcome in a lot of the local monster hangouts."

"Edward the actor," I said.

"I do good undercover work."

"I know you do, Edward."

"But it always makes you uncomfortable to see me do it."

I shrugged. "You're such a good actor, Edward, sometimes it makes me wonder which act is real."

The smile faded, leaving his face blank, and empty like some of him had slithered away with his smile. "Go get your gear, Anita."

I closed the door with him still standing there. In some ways I understood Edward better than either of the men I had been dating. In other ways he was the biggest mystery of all. I shook my head, literally shaking it off, and looked around the small bedroom. If we came back here at dawn, I'd be tired, and tired could mean careless. I decided to make some changes now while I was fresh.

The room's only chair would go under the doorknob, but not until I was in for the night. I moved a line of miniature Kachina dolls from the dresser to the windowsill. If anyone opened the window, one or more of the dolls would fall. There was a small mirror on the wall that was framed by deer antlers. I placed it under the window, just in case the dolls didn't fall. I'd leave my suitcase to one side of the door entrance so if the door did somehow manage to open without knocking the chair over, Olaf might trip over the suitcase. Of course, I was almost as likely to trip over it trying to get to the bathroom on the way out. The moment I thought of it, I had to go. I'd hit the bathroom on the way out. Edward could stand outside and make sure Olaf didn't interrupt.

I searched through my suitcase. It was illegal for me to carry my vampire gear without a court order of execution. Carrying it without one was like premeditated murder. But no law against carrying a few extras. I had two thin vials of holy water with little rubber caps. You hit the cap with your thumb and it popped open, sort of like a grenade, but only dangerous to the vamp. Which made it a lot more user friendly than a grenade.

I slipped the holy water into each of my back pockets. They barely showed through the dark cloth. I already had my cross, but I'd had crosses ripped off of my throat before, so I had backups. I put a plain silver cross with chain in one front pocket of my jeans, and another one in the pocket of the black dress jacket. I opened the box of new ammunition that I'd packed.

I'd had to leave my apartment almost two years ago now. When I'd lived in my apartment, I'd put Glazer Safety Rounds in my guns because I didn't want my neighbors to take a stray bullet. Glazers will not go through walls, but as Edward and some of my police friends had pointed out, I'd been lucky. Glazers will shatter bone, but don't really go through bone, the difference between a shotgun and a rifle round, sort of. Edward had actually come into town just to take me out to the shooting range and test fire stuff. He'd asked me questions about specific gun fights, and what I'd learned was that the reason the Glazers had done what I wanted them to do was mostly being almost point blank every time I used them for a kill. What I needed was something that was a reliable kill from a safer distance than arm's length. It also might explain why I'd hit some older vamps from a distance, but they hadn't stopped. Maybe not. Maybe they were just that old, but ... Edward had been very convincing. Something with more penetrating power, more stopping power, ammo meant not to wound but to kill. Because let's face it: when was the last time I'd wounded anyone that I hadn't meant to kill? Wounding was an accident for me. Killing was the goal.

I'd settled on the Hornady Custom XTP handgun ammo. To be exact the 9mm Luger, 147 JHP/XTP, silver-coated of course. There were other hollow point bullets that will expand to a bigger mass, but some of them don't penetrate nearly as far into a body mass. With a vamp you need to make sure you hit something vital, not just that you make a big hole. There were even bullets that penetrated further into a mass, which meant they'd reliably go through a body and out the other side. But all the Hornady XTPs were designed to penetrate the target, but not so far as to pass through the target object and "create a hazard." That last was a quote from some of the Hornady Manufacturing literature. The ammo followed the FBI penetration requirements. The Feds, even more than little ol' me, have to worry about what happens when a bullet hits the bad guy and keeps traveling. Is it going to hit a kid, a pregnant woman, a nun out for her morning stroll? Once a bullet hits the mark and keeps traveling, you really never know where it will end up. So the plan is to make sure it doesn't leave the target, but that the target doesn't get up either.

Of course, Edward had made his own recipe for killing. He'd taken silver hollow points and filled the end with holy water and mercury, then sealed the top with wax. I'd been afraid that the wax would make the bullets jam in a gun, but they ran through like silk ¨C smooth, dependable, like Edward himself. The ammo was a hell of a show. So Edward had told me. I hadn't used Edward's homemade surprise yet. I was still vaguely wary of them. He shouldn't have told me that they might jam the gun. Or maybe, I would have been nervous of them anyway. With these even if you hit in a non-lethal area, missed the heart, the head, everything vital, you still did damage. The holy water and silver mercury would explode through the vamp's body, burning where they touched. The holy water would cut through the body like acid, Hit a vamp even in a leg or arm with this shit, and they might lose all interest in killing you and just want to stop the pain.

I stared at the two boxes of ammo, and finally loaded up with the Hornady XTP, Edward's specials in their box. If I did have to shoot any vamps tonight I had no court order of execution, and carrying the homemade seemed too much like premeditation. Premeditation is the difference between first degree murder, and second degree murder or even manslaughter if you had a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury. There were people in jail at this very moment for killing vamps. I did not want to be one of them. Besides, we were just going down there to ask questions, nothing major. So I told myself as I closed the suitcase and left the other bullets behind.

But I knew better than most that what should be simple always grows complex when you add a vampire. Add a Master of the City, any city, and you never really know what you're walking into. I'd killed three Masters of the City: one with a sword, one with fire, one by killing their human servant. Never just a straight on shoot out. I probably wouldn't be shooting anyone tonight, but ... I loaded up my extra clip with the bullets. I'd only use them if I'd used up the first clip. If I emptied thirteen of the XTPs into something and it didn't go down, all bets were off. I'd worry about murder charges later, after I survived. Survival first. Try to stay out of jail second. My priorities in order, I slipped the extra clip into the right pocket of my jacket and went off to find Edward. He was, after all, the one who had taught me my priorities.

22

I WAS COOLING my heels in the living room when Bernardo and Olaf came out of the far rooms. They had both changed clothes.

Bernardo was in white dress slacks with a sharp crease and a roll of cuff. A white vest showed off his darkly muscled arms. He'd added heavy silver arm bracelets at mid-bicep, and matching ones at each wrist. A silver saint's medallion glittered against the smooth darkness of his chest. Most of his hair fell like a black dream around all that white, except for a braid on one side. It was a thick braid because he just had that much hair, and he'd woven silver chains with tiny bells here and there in his hair, so he stalked into the room to the sound of gentle chimes. He looked at me through a curtain of blackness caressing one side of his face, the other graced by the silver on black glint of the braid. It was, to say the least, eye-catching.

It was a little bit of a struggle to tear my gaze from Bernardo and look at Olaf. He had gone for a black shirt that seemed utterly sheer. To hide his shoulder holster, he'd put on a leather jacket. It was way too hot for leather. Though admittedly, with his totally shaved head, black jeans, and black boots with silver toes and heels, the leather jacket looked about the right speed.

"You guys look spiffy. What's the occasion?"

"We're going to a club," Bernardo said, as if that explained it.

"I know that," I said.

He was frowning now. "You should change."

I pushed to my feet from the couch. "Why?"

He walked toward me. I caught glimpses of dark flesh above his white leather loafers and the hem of his pants, no socks. He stopped at the edge of the couch, as if I'd pulled back, or made some other sign that I wasn't happy. "I know you can look as good as we do." He gave a little self-deprecating smile, "Or as good as Olaf here. Maybe not as good as me." He smiled, and I was a good smile, meant to melt something a little lower than my heart. But I'd been working on my reaction to him. I was not a slave to my libido. Richard and Jean-Claude could attest to that.

I looked at him in all his light and dark glory. "If I can't look as good as you, why try at all?"

The smile widened to a grin that made his face look somehow more real and less handsome. Less handsome, less practiced, but I liked it more. He took a step closer, and that teasing, practiced look was back. This was a man who knew how to flirt. But if anything will turn me off, it's a very practiced approach, as if the man has done it a thousand times before, to a lot of different women. Which always seems to imply that I am no different from all the rest. Not flattering.

"I think you might, might, be able to approach my glory, if you tried."

Even knowing it was an act, I had to smile. "I just don't want to work that hard, Bernardo."

"If I am forced to change, then everyone changes," Olaf said.

I looked at him. Was he handsome? Not really, but he was striking. If he could tone down the bad boy routine, he could probably pick up plenty of girls at the club, or maybe even if he didn't tone it down. It always amazes me how many women like dangerous men. Men who almost from the moment you meet them, you know are bad news. Me, I prefer my men kinder, gentler, nice. Niceness is highly underrated by most people.

"I don't remember anyone putting you in charge, Olaf. When Edward asks me to change clothes, I'll change."

He took a step towards me, but whatever he was going to say or do, stopped when Edward came into the room. He was wearing a red tank top with a short-sleeved silk shirt that matched the tank. The shirt would hide his shoulder holster if he were careful. His jeans were new and black, and with his yellow hair grown out enough to have a little curl to it, he actually looked sort of cute. Edward never looked cute.

I knew when I was beaten. I raised hands in surrender and started walking towards the bedrooms. Then stopped. I turned back to him. "I thought the point to taking me down there without cops was that the monsters might talk to Anita Blake, vamp executioner. So that means no undercover crap."

"Why would changing clothes be undercover for you?" Bernardo asked.

I looked at him, then looked at Edward. "If you want my services, you take whatever the hell I'm wearing. I don't dress up outside the office."

Edward said, "Let's go down there with you a little under wraps. Look around the club, meet the monsters, before they find out who you are."

"Why?"

"You know the answer."

"You want me to look around, use my expertise, before they know I have any expertise."

He nodded.

"But you also want me to be Anita Blake and impress the monsters."

"Yes," he said.

"Hard to do both."

"Be a tourist until they make you, then be yourself."

"The best of both worlds," I said.

"Exactly."

I looked at him. "Is this all your plan? No hidden agenda?"

He smiled, and it was Ted's smile, slow, lazy, innocent. "Would I do that to you?"

I just shook my head and started for the bedrooms. "Forget I asked. I'll change into something more ... festive," I said without turning around.

Edward didn't call me back and say no need to change so I kept walking. We were undercover tonight apparently. I hate undercover work. I am just so damn bad at it.

I had also not packed with an eye for club hopping. I changed into the newest, blackest jeans I had. The Nikes would have to do because I hadn't brought anything else. Except more Nikes. All my shirts were just different colors of one or two styles. If I find something comfy, I've learned to buy doubles if I really like something, and multiple colors if I really, really like a style. This means I am usually wearing last year's style long after the fashion trend has moved on, but it's not like I care.

I had a royal blue cotton tee with a scoop neck. Almost all the shirts I'd packed had a scoop neck. The blue was a little softer than the rest of the colors. I added a touch of eye shadow, enough eyeliner to be dramatic, enough mascara so that the eyeliner didn't overwhelm my eyelashes, a hint of blush, and some kiss-ass red lipstick.

I couldn't really get a good look in the room's small mirror, but at least the makeup looked good. The shoulder holster was very black against the blue shirt, but the black suit jacket took care of that. Since I couldn't take the jacket off without flashing the guys, I added my wrist sheaths with matching silver knives. If I was going to be stuck with the jacket all night, I might as well carry them. Besides, you never know when you'll need a good blade. I ran a brush through my hair and called it done.

Apparently, I looked okay because Bernardo said, "I take it back. If you'd packed a dress, you'd be prettier than I am."

I shook my head. "No, I wouldn't, but thanks for saying it."

"Let's go," Edward said.

"She is showing too much breast," Olaf said.

I looked at his completely sheer black shirt. "I can see your nipples."

His face darkened. I think he was actually blushing. "Bitch."

"Yeah, sure, you and the horse you rode in on," I said.

Edward moved between us, soothing the big man. To me, he said, "Don't tease him unless you want the trouble."

"He started it," I said.

He looked at both of us, his face that icy gaze that I'd seen him wear when he killed. "I don't care who starts it, but I will finish it. Is that clear?"

Olaf and I looked at Edward, then at each other. Slowly, we both nodded.

"It is clear," Olaf said.

"Crystal," I said.

"Good " His face transformed into a smiling face, somehow appearing years younger, How did he do it? "Then let's go." Wewent.

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