[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (42 page)

“I am not doing enough to cause this much trouble, even among the newly found.”

I shook my head, still not looking at her. “I don't know what it is about your clan, but your energy fucks with me. It just does.”

“That would only be true if you were a born member of our clan, lost and now found, but if your coloring is real, then you cannot be pure born.”

The white tiger in my head snarled and paced before the steel wall. She bared those glistening fangs and roared at me. The sound reverberated along my spine as if she'd turned me into some human-sized tuning fork.

“I hear your call,” she said, and her voice was strained.

“I'm not doing it,” I said. I hit the buzzer again, but I knew now. Shaw, or someone, was watching. They wanted to see what would happen to me if I stayed in here long enough. If I changed shape for real, I'd lose my badge. The only thing that had saved it was that I had too many types of lycanthropy, and they couldn't prove that I was a real shapeshifter. Shaw would love proving that. I wouldn't just be off this case—I'd be off every case, forever.

“You are calling for aid. It is a distress call, but only our queens can make the call that loud.”

I tried to make the roaring tiger inside me be quiet, but she wouldn't. She just kept calling for help. Shit.

“What do I do to stop it?” I asked.

“I can help you calm it, but I would have to touch you to do it.”

“Bad idea,” Edward said, and took a step closer to me.

I shook my head and looked at him. “If she can help me?”

“And if she makes it worse?” he said.

We looked at each other. The intercom that fed into the room came on. “What the fuck are you doing in there, Blake? The other tigers are going apeshit.”

“Let me out,” I said, “and it'll get better.”

“You cannot stop it on your own,” Paula said.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“Let me quiet you. It is the way of tigers to calm the young and the inexperienced.”

I'd had Crispin do it for me once, when things were much worse than this. But . . . I did not know her, and she was the dead bad guy's main squeeze. Would she help me, or hurt me?

“Let me help you, Marshal. One of our people attacked you, and for that our entire clan owes you a debt.”

“It wasn't a white tiger,” I said, but I'd moved away from the door and was closer to the table.

“Anita,” Edward said, and he reached out, then let his hand drop. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“No,” I said, but I kept moving toward her.

“If it wasn't a white tiger, then who attacked you?” she asked.

“Yellow,” I said, and I was standing beside her, staring down into those blue eyes. Just that made the tiger inside me stop screaming. It was as if just being closer to another white tiger soothed my beast.

“Yellow tiger,” she said, and frowned.

I nodded.

“The yellow clan has been dead for centuries. They do not exist.”

“She was an animal to call for a really old vampire.”

“What happened to her?” Paula asked.

“She's dead.”

“You had to kill her.”

I nodded.

“But a yellow tiger attacked you,” she said.

“You say it like that makes a difference. What difference does it make what color tiger attacked me?”

“The yellow, or golden, clan was supreme to all the other clans. They ruled the earth and all the energies on it, including the rest of the clans.”

“News to me,” I said.

She shrugged as much as the chains would let her. “What good does it do to talk about something that is lost? But if a yellow tiger attacked you, then it might explain why you seem to have so much power.”

“She was yellow,” I said. I turned to Edward.

He knew what I wanted without my having to say anything. “She was pale yellow with darker stripes.”

“You were there?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Was anyone else attacked?” she asked.

“Yes, but he tests clean for lycanthropy. I'm the only one that got lucky.” Just standing next to her made it easier to breathe. Maybe the idea that I could travel without my own cadre of wereanimals was just not true. Maybe I'd never be able to travel alone. Shit. If that were true, I might have to give up the federal badge anyway. What good was an executioner who couldn't travel to where the bad guys were committing their crimes?

The intercom sounded again. “The other tigers are calm again. What are you doing in there, Blake?” It was Shaw, just like I'd known it would be. I was sorry his wife had run off and shacked up with a shapeshifter, but it wasn't my fault.

Edward went to the intercom on our side and spoke. “We got the tiger energy toned down, that's all.”

“What's Blake doing?” Shaw asked.

“Her job,” Edward said, and let go of the button.

I looked into those strangely soothing tiger eyes in the woman's face. “Did you know what Martin was involved in?”

She blinked up at me. Her face told me nothing, but her lips parted, her breath a little faster. Was that because she knew something, or because I mentioned her boyfriend? Or was it just being in cuffs from top to bottom and being questioned by the police? That tends to make people nervous, even overreact. It's one of the reasons I prefer to question people at home or some place more casual. But it was too late for casual today. Too late for so many things.

I was staring into her eyes as she said, “No.” I didn't believe her. I wasn't sure why, but looking into those pale blue kitty-cat eyes, I knew she was lying. It wasn't metaphysical powers. It was the same gut reaction that any cop gets after a while. You just begin to know. Now, maybe she wasn't lying to hide something. Maybe she was lying because she was scared, or just because she could. People lie for the stupidest reasons. But I went with her lying to hide something. She was lying because she had information we needed. That was helpful. That gave us somewhere to go and someone to question. That gave us something useful for all the new deaths I'd seen today. If Paula Chu knew something, then maybe the officers who'd died, and the SWAT who was in critical condition in the hospital . . . Maybe it all wouldn't have been for nothing.

I realized, staring down into her lying eyes, that I no longer believed that. Even if she knew everything, the fucking secret to the secret sauce, and would tell us all of it, it didn't matter. It didn't matter to the families of the slain officers. It didn't matter to the member of SWAT who might never walk again, if he even woke up. That it mattered was a lie that we told ourselves so we could keep moving and not want to eat our gun.

Closure
was a word therapists used to make you believe that the pain would stop, and that punishing the bad guy, or finding out why, would bring you peace. It was the biggest lie of all.

“Anita,” Edward said, “you all right?” He was closer to me than he had been, all the way on the side of the table with Paula and me. I hadn't heard, felt, or seen him move.

I shook my head. “No, I'm not all right.” In my head I thought,
I am off my game
. What was wrong with me?

Edward took my arm and moved me back from the woman. The farther away, the clearer my head, but the tiger inside me was still there, crouched on the other side of the metal wall in my head. But she was lying down; only the end of that black-tipped tail twitching let me know how irritated she was with me.

The door opened and Chief Detective Ed Morgan came through smiling. He was playing those big brown eyes and those nice-guy good looks for all he was worth. He just radiated charm. Oh, right, we'd been waiting for him. Hadn't Shaw warned us not to ask any questions directly related to the case until Morgan arrived? Guess he had. Fuck it.

“Good afternoon, Paula, may I call you Paula? I'm Ed.” He set files down on the table between them, took the chair I'd been sitting in, and smiled at her. You'd have thought Edward and I didn't exist.

“I can take it from here, Marshals. Undersheriff Shaw would like to speak with you.” Morgan smiled, broad enough to flash dimples, but in the depths of those brown eyes was an unfriendly spark. I thought we were going to get yelled at. Great.

Edward kept his grip on my arm, as if he didn't trust what I'd do. If there'd been a mirror to look into, I'd have checked what my expression was, but there was nothing but walls. They didn't have enough interrogation rooms with those big shiny two-way mirrored windows, so they'd put the woman in one where they couldn't watch her as well. There was a camera on her, but she didn't rate the window. She was the only one with a real connection to the dead weretiger, and she hadn't rated the best room, though she now had one of their best interrogators. I smelled office politics.

Edward led me toward the still-open door. Whatever he saw or felt from me, or in me, was making him nervous. I didn't feel that scary. I didn't feel much of anything. Again, there was that little thought,
What is wrong with me?

He eased me out the open door. I glanced back and found Paula Chu staring at me. The moment I met her eyes, the tigress in me stood up. She roared again, but this time the metal wall trembled with the sound, as if her roar had hit it like some huge gong. I staggered, and Edward had to steady me.

He leaned in and whispered, “What is wrong?”

“Not sure, but I need to get away from these tigers.”

Morgan said, “Close the door on your way out. Paula and I will get along just fine, won't we?” He was turned away from us, but I knew he was wasting that brilliant smile on her. She didn't even look at him. Her eyes were all for me.

I pushed through the door, and only Edward's grip on my arm kept me from starting to run. My breathing was trying to speed up. My pulse was already racing. I could feel the other tigers inside the interrogation rooms. I could
feel
them. The only wereanimals I should have been able to feel like that were ones that I was metaphysically bound to, or that Jean-Claude was bound to. I was not close enough in any way to the white tigers of Vegas to sense them this strongly. Something was wrong.

Edward's fingers dug into my arm. Dug in enough that I would have protested the pain, but it helped clear my head. A few bruises were worth it, and the moment the pain helped, I knew something else.

I whispered to him, “I'm being messed with.”

“Vampire?” He made it a question.

“Unless the white tiger queen can do shit that I've only seen vampires do before, yes.”

“Vamp or tiger?” he asked, voice low.

We were getting a few glances from the police officers we passed. Did they see the bruising grip, or the whispering? Or were the rumors so good that we'd just become a curiosity?

I glared at a couple of uniforms who were staring. “Like what you see?”

“Leave it, Anita.” Edward just kept us moving past them. He loosened his grip on my arm a little, and instantly I could feel the tigers behind us in the rooms. I could almost see them looking up and trying to see me.

I leaned in, and whispered, “Tighten the grip.”

“What?”

“The pain helps keep my head clear.”

He went back to bruising my arm, and we kept walking toward the doors. I could see the press of the hot, white sunlight against the doors.

“If the sunlight helps . . .” he said.

I said, “Then it's vampire.”

“If it doesn't . . .” he said.

“Tiger,” I said.

He didn't even bother to say yes. We both knew what we were doing, and why. Bernardo called from behind us, “Where's the fire?”

Edward looked behind, but I didn't. I had my eyes on the goal of the doors. I concentrated on the pressure of Edward's fingers on my arm and the sunlight just ahead. He called back, “We need some air.” Bernardo, and Olaf if he was with him, would know that we weren't moving that fast for a little air. It was the shorthand of people that knew each other. They knew Edward better than they knew me, but shorthand for him in that moment worked just dandy for all of us.

Bernardo and Olaf caught up with us as we got to the outer lobby area. Victor stood up from where he'd been sitting. The moment I saw him, the tigress in me roared again, and this time the metal shield that I'd built in her path wavered like metal water. It didn't break, but it bent.

Edward didn't even slow, but waved Victor off, and kept us heading for the door. Bernardo had the door open and waiting for us, as if he'd picked up on the urgency. Olaf trailed after all of us, not helping but not hindering, either. Right now, I'd take not hindering.

The tigress inside me leapt onto the warped metal and began to try to climb. “Hurry,” I said.

Edward pulled me through the doors. The heat hit me first, breath-stealing, like walking into an oven. The tiger didn't hesitate. She wanted out.

Then the light hit me, and it was like some hot, white searchlight. It slashed through a darkness that I hadn't been able to see. A darkness that held Her. She stood in the dark and shrieked at me. But the sunlight cut her off, and all I had to fight now was the weretiger that had managed to climb my shields and was running full tilt toward the surface of me. I didn't know why Marmee Noir liked tigers so much, but she had done something to weaken my defenses.

I tried to put up another shield, and I couldn't. Marmee Noir was gone for now, thrust out by the sun, but what she'd done inside me was still there. It was still crippling me.

Edward still had a light grip on my arm. “Anita, are you all right?”