[Anita Blake 17] - Skin Trade (71 page)

“I'm coming, you son of a bitch, I'm coming.”

“Temper, temper.”

“This isn't mad, Vittorio, you haven't seen me mad.”

“Nor you me, Anita, nor you me.” He pushed me out, closed the link down, and left me blinking in the sunlight, clinging to Edward's arms.

“Who's going in with you?” Bernardo asked.

“Cannibal is,” I said. I looked and found Rocco. He met my gaze, no flinching.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Speak Arabic for me, and then we eat these sons of bitches.”

A smile crossed his face, it was pleased and slightly Olaf-ish. I knew that smile, because there's something about having an ability when you always have to be good that makes you wonder what it would feel like to be bad. I was about to give Cannibal the chance to be as bad as he wanted to be, as bad as he had the stomach to be. There was more than one way to skin a cat; well, there was more than one way to eat a vampire.

 

 

GRIMES DIDN'T LIKE me going in, and he sure as hell didn't want Rocco to go in with me. Edward didn't like me going in without him. But we had the arguments in the cars, so we could argue on the way and make the half-hour deadline.

“Lieutenant,” Rocco said, “I can say the spell that will banish the jinn, and Anita can't.”

“I know her pronunciation isn't good enough.”

“I speak Arabic,” Edward said.

“But you're not a practitioner, and we need a little magic with the words,” Rocco said.

“What aren't the two of you telling me?” Grimes asked.

We both fought not to look at each other, and it showed. “What are you planning to do in there?”

“The phrase you're looking for, sir,” Edward said, “is plausible deniability.”

Grimes frowned at us. “Are you planning to do anything illegal?”

Again, we fought not to look at each other. “No, sir,” Rocco said, “everything will be perfectly legal.”

“Promise,” Grimes said.

“It's legal,” I said.

“But I don't want to know anyway, is that it?”

“What answer will get me in there with Sergeant Rocco?”

“Well, at least that's honest. Max's inner room at Trixie's interferes with electronics.”

I didn't ask how he knew that, just accepted it as true. It didn't surprise me; as Vittorio said, the hooks in the ceiling for hanging people up had been in the ceiling when he got there. I was betting this was where Max did some of his dirty work.

“So you're going in there with no way to call for help,” Grimes said.

“If we need to call for help, Lieutenant,” I said, “you won't be able to get to us in time.”

He studied my face. “I think you mean that.”

“I do.”

“You seem calm.”

“I've got my goals.”

“Your objectives,” he said.

“If you like.”

“And they are?”

“Rescue my friend before he gets more hurt. Save all the civilians. Send the jinn back to where they belong. Rescue Max and his charming wife, their bodyguard, and any other weretigers who are good guys. Oh, and kill Vittorio before he can manifest enough power to make a nuclear explosion over Vegas look like the better idea.”

“Is he really capable of that much damage?”

“Think of an army of the things that killed your officers loosed on the city. Think of Vittorio able to broadcast his mind control over the populace.”

“You think he's that good?”

“Not yet, and we have to keep it that way. I believe that we have to do everything within our power to make certain he dies today.”

“You might be interested to know, Marshal Blake, that the governor signed off on the stay of execution for the vampires at last night's club.”

“That's good, Lieutenant. I mean that; they don't deserve to die.”

“Your report carried weight.”

I nodded, but was already looking up the street to the police cars, the barricades, and the next fight.

 

 

ROCCO AND I were standing outside Trixie's with our hands clasped on our heads. We'd stripped down to T-shirts, pants, and boots for him, jogging shoes for me. A man who looked human but talked like Vittorio had his hand up his ass was saying, “Turn around, slowly, so we can see.”

We did what he said to do.

The man seemed to be listening to something in his head. He nodded, and walked forward. He patted us down, thoroughly, top to bottom. “You have no weapons, very good,” he said, but it was Vittorio's inflections. “Now, come join us.”

“Let the customers go first, like you promised.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I did.” The man was speaking, but it was really Vittorio using his body to do the talking. His ability to manipulate humans had grown more complex, more complete, in less than twenty-four hours. He had to die.

The man walked back through the doors. A few minutes later, people ran out. Dozens of them spilling out into the street into the arms of the waiting police, who hurried them to safety.

The man was in the door. He motioned toward it. “After you, Anita, and Sergeant Rocco, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Come on down,” he said, in a mock announcer voice.

“Let the man go, too,” I said.

“I said customers; he works behind the bar,” the man said, talking about himself in the third person. He even had the smile Vittorio had used in the dream. It was an unsettling echo on the stranger's face, like a face on the wrong person.

The body he was using held the door for us. “Come inside, out of the heat.”

Rocco and I looked at each other; then we lowered our hands, slowly, and went for the door. Neither of us looked back; we wanted to give our eyes as much time as possible to adjust to the darker interior of the club.

The dancers were huddled in the center of the room, at the chairs where the customers usually sat. They looked up hopefully as we entered, but the jinn with the knives was in front of us, and that got our attention. It was tempting to have Rocco say the words now, but I was certain if we did that, he'd kill some of his other hostages. Our goal was to get them all out, not just part, so we waited for a better moment. I admit that staring into the nothingness that was holding all those blades was hard. Turning our backs on it was harder, but we followed the man.

I felt the air move close to me and jerked back instinctively. I felt the passage of wind. A different jinn had tried to touch me. The man said, “You avoided his touch; not many humans are fast enough or psychic enough for that, but then you aren't human, are you?”

I ignored the question, but I swear that the jinn's attention wasn't as neutral now. I'd almost say hostile, but maybe that was just nerves talking. Maybe.

Rocco whispered, “I don't think they like you now.”

“You feel it, too.”

“Oh, yes.”

The man opened the door and held it for us, with a smile. I moved ahead of Rocco, as we'd discussed. Vittorio wanted me alive; he didn't have the same feeling about the sergeant. So he had to bite his pride and let me take the most chances. Besides, we needed him alive to say the words over the jinn.

The back room was as I'd seen it through Vittorio's eyes. Rick and Brianna were on their feet, arms stretched to the ceiling, where they were chained. Brianna was crying; her robe had come undone, and she was as naked underneath as she had been that first night when Ted and I were here. She stared at me over the tape that cut across her face. I could feel her terror coming off her in waves. It stirred the beasts inside me, and I told them to be quiet. For once, they listened. Rick wasn't afraid, he was pissed. In fact, he was so angry, I wondered why he hadn't shifted yet.

Ava was near Rick. She had a knife in her hand and played it along his skin as I watched. She didn't cut him, just caressed him with it. There were weretigers scattered throughout the room. Their energy hummed through the air like wires stripped down, so you could feel the bite of it if you got too close. Most of them looked blank, as if waiting for instructions. How many people could he control at once, and how well?

I forced myself to see the room slowly, and not go straight to Requiem. I didn't want to give Vittorio any more reason to hurt him. The more I cared, the more danger Requiem was in.

But Vittorio wasn't standing by the table; he was sitting on the edge of the bed with Max and Bibiana. He'd stripped from the waist up so that his scars were very, very visible. They'd transferred Bibiana to the bed, she was tied with her hands above her head, around one bedpost, so that her body crossed one of Max's arms, where his one arm was still tied to the one post. Her feet were chained to one of the bed legs, but she was short enough that her legs didn't cross her husband's body at the legs. She looked pale and delicate, a cliché princess waiting for rescue. Max was missing his shirt. Apparently, we'd had a little striptease while they waited, but he had kept his word. There was no new damage to their bodies, just some of their clothes.

“We're here. Now what?”

“I want what I've wanted since I invited you to Vegas with my gift.”

“You mean the human head in a box?”

He smiled happily and nodded.

“Next time, just send a box of chocolates,” I said.

“Oh, but any man can do that. I thought my gift would be unique.”

I smiled, and could feel that it wasn't a good smile. “Actually, I did receive a head in a basket once, as a gift.”

The smile was just gone, like it hadn't existed. The old ones could do that—expression, then nothing in the blink of an eye. “Well, then, Anita, I will have to do something to prove myself unique among your admirers.”

I would have given a lot to take back that smart-ass comment. It had been true, but I could still have kept it to myself.

“Oh, trust me, this invitation was unique.”

“No, Anita, you're right, I must try harder.” He was angry with me, as if I'd insulted him. “Let us play a game.”

“We came here to negotiate for the release of hostages,” Rocco said.

“And so we shall, Sergeant.” He patted Max's bare stomach. “Come closer so you can see.”

We hesitated.

“Here is the first rule. When you make me repeat myself, something happens to one of your hostages.”

There was a sound from the other side of the room. Ava was carving a new cut down Rick's chest. He didn't scream, but a small sound had escaped him. Ava raised the blade to her mouth and licked the blood delicately away.

I turned back to Vittorio.

“You are not frightened or even impressed. I take it you've seen something similar before?”

I had, actually, more than once. Out loud, I said, “I don't know what reaction you want from me; just tell me and I'll try to give it to you.”

“What is the first rule?” he asked.

“That if we make you repeat your requests, you'll have someone hurt.”

“Here is the second rule. I will offer you a chance to do something pleasant; if you refuse, then I will do something painful to the person instead. Is that clear enough, officers?”

I said, “Crystal.”

Rocco said, “Yes.”

“Come over beside the bed, both of you.”

We did it this time, no hesitating. We stood at the end of the bed on its raised dais, looking at Max and his wife, and the smiling sociopath beside them.

“Anita, give Max a kiss.”

“If I don't?” I asked.

He drew a blade out from underneath the covers. “I will bleed him; one cut for one refusal.”

I took a breath in, then out. It seemed a small request, but I was betting that the requests wouldn't stay small. “Okay, but if we do this, then you release one of the hostages.”

“For a kiss, it would have to be some kiss.”

I shrugged.

“If I refuse to free someone, are you prepared to watch me slice up the Master of the City?”

I thought furiously, and just didn't know what to do. Vittorio made a shallow cut across Max's stomach.

“I didn't say no.”

“You broke rule number one. You hesitated. Now I'll ask you again: kiss Max or I cut him.”

I just went to the bed, walked wide around Vittorio, and climbed up beside Max. I looked down into his blue eyes and said, “Sorry, Max.” I leaned over and laid a kiss across his taped mouth.

“Well, you did do what I asked, but that is hardly worth the release of a hostage.” He tapped the blade against his leg.

“Do you want me to kiss him better?”

“Take off the tape, and show me some of that talent I know you have.”

Bibiana made a sound through her tape. I looked across at her. “Sorry, Bibiana.” I took the tape off Max's mouth.

“He's going to kill us anyway, you know that.”

“Now, Max, what did I say about talking?”

“You said no talking back to you. I'm talking to Anita.”

“True.”
Tap
,
tap
,
tap
went the blade against his leg. “Well, Anita, kiss him like you mean it, and I'll let your sergeant watch one of the dancers leave.”

I bent over and kissed him full on the mouth. His mouth was still under mine. I looked back at Vittorio. “A dancer, freed.”

“No.”

“What was wrong with this kiss?”

“Kiss him like you mean it.” There was no humor in him now, just a seriousness that I thought was more dangerous.