Skin Trade(138)

“The marshal’s right,” Shaw said. For a minute it was a little unclear which marshal he meant; then he said, “We need to catch the live ones.”

“Are you saying that this vampire is trying to duplicate his own injuries?” Morgan asked. It was almost like he was ignoring them both.

“Looks like,” I said.

“The others died of blood loss; there was no broken neck,” Shaw said.

“Maybe they took pity on her,” Bernardo said.

We all looked at him.

He nodded toward the body. “Maybe one of Vittorio’s people put her out of her misery.”

“Or maybe they got tired of her screaming,” Olaf said.

We looked at him then; I think anything was better than looking at the body. Olaf was still staring at the body. If it bothered him, it didn’t show.

“Or maybe she passed out from the pain, and it wasn’t fun anymore,” Shaw said.

“You don’t pass out from this,” Bernardo said. “You don’t sleep. You don’t rest. You don’t do anything but hurt unless they can get enough drugs in you, and even then, sometimes the pain overrides it.”

“You talk like you know,” Shaw said.

“I had a friend that got burned bad.” He looked away so that he wasn’t looking at any of us. Whatever experession was on his face, he wanted to keep it to himself.

“What happened?” Shaw asked.

“He died.” Then Bernardo walked away from us. This time he walked farther, pushing his way through the crowd, until he found a piece of alley to lean against. It put him closer to the reporters, who started shouting out questions when they saw his badge and the gloves on his hands. He ignored them all, just closing his eyes and leaning back. Whatever he was seeing, or trying not to see, cut out anything they could shout at him.

“Is he right,” I asked Olaf, “you never stop screaming or pass out?”

“I do not know,” Olaf said. “I do not like fire.”

I realized that though it didn’t seem to bother him to look at the body, he wasn’t enjoying it the way he had the bodies in the morgue. He liked blades and blood, but not fire. Good to know, I guess.

I turned to Shaw. “We need to see the other photos, the other victims. Especially the last two.”

He looked at me, frowning. I was getting a lot of that in Vegas. “There’s nothing in the reports from St. Louis that you guys actually saw Vittorio. How do you know he’s burned?”

I fought to keep my face even, empty, not to widen even my eyes, because I had forgotten. I knew Vittorio’s fate from a letter from his lady love, who had left him after St. Louis, afraid for her life and her new lover’s life. She hadn’t been able to deal with his madness anymore. She’d even helped us in St. Louis, putting the bodies where’d we’d find them sooner, trying to leave clues. The letter had come to Jean-Claude, as Master of the City. It had never occurred to me to share it with the cops.

Jean-Claude had checked with the vampire council about Vittorio and had it confirmed. But again, I hadn’t shared it with the police. It hadn’t seemed important then.

I thought about what to say now. “I asked some of my vampire informants if they had any background on him.” Even to me it sounded lame.

“What else did your vampires tell you?” Shaw said, and disbelief was firm in his voice.

“Just that the holy water burns are bad enough that he’s probably unable to perform sex, so he puts all that energy into this.”

“The vampires told you that?” This from Thurgood. She gave good disdain. The alley’s shadows couldn’t hide the scorn, or maybe it was just that with the short hair you could see it clear and hard. Or maybe I was just being overly sensitive.

“No, they told me the burns are bad enough he can’t function. I made the logical leap about what that kind of anger might do to someone who was going to have to live forever in a body that damaged.”

“You should leave the profiling to the professionals, Blake,” Shaw said.

“Fine, but I’ve told you what I know.”

“Why isn’t it in the notes on the case?”

“Because I didn’t find it out while the case was going on. In fact, for a while they said the case was closed.”

“You told me why you were the only one who believed you hadn’t killed Vittorio in that condo in St. Louis.”

“No one we killed was powerful enough to be him,” I said.

Shaw stepped close, looming over me. “You know what I think, Blake? I think you saw Vittorio. I think you saw him face to face. I don’t think you learned any of this from your vampire friends. I think you learned it in person.”