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Skin Trade(202)



“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.





74




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.