Skin Trade(39)
They’d given us little booties to put over our shoes, and I knew now that it wasn’t just the standard reason. Without them, we’d have been tracking the blood of Vegas’s finest all over.
“They didn’t feed on them,” Bernardo said.
“No,” I said, “they just bled them out.”
“Maybe some of the blood belongs to vampires. They could have taken their dead,” Edward said.
“In St. Louis he left his people behind as bait, and a trap. He left them to live, or die, and didn’t seem to give a damn which. I don’t think he’s the kind of man to take his dead, if he doesn’t protect his living.”
“What if these dead would have given something away?” Edward said.
“What do you mean?”
“If he wouldn’t take his dead because it was the decent thing to do, maybe he would take them if it was the smart thing to do.”
I thought about that, then shrugged. “What could dead vampires tell us that we don’t already know?”
“I don’t know,” Edward said, “it’s just a thought.”
“How did they ambush a SWAT team?” Bernardo asked.
“Did the dead vampire hunter have ability with the dead?” I asked.
“You mean, was he an animator like you?” Bernardo asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“No, he was ex-military, but he didn’t raise the dead.”
“That means they went in without anyone who could sense vampires,” I said. Then I had to add, “I know they had a practitioner with them, who was among the dead, but being psychic doesn’t mean you do well with the dead.”
“There aren’t that many of us who have a talent for the dead like you do, Anita,” Edward said.
I studied his face, but he was looking out over the crime scene, or maybe he was watching Olaf kneeling so carefully among the carnage.
“I always wonder how you guys stay alive if you can’t sense the vamps.”
He smiled at me. “I’m good.”
“You have to be better than me, if you don’t have my abilities and you stay alive.”
“Does that make me better than you, too?” Bernardo asked.
“No,” I said, and made it sound final.
“Why is Ted better than you, but I’m not?”
“Because he’s proven himself to me, and you’re still just a pretty face.”
“I got damn near killed the last time we played together.”
“Didn’t we all,” I said.
Bernardo frowned at me. The look was enough to let me know that it really did bug him that I didn’t think he was as good as Edward.
“How about Otto? Is he better than you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he better than Ted?”
“I hope not,” I said, softly.
“Why say it that way, you hope not?”
I don’t know what made me say the truth to Bernardo; Edward, yes, but the other man hadn’t earned that kind of honesty from me yet. “Because if I’m not good enough to kill Otto, it’ll be up to Edward to finish it.”
Bernardo moved closer to me, studied my face hard. He spoke low. “Are you planning on killing him?”
“When he comes for me, yes.”
“Why is he going to come for you?”
“Because someday I’ll disappoint him. Someday I won’t be able to keep being his little serial killer pinup, and when he thinks I’m less fun alive than I would be dead, he’ll try for me.”
“You don’t know that,” Bernardo said.
I looked out at the lake of dried blood and the big, graceful man moving through it. “Yeah, I do know that.”
“She’s right,” Edward said, softly.
“So, the two of you are planning to kill him, but you’ll work with him until he crosses the line.” He spoke very low, almost a whisper.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yes,” Edward said.
Bernardo looked from one to the other of us. He shook his head. “You know, sometimes the big guy doesn’t scare me as much as the two of you.”
“Only because you’re not a petite brunette woman. Trust me, Bernardo, if you fit his vic profile, you’d have a whole new level of creep about the big guy.”
He opened his mouth, as if to argue, then closed it. He finally nodded. “All right, I’ll give you that. But unless you’re going to kill him today, let’s get to work.” He walked away from us, but not toward Olaf. He wouldn’t help us contemplate killing Olaf, but he wouldn’t exactly stop us, either.
I wasn’t sure where Bernardo fell on the good guy/bad guy scale. Sometimes I wasn’t sure Bernardo knew, either.