Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

I started to walk back toward the bed.

Nicky held his hands up as if to ward me off. "I swear to you that I can take you to it, but I can't give you directions and be sure you'll find it. I don't want to send you out into the dark, and have you not find it. You'd blame me, and it wouldn't be my fault."

Ramirez looked at me.

I nodded. He was too scared to lie, and it was too stupid a story to be made up.

"I can take you to it. If I'm there, I can take you to it."

"Of course, if you're there, you can warn your master," I said.

"I wouldn't do that." But I saw the change in his skin color, the rise in breathing, the flick of his eyes.

"Liar," I said.

"All right, but I'd be a fool not to try and get away. They're going to kill me, Anita. Why shouldn't I try to get away?"

I guess I couldn't blame him on that one. "Call Leonora Evans. She's a witch. Have her ward him, make sure that he can't contact his master by anything other than yelling."

"And the yelling?" Ramirez said.

"Gag him when the time comes," I said.

"You trust Leonora Evans to do this?"

"She saved my life, so I guess I do."

Ramirez nodded. "Okay, I'll call her in." He looked at the traction ropes. "The doctors aren't going to want him going anywhere tonight."

"Talk to them, Hernando. Explain what's at stake. Besides, what good does it do to heal him if you're just going to turn around and execute him?

Ramirez looked at me. "That was harsh."

"Yeah, it was, but it's still true."

Edward knocked and came in the door just far enough to say, "I need you out here."

I glanced at Ramirez. "I think we can take it from here, thank you," he said.

"My pleasure." I slipped the sunglasses back on as I followed Edward out into the hall. The moment I looked at Edward's face, I knew something bad had happened. He didn't show it the way a normal person would, but it was there, the tightness around his eyes, the way he held himself, carefully, as if he were afraid to move too suddenly or he'd break. I don't think I'd have seen it without the vampire vision.

"What's wrong?" I stepped in close, because something told me this was not for police consumption. With Edward it so seldom was.

He took me by the arm down the hallway, further away from the uniforms that were staring our way. "Riker has Donna's kids." His grip tightened, and I didn't tell him it hurt. "He has Peter and Becca. He's going to kill them if I don't bring you to him now. He knows we're at the hospital. He's given me an hour to make the drive, then he starts torturing them. If I'm not there in two hours, he'll kill them. If I bring the police in, he'll kill them."

I touched his arm. If it had been almost any other friend, I'd have hugged him.

"Is Donna okay?"

He seemed to realize he was digging into my arm and let me go. "This is Donna's night at her group. I don't know if the babysitter's still alive, but Donna won't even be home for two, maybe three hours. She doesn't know."

"Let's go," I said.

We turned and started walking down the hallway. Ramirez yelled behind us.

"Where are you two going? I thought you'd want to be in on it."

"Personal emergency," Edward said, and kept walking.

I turned around, walking backwards, trying to talk at the same time. "In two hours call Ted's house. The call will be forwarded to his cell phone. We'll join you on the monster hunt."

"Why two hours?" he asked.

"The emergency will be taken care of by then," I said. I had to touch Edward's arm, to keep walking backwards and not fall.

"Everything could be over two hours from now," Ramirez said.

"I'm sorry." Edward was at the doors that led into the next section of hallway. He pulled me through, the doors shut behind us. He was already punching numbers on the cell phone. "I'll have Olaf and Bernardo meet us at the turnoff to Riker's place."

I don't know which of them answered, but he gave a long list of things to bring, and he made them write it down. We were out of the hospital, through the parking lot and getting into his Hummer before he clicked the telephone off.

Edward drove, and all I had to do was think. Not a good thing. I was remembering last May when some bad guys kidnapped Richard's mother and younger brother. They'd sent us a box with a lock of his brother's hair, and his mother's finger in it. Everyone that had touched them was dead. Everyone that had hurt them would never hurt anyone again. I only had two regrets: one, that I hadn't gotten there in time to save them from being tortured; two, that the bad guys hadn't suffered enough before they died.

If Riker hurt Peter and Becca … I wasn't sure I wanted to see what Edward would do to him. I prayed as we rode through the darkness, "Please, God, don't let them be hurt. Let them be safe." Riker could be lying. They could already be dead, but I didn't think so. Maybe because I needed them to be alive. I remembered Becca in her sunflower dress with that sprig of lilacs in her hair, laughing in Edward's arms. I saw Peter's sullen resentment when Edward and his mother touched. I remembered the way Peter had stood up to Russell in the restaurant when he threatened Becca. He was a brave kid. I tried not to think about what could be happening to them right this second.

Edward had gone very, very quiet. When I looked at him, the dark crystal vision showed me further into him than I'd ever seen before. I didn't have to guess whether he cared for the children. I could see it. He loved them. As much as he was capable of it, he loved them. If someone hurt them his vengeance was going to be a thing of great and awesome terror. I wouldn't be able to stop him no matter what he wanted to do to them. All I would be able to do was stand and watch and try not to get too much blood on my shoes.

IT WAS A DARK night. It didn't seem to be cloudy, just dark, as if something besides clouds was blocking the moon. Or maybe that was just my frame of mind. The one thing I'd wanted to avoid while I was doing my favor for Edward was dealing with Edward at his most illegal. We'd picked up Olaf and Bernardo at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere with those empty rolling hills stretching out and out into the darkness. There had been no cover except some scrub bushes, and when Edward stopped the car and cut the engine, I thought we'd have a wait ahead of us.

"Get out. We'll need to suit up." He'd gotten out without waiting to see if I was getting out or not.

I got out. The silence seemed as big as the sky overhead, an immense emptiness. A man stood up not five feet in front of me. I had the Browning pointed before the man held a flashlight under his face and I realized it was Bernardo.

Olaf had magically appeared on the other side of the road. There was no ditch on either side of the road. There was nothing on the side of the road. What was even more impressive was that they began lifting large black bags of equipment out of that same nowhere. If we'd had the time, I'd have asked how they did it, though I doubt I'd have understood the answer. Training probably. Training I didn't have, though it might be nice to get it.

Of course, most of the things I hid from could have heard Bernardo's and Olaf's heartbeat no matter how well hidden they were. It was almost a relief to be up against mere humans. It meant you could at least hide in the dark.

Twenty minutes later we were on the road again, and Edward hadn't been joking on the suiting up part. I'd had to strip to my bra and put on a Kevlar vest. It was my size.

Which meant it had to be a special purchase because Kevlar doesn't come in my size off the rack.

"It's your prize for spotting all the weapons," Edward said. He always knows just what to buy me.

I needed to adjust the shoulder holster after putting on the vest, but I was told to do it in the car. I didn't argue. We had less than ten minutes to get to Riker's place. My T-shirt didn't quite fit over the body armor. I mean it did fit, but not well. Bernardo handed me a black, long-sleeved, man's shirt. "Put it on over the T-shirt. Button it up part way after you've got your holsters adjusted."