Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

The vampire vision had toned down, but it was still there or I'd have been night blind with the glasses on. Wondered what Muscle Man would think of the eyes.

He kicked my right leg again, hard enough that it hurt. "I said, lean!" He had that drill sergeant voice going.

"If I lean any further, I'll be lying down."

I felt him move behind me and had my head turned to the side when he slapped me in the back of the head, hard enough that my cheek hit the hood. It would have hurt if it had been the front, nose, mouth. He'd meant it to hurt.

"Do what you're told, and you won't get hurt."

I was beginning not to believe him, but I leaned, cheek pressed to the hood, arms out flat like I was being nailed down, feet spread so far that one good foot sweep would have dumped me to the ground. But it was nice and unsteady, the way he wanted it apparently. In a way it was flattering. He was treating me as a dangerous person. A lot of bad guys don't. Usually, they live to regret it, but not always. If muscle man died tonight, it wasn't going to be because of carelessness.

He searched me, top to bottom, even running his fingers through my hair, He'd have found Bernardo's stiletto hairpins that the others had missed at the house. He took the sunglasses off and looked at them as if looking for things that I would never have thought to find in a pair of sunglasses. He didn't really look at my face, didn't catch the eyes, or maybe they weren't glowing black anymore. Muscle Man found everything but the transmitter that was sewn somewhere in the shirt and the contents of the purse. He did dump it out on the ground and shine a flashlight on every item. He made sure the ink pen wrote, that the hairspray sprayed, and took the breath freshener mace as if he recognized it on sight. But that was all he took out of the purse, though once it was empty, he kneaded it with his left hand, the right still holding the submachine gun.

"This wouldn't be one of those with a compartment for a gun, would it?"

I'd raised my head enough to watch him empty the purse, so we could look at each other while he held the gun on me and glanced down at things. "No, it wouldn't be."

"I was betting it would be," he said.

"Nope," I said.

He finished by standing on the purse and stomping it flat. Glad it wasn't really my purse. "I guess there's no gun," he said.

"Told ya."

He took three big steps back, out of reach. He was treating me like I was dangerous. Darn. I sometimes counted on passing for harmless, but I guess I'd been packing too much hardware to pass for anything but dangerous.

"You can stand up."

I stood up.

He tossed the sunglasses to me. I caught them. My eyes were in the light from the house now, but he never flinched. Apparently, the glowy stuff had faded. He motioned with the gun for me to pick up the contents of the purse. I put everything back inside and almost put the sunglasses in, but decided to put them back on. Two reasons: one, when the night got too dark to wear them, I'd know the vampire stuff had left me completely; two, knowing Edward, they were probably expensive, and I didn't want to get them scratched up.

He motioned with the gun, and said, "Just walk slow, straight to the house, and it'll be all right."

"Why don't I believe you?" I asked.

He looked at me with eyes as dead and empty as a doll's. "I don't like smart mouths."

"You'll have to wait until I do the spell before you can shoot me," I said.

"So they tell me. Get moving."

The slender guy with glasses who had Edward at gunpoint was waiting for muscle man to get me moving. When I started walking, Glasses moved Edward forward. They kept us walking side by side, telling us to stay together. They kept us together so that if they had to start shooting they could kill us both with one spray of bullets, True professionals. I hoped Olaf and Bernardo were as good as they were supposed to be. If they weren't, we were in deep trouble.

The house was one of those nouveau architect homes that people with more money than taste are always hiring people to build. It looked like a giant had dumped white concrete in a free form slide putting windows and doors here and there like raisins in an oatmeal cookie. A nice surprise, but never where you expect to find them. The mismatched windows made the house look deformed. The door was off center but round, like a wide open mouth. The windows were not only round and mismatched, but the number of windows didn't seem to match the floor plan as if some of the windows looked into blank walls where no room could possibly be.

White steps led up to the round door like one of those cartoon tongues that spill out of mouths and go tumbling downstairs. The steps weren't wide enough for us to walk side by side, so Edward moved a couple of steps ahead. Neither of the men behind us protested, so we kept moving.

It had been so long since I carried a purse instead of a fanny pack that it felt awkward on my shoulder. I had to keep a hand on it to keep it from swinging around. I'd put it on the left shoulder, leaving my right hand uncompromised out of habit. Not that I had anything left to draw or pull or whatever. But it was always good to have your strong hand empty, just in case. So Edward and Dolph had always told me.

At the top of the porch in a spill of bright yellow light, they told us to stop. We stopped. They moved up to flank us and move a little back to either side. I didn't understand what they were doing at first, until the door opened and another man pointed the same kind of submachine gun at us. Muscle Man and Glasses had moved out of his line of fire and moved so they wouldn't catch him in their fire line. It is not easy to use three submachine guns in that small a space without crossing your own men, but they made it look easy, very smooth. The other men had carried an extra clip for the sub guns in a thigh holster, but this one had two clips at his waist.

The man in the door was African American and tall, like Olaf's height, very six foot plus. He was also completely bald just like Olaf. If they ever met, they'd look like light and dark versions of each other.

"What took so long?" he asked; his voice matched the body, deep.

"They were carrying a lot of hardware," Muscle Man said.

The new guy was smirking at me. "From the way Russell talked I expected you to look like Amanda. You're just a little bitch."

"Amanda the Amazon that came to Ted's house?" I asked.

He nodded.

I shrugged. "I wouldn't believe much that Russell said."

"He said you broke his nose, kicked him in the balls, and beat his head in with a piece of wood."

"Everything but the last bit. If I'd beaten his head in, he'd be dead."

"What's the hold up, Simon?" Muscle Man asked.

"Deuce is having some trouble locating the wand."

"Deuce would have trouble keeping track of his head if it wasn't attached," Muscle Man said.

"True, but we still wait." He was looking at both of us, the gun held easily in his big hands. "What's with the sunglasses, bitch?"

I let the name calling go. They had all the guns. "They look cool," I said.

He laughed then, a warm growly sound. A nice laugh if he hadn't been armed.

"What about you, Ted? I hear you are a bad dude."

Edward transformed into Ted, like a magician deciding he was going to have to perform after all. "I'm a bounty hunter. I kill monsters."

Simon looked at him, and there was something about the way he did it that said the Ted act wasn't fooling him. "Van Cleef recognized your picture, Undertaker."

Undertaker?

Ted smiled and shook his head. "I don't know anybody named Van Cleef."

Simon just looked at Glasses. Edward had time to turn his head so he took the blow on his shoulder. He moved a step, but didn't fall. Simon gave another look. Glasses hit his knee, and Edward collapsed onto one knee.