Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

His eyes shut down like curtains had pulled, hiding, hiding. There was no one home. It was the face he wore when he killed sometimes, though sometimes when he killed he wore the most joyous expression I ever saw on his face.

"You told me that they huddle around your humanity. Are you saying you huddle around their monstrousness?" he asked.

I looked into that so carefully unreadable face, and nodded. "Yeah, it took me a while to realize it and longer to accept it. I've lost enough people in my life, Edward. I'm tired of it. The chances are very good that both the boys will outlive me." I held up my hand before he could say it. "I know that Jean-Claude isn't alive. Trust me. I probably know that better than you do."

"You guys look serious. Talking about the case?" Bernardo walked into the room wearing blue jeans and nothing else. He'd tied all that hair back in a loose braid. He padded barefoot towards us, and it made my chest tight. It was one of Richard's favorite ways to walk around the house. He only put shoes and a shirt on to go out or if company was coming over.

I watched a very handsome man walk towards me, but I wasn't really seeing him. I was seeing Richard, missing him. I sighed and struggled to sit up straighten on the couch. Call it a hunch but I was betting that Edward didn't have heart to heart talks with Bernardo, at least not about Donna.

Edward had also straightened. "No, we weren't talking about the case," he said.

Bernardo looked from one to the other of us with a smile playing on his lips. But his eyes didn't match. He didn't like the serious air and it not being about the case, and him not knowing what it was about. I'd have asked. Edward wouldn't have told me, but I'd have still asked. Sometimes it was good to be a girl.

"You said you had the files on the Santa Fe cases," I said.

Edward nodded, standing. "I'll bring them to the dining room. Bernardo, show her the way."

"My pleasure," he said.

Edward said, "Treating Anita like a girl would be a mistake, Bernardo. It would piss me off to have to replace you this late in the game." With that, Edward left through the far right door. There was a wash of night air and a buzz of insects before he closed the door behind him.

Bernardo looked at me, shaking his head. "I've never heard Edward talk about any woman the way he talks about you."

I raised eyebrows at him. "Meaning?"

"Dangerous. He talks about you like you're dangerous." Intelligence showed in his solid brown eyes, an intelligence that had been hiding behind his good looks and charming smile. An intelligence that didn't show when he had his monster face on. For the first time I thought that it might be a mistake to underestimate him. He was more than just a gun for hire. How much more remained to be seen.

"What, I'm supposed to say I am dangerous?"

"Are you?" he asked, still studying me with that intense expression.

I smiled at him. "Well, you get to go down the hall first."

He tilted his head to one side. "Why don't we go together, side by side?"

"Because the hall's too narrow, or am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong, but do you really think I'll shoot you in the back?" He spread his arms wide and turned a slow circle. "Do I look armed?" He was smiling when he faced me again, charming.

I didn't buy it. "Unless I run my hands through all that thick hair and down your pants, I don't know you're unarmed."

The smile faded a touch. "Most people don't think about the hair." Which meant that he did have something hidden away. If he was truly unarmed, he'd have teased and offered me a chance to search.

"It's got to be a blade. The hair isn't thick enough to hide a gun, not even a derringer," I said.

He reached behind his head and drew out a slender blade that he'd woven through his hair. He held it up, then flipped it hilt to blade, back and forth, dancing it through his long slender fingers.

"Isn't it an ethnic stereotype that you're good with a knife?" I asked.

He laughed, but not like it was funny. He bounced the blade once more in his hand, and it made me tense. I was still standing behind the couch, but knew that if he were really good, I'd never get behind cover or draw my gun in time. He was just too damn close.

"I can cut my hair and put on a suit, but I'm still going to be an Indian to most people. If you can't change it, might as well embrace it." He slipped the knife back into his hair, making it look smooth and easy. I'd have had to use a mirror and even then I'd have probably cut off half my hair.

"You try to play in corporate America?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"So now you don't do corporate stuff."

"I still play in corporate America. I protect the suits that want flashy muscle. Something exotic to impress their friends about what a big shot they are."

"You do the knife act on command?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

"I hope it pays well," I said.

He smiled. "It either pays well or I don't do it. I may be their token Indian but I'm a rich token Indian. If you're as good as Edward thinks you are, you'd do better at bodyguard work than I do."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the majority of protective work wants their bodyguard to blend in. They want you not to be flashy or exotic. You're pretty, but it's more a girl next door pretty, nothing too beautiful."

I agreed with him, but said, "Oh, that won you a lot of brownie points."

"You've pretty much told me I don't have a chance so why should I bother lying?"

I had to smile. "Point taken."

"You may be a little dark around the edges, but you can pass for white," Bernardo said.

"I'm not passing, Bernardo. I am white. My mother just happened to be Mexican."

"You got your father's skin?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, what of it?"

"No one's ever got up in your face about it, have they?"

I thought about it. My stepmother's hurried comments to strangers that I was not hers. No, I wasn't adopted. I was her stepdaughter. Me and Cinderella. The really rude ones would ask, "What was her mother?"

Judith would always answer quickly, "Her mother was Mexican." Though lately it was Hispanic-American. No one could accuse Judith of not being politically correct on the issue of race. My mother had died long before people had worried about political correctness being in vogue. If someone asked, she always said proudly, "Mexican." If it was good enough for my mother, it was good enough for me.

That memory I didn't share. I'd never really shared it with my father. I wasn't about to start with a stranger. I chose another memory that didn't hurt quite so much. "I was engaged once until his mother found out my mother had been Mexican. He was blond and blue-eyed, the epitome of WASP breeding. My future-in-law didn't like the idea of me darkening her family tree." That was a brief, unemotional way to say some very painfully things. He had been my first love, my first lover. I thought he was everything to me, but I wasn't everything to him. I'd never let myself fall so completely into anyone's arms before or since. Jean-Claude and Richard were both still paying the bill for that first love.

"Do you think of yourself as white?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Now ask me if I think I'm white enough?"

Bernardo looked at me. "Are you white enough?"

"Not according to some people."

"Like who?"

"Like none of your damn business."

He spread his hands. "Sorry, didn't mean to step on your toes."

"Yes, you did," I said.

"You think so?"

"Yeah," I said. "I think you're jealous."

"Of what?"

"That I can pass and you can't."

He opened his mouth and emotions flowed over his face like water; anger, humor, denial. He finally settled on a smile, but it wasn't a happy one. "You really are a bitch, aren't you?"