Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

Olaf was still standing, but some of the tension had drained way. He seemed to actually be listening to me.

"Do you hate women more than you want to catch this monster?"

He looked at me, and for once his eyes weren't angry. They were thoughtful. "Edward called me because I am the best. I have never walked away from a job until the quarry was dead.

"And if it takes my preternatural expertise to help kill the monster, can you deal with that?"

"I don't like it," he said.

"I know that, but that's not what I asked. Can you handle my expertise helping you kill the monster? Can you take my help if it is the best thing for the job?"

"I don't know," he said. At least he was being honest, even reasonable. It was a start.

"The question, Olaf, is which do you love more: the kill or your hatred of women?"

I could feel Edward's and Bernardo's stillness. The room held its collective breath waiting for the answer.

"I would rather kill than do anything else," Olaf said.

I nodded. "Great, and thank you."

He shook his head. "If I take your help, it does not mean that I consider you my equal."

"Me either," I said.

Someone kicked me under the table. I think it was Edward. But Olaf and I nodded at each other, not exactly smiling, but I think we had a truce. If he could control his hatred, and I could control my smart-ass impulses, the truce might last long enough for us to solve the case. I managed to reholster the Firestar without him noticing, which made me think less of him. Edward had noticed, and I think, so had Bernardo. What was Olaf's specialty? What good was he if he didn't know where the guns were?

AFTER BREAKFAST WE HEADED back into the dining room. Bernardo had volunteered to do the dishes. I think he was looking for any excuse to get out of the paperwork. Though I was beginning to wonder if Bernardo had been as badly spooked by the mutilations as Edward had been. Even the monsters were afraid of this one.

Last night I'd been ready to look at the forensic reports next, but in the clear light of day I could admit that it was cowardice. Reading about it was not as bad as seeing it. I so did not want to look at the photos. I was afraid to see them, and the moment I admitted that to myself, I moved them to the top of the list.

Edward suggested we stick all the pictures on the walls of the dining room.

"And put pin holes in your nice clean walls," I said.

"Don't be barbaric," Edward said. "We'll use sticky putty." He held up a small packet of the pliable yellow rectangles. He peeled off some and handed it to Olaf and me.

I squeezed the stuff between my fingers, rolling it into a ball. It made me smile. "I haven't seen this stuff since elementary school."

The three of us spent the next hour putting the pictures up on the wall. Just handling the sticky putty made me remember fourth grade and helping Miss Cooper hang Christmas decorations on the walls.

We'd hung cheerful Santas, fat candy canes, and bright balls. Now I was hanging vivisected bodies, close-ups of skinless faces, shots of rooms full of body parts. By the time we had one wall covered I was mildly depressed. Finally, the pictures took up almost all the empty white wall space.

I stood in the center of the room and looked at it all. "Sweet Jesus."

"Too harsh for you?" Olaf asked.

"Back off, Olaf," I said.

He started to say something else but Edward said, "Olaf." It was amazing how much menace he could put into one ordinary word.

Olaf thought about it for a second or two, but in the end he let it go. Either Olaf was getting smarter or he was afraid of Edward, too. Guess which way I was voting.

We'd grouped the photos by crime scene in large clusters. This was my first glimpse of the bodies that had been torn apart.

Doctor Evans had described the bodies being cut by a blade of unknown origin, then disjointed by hand. But that had been a very clean description of what had actually been done.

At first, all my eyes could see was blood and pieces. Even knowing what I was looking at, my mind refused to see it at first. It was like looking at one of those 3-D pictures where at first it's just colors and dots, then suddenly you see it. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. My mind was trying to protect me from what I was looking at by just simply not allowing me to make sense of it. My mind was protecting me, and it only does that when it's bad, really really bad.

If I had just walked out now before my eyes made sense of it, I might escape the full horror of it all. I could turn on my heel and march out of here. I could just refuse to take one more terror into my brain. Probably a good idea for my own sanity, but it wouldn't help the next family that this thing got hold of. It wouldn't stop the mutilations, the deaths. So I stood there and made myself stare up at the first picture, waiting to see what was really there.

The blood was brighter than movie blood, a cherry red. They'd gotten to this scene before the blood had started to dry.

I spoke without turning around. "How did the police find the bodies so quickly in this house? The blood is still fresh."

Edward answered, "The husband's parents were supposed to meet them for an early breakfast, before work."

I had to look away from the picture, at the floor. "You mean his parents found him like this?"

"It gets worse," Edward said.

"How could it possibly get worse?" I asked.

"The wife told her best friend she was pregnant. The breakfast meeting was to tell the husband's parents they were about to be grandparents for the first time."

The rug swam in my vision, like looking at it through water. I reached back for a chair and eased my way into it. I put my head between my knees and breathed very carefully.

"You all right?" Edward asked.

I nodded without raising up. I waited for Olaf to make a sarcastic remark, but he didn't. Either Edward had warned him off or he thought it was horrible, too.

When I was sure I wasn't going to throw up or faint, I spoke with my head still between my knees. "When did the parents arrive at the house? What time?"

I heard paper rustle. "Six-thirty."

I rested my cheek against my knee. It felt good. "When did the sun come up?"

"I don't know," Edward said.

"Find out," I said. Gee, the rug on the floor was kind of pretty.

I raised up slowly, still practicing nice even breaths. The room did not swim. Good. "The grandparents-to-be arrived at six-thirty. It takes what, ten minutes, less, for them to recover enough to call the cops. Then uniforms arrive on the scene first. It could take thirty minutes or an hour, more, for a crime scene photographer to arrive, and yet the blood is still fresh. It hasn't dulled yet, let alone started to brown."

"The parents nearly walked in on it," Edward said.

"Yeah," I said.

"What difference does that make?" Olaf asked.

"If dawn was close to six-thirty, then the critter can be out in daylight, or it went to hole close to the murder scene. If it wasn't close to dawn, then it may be limited to darkness."

Edward was smiling down at me like a proud parent. "Even with your head between your knees, you're still thinking about the job."

"But what does it gain us," Olaf said, "if the creature is limited to darkness or daylight?"

I looked up at him. He was looming over me again, but I kept sitting down. Wouldn't look very macho if I stood up and fell down. "If it's limited to darkness, then it may help us figure out what kind of critter it is. There really aren't that many preternatural creatures that are limited exclusively to darkness. It would help narrow the list."

"And if it holed up near the first murder scene," Edward said, "we might find some traces."