Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

Oh, and Bernardo went with me. He sat in the passenger seat slumped down until the seatbelt I'd insisted he wear cut across his neck. His handsome face was set in a scowl, arms crossed over his chest. I think he'd have crossed his legs if he'd had room. Words like closed-off, brooding, came to mind.

Shadows stretched across the road, though there were no trees or buildings to cast them. It was like the shadows just spilled out of the earth itself to lie across the road like a promise of the night to come. If you went by the watch on my wrist, it was early evening. If you went by the level of daylight, it was late afternoon. We had about three hours of daylight left. I drove through the gathering shadows with a feeling of urgency pressing against me. I wanted to be at the hospital before dark. I didn't know why, and I didn't question it. We were being followed by a police car. Surely, they could fix the ticket.

It was frightening how quickly and smoothly the car went over eighty without me noticing it. There was something about the roads and the way they spilled out and out across the empty landscape that made lower speeds seem like crawling. I kept it at a solid eighty, and Ramirez kept up with me. He seemed to be the only one who believed me. Maybe he felt the urgency, too. The silence in the car wasn't exactly companionable, but it wasn't uncomfortable either. Besides, I had enough problems without playing crying shoulder for one of Edward's sociopathic friends.

Bernardo broke the silence. "I saw you and that detective getting it on there in the grass."

I frowned at him. He was watching me with hostile eyes. I think he was trying to pick a fight, though I didn't know why. "We were not 'getting it on'," I said.

"Looked pretty cozy to me."

"Jealous?" I asked.

His face hardened, thinning into angry lines. "So you do sleep around. Just not with us bad guys."

I shook my head. "It was a comforting hug, not that it's any of your business."

"Didn't think you were the comforting hug type."

"I'm not."

"So," he said.

"So this case is getting to me."

"I hear that," he said.

I glanced at him. His face was turned away, only a thin rim of profile showing through his hair like the moon just before it goes dark.

I turned back to the road. If he didn't want eye contact, fine with me. "I thought you were avoiding the pictures and forensic stuff," I said.

"I've been here two weeks longer than you have. I've seen the pictures. I've seen the bodies. I don't need to see it all again."

"What exactly did you and Edward quarrel about today?"

"Quarrel," he said and gave a low chuckle. "Yeah, you could say we quarreled."

"What about?"

"I don't know why the hell I'm here. Tell me what or who to shoot, and I'll do it. I'll even guard bodies if the price is right. But there's nothing to shoot at. Nothing but dead bodies. I don't know shit about magic."

"I thought you were a licensed bounty hunter that specialized in preternatural critters."

"I was with Edward when he cleaned out a nest of lycanthropes in Arizona. Fifteen of them. We mowed them down with machine guns and grenades." He had an almost wistful tone to his voice. Ah, the good ol' days. "Before that I'd killed two rogue lycanthropes, but afterwards I got a lot of calls for this shit. I took the ones that were basically just hits. The only difference was that the vic wasn't human. Those I could handle, but I am not a detective. Call me in when the kill is in sight, and I'll be there, but not this. This fucking waiting around, looking for clues. Who the hell looks for clues? We're assassins, not Sherlock Holmes."

He shifted in his seat, and struggled to sit up straighter, arms still holding himself tight. He did the headshake to get the hair back away from his face. The headshake is a very feminine gesture. A man has to be muy macho for it not to be. Bernardo managed.

"Maybe he assumed that since you helped him out with the shapeshifters that you'd be useful with this."

"He was wrong."

I shrugged. "Then go home."

"I can't"

I glanced at him. I could see most of his profile, and it was a nice one. "You owe him a favor, too?"

"Yes."

"Mind me asking what sort of favor?"

"Same as you."

"You killed one of his other backups?"

He nodded, and had to run his hands through his hair to slide it back from his face.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Why?" He looked at me, and his face, for one of the few times, wasn't teasing, but serious, even solemn. He looked less handsome without the smile and glow in his eyes, but he also seemed more real. Being real will get me into trouble faster than any amount of charm. "Do you want to talk about how you killed Harley?" he asked.

"Not really."

"Then why did you ask?"

"You seem uptight. I thought it might help to talk, or is that just a girl thing?"

He smiled, and it almost reached his eyes. "I think it's a girl thing because I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, let's talk about something else."

"What?" He was staring out the far window now, one shoulder pressed against the glass. The road went down between two hills, and the world was suddenly dark gray. We were literally running out of daylight. But this last attack had most definitely been a daylight attack. So why was I so worried about the coming night? Maybe it was just years of hunting vampires, where darkness meant that we humans no longer had any advantage. I hoped it was just old habits, but the fluttering in my stomach didn't think that was it.

"How long have you known Edward?" I asked.

"About six years."

"Shit," I said.

He looked at me then. "What's wrong?"

"I've known him for five. I was hoping you'd known him longer."

He grinned at me. "Wanting to pump me for information, eh?"

"Something like that."

He turned in the seatbelt until most of his body was facing me, one leg drawn up into the seat. "Let me pump you, and you can pump me all you want." His voice had dropped a notch or two. His head was to one side, the hair sweeping across the seat like black fur.

I shook my head. "You're horny, and I'm available. That isn't very flattering, Bernardo."

He moved back in his seat, sweeping his hair back to his side of the seat. "Now that is a girl thing."

"What is?"

"Complicating things, needing the sex to be about something more than sex."

"I don't know. I know a guy or two that make it just as complicated."

"You don't sound happy with him or them."

"Did Edward call you before Olaf or after?" I asked.

"After, but you're changing the subject."

"No, I'm not. Edward is an expert on people. He knows who to call for any given situation, for any kill. Olaf makes sense. I make sense. You don't make sense. He knows that this isn't your type of crime."

"You lost me."

"Edward encouraged me to sleep with you."

Bernardo looked at me, shocked, I think. Nice to know he could be. "Edward match making. We are talking about the same Edward, right?"

"Maybe Donna has changed him," I said.

"Nothing changes Edward. He's a mountain. He's just there."

I nodded. "True, but he wasn't encouraging me to pick out curtains with you. He said, and I quote, 'What you need is a nice uncomplicated fuck.»

Bernardo's eyebrows went up into his hair. "Edward said that?"

"Yeah, he did."

He was looking at me now. I could feel his gaze on me even while watching the road. It wasn't sexual now. It was intense. I had his attention. "Are you saying that Edward brought me on to tempt you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a coincidence. But he's not happy with my choice of lovers."

"First, there are no coincidences when it comes to Edward. Second, who could you possibly be sleeping with that would bother Edward? He wouldn't care if you were doing your dog."