38

WE ARRIVED AT THE hospital with the world wrapped in a heavy blue dusk. A twilight so solid it was like cloth, something you could wrap around your hands or wear like a dress. I'd called ahead using Ramirez' cell phone. How do you prove that someone is really dead? I'd seen the "survivors." They drew breath. I assumed they had a heart beat or the doctors would have mentioned it. Their eyes looked at you and seemed to be aware. They reacted to pain. They were alive.

But what if they weren't? What if they were only vessels for a power that made Nicky Baco and I look like backstreet charlatans? There might have been a spell to prove it, but you couldn't take the results of a spell to court and get permission to burn the bodies. And that was what I wanted.

I finally came up with brain waves. I was betting that the higher functions of the brain weren't working. It was the only thing I could think of that might show that something was wrong with the survivors other than not having skin and missing body parts.

Unfortunately, Doctor Evans and company had done monitored brain wave activity long ago. They all had higher brain functions. So much for my brilliant idea. Doctor Evans had wanted to talk in the doctor's lounge, but I'd insisted we talk closer to the survivors' room than that. We talked in low tones in the hallway. He wouldn't let me talk in front of the survivors about the fact that they might be dead. Because if I was wrong, it might cause them distress. He had a point. But I didn't think I was wrong.

The survivors already at the hospital had become agitated and violent, snapping at the hospital staff like dogs on chains. No one had been hurt, but the timing coincided with the last murders. Why had the skinned ones been more violent? Was it the spell used to banish whatever it was from the home? Had that upped the ante somehow? Maybe frightened the creature that we were on to it? I didn't know. I just didn't know.

All I did know was that I could feel the darkness pressing like a hand about to crush us all. It was a heaviness in the air like before a thunderstorm, but worse, closer, harder to breathe through. Something bad was coming, and it was tied to the darkness. I wasn't able to convince Doctor Evans that his patients were dead, but my urgency must have been persuasive because he did give permission for the two officers that were already at the hospital to guard inside the room instead of out. The only proof I had that there were cops inside the room was a hat lying on one of the chairs outside the door.

I wanted to go into the room myself, but by the time I got suited up in gown and mask it would be full dark. It was that close, like a trembling line. So I stood in the hall and pretended that I was okay with it, because there was nothing else I could do.

Since Officer Rigby and Bernardo were new, they got the standard lecture about not shooting inside an oxygen atmosphere. It would be bad, though it wouldn't explode, which is what I thought it would have done. It would be the flash fire to end all flash fires, turning the room into a lower circle of hell for the few moments it took to use up all the oxygen or fuel in the room. But it wouldn't explode in a shower of glass and plaster. Nothing too dramatic, just deadly.

Rigby asked, "And if they try to eat us, what are we supposed to do? Spit on them?"

"I don't know," Evans said. "All I can tell you is what you shouldn't do, and you shouldn't fire a gun into a room full of oxygen."

Bernardo drew a knife from somewhere. He hadn't bent down near his boot, which meant it was a different knife, and one the werewolf in the bar had missed. He held the blade up to the light, letting it gleam. "You cut them."

Darkness fell like a lead curtain, almost clanging in my head like the roll of thunder. I waited for the door to the room to open. I waited for the screaming to start because that's what I was expecting. Nothing happened. Then pressure that had been building for hours vanished. It was as if something swallowed it up. I was just suddenly standing in the hallway feeling light empty, better. I didn't understand the change, and I don't like what I don't understand.

We all waited for a few tense heartbeats, then I couldn't stand it. I spilled a knife into my own hand and reached for the door. The door swung outward. I jumped back. The male nurse that I'd been introduced to earlier paused the door staring at the naked blade in my hand.

He never took his eyes off me, but he talked to Evans. "Doctor, the patients are quiet, quieter than they've been all day. The police officers are wanting know if they can step out of the room for a while."

"The survivors are quieter than they've been all day?" I asked.

Ben the nurse nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

I took two steps back from the door, and let out the tension in my body in a long breath.

"Well, Ms. Blake?" Evans asked. "Can the officers come out?"

I shrugged and looked at Ramirez. "Ask him. He's ranking officer on sit. But truthfully, I guess so. Whatever I've been feeling seemed to fade when darkness fell. I don't understand it." I slid the knife back into its sheath. "I guess there's not going to be a fight."

"You sound disappointed," Bernardo said. His knife had vanished to wherever he'd gotten it from.

I shook my head. "Not disappointed, just confused. I felt a great deal of power building for hours, and it just vanished. That much power doesn't just vanish. It went somewhere. Apparently, not into the survivors, but it's off somewhere tonight doing something."

"Any ideas what it's doing and where?" Ramirez asked.

I shook my head. "Not really."

He turned to the doctor. "Tell the men they can come outside."

Ben the nurse looked to Doctor Evans for confirmation. Evans nodded. The nurse ducked back inside, the door closing slowly behind him.

Evans turned to me. "Well, Ms. Blake, looks like you hurried over here for nothing."

I shrugged. "I thought we'd be ass deep in man-eating corpses by now." I smiled. "It's nice to be wrong once in a while."

We all smiled at each other. The tension spilled out of all of us. Bernardo gave that nervous laugh you sometimes give when the emergency is over, or the bullet passed you by.

"I'm very glad you were wrong, this time, Ms. Blake," Evans said.

"Me, too," I said.

"Me, three," Bernardo said.

"I'm happy, too," Ramirez said, "but it is disappointing to find out you're not perfect."

"If you don't know I'm not perfect after forty-eight hours of working with me on a police investigation, then you are not paying attention."

"I'm paying attention," Ramirez, said, "close attention." There was a weight to his gaze, an intensity to his words that made me want to squirm. In trying not to squirm I caught Bernardo's eyes. He was smiling at me, enjoying my discomfort. Glad someone was.

"If you were wrong about this, you may be wrong about them being dead," Evans said.

I nodded. "Maybe."

"You admit you may be wrong, just like that?" Evans seemed surprised.

"This is magic, not math, Doctor Evans. There are very few hard and fast rules. There are even fewer rules the way I do it. Sometimes I think two and two is going to add up to five, and I'm right. Sometimes all you get is four. If it lowers the body count, I don't mind being wrong."

The door opened, and two men came out dressed in Albuquerque uniforms. They'd headed for the door as soon as Ben the nurse told them they could go. I didn't blame them one bit.

Their eyes looked haunted. The tallest one was blond and built all of squares. Broad shoulders, thick waist, heavy legs, not fat, just solid, strong. His partner was shorter and almost completely bald except for a ring of brown curls low on his head. Apparently, it was his hat sitting in the chair by the door.

Doctor Evans said, "Excuse me." He moved past them into the room.

The short one said, "He can have it."

The blond looked at me, eyes narrowing, not friendly. "Well, if it isn't the wicked witch of the Midwest. I hear we have you to thank for us sitting in there for the last hour."

I didn't recognize him, but apparently he knew me on sight. "I suggested it, yes."

The blond moved closer, using his size to intimidate me, or he tried. Size just isn't as impressive as most men think it is. "Maybe Marks was right about you."

Ah hah. He must have been one of the officers on site when Marks kicked me out. I felt Ramirez start to move up, probably to step between us. I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's all right."

Ramirez didn't move back the step he'd taken, but at least he didn't move forward. It was probably the best I would get out of him. But it meant that I was sandwiched between the two men. The blond's eyes flicked to Ramirez behind me. The look on his face was enough. He wanted a fight and didn't really care who it was with.

He was glaring at Ramirez now, and I could almost feel the testosterone rising on every side. Enough testosterone to get the officer in trouble, maybe suspended when all he needed was to blow off some steam. He was trying to cleanse himself of the horrors in that room.

Both his partner and Bernardo were staying back. I didn't know what the partner was doing, but Bernardo was enjoying the show.

"You must have been one of the officers that helped Marks throw me out," I said. I was looking way up at the man, and he was looking over me at Ramirez.

It took him a second to blink and look at me. He frowned at me, and it was a good frown. I bet it made a lot of bad guys run like hell.

His partner came up behind him. "Yeah, Jarman and I were both there." The partner sounded calm, and I think worried about his partner. Good partners look after more than just your physical health.

"And you are?" I asked. I asked it like his partner, Jarman, wasn't about to pick a fight with everyone in the hallway.

He introduced himself like everything was normal, too. "Jakes."

"Jarman and Jakes?" I made it a question.

He nodded, smiling. "J and J at your service."

I felt the tension easing in the big man in front of me. Hard to stay pissed when you're being ignored, and everyone else is behaving themselves. I pressed my back into Ramirez, trying to urge him to back off. He took the hint stepping back a little.

Officer Rigby came bounding down the hallway. He'd gone to the car to get something less explosive than his gun. What he was carrying was a Tazer gun. It would send a charge of 30,000 to 60,000 volts through a suspect. Theoretically, it could put someone down for the count without the danger of killing him. Unless you get very unlucky, like the perp has a pacemaker.

Ramirez was shaking his head. "What the hell is that for?"

Rigby looked at the Tazer. "I can't use my gun so I'll use this."

"Rigby," Jarman said, "a Tazer makes a spark."

Rigby looked puzzled. "So?"

"If the spark when we fire a gun will set off the oxygen in the room, so will the spark from a Tazer," Ramirez said.

"Go back to the car and find something else," Jarman said.

Jakes and I had moved to one side, watching Ramirez and Jarman ream the rookie. No one was mad anymore, derisive, condescending, but not mad. When Rigby had disappeared through the doors at the far end of the hall, Jarman turned to Ramirez. "Is Rigby all Marks gave you for backup?"

Ramirez nodded, then shrugged. "He'll learn."

"And get someone killed doing it," Jarman said.

Jakes held his hand out low, palm up. He was smiling. I gave him a low five. I was smiling, too, but not because his partner hadn't belted a detective. I was just happy that I'd been wrong. I'd had my fill of corpses for the day. Hell, for the year.

Bernardo was leaning against the opposite wall. He seemed puzzled by my interaction with the cops. I doubt it ever occurred to Bernardo to make friends with them.

The two uniforms had batons stuck in their utility belts. Ramirez looked unarmed except for his gun. "Where's your baton, Hernando?"

"Oooh, Hernando," Jakes said.

"Yeah, Hernando," Jarman said, rolling the name off his tongue, "where's your baton?" That they were willing to give Ramirez shit meant that under normal conditions he and Jarman got along. There is a different flavor to teasing when it's hostile. Rigby's teasing was close to hostile, not quite, as if they weren't sure if he were really one of them yet.

Ramirez took a short metal rod out of his hip pocket. He made a small movement with his wrist, and the rod telescoped into a solid piece of metal about two feet long.

"An asp," I said. "I didn't notice you carrying one when we met. I'm usually pretty aware of weapons."

He flicked the rod back into its compact size. "An asp is pretty small when it's put away. How do you know I wasn't carrying one?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it, and looked at him. He was grinning at me. I debated on whether to rise to the bait, or let it pass. Hell, this was the most fun I'd had all day. "Are you implying that I was staring at your butt?"

"How else would you know I didn't have something about the size of a pen in my back pocket?" His eyes were sparkling like dark jewels, shiny with humor.

I shrugged. "Just checking for weapons."

"That's what they all say."

Jarman said, "Wanna check me for weapons?"

Ilooked at him. "I can see your weapon from here, Jarman."

He puffed his chest out a little, managing to strut without moving his feet an inch. "When you're my size, it's hard to miss."

I looked at every man in turn and had to really fight the urge to linger on Bernardo. I was willing to bet that his "weapon" was the biggest in the hallway. "Oh, I don't know, Jarman. You know what they say. It's not size that matters. It's talent." Again, I had to fight the urge to stare at Bernardo.

Jarman smiled happily. "Trust me, baby. I've got the talent and the size."

"Easy to brag when you know you'll never have to prove it," I said, and yes, I was baiting him.

Jarman swept his hat off and gave me a look. I think it was supposed to be a come hither look. His scary frown was better than his sexy look, but hey, I bet he got a lot more opportunity to practice scary than sexy.

"Let's find some privacy, babe, and I will prove it."

I shook my head, smiling. "And what would your wife say about you taking me out for a test drive. Nice wedding band, by the way."

He laughed, a good-natured rumble.

Jakes answered for him. "His wife would feed him his dick on a stick."

Jarman nodded, still chuckling. "Yeah, my Bren has a temper, that she does."

He said it like it was a good thing, a thing he valued. He looked at me. "My Bren would have kicked Marks in the balls, not kissed him."

"I thought about it," I said.

"Why didn't you hit him?" Ramirez asked. The humor still sparkled in his eyes but his face was more serious. I think he wanted a real answer, not a joke.

"He was expecting me to hit him. Maybe even wanted me to hit him. He could have pressed assault charges, gotten me behind bars for awhile."

I expected one of the three men to say Marks wouldn't do that, but no one did. I looked from one suddenly serious face to another. "No one going to defend the lieutenant's honor? Protest that he wouldn't do such a dastardly thing?"

Jarman said, "Nope."

Jakes said, "Dastardly. You talk real pretty for a devil-worshipping assassin."

I blinked at him. "Pass that by me again, slowly."

Jakes nodded. "According to the lieutenant, you're suspected in the disappearances of several citizens, as well as dancing naked in the moonlight with the devil himself."

"Marks didn't say that last part."

Jakes grinned. "Can't blame a man for wishful thinking." He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I laughed. They laughed. A good time being had by all. Except Bernardo who leaned against the wall apart from the general goodwill. He was watching me as if he'd never really seen me before. I'd surprised him in some way

"Marks tried to get you arrested for magical malfeasance, so the rumor mill says," Jarman said.

I stared at him. Magical malfeasance could carry a death sentence. I stared at Ramirez. "Did you know he was trying to do that?"

Ramirez touched my arm. We moved down the hallway to the distant rumble of masculine laughter. The two officers were probably still giving each other good-natured shit. From the caliber of the laughter, if it was about me it was probably something I didn't want to hear. There is always a line to the teasing that must be carefully avoided. I wanted to be a female one of the guys, not get a reputation for being a slut. A thin line to walk sometimes.

Probably best to be out of earshot, but I didn't want to be alone with Ramirez right now. It bothered me that he hadn't told me what Marks had said about me. He was a virtual stranger. He didn't owe me anything, but it made me think less of him.

An African-American nurse walked past us and went into the room. Since all I'd seen were her eyes the first time, I couldn't be sure if she was the same nurse I'd glimpsed earlier in the room. She was small, about the right size, but in full surgical scrubs, who knew?

The men had fallen silent as she walked past. As soon as the door closed safely behind her, the laughter sounded again.

Ramirez looked at me with that honest face, a line of concern between his eyebrows like a tiny wrinkle of discontent. He looked even younger when he frowned. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asked.

"What?" I asked.

He glanced back at the two officers. They were still smiling. "Jakes and Jarman."

"You mean the teasing?"

He nodded.

"When I kissed Marks in front of all of them, I sort of invited a little teasing. Besides, I sort of started it, or rather you did." I shrugged. "It blows off steam, and we all need that right now."

"Most women don't see it that way," Ramirez said.

"I'm not most women. But frankly, one reason a lot of women don't stand for any teasing is that some men don't know when teasing crosses the line to harassment. If I had to work day in and day out with them, I might be more careful. But I don't, so I can afford to push the line a little."

"What is your line, Anita?" He was standing just a little too close for comfort.

"I'll let everyone know when they've reached it. Don't worry." I stepped back from him, giving myself the distance I wanted.

"You're mad at me." He sounded surprised. I half smiled.

"Believe me, Detective, when I'm mad at you, you'll know."

"Detective. Not even Ramirez. Now I know you're upset. What did I do?"

I looked at him, studying that open, honest fact. "Why didn't you tell me what Marks said about me? What he was telling the other cops about me? It would carry a death sentence."

"No way was Marks going to push that through, Anita."

"You still should have told me."

He looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. "I didn't know I was supposed to."

I frowned. "I guess not." But I wasn't happy with his answer.

He touched my arm again, every so lightly. "I didn't believe that Marks could get you arrested. I was right. Isn't that enough?"

"No," I said.

He let his hand fall away from me. "What good would it have done to tell you? You'd have worried for nothing."

"I don't need my feelings protected. I need to feel that I can trust you."

"You don't trust me because I didn't tell you everything that Marks said?"

"Not as much as I trusted you before."

The first hint of anger hardened his eyes. "And you told me everything that happened in Los Duendos? You didn't hold anything back about your interview with Nicky Baco?" His eyes weren't kind now. They were cool and searching, cop eyes.

I looked down once, then fought to maintain eye contact when what I desperately wanted to do was duck my head and say, aw shucks, you caught me. Push me into a corner, and I usually get angry. But somehow looking into his deep brown eyes, I couldn't pull up much moral indignation. Maybe it was having no moral high ground to stand on. Yeah, that might be it.

"I didn't kill anybody, if that's what you're implying." It was one of my usual comments with less than my usual force.

"That's not what I'm implying and you know it, Anita."

There was something familiar, almost intimate, about the conversation. We'd known each other for two days, and yet we interacted as if we'd known each other much longer. It was unnerving. I didn't usually bond this quickly with people or monsters.

But if it had been my longtime police friend Sergeant Rudolph Storr himself standing in front of me, I'd have lied. If Nicky Baco got a whiff of cops, he'd back off, and he'd never trust me again. People like Baco don't give second chances when it comes to the police.

"Baco knew you and Rigby were outside the bar, Hernando. He has the entire area wired with magical ... " I waffled my hand back and forth, seeking the right word " ... wards, spells. He knows what happens in his streets. If I go back in with police as backup, no matter how distant, he won't help us."

"Are you so sure he can help?" Ramirez asked. "He may just be stringing you along, trying to find out what you know."

"He's scared, Hernando. Baco is scared. Call it a feeling, but I don't think much frightens him."

"You've just told me you're withholding information from an ongoing murder investigation."

"If you wire me up or insist on sending someone under cover with me we'll lose Baco. You know I'm right on this."

"We may lose Baco, but you're not right," he said, and the anger was back. A frustrated anger that I'd seen before in other men that I'd known longer and in more intimate ways. That anger that I can't just be a good girl and play by their rules, and be what they want me to be. It made me tired to hear that thread in Ramirez's voice after only two days.

"The most important thing to me right this second is stopping these murders. That is my goal. That is my only goal." I thought about what I'd said and added, "And staying alive. But other than that I don't have any other agenda. Stop the bad guys. Stay alive. It makes things simple, Hernando."

"You told me earlier that you wanted your life to change, to be more than blood and horror. If you want that to change, you are going to have to complicate your life, Anita. And you are going to have to start trusting people, really trusting them again."

I shook my head. "Thanks for using my moment of weakness against me. Now I remember why I don't confide in strangers." I was finally angry myself. It felt good. It felt familiar. If I could just stay angry, I could stop being so damned confused.

He grabbed my arm, and the grip wasn't gentle this time. It didn't hurt, but I could feel the press of his fingers in my flesh. For the first time since I'd met him, he let me see the hardness underneath. That core of harshness that you either have or acquire if you stay with the cops. Without that core to protect yourself, you may stay on the job, but you won't thrive.

I smiled. "What next, rubber hoses and bright lights?" It was meant to be a joke, but my voice wasn't light when I said it. We were both angry now. Underneath all those smiles and mild manners was a temper. We'd see whose was worse, his or mine.

He spoke low and carefully, the way I do sometimes when to do anything else will start me yelling. "I could just tell Marks about the meeting. Tell him you're holding out on us."

"Fine," I said, "do it. Marks will probably have him arrested, search his bar. He might even find enough magical paraphernalia to get him jailed on suspicion of magical malfeasance. And what will that get us, Detective? Baco in jail, and a few days from now more people dead. More bodies gutted." I leaned into his angry face and whispered, "How will your dreams be then, Hernando?"

He let me go so abruptly that I stumbled. "You really are a bitch, aren't you?"

I nodded. "If the situation warrants it, you bet."

He shook his head, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. "If I hold out on this and it goes wrong, it could be my career."

"Just say you didn't know."

He shook his head. "Too many people know I was your police escort." He managed to make the last two words heavy with irony. "You've got another meeting planned with him, haven't you?"

I tried to keep the surprise off my face, but a blank face was just as bad. It was like when you were asked if you were sleeping with someone, and you refused to answer. Not answering was as good as a yes.

He stalked from one side of the hallway to the other. "Dammit, Anita, I can't sit on this."

I realized he meant it. I stood in his path, so he had to stop pacing and look at me. "You can't tell Marks. He'll screw it up. If he thinks I'm dancing with the devil, he'll have hysterics when he meets Nicky Baco."

The anger was beginning to leak from his eyes. "When's the meeting?"

I shook my head. "Promise first that you won't tell Marks."

"He's in charge of the investigation. If I don't tell him and he finds out, I might as well hand in my badge."

"He doesn't seem very popular around here," I said.

"He's still my superior."

"He's your boss," I said. "He is in no way your superior."

That earned me a smile. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me."

"It's not flattery, Hernando. It's the truth."

He was finally quiet, standing there looking at me. His expression was almost his normal one, or what I thought was normal for him. For all I knew he dissected puppies in his spare time. All right, I didn't believe that, but I didn't really know him. We were strangers, and I was having to remind myself of that. I kept wanting to treat him like a friend or better. What was the matter with me?

"When is the meeting, Anita?"

"If I won't tell you, then what?"

A shadow of that hardness seeped into his eyes. "Then I tell Marks you're withholding evidence."

"And if I tell you?"

"Then I'll go with you."

I shook my head. "No way."

"I promise not to show up looking like a cop."

I looked at him from shined shoes to short, clean hair. "In what alternate reality would you notlook like a cop?"

I heard the door open behind us, but neither of us turned. We were too busy making major eye contact.

Jarman yelled, "Ramirez!"

There was a tone in that one word that whirled us both around. Doctor Evans was leaning against the wall, holding his wrist upright. Blood gleamed like a scarlet bracelet around his arm.

Ramirez and I started running at the same time down that short space of hallway as if we had farther to go and less time to get there. Jarman and Jakes were disappearing through the door. Bernardo hesitated at the door, holding it open long enough for the screams to cut through the hospital silence. Low and wordless and panicked, and I knew without knowing that it was a man screaming. I was almost at the door, almost to Bernardo, Ramirez pacing me like a shadow.

Bernardo said, "This is a bad idea." But he went through the door, a heartbeat before we reached it. God, I hated being right all the time.