Obsidian Butterfly (ab-9) (50 page)

Finally, there was no more air for screaming, but that dry, empty mouth kept opening and closing, opening and closing. Long after the screaming stopped, that skeletal thing was still writhing, still flinging its head from side to side.

Pinotl kept his hands pressed to Seth's face. He held him, and it looked gentle the whole time, but he had to be gripping with all the strength he had because he never lost his grip. While the flesh of that handsome face shriveled and died between his hands, Pinotl never moved. And through it all, Seth never once raised his hands up to save himself. He struggled because he couldn't not struggle, it hurt that much, but he never raised his hands against the other man. A willing sacrifice, a fit sacrifice.

My throat was tight, and something burned behind my eyes. I just wanted it over now. I just wanted it to stop. But it didn't stop. The skeletal thing that had been Seth kept twitching, opening and closing its mouth, as if trying to scream.

Pinotl looked up, breaking eye contact with Seth for a heartbeat. The two jaguar men that had escorted him onto the stage came into the light. One of them held a silver needle with black thread on it. The other held a pale green ball, tiny, the size of a marble maybe. If I'd been sitting much further out, I'd have never known what it was. Jade, I think, a jade ball. They placed it in that gaping mouth, and the mouth closed. The other jaguar began to sew his mouth shut, driving the silver needle through the dry lipless flesh, tugging it tight.

I looked at the table too, resting my forehead on the cool stone of the table. I would not faint. I never fainted. But I had a sudden flash of the creature that Nicky Baco had created out of the werewolves. Some of them had had their mouths sewn shut. I'd never seen a power like this. It was too big a coincidence that two people in one town could do it and not be connected.

Ramirez touched my shoulder. I raised my head and shook it. "I'm all right." I looked up and they were putting Seth in the coffin. I knew without trying to sense it that he was still in there. Still aware. He could not have understood what he was letting them do to him. He couldn't have. Could he?

Pinotl turned to the audience, and his eyes glowed with black fire the way a vampire's do when their power is high. Black flames licked around his eye sockets, and his skin seemed to glow with the power.

The thing that Seth had become was covered with the same black glittering cloth that had covered the last body. The jaguar assistants closed the coffin, securing the heavy lid. A collective sigh ran through the audience as if they were all relieved that it was covered. I wasn't the only one that didn't want to see it anymore.

Itzpapalotl glided on stage. She was wearing the same crimson cloak as before. Pinotl went to one knee in front of her, extending his hands. She put her delicate hands on his strong ones, and I felt the rush of power like the brush of bird's wings.

Pinotl stood, holding her hand, and they turned to the audience and now both of them had eyes of black flame, spreading over their faces like a mask.

Soft spotlights filled the darkness of the tables like giant, soft fireflies. Each light found one of the vampires. They were pale and wan, hungry, fasted maybe, because I wasn't the only one that could tell they hadn't fed. You heard the exclamations through the audience, how pale, how frightening, oh, my god. No, she wanted everyone to see them for what they truly were.

She and Pinotl stared off into that soft-lit dark and again I felt the rush of power, like a chittering flight of birds, brushing across my face, my skin, as if I had no clothes, and the swift passing of feathered things caressed my body. I felt it almost like a series of physical blows as the power hit each vampire, and their eyes filled with black fire. They became shining things with skin of alabaster, bronze, copper, all glowing, all beautiful with eyes filled with the light of black stars.

Then they fell into line and began to sing. A song of praise to her, their dark goddess. Diego, the vampire we'd seen whipped senseless, passed by our table with a leash in his hand. On the end of that leash was a tall, pale-skinned man with curly yellow hair. Was it Cristobal, one of the starved ones? There were no starved ones in line. All of them were glowing and well fed and filled to bursting with a dark, sweet power like overripe berries before they fall to the ground, when they are poised between the sweetest of ripeness and rotting Life is often like that, the best balancing on a knife edge with the worst.

The vampires left the stage still singing her praises. Pinotl and she walked hand and hand down the steps, and I knew where they were coming, and I didn't want them near me. I could still feel the power as though I were standing in the middle of a cloud of butterflies, and they were beating at my skin with soft wings, beating at me, trying to come inside.

They came and stood in front of our table. Her face was smiling, soft as she gazed down at me. The black flames had quieted, but her eyes were still an empty blackness with a flicker of light in their depths. Pinotl's eyes echoed hers like a mirror, but it wasn't black flame. It was the blackness of endless night, and there were stars in her eyes, an endless fall of stars.

Edward had my arm. He had turned me to face him. We were both standing, though I didn't remember getting up. "Anita, are you okay?"

I had to swallow twice to find my voice. "I'm okay, I think. Yeah, I'm okay." But the power was still beating against me like frantic wings, birds crying that they've been shut out in the dark and they want inside to the light and the warmth. How could I leave them crying in the dark when all I had to do was open and they would be safe?

"Stop it," I said. I turned to face them. They were still smiling, still welcoming. She held her hand out to me, the other still holding Pinotl's hand. I knew if I took that hand that all this power would flow into me. That I could share it with them. It was an offering to share. But at what price, because there was always a price?

"What do you want?" I asked. I wasn't even sure who I was asking.

"I want the knowledge of how your triad of power was achieved."

"I can tell you that. You don't need to do this."

"You know that I cannot tell truth from lie. It is not one of my powers. Touch me and I will gain the knowledge from you."

The wings were flowing over my skin as if the flying things had found a current of air just above my body. "What do I gain?"

"Think of one question, and if I have the answer, you will draw it from my mind."

Ramirez was standing. He motioned and I knew without looking that the uniforms were coming this way. "I don't know what's happening, but we're not doing it."

"Answer one question first," I said.

"If I can," she said.

"Who is the Red Woman's Husband?"

Her face showed nothing, but her voice was puzzled. "The Red Woman was another term for blood among the Mexicanas, among the Azteca. I truly do not know who the Red Woman's Husband would be."

I'd half reached out to her. I didn't really mean to. Three things happened almost together. Ramirez and Edward both grabbed me to pull me back, and Itzpapalotl grabbed my hand.

The wings erupted into a torrent of birds. My body opened, though I knew I didn't, and the winged things, only half-glimpsed spilled into that opening. The power flowed into me, through me, and out again. I was part of some great circuit, and I felt the connection with every vampire she'd touched. It was as if I flowed through them, and they through me like water coming together to form something larger. Then I was floating in the soothing dark, and there were stars, distant and glittering.

A voice, her voice came, "Ask one question, and it shall be yours."

I asked, though my mouth never moved, still I heard the words. "How did Nicky Baco learn to do what Pinotl did to Seth?" With the words came the image of Nicky's creature so clear I could smell the dryness of it, and hear that voice whispering, "Help me."

Images then, and they had force to them like things slamming into my body. I saw Itzpapalotl standing on the top of a pyramid temple surrounded by trees, jungle. I could smell the rich greenness of it, and hear the night call of a monkey, the scream of a jaguar. Pinotl knelt and fed from the bloody wound on her chest. He became her servant, and he gained power. Many powers, and one of them was this. And I understood how he'd taken Seth's essence. More than that I understood how it was done, and how it was undone. I knew how to unmake Nicky's creature, though what he'd done to them might mean that to bring them back to flesh would kill them. We didn't need Nicky to undo the spell; I could do it. Pinotl could do it.

She didn't ask if I understood. She knew when I had it all. "Now for my question." And before I could say or think "Wait," she was inside my head. She drew the memories from me: images, pieces, and I couldn't stop her. She saw Jean-Claude mark me, and she saw Richard, and she saw the three of us calling power on purpose for the first time. She saw that last night when I'd taken the second and third mark to save our lives, all our lives.

I was suddenly back in my own skin, standing on one side of the table, still holding her hand. I was gasping, fast and faster, and I knew if I didn't get control, I was going to hyperventilate. She released my hand, and all I could do was concentrate on my own breathing. Ramirez was yelling at me, was I all right. Edward had his gun out, pointed at her. She and Pinotl just stood there, peaceful. I could see everything as though I were looking through crystal. The colors seemed darker, more vivid. Things stood out in bold relief, and it wasn't the things I would normally have noticed. The way the band in Edward's hat had a small ridge in it, and I knew where the garrote was.

When I could finally talk, I said, "It's all right. It's all right. I'm not hurt." I touched Edward's hand, lowering the gun to point at the table. "Chill, okay, I'm all right."

"She said it would harm you if we forced you to let go early," Edward said.

"It might have," I said. I'd expected to feel badly, drained, tired, but I didn't. I felt energized, exhilarated. "I feel great."

"You don't look great," Edward said, and there was something in his voice that made me look at him.

He grabbed my hand and started leading me through the tables towards the door. I tried to slow down and he jerked me with him, pulling me along.

"You're hurting my wrist," I said.

He pushed through the doors with the gun still naked in his hand, my wrist gripped in his other hand. He hit the lobby doors with his shoulders. I remembered it being darker in the lobby, but it wasn't dark now. It wasn't exactly light. It just wasn't dark. He pushed one of the wall hangings apart, and there was the men's room door. He pushed it open before I could say anything. The urinals stretched empty, and I was grateful. The lights were bright, made me squint.

Edward whirled me around to face the mirrors. My eyes were a solid shining black. There was no pupil, no white, nothing. I looked blind, yet I could see everything, every crack in the wall, the smallest dint on the edge of the mirror. I walked forward, and he let me go. I reached out until I could touch my reflection. I jumped when my fingers met the cool glass, as if I'd expected my hand to keep on going. I stared at my hand, and I could almost see the bones under my skin, the muscles working as I moved my fingers. Underneath that, I could see the flow of blood under my skin. I turned and looked at Edward. I looked at him slowly, and I could see the slight difference in the pants leg where the hilt of the knife was sticking out of his boot. There was the faintest line where the second knife was strapped to his thigh, and he could reach through his pants pocket and touch the hilt. There was a bulge in his other pocket, small, but I knew it was a gun, a derringer probably, but that last bit of knowledge was my knowledge. The rest was this extraordinary vision. It was like some fantasy spell of true seeing.

If this was how all vampires saw the world, then I should just stop trying to hide weapons. But I'd fooled vampires before, master-level vampires. So this was how she saw the world, but not necessarily how they all saw the world.

"Say something, Anita."

"I wish you could see what I'm seeing."

"I don't want to," he said.

"The garrote is in the band of your hat. You've got a knife in a sheath in your right boot, and a knife on your left thigh. You reach the hilt through your pants pocket. There's a derringer in your right pants pocket."

He paled, and I saw it. I saw the pulse in his throat beat faster. I could see the small changes in his body as the fear rushed through it. No wonder she'd been able to read me so easily. But it should have worked like a lie detector for her. That's what other vamps and wereanimals pick up on, the minute changes we all make when we lie. Even the smell changes, so Richard said. So why couldn't she tell if someone were lying?

The answer came in a wave of clarity that you usually have to meditate to have. She couldn't read things she didn't have inside herself. She wasn't a goddess. She was a vampire, not like any vampire I'd ever known before, but that was what she was. Yet she believed she was Itzpapalotl the living personification of the sacrificial knife, the obsidian blade. She was lying to herself, and thus she couldn't see a lie in someone else. She didn't understand what truth was, so she couldn't recognize that either. She was fooling herself on a cosmic scale. And it weakened her. But I wasn't going to march out there and point out the error of her ways. She was just a vampire and not a goddess, but I'd had ataste of her power and I did not want to be on her dirty list.

With her power flowing through me like a rising wind, warm and smelling of flowers that I did not recognize, I didn't even want to burst her bubble. I hadn't felt this good in days. I turned back to the mirror, and my eyes were still that spreading blackness. I should have been scared or screaming, but I wasn't scared, and all I could think was, cool.

"Shouldn't your eyes go back to normal?" he asked, and again I felt that tightness of fear in him.