“I am honored that you agreed to see me, but would you honor me with answering some questions that are more my job than social? I beg your indulgence, but it is a most… frightening crime.”
“It is most sad that our good policemen have been so slaughtered.” Her face showed distress, and she hugged Crispin’s arm a little tighter to her. She moved first, and he escorted her to the couch opposite us. She sat down, smoothing her skirt out.
Crispin took a step toward me. I let go of Bernardo and held out my hand. Crispin started for me with a smile.
“Crispin,” she said, “sit by me.”
His face looked less happy, but he did what she told him. He sat beside her, and the moment she laid her hand on his thigh, I was fascinated again. I could almost feel the weight of her hand on my own thigh.
“Shit,” I whispered, and took Bernardo’s hand again. The touch helped steady me, but I was beginning to realize what was wrong.
“What’s wrong?” Bernardo asked.
“I think she’s using Crispin to get to me.”
“Very good, Anita. I am his queen, and though he is your tiger to call, I am still his queen. Through your tie to him, I am your queen, too, so it seems.”
I shook my head. “I need your help to solve these crimes. Your husband, Max, told the police here that I’d help sort things out.”
“Max wanted you here, and so did I,” she said. She began to trace small circles on Crispin’s thigh. I could feel it on my leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“She’s not going to help us,” I said, and turned for the far door, Bernardo still hand in hand with me.
“I have every intention of helping you, Anita,” she said.
I turned back, putting my other hand higher on Bernardo’s arm. The reality of his muscled warmth helped me think. I wasn’t sure why, but it was almost as if anyone and anything that wasn’t tiger was useful. Then I had a thought: was it tiger, or was it white tiger?
“Then stop the mind games.”
“I needed to know if Crispin was more yours than mine. But not only can he not resist my touch, but through him, I also have a door into you. Very nice.”
“Why do you want a door into me?” I asked.
“Because it is there,” she said, and looking into her face, there was nothing there to talk to. It was a human face, but the expression in it gave me the feeling I’d gotten a couple of times when I stared into the face of a wild animal. There was that same neutrality. Bibiana didn’t want to hurt me, but she didn’t not want to hurt me either. It didn’t move her either way. It’s not the same thing as being a sociopath, but it’s close. It meant that she wouldn’t think like a human being. She’d think more like a tiger with a human brain. It changed everything about this interview. It meant that I couldn’t reason with her the way I could have with Max. It might mean I couldn’t reason with her at all.
“What’s happening, Anita?” Edward said in my ear. It startled me, made me jump.
“If your friends wish to join us, by all means bring them in. Listening devices are so impersonal,” she said.
I licked my lips again and tried to fight down my rising heartbeat. “The other marshals are holding our weapons for us. Rick didn’t want us to bring in an arsenal.”
She glanced back at Rick. “Are they that dangerous?”
“Yes, Chang-Bibi, I believe they are.”
She nodded, and turned back to us. “I trust Roderic’s judgment on such things.” She touched Crispin’s bare hand, and the power jumped like an electric charge through me.
Bernardo jumped, too. “What was that?”
“Power,” I said, “her power.”
“She sent it through the kid, to you?”
I didn’t argue with Crispin being “the kid”; it wasn’t just his age but the feel of him. “Yeah,” I said.
“Will you stop the power games long enough to answer some questions?” I asked.
“I will, if you do one thing first,” she said.
I knew it was a bad idea, but… “What do you want me to do?”
“Call Crispin to your side. If you can call him away from me, then I will answer your questions with no more games.” She smiled as she said it, but it was like watching the tiger in the zoo smile. You knew it didn’t mean it.
I squeezed Bernardo’s hand, then let go. He leaned in and whispered, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not,” I said.
“Then why do it?”
“Because she’ll keep her word. If I can call Crispin to me, away from her, she’ll answer our questions.”
“It’s still a bad idea,” he said.
I nodded. I took the Browning BDM out of its holster and handed it to him. “Bibiana seems to fascinate me like a master vampire, sort of. Just in case she decides to try to see how much control she has over me, I’d rather you have all the guns.”
“You think she’s going to mind-fuck you that badly?” he asked.
“I think she’s going to try.”
Edward was in my ear. “Just get out of there, Anita. We can find this information out somewhere else.”
I said, “Excuse me” to our hosts, and turned my back to talk out loud to Edward. “Night is going to come, Edward. Whatever killed these cops was deadly in the daylight. When you add their vampire masters to the mix, it’s going to be even worse. There is nowhere else to go for weretigers in Vegas.”
“Can she roll you, completely?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bernardo,” Edward said.
“Yeah, boss,” he said.
“If she goes, don’t be a hero, yell for us.”
“Don’t worry, Ted, I’m no hero.”
“Fine, we’ll be listening. Be careful, Anita.”
“As a virgin on my wedding night.”
There was a sound, I think it was Olaf. Maybe I had amused him, or maybe he just thought I was being stupid. He might be right on that second part.
33
I DIDN’T USUALLY try to call the wereanimals that were tied to me metaphysically. It just sort of happened. My psychic mentor, Marianne, told me that my natural abilities were so strong that I did most things without thinking about it first. That could be good and powerful, or bad and a weakness. But I’d been learning how to be a grown-up psychic and do stuff on purpose. It was the difference between driving really fast on a public street, or driving really fast on a track with professional drivers. One was for kids; the other was for grown-ups.
I tried simple first. “Crispin, come to me.” I held my hand out.
He stood up. Bibiana’s hand fell away. He actually took a step my way before her power breathed through the room. It stopped my breath in my throat, made me taste my pulse on my tongue. Crispin’s face was almost pained. His eyes looked at me with such longing, but he didn’t move closer.
But the white tiger inside me did move. She began to pad eagerly up along that well-worn path inside me. She began to trot, and I knew once she started running, when she hit the “surface” of my body, it would feel like getting hit by a truck from the inside out. I hadn’t had it happen in months, and I had seconds to stop it, if I could.
I tried to call wolf, but tiger was too close. The tigress was running full out, a white blur, streaking toward me.
“Fuck,” I said.
Rick and Domino had moved closer to us, as if they couldn’t help themselves. Only Ava seemed able to resist, but then she wasn’t the same… color.
I called black tiger, I called it with a scream and a roar inside my head. The black form smashed into the white inside me and sent me spinning across the room. I ended up on the floor near the windows, with the two tigers snarling inside me, trying to tear each other apart, but my body was their battlefield.