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“Do you really need Baco, Anita?”

“Why?”

“Just answer the question.” I knew Edward well enough to know he meant it. I answered his question or he wouldn’t answer mine.

“Yeah, I need him. He’s a necromancer, Edward, and whatever this thing is, it is just a form of necromancy.”

“But you’re a better necromancer than he is, stronger.”

“Maybe, but I don’t know much about ritual necromancy. What I do is actually closer to voodoo than traditional necromancy.”

He gave a dim smile, shaking his head. “And what exactly is traditional necromancy, and how are you so sure that Baco practices it?”

“If he was an animator, I’d have heard of him. There just aren’t that many of us. So he doesn’t raise zombies. But you and everyone else in the metaphysical community in and around Santa Fe say that Baco works with the dead.”

“I only know his reputation, Anita. I’ve never seen him do shit.”

“Fine, but I’ve met him. He doesn’t do vaudun, voodoo. I’ve seen that enough to know the trappings and the feel of it. So if he’s not a zombie raiser or a vaudun priest, and people still call him a necromancer, then he must do ritual necromancy.”

“Which is?” Edward said.

“To my knowledge it’s raising the spirits of the dead for sort of divination purposes or to get questions answered.”

Edward shook his head. “Whatever Baco does, it has to be worse than raising a few ghosts. People are scared of him.”

“Nice of you to mention that before I met him the first time,” I said.

He took a deep breath, hands on hips, not looking at me. “I was careless.”

I looked at him. “You’re a lot of things, Edward. Careless isn’t one of them.”

He nodded and looked up at me. “How about competitive?”

I frowned at him, but said, “Competitive, I’ll give you. But what does that have to do with Baco?”

“I knew that his bar was the hangout for the local werewolves.”

I stared at him, just stared at him. When I closed my mouth, I said, “You competitive shit. You let Bernardo and me walk in there unprepared. You could have gotten us killed.”

“You’re not even going to ask why I let you walk in blind?” he asked.

“Let me take a wild guess. You wanted to see how I’d handle it cold, or maybe how Bernardo would handle it, or maybe both.”

He nodded.

“Fuck, Edward. This isn’t a game.”

“I know that.”

“No you don’t. You’ve been keeping things from me from the moment I stepped off the plane. You keep testing my nerve to see if it’s better than yours. It is so junior high, so damned . . .” I struggled to find the right word, “. . . such a guy thing to do.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was soft.

The apology stopped me, drained some of the righteous indignation. “I’ve never heard you apologize for anything, Edward, not to anyone.”

“It’s been a long time since I said I was sorry to anyone.”

“Does this mean the games are over, and you’ll quit trying to see who is the biggest, baddest person?”

He nodded. “That’s what it means.”

I lay there and looked at him. “Is it just being with Donna, or is something else starting to open you up?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you don’t stop all this sentimental shit, I’ll begin to think you’re just a mere mortal like the rest of us.”

He smiled. “Speaking of immortals,” he said.

“We weren’t,” I said.

“I’m changing the subject,” he said.

“Okay.”

“If this monster really is an Aztec boogey-man, then it is a hell of a coincidence that the Master of the City, who just happens to be an Aztec, doesn’t know anything about it.”

“We talked to her, Edward.”

“Do you think a vamp, even a master vamp, could do all the things we’ve been seeing?”

I thought about it, but finally said, “Not just from vampiric powers, no, but if she were some kind of Aztec sorcerer in life, she might retain her powers after death. I just don’t know that much about Aztec magic. It doesn’t come up a lot. She was different from any vampire I’ve ever met. It could mean that she was a sorcerer in life.”

“I think you need to see her again.”

“And what, ask her if she’s involved in the murder and mutilation of some twenty