Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [740]
And staring down into the woman’s face, watching that perfect faith fill her lost eyes, I wasn’t sure the bargain was a good one, but I was sure of one thing. I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t let the monsters win, not even if it meant becoming one of them. God forgive me if it was arrogance. God protect me if it wasn’t. I got up out of bed and went in search of monsters.
45
I WAS BUCKLED into the front seat of Edward’s Hummer, holding myself stiff and careful, glad the ride was smooth. Bernardo and Olaf were in the back seat, dressed in someone’s idea of assassin chic. Bernardo was in a leather vest. His cast looked very white and awkward, right arm at a forty-five degree angle, a white strap going from arm to around his neck. His long hair was done in a vaguely oriental style, with one large, deceptively loose knot held back with what looked like two long gold chopsticks. It held back the sides of his hair, but left most of the length swinging free down his back. Black jeans of a looser cut with holes worn through across his knees, and the black boots I’d seen him wear since I arrived. But who was I to complain? I had three pairs of black Nikes, and I had brought all three with me.
There was a swollen bump to the side of his forehead and bruises like a pattern of modern art tattoos down one side of his face. His right eye was still puffy around one edge. But he managed not to look pale or ill like I did. In fact, if you could ignore the cast and bruises, he looked dandy. I hoped he felt as good as he looked, because I looked like shit and felt worse.
“Who did your hair?” I asked, because with only one good arm, I knew he hadn’t.
“Olaf,” he said, and that one word was very bland, very empty.
I widened my eyes and looked over at Olaf.
He sat beside Bernardo on the side behind Edward, as far from me as he could get and still be in the car. He hadn’t spoken a word to me since I walked out of the hospital room and the four of us walked to the car. It hadn’t bothered me at the time because I’d been too busy trying to walk without making small pain noises under my breath.
Whimpering while you walked was always a bad sign. But now I was sitting down and as comfortable as I was likely to get for a while. I was also in a momentously bad mood because I was scared. I felt physically weak and not up to a fight. Psychically, my hard-won shields were crap again, full of holes, and if the “master” tried for me again, I was in very deep shit.
Leonora Evans had given me a woven silk cord with a little drawstring bag on it. The little bag was lumpy, packed full with small hard objects that felt like rocks, and dry crumbling things that were probably herbs. She’d told me not to open the bag because that would let all the goodness out. She was the witch, so I did what she told me.
The bag was a charm of protection, and it would work without my believing in its power. Which was good since, except for my cross, I didn’t believe in very much. Leonora had been making the charm for three days, since she saved me in the emergency room. She had not intended it to be a cure-all for the holes in my defenses, but it was all she had to give me on such short notice. She was almost as angry with me as Doctor Cunningham had been for leaving the hospital early.
She had taken one of her own necklaces and placed it over my head. It was a large piece of polished semiprecious stone. A strange dark gold color. Citrine for protection and to absorb negativity and magical attacks directed at me. To say that I wasn’t a big believer in crystals and the new age was an understatement, but