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“That can’t be an original English phrase.”

“I think he knows what his victims know. By the time he came to me, he spoke in English.”

“So you think he’s been here a long time.”

“I think he’s always been here.”

“What do you mean, always? Like eternity, or a really, really long time.”

“I don’t know how long he’s been here.” Nicky closed his good eye, as if he were tired.

“Okay, Nicky, okay.” I turned to the Ulfric. “Is he telling the truth?”

The man nodded. “He didn’t lie.”

“Great. Thank you for your hospitality and please don’t kill him. We may need him in the next few days to help kill this thing, not to mention freeing the souls of your pack mates.”

“I’ll lay off on the beating.”

It was the closest thing I was going to get to a “yes, we are going to let him go and make sure he isn’t hurt anymore.” “Great, I’ll be in touch.”

Edward stayed near me as we walked to the door. He didn’t offer me his arm, but he stayed close enough that if I stumbled he’d be there. Bernardo already had the door open. Olaf just watched us walk towards them. I stumbled a little up the two steps to the door, and Olaf caught my arm. I looked up into his eyes, and it wasn’t pride or honor or respect that I saw. It was . . . hunger, a desire so great it was a physical need, a hunger.

I pulled away from him and left a smear of blood on his hand. Edward was at my back, helping me towards the door. Olaf raised his hand to his mouth and pressed it to his mouth like a kiss, but he was doing the same thing that the wolves did. He was tasting my blood and liked it. There are all kinds of monsters. Most of them crave blood. Some for food, some for pleasure, but you’re dead either way.

48

EVERYONE WAS QUIET in the car. Olaf consumed by his own thoughts, which I wanted no details about. Bernardo had finally said, “Where to?”

“My house,” Edward said. “I don’t think Anita’s up to anything else today.”

For once, I didn’t argue. I was so tired, I was nauseated. If I could have found a comfortable position, I think I could have slept.

We drove out of Albuquerque and headed towards the distant mountains, bright and cheerful in the morning light. I wished for a pair of sunglasses, because I suddenly was neither cheerful nor bright.

“Did you learn anything worth getting out of the hospital early?” Edward asked.

“I learned that the thing has a name, the Red Woman’s Husband. It is hiding someplace that it can’t move from, which means if we can track it, we can kill it.” I added, because just in case, they needed to know. “Nicky says it was worshipped as a god once, and that it still thinks it is one.”

“It can’t be a god,” Bernardo said, “not a real one.”

“I’m the wrong person to ask,” I said. “I’m a monotheist.”

“Edward?” Bernardo made a question of his name.

“I’ve never met anything that was truly immortal. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to kill it.”

I actually had met a few things that seemed immortal. Maybe Edward was right, but I’d seen things that I still couldn’t figure out how to kill. Lucky me, the naga had been a crime victim and not a bad guy, and the lamia had been converted to our side. But as far as I knew they were both immortal. Of course, I’d never shoved an incendiary grenade down their pants or tried to set them on fire. Maybe I just hadn’t been trying hard enough. For all our sakes, I hoped Edward was right.

We pulled onto the long road that led, as far as I could tell, just to Edward’s house. It had a steeper drop off than I’d noticed at night, enough of a drop off that being an all terrain vehicle didn’t mean anything unless you could fly. A white truck pulled in behind us and started following us.

“Do you know them?” Olaf asked.

“No,” Edward said.

I managed to turn in the seat far enough to watch the truck. It didn’t try and overtake us or anything. There was nothing wrong with the truck except for the fact that it was on the road to Edward’s house and he didn’t recognize it. Add to that that all four of us were paranoid by profession, and it made for tension.

Edward