Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [778]
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