Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [103]
“You had questions about the murders?” Obsidian Butterfly said. “Ask them.”
She was standing in the middle of her people, but no longer shielded. I don’t know if she decided we weren’t going to shoot her, or if she thought it was cowardice to hide behind others, or if we’d passed some kind of test. But if she were willing to answer my questions, then I’d take it any way I could get it.
I saw Dallas and Olaf to one side of the vamps. Dallas had her face hidden against his chest, and he was holding her, comforting her, helping her not see the mess on the floor. Olaf was looking down at her as if she were something precious. It wasn’t love, more the way a man will look at a really nice car that he wants to own. He looked at her like she was a pretty thing that he’d wanted but hadn’t expected to get. He stroked her hair, running his fingers through the long dark ponytail over and over, playing with her hair, watching it fall against her back.
I wasn’t the only one watching them. “Cruz, take the professor upstairs. I think she’s seen enough for one night.”
A short male vamp, very Hispanic, went to them, but Olaf said, “I’ll take her upstairs.”
“No,” Edward said.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Itzpapalotl said, “That will not be necessary.”
The three of us exchanged a glance, though I didn’t meet her eyes dead on. But there was an understanding between us, I think. Olaf needed to stay away from the professor. Maybe a state or two away from her.
Cruz pulled Dallas out of Olaf’s reluctant arms and led the crying woman up the stairs, and away from the horror we’d stretched out on the floor. Though we hadn’t made the vampire a horror, we just killed him. Itzpapalotl had starved him until he faced a glowing cross for the chance to feed. Starved him until he’d let two humans point guns at him and not even try to get away. He’d wanted to sink fangs into human flesh more than he’d wanted to live. I don’t usually feel sorry for vampires that try to feed off of me, especially without permission, but this one time I’d make an exception. He’d been pitiful. Now he was dead. Pity has never stopped me from pulling a trigger, and Edward didn’t feel pity. I could stare down at what was left of that skeletal body and think, poor thing, but I felt nothing about the death. It wasn’t just that I didn’t feel regret. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing.
I looked at Edward, and he looked at me, and I’d have given a great deal for a mirror right that second. Staring into Edward’s blank face, those empty eyes that felt nothing, I realized that I didn’t need a mirror. I already had one.
26
MAYBE I’D HAVE BEEN afraid of that revelation, but the vampires began to flow out towards us. Survival first, moral issues later. Richard might say that was one of my biggest problems. Jean-Claude wouldn’t. There’s more than one reason why Richard and I haven’t settled down to a happy ever after life, and there’s more than one reason why I haven’t cut Jean-Claude loose.
Itzpapalotl glided forward still shrouded in the scarlet cloak. It was so long that you couldn’t see her feet and she moved so smoothly that it looked like she was on wheels. There was something artificial about her.
The four silent women moved on her left, and something bothered me about the way they moved. It took me a second or two to realize what it was. They were moving in utter unison, perfect step. One lifted a hand to brush a strand of black hair from her face, and all the others followed the movement like puppets, though there was no stray hair on their faces. From the breaths that raised their chests, to the small jerk of a finger, they imitated each other. No, not imitated, that was too mild a word. They were like one being with four bodies. The effect was eerie because they didn’t look alike. One was short and square. One was tall and thin. The other two were delicate and did look something alike. All of them had paler skin than Itzpapalotl, as if in life they hadn’t been much darker than they were now.
The tall vamp that had tried to pull