Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [119]
The bacon on Olaf’s plate was the crispy kind, too. Oh, well.
I said grace over the food. Edward kept eating, but the others hesitated, uncomfortable with their mouths full. It’s always fun to say grace at a table with people who don’t. That uncomfortable silence. The panic while they wonder whether to keep chewing or to stop. I finished praying and took a bite of bacon. Yum. “What’s the game plan for today?” I asked.
“You haven’t finished looking at the files,” Edward said.
Bernardo groaned.
“I think it is a waste of time,” Olaf said. “We have gone over the files. I do not believe that she will find anything new.”
“She’s already done that,” Edward said.
Olaf looked at him, a piece of bacon halfway to his mouth. “What do you mean?”
Edward told them.
“That is nothing,” Olaf said.
“It’s more than you came up with,” Edward said, quietly.
“If I am such a burden on this job, maybe I should leave,” Olaf said.
“If you can’t work with Anita, maybe you should.”
Olaf stared at him. “You would rather have her as backup instead of me?” He sounded astonished.
“Yes,” Edward said.
“I could break her in half over my knee,” Olaf said. The astonishment was turning to anger. I suspected that most emotions turned into anger for Olaf.
“Maybe,” Edward said, “but I doubt she’d give you the chance.”
I held up my hand. “Don’t make this a competition, Edward.”
Olaf turned to me, slowly. He spoke very slowly, very clearly. “I do not compete with women.”
“Afraid you can’t measure up?” I asked. The moment I said. it, I wished I hadn’t. The momentary satisfaction wasn’t worth the look on his face as he rose from his chair. I leaned into the table and drew the Firestar, pointing it in his general direction under the table.
Olaf stood, looming over me, like a muscular tree. “Edward has spent the morning talking to me about you. Trying to convince me that you are worth listening to.” He shook his head. “You are a witch and I am not. The thing we hunt may be magical and we need your expertise. Maybe this is all true, but I will not be insulted by you.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. It was a cheap shot.”
He blinked at me. “You are apologizing?”
“Yes, on the rare, rare occasions when I’m wrong, I can apologize.”
Edward was staring at me across the table.
“What?” I asked.
He just shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Olaf’s hatred of women is sort of a handicap, and I try not to make fun of people with handicaps.”
Edward closed his eyes and shook his head. “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”
“I am not a cripple.”
“If you hate anyone or anything with an unreasoning, uncompromising hatred, then you are blind where that hatred is concerned. The police kicked me out of a crime scene yesterday because the cop in charge is a right-winger squeaky-clean Christian, and he considers me devil spawn. So he’d rather more people get killed and mutilated than have me help him solve the case. He hates me more than he wants to catch this monster.”
Olaf was still standing, but some of the tension had drained away. He seemed to actually be listening to me.
“Do you hate women more than you want to catch this monster?”
He looked at me, and for once his eyes weren’t angry. They were thoughtful. “Edward called me because I am the best. I have never walked away from a job until the quarry was dead.”
“And if it takes my preternatural expertise to help kill the monster, can you deal with that?”
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“I know that, but that’s not what I asked. Can you handle my expertise helping you kill the monster? Can you take my help if it is the best thing for the job?”
“I don’t know,” he said. At least he was being honest, even reasonable. It was a start.
“The question, Olaf, is which do you love more: the kill or your hatred of women?”
I could feel Edward’s and Bernardo’s stillness. The room held its collective breath waiting for the answer.
“I would rather kill than do anything else,” Olaf said.
I nodded.