Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [225]
“By denying him and your wolf, you cripple not just the triad of power, but him. You have crippled him, Anita. You have crippled your master.”
I heard myself say, “I’m sorry.”
“It is not me that you must be sorry to. It is him. Go home and beg his forgiveness, lay yourself at his feet and feed his power.”
I closed my eyes, because what I really wanted to do was nod and just agree. I was pretty sure the spell would wear off before I got home to St. Louis, but putting this woman and Jean-Claude together as a team would have been my undoing. Even now, I was glad he was hundreds of miles away, because I nodded, eyes still closed.
She took the nod as assent. “Good, very good. If your master is grateful for my aid in this matter, let him contact me. I know that we can come to an understanding.”
And for the first time since she’d zapped me, I felt a thrill of fear. I looked at her through a veil of her power and was afraid of her.
She read it in me. “You should always be afraid of gods, Anita. If you are not afraid, then you are a fool and you are not a fool.” She looked past me to Ramirez. “I believe that I have helped you all that I can, Detective Ramirez.”
He said, “Anita?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s time to go see Nicky Baco.”
“If Nicky lied to us, then so did his pack leader,” Edward said, “because he said Nicky was telling the truth about not knowing where the monster was.”
“If Nicky can share this kind of power with the werewolves, then I know why the pack lied.”
“The werewolves will fight to protect Nicky,” Edward said.
We looked at each other. “It’ll be a bloodbath if the police go in force.” I shook my head. “But what choice do we have?”
“Nicky isn’t at the bar,” Ramirez said.
We turned to him, said in unison, “Where is he?”
“In the hospital. Someone beat the shit out of him.”
Edward and I exchanged glances, and we both smiled. “Back to the hospital, then,” I said.
He nodded. “Back to the hospital.”
I looked at Ramirez. “If that’s all right with you?”
“Can you prove what you’ve been saying about Baco?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then it’s a death sentence. He’ll know that. I’ve seen Baco in an interrogation. He’s tough, and he knows that he has nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling us the truth.”
“Then we’ll have to find something that he’s more afraid of than being executed.” I couldn’t help it. I turned and looked at Itzpapalotl. I met her eyes and there was no pull to them now. Her own power protected me from her. No stars, no endless night, just a dark knowledge of what I was thinking, and her approval of the plan.
“We can’t do anything illegal,” Ramirez said.
“Of course not,” I said.
“I mean it, Anita.”
I looked at him, and watched him flinch when he met my eyes. “Would I do that to you?”
He searched my face as if trying to decipher it. It was the way I looked at Edward sometimes, or Jean-Claude. Finally, he said, “I don’t know what you’d do.” And that, for better or worse, was the truth.
53
EDWARD GOT HIS SUNGLASSES out of the glove compartment and handed them to me before we went inside the hospital. My eyes hadn’t changed back, though I knew the effect was beginning to wear off, because the fact that my eyes were still black and glowy was beginning to worry me. It was a good sign.
Nicky Baco was not in a private room. The police had his roommate moved to a different room. Nicky was in traction, and wasn’t going anywhere. He lay in the bed and looked smaller than I knew he was. The leg that had been badly broken was in a cast from toe to thigh. Little pulleys and cords held his leg up at an odd angle that must have been hell on the back.
Ramirez had been questioning Nicky for about thirty minutes and was getting nowhere. Edward and I leaned against the wall and watched the show. But Nicky had done exactly what we’d feared he’d do. He’d grasped his situation and his options right away. He