Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [76]
“We’ll take you into the club as my guest, just a friend. If the vamps don’t know who you are, they might be more careless around you, let something slip that would make sense to you, that wouldn’t make sense to me.”
“What happens if I get outted during the evening? Think Her Worship will resent you sneaking the Executioner into her club?”
“I’ll tell her that you wanted to see the best show in town and thought that they might not want the Executioner around, but that you’re strictly there in an unexecution work mode.”
“Will you say it just like that, unexecution work mode?”
He smiled. “Probably. She likes her men to be either very serious or very cute.”
“She. You talk like you know her.”
“Ted only kills rogues. He is very welcome in a lot of the local monster hangouts.”
“Edward the actor,” I said.
“I do good undercover work.”
“I know you do, Edward.”
“But it always makes you uncomfortable to see me do it.”
I shrugged. “You’re such a good actor, Edward, sometimes it makes me wonder which act is real.”
The smile faded, leaving his face blank, and empty like some of him had slithered away with his smile. “Go get your gear, Anita.”
I closed the door with him still standing there. In some ways I understood Edward better than either of the men I had been dating. In other ways he was the biggest mystery of all. I shook my head, literally shaking it off, and looked around the small bedroom. If we came back here at dawn, I’d be tired, and tired could mean careless. I decided to make some changes now while I was fresh.
The room’s only chair would go under the doorknob, but not until I was in for the night. I moved a line of miniature Kachina dolls from the dresser to the windowsill. If anyone opened the window, one or more of the dolls would fall. There was a small mirror on the wall that was framed by deer antlers. I placed it under the window, just in case the dolls didn’t fall. I’d leave my suitcase to one side of the door entrance so if the door did somehow manage to open without knocking the chair over, Olaf might trip over the suitcase. Of course, I was almost as likely to trip over it trying to get to the bathroom on the way out. The moment I thought of it, I had to go. I’d hit the bathroom on the way out. Edward could stand outside and make sure Olaf didn’t interrupt.
I searched through my suitcase. It was illegal for me to carry my vampire gear without a court order of execution. Carrying it without one was like premeditated murder. But no law against carrying a few extras. I had two thin vials of holy water with little rubber caps. You hit the cap with your thumb and it popped open, sort of like a grenade, but only dangerous to the vamp. Which made it a lot more user friendly than a grenade.
I slipped the holy water into each of my back pockets. They barely showed through the dark cloth. I already had my cross, but I’d had crosses ripped off of my throat before, so I had backups. I put a plain silver cross with chain in one front pocket of my jeans, and another one in the pocket of the black dress jacket. I opened the box of new ammunition that I’d packed.
I’d had to leave my apartment almost two years ago now. When I’d lived in my apartment, I’d put Glazer Safety Rounds in my guns because I didn’t want my neighbors to take a stray bullet. Glazers will not go through walls, but as Edward and some of my police friends had pointed out, I’d been lucky. Glazers will shatter bone, but don’t really go through bone, the difference between a shotgun and a rifle round, sort of. Edward had actually come into town just to take me out to the shooting range and test fire stuff. He’d asked me questions about specific gun fights, and what I’d learned was that the reason the Glazers had done what I wanted them to do was mostly being almost point blank every time I used them for a kill. What I needed was something that was a reliable kill from a safer distance than arm’s length. It also might explain