Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [85]
He drew back from Ramona, laying a second kiss on her forehead as if she were a child. She stayed unmoving, eyes closed, face slack. It was illegal to force anyone to do anything against their will by use of magic. I looked at Ramona’s empty face, waiting, waiting for what came next, all decision, all choice, washed away. If I’d been myself tonight instead of whoever the hell I was supposed to be, I’d have called them on it. I should still turn them in to the cops. But truthfully, unless they did worse, I wasn’t going to turn them in if the Master of the City could help us solve the mutilation murders. If the murders stopped, a few mind-games could be overlooked.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have tolerated it, when I wouldn’t have looked the other way for any reason. They say everyone has their price. Once I thought I was the exception to the rule, but if it was a choice of letting this nice woman be made to do some things she didn’t want to do, or seeing another crime scene, another survivor, they could have the woman. Not have in the true sense of the word, but to my knowledge mind-magic by a human servant wasn’t permanent. Of course, until tonight I hadn’t known a human servant could do mind-rape. I really didn’t know how much danger this woman was in, and yet . . . and yet I would risk her, as long as nothing worse happened. If they told her to strip, all bets were off. I had rules, limits. They just weren’t the same ones they’d been four years ago, or two years, or a year ago. The fact that I let them mind-rape her and didn’t complain, bothered me, but not enough.
The blonde woman leaned into the man and bit his butt, not hard but enough to make him jump. His back was to the audience, so I was probably the only one who saw the anger that showed for just a moment in that handsome face.
The priest stayed on his side of the stage, as if he didn’t want to distract from the show, but I knew he’d turned his attention to me. The full force of him was like pressure against my skin.
His voice. “A most reluctant bride to leave him lonely in his hour of need.” I felt his power and now that power was wedded to the words. When he said, “need,” I felt need. My body tightened with it, but I could ignore it. I knew I could stand there and be unmoved, that he could do his worst and I could stand against it. But no human could have done it. Anita Blake, vamp executioner, could stand firm, but Anita Lee, undercover party-goer, well . . . If I just stood there, the game was up. At the very least they’d know I wasn’t an ordinary tourist. Times like these are one of the reasons I hate undercover work.
I ignored the priest’s rich voice and just walked toward the man. He was having trouble keeping the blonde’s hand out of the front of his G-string. The other woman knelt in a pool of her own dark hair, hanging on his leg, one hand playing with the side strap of the G-string. Only Ramona stood there, face blank, hands at her sides, waiting for orders. But the priest was concentrating all his energies on me. She was safe until he finished with me.
The dark-haired woman got the strap to slide over the smooth bone of his hip, and the blonde used it as a chance to plunge her hand under the cloth. His eyes closed, head going back, body reacting automatically, even as his hand grabbed her hand and tried to pull her hand out of his pants. Apparently, she was hanging on, not hurting him exactly, but not letting go.
I doubted the club would have tolerated this level of abuse if the performer had been a woman and the audience member a man. Some forms of sexist double standards do not work in a man’s favor. A woman, they would have rushed on stage and saved her, but he was a man, and he was on his own.
I touched Ramona’s shoulders and moved