Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [98]
25
I DIDN’T KNOW where to go, but Dallas did. She led us to a small door set to one side of the temple steps, hidden by curtains. The door was still open, like a black mouth. Steps led down. Where else? Just once I’d like to see a vamp whose major hideout was up instead of down.
Dallas walked down the steps with a spring in her step and a song in her heart. Her ponytail bounced as she skipped down the steps. If she had a single misgiving about going down into that darkness, it didn’t show. Dallas confused me. On one hand she didn’t see that Olaf was dangerous, and she wasn’t afraid of any of the monsters in the club. On the other hand, she’d believed me when I told her I’d cut her heart out. I’d seen it in her eyes. How could she believe that threat from a total stranger and not see the other dangers? Didn’t make sense to me, and I didn’t like what I didn’t understand. She seemed utterly harmless, but her reactions were weird, so I put a question mark by her. Which meant, I wouldn’t be turning my back on her or treating her like a civilian until I was convinced that that was what she was.
I was going too slowly for Olaf. He pushed past me and followed Dallas’s bouncing ponytail down the stairs. He had to stoop to keep from bumping his head on the ceiling, but he didn’t seem to mind. Fine with me. Let him take the first bullet. But I followed them down into the dark. No one had offered me violence, not really, not yet. So it seemed rude to have a gun naked in my hand, but. . . I’d apologize later. Unless I knew the vampire personally, I liked having a loaded gun in hand the first time I paid a call. Or maybe it was the narrow stairs, the close press of stone as if it would close around us like a fist and crush us. Have I mentioned that I’m claustrophobic?
The stairs didn’t go down very far, and there was no door at the end of them. Jean-Claude’s retreat in St. Louis was something of an underground fortress. The barely hidden doorway, the short stairs, no second door—arrogance, again.
Olaf blocked my view of Dallas, but I saw him reach the dimly lit doorway at the bottom. He had to stoop even farther to get through the door and hesitated before standing up on the other side. There was a sense of movement around him, or rather to either side of him. Quick, almost not there, like things you see out of the corner of your eyes. It reminded me of the hands that had stripped César as he walked between light and darkness.
He stayed just in the doorway, his body nearly filling it completely, blocking what little light there had been. I caught the faintest edge of Dallas. She led him away from the door farther into the firelit dark.
I called down, “Olaf, are you okay?”
No answer.
Edward tried. “Olaf?”
“I am fine.”
I glanced back at Edward. We had a moment of staring into each other’s eyes, both of us thinking the same thing. This could be a trap. Maybe she was behind the murders. Maybe she just wanted to kill the Executioner. Or maybe she was a centuries-old vampire, and she just wanted to hurt us for the hell of it.
“Could she make Olaf lie?”
“You mean mind tricks?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Not this fast. I may not like him, but he’s stronger than that.” I looked at him, searching his face in the dim light. “Could they force him to lie?”
“You mean a knife at his throat?” Edward said.
“Yeah.”
He gave a faint smile. “No, not this quick, not ever.”
“You’re sure of that?” I asked.
“My life on it.”
“We’re betting all our lives on it.”
He nodded. “Yes, we are.”
But if Edward said that Olaf wouldn’t sell us out on fear of death or pain, then I believed him. Edward didn’t always understand why people did what they did, but he was usually right about the fact that they were going to do it. Motive evaded