Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #17 - Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton

Author:Laurell K. Hamilton [Hamilton, Laurell K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, General, Contemporary, Paranormal, Occult, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Fiction - Horror, Horror - General, Occult fiction, Vampires, Blake, Anita (Fictitious character), Fantasy - Contemporary
ISBN: 9780425227725
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2009-06-02T07:00:00+00:00

41

I CALLED JEAN-CLAUDE from the car while Edward drove. I was way past caring what Olaf and Bernardo heard. The Mother of All Darkness was waiting just outside my shields to eat me. I could still feel some of her emotions. The primary one was fear. What the fuck could she be afraid of?

Jean-Claude answered a little breathlessly. “Ma petite, I felt something reach out to you. Something dark and terrible. If it is Vittorio, you must leave Las Vegas now, right now, before nightfall.”

“It wasn’t him,” I said.

“Then who?” he asked.

I clung to the cell phone and the sound of his voice like a lifeline. I was still so scared I could taste metal on my tongue. “Marmee Noir.”

“What I felt was different than ever before. It was smaller, more . . .” He seemed to search for the right word. “Human.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “She was small like in the church in St. Louis. She had those damned little slippers with the pearls on them.”

“Perhaps they are what is on her real body up in the room where she rests.”

“She wasn’t in the room, Jean-Claude. You need to call Belle Morte, or whomever, and tell them she was walking around in the bottom room of the cavern. The part of the cave where her windows overlook. She was down there.”

He cursed long and elegantly in French. In English he said, “I will call the others. I will call you back as soon as I can. I would tell you to hide in a church with holy items until this is done.”

“I’ve got a murderer to catch.”

“Ma petite, please.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Okay?”

“That is something. I love you, Anita; do not let her take you from me.”

“I love you, too, and I won’t. I’m shielding like a son of a bitch. I had to drop the shield for her to get through.”

“Ma petite, Anita . . . Merde, I will call you back as soon as I have reached someone in Europe.” He hung up with more French, too rapid for me to catch.

The SUV went around the corner a little rapidly, keeping up with the police car in front of us. They hadn’t turned on sirens or lights, but we were breaking several speeding laws. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones spooked by what had happened back in the house. I wondered what Sanchez had told them. I wondered what the cops who saw it all had told everyone? Had they, like Jean-Claude, blamed it all on Vittorio? Had it spurred them on to get this done before the vampires in Vegas rose for the night?

“What did Count Dracula say?” Edward asked.

“Don’t call him that, Edward.”

“Sorry, what did he say?”

“He’s going to call some of the vamps in Europe.”

Olaf spoke from the backseat. “Did you say that the Queen of All Vampires, who we saw in spirit in St. Louis, is walking around in the flesh somewhere?”

“I saw her in a vision.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.