Obsidian Butterfly

3

WE WALKED OUT INTO the heat, and it blasted against our skin on the edge of a hot wind. It had the feel of a serious heat, and considering that it was only May, it probably would be a real barnburner when true summer finally hit. But it is true that eighty plus without humidity isn't nearly as miserable us eighty plus with humidity, so it wasn't horrible. In fact, once you blinked into the sunlight and just got adjusted to the heat, you sort of forgot about it. It was only attention-getting for the first, oh, fifteen minutes or so. St. Louis would probably be ninety plus by the time I got home, and with eighty to a hundred percent humidity. Of course, that meant I'd be going home. If I really drew down on Edward, that was a debatable option. There was a very real possibility that he'd kill me. I hoped, seriously hoped, that I could talk him out of Donna and her family without resorting to violence.

Maybe the heat didn't seem bad because of the landscape. Albuquerque was a flat empty plain running out and out to a circle of black mountains, as if everything of worth had been strip-mined away and the waste had been lumped into those forbidden black mountains like giant mounds of coal. Yeah, it looked like the world's largest strip-mining operation, and it had that feel to it of waste and desolation. Of things spoiled, and an alien hostility as if you weren't quite welcome. I guess Donna would say, bad energy. I'd never felt anyplace that had such an instant alienness to it. Edward was carrying both my suitcases that had come off the carousel. Normally, I'd have carried one, but not now. Now I wanted Edward's hands full of something besides guns. I wanted him at a disadvantage. I wasn't going to start shooting on the way in the car, but Edward is more practical than I am. If he decided I was more danger than help, he might he able to arrange an accident on the way to the car. It'd be tough with Donna in tow, but not impossible. Not for Edward.

It was also why I was letting him lead the way and putting me at his back instead of him at mine. It wasn't paranoia, not with Edward. With Edward it was simply good survival thinking.

Edward got Donna to go ahead of us and unlock the car. He dropped back to walk beside me, and I put some distance between us so that we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at each other like two old-fashioned movie gunfighters.

He kept the suitcases in his hands. I think he knew that I was too keyed up. I think he knew if he dropped the suitcases, I was going to have a gun in my hand. "You want to know why I wasn't bothered with you following behind me?"

"You knew I wouldn't shoot you in the back," I said.

He smiled. "And you knew I might."

I cocked my head to one side, almost squinting into the sun. Edward was wearing sunglasses, of course. But since his eyes rarely gave anything away, it didn't matter. His eyes weren't what I had to worry about.

"You like the personal danger, Edward. That's why you only hunt monsters. You have to be taking the big risk every time you come up to bat, or it's no fun."

A couple came walking by with a cart full of suitcases. We waited in silence until they passed us. The woman glanced at us as they hurried past, picking up on the tension. The man jerked her back to face front and they pushed past us.

"You have a point?" Edward asked.

"You want to know which of us is better, Edward. You've wanted to know for a long time. If you take me from ambush, the question will never be answered and that would bug you."

His smile both widened and faded, as if it wasn't a humorous smile anymore. "So, I won't shoot you in the back."

"That's right," I said.

"So why go to so much trouble to fill my hands and make me walk in front."

"This would be a hell of a time to be wrong."

He laughed then, soft and vaguely sinister. That one sound said it all. He was excited about the idea of going up against me. "I would love to hunt you, Anita. I've dreamed about it." He sighed, and it was almost sad. "But I need you. I need you to help solve this case. And as much as I'd like the big question answered, I'd miss you. You may be one of the only people in the world that I would miss."

"What about Donna?" I asked.

"What about her?" he asked.

"Don't be cute, Edward." I looked past him to find Donna waving to us from the parking lot. "We're being paged."

He glanced back towards her, lifting one of the suitcases to make a vague wave. It would have been easier to do if he'd dropped one of the cases but in his own way, Edward was being cautious, too.

He turned back to me. "You won't he able to do your job if you're looking over your shoulder for me. So a truce until the case is solved."

"Your word?" I asked.

He nodded. "My word."

"GOOD enough," I said.

He smiled, and it was genuine. "The only reason you can take my word at face value is that if you give your word, you'll keep it."

I shook my head and started closing the distance between us. "I keep my word, but I don't take most people's oaths very seriously." I was even with him and could feel the weight of his gaze even through the black lens of the sunglasses. He was intense, was Edward.

"But you take mine."

"You've never lied to me, Edward, not once you've given your word. You do what you say you'll do, even if it's a bad thing. You don't hide what you are, at least not from me."

We both glanced back at Donna, and started walking side by side toward her as if we'd discussed it. "How the hell did you let it get so far? How could you have let Ted propose?"

He was quiet for so long, I didn't think he'd answer. We walked in silence in the sun-warmed heat. But finally, he did answer, "I don't know. I think one night I just got too caught up in my role. The mood was right and Ted proposed, and I think for just a second I forgot that I'd be the one getting married."

I glanced at him. "You've told me more personal shit in the last half hour than in the entire five years I've known you. Are you always such a jabberbox when you're on Ted's home turf?"

He shook his head. "I knew you wouldn't like Donna being involved. I didn't know how strongly you'd react, but I knew you wouldn't like it. Which meant to keep the peace I had to be willing to talk about it. I knew that when I called you."

We stepped off the curb, both of us smiling and me waving to Donna. I said through the smile like a ventriloquist, "How can we know each other this well, and would miss each other if we died, yet still be willing to pull the trigger? I know it's the truth, but I don't understand it."

"Isn't it enough to know it's true? Do you have to explain it?" he asked as we wove through the cars toward Donna.

"Yes, I need to explain it."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I'm a girl," I said.

That made him laugh, a surprise burst of sound, and it made my heart ache because I could count on one hand the number of times I'd heard Edward surprised into laughter. I valued the sound of that particular laugh because it was like an old sound from a younger, more innocent Edward. I wondered if I was the only one that could force that laugh from him. How could we be talking calmly about killing each other? No, it wasn't enough to know we could do it. There had to be a why to it, and saying we were both monsters or sociopaths wasn't enough explanation. At least not for me.

Donna looked at me rather narrowly as we walked up. She made a big show of kissing him and when he sat the suitcases down and had his hands free, she put on an even better show. They kissed, hugged, and body pressed like a couple of teenagers. If Edward was in any way reluctant, it didn't show. In fact, he slipped off his hat and melded into her like he was happy to be there.

I stood, leaning against the side of the car close enough to touch them. If they wanted privacy, they could get a room. It went on long enough that I wondered if checking my watch would be hint enough, but resisted the urge. I decided that leaning against the car, arms crossed over my stomach, looking bored might be hint enough.

Edward drew back with a sigh. "After last night, I wouldn't think you'd be missing me this much."

"I always miss you," she said in a voice halfway between sultry and a giggle. Donna gazed at me, hands still encircling him, very possessive. She looked right at me and said, "Sorry, didn't mean to embarrass you."

I pushed away from the car. "I don't embarrass that easy."

The happy light in her eyes turned to something fierce and protective. The look and her next words were not friendly. "And just what would it take to embarrass you?"

I shook my head. "Is this my cue to say, a lot more than you've got?"

She stiffened.

"Don't worry, Donna. I am not now, nor have I ever been interested in … Ted in a romantic way."

"I never thought … " she started to say.

"Save it," I said. "Let's try something really unique. Let's be honest. You were worried about me with Edward," I changed it very quickly to, "Ted, which was why you did the teeny-bopper makeout session. You don't need to mark your territory for my sake, Donna." The last was said in something of a rush because I hoped she hadn't noticed my slip on the names, but of course she had, and I knew Edward had. "Ted's too much like me to ever consider dating. It'd be like incest."

She blushed even through the tan. "My, you are direct."

"She's direct even for a man," Edward said. "For a woman she's like a battering ram."

"It saves time," I said.

"That it does," Edward said. He drew Donna into a quick but thorough kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow, honeypot."

I raised eyebrows at that.

Edward looked at me with Ted's warm eyes. "Donna drove her own car in so we could spend part of the day together. Now she's going to drive home to the kiddies, so we can do business."

Donna turned from him, giving me a long searching look. "I'm taking you at your word, Anita. I believe you, but I'm also picking up some strange vibes from you like you're hiding something."

I was hiding something, I thought. If she only knew.

Donna continued, face very serious. "I'm trusting you with the third most important person in my life. Ted is right behind my kids for me. Don't screw up the best thing I've had since my husband died."

"See," Edward said, "Donna knows how to be blunt, too."

"That she does," I said.

Donna gave me one last searching look, then turned to Edward. She drew him away towards a car three down from us. They talked quietly together while I waited in the still, dry, heat. Since Donna had tried for privacy, I gave it to them, turning away and gazing off at the distant mountains. They looked very close, but it's always been my experience that mountains are seldom as close as they appear. They're like dreams, distant things to set your sights on, but not truly to be trusted to be there when you need them.

I heard Edward's boots crunch on the pavement before he spoke. I was facing him, arms crossed lightly over my stomach, which put my right hand nicely close to the gun under my arm. I believed Edward when he said we had a truce on, but … better cautious than sorry.

He stopped by the car one slot over, leaning his butt against it, arms crossing to mirror me. But he didn't have a gun under his arm. I wasn't sure that a bounty hunter's license was enough to get him through an airport metal detector, so he shouldn't have been able to have a gun or large blade on him.

Unless of course he'd picked it up from one of the cars, where he'd hidden it. It would be something that Edward would do. Better to assume the worst and he wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't, not in our line of business anyway.

Our line of business. Strange phrase. Edward was an assassin. I wasn't. But somehow we were in the same business. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was title.

Edward gave me a pure Edward smile, a smile meant to make me uneasy and suspicious. It also usually meant that he meant me no harm and was just yanking my chain. Of course, he knew I knew what the smile usually meant, so he might use it to lull me into a false sense of security. Or it could mean just what it seemed to. I was overthinking things and that was bad all on its own. Edward was right, I was at my best when I let my gut work and kept my higher functions in the background. Not a recipe for going through life, but a good one for a gunfight.

"We have a truce," I said.

He nodded. "I said, we did."

"You make me nervous," I said.

The smile widened. "Glad to hear you're still scared of me. I was beginning to wonder."

"The day you stop being afraid of the monsters is the day they kill you."

"And I'm a monster?" He made it a question.

"You know exactly what you are, Edward."

His eyes narrowed. "You called me Edward in front of Donna. She didn't say anything, but you are going to have to be more careful."

I nodded. "I'm sorry, I caught it, too. I will try but I'm not half as good a liar as you are. Besides, Ted is a nickname for Edward."

"Not if the full name on my driver's license is Theodore."

"Now, if I can call you Teddy, maybe I'd remember."

"Teddy is fine," he said, voice totally unchanged.

"You are a very hard man to tease, Ed … Ted."

"Names don't mean anything, Anita. They're too easy to change."

"Is Edward really your first name?"

"It is now."

I shook my head. "I'd really like to know."

"Why?" He gazed at me from the black sunglasses, and the weight of his interest burned through the glass. The question wasn't idle. Of course, Edward seldom asked any question he didn't want an answer to.

"Because I've known you for five years, and I don't even know if your first name is real."

"It's real enough," he said.

"It bugs me not to know," I said.

"Why?" he asked again.

I shrugged and eased my hand away from my gun because it wasn't necessary, not right this minute, not today. But even as I did it, I knew there would be other days, and for the first time I really wasn't sure that both of us would see the end of my little visit. It made me sad and grumpy.

"Maybe I just want to know what name to put on the tombstone," I said.

He laughed. "Confidence is a fine trait. Over-confidence isn't." The laughter faded and left his face around the glasses cool and unreadable. I didn't have to see his eyes to know they were cold and distant as winter skies.

I pushed away from the car, hands empty at my sides. "Look, Edward, Ted, whatever the hell you call yourself, I don't like being invited here to play monster bait, and find you dating the new age mom of the year. It's thrown me, and I don't like that either. We have a truce until the case is solved, then what?"

"Then we'll see," he said.

"You couldn't just agree to stop being engaged to Donna?"

"No." His voice was small, careful.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I'd need to give her a good enough reason to break her heart and the kids'. Remember, I've been spending a lot of time with the kids. How would it look to just vanish on them?"

"I think her son wouldn't mind. Peter, wasn't it? I think he'd love it if Ted would vanish."

Edward turned his head to one side. "Yeah, Peter would love it, but what about Becca? I've been in her life for over two years and she's only six. Donna trusts me to pick her up after school. I drive her once a week to dance lessons so Donna doesn't have to close the shop early." His voice and face never changed as he spoke, as if it was just facts and meant nothing.

Anger tightened my shoulders and traveled down my arms. I put my hands in fists just to have something to do with my body. "You bastard."

"Maybe," he said, "but be careful what you ask me to do, Anita. Just walking out could do more damage than the truth."

I stared at him, trying to see behind that blank face. "Have you thought about telling Donna the truth?"

"No."

"Damn you."

"Do you really think she could handle the truth, the entire truth, about me?" he asked.

I thought about that for nearly a full minute while we stood in the heat-soaked parking lot. Finally, I said, "No." I didn't like saying it, but truth was truth.

"You're sure she couldn't play wife to an assassin? I mean you've only met her for half an hour. How can you be so sure?"

"Now you're teasing me," I said.

His lips twitched almost a smile. "I think you are exactly right. I don't think Donna could handle the truth."