Skin Trade

shortest maybe five-ten, most six feet or above. They were all broad of shoulder, and the uniform couldn’t hide that everyone worked out. But they were SWAT; either they stayed in shape or they lost their spot. The main difference between them all was the color of hair, eyes, and skin tone. Even just standing there, doing nothing, they were very much together, a unit, a team. Did I feel left out? Naw. Did I feel like I was the exhibit for show- and-tell day? A little.

Sergeant Rocco stepped into the room and introduced me. The lieutenant and Hooper stayed by the door, which was now closed. “This is Davis, Davey.”

Davey was yellow-blond, with clear blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that helped frame a nice mouth. Should I have not noticed Davey’s mouth? Probably.

I offered my hand; he took it and shook it nice and solid. Since his hand was at least twice the size of mine, it was nice that he didn’t hesitate on the shake. Some big men have trouble with my small hands, as if they’re afraid to break me. Davey seemed confident he wouldn’t hurt me. Good.

“This is Mercer, Mercy.”

Mercy had medium-brown hair and large, pale eyes that couldn’t decide if they were blue or gray. Looking right at me as he shook my hand, they were blue, but it was an uncertain color, as if the light would change it. He had a good handshake, too. Maybe they all practiced.

The next man’s hair was almost the same color, but it had more curl that even the short haircut couldn’t hide completely. His eyes were a pure, solid milk-chocolate brown. There’d be no color change here.

When he was introduced as Rusterman, I’d have expected his nickname to be Rusty, but it wasn’t. “Spider.”

I fought the urge to ask, Why Spider, and let Rocco move me down the line. Next up was Sanchez, who matched the name, but still managed to look so much like all the other men that it was like looking at Army Man, now in new Hispanic. It wasn’t just that they were all tall and athletic, but there was a sameness to them, as if whoever hired for the unit had a type he liked and stuck to it.

Sanchez’s name was Arrio, and I wasn’t sure if it was his real first name or another nickname. I didn’t ask because, frankly, it didn’t matter. They were giving me their names, and I took them.

Sanchez’s hand in mine gave a little spark, like a small jolt of electricity as we touched. We both fought not to jump, but the others noticed, or maybe they felt it. I was standing in a room full of trained psychics.

“You spiked her, Arrio; bad practitioner, no cookie,” Spider said. The other men gave that masculine chuckle that women, even butch women, can never quite imitate.

“Sorry, Marshal,” Sanchez said.

“No harm, no foul,” I said.

He smiled and nodded, but he was embarrassed. I realized that the handshake had been a test not just for me but for all of us. Just as the men would test their bodies in weight training, the gun range, drills, this was a test, too. Could you hide what you were, hand to hand with another psychic? I’d met a lot who couldn’t have done it.

“You need to work at your contact shielding, Arrio,” Rocco said.

“Sorry, Sarge, I will.”

Rocco nodded and moved to the next man. He was Theodoros, very Greek sounding and looking, but he was Santa, though Santa never looked like that when I was a little girl. His hair was straight and as black as Sanchez’s and my own. He was the proverbial tall, dark, and handsome, if you were into jocks. I wondered how in hell he’d earned the nickname “Santa.” It was Spanish for saint, but somehow I didn’t think that’s what they were going for.

Santa didn’t have any trouble shaking my hand and not letting me feel anything but a firm handshake. It would be a point of pride for him and the last man. Sanchez had blown it; they’d work harder because of it.

The last man was also ethnic, but I wasn’t entirely sure what flavor. His short hair was curly enough to be African American, but the skin tone and facial features were not quite that. He, too, was tall, dark, and handsome, but in a different way. His eyes couldn’t decide if they were dark brown or black. They were somewhere in between my dark brown and Rocco’s almost black. But either color, they were framed by strangely short but very, very thick lashes, so that his eyes looked bigger and more delicate than they were, like something edged in black lace.

“Moonus, Moon,” Rocco said.

We smiled; we shook. Rocco motioned me to follow him to the front of the room. We stood in front of the whiteboard. “I’m Cannibal.” Like Spider, Cannibal made me wonder why that name.

“If we’re doing first names and nicknames, then I’m Anita.”

“We heard you had a nickname,” Cannibal said.

I just looked at him, waited for him to say it.

“The Executioner.”

I nodded. “The vampires call me that, yeah.”

Davey called out, “You look a little short to be the Executioner.”

“Everyone looks short to you, Davis,” I said. “What are you, six-four?”

“Six-five,” he said.

“Jesus, most of the human population must look short to you, unless you’re at work.”

They laughed at him, and with me, which was good. The sergeant quieted the laughter with a gesture and said, “We do use nicknames, Marshal; do you want us to use yours?”

I looked at him. “You mean have you guys call me the Executioner, instead of Anita or Blake?”

He nodded.

“No, hell no. First, it’s too long for a call sign. Second, it’s not a name that I’ve ever heard spoken in a happy way.”

“Are you embarrassed by the name?” he asked.

“No, but it’s like Ivan the Terrible. I doubt seriously that anyone ever called him that to his face.”

“The vampires call you that to your face,” and Cannibal said it like he knew for sure. Maybe he did.

I nodded. “Sometimes they do, but it’s mostly Executioner when they’re talking to me. They just leave off the the.”

“We can call you Executioner,” he said.

I sighed. “I’d rather you didn’t, Sergeant. I’ve had too many bad guys call me that while they tried to kill me. They look at the package and call me Executioner to make fun of me. How small, how delicate, how not deadly looking.”

“And after they make fun of you?” he asked, voice serious, eyes studying my face.

I met his gaze. “Then they die, Sergeant, or I wouldn’t be here.”

“I promise never to call you short again,” Davey said.

That broke the serious mood, and I was happy to laugh with everyone else.

“Anita, then, if you go out with us.”

“Whether you let me go with your team depends on how this little test goes, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Lieutenant Grimes spoke from the door, and everyone swiveled to give him attention. It was automatic for them. “There are a lot of psychics in the world, Marshal Blake, but there aren’t many that are powerful enough to be useful and controlled enough to take into a firefight with you. We need to know how good your control is, and exactly what type of psychic you are. Some types of abilities clash, and if you clash with one of the men in this room, we’ll make certain you aren’t put on the same team.”

“I appreciate all the thought you’ve put into this, Lieutenant, but I also know that Cannibal here is testing your men at the same time he tests me. He wants to know if they can stay in the room while he tastes my power and not be affected. Yeah, you want to know if my powers clash with your men’s, but it’s also another test for your own practitioners.”

“We lost one of them, Marshal. One of our best. We have precious little time to get you up to speed, and for you to get us up to speed. You hunted this vampire before, and we need to know what you know.”

“It’s in the reports,” I said.

He shook his head. “Cannibal’s abilities will tell us whether your reports were accurate.”

“You mean, if I lied.”