glad I wasn't wearing a skirt. One nice thing about working with Edward was that he wouldn't expect me to wear business attire. It was jeans and Nikes for this trip.
The only business thing I was wearing was the black jacket slung over my cotton shirt and jeans. The jacket was to hide the gun, nothing more. "What are the gun laws like in New Mexico?"
Edward started the car and glanced at me. "Why?"
I put on my seatbelt. Evidently, we were in a hurry. "I want to know if I can ditch the jacket and wear my gun naked, or whether I'm going to have to hide the gun for the entire trip."
His lips twitched. "New Mexico lets you carry as long as it's not concealed. Concealed carry without a permit is illegal."
"Let me test my understanding, I can wear the gun in full view of everyone with or without a carry permit, but if I put a jacket over it, concealing it, and don't have a carry permit, it's illegal?"
The twitch turned into a smile. "That's right."
"Western state gun laws are always so interesting," I said, but I started sliding out of the jacket. You can wiggle out of almost anything while remaining seat-belted in a car. Since I always wear a seatbelt, I'd had a lot of practice.
"But the police may still stop you if they see you walking around armed. Just make sure you're not here to kill anybody." He half smiled when he said the last.
"So I can carry as long as it's not concealed, but not really, not without getting questioned by the police."
"And you can't carry a gun of any kind, even unloaded, into a bar."
"I don't drink. I think I can avoid the bars."
A wire fence edged the road he pulled onto, but did nothing to take away the flat, flat distances and the strange black mountains. "What are the mountains called?"
"Sangre del Cristo - the blood of Christ," he said. I looked at him to see if he was kidding. Of course, he wasn't. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why call them the blood of Christ?"
"I don't know."
"How long has Ted lived out here?"
"Almost four years," he said.
"And you don't know why the mountains are named Sangre del Christo? Do you have no curiosity?"
"Not about things that don't affect the job."
He didn't say, a job, but the job. I thought it was odd phrasing. "What if this monster that we're hunting is some kind of local bugaboo? Knowing why the mountains are named what they're named may mean nothing, or it may have to do with a legend, a story, a hint about some great blood bath in the past. There are very localised monsters, Edward, things that only come above ground every century or so like really long-lived cicadas."
"Cicadas?" he asked.
"Yeah, cicadas. The immature form stays in the ground until every thirteen or seven or whatever their cycle is years, they climb out, molt, and become adults. They're the insects that make all that noise in the summer time."
Whatever did those people wasn't a giant cicada, Anita."
"That's not the point, Edward. My point is that there are types of living creatures that stay hidden, almost totally hidden, for years, then resurface, are still a part of the natural world. Preternatural biology is still. So maybe old myths and legends would give us a clue."
"I didn't bring you down here to play Nancy Drew," he said.
"Yes, you did," I said looked at me long enough to make me want to tell him to watch the road.
"What are you talking about?"
"If you just wanted someone to point and shoot, you'd have brought in someone else. You want my expertise, not just my gun. Right?" He'd turned back to the road, much to my relief. There were small houses on either side, most of them made of adobe, or faux-adobe. I didn't know enough about it to judge. The yards were small but well-tended, running high to cacti and huge lilac bushes with surprisingly small bundles of pale lavender flowers on them. It looked like a different variety from the lilacs in the Midwest. Maybe it took less water.
Silence had filled the car and I let it, watching the scenery. I'd never been to Albuquerque, and I'd play tourist while I could. Edward finally answered then he turned onto Lomos Street. "You're right. I didn't ask you down here just to shoot things. I already have backup for that."
"Who?" I asked.
"You don't know them, but you'll meet them