21
   Someone was banging on the door. I opened my eyes to a room filled with soft, indirect sunlight. The curtains in here weren't nearly as thick as the ones in the bedroom. Which was why I was out here and Jean-Claude was in there.
   I struggled into the jeans I'd left on the floor and yelled, "I'm coming."
   The banging stopped, then it sounded like they kicked the door. Was this a federal wake-up call? I went to the door with the Browning in my hand. Somehow I didn't think the FBI would be so rude. I stood to the side of the door and asked, "Who is it?"
   "It's Dorcas Bouvier." She kicked the door again. "Open this damn door."
   I peeked through the little peephole. It was Dorcas Bouvier, or her evil twin. She didn't have a weapon in sight. I was probably safe. I put the Browning under the t-shirt in the waistband of my pants. The t-shirt was a large and fell to mid-thigh. It hid the gun and then some.
   I unlocked the door and stood to one side. Dorcas shoved the door open, leaving it swinging open behind her. I closed and locked the door, leaning against it watching her.
   Dorcas stalked through the room like some sort of exotic cat. Her waist-length, chestnut hair swung like a curtain as she moved. She finally turned and glared at me with those sea-green eyes that were a mirror of her brother's. The pupil had spiraled downward to a pinpoint, leaving the irises floating and making her look almost blind.
   "Where is he?"
   "Where's who?" I asked.
   She glared at me and went for the bedroom door. I couldn't get there in time to stop her, and I wasn't willing to shoot her yet.
   When I came up behind her she was two steps into the bedroom, back rigid, staring at the bed. It was worth staring at.
   Jean-Claude lay on his back with the wine-dark sheets pulled up to mid-chest. One shoulder and a pale, pale arm were stretched across the dark sheets. In the semidarkness his hair blended with the pillow to leave his face white and nearly ethereal.
   Jason lay on his stomach. The only things under the sheet were one leg and, barely, his buttocks. If he was wearing clothes, I couldn't tell. He raised up on his elbows and turned to us. His yellow hair had fallen into his face, and he blinked like he'd been deeply asleep. He smiled when he saw Dorcas Bouvier.
   "It isn't Magnus," she said.
   "No," I said, "it isn't. You want to talk outside?"
   "Don't go on my account," Jason said. He rolled onto one elbow. The silken sheet slid across his hips as he moved.
   Dorcas Bouvier turned on her heel and marched out of the room. I closed the door to the sound of Jason's laughter.
   Dorcas looked shaken, embarrassed even. Good to see. I was embarrassed, too, but didn't know what to do about it. Trying to explain your way out of situations like this never works. People are always willing to believe the worst of you. So I didn't try. I just stood there looking at her. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
   After a nice uncomfortable silence that caused heat to wash up her face, she said, "I don't know what to say. I thought my brother was in there. I . . ." She met my eyes finally. She was already regaining her composure, her surety of purpose. You could watch it solidify in her eyes. She was here for more than rousting her brother out of my bed.
   "Why in the world would you think Magnus was here?"
   "May I sit down?"
   I motioned her to a seat. She sat in one of the chairs, spine very straight, perfect posture. My stepmother, Judith, would have been proud. I leaned on the arm of the couch because I couldn't sit down with the Browning down my pants. I wasn't sure how she'd take me being armed, so I didn't want to show the gun. Some people freeze up around firearms. Go figure.
   "I know Magnus was with you last night."
   "With me?" I said.
   "I don't mean . . ." Heat crept up her face again. "I don't mean with you. I mean I know you saw him last night."
   "He tell you that?"
   She shook her head, making her hair slide like fur over her shoulders. It was eerily reminiscent of Magnus. "I saw you together."
   I studied her face, trying to read past the embarrassment. "You weren't there last night."
   "Where?" she asked.
   I frowned at her. "How did you see us?"
   "You admit you saw him last night, then," she said. Her eagerness came back in a rush.
   "What I want to know is how you saw us together."
   She took a deep breath. "That's my business."
   "Magnus said his sister was better at visions than he was. Is that true?"
   "What didn't he tell you?" she asked. She was angry again. Her emotions seemed to collide, spinning too fast over her face and voice.
   "He didn't tell me why he ran from the police."
   She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "I don't know why he ran. It doesn't make any sense." She looked back up at me. "I know he didn't kill those children."
   "I agree," I said.
   Surprise showed on her face. "I thought you told the police he did it."
   I shook my head. "No, I told them he could have done it. I never said he did it."
   "But . . . The detective was so sure. She said you'd told her."
   I cursed softly under my breath. "Detective Freemont?"
   "Yes."
   "Don't believe everything she tells you, especially about me. She doesn't seem to like me very much."
   "If you didn't tell them, then why are they so sure Magnus did these horrible things? He would have no reason to kill these people."
   I shrugged. "Magnus isn't wanted for the killings anymore. Didn't anybody tell you that?"
   She shook her head. "No. You mean he can come back home?"
   I sighed. "It's not that simple. Magnus used glamor on the police to escape. That's a felony all on its own. The cops will kill him on sight, Ms. Bouvier. They don't mess around where magic is concerned. Can't say I blame them."
   "I saw the two of you talking outside under the sky."
   "I did see him last night."
   "Did you tell the police?"
   "No."
   She stared at me. "Why not?"
   "Magnus is probably guilty of something, or he wouldn't have run, but he deserves better treatment than he's getting."
   "Yes," she said, "he does."
   "What made you think he'd be in my bed?"
   She looked down at her lap again. "Magnus can be very persuasive. I can't remember the last time a woman told him no. I apologize for assuming that about you." She stopped, glanced towards the bedroom, then back to me. She blushed again.
   I was not going to explain how I ended up with two males in my bed. Surely it was obvious from the blanket and pillow that I'd slept out here. Surely.
   "What do you want from me, Ms. Bouvier?"
   "I want to find Magnus before he gets himself killed. I thought you could help me. How could you have betrayed Magnus to the police? Surely you know what it's like to be different."
   I wanted to ask if it showed, if she could see "Necromancer" written across my forehead, but I didn't. If the answer was yes, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
   "If he hadn't run away, they would have simply questioned him. They didn't have enough to arrest him. Do you have any idea why he ran?"
   She shook her head. "I've tried to think of something, anything, but it doesn't make any sense to me, Ms. Blake. My brother is a little amoral, but he's not a bad man."
   I wasn't sure you could be a little amoral, but I let it slide. "If he turns himself in to me, I'll walk him into the police station. But short of that, I don't know what I can do."
   "I've been everywhere I can think of, but he's just not there. I even checked the mound."
   "The mound?" I asked.
   She stared up at me. "He didn't tell you about the creature?"
   I thought about lying to see if I could get information, but the look in her eyes told me I'd blown it. "He didn't mention any creature."
   "Of course; if he had told you, the police would be down there with dynamite. Dynamite won't kill it, but it would screw our magical wards six ways to Sunday."
   "What creature?" I asked.
   "Is there anything Magnus told you that you didn't tell the police?" Dorcas asked.
   I thought about that for a second. "No."
   "He was right not to tell you."
   "Maybe, but I'm trying to help him now."
   "Do you have a guilty conscience?" she asked.
   "Maybe," I said.
   She looked at me. Her pupils had resurfaced, and she looked almost normal. Almost. "How can I trust you?"
   "You probably can't. But I do want to help Magnus. Please talk to me, Ms. Bouvier."
   "I have to have your word that you won't tell the police. I am serious, Ms. Blake. If the police interfere, they could loose the thing and people would die."
   I debated but couldn't see any reason the police would need to know. "Okay, I give you my word."
   "I may not have Magnus's way with glamor, but an oath to one of the fey is a serious matter, Ms. Blake. Lying to us tends to go badly."
   "Is that a threat?"
   "Think of it as a warning." The air moved between us like heat rising off a road. Her eyes swirled like miniature whirlpools.
   Maybe I should have shown her my gun. "Don't threaten me, Dorcas. I'm not in the mood."
   The magic seemed to seep away like water running into a crack in the rocks. You knew it was still there, below the surface. But for someone who had been threatened by werewolves and vampires, she paled in comparison. Magnus seemed to have most of the talent in the family. On the scale of scariness, Magnus was up there.
   "Just so we understand each other, Ms. Blake. If you tell the police and they let loose the creature, the deaths will be on your head."
   "Alright, I'm impressed; now tell me about it."
   "Did Magnus tell you about our ancestor, Llyn Bouvier?"
   "Yeah, he was the first European in this area. He married into the local tribe. Converted them to Christianity. He was also fey."
   She nodded. "He brought another fey with him."
   "A wife?" I asked.
   "No, he had captured one of the less intelligent fairies. He imprisoned it in a magically constructed box. It escaped and slaughtered nearly the entire tribe we're descended from. He finally managed to contain it with the help of an Indian shaman, or priest, but he never regained control over it. The best he could do was to imprison it."
   "What kind of fairie did he bring over?"
   "Bloody Bones isn't just the name of our bar," she said. "It's short for Rawhead and Bloody Bones."
   My eyes widened. "But that's a nursery boggle; why would your ancestor want to capture one? They don't have any treasure, or wishes, to give out. Or am I wrong on that?"
   "No, you're quite correct. Bloody Bones has no riches or gentle magic to grant wishes."
   "Then why capture it?"
   "Most children born of human and fairie blood don't have a lot of magic."
   "That's what the legends say," I said, "but Magnus proves that wrong."
   "Llyn Bouvier made a sort of pact for himself and his descendants. We would all have fey power, at a price."
   She was dragging this out, and I was tired. "Just tell me, Ms. Bouvier. The suspense is getting irritating."
   "Has it ever occurred to you that this might be embarrassing for me to admit?" she asked.
   "No; if that's the case, I apologize."
   "My ancestor imprisoned Bloody Bones so he could make a potion of its blood. But the potion had to be remade periodically, retaken, or his magic deserted him."
   I stared at her. "How did the other fey take this little idea?"
   "He was forced to flee Europe, or they would have killed him. It is forbidden among us to use each other like that."
   "I can see why."
   "His barbaric act gave us glamor. Power. But it was still purchased by blood, Ms. Blake. After Rawhead and Bloody Bones was imprisoned, my ancestor gave up his potion. He finally saw it as evil. Though his power faded, his children had the power of fairie in their blood. So here we are," she said.
   "So you've got Rawhead and Bloody Bones hidden in some magic box somewhere?" I asked.
   She smiled, and it made her face seem suddenly young and lovely. I had no way of judging her age. I couldn't see a line on her face. "When the magic failed the first time, Rawhead and Bloody Bones grew to its full size. It is bigger than a person, almost as big as a giant. It is imprisoned in a mound of earth and magic."
   "You say it nearly wiped out an entire tribe way back when?"
   She nodded.
   I sighed. "I have to see where it's imprisoned."
   "You promised . . ."
   "I promised not to tell the police, but you've just told me there's a giant-sized creature capable of mass destruction imprisoned near here. I have to see that it's secure, that it's not going to break out and start slaughtering people."
   "I assure you, Ms. Blake, our family has managed for centuries. We know what we're doing."
   "If I can't tell the cops, I have to see for myself."
   She stood up, trying to use her height to intimidate me. She wasn't even close. "And you'll bring the police, right? Do you think I'm that stupid?"
   "I won't bring the cops, Ms. Bouvier, but I have to see it. If it does break out and I didn't warn the cops, then it would be my fault that no one was prepared."
   "You can't prepare for Bloody Bones," she said. "It is immortal, Ms. Blake, truly immortal. It cannot die. You could cut off its head and it would not die. The police can do nothing but make things worse."
   She had a point. "I still need to see for myself."
   "You are a stubborn woman."
   "Yeah, I can be a real pain in the ass, Ms. Bouvier. Let's not dance, just take me to see the prison, and if it's secure I'll leave you to it."
   "If it's not secure enough for you?" she asked.
   "We contact a witch and see what she recommends."
   She frowned. "You wouldn't just go to the police?"
   "If my home was robbed, I'd call the cops. If I need help with magic, I call somebody who can do magic."
   "You are a strange woman, Ms. Blake. I don't understand you."
   "There's a lot of that going around," I said. "Do I get to see where Rawhead and Bloody Bones is buried, or not?"
   "Alright, I'll show you."
   "When?"
   "Without Magnus we're shorthanded at the bar, so not today. Come to the bar around three tomorrow. I'll take you from there."
   "I have a coworker that I'd like to bring along," I said.
   "One of those in the bedroom?"
   "No."
   "Why do you want to bring him?"
   "Because I'm training him, and when will he ever get to see fey magic again?" She seemed to think about it for a minute, then nodded. "Alright, you may bring one other person with you, but no more."
   "Trust me, Ms. Bouvier, one is plenty."
   "My friends call me Dorrie," she said. She held out her hand.
   "I'm Anita." I shook her hand. She had a nice, firm grip for a woman. Sexist but true. Most women don't seem to know how to give a good handshake.
   She held my hand longer than she had to. When she took her hand back, I remembered Magnus's clairvoyance. Dorrie turned those wide, eerie eyes to me. She held her hand to her chest like it hurt. "I see blood, and pain, and death. It follows you like a cloud, Anita Blake."
   I watched horror seep into her eyes. Horror at the brief glimpse she'd had of me, my life, my past. I didn't look away. If you're not ashamed, you don't need to look away. Sometimes I would prefer a different line of work, but it's what I do, who I am.
   The look faded from her eyes, and she blinked. "I won't underestimate you, Anita."
   Dorrie looked normal again, or as normal as she had when she first came in, which wasn't very. Now for the first time I looked at her and wondered if I was seeing what was really there. Was she using glamor on me now, to appear normal? To appear less powerful than she was?
   "I'll return the favor, Dorrie."
   She flashed me that lovely smile again that made her seem young and vulnerable. Illusion, maybe? "Until tomorrow, then."
   "Until tomorrow," I said.
   She left, and I locked the door behind her. So Magnus's family were the guardians of a monster. Had that had something to do with why he ran? Dorrie didn't think it was a reason. She should know. But there was a feeling in the room of power gently moving on the air currents. A faint whiff of magic traced the air like perfume, and I hadn't known it until just before she left. Maybe Dorrie was just as good with glamor as Magnus, just more subtle. Could I really trust Dorrie Bouvier? Hmmm.
   Why had I asked if Larry could go along? Because I knew it would please him. It might even make up for treating him so badly in front of Jason. But standing there, sensing Dorrie Bouvier's power hanging like a ghost in the air, I wasn't sure it was a good idea. Oh, hell, I knew it wasn't, but I was going, and Larry would go, too. He had a right to go. He even had a right to endanger himself. I couldn't keep him safe forever. He was going to have to learn to take care of himself. I hated it, but I knew it was true.
   I wasn't ready to cut the apron strings, but I was going to have to lengthen them a bit. I was going to give Larry the proverbial rope. Here was hoping he didn't hang himself.
   
   
22
   I slept most of the day, and when I woke up, I discovered that nobody would let me come play. Everybody was running scared of the Quinlan lawsuit, and I was persona non grata everywhere I tried to go. Agent Bradford sent me packing, and threatened to have me jailed for obstruction of justice and hampering a police investigation. That's gratitude for you. The day was a bust. The only person who would talk to me was Dolph. All he could tell me was that they hadn't found any sign of Jeff Quinlan, or his sister's body. No one had seen Magnus either. The cops were questioning people, searching for clues, while I twiddled my thumbs, but neither of us came up with anything useful.
   I watched darkness fall with a sense of relief; at least now we could get on with it. Larry had gone back to his room. I hadn't asked. Maybe he wanted to give me some privacy with Jean-Claude. Scary thought, that. At least Larry was talking to me. Nice that someone was.
   I opened the drapes and watched the glass turn black. I'd brushed my teeth in Larry's room today. My own bathroom was suddenly off limits. I just didn't want to see Jason naked, and I certainly didn't want to see Jean-Claude. So, I borrowed part of Larry's room for the day.
   I heard the bedroom door open but didn't turn. Somehow I knew who it was. "Hello, Jean-Claude."
   "Good evening, ma petite."
   I turned. The room was almost in darkness. The only light was from the streetlights outside, and the glowing sign of the hotel. Jean-Claude stepped into that faint glow. His shirt had a collar so high it covered his neck completely. Mother-of-pearl buttons fastened the high collar so that his face was framed by the white, white fabric. There must have been a dozen buttons gleaming down the pleated front of his shirt. A black waist-high jacket that was almost too black to be seen hid the sleeves. Only the shirt's cuffs showed; wide and stiff, covering half his hand. He raised a hand to the light and the cuffs bent back underneath to give his hand a full range of motion. His tight black pants were stuffed into another pair of black boots. They came all the way up his legs, so that he was encased in leather; black on black buckled straps held the soft leather in place.
   "Do you like it?" he asked.
   "Yeah, it's spiffy."
   "Spiffy?" There was an edge of humor to that one word.
   "You just can't take a compliment," I said.
   "My apologies, ma petite. It was a compliment. Thank you."
   "Don't mention it. Can we go get your coffin now?"
   He stepped out of the light, so I couldn't see his face. "You make it sound so simple, ma petite."
   "Isn't it?"
   Silence then, so thick the room felt empty. I almost called out to him; instead I walked to the bar and turned on the track lighting above it. The soft white light glowed in the dark like a lighted cave. I felt better with the light. But with my back to where I thought he should be, I couldn't sense Jean-Claude. The room felt empty. I turned and there he was, sitting in one of the chairs. Even when I looked at him, there was no sense of movement. It was like a stop-action picture waiting for the switch to go on.
   "I wish you wouldn't do that," I said.
   He turned his head and looked at me. His eyes were solid darkness. The faint light picked up blue sparks from them. "Do what, ma petite?"
   I shook my head. "Nothing. What's so complicated about tonight? I feel like you're not telling me everything."
   He stood in one smooth motion almost like he skipped part of the process, and was just suddenly on his feet. "It is within our rules for Serephina to challenge me tonight."
   "Is that the master's name, Serephina?"
   He nodded.
   "You don't think I'll tell the cops?"
   "I will take you to her, ma petite. There will be no time for your impatience to make you foolish."
   If I'd been stuck here all day with nothing much to do, but had had the name, would I have tried to find her on my own? Yeah, I would have.
   "Fine, let's go."
   He paced the room, smiling and shaking his head. "Ma petite, do you understand what it will mean if she challenges me tonight?"
   "It means we fight them, right?"
   He stopped pacing and came into the light. He slid onto one of the bar stools. "There is no fear in you, none."
   I shrugged. "Being afraid doesn't help. Being prepared does. Are you afraid of her?" I looked at him, trying to read that lovely mask.
   "I do not fear her power. I believe us to be near equals in that, but let us say I am wary. All things being equal, I am still in her territory with only one of my wolves, my human servant, and Monsieur Lawrence. It is not the show of force I would have chosen to confront her after two centuries.
   "Why didn't you bring more people? More werewolves, anyway."
   "If I had had time to negotiate more of an entourage I would have, but with the rush . . ." He looked at me. "There was no time to bargain."
   "Are you in danger?"
   He laughed, and it wasn't entirely pleasant. "Am I in danger, she asks. When the council asked me to divide my lands, they promised to set in place someone of power equal to or less than mine. But they did not expect me to enter her territory so unprepared."
   "Who are they? What council?"
   He cocked his head to one side. "Have you really come among us so long and not heard of our council?"
   "Just tell me," I said.
   "We have a council, ma petite. It has existed for a very long time. It is not so much a governing body as a court, or police, perhaps. Before your courts made us citizens with rights, we had very few rules, and only one law. Thou shalt not draw attention to yourself. That's the law that Tepes forgot."
   "Tepes," I said, "Vlad Tepes? You mean Dracula?"
   Jean-Claude just looked at me. His face was perfectly blank, no expression. He looked like a particularly lovely statue, if a statue's eyes could glitter like sapphires. I could not read that expressionless face, nor was I meant to.
   "I don't believe you."
   "About the council, our law, or Tepes?"
   "The last part."
   "Oh, I assure you we did kill him."
   "You make it sound like you were around when it happened. He died in, what, the 1300s?"
   "Was it 1476, or was it 1477?" He made a great show of trying to remember.
   "You are not that old," I said.
   "Are you sure, ma petite?" He turned that unnervingly blank face to me; even his eyes went dead and empty. It was like looking at a well-constructed doll.
   "Yeah, I'm sure."
   He smiled, and sighed. Life, for lack of a better word, rushed back into his face, his body. It was like watching Pinocchio spring to life.
   "Shit."
   "So nice to know that I can still unnerve you from time to time, ma petite." I let that go. He knew exactly the effect he had on me. "If Serephina is your equal, then you take care of her, and I'll shoot everybody else."
   "You know it will not be that simple."
   "It never is."
   He stared at me, smiling.
   "Do you really think she'll challenge you?"
   "No, but I wanted you to know that she could."
   "Is there anything else I need to know?"
   He smiled wide enough to flash a little bit of fang. He looked wonderful in the light. His skin was pale but not too pale. I touched his hand. "You're warm."
   He glanced up at me. "Yes, ma petite; what of it?"
   "You've slept an entire day. You should be cold to the touch until after you've fed."
   He just looked at me with his drowning eyes.
   "Shit," I said. I went for the bedroom. He didn't try to stop me. He didn't even try. It made me nervous. I was half-running by the time I hit the door.
   All I could see was a pale outline on the bed. I turned on the switch by the door. The overhead light was glaring, and merciless.
   Jason lay on his stomach, blond hair bright against the dark pillows. He was naked except for a pair of vibrant blue bikini briefs. I walked towards the bed, staring at his back, willing him to breathe. When I was almost at the bed I could see him breathe. Something tight in my chest loosened.
   I had to kneel on the edge of the bed to reach him. I touched his shoulder. He moved under my hand. I rolled him onto his side, and he didn't try to help. He was totally passive. He stared up at me with heavy-lidded eyes. Two thin crimson lines flowed down his neck. Not a lot of blood, at least not spilled onto the sheets. I had no way of knowing how much he'd lost. How much Jean-Claude had taken.
   Jason smiled at me. It was a slow, lazy smile.
   "Are you alright?"
   His hand slid around my waist as he rolled onto his back.
   "I'll take that as a yes." I tried to back off the bed, but his arm was firm around me, holding me. He pulled me down to his chest. I pulled the Browning on the way down. He could have stopped me, but he didn't try.
   I shoved the gun against his ribs. My other hand was pressed to his bare chest, trying to hold my face a little above his. He raised his face towards mine.
   "I will pull this trigger."
   He stopped with his face inches from mine. "I'll heal."
   "Is one kiss worth getting a hole punched in your side?"
   "I don't know," he said. "Everyone else seems to think so." His face moved towards me slowly, giving me plenty of time to decide.
   "Jason, release her, now." Jean-Claude's voice filled the room with whispers like tiny echoes.
   Jason let me go. I slid off the bed, the gun still naked in my hand.
   "I need my wolf tonight, Anita. Try not to shoot him until after we've seen Serephina."
   "Tell him to stop hitting on me," I said.
   "Oh, I shall, ma petite, I shall."
   Jason lay back against the pillows. He raised one knee, his hands lying across his stomach. He looked relaxed, lascivious, but his eyes stayed on Jean-Claude.
   "You are almost the perfect pet, Jason, but do not provoke me."
   "You never said she was off limits."
   "I am saying it now," Jean-Claude said.
   Jason sat up on the bed. "I'll be a perfect gentleman from now on."
   "Yes," Jean-Claude said, "you will." He stood there in the doorway, still lovely to look at, but dangerous. You could feel it building in the room, whispering through his voice. "Leave us for a moment, ma petite."
   "We don't have time for this," I said.
   Jean-Claude looked at me. His eyes were still a solid midnight blue; the whites had drowned. "Are you protecting him?"
   "I don't want him hurt because he got out of hand with me."
   "Yet you would have shot him."
   I shrugged. "I never said I was consistent, just serious."
   Jean-Claude laughed. The abrupt change in mood made both Jason and me jump. His laughter was rich and thick as chocolate, as if you could pull it from the air and eat it.
   I glanced at Jason. He was watching Jean-Claude the way a well-trained dog will watch its master, looking for clues to what its master wanted next.
   "Get dressed, my wolf, and you, ma petite, you must change as well."
   I was wearing black jeans and a royal blue polo shirt. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
   "We must make a show of it tonight, ma petite. I would not ask if it were not important."
   "I am not wearing a dress tonight."
   He smiled. "Of course not. Just something a little more stylish. If your young friend does not have anything suitable, I believe he and Jason are about the same size. I'm sure we could find something."
   "You'll have to talk to Larry about that."
   Jean-Claude looked at me for a heartbeat. "As you like, ma petite. Now, if you would leave Jason to dress? I will stay in here until you have chosen more appropriate attire."
   I wanted to argue. I didn't like being told what to wear, or what not to wear. But I let it go. I'd been around vampires enough to know they admired the spectacular, or the dangerous. If Jean-Claude said we needed to make a show of it, maybe he was right. It wouldn't kill me to dress up a little. It might get us all killed to refuse. I just didn't know the rules in this situation. I suspected that there weren't any.
   I hadn't packed with meeting a master vampire in mind, so my choices were sort of limited. I settled for a crimson blouse with a high collar and a spill of lace down the front. There was even a little frilly cuff at each sleeve. It looked like a cross between a Victorian blouse and a business shirt. It would have looked very conservative if it hadn't been screaming vermillion red. I hated the idea of wearing it, because I knew Jean-Claude would like it. Except for the color, it looked like something he might wear.
   I put the all-purpose black jacket over the blouse. With both guns, both knives, and a cross around my neck inside the blouse, I was ready to go.
   "Ma petite, may we come out?"
   "Sure."
   He opened the door and took it all in with a glance. "You look splendid, ma petite. I appreciate the makeup."
   "I look pale in crimson without it."
   "Of course; do you have other shoes?"
   "I only have the Nikes and high heels. I move better in the Nikes."
   "The blouse was more than I hoped for; keep your jogging shoes. They are black, at least."
   Jason walked out of the bedroom. He was wearing black leather pants tight enough that I knew he wasn't wearing the underwear anymore. The top was vaguely oriental with one of those upright collars and one black button, the kind where a loop of thread comes over the button. The sleeves were full, and the collar was a soft shining blue that matched his eyes to perfection. It was embroidered in yellow so dark it looked gold, and darker blue thread. The sleeves, collar, and edge of the fabric were embroidered black on black. When Jason moved, the shirt gaped just a little, enough to show glimpses of his bare stomach. Soft black boots rode up over his knees.
   "Well, I know who your tailor is," I said. I was going to be woefully underdressed.
   "If you would fetch Monsieur Kirkland. When he is dressed, we can go."
   "Larry may not want to change."
   "Then he won't. I will not force him."
   I looked at him, not quite sure I believed him, but I got Larry. He agreed to go into the bedroom and see what other goodies were in the luggage, but he didn't promise to change.
   He came out still wearing dark blue jeans and Nikes. He had changed his T-shirt for a silk dress shirt that was a rich, vibrant blue. It made his eyes look even bluer than usual. A black leather jacket that was just a touch big in the shoulders hid his shoulder holster. I guess it was an improvement over the oversized flannel he'd been wearing. The collar of the shirt was spread over the jacket so that it framed his face.
   "You should see some of the stuff in there," Larry said. He shook his head as if he still couldn't believe it. "I wouldn't even know how to get into some of it."
   "You look nice," I said.
   "Thanks."
   "Can we go now?" I asked.
   "Yes, ma petite, we can go. It will be interesting to meet Serephina after two centuries."
   "I know this is old home week for you, but let's remember why we're here," I said. "Xavier has Jeff Quinlan. Who knows what he's doing to him? I want him home safe. It's the second night. We have to get to him tonight, or find someone else who can."
   Jean-Claude nodded. "Then let us be off, ma petite. Serephina awaits us." He sounded almost eager, like he was looking forward to seeing her. For the first time I wondered if he and Serephina had been lovers. I knew Jean-Claude wasn't a virgin. I mean, get real. But knowing he had lovers and meeting one were two different things. I realized with a start that it would bother me.
   He smiled at me, almost as if he knew what I was thinking. The whites of his eyes had reappeared. It made him look almost human. Almost.
   
   

23
   Jean-Claude walked across the parking lot in his boots and jacket, looking like someone should be snapping his picture, or asking for an autograph. The rest of us followed like his entourage. Which was what we were, whether I liked it or not. But to save Jeff Quinlan I could do a little bootlicking. Even I will toady a little if it's in a good enough cause.
   "You driving, or do I get directions to Serephina's house now?" I asked.
   "I will tell you where to turn when it is time."
   "You think I'm going to run to the cops with directions to her house?"
   "No," he said. That was all he said.
   I frowned at him, but we all got in the Jeep. Guess who got the front seat.
   We drove out onto the main road, the Strip. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper. If traffic is bad, it can take a couple of hours to drive the four miles that make up the Strip. Jean-Claude had me turn on a small road. It looked like a driveway leading to yet another theater, but it turned out to be an access road. If you knew your way around the smaller roads, you could avoid most of the congestion.
   You would never know from the main drag of Branson but just out of sight, over the next hill, is the real Ozarks. Mountains, forests, houses where people who don't make their living off tourists live. On the Strip it was all neon and artifice; within fifteen minutes we were surrounded by trees, on a road that wound through the Ozark Mountains.
   Darkness closed around the Jeep. The only light was a spill of stars pressed against the blackness, and the tunnel of my own headlights.
   "You seem to be looking forward to seeing Serephina, even with the coffin missing," I said.
   Jean-Claude turned in his seat as far as the seat belt would allow. I'd insisted everybody wear seat belts, which amused the vampire. I guess it was silly to have a dead man buckle up, but hey, I was driving.
   "I believe Serephina still thinks of me as the very young vampire she knew centuries ago. If she thought me a worthy opponent, she would have confronted me or my minions directly. She would not have simply stolen the coffin. She is overconfident."
   "Speaking as one of your minions," Larry called from the back seat, "are you sure you're not the one who's overconfident?"
   Jean-Claude glanced back at him. "Serephina was centuries old when I met her. The limit of a vampire's powers is well established after two or three centuries. I know her limits, Lawrence."
   "Stop calling me Lawrence. The name's Larry."
   Jean-Claude sighed. "You have trained him well."
   "He came that way," I said.
   "Pity."
   Jean-Claude made this sound like a hostile family reunion, or is that an oxymoron? I hoped he was right, but one thing I've learned about vampires—they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.
   "What's wolf-boy in the back going to do?"
   "I do what I'm told," Jason said.
   "Great," I said.
   We drove in silence. Jean-Claude rarely sweats small talk, and I wasn't in the mood. We could all have a nice little visit, but out there somewhere Jeff Quinlan had woken to a second night in Xavier's tender care. Sort of ruined the mood for me.
   "The turn is just ahead to your right, ma petite." Jean-Claude's voice made me jump. I had sunk into the silence and the dark hush of the highway.
   I slowed the Jeep. Didn't want to miss the turnoff. A gravel road, like a hundred other gravel roads, spilled off the main road. There was nothing to make it stand out. Nothing special.
   The road was narrow with trees growing so close on either side it was like driving through a tunnel. The naked branches of trees curved around us like interlocking pieces of a wall. The headlights slid over the nearly naked trees, bouncing when the Jeep eased over a pothole. Naked wooden fingers tapped the roof of the Jeep. It was damn near claustrophobic.
   "Geez," Larry said. He had pressed his face to the dark glass as far as the seat belt would allow. "If I didn't know there was a house down this road, I'd turn back."
   "That is the idea," Jean-Claude said. "Many of the older ones value their privacy above almost all else."
   The headlights picked up a hole that stretched across the entire road. It looked like a gully wash where rainwater had eaten the road away over decades.
   Larry leaned over the back of the seat, straining against his seatbelt. "Where'd the road go?"
   "The Jeep can make it," I said.
   "Are you sure?" he asked.
   "Pretty sure," I said.
   Jean-Claude had settled back into the seat. He seemed totally relaxed, almost detached, like he was listening to music I couldn't hear, thinking thoughts that I never would understand.
   Jason leaned forward, putting a hand on the back of my seat. "Why wouldn't she pave the road? She's been here almost a year."
   I glanced back at Jason. It was interesting to find out that he knew more about Jean-Claude's business than I did.
   "This is her moat," Jean-Claude said. "Her barrier against the curious. Many find our new status hard to accept and still closet themselves away."
   The wheels slid over the edge. It was like driving into a crater. Miraculously, the Jeep crawled out the other side. If we'd been in a car, we'd have had to walk.
   The road climbed upward for about a hundred yards, and suddenly on the right-hand side of the road was an opening. It didn't look big enough to drive the Jeep through, not without scratching the paint job to hell. The only thing that really told you it was a clearing was the moonlight pulsing against the darkness of the trees. That much moonlight meant something was there. Grass had grown over a scattering of gravel that might once have been a driveway.
   "Is this it?" I asked, just to make sure.
   "I believe so," Jean-Claude said.
   I eased the Jeep into the trees and listened to branches slap the sides. I hoped Stirling's company owned the Jeep, and wasn't just renting. We crawled free of the trees with a last metallic scritch. An acre of open land spread out before us, silver-edged with moonlight. The grass was butchered short like someone had bush-hogged it last fall, and left it naked and unfinished through the winter. There was a neglected orchard behind the house. The land rose in a gentle slope up towards the foot of a mountain. Just beyond the bush-hogged grass was forest, thick and untouched.
   A house sat in the middle of the gentle rise. The house was silver-grey in the moonlight. Curling flecks of paint clung here and there, like the last sad remnants of an accident victim's clothes. A large stone porch graced the front of the house, hid the door and windows in a well of shadow.
   "Turn off the lights, ma petite."
   I looked at that dark porch and didn't want to hit the lights. The moonlight should have penetrated those shadows.
   "Ma petite, the lights."
   I hit the lights. The moonlight bathed us like a wash of visible air. The porch stayed dark and still like a cup of ink. Jean-Claude undid his seat belt and slid out. The boys followed suit. I got out last.
   Large, flat stones were set in the grass, forming a curving sidewalk to the foot of the steps that led up to the porch. There was a large picture window to one side of the peeling door. The glass was jagged. Someone had nailed plywood behind the broken window to keep out the night air.
   The smaller window on the other side of the door was intact, but so covered in grime it was blind. The shadows were viscous, and seemed thick enough to touch. It reminded me of the darkness that the sword had come swinging out of. But it wasn't as thick. I could see through this darkness. There was nothing there but shadows.
   "What's with the shadows?" I asked.
   "A parlor trick," Jean-Claude said. "Nothing more." He glided up the steps without a backward glance. If he was worried, it didn't show. Jason glided up the steps behind him. Larry and I just walked up. It was the best we could do. The shadows were colder than they should have been, and Larry shivered beside me. But there was no sense of power to it. As Jean-Claude had said, a parlor trick.
   The screen door had been ripped off its hinges. It lay on the porch, torn and forgotten. Even with the protection the porch offered, the inner door was warped and peeling, exposed to too much weather. Leaves lay in piles at the edges of the porch railings where the wind had blown them.
   "Are you sure this is it?" Larry asked.
   "I am sure," Jean-Claude said.
   I understood the question. If it hadn't been for the shadows, I'd have said the house was deserted. "The shadows would discourage any casual passersby," I said.
   "Well, I wouldn't come trick-or-treating," Larry said.
   Jean-Claude glanced back at us. "Our hostess comes."
   The pitted, broken door opened. I had expected a haunted-house screechof rusty hinges but the door opened smoothly. A woman stood in the doorway. The room behind her was dark, her body silhouetted against the room and the night. But even in the dark I knew two things: she was a vampire, and she wasn't old enough to be Serephina.
   The vampire was only a few inches taller than I was. She raised an unlit candle in one hand. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, as a trickle of power slid through the room. The candle flared to life, leaving stars dancing across my night vision.
   The vampire had brown hair, cut so short the hair on either side of her head had been shaved. Silver stud earrings glittered up the curve of her ears. One long earring dangled from her left ear. It was a green enamel leaf on a silver chain. She wore a red leather dress that was so tight on top, it was how I'd known in the dark she was a girl. The skirt of the dress fell to her ankles, loose once you got past the hips. A leather formal; wow.
   She grinned at us, flashing fangs. "I'm Ivy." Her voice had an edge of laughter to it, but unlike Jean-Claude's laugh that always felt vaguely sexual, or fattening, hers felt sharp as broken glass, meant to hurt, terrify, not titillate.
   "Enter our dwelling, and be welcome." The words sounded too formal, like a rehearsed speech, or an incantation that you don't understand.
   "Thank you, Ivy, for your most generous invitation," Jean-Claude said. He was suddenly holding her hand. I hadn't seen him reach for it. I hadn't seen him move. It was like I'd missed a frame of the film. From the look on Ivy's face, so had she. She looked pissed.
   Jean-Claude raised her hand, very slowly, towards his lips. He never took his eyes off her. The way you bow to someone on the dojo mat, because if you look away they may spill you on your ass.
   A line of wax trickled down the side of the white candle. She was holding it in her bare fist, no candle holder. Jean-Claude slowly raised her hand and laid his lips on the back of it. The wax dripped faster than it should have.
   He released her hand in time for her to save herself, but she stood there and let the line of hot wax drip down her skin. Only the faintest flicker in her eyes showed that it hurt. She left the wax to harden on her hand. A faint redness spread from the line of wax. She ignored it.
   No more wax dripped from the candle. Usually when a candle runs that soon, it keeps running. The wax made a little golden pool at the top of the candle, like a drop of water under tension.
   I glanced from one vampire to the other and shook my head. Does the term "childish" mean anything to you? I didn't say it out loud, though. For all I knew, this was some kind of ancient vampire ritual. Though I doubted it pretty damn sincerely.
   "Aren't your companions going to come inside?" Ivy stepped aside with a swish of leather skirts, holding the candle high, lighting our way.
   Jean-Claude stepped to the other side of the door so we would have to walk between the two vampires to get into the house. I trusted Jean-Claude not to munch on me. I even trusted him to keep Ivy from munching on me. But I didn't like how much fun Jean-Claude was having. Made me nervous. I've never been around vampires that were having a good time when it didn't get ugly.
   Jason walked between them, into the house. Larry glanced at me. I shrugged and walked inside. He followed at my heels, trusting that if I went inside it would be okay. It probably would be. Probably.
   
   
24
   The door closed behind us, and I don't think anybody closed it, not with hands anyway. Safe or not, these little displays of power were getting on my nerves.
   The air in the room was utterly still, stale. It smelled musty, dry, with an undertaste of mildew. You knew even with your eyes closed that these rooms had been empty for a very long time. There was an open archway to the left that led into a smaller room. I could see a bed, complete with bedspread and pillows, so covered in dust it looked grey. A vanity sat in one corner with its mirror reflecting the empty room.
   There was no furniture left in the living room. The wooden floor was dust-coated. The hem of Ivy's dress trailed in the thick dust as she moved towards a door in the far wall. A thin line of light showed under that door. Golden and thicker than electricity. I was betting on more candles.
   The door opened before Ivy reached it. A rich wave of light spilled out, brighter than it should have been because we'd been in the dark so long. A male vamp stood framed in the light. He was short, slender, with a face too young to be handsome, more pretty. He was so newly dead that his skin still held the tan he'd picked up at the beach, or lake, or some other sun-soaked place. He looked frightfully young to be dead. He had to be eighteen, anything younger and it was illegal, but he still looked delicate and half-finished. Jailbait forever.
   "I'm Bruce." He seemed vaguely embarrassed. Maybe it was the clothes. He was dressed in a pale grey tux complete with tails, and a charcoal grey strip down the outside leg of the pants. His gloves were white and matched what could be seen of his shirt. His vest was a silky grey. His bow tie and cummerbund were a red that matched Ivy's dress. They looked like they were going to the prom.
   Two man-sized candelabra stood on either side of the door, filling the room with moving, golden light. The room beyond was twice the size of the living room. and had probably been the kitchen once upon a time. But unlike the front rooms. there'd been some redecorating.
   A Persian carpet was spread across the floor. The colors were so bright it looked like stained glass. Wall hangings covered the two longest walls. On one wall a unicorn fled from a pack of hounds. The other hanging was a battle scene so dimmed with age that parts of the figures had vanished into the cloth. Bright silken drapes covered the far end of the room, hung from the ceiling with heavy cords. A door opened to the left of the drapes.
   Ivy sat the candle she'd been holding in an empty sconce on the candelabra. She moved in front of Jean-Claude. She had to tilt her head up to look him in the eyes. "You are beautiful." She ran her fingers along the edge of his jacket. "I thought they'd lied. That nobody could be that beautiful." She fingered the mother-of-pearl buttons, starting at his neck and working down. Jean-Claude moved her hand when she reached the last button before the shirt disappeared into his pants.
   Ivy seemed to find that amusing. She stood on tiptoe, leaning her hands and forearms on his chest. Her mouth was tilted towards him, kissable. "Do you fuck as good as you look? They said you did. But you're sooo pretty. Nobody could be that good a lay."
   Jean-Claude laid his fingers on either side of her face, cradling her jawline. He smiled at her.
   Her red lips curved into a smile. She pressed against him, letting her full weight rest against his body.
   Jean-Claude kept his light touch on her face as if she wasn't leaning full out against him.
   Her smile began to fade, slipping from her face like the sun sinking below the earth. She slid slowly down to stand flat-footed in front of him. Her face was blank and empty in the cradle of his hands.
   Bruce the vampire jerked her back by one arm. Ivy stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her. She looked around bewildered, as if she expected to be elsewhere.
   Jean-Claude wasn't smiling now. "It has been a long time since I was anyone's meat that wanted me. A very long time."
   Ivy stood half-collapsed in Bruce's arms. Her face was harsh with fear. She pushed away from Bruce to stand straight and alone. She tugged at the red dress as if to settle it into place. The fear was mostly gone from her face; just a certain tightness remained around the eyes.
   "How did you do that?"
   "Centuries of practice, little one."
   Anger made her eyes dark. "You aren't supposed to be able to capture another vampire with your gaze."
   "You aren't?" he asked, his voice lilting with amazement.
   "Don't you laugh at me."
   I had some sympathy for her frustration. Jean-Claude can be such a pain in the ass when he wants to be.
   "You were told to lead us somewhere, children; do so."
   Ivy stood in front of him, hands balled into fists. Her anger spilled into her eyes, and the brown irises bled onto the whites of her eyes until she looked blind. Her power breathed through the room, creeping along the skin, raising the tiny hairs on my body as if a finger had been run just above them.
   My hand started for the Browning. Old habits.
   "No, Anita, that is not necessary," Jean-Claude said. "This little one cannot hurt me. She shows her fangs, but unless she wishes to die on this lovely carpet she had best remember who and what I am."
   "I am the Master of the City!" His voice thundered through the house, echoing in the room until the air was so thick with echoes that it was like breathing his words.
   When the sound died, I was shaking. Ivy had pulled herself together. She still looked angry, but her eyes had bled back to normal.
   Bruce had laid a hand on her shoulder, as if he wasn't sure she would listen to reason. She shook off his hand and motioned gracefully towards the open door.
   "We are to take you downstairs. Others await you there."
   Jean-Claude gave a low theatrical bow, never taking his eyes from her. "After you, my sweet. A lady should always walk before a gentleman, never behind."
   She smiled, suddenly pleased with herself again. "Then your human lady can walk beside me."
   "I don't think so," I said.
   She turned innocent brown eyes to me. "Are you not a lady, then?" She stalked towards me with an exaggerated sway of her hips. "Did you bring us someone who is not a lady, Jean-Claude?"
   I heard him sigh. "Anita is a lady. Walk beside her, ma petite, but carefully."
   "What does it matter what these assholes think of me?"
   "If you are not a lady, then you are a whore. You do not want to know what would happen to a human whore within these walls." He seemed tired as he said it, as if he'd been there, done that, and hadn't had a good time.
   Ivy smiled at me, giving me a big dose of brown eyes. I met her gaze and smiled.
   She frowned. "You are human. You can't meet my gaze, not like that."
   "Surprise, surprise," I said.
   "Shall we go?" Jean-Claude said.
   Ivy frowned again, but she stepped into that open door, and down a step or two, one hand on her dress to keep the hem from tripping her feet. She turned and looked back at me. "Are you coming?"
   I asked Jean-Claude, "How careful do I need to be?"
   Larry and Jason came to stand beside me.
   "Defend yourself if they offer violence first. But do not shed the first blood, or strike the first blow. Defend, but do not attack, ma petite. We are playing games tonight, unless you make it more; the stakes are not that high."
   I scowled at him. "I don't like this."
   He smiled. "I know, but bear with us, ma petite. Remember the human you wish to save, and control that wonderful temper of yours."
   "Well, human?" Ivy said. She was waiting for me on the steps. She looked like an impatient child, petulant.
   "I'm coming," I said. I did not run to catch up with the waiting vampire. I walked at a normal pace, though the weight of her gaze made my skin itch. I stopped at the head of the stairs and peered downward. Cool, damp air pushed against my face. The smell was thick, enclosed, and mildewed. You knew there would be no windows, and somewhere water was eating the walls. A basement. I hated basements.
   I took a deep breath of the fetid air and walked down the steps. They were the widest stairs I'd ever seen in a basement. The wood felt new and raw, like they hadn't taken time to stain or sand it. There was enough room for the two of us to share a step. I didn't want to share a step. Maybe she wasn't a threat to Jean-Claude, but I had no illusions about what she could do to me. She was a baby master, not full grown yet, but the power was there bubbling under the surface, crawling along my skin. I stopped a step above her, waiting for her to go down.
   Ivy smiled. She could smell my fear. "If we are both ladies, then we should walk together. Come, Anita." She held out a hand to me. "Let us go down together."
   I didn't want to be that close to her. If she tried to jump me, there wouldn't be time to do much. I might get a weapon out in time, I might not. It irritated me that I wasn't supposed to show a weapon first. And scared me. One of the things that's kept me alive is shooting first and asking questions later. Doing it the other way around was no way to stay alive.
   "Is Jean-Claude's human servant afraid of me?" She stood there framed against the darkness beyond, smiling. The basement was like a great black pit behind her.
   But she couldn't sense vampire marks, or she'd have known I wasn't his servant. She wasn't as hot as she thought she was. I hoped.
   I ignored the outstretched hand, but walked down those two steps. My shoulder brushed her bare skin, and it felt like worms were crawling down my arm. I kept walking down the steps into the dark beyond, left hand in a death grip on the railing. I heard her high heels clattering down the steps to catch up with me. I could feel her irritation like heat rising from her skin. I heard the menfolk following us, but didn't look behind to check. We were playing chicken tonight. It was one of my best games.
   We went down the steps together like horses pulling a carriage, my left hand on the railing, her hands lifting her dress. I kept up a pace that made gliding effortlessly impossible, unless she could levitate. She couldn't.
   She grabbed my right arm and whirled me around to face her. I couldn't go for a gun. Because I was wearing wrist sheaths, I couldn't even go for a knife. I stood there nearly face to face with an angry vampire and couldn't reach a weapon. All that could save me was her not killing me. Trusting my life to Ivy's beneficence seemed like a bad bet.
   Her anger spilled along my skin. Heat flowed down her body. I could feel her hand, hot, even through the leather jacket. I didn't try to pull away; things that can bench-press Toyotas don't let go. Her touch didn't burn, because it wasn't that kind of heat, but it was hard to convince my body that it wouldn't hurt eventually. Years of warnings, don't touch, it's hot. Heat flared along my body like I was standing next to a fire. If she hadn't been doing it unintentionally, it would have been impressive. Hell, it was still impressive. Give her a few centuries and she'd be scary as hell, as if she wasn't already.
   I could still meet her eyes, drowning deep and glowing with their own light. That was going to do me a hell of a lot of good when she ripped my throat out.
   "If you hurt her, Ivy, our truce is over." Jean-Claude glided down the steps to stand just above us. "You do not want the truce to be over, Ivy." He ran his fingertip along the edge of her jaw.
   I felt the jolt of power jump from him, to her, to me. I gasped, but she let me go. My arm was numb at my side like it'd gone to sleep. I couldn't have held a gun. I wanted to ask what the hell he'd done, but didn't. As long as I got the use of my arm back, we could argue about it later.
   Bruce pushed between us, hovering over Ivy like a worried boyfriend. Watching his face, I realized that was accurate. I was betting she'd brought him over.
   Ivy pushed him away so hard that he went tumbling backwards down the stairs, lost in the thicker darkness. Everything seemed to be working on her just fine. I could barely feel my fingertips.
   Heat rushed over me like a scalding wind, and swept outward into the dark. Torches flared to life in sconces along the walls with a whooshand a shower of sparks. A large kerosene lamp suspended from the ceiling filled with fire. Its glass chimney exploded in a shower of glass, its flame burning naked on the wick.
   "Serephina will make you clean up your mess," Jean-Claude said. He made it sound like she'd spilled her milk.
   Ivy walked down the rest of the steps in a hip-swinging glide. "Serephina will not care. Broken glass and flame have so many uses." I didn't like the way she phrased that.
   The basement was black. Black walls, black floors, black ceiling. It was like being in a great dark box. Chains hung from the walls, some with what looked like fur on the cuffs. Straps dangled from the ceiling like obscene decorations. There were . . . devices placed throughout the room. I recognized some of them. A rack, an iron maiden, but most of it was like looking at bondage paraphernalia. You were pretty sure what the point was, but not how it worked. There were always more holes than I could figure out what to do with, and nothing ever seemed to come with instructions.
   There was a drain in the floor, and a thin trickle of water ran down it. But I was betting that the drain wasn't there just for water.
   Larry moved down the steps to stand beside me. "Are those what I think they are?"
   "Yeah, they're torture devices." I forced my hand to make a fist, and another one. The feeling was coming back.
   "I thought they weren't going to harm us," he said.
   "I think it's supposed to scare us."
   "It's working," he said.
   I didn't like the decor much either, but I could feel my hand. I could have held a gun if I had to.
   A door that I hadn't even seen opened to the left. A secret panel. A vampire came through the door. He had to bend nearly double to make it through the door frame. He unfolded, impossibly tall and thin, cadaverous. He had not fed tonight. and was wasting no power on looking pretty. His skin was the color of old parchment and clung to the bones of his face like a thin film barely covering his skull. His eyes were sunken and dull in his head, the dead blue of fish eyes. His sickly hands were long and bony with impossibly long fingers, like white spiders sticking from the sleeves of his black coat.
   He stalked into the room with the edges of his black coat sweeping behind him like a cloak. He was dressed entirely in black; only his skin and the short cut white hair on his head betrayed him. As he moved through the black room, it looked like his head and hands were floating on their own.
   I shook my head to clear the image. When I looked back, he seemed a touch more normal. "He's using his powers to make himself look frightening," I said.
   "Yes, ma petite, he is." There was something in his voice that made me turn and look at him. His face was its usual lovely mask-but in his eyes, for just a second, I saw fear.
   "What's going on, Jean-Claude?"
   "The rules have not changed. Do not draw a weapon. Do not strike the first blow. They cannot harm us unless we break these rules."
   "Why are you suddenly scared?"
   'That is not Serephina," he said. His voice was very bland when he said it.
   "What's that supposed to mean?"
   He threw back his head and laughed. The sound reverberated through the room, echoing and outwardly joyous. But I could taste it on the back of my tongue, and it was bitter. "It means, ma petite, that I am a fool."
   
   

25
   Jean-Claude's laughter faded away in bits and pieces, like the sound was clinging to the walls. "Where is Serephina?" he asked.
   Ivy and Bruce walked out of the room. I didn't know where they were going, but it had to be better than this. How many torture rooms could a house this size have? Don't answer that.
   The tall vampire looked at us with his dead-fish eyes. There was no pull, nothing; it was like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
   His voice, when it came, was almost shocking. It was rich and deep, resonant, but not with vampiric powers. It was the voice of an actor, or an opera singer. I watched it come out of the thin, lipless mouth and it still looked like a parlor trick, like the mouth should move out of sync with the words, but they didn't.
   "You must pass through me before she will see you."
   "You surprise me, Janos." Jean-Claude glided down the steps. I guess we were going down. Pity. "You are more powerful than Serephina. How is it you do her bidding?"
   "When you have seen her, you will understand. Now come, all of you, join us. The night is young, and I want to see you all naked and bleeding before dawn."
   "Who is this guy?" I asked. I could use my hand again; might as well smart off.
   Jean-Claude stopped on the last step. Jason moved up, one step behind him. Larry and I stayed a little behind that. I don't think either of us was too eager to go down.
   The vampire turned his dead eyes on me. "I am Janos."
   "Dandy, but the rules say you can't bleed us, or anything else. Or did I miss something?"
   "You miss very little, ma petite," Jean-Claude said.
   "You will not be harmed against your will," Janos said. "You must all consent for any harm to befall you."
   "Then we're safe," I said.
   He smiled, the skin of his face stretching like paper. I half-expected bone to break through, but it didn't. The smile was nicely hideous.
   "We shall see."
   Jean-Claude took that last step, and moved farther into the room. Jason followed, and after a moment's hesitation so did I. Larry followed me like a trooper.
   "This room is your idea, Janos," Jean-Claude said.
   "I do nothing without my master's consent."
   "She cannot be your master, Janos. She is not powerful enough."
   "Yet, here I am, Jean-Claude. Here I am."
   Jean-Claude walked around the dark wood of the rack, trailing a pale hand over it. "Serephina was never much for torture. She was many things, but not sadistic." Jean-Claude came to stand in front of Janos. "I think you are master here and she is your stalking horse. She is known as master so all the challenges come her way. When she dies, you will find another puppet.
   "I promise you, Jean-Claude, she is my master. Think of this room as my reward for being a faithful servant." He looked around the room with a proprietary smile, like a storekeeper admiring well-stocked shelves.
   "What do you plan for us in this room of yours?"
   "But wait a few moments, my impatient boy, and all will be revealed."
   It was odd to have someone call Jean-Claude "boy," as if he were a much younger cousin that Janos had watched grow up. Had Janos known him when he was a little vampire? Freshly dead?
   A woman's voice: "Where are you taking me? You're hurting me." Ivy and Bruce dragged a young woman through the side door. Literally dragged her. She had let her legs collapse, trying to use them like a dog does when you try to take it to the vet. But she only had two legs and a vampire on each arm. She wasn't having much luck slowing them down.
   She had straight blonde hair that barely touched the tops of her shoulders. Her eyes were large and blue, and the makeup she'd started the night with was smeared from crying.
   Ivy seemed to be having a good time. Bruce had very wide eyes. He was afraid of Janos. Hard not to be, I guess.
   The girl stared wordlessly at Janos for a second, then screamed. Ivy cuffed her absently like you'd swat a barking dog. The girl whimpered and fell silent, staring at the floor, fresh tears trailing down her cheeks.
   There was only Janos and the two youngsters in the room with us. I was betting we could take them. Two more vampires came in, but they didn't drag in the next girl. She walked in, eyes glittering with anger, back very straight, hands in fists at her sides. She was short, a little heavy, but not quite fat, as if a good burst of growth would take care of the weight. Her hair was a nondescript brown, glasses framed small brown eyes, freckles dusted her face. The personality that radiated from that face was not nondescript. I liked her instantly.
   "Oh, Lisa," she said, "get up." She sounded embarrassed as well as angry. The blonde girl, Lisa, just cried harder.
   The two vamps that were guarding the second girl were not young. They were both tall, around six feet, dressed in black leather, one with her long yellow hair in a braid down her back, the other with black hair falling free around her face. Their bare arms were muscled and firm. They looked like female bodyguards from some bad spy movie.
   The power that radiated from the two of them was not a B movie effect. It crept through the room like a current of water, thick and cool. When the line of power poured over my body it took my breath away. The power crawled into my bones and made them ache. Larry gasped behind me.
   I glanced at him just to make sure he was gasping for the same reason I was. No new monsters behind us, just the power of the two new vamps.
   "What are you guys doing, running a halfway house for all vampires over five hundred years?" I asked.
   Everyone turned towards me. The two female vamps smiled, most unpleasantly. They looked at me like I was a piece of candy and they wondered what sort of center I had. Soft and gooey, or hard with a nut in the middle? I'd had men undress me with their eyes, but I'd never had anything trying to picture what I'd look like with my skin off. Yikes.
   "Do you have something to add?" Janos asked.
   "You can't just drag a couple of underage girls in here and expect us to do nothing."
   "On the contrary, Anita, we expect you to do many things."
   I didn't like the phrasing of that. "What's that supposed to mean?"
   "First, the young women aren't underage, are you, girls?"
   The second girl just glared at him. Lisa shook her head, still staring at the floor.
   "Tell her your ages," Janos said.
   Neither of them answered. Ivy yanked hard enough to make the blonde girl cry out.
   "Eighteen. I'm eighteen." She collapsed on the floor in a sobbing heap, and the vampires let go of her so she could do it.
   One of the female vamps said, "Your age, now." Her voice was like quiet thunder, a warning of the coming storm.
   The second girl's eyes widened behind her glasses. "I'm nineteen." There was fear now peeking out from behind her anger.
   "Fine; they're over eighteen, but an unwilling human is still an unwilling human, regardless of age," I said.
   "Would you play policeman here, Anita?" Janos asked. He sounded amused.
   "I won't just stand here and watch you hurt them."
   "You have a high opinion of yourself, Anita. Confident. I like that. Always so much more entertaining to break someone strong. The weaklings fold and cry and snivel, but the brave ones, they almost demand that you hurt them." He stalked towards me, reaching out one white spider-hand. "Do you want me to hurt you?"
   I remembered Jean-Claude's warning not to use weapons, but fuck it, I was going for the Browning.
   Jean-Claude was just suddenly there, holding Janos's wrist. Janos seemed impressed. Truthfully, so was I. I hadn't seen him move, and apparently neither had Janos. A nifty trick, that.
   I let my hand relax away from the gun, though I was pretty sure that drawing it would make me feel better. But the purpose of tonight's exercise was not to make me feel better, it was to stay alive.
   "No harm to any of us; that was the promise," Jean-Claude said.
   Janos drew his wrist from Jean-Claude's grasp slowly, almost lingeringly, as if he enjoyed it. "Once Serephina's promise is given, she keeps it."
   "Then why are the young women here?"
   "Those two"—he motioned to Larry and me—"would truly not stand by and watch harm come to strangers?" He sounded surprised, but not unhappy about it.
   "Sadly, yes," Jean-Claude said.
   "And if they join the fray, you will come in to protect her?" Janos asked.
   "If I must."
   Janos smiled, and I could hear his skin creak with the strain of holding in his bones. "Splendid."
   I saw a tremor run through Jean-Claude's back, as if he had been caught off guard. I was just plain confused.
   "The two young women came willingly into our house. They knew what we were, and agreed to help us entertain guests."
   I glanced at the second girl. "Is that true?"
   One of her vampire guards touched her shoulder, lightly, but it was enough. "We came willingly, but we didn't know . . ." The vampire's hand squeezed. The girl's face crumbled in pain but she made no sound.
   "They came of their own free will, and they are of the age of consent," Janos said.
   "So what happens now?" I asked.
   "Ivy, chain that one over there." He pointed as he said it to some fur-lined manacles to the left of the door. Ivy and Bruce picked up the girl, pulled her to her feet, and led her stumbling to the wall.

   "Her back facing the room, please."
   I stepped next to Jean-Claude and whispered, though I knew within reason they'd hear, "I don't like this."
   "Nor I, ma petite."
   "Can we stop it without breaking the truce?"
   "Not unless they offer harm to us directly, no."
   "What happens if I break the truce?"
   "They will try to kill us, most likely."
   There were five vampires in the room, three of them older than Jean-Claude. We would die. Dammit.
   The blonde girl sobbed and struggled, pulling at her arms as the vampires chained her to the wall. She screamed and pulled so violently that without the fur lining she'd have bloodied her wrists.
   A woman stepped into the room from the side door. She was tall, taller than Jean-Claude. Her skin was the color of coffee with two creams. Her dark hair fell in long cornrows to her waist. She was dressed in a black, patent leather body suit. It left very little to the imagination. She strode hard on her heels, a very human walk. But she wasn't human.
   "Kissa," Jean-Claude said. "You are still with Serephina." He sounded surprised.
   "Not all of us have your luck." Her voice was thick like honey. There was a smell like spices in the air, and I wasn't sure if it was her perfume or illusion.
   Her high-boned face was empty of makeup and still she was beautiful—though I wondered what she'd look like if she weren't clouding my mind. Because surely no human could have radiated the raw sexuality that clung to Kissa like a touchable cloud.
   "I am sorry you are here, Kissa."
   She smiled. "Don't pity me, Jean-Claude. Serephina has promised you to me, before Janos breaks that beautiful body of yours."
   Six vampires, four of them older than Jean-Claude. The odds were not going in our favor.
   "Chain the other girl there." Janos motioned to a matching set of manacles to the right of the door.
   The girl shook her head. "No way." She just refused to go, and she struggled better than the blonde. She threw her body on the ground and used every inch of it, not to fight, just not to go.
   Two vampires several centuries old, powerful enough to make my teeth hurt, and they had to pick her up from both ends and carry her to the wall. She'd finally started to scream, one loud, ragged, rage-filled sound after another. The dark-haired vamp pinned her to the wall, and the other one chained her.
   "I can't just watch this," Larry said. He was standing very close to me; maybe he didn't know the vampires would hear his whispers.
   It didn't really matter. "Neither can I."
   We were going to get ourselves killed; might as well take as many of them with us as we could.
   Jean-Claude turned around, as if he could smell us going for our guns. "Ma petite, Monsieur Kirkland, do not go for your weapons. They are treading legalities. The women have come to help entertain. They will not kill them."
   "You're sure of that?" I asked.
   He frowned. "I am sure of nothing anymore, but I believe that they will keep their word. The women are frightened and a little bruised, but they are not harmed."
   "This isn't harm?" Larry asked. He looked outraged, and I couldn't blame him.
   I answered him. "Vampires have a very unique sense of what's harmful, don't they, Jean-Claude?"
   He met my gaze. "I see accusation in your eyes, but remember this, ma petite, you asked me to bring you here. So do not blame this particular problem on me."
   "Is our entertainment so boring?" Janos asked.
   "We were discussing whether to kill you all now, or later," I said, my voice very matter-of-fact.
   Janos gave a low chuckle. "Please do break the truce, Anita. I would love to have an excuse to get you on one of my novelties. I think you would take a long time to break. Then again, it is sometimes the braggarts who break first."
   "I don't brag, Janos. I tell the truth."
   "She believes what she says," Kissa said.
   "Yes, she has a disturbing hint of truth to her," Janos said. "Most tasty."
   The blonde, Lisa, had stopped struggling against the chains. She sagged in them, nearly incoherent with crying. The other girl, now that she was chained, stood very still, but a fine trembling had started in her arms and hands. She balled her hands into fists, but could not stop the trembling.
   "The women came for a little adventure. They are certainly getting their money's worth," Janos said.
   The two female vamps opened panels in the black walls. They each took out a long coil of whip. Neither of the girls could see. I was glad.
   I couldn't stand and watch, I couldn't. It would kill something inside me to just stand and watch, even if it meant I died. I'd at least go down fighting, and I'd take some of them with me. Better than nothing. But before we all committed suicide, I'd try to talk. "If you're not trying to goad us into breaking the truce, then what the hell do you want?"
   "Want?" Janos said. "Want? Why, many things, Anita."
   I was beginning to hate the way he said my name, sort of half-amused, and intimate, like we were friends, or close enemies.
   "What do you want, Janos?"
   "Shouldn't you be negotiating for your people?" he asked Jean-Claude.
   "Anita does well enough on her own," Jean-Claude said.
   Janos gave another rictus smile. "Very well. What do we want?"
   The vampires went to the girls. They held up the whips so the two girls could see them.
   "What is that?" the blonde asked. "What is that?" Her voice was high and bubbly with fear.
   "It's a whip," the second girl said. Firm and clipped, her voice did not betray her the way her trembling body did.
   The two vampires backed away, just enough for good whipping distance, I guess.
   "What the bloody hell do you want?" I asked.
   "Are you familiar with the term 'whipping boy'?" Janos asked.
   "It was a person used by royalty to be beaten in the place of the royal heir."
   "Very good; so few young people have a sense of history."
   "What does the history lesson have to do with anything?"
   "The girls are whipping boys for your two young men," Janos said.
   The two vampires snaked the whips along the floor, and cracked them nearly in unison, but neither whip touched the girls. The second girl screamed, a short, clipped sound, when the whip whistled into the wall next to her. The blonde just sank against the wall, sobbing, "Please, please, please," over and over in a ragged voice.
   "Don't hurt them," Larry said. "Please."
   "Would you take her place?" Janos asked.
   I finally understood where we were heading. "You can't hurt us without our cooperation. You treacherous son of a bitch."
   He smiled. "Answer me, lad. Would you take her place?"
   Larry nodded.
   I grabbed his arm. "No."
   "Surely it is his choice," Janos said.
   "Let go of my arm, Anita."
   I stared at his eyes, searching to see if he understood what he was doing. "You don't know what a whip will do to human flesh. You don't know what you're offering."
   "We can remedy that," Janos said. The vampires ripped the backs of the girls' blouses with a harsh, quick tearing.
   The blonde screamed.
   "We can't just watch," Larry said.
   He was right; whether I liked it or not, he was right.
   "I've seen what a whip can do," Jason said suddenly. "Don't hurt them."
   I stared at him. "You don't strike me as the self-sacrificing kind."
   He shrugged. "We all have our moments."
   "Would it make this an easier choice if I swore that if your young man takes the girl's place we will not cripple him?"
   "How about kill him?" I said. "You can die of shock from a whipping."
   "No killing, no crippling. We simply want our pound of flesh, and a quart of blood."
   Something must have shown on our faces, because he laughed. "Figuratively speaking, of course. You will wear scars until you die, but no greater harm."
   "This is ridiculous," I said. "We aren't going to do this."
   "If we pull our guns, can we take them?" Larry asked.
   I looked away from his earnest eyes. He touched my arm. "Anita?"
   "We can take some of them with us," I said.
   "But we'll still be dead, and once we're dead who'll help the girls?"
   I shook my head. "There's got to be a better way."
   Larry looked at Jean-Claude. "Will he keep his word? Will they not kill me?"
   "Janos's word has always been reliable, or at least it was a couple of centuries ago."
   "Can we trust them?" Jason asked.
   "No," I said.
   "Yes," Jean-Claude said.
   I glared at him.
   "I know you would rather shoot it out, but you would only succeed in getting us all killed. Or perhaps some of us made into vampires."
   Larry touched my shoulders. He made me look at him. "It's alright."
   "It's not alright," I said.
   "Fine, but it's the best we can do right now."
   "Don't do this."
   "I don't have a choice," he said. "Besides, I'm a big boy, remember? I can take care of myself."
   I hugged him. I didn't know what else to do.
   "I'll be alright," he whispered.
   I just nodded. I didn't trust my voice, and I try never to lie to my friends. He would not be alright. I knew it. He knew it. We all knew it.
   Jason walked away from us towards the vampires. "Oh, no, my good shapeshifter, we don't want you chained to a wall."
   "But you said . . ."
   "I said you could save the girls, but not like that. Let the human take his lashes. All you must agree to is satisfying the desires of my two helpers, Bettina and Pallas."
   Jason stared at the two vampires. They'd turned to face us. I suddenly tried to see them from the viewpoint of a twenty-year-old male. They were chesty, slim waisted; if Pallas's face was a little too witchy-looking for my taste, and Bettina's eyes too small, that was just me. Neither of them was pretty, or even beautiful; they were handsome in the way that some tall, leggy women are. Handsome in a good way, if they had been human.
   Jason frowned. "It seems I'm getting the better deal here."
   "Would it make any difference if I said you had to do it here in this room, on the floor, in front of everyone?" Janos asked.
   Jason thought about that for a minute. "If I say no, does the girl get whipped?"
   Janos nodded.
   "Then I agree," he said, but his voice was soft and uncertain. Being lascivious in private was one thing; doing it in public was different.
   "Come then, shapeshifter, let the show begin." Janos made a sweeping motion with his white hands.
   Jason glanced back at Jean-Claude like a kid on the first day of school wondering if the bullies were really going to hurt him. Jean-Claude gave no comfort. His face was as still and unreadable as a painting. He gave a small nod that could have meant anything from "It will be alright" to "Just do it."
   I watched Jason's shoulders rise with a deep breath, and heard him blow it out like a runner before a race. Why is it that most things you might willingly do under other circumstances become distasteful when you have no choice?
   "Have you ever been with one of us?" Janos asked.
   Jason shook his head.
   Janos put a long-fingered hand on Jason's shoulder. Jason didn't seem to enjoy that. Couldn't blame him. "There are many pleasures that await you, my young shapeshifter. Things that no human or wereanimal can give to you. Sensations that only the dead can offer."
   The two female vampires had stepped to the far end of the room in a clear space on the black floor. The whips lay coiled at the feet of the two girls, as if they were a reminder of what would happen if anyone chickened out.
   If Jason wanted to fuck a few vampires, that was fine with me. Besides, he wasn't mine to protect. But the sex wasn't going to last forever. I couldn't let them have Larry. I couldn't stand by and watch him be tortured. I just couldn't. But if I pulled down the room, then even if we got out of the basement—highly doubtful all on its own—we'd have every vamp in the place after our ass. There would be more; there were always more. But what had Jean-Claude said? If they broke the truce first, we could draw weapons. It had possibilities.
   The one with long blonde hair had undone her braid. She shook out her hair like it was a thick curtain of yellow waves. It hid her face for a moment, and she seemed softer, more human. Maybe it was illusion. Whatever, Jason touched that thick hair, wadded his hands into it, then slid his hands around her waist. If he was going to have to do it, it looked like he was going to have fun while he did. Nice to see someone who enjoys his work.
   The dark-haired vamp came in from behind, pressing her leather-clad body against him. Jason was short enough that his face was about breast level for both of them. He buried his face in the blonde's chest. She unlaced the front of her leather vest, peeling it back so he could suck her breasts.
   I turned away. I was never much for voyeurism. Had an embarrassing tendency to blush. Ivy and Bruce moved along the wall to stand near the corner next to the threesome. Bruce was fascinated and embarrassed, but he kept looking. There was no embarrassment on Ivy's face. She moved along the wall, her back pressed to it, hands feeling their way along. Her red lipsticked mouth was partially open. She slid down the wall, the red dress bunching around her thighs as she went to all fours. Watching them move along the wall brought my gaze back to the entertainment.
   Jason's shirt was gone. Wearing nothing but his leather pants and his black boots, he matched the two vampires. He was on his knees, his back arched so he was cradled against the brunette behind him. She smoothed her hands down his naked chest. He turned, giving her his lips. The kiss was long and deep, and full of more probing than anybody but your doctor should be doing.
   The blonde was sitting with her legs wide open in front of them, undoing Jason's pants. She'd already done something to her leather pants so that the crotch was open. She was a natural blonde. Why was I surprised?
   Ivy stretched out a hand to pull at the other vampire's long yellow hair.
   "Ivy," Janos said, "you were not invited."
   She pulled her hand back but didn't back away. She was as close to the action as she could get and not be part of it. Bruce was still pinned to the wall, open-mouthed and a little sweaty, but he didn't seem to want to come closer.
   Janos stood very calmly watching. He had a tight grin on his face, and for the first time there was some light in those dead-fish eyes. He was enjoying himself.
   Jean-Claude was half-leaning, half-sitting against a metal frame that held the rough outline of a body. He was watching the show, but his face was still unreadable, a beautiful mask.
   He saw me looking at him, but there was no change in his eyes. He was as closed and solitary as if he were standing in an empty room. He wasn't breathing that I could see. Did he have a heartbeat when he held himself so still? Or did everything stop?
   Kissa stood by the door that we hadn't been through. She had her arms crossed over her stomach. For someone that had wanted to jump Jean-Claude's bones so badly, she didn't seem to like the show much. Or maybe she was the guard to keep Larry and me from running screaming from the room.
   Larry had backed as far away from the action as he could get. He was pressed up against the wall, trying to find something to look at, but his eyes kept being drawn back to the other end of the room. It was like trying not to watch a train wreck. You didn't want to see it happen, but if it was going to happen you didn't quite want to look away either. When would you ever get the chance to see it again? A menage a trois made up of two vampires and a werewolf couldn't be that common a sight for Larry. It wasn't even a common sight for me.
   The two girls still chained to the wall couldn't see what was going on. Probably just as well.
   A low moan broke from the other side of the room. It made me glance back. Jason's pants had been pulled partially down to reveal most of the smooth expanse of his buttocks. His arms were braced, leaving only his lower body touching the woman. His body rose and fell rhythmically. The blonde vampire writhed under him, another low moan escaping her throat. Her breasts spilled out of her black leather vest like an offering as she did a sort of sit-up to meet Jason's mouth.
   The brunette licked a slow, pink tongue along his spine. His back convulsed with the sensation, or maybe it was another sensation. The effect looked the same.
   I turned away, but the image was burned on my mind. I felt heat crawl up my neck. Damn. Larry's eyes widened and I watched the color drain from his face, until his skin was the surprised white of paper and his eyes too big for his face.
   I fought it for a minute, but I turned back to see, like Lot's wife risking it all for one last forbidden glimpse. Jason had collapsed, his face lost in the blonde's hair. Her face was turned to the room. Her skin had thinned until you could see every bone in her face. Her full lips had thinned back, making her teeth look longer. She no longer had enough lips to hide her fangs.
   The brunette knelt just behind them, her knees between both their legs. She lowered her hands from her face, and one half of that handsome face rotted away. She ran her hand through her long dark hair and it came away in clumps.
   She turned her face towards the rest of us. The skin sloughed off the bones on the left side of her face and fell to the floor with a thick wet plop.
   I swallowed hard enough that it hurt going down and backed up to stand by Larry. He wasn't white anymore; he was green.
   "My turn now," one of the vampires said. My face turned back to the scene at the end of the room, almost against my will. I couldn't stand to watch, and couldn't stand to look away.
   Jason rose in a sort of push-up motion. He caught a glimpse of the blonde's face and his shoulders tensed, the line of his spine tightening. He pulled away from her slowly, coming to his knees.
   The brunette ran her fingers down his naked back. Her flesh sloughed away, leaving a trail of greenish slime behind. A tremor ran through his body that had nothing to do with sex.
   From across the room I could see Jason's chest rise and fall faster and faster, as if he was hyperventilating. He stayed staring straight ahead, making no move to turn and look behind him, as if it would go away if he didn't look.
   The brunette wrapped her decaying arms around his shoulders, leaned her rotted face next to his, and whispered something.
   Jason struggled away from them, crawling against the wall. His bare chest was covered in bits of her flesh. His eyes were impossibly wide, showing too much white. He couldn't seem to get enough air. A strand of something thick and heavy slid slowly down his neck onto his chest. He batted at it like you would swat at a spider that you found crawling along your skin. He was pressed into the black wall with his pants nearly to his thighs.
   The blonde rolled off her back and crawled towards him, reaching a hand out that was nothing but bones with bits of dried flesh. She seemed to be decaying in dry ground. The brunette was wet. She lay back on the floor, and some dark fluid rushed out from her to pool beneath her body. She'd undone her own leather shirt, and her breasts were like heavy bags of fluid.
   "I'm ready for you," the brunette said. Her voice was still clear and solid. No human voice should have come out of those rotting lips.
   The blonde grabbed Jason's arm, and he screamed.
   Jean-Claude sat there watching, motionless, unmoved.
   I found myself walking towards them. It surprised even me. I kept waiting for the smell that should have accompanied the rotting flesh, but with every step the air was clean.
   I stood beside Jean-Claude and said, "Is this illusion?"
   He wouldn't look at me. "No, ma petite, it is not an illusion."
   I poked him in the arm, and it was hard and firm as wood. It didn't feel like flesh at all. "Is this illusion?"
   "No, ma petite." He looked at me at last, and his eyes were solid drowning blue. "Both forms were real." He stood, and even standing next to him I could not see him breathe.
   The brunette was on all fours reaching for Jason with a hand that fell into wet pieces as it moved. Jason screamed and pressed himself into the wall as if he wanted to crawl through it. He hid his face like a child ignoring the monster under his bed, but this was no child, and he knew the monsters were real.
   "Help him," I whispered, and I wasn't sure which of us I was talking to.
   "I shall do what I can," Jean-Claude said. I was staring at him when I heard the next words in my head. His lips never moved. "If they break the truce first, ma petite, then you are free to slaughter everyone in this room."
   I stared at him, but his face betrayed nothing. Only the echo of him inside my head told me I hadn't hallucinated it. There was no time to bitch about the fact that he'd invaded my head. Later; we could argue later.
   "Janos." That one word reverberated through the room until it echoed up the soles of my feet like a deep bass drum.
   Janos turned to look at Jean-Claude, his skeletal face set in a pleased expression. "You rang?"
   "I challenge you." The three words were bland; they fell like off-key notes jangling along my nerves. If the tone bothered Janos, you couldn't tell it.
   "You cannot prevail against me," Janos said.
   "That remains to be seen, does it not?" Jean-Claude asked.
   Janos smiled until the skin nearly snapped. "If by some miracle you best me, what do you want?"
   "Safe passage for all my people." I cleared my throat. "And the two girls."
   "And if I win," Janos said, "what do I get?"
   "What do you want?"
   "You know what we want."
   "Say it," Jean-Claude said.
   "You give up your safe passage. We get you, to do with as we like."
   Jean-Claude gave a small nod. "So be it." He pointed at the rotting vampires. "Get them away from my wolf."
   Janos smiled. "They will not hurt him, but if you fail . . . I'll make a gift of him to my two beauties."
   A low sound like a swallowed scream crawled from Jason's throat. The brunette's hand started the crawl down his stomach to his privates. He screamed and pushed her away, but unless he resorted to violence he was trapped. And if we broke the truce first we were dead, but if they broke the truce . . . Jean-Claude and Janos had moved back to the center of the room. They stood a few yards apart. Jean-Claude stood with his feet spaced as if he was bracing for a fight. Janos stood with his feet together, easy, unconcerned.
   "You will lose everything, Jean-Claude; what are you up to?"
   Jean-Claude just shook his head. "Challenge has been offered and accepted; what are you waiting on, Janos? Are you afraid of me at long last?"
   "Afraid of you? Never, Jean-Claude. Not a hundred years ago, not a moment ago."
   "Enough talk, Janos." His voice had gone low and soft, yet it carried through the entire room, and crawled up the black walls to rain down in drops of sound that were dark and anger-filled.
   Janos laughed, but the sound had none of the touchable qualities of Jean-Claude's voice. "Let us dance." Silence fell so abruptly on the room I thought I'd gone deaf. Then I realized I could still hear my own heartbeat, the blood rushing in my own head. Waves of something rose between the two master vampires like heat rising off summer pavement. What poured along my skin wasn't heat, it was . . . power.
   A whirling, rushing storm of power. I'd felt Jean-Claude go up against other vampires, and I'd never felt anything like this. My hair streamed in a wind that was coming from the two.
   Jean-Claude's face was thinning down, his white skin glowing like polished alabaster. His eyes were blue flames that bled sapphire fire down every vein under his skin. His bones glowed gold. His humanity was folding away, and it wouldn't be enough. He would lose.
   Unless they broke the truce first.
   Kissa stood by the door, still guarding it. Her dark face was impassive. She was no help to me. The two rotted things still crawled over Jason. Only Ivy and Bruce were still standing. Bruce looked scared, Ivy looked excited. She watched the two master vamps with half-parted lips, her lower lip drawn under with concentration or excitement.
   I'd been able to meet her eyes, and that had bothered her—a lot.
   I crossed the room behind Jean-Claude. When I passed him, the current of power lashed out and curled around me like an arm. I kept walking and it slipped away, but my skin shivered where it had touched me. The shit was going to hit the fan unless I could stop it.
   Kissa watched me move past her with narrowed eyes. I ignored her. One master vampire at a time. I walked past Bruce and stopped in front of Ivy. She stared past me at the two masters, ignoring me.
   I opened my mouth. As I spoke, the silence split apart and sound came back to me ears with a nearly painful clap like a tiny sonic boom.
   "I challenge you."
   Ivy blinked at me as if I'd just appeared. "What did you say?"
   "I challenge you," I said. I kept my face blank and tried very hard not to think about what I was doing.
   Ivy laughed. "You are mad. I am a master vampire. You cannot challenge me."
   "But I can meet your eyes," I said. I let a small smile play along my lips. I tried to keep my mind blank, no thought to betray me, no fear to leak out, but of course once I thought of fear it was there curling in my stomach.
   She laughed, high and tinkling like broken glass. It nearly cut skin just to hear it. What the hell was I doing?
   The wind rushed against my back, nearly flinging me into her. I glanced back in time to see Jean-Claude stagger and a splash of blood spill from his hand. Janos hadn't broken a sweat yet.
   Whatever I was doing, I'd better do it fast.
   "After Jean-Claude loses, I'm going to ask Janos to make him fuck me. Your master is going to be everybody's meat, and so will you."
   My eyes flicked to the rotted things clawing at Jason. Incentive enough. I turned back to Ivy and met her brown eyes. "You won't do shit. You can't even outstare one puny human being."
   She glared at me. Her anger was instantaneous, like fire springing out of a match. I watched the brown of her irises spread across her eyes from a space of less than ten inches. Her eyes were shining pools of dark light. My pulse threatened to choke me, and a little voice in my head was screaming, "Run away, run away." I stood there and stared her down.
   She was a master vampire but a young one. A hundred years from now she'd have eaten me for breakfast, but right now, tonight, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't.
   She hissed at me, flashing her fangs.
   "Oh, that's impressive," I said. "Like a dog showing its teeth."
   "This dog could tear your throat out." Her voice had gone low and evil crawling along my spine, until I spent most of my effort not to shiver.
   I didn't trust my voice not to shake, so I spoke low, and soft, and very clear. "Try it; see how far you get."
   She darted forward, but I saw her move, felt her come for me, I threw myself backwards away from her, but she grabbed my arm and lifted me off my feet with her elbow braced so that she could hold me aloft. Her strength was incredible. She could have crushed my arm and I couldn't have done a damn thing about it.
   Kissa was suddenly there. "Put her down, now!"
   Ivy put me down. She threw me across the room. Air rushed past me, the world blurring so quickly it was like being blind. The air stopped rushing, and down I came.
   
   .

26
   Falling does not cover the speed and abruptness of being thrown from less than ten feet high. I smacked into the wall and tried to slam my arms and hands against it to take some of the momentum before my head smacked into it. I slid down the wall, though slid implies something slow, and there was nothing slow about it. I collapsed at the base of the wall in a crumbled, breathless heap, blinking at bright jarring images that didn't quite make pictures yet.
   The first image that came clear was a rotted face with a patch of long, dark hair dangling from its scalp. The vamp's tongue rolled behind broken teeth; something black and thicker than blood spilled with a plop out of her mouth.
   I pushed to my knees and found skeletal arms wrapped around my shoulders. The blonde's dried, fang-filled mouth whispered in my ear. "Come to play." Something hard and stiff poked my ear. It was her tongue. I scrambled away, but claws caught in my jacket. Hands that should have been weak as dried sticks were like steel bands.
   "They broke the truce, ma petite. I cannot hold him long."
   I had a moment to glance up and find Jean-Claude on his knees with both hands extended towards Janos. Janos still stood, but he did nothing else. I had a few moments, nothing more.
   I stopped trying to get free of the two vampires. They swarmed over me, and in the mess of arms and legs and body fluids, I drew the Browning. I fired it point-blank into the rotted one's chest. She staggered, but didn't go down. Fangs sank into my back, and I screamed.
   A gun exploded from across the room, but there was no time to look. Jason was suddenly there, pulling the blonde off me. I fired into the rotting skull of the brunette. She finally collapsed onto the floor in a puddle of liquid and jerking limbs.
   I turned back to Jean-Claude and found him nearly prone on the floor, a pool of blood in front of him. He had one arm still held outward towards Janos.
   Janos made a small, flicking motion, and blood flew in an arc from Jean-Claude's body. He collapsed to the floor, and power rushed outward, blowing back my hair. The world suddenly stank of rotting corpses.
   I gagged and pulled the trigger on that long black body.
   Janos turned. It seemed like slow motion, as if I had all the time in the world to aim and fire again, but somehow he was facing me when I pulled the trigger the second time. The bullet took him squarely in the chest. He staggered, but didn't go down.
   I sighted on that round, skeletal head. His white hand came up and slashed the air. And impossibly, I felt like some invisible claw had slashed my arm. I fired, but my aim was a little off. The bullet grazed the side of his face.
   He slashed at me again, and I saw blood start to drip down my hands. Scare tactics. It didn't hurt that much, not nearly as much as it would hurt if he got his hands on me for real.
   A second gun sounded, and Janos staggered as a bullet took him in the shoulder. Larry was behind him, gun out.
   My vision faded, as if fog was rolling in behind my eyes. I lowered my aim to the larger target of his upper body and pulled the trigger again. I heard Larry's bullet go high and wide into the wall behind me.
   A startled, "Hey!" let me know Jason was still back there.
   I saw Janos go for the door, like watching slow motion through a fog so thick I could barely see. I fired twice more and knew I hit him at least once. When he was out of the room I fell forward onto all fours, and waited for my vision to clear. Hoped it would clear.
   Through my ruined vision I saw Jean-Claude still lying motionless in a pool of his own blood. The question that came into my head was, Is he dead? A stupid question about a vampire, but it was still the first thing I thought of.
   I glanced behind me and found Jason scattering bits of the two female vampires around the floor. He was tearing at them with his bare hands, cracking their bones and throwing them far away from each other, as if by sheer destruction he could wash away what they'd done to him.
   Bruce lay on his back by the wall. Blood had soaked into his tuxedo. I couldn't tell for sure, but he looked dead. Ivy and Kissa were nowhere to be seen.
   Larry was still standing across the room, gun extended, as if he didn't realize that Janos was gone. He was frowning. Everybody was up, everybody was moving except Jean-Claude. Shit.
   I crawled towards him, not trusting myself to stand with my vision so spotty. It seemed to take a long time to reach him, as if more than my eyesight wasn't working quite right.
   My vision was mostly clear by the time I got to him. I knelt in a thick pool of his blood and stared down at him. How do you tell if a vampire is dead? Sometimes he didn't have a pulse, or a heartbeat, or didn't breathe. Shit, again.
   I holstered the Browning. There was nothing here right now to shoot, and I needed my hands. I bled on my shirt and looked at my hands for the first time. It looked like fingernails had scraped down both of them, a little deeper than normal, but they'd heal. Probably wouldn't even be a scar.
   I touched Jean-Claude's shoulder and the flesh was soft, very human. I rolled him over onto his back. His hand flopped against the floor with a bonelessness that only the dead have. Some trick of the night had made his face beautiful again. The most human I'd ever seen it, except for the fact that no one was that pretty.
   I checked for the big pulse in his neck. I held my fingers against his cooling skin, and felt nothing. Something like tears welled against my eyes, and my throat was tight. But I wouldn't cry, not yet. I wasn't even sure I wanted to.
   When is dead, dead for a vampire? Is there such a thing as CPR for the undead? Hell, he breathed some of the time. He had a heart, and it beat most of the time. Not beating couldn't be a good thing.
   I positioned his head, pinched his nose closed, and blew a breath into his mouth. His chest rose with it. I tried two more breaths, but he didn't breathe on his own. I unbuttoned his shirt and found the spot above his breastbone, and pressed, one, two, three, four, all the way to fifteen compressions. Two breaths.
   Jason staggered over to me, then collapsed to his knees. "Is he gone?"
   "I don't know." I pumped with everything I had in me, hard enough to break ribs on a human being, but he wasn't human. He lay there, his body moving only when I moved it, as loose and boneless as only the dead can be. His lips were half-parted, his closed eyes edged with the black lace of his thick eyelashes. His curling black hair still framed his pale face.
   I'd pictured Jean-Claude dead. I'd even thought about killing him myself once or twice, but now that his death was a fact I didn't know how to feel. It didn't seem fair somehow. I'd brought him here. I'd asked him to come, and he came. And now he was dead, well and truly dead. And it was partially my fault, partially my doing. If I killed Jean-Claude, I wanted to actually pull the trigger and watch his eyes as he died. Not like this.
   I stared down at him. I thought about no more Jean-Claude. This beautiful body rotting at last in the grave it so richly deserved. I shook my head. I couldn't let that happen, not if I could save him. I only knew one thing that all dead respected, craved. Blood. I tried to breathe life into him one more time, with one difference. I smeared my blood on his mouth first. My lips touched his, and I tasted the sweet, metallic taste of my own blood.
   Nothing.
   Larry knelt beside us. "Where did Janos go?"
   He hadn't been able to see through the fog, but I didn't have time to explain. "Watch the door; shoot anything that comes through."
   "Can I let the girls go?"
   "Sure." I'd forgotten about the girls. I'd forgotten about Jeff Quinlan. I'd have traded them all for Jean-Claude to blink his eyes at me. Not if the choice had been offered to me as an either-or, but just now they were strangers. He wasn't.
   "More blood, maybe," Jason said softly.
   I looked at him. "You offering?"
   "Neither of us can feed him back to full strength without dying, but I'll help," he said.
   "You fed him once tonight already. Can you donate twice?"
   "I'm a werewolf. I heal quick. Besides, my blood has more kick to it than a human's, more power."
   I really looked at him then. He was covered in slime. A big black smear covered most of one cheek. His blue eyes didn't look wolfish; they looked haunted, hurt. There are things that harm a lot more than physically.
   I took a deep breath and slid one of my knives out of its sheath. I sliced my left wrist. The pain was sharp and immediate. I placed the wound against Jean-Claude's lips. Blood welled into his mouth. Blood filled his mouth like wine pouring into a cup. It seeped out the corner of his mouth and slid down his cheek. I stroked his throat to make him swallow the blood.
   How he'd laugh to know I'd finally opened a vein for him. More blood spilled from his unresponsive lips. Dammit.
   I breathed into his mouth and got a taste of my own blood. I made his chest rise, breathing in my own blood. I thought one word at him: Live, live, live.
   A shudder ran through the body. The throat convulsed, swallowed. I pulled back from him. He caught my wrist as I moved it back from his chin. His grip hurt. I could feel that unnatural strength that could break bone. His eyes were still closed; only the grip on my wrist let me know we were making progress.
   I put a hand on his chest. He wasn't breathing on his own yet. No heartbeat. Was that bad? Good? Indifferent? Hell, I didn't know.
   "Jean-Claude, can you hear me? It's Anita."
   He raised up in a small motion and pressed my bleeding wrist to his mouth. He bit me, and I gasped. He used both hands to press my wrist to his mouth and sucked me. In the middle of sex it might have felt good; now it just hurt.
   "Damn," I said.
   "What's wrong?" Larry asked.
   "It hurts," I said.
   "I thought it was supposed to feel good," the blonde girl said.
   I shook my head. "Not unless you're under hypnotic control."
   "How long will this take?" Larry asked.
   "As long as it takes," I said. "Watch the door."
   "Which one?"
   "Oh, hell, just shoot anything that comes through it." I was feeling lightheaded. How much had he drunk?
   "Jason, I'm getting a little woozy here." I tried to pull my wrist free, but his hands were like iron forged to my skin. "I can't get him off."
   Jason pulled at the pale hands, but couldn't budge them. "I could tear the fingers off one at a time and get you loose, but . . ."
   "Yeah, Jean-Claude would be pissed." Dizziness was coming in waves, nausea starting to build in the pit of my stomach. I had to get him off me.
   "Let go of me, Jean-Claude. Let go of me, dammit!"
   His eyes were still closed, his face blank. He fed like a baby with single-minded determination, but this baby was draining my life away. I could feel it going down my arm. My heart was beginning to pound in my ears as if I'd been running, pumping the blood faster. Feeding him faster. Killing me faster.
   Spots were dancing in front of my eyes. The darkness beginning to eat the light. I drew the Browning.
   "What are you doing?" Jason asked.
   "He's going to kill me."
   "He doesn't know what he's doing."
   "I'll still be dead."
   "Something's moving around at the head of the stairs," Larry called.
   Great. "Jean-Claude, let go of me, now!"
   I pressed the barrel of the gun to the flawless skin of his forehead. Darkness was eating my vision in great moving bites. Nausea burned up my throat.
   I leaned over him and whispered, "Please, Jean-Claude, let me go. It's your ma petite, let me go." I sat back up.
   "Vampires coming," Larry said. "Hurry up."
   I stared down at that beautiful face locked on my arm, eating me alive, and squeezed. His eyes flew open. I moved my whole finger to keep from squeezing down.
   He lay his head back onto the floor, still holding my wrist but no longer feeding. His mouth was crimson with my blood. The gun was still pointed at him.
   "Ah, ma petite, haven't we done this before?"
   'The gun," I said, "but not this." I drew my wrist from his reluctant hands and sat back with the Browning cradled in my lap. Nausea and darkness flew inside my head like clouds driven by the wind.
   I saw Larry crouched by the foot of the stairs, gun out. But it was like looking down a tunnel, distant and not as important as it should have been.
   Jason lay down on the bloody floor. I blinked at him. "The neck hurts less," he said, just as if I'd asked. Jean-Claude crawled on top of him. Jason turned his head to one side without being asked. Jean-Claude pressed his bloodstained mouth over the big pulse in Jason's neck. I saw the muscles in his mouth and jaw as he sank fangs into the tender skin.
   Even if I'd known the neck hurt less, I wouldn't have offered it. It looked too much like sex. The wrist at least let me pretend we weren't doing something intimate.
   "Anita!"
   I turned back to the stairs. Larry was crouched there, alone, with his gun. The two girls had moved back away from the door. The blonde was having hysterics again. Couldn't really blame her.
   I shook my head, lifted the Browning in a teacup grip, and pointed it at the door. I needed the extra arm to steady me. There was a faint tremor to my arms that wasn't going to help my aim much.
   Power breathed through the room, prickling along my skin. You could almost smell it like perfumed sheets in the dark. I wondered if Jean-Claude and I had given off that kind of power when he'd fed off me. I hadn't noticed it.
   Something white appeared in the doorway. It took me a second to figure out what it was. A white handkerchief tied to a stick.
   "What the fuck is that?" I asked.
   "A flag of truce, ma petite."
   I didn't look away from the stairs to that thick, honey-dipped voice. Jean-Claude sounded better, or worse, than ever, each word like fur rubbing along my tired body. His voice was thick enough to wrap around all the aches and pains. He could make them go away. I just knew it.
   I swallowed and lowered the gun towards the floor. "Stay the fuck out of my head."
   "My apologies, ma petite. I can taste you in my mouth, feel your frantic heartbeat like a treasured memory. I will curb my enthusiasm, but with effort, Anita, with great effort." He sounded like I had let him have just a little sex, and he wanted more.
   I glanced at him. He was sitting beside Jason's half-naked body. Jason was staring at the ceiling, eyes heavy-lidded like he was half-asleep. Blood trickled from two new puncture wounds in his neck. He didn't look like he'd felt much pain. In fact, it looked like it had felt good. I'd taken the edge off Jean-Claude's need, and Jason had gotten a smoother ride. Bully for him.
   "May we talk?" A voice from the hallway, a man's. I couldn't place it. Hell, I was having trouble focusing on anything, let alone who the disembodied voices belonged to.
   "Anita, what do you want me to do?" Larry asked.
   "It's a flag of truce," I said. My words felt slurred, though they sounded clear enough. I felt almost drunk, or drugged. It was a bad drunk, a dangerous downer.
   Magnus stepped into the doorway. For a second I thought I was seeing things. It was so damned unexpected. He was dressed all in white from his tux to his shoes. The cloth seemed to shine against his dark skin. His long hair was tied back with a loose white ribbon. He had the handkerchief-coated stick gripped in one hand. He walked down the steps in a graceful, almost dancelike movement. It wasn't a vampire's glide, but it was close.
   Larry kept his gun trained on him. "Stay where you are," Larry said. He sounded a little scared, but like he meant it. The gun was pointed nice and steady.
   "We've discussed the fact that silver bullets don't work on the fey."
   "Who says this gun has silver bullets?" Larry said.
   It was a good lie. I was proud of him. I was certainly too gone to have thought of it.
   "Anita?" Magnus looked past Larry like he wasn't there, but he didn't come down those last few steps.
   "I'd do what he says, Magnus. Now what do you want?"
   Magnus smiled and spread his arms away from his body. To show he was unarmed, I guess. But I knew, and Larry knew, that weapons weren't what made him dangerous. "I mean you no harm. We know that Ivy broke the truce first. Serephina offers her most sincere apologies. She asks that you come directly to her audience chamber. No more tests. We have all been unforgivably rude to a visiting master."
   "Do we believe him?" I asked of no one in particular.
   "He speaks the truth," Jean-Claude said.
   Great. "Let him pass, Larry."
   "You sure that's a good idea?"
   "No, but do it anyway."
   Larry pointed his gun at the floor, but he didn't look happy. Magnus walked down the stairs, smiling, mostly at Larry. He walked past him and made a show of giving him his back. It was almost enough to make me wish Larry would shoot him.
   He stopped a few feet in front of the rest of us. We were all still on the floor, sitting, or in Jason's case, lying. Magnus looked down at us, amused, or bemused.
   "What the hell are you doing here?" I asked.
   Jean-Claude glanced at me. "You seem to know each other."
   "This is Magnus Bouvier," I said. "What are you doing here, with them?"
   He loosened the tie at his collar and spread the stiff cloth. I was pretty sure what he was trying to show me, but I couldn't see from the floor. I wasn't at all sure I could stand without falling over. "If you want me to take a peek, you're going to have to come down here."
   "With pleasure." He knelt in front of me less than two feet away. He had two healing bite marks on his neck.
   "Shit, Magnus. Why?"
   He looked at me, eyes flicking to my bloody wrist. "I might ask you the same thing."
   "I donated blood to save his life. What's your excuse?"
   He smiled. "Nothing half as nice as that." Magnus undid the ribbon and let his hair fall like a curtain around his shoulders. He looked at me with his turquoise blue eyes, and crawled on all fours towards Jean-Claude. He moved like he had muscles in places that people didn't. It was like watching a great cat move. People just didn't move like that.
   He knelt in front of Jean-Claude, so close they were almost touching. He swept his hair to one side and offered his neck.
   "No," Jean-Claude said.
   "What's going on?" Larry asked.
   It was a good question. I didn't have a good answer. I didn't even have a bad one.
   Magnus slipped off his white jacket and let it slide to the floor. He undid the cuff to his right wrist and pushed the cloth back. He offered his bare wrist to Jean-Claude. The skin was smooth and unbroken. Jean-Claude took his hand and raised the skin to his lips.
   I almost looked away, but in the end I didn't. Looking away is like lying to yourself. You pretend it isn't happening, but it is.
   Jean-Claude brushed his lips across the skin, then released Magnus's hand. "The offer is generous, but I would be drunk indeed if I added your blood to theirs."
   "Drunk?" I asked. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
   "Ah, ma petite, you do have a way with words."
   "Shut up."
   "Losing a quantity of blood makes you grumpy," he said.
   "Fuck off."
   He laughed, and the sound was sweet. It had a taste just outside description, like some forbidden candy that was not just fattening but poisonous. But what a way to go.
   Magnus stayed kneeling, staring at the laughing vampire. "You won't taste me?"
   Jean-Claude shook his head, as if he didn't trust himself to speak. His eyes glittered with suppressed laughter.
   "The blood has been offered." Magnus crawled back towards me. His hair had spilled forward on one side so one eye was lost, glittering like a jewel through his hair. Eyes just weren't supposed to be that color. He crawled up to me until our faces were inches apart. "A pint of blood, a pound of flesh." He whispered it, leaning in towards me as if for a kiss.
   I leaned back, away from him, and overbalanced. I ended up on my back on the floor. It was not an improvement. Magnus crawled over me, still on all fours, hovering. I pressed the Browning into his chest.
   "Back off, or bite it."
   Magnus crawled backwards, but not very far. I sat up, keeping the gun on him one-handed. The barrel wavered a lot more than normal. "What was that all about?"
   Jean-Claude said, "Janos spoke of taking blood and flesh from us this night. As an apology, Serephina offers us blood, and flesh."
   I stared at Magnus, still on all fours, still looking feral and dangerous. I lowered the gun. "No, thanks."
   Magnus sat back on the floor, smoothing his hands through his hair, brushing it back from his face. "You have refused Serephina's peace offerings. Do you refuse her apology as well?"
   "Take us to Serephina, and you will have done what was asked of you," Jean-Claude said.
   Magnus looked at me. "What of you, Anita? Are you content that I take you to Serephina? Do you accept her apology?"
   I shook my head. "Why should I?"
   "Anita is not a master," Jean-Claude said. "It is my vengeance, my pardon, you should be asking."
   "I am doing what I was told," he said. "She challenged Ivy to a test of wills. Ivy lost."
   "I didn't throw her across the room," I said.
   Jean-Claude frowned. "She resorted to brute force, ma petite. She could not win by force of will or vampire wiles against a human being." He looked suddenly very serious. "She lost . . . to you."
   "So?"
   "So, ma petite, you declared yourself a master, and proved that claim."
   I shook my head. "That's ridiculous; I'm not a vampire."
   "I did not declare you a master vampire, ma petite. I said you were a master."
   "A master what? Human being?"
   It was his turn to shake his head. "I do not know, ma petite." He turned to Magnus. "What does Serephina say?"
   "Serephina says to bring her."
   Jean-Claude nodded and stood like he was pulled by strings. He looked fresh and new, if a little bloodstained. How dare he look so good when I felt like shit?
   He looked down at Jason and me. His strange good humor had returned. He smiled down at me, and even with blood staining his mouth he was beautiful. His eyes glittered with some amusing secret. He was full of himself in a way I'd never seen before.
   "I do not know if my companions are able to walk. They're feeling a little drained." He chuckled at his own joke, putting a hand in front of his eyes, as if it was too funny even for him.
   "You are drunk," I said.
   He nodded. "I believe I am."
   "You can't be drunk on blood."
   "I've drunk deep of two mortals, but neither of you are human."
   I didn't want to hear this. "What the hell are you talking about?"
   "Necromancer with a chaser of werewolf; a drink to make any vampire giddy." He giggled. Jean-Claude never giggled.
   I ignored him, if you can ignore an intoxicated vampire. "Jason, can you stand?"
   "I think so." His voice was thick, heavy but not sleepy, more the languor after sex. Maybe I was glad my bite had hurt.
   "Larry?"
   Larry walked over to us, glancing at Magnus, gun naked in his hand. He didn't look happy. "Can we trust him?"
   "We're going to," I said. "Help me stand up, and let's get out of here before fangface busts a gut."
   Jean-Claude was doubled over with laughter. He seemed to think "fangface" was outrageously funny. Ye gods.
   Larry helped me stand, and after a second of dizziness I was okay. He offered a hand to Jason without being asked. Jason swayed on his feet, but stayed standing.
   "Can you walk?"
   "If you can, I can," he said.
   A man after my own heart. I took a step, another, and was on my way across the room. Jason and Larry followed. Jean-Claude staggered to his feet, still laughing softly.
   Magnus was standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting for us. He had the jacket slung over one arm. He'd even found the ribbon to tie back his hair.
   Jason walked wide around the torn bodies of his two would-be lovers and picked his shirt off the floor. The shirt covered the mess on his chest, but the goo was still on his face, and his hair was stiff and nearly as dark as his pants.
   Even the back of Jean-Claude's clothes and hair were thick with congealing blood. I had my own share of blood and goop. Good thing I wore mostly black tonight; didn't show dirt as badly. The crimson blouse was looking a little worse for wear.
   Larry was the only one without any blood or gore on him. Here was hoping he could keep up the good work.
   The two girls had hidden under the stairs while we discussed things. I was betting it was the brown-haired girl's idea to hide. Lisa seemed too scared to think, let alone do anything smart. Not that I could blame her, but hysteria gets you nowhere but dead.
   The brown-haired girl walked over to Larry. The blonde came along for the ride, her hands dug so tightly into the other one's torn blouse it would have taken surgery to remove them.
   "We just want to go home now. Can we do that?" Her voice was a little breathy, but for the most part solid. I stared into her brown eyes and nodded.
   Larry looked at me.
   "Magnus," I said.
   He raised his eyebrows, still waiting by the stairs like a tour guide, or a butler ready to escort us up. "You called?"
   "I want the girls to leave now, safe."
   He glanced at them. "I don't see why not. Serephina had us collect them mostly for your benefit, Anita. They've served their purpose."
   I didn't like the way he said that last. "Safe, Magnus, no more harm. Are we clear on what that means?"
   He smiled. "They walk out the door, and go home. Is that clear enough for you?"
   "Why so cooperative all of a sudden?"
   "Would letting them go be apology enough?" Magnus asked.
   "Yeah, if they go free, unharmed. I'll accept her apology."
   He nodded. "Then consider it done."
   "Don't you have to check with your master first?"
   "My master whispers sweetly to me, Anita, and I obey." He smiled while he said it, but there was a tightness around his eyes, an involuntary flexing of his hands.
   "You don't like being her lap dog."
   "Perhaps, but there's not much I can do about it." He started up the stairs. "Shall we go up?"
   Jean-Claude paused at the bottom of the stairs. "Do you need some help, ma petite? I have taken quite a bit of your blood. You do not recover as quickly as my wolf."
   Truthfully, the stairs looked longer going up than they had coming down. But I shook my head. "I can make it."
   "Of that, ma petite, I have no doubt." He stepped close to me, but did not whisper; instead I felt him in my mind. "You are weak, ma petite. Let me help you."
   "Stop doing that, dammit."
   He smiled and sighed. "As you like, ma petite." He walked up the steps like he could have flown, barely touching them. Larry and the girls went up next; none of them seemed tired. I slogged up after them. Jason brought up the rear. He looked hollow-eyed. It may have felt good, but donating that much blood is still rough, even on the temporarily furry. If Jean-Claude had offered to carry him up the stairs, would he have agreed?
   Jason caught me looking, but he didn't smile; he just stared back. Maybe he'd have said no, too. Weren't we all just being uncooperative tonight?
   
   

27
   The silken drapes had been drawn aside. A throne sat in the far right-hand corner. There was no other word for it; "chair" just didn't cover that golden, bejeweled thing. Cushions were scattered on the floor around it, heaped like they should be covered with harem girls, or at least small pampered dogs. Nothing sat on them. It was like an empty stage waiting for the actors to appear.
   A small wall-hanging on the back wall had been pushed aside to reveal a door. The door had been wedged open with a triangular piece of wood. The spring air poured through the open door, chasing back the smell of decay. I started to say "Come on, girls," but the wind changed. It blew harder, colder, and I knew it wasn't wind at all. My skin prickled, the fine muscles along my arms and shoulders twitching with it.
   "What is that?" Larry asked.
   "Ghosts," I said.
   "Ghosts? What the hell are ghosts doing here?"
   "Serephina can call ghosts," Jean-Claude said. "It is a unique ability among us."
   Kissa appeared in the doorway. Her right arm hung loose at her side. Blood dripped down her arm in a slow, heavy line.
   "Your handiwork?" I asked.
   Larry nodded. "I shot her, but it didn't seem to slow her down much."
   "You hurt her."
   Larry widened his eyes. "Great." He didn't sound great when he said it. Wounded master vampires get cranky as hell.
   "Serephina bids you come outside," Kissa said.
   Magnus dropped to the cushions, boneless as a cat. He looked like he'd curled up there before.
   "You aren't coming?" I asked.
   "I've seen the show," he said.
   Jean-Claude walked towards the door. Jason had moved up beside him, but back a couple of steps like a good dog.
   The two girls were holding onto Larry's jacket. He had been the one who unchained them. They'd seen him shoot the bad guys. He was a hero. And like all good heroes, he'd get himself killed protecting them.
   Jean-Claude was suddenly at my side. "What is wrong, ma petite?"
   "Can the girls go out the front?"
   "Why?"
   "Because whatever's out there is big and bad, and I want them out of it."
   "What's wrong?" Jason asked. He stood a little to one side. He was flexing his hands, closed, open, closed, open. He'd seemed a lot more relaxed thirty minutes ago, but then, weren't we all?
   Jean-Claude turned to Kissa. "Was this one right?" He motioned to Magnus. "Are the girls free to go?"
   "They may go; so says our master."
   He turned to the girls. "Go," he said.
   They looked at each other, then at Larry. "Alone?" the blonde said.
   The brown-haired one shook her head. "Come on, Lisa, they're letting us go. Come on." She looked at Larry. "Thank you."
   "Just go home," he said. "Be safe."
   She nodded and started for the far door with Lisa clinging to her. They left the door to the room open, and we watched them walk out the front. Nothing swooped down upon them. No screams cut the night. What do you know?
   "Are you ready now, ma petite? We must pay our respects." He took a step forward, looking at me. Jason already stood at his side, nervous hands and all.
   I nodded and fell into step behind Jean-Claude. Larry stayed at my side like a second shadow. I could feel his fear like a trembling against my skin.
   I understood why he was scared. Janos had beaten Jean-Claude. Janos was afraid of Serephina, which meant she could take Jean-Claude without raising a sweat. If she could take the vampire that was on our side, she wouldn't find us much of a challenge. If I was smart, I'd shoot her as soon as I saw her. Of course, we were here to ask for her help. It sort of cut my options.
   The cool wind played in our hair like it had little hands. It was almost alive. I'd never felt any wind that could make me want to brush it off, like an overly amorous date. But I wasn't afraid. I should have been. Not of the ghosts, but of whatever had called them up. But I felt distant and faintly unreal. Blood loss will do that to you.
   We walked out the door and down two small stone steps. Rows of small, gnarled fruit trees decorated the back of the house. There was a wall of darkness just beyond the orchard. It was a thick wall of shadows, so black that I couldn't see through it. The naked tree branches were framed against the blackness.
   "What is that?" I asked.
   "Some of us can weave shadows and darkness around us," Jean-Claude said.
   "I know. I saw it when Coltrain was killed, but this is a freaking wall."
   "It is impressive," he said. His voice was very bland, matter-of-fact. I glanced at him, but even in the bright moonlight I couldn't read his face.
   A sparkle of white light showed behind the blackness. Beams of cold, pale light pierced the darkness. The light ate away at the dark like paper burns, the blackness crumbling, vanishing as the light consumed it. When the last of the darkness had shredded away, a pale figure stood among the trees.
   Even from this distance you wouldn't have mistaken her for human, but then she wasn't trying to pass. A pale, white luminescence swirled above her head, a glowing cloud, yards across like colorless neon. Vague figures darted out from it, then swirled back.
   "Is that what I think it is?" Larry asked.
   "Ghosts," I said.
   "Shit," he said.
   "My thoughts exactly."
   The ghosts flowed out into the trees. They hung on the dead branches like a froth of early blossoms, if blossoms could move and writhe and glow.
   The strange wind blew against my face, sending my hair streaming backwards. A long, thin line of phosphorescent figures whirled out. The ghosts came sweeping towards us, low to the ground.
   "Anita!"
   "Just ignore them, Larry. They can't actually hurt you as long as you keep moving and ignore them."
   The first ghost was long and thin with a wide, screaming mouth that looked like a smoke ring. It hit me at mid-chest; the shock ran through me like electricity. The small muscles in my arms jerked with it. Larry gasped.
   "What the hell was that?" Jason asked.
   I took a step forward. "Keep walking and ignore them."
   I didn't mean to, but my pace took me ahead of Jean-Claude. The next ghost swept over my face. There was a moment of smothering but I kept walking and it passed.
   Jean-Claude touched my arm. I stared into his face and wasn't sure what I saw. He was definitely trying to tell me something. He stepped out in front of me, still staring at me.
   I nodded, and let him lead. It didn't cost me anything.
   "I don't like this," Larry said in a singsong voice.
   "Me either," Jason said. He was batting at a tiny swirl of whiteness like a tame mist. The more he swatted at it, the more solid it became. A face was forming out of the mist.
   I walked back to Jason and grabbed his arms. "Ignore it."
   The small ghost perched on his shoulder. It had a large, bulbous nose and two half-formed eyes.
   Jason's arms tensed under my hands. "Every time you notice them, you give them power to manifest themselves," I said. A ghost hit me in the back. It was like a lump of moving ice in the center of my body. It crawled out the front of my body like a cold rope being pulled through me. The sensation was unnerving as hell, but it wasn't permanent. It didn't even really hurt.
   The ghost dived into Jason's chest, and he cried out. Only my grip on his arms kept him from clawing at the thing. Every muscle in Jason's body twitched like a horse being eaten alive by flies. He sagged when the ghost was through him, looking at me with horror-filled eyes. It was nice to know he could be scared. The vampires seemed to have taken some of his courage with their rotting arms. Couldn't blame him. I'd have had screaming fits, too.
   Larry jumped when a ghost popped through him, but that was all. His eyes were a little wide, but he knew where the danger lay, and it wasn't the ghosts.
   Jean-Claude came to stand near us. "What is wrong, my wolf?" There was an undercurrent of warning, anger. His pet was not living up to his reputation.
   "We're fine," I said. I squeezed Jason's hand; his eyes were still wide, but he nodded. "We'll be fine."
   Jean-Claude walked towards the distant white figure once more, his movement graceful, unhurried, as if he wasn't as scared as the rest of us. Maybe he wasn't. I pulled Jason with me. Larry had moved to my back. The three of us walked like normal human beings behind Jean-Claude. We looked like good little soldiers except for the fact that I was holding the werewolf's hand. His hand was sweating against my skin. Couldn't afford to have a hysterical werewolf. My right hand was still free to go for a gun, or a knife. We'd hurt them once; if they didn't behave themselves, we could finish the job. Or at least go down trying.
   Jean-Claude led us among the naked trees with the ghosts crawling over the bare branches like phantom snakes. He stopped a few feet away from the vampire. I almost expected him to bow, but he didn't. "Greetings, Serephina."
   "Greetings, Jean-Claude." She was dressed in a simple white dress that fell in folds of shining cloth over her feet. White gloves covered her arms almost completely. Her hair was grey with streaks of white, left unadorned save for a headband of silver and pearls. It wasn't a headband, probably called a coronet or something. Her face was lined with age. Delicate makeup had been added, but not enough to hide the fact that she was old. Vampires didn't age. That was the whole point, wasn't it?
   "Shall we go inside?" she asked.
   "If you like," he said.
   She gave a faint smile. "You may escort me inside, as you did of old."
   "But it is not olden days, Serephina. We are both masters now."
   "I have many masters serving me, Jean-Claude."
   "I serve only myself," he said.
   She stared at him for a space of heartbeats, then nodded. "You have made your point. Now be a gentleman."
   Jean-Claude took a deep enough breath that I heard it sigh from his lips. He offered her his arm, and she slid one gloved hand through it, her hand resting on his wrist.
   The ghosts floated downward behind her like a great flowing train. They brushed past the rest of us with a skin-prickling rush, then floated upward, hovering about ten feet off the ground.
   "You may walk with us," Serephina said. "They will not molest you."
   "Comforting," I said.
   She smiled again. It was hard to tell in the moonlight and ghostly glow, but her eyes were pale, maybe grey, maybe blue. You didn't need to see the color to not like the look in them.
   "I have looked forward to meeting you, necromancer."
   "Wish I could say the same."
   The smile didn't widen, and didn't fade; it didn't move at all. It was like her face was a well-constructed mask. I raised my glance to her eyes, for just a moment. They didn't try to suck me under, but there was an energy in them, a deep burning that pushed at the surface of her being like a banked fire; move a log just wrong, and the flames would come licking out and burn us all up. I couldn't judge her age; she was stopping me. I'd never met anyone that could actually stop me—trick me into believing them younger, yes, but not just glare at me and keep me from doing it.
   She turned and walked through the door. Jean-Claude helped her up the steps, as if she needed it. The easy distance of the blood loss was receding, leaving me real, and alive, and wanting to stay that way. Maybe it was Jason's hand warm in my own. The sweat on his palm. The reality of him. I was suddenly scared, and she hadn't done a damn thing to me.
   The ghosts flowed into the house, some pouring through the door, some sliding through the walls. Watching them pull free of the wood, you almost expected a sound, like a plop, but it was utterly quiet. The undead make no noise.
   The ghosts bounced along the ceiling like helium-filled balloons, poured down the walls in back of the throne like milky water. They were translucent near the candle flames, like bubbles.
   Serephina sat down in the corner on her throne. Magnus curled in the cushions at her feet. There was a flash of anger in his eyes, there, and gone. He wasn't enjoying being Serephina's boy toy. That got him an extra point in my book.
   "Come sit by me, Jean-Claude," Serephina said. She motioned to the cushions on the opposite side from Magnus. They'd have made an interesting pair.
   "No," Jean-Claude said. That one word was warning enough. I drew my hand slowly from Jason's. If we really were going to fight, I'd need both hands.
   Serephina laughed, and with that sound her power broke open and crashed on us poor humans.
   The power rode down on me like pounding horses. My whole body vibrated with it. My mouth was too dry to swallow, and I couldn't quite get a full breath of air. She didn't have to touch me to hurt me. She could just sit on her throne and throw power at me. She could grind my bones into dust from a nice safe distance.
   Something touched my arm. I jerked and turned, and it felt like slow motion. It has hard to focus on Jean-Claude's face, but once I did, the grinding power receded like the ocean pulling back from the shore.
   I took a deep, shuddering breath, then another; every breath was firmer. "Illusion," I whispered. "Fucking illusion."
   "Yes, ma petite." He turned from me and went to Larry and Jason, who were still standing spellbound.
   I looked back at the throne. The ghosts had formed a glowing nimbus around her; most impressive. But not nearly as impressive as her eyes. I had one wild glimpse of eyes that seemed to go on forever, then I stared at the hem of her white dress as hard as I could.
   "Can you not meet my gaze?"
   I shook my head. "No."
   "Can you really be that powerful a necromancer when you cannot even meet my eyes?"
   I wasn't just not meeting her eyes. I was hunched over. I straightened but didn't move my eyes. "You're only about six hundred years old." I raised my eyes slowly, inch by inch up the white dress until I could see her chin. "How the hell did you get to be this powerful in that amount of time?"
   "Such bravado. Meet my eyes and I will answer you."
   I shook my head. "I don't want to know that badly."
   She chuckled, and the sound was low and dark. It slid down my spine like something loathsome and half-alive. "Ah, Janos, Ivy, so good of you to join us."
   Janos glided through the door with Ivy at his side. Janos looked more human than he had since I'd first met him. His skin was pale but fleshy. His face was still thin, and he couldn't have passed for completely human, but he looked less monstrous. He also looked healed.
   "Shit."
   "Is something wrong, necromancer?" Serephina asked.
   "I hate to waste that many bullets."
   She gave that low chuckle again. It made my skin feel tight. "Janos is very talented."
   He walked past us. I could see bullet holes in his shirt. At least I'd ruined his wardrobe.
   Ivy looked dandy. Had she run when the shooting started? Had she left Bruce to die?
   Janos went down on one knee among the cushions. Ivy knelt with him. They stayed there, head bent, waiting for her to notice them.
   Kissa moved to stand beside Magnus, bleeding, her arm held close to her side. But she glanced from the two kneeling vampires to Serephina, and back again. She looked . . . worried.
   Something was up. Something unpleasant.
   She left them kneeling, and said, "What business brings you to me, Jean-Claude?"
   "I believe you have something that belongs to me," he said.
   "Janos," she said.
   Janos rose to his feet and went back out the door. He was out of sight only a moment, then came back carrying a large cloth sack like something Santa Claus would have carried. He untied the cord that held it shut and emptied the contents on the floor at Jean-Claude's feet. Splinters of wood, none of them big enough to make a decent stake, fell into a medium-sized pile. The wood was dark and polished where it wasn't white with new cuts.
   "With my compliments," Janos said. He shook the last bits of wood out of the sack and knelt back on the steps.
   Jean-Claude stared down at the splintered wood. "This is childish, Serephina. Something I would have expected from you centuries ago. Now . . ." He motioned at the ghosts, at everything. "How have you managed to subdue Janos? You feared him once."
   "State your business, Jean-Claude, before I grow impatient and challenge you myself."
   He smiled and gave a graceful bow, arms out to his sides like an actor. When he raised up, the smile was gone. His face was like a beautiful mask. "Xavier is in your territory," he said.
   "Did you truly think I would feel the presence of your pet necromancer, and not sense Xavier? I know he is here. If he challenges me, I will deal with him. Speak the rest of your business, or was that it? Did you come all this way to warn me? How touching."
   "I realize you are more powerful than Xavier now," Jean-Claude said, "but he is slaughtering humans. Not just the attack on the missing boy's home, but many deaths. He has gone back to cutting up his pets. He draws attention to us all."
   "Then let the council kill him."
   "You are master in this territory, Serephina; it is your task to police it."
   "Do not presume to tell me my duties. I was centuries old when you died. You were nothing but a catamite for any vampire that wanted you. Our beautiful Jean-Claude." She made beautiful sound like a bad thing.
   "I know what I was, Serephina. Now I am Master of the City and follow the council's laws. We are not to allow humans to be slaughtered in our territories. It is bad for business."
   "Let Xavier kill hundreds. There are always more," she said.
   "Nice attitude," I said.
   She turned her attention to me, and I wished I hadn't said anything. Her power pulsed against me, like a great beating heart.
   "How dare you disapprove of me," Serephina said. I heard the rustle of her silk dress as she stood. No one else moved, and I heard her dress slither across the cushions, sliding along the floor, as she came closer. I did not want her to touch me.
   I stared up the line of her body, and saw her gloved hand strike outward. I gasped. Blood dripped down my hand.
   "Shit!" It was a deeper cut than Janos had managed, and it hurt more. I met her eyes, anger making me brave, or stupid. Her eyes were pure white, like captive moons shining from her face. Those eyes called to me. I wanted to fling myself into her pale arms, to feel the touch of those soft lips, the sharp sweet caress of her teeth. I wanted to feel her body cradling mine. I wanted her to hold me like my mother once had. She would take care of me forever, and never leave, never die, never desert me.
   That stopped me. I stood very still. I was standing at the edge of the pillows. The hem of her dress spilled at my feet. I could have reached out a hand and touched her.
   Fear pounded my heart in my head. I could taste my pulse on my tongue.
   She spread her arms wide. "Come to me, child, and I will always be with you. I will hold you forever."
   Her voice was everything good; warmth, food, shelter from all the things that hurt, all the disappointment. I knew in that moment that all I had to do was step into her arms and all the bad things would go away.
   I stood there with my hands balled into fists. My skin ached to have her touch me, hold me. Blood still dripped down my hand from where she'd cut me. I rubbed my fingers into the cut, making the pain sharp.
   I shook my head.
   "Come to me, child. I will be your mother forever."
   I found my voice. It sounded rusty, choked, but it came. "Everything dies, bitch. You aren't immortal, none of you are."
   I felt her power waver like a pebble thrown in a pool, and I moved back a step, then another. It took everything I had left not to run from that room, and to keep running. To run and run and run. Away from her.
   I didn't run. In fact, I stayed about two steps back, looking around. People had been busy. Janos stood next to Jean-Claude. They weren't trying their vampire wiles on each other, but the threat was open, and there. Kissa stood to one side, blood pooling on the pillows at her feet. There was a look on her face that I couldn't read. It was almost amazement. Ivy was standing now, staring at me, smiling, pleased that I'd nearly fallen into Serephina's arms.
   I wasn't pleased. No one had ever come closer, not even Jean-Claude. I was beyond scared. My skin was cold. I had broken her hold over me, but it was temporary. She might not be able to trick me with her mind, but I'd felt her mind brush mine. If she wanted me, she could have me. It wouldn't be pretty. No illusions, no tricks, just brute fucking force and she could have me. I would never run into her arms, but she could crush my mind. That she could do.
   The knowledge was almost calming. If there was nothing I could do to prevent it, might as well not worry about it. Worry about the things you can control; the rest will either work themselves out, or they'll kill you. Either way, no more worries.
   "You are quite right, necromancer," Serephina said. "We are all mortal in this room. Vampires can live a long, long time. It makes us forget that we are mortal. But immortality eludes even us."
   It wasn't a question, and I agreed with everything she said, so I just looked at her.
   "Janos told me you had an aura of power, necromancer. He said he used it against you as he would another vampire. I did it just now when I slashed your hand. I have never known a human that could be harmed so."
   "I don't know what you mean about an aura of power."
   "It is what allowed you to slip my magic. No human could have withstood me, and few vampires."
   "Glad I could do something to impress you."
   "I never said I was impressed, necromancer."
   I shrugged. "Fine, maybe you don't give a damn about humans, or keeping a low profile. I don't know about your council, or what they'll do to you for not helping us. But I do know what I'll do."
   "What are you babbling about, human?"
   "I am the vampire executioner for this state. Xavier and his crew took a young boy. I want him back, alive. You help me get him back alive, or I go to the courts and get a death warrant on you."
   "Jean-Claude, talk to her, or I will kill her."
   "She has the weight of human law behind her, Serephina."
   "What is human law to us?"
   "The council says that it rules us as it rules the humans. Refusing the human laws is the same as breaking with the council."
   "I don't believe you."
   "You can taste the truth of my words. I could never lie to you, not two hundred years ago, not now." His voice was very calm, very sure.
   "When did this new law go into effect?"
   "When the council saw the benefit of being mainstream. They want the money, the power, the freedom to walk the streets in safety. They don't want to hide anymore, Serephina."
   "You believe what you say; that much is true," she said. She looked down at me, and the weight of that gaze even with me looking away was like a giant hand mashing me down. I stayed on my feet, but it was an effort. You should bow down to such power. Grovel before it. Worship it.
   "Stop it, Serephina," I said. "Cheap mind tricks won't work, and you know it." The cold lump in my stomach wasn't so sure.
   "You fear me, human. I can taste it on the back of my tongue."
   Oh, goody. "Yeah, you scare me. You probably scare everybody in this room. So what?"
   She drew herself up to every inch of her tall, thin frame. Her voice was suddenly soft, breathing down my skin like fur. "I will show you."
   She gestured outward with one gloved hand. I tensed, waiting for another cut, but it never came. A scream cut the air and whirled me around.
   Blood ran down Ivy's face. Another cut appeared on her bare arm. Two more on her face. Long, slicing wounds with every gesture that Serephina made.
   Ivy shrieked. "Serephina, please!" She fell to her knees among the bright cushions, one hand outstretched towards the master vampire. "Serephina, master, please."
   Serephina walked around her, one gliding movement at a time. "If you had held your temper, they would all be ours now. I knew their hearts, their minds, their deepest fears. We would have broken them all. They would have broken the truce and we could have feasted on them to our blood's content."
   She was almost even with me. I wanted to move back away from her, but she might see it as a sign of weakness. Her dress brushed my leg, and I didn't care. I did not want her to touch me. I moved back, and she caught my wrist. I hadn't even seen her move.
   I stared at that silk-gloved hand as if a snake had just coiled around my wrist. Hell, I'd have rather had the snake.
   "Come, necromancer; help me punish this bad vampire."
   "No, thanks," I said. My voice sounded shaky. It matched the fluttering in my gut. She hadn't done anything to me yet except touch me, but touch makes all powers stronger. If she tried a mind trick now, I was finished.
   "Ivy would have taken great delight in your pain, necromancer."
   "That's her problem, not mine." I was staring very hard at the silky cloth of Serephina's dress. I had a terrible urge to look upward, to meet her eyes. I didn't think it was her power, just my own morbid compulsion. It's hard to be tough when you're staring at someone's body and being led around by the hand like a child.
   Ivy lay on the floor, half-propped on her arms. Her lovely face was a mass of deep cuts. Bone gleamed in the candlelight from one cheek. Her right arm had a cut that showed muscle twitching and bloody.
   Ivy stared up at me, and behind the pain was a hatred strong enough to light a match. The anger rose from her in slapping waves.
   Serephina knelt beside her, drawing me down with her. I glanced back at Jean-Claude. Janos had a white spider-hand on his chest. Larry mouthed the word "gun." I shook my head. She hadn't hurt me yet. Not yet.
   The hand jerked my arm hard enough to wrench my head around to face her. We were eye to eye, suddenly, horribly. What I saw in her eyes wasn't horrible. Her eyes, which I would have sworn were some pale shade, looked solid wood brown. My mother's eyes.
   I think she meant for it to be comforting, or seductive. It wasn't. My skin went cool with fear. "Stop it."
   "You don't want me to stop," she said.
   I tried to pull my arm out of her grasp. I might as well have tried to move the sun to a different part of the sky. "All you can offer me is death. My dead mother in your dead eyes." I stared into those brown eyes that I never thought to see this side of heaven. I yelled at my mother's eyes, because I couldn't look away. Serephina wouldn't let me, and I couldn't fight her on that, not while she touched me.
   "You're a walking corpse, and everything else is just lies."
   "I am not dead, Anita." There was an echo of my mother's voice in her words. She raised her other hand as if to caress my cheek.
   I tried to close my eyes. Tried to look away. I couldn't. A strange paralysis was sliding over my body, like the feeling you get just on the edge of sleep when your body weighs a thousand pounds and every movement is nearly impossible.
   That hand came for me in slow motion, and I knew if she touched me I would fall into her arms. I would cling to her and cry.
   I remembered my mother's face the last time I'd seen her. The coffin had been dark wood covered in a blanket of pink roses. I knew Mommy was in there, but they wouldn't let me see. No one could see. Closed coffin, they said, closed coffin. Every adult in my life was having hysterics. The room was full of screams, sobbing. My father collapsed to the floor. He was useless to me. I wanted my mother. The latches on the coffin were silver. I opened them, and I heard a cry behind me. I didn't have much time. The lid was heavy, but I shoved it upward and it moved. I got a glimpse of white satin, and shadows. I raised my arms over my head with every ounce of strength and got a glimpse of something.
   My Aunt Mattie grabbed me back. The lid clanged shut, and she snapped the lock back in place, dragging me away. I didn't struggle; I'd seen enough. It was like looking at one of those pictures that you know must look like something, but your eyes can't make sense of it. It took me years to make sense of it. But what I saw wasn't my mother. Couldn't be my beautiful mother. It had been a husk, something left behind. Something to hide in a dark box and let rot.
   I opened my eyes, and Serephina had pale grey eyes. I pulled my wrist from her suddenly loose grasp and said, "Pain helps."
   I stood and stepped away from her, and she didn't stop me. Which was good, because I was shaking all over, and it wasn't from the vampire. Memories have teeth, too.
   She stayed kneeling by Ivy, and said, "Most impressive, necromancer. I will help you find this boy you seek."
   Her sudden cooperation was unnerving. "Why?"
   "Because since I attained my full powers, no one has ever slipped my illusions twice in one night. No one living or dead."
   She grabbed Ivy by one bloody arm and pulled her into her lap to bleed on the white dress. Ivy gasped. "Remember this, young master vampire: This mortal did what you could not. She stood against me and won." She tossed her suddenly away, sending her sprawling across the floor. "You are not worthy of my sight. Get out."
   Serephina stood. The fresh blood stood out in scarlet relief against her white dress and gloves. "You have impressed us. Now go, all of you." She turned and walked back to her throne. She didn't sit down. She stood with her back to us, one hand on the chair arm. Perhaps it was my imagination, but she seemed tired. Her ghosts flowed down to meet her in a swirling white mist. There weren't as many individual shapes as before, as if the phantoms had lost some of their solidity.
   "Go," she said without turning around.
   The back door was open, but Jean-Claude walked to the doorway that led out the front. I wasn't going to argue. I just wanted out. I didn't give a damn which door we took.
   We walked coolly, calmly towards the door. I wanted to run. Larry stood next to me, and I could see the pulse in his throat jumping with the effort not to bolt. Jason reached the door a little ahead of us, but he waited and turned and motioned us through like a doorman, or a butler.
   I caught a glimpse of his eyes, too wide, scared, and knew what the gesture had cost him. We went through; he followed. Jean-Claude brought up the rear. The doors slammed behind us, and we walked out. Just like that.
   But for the first time I knew that I'd been let go. I hadn't fought my way out, or bluffed my way out. She could be impressed all she wanted, but she had allowed us to go. Being allowed to leave was not the same thing as winning.
   I would never go back into that house voluntarily. I would never be near her willingly. Because I'd been impressive tonight, but I couldn't keep it up. Even now I knew that she could have me. This vampire had my ticket. Had a lie almost worth my immortal soul.
   Damn.
   
   

28
   Jason walked past me into the hotel room. He headed straight for the bathroom. "I'm taking a shower." It was pushy, but he did smell like a decayed corpse. We'd driven back with all the windows rolled down. Most of the time if you stink, you can't smell someone else. I had some of the rotted stuff on me, but I could still smell Jason. Some smells are too unique to ever really go away.
   "Wait," Larry said.
   Jason turned, but not like he was happy.
   "Use my shower." He held up a hand before I could say anything. "It's an hour until dawn. If we want everybody tucked in before that, it makes sense to use both bathrooms."
   "I thought we'd all sleep in this room tonight," I said.
   "Why?" he asked.
   Jean-Claude stood by the love seat looking lovely and unhelpful. Jason just looked impatient.
   "Safety in numbers," I said.
   Larry shook his head. "Alright, but I can take the werewolf next door and let him shower. Or don't you trust me to even do that?" He was getting angry again.
   "I trust you, Larry. You did good tonight."
   I expected a smile. I didn't get it. He looked very serious. "I killed that vampire Bruce."
   I nodded. "I thought we were going to have to kill everything in the room."
   "So did I." He sank into one of the chairs. "I've never killed anyone before."
   "It was a vampire. It's not the same thing as killing a person."
   "Yeah, right. And how many corpses have you given CPR to lately?"
   I glanced at Jean-Claude smiling at me. I shrugged. "Just one. Can you give us some privacy here?" I asked.
   "I will hear what you are saying no matter where I stand in this room," Jean-Claude said.
   "Illusion is all; just back off," I said.
   Jean-Claude bowed his head slightly and took Jason to one side of the room, near the windows. I knew he'd hear everything, but at least he wouldn't be standing over us.
   "You don't really believe he's dead, do you?" Larry asked.
   "You saw what happened to those two vampires," I said. "They are just rotting corpses; everything else is illusion."
   "You think he ever looks like that?"
   I looked at Jean-Claude's back for a minute. "I'm afraid I do."
   "How can you date him after seeing that?"
   I shook my head. "I don't know."
   "Corpse or not, you tried to keep him alive." He reacted to the look on my face. "Alive, undead, whatever you want to call it, you tried to preserve it. You were scared he was really dead."
   I just looked at him. "So?"
   "So, I killed another living being, or undead being. Hell, Anita, Bruce was so newly dead he seemed human."
   "Probably why one bullet to the chest finished him."
   "How am I supposed to feel about that?"
   "Killing him, you mean?"
   "Yeah."
   "They are monsters, Larry. Some of them are prettier than others, but they are monsters. Never doubt that."
   "You can honestly tell me that you think Jean-Claude is a monster." It was more statement than question.
   I almost looked at the monster in question, but I didn't. I'd looked at him enough for one night. "Yeah, I do."
   "Now, ask her if she thinks she's a monster." Jean-Claude leaned on the back of the love seat, his arms crossed over his chest.
   Larry looked a little startled, but he said, "Anita?"
   I shrugged. "Sometimes."
   Jean-Claude smiled. "See, Lawrence? Anita thinks we're all monsters."
   "Larry's not," I said.
   "Give him time."
   That was a little too close to the truth. "I asked for privacy, or did you forget?"
   "I forget nothing, ma petite, but time grows short. My wolf is not the only one that needs a bath. Only our young friend is still fresh."
   I looked at Larry. There wasn't a drop of blood on him. He was the only one who hadn't wrestled with vampires tonight. He shrugged. "Sorry; I just couldn't get anybody to bleed on me tonight."
   "Don't joke, Larry," I said. "With Serephina I think you'll get another chance."
   "Sadly, true, ma petite."
   "How long can you go without a coffin?" I asked.
   He smiled. "Concern over my well-being. I am touched."
   "Don't give me crap. I opened a freaking vein for you tonight."
   "If I have not thanked you for saving my life tonight, ma petite, my apologies."
   I looked at him. He looked pleasant, amused, but it was a mask. His expression when he didn't want you to know what he was thinking, but didn't want you to know that he didn't want you to know. "Don't mention it."
   "I will remember that you saved me, ma petite. You could have been free of me. Thank you."
   It sounded sincere enough. "You're welcome."
   "I need to get this crud off me," Jason said. He sounded just a touch frantic. I was betting he'd be trying to scrub off more than just dirt. But memories don't wash that easily. More's the pity.
   "Go on, both of you. Jason can scrub up in Larry's room. It's only practical."
   Larry grinned at me. "Thanks."
   "I meant it when I said you did good tonight."
   I finally got the smile I'd expected. "Come on, Jason, hot water and fresh towels await." Larry held the door for Jason and gave me a little salute. Geez.
   Alone again with Jean-Claude. Would this night never end? "You never answered my question about the coffin," I said.
   "I will be alright for another night or two."
   "How did Serephina go from being your equal in power to being what we saw tonight?"
   He shook his head. "I truly do not know, ma petite. She surprised me badly. She did not have to let us go tonight. As long as she did not harm us, we could have been her guests for the day."
   "Are you surprised she let us go?" I asked.
   "Yes," he said.
   Jean-Claude pushed away from the love seat. "Take your shower, ma petite.I will await the young men's return."
   "I thought you could go next, wash the blood out of your hair."
   He put a hand up to the back of his hair. He grimaced at the feel of it. "Distasteful, but I want a bath, ma petite. It takes longer than a shower, so you go first."
   I looked at him for a long moment.
   "If you do not hurry, I will not have time for a bath before dawn. I would hate to sleep on your clean sheets covered in blood."
   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Fine; just be sure you stay out of the bathroom."
   "My word of honor that I will not barge in on you."
   "Yeah, right." Though, strangely enough, I believed him. Jean-Claude had been trying to seduce me for a long time. A frontal assault just wasn't his style. I went to take my shower.
   
   
29
   Ronnie had dragged me into Victoria's Secret. I had pointed out that no one would see my underwear or my nightclothes except other women in the gym locker room. Ronnie had replied, "You'll see them." The logic escaped me but she had talked me into a robe.
   It was burgundy, the color of wine-dark peonies. It glowed against my pale skin and matched some of the bruises blossoming on my back. Nothing like getting thrown into a wall to give you a little color. The bite mark on my back wasn't very deep. Hard for humanoid fangs to sink in from that angle. The fang marks on my wrist were deeper. They were two neat little holes, almost dainty. It didn't hurt as much as it should have. Maybe vampires did have painkillers in their saliva, or maybe it was the fangs.
   I still couldn't believe that I'd let him sink fangs into me. Shit.
   I pulled the robe closer around me. The material was heavy enough to be cozy on a winter evening, and had wide silky cuffs, and more silk lining the edges. It looked vaguely Victorian, a little masculine. I looked delicate in it, like a Victorian doll that hadn't gotten completely dressed yet. I put on an oversized black t-shirt under the robe. It ruined some of the effect, but it beat the heck out of wearing nothing but a robe and underwear out to greet the boys.
   I retrieved the Browning from the back of the stool where it had sat during my shower. I carried it with me to the bedroom, and hesitated. I always went armed. Hell, I slept with a gun, but I didn't feel like slipping on a holster. I put the Browning away and settled for slipping the Firestar into the robe pocket. Made the cloth hang funny, but if something nasty came through the door I was ready for it.
   Jean-Claude was standing at the window when I opened the bedroom door. He had opened the drapes, and was leaning against the window's edge staring out into the darkness. He turned when the door opened, though I knew he'd heard me before that.
   "Ma petite, you look lovely."
   "It's the only robe I own," I said.
   "Of course," he said. His face had that amused mask on it again; this time I would have liked to know what he was thinking. His midnight blue eyes were very intense; they didn't match the nonchalant expression. Maybe I didn't want to know what he was thinking.
   "Where are Larry and Jason?"
   "They have come and gone," he said.
   "Gone?"
   "Jason had a sudden craving, and Larry drove him in the Jeep."
   I just looked at him. "There is such a thing as room service."
   "It is the wee hours of the morning, ma petite. The room service menu is somewhat limited. Jason has donated blood twice to me tonight; he needed protein." Jean-Claude smiled. "It was either take-out, or he could eat Larry. I thought you'd prefer take-out."
   "Very funny. You shouldn't have sent them alone."
   "We are safe from Serephina tonight, ma petite, and as long as they stay in town, safe from Xavier."
   "How can you be so sure?" I crossed my arms over my stomach.
   He leaned his back against the window and looked at me. "Your Monsieur Kirkland handled himself well tonight. I think you worry unnecessarily about him."
   "One night of heroics doesn't keep you safe," I said.
   "It will be dawn soon, ma petite; even Xavier cannot bear the light of day. All the vampires will be seeking shelter. They will have no time to chase our young men."
   I stared at him, trying to read past his pleasant face. "I wish I was as sure as you seem to be."
   He smiled then, and pushed away from the wall. He slid out of his jacket and let it fall to the rose-colored carpet.
   "What are you doing?"
   "Undressing."
   I jerked a thumb at the bedroom, "Undress in there."
   He began unbuttoning his shirt.
   "In the other room, right now," I said.
   He pulled the white shirt out of his pants, working the last few buttons as he walked towards me. The flesh of his chest and stomach had more color than the shirt. He was pumped up and human-looking on blood, part of it mine. The dried bloodstains that had soaked through the shirt marred the pale perfection of his body.
   I expected him to try to kiss me, or something, but he walked past me. The back of the shirt was brownish with dried blood. He peeled it off his skin with a sound like tearing. He dropped the shirt on the carpet and walked into the bedroom.
   I stood there staring after him. There had been white scars on his back. At least I thought that's what they were. Hard to tell through all the blood. He left the bedroom door open, and in a few minutes I heard water running in the bathtub.
   I sat down in one of the straight-back chairs. I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to do. Water ran for a long time, then silence, then sloshing water. He was in the tub. He hadn't closed the bathroom door first. Great.
   "Ma petite," he called.
   I sat there for a minute, unwilling to move.
   "Ma petite, I know you are there. I can hear you breathing."
   I walked to the edge of the bedroom door, very careful not to look inside. I leaned my back against the wall and crossed my arms. "What do you want?"
   "There seem to be no clean towels."
   "What am I supposed to do about it?"
   "Could you call down to housekeeping and have some sent up?"
   "I guess so."
   "Thank you, ma petite."
   I stomped over to the phone, pissed. He'd known there were no clean towels before he got into the tub. Hell, I'd known there were no clean towels, but I'd been so busy listening to him splash around in the water I hadn't thought of it.
   I was as mad at me as I was at him. He was always a tormenting son of a bitch. I was supposed to watch myself around him better than this. I was in a hotel room that looked like a freaking bridal suite with Jean-Claude all naked and soapy in the next room. After what I'd seen with Jason, there shouldn't have been this much sexual tension in the air, but there was. Maybe it was habit, or maybe Larry was right. I just didn't believe that Jean-Claude was a rotting corpse.
   I called for more towels.
   They would be happy to bring some up. No one bitched about the time. No one questioned. You can always tell how much you're paying for a room by how little they complain.
   A maid brought me four big, soft towels. I looked at her for a full minute, hesitating. I could have her take the towels into Jean-Claude.
   She said, "Ma'am?"
   I took the towels, said thanks, and closed the door. I just couldn't let a strange woman see that I had a naked vampire in my tub. I wasn't even sure the vampire part was what made it embarrassing. Good girls do not end up with naked male anything in their bathtubs at four something in the morning. Maybe I wasn't a good girl. Maybe I never had been.
   I hesitated at the bedroom door. The room was dark. The only light came from the bathroom, spilling in an oblong across the carpet.
   I crushed the towels to my chest, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room. I could see the bathtub from here, but mercifully not all of it. I had a glimpse of white porcelain and a mound of white bubbles. Just seeing the bubble bath made the muscles in my shoulders relax a little. Bubbles can hide a multitude of sins.
   I stopped at the bathroom door.
   Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub. His black hair was wet and had obviously been cleaned. Strands of it clung to his bare shoulders. His arms lay propped on the edge of the bathtub, his head resting against the dark tile of the wall. One pale hand was suspended in midair as if reaching for something, but the hand was utterly limp. His eyes were closed, making black half-moons against his pale cheeks. Beads of water clung to his face and what I could see of his body. He looked almost asleep.
   His knee came up through the mound of bubbles, a surprising glimpse of bare wet skin. He turned his head and opened his eyes. The midnight blue of his eyes seemed darker. Maybe it was the way the water made his hair seem heavier, blacker.
   I took a shallow breath and said, "Here are the towels."
   "Could you place them here, please?" He gestured with that one half-suspended hand.
   "Here" was the closed top of the toilet, which was close enough to the tub for grabbing. "I'll, put them on the edge of the sink."
   "I'll drip water all over the floor getting them from there," he said. His voice was neutral, no vampiric tricks, almost no tone at all.
   He was right, and I was being silly. He wouldn't grab me and ravish me. If that'd been the plan, he could have done that years ago.
   I placed the towels on the stool, eyes studiously anywhere but the tub.
   "You must have questions about tonight," he said.
   I glanced at him. The water on his naked torso caught the light like quicksilver. Suds clung to his chest, just under one nipple. I had a horrible urge to brush off the bubbles. I stepped back until I was standing by the far wall.
   "It's not like you to offer answers," I said.
   "I am feeling generous tonight." His voice had that quality that voices get when they are edging towards sleep.
   "If you weren't naked in a tub of bubble bath, would you be offering to answer questions?"
   He smiled then, a quick, familiar expression. "Perhaps not, but if I must answer your ravenous curiosity, isn't it more fun this way?"
   "Fun for whom?"
   "Both of us, if you would only admit it."
   That got a smile from me, and I didn't want to smile. I didn't want to be enjoying watching him all soapy and wet. I wanted to be afraid of him, and I was, but I also wanted him. Wanted to run my hands down his wet flesh, wanted to touch what lay under those bubbles. I didn't want intercourse. I couldn't imagine that with him, but I wanted to do a little exploring. I hated that. He was a corpse; surely what I'd seen tonight convinced me of that.
   "You're frowning, ma petite; why?"
   "I asked you if the two rotting vampires were illusion, you said no. I asked if your form was real, you said yes. Both forms are real, you said."
   "That is true," he said.
   "Are you a rotting corpse?"
   He settled lower in the warm, soapy water, drawing his arms into it, until only his head showed above the surface of the water. "That is not one of my forms."
   "That isn't an answer."
   He raised a pale hand from the water, a handful of bubbles cupped like a snowball. "There are different vampiric abilities, ma petite; you know that."
   "What's that have to do with it?"
   He raised his other hand and began to play with the bubbles, trailing them from hand to hand. "Janos and his two female companions are a different type of vampire than I am. Than most of us are. They are much rarer. If you ever see me as a rotted corpse, I will be well and truly dead. They can rot and reform, and it makes them much harder to kill. The only true surety is fire."
   "Volunteering an awful lot of information, aren't you?"
   He lowered his hands in the water, washing the soap away. He sat up a little straighter; suds clung to his body. "Perhaps I am afraid you will think that what happened with Jason would happen with us."
   "We will never test that theory," I said.
   "You sound so sure of that," he said. "Your lust perfumes the air, and yet you truly believe that we will never make love. How can you want me almost as much as I want you, yet be sure we will never know each other's bodies?"
   I wasn't sure I had an answer for that one. I slid down the wall and sat with my knees drawn up to my chest. The pocket with the gun in it clunked against the wall. I moved the gun to a better position and said, "We just won't, Jean-Claude, not ever. I just can't." A part of me regretted that, but only part.
   "Why, ma petite?"
   "Sex is about trust. I'd have to trust someone implicitly to have sex with them. I don't trust you."
   He stared at me with his blue, blue eyes, looking all scrumptious and wet. "You mean that, don't you?"
   I nodded. "Yeah, I do."
   "I do not understand you, ma petite. I try, but still I do not."
   "You're pretty much a riddle to me, too. If that's any comfort."
   "It isn't. If you were a woman who had casual lusts, we would have been in bed long ago." He sighed and sat up even straighter in the water so it hit him just above the waist. "Of course, if you were a woman of casual appetites, I don't think I would love you."
   "You enjoy the chase, the challenge," I said.
   "True, but it is more than that with you, if only you would believe me." He leaned forward, drawing his knees to his naked chest, rounding his shoulders to hug himself. White scars dribbled down his back from his shoulders to vanish into the water, not a lot of them, but enough.
   "What made the scars on your back? Unless it was a holy item, you should have been able to heal them."
   He laid his cheek on his knees so he could look at me. He looked younger, more human, vulnerable suddenly. "Not if the injury occurred before I died."
   "Who whipped you?"
   "I was the whipping boy for an aristocrat's son."
   I stared at him. "You're telling me the truth, aren't you?"
   "Yes."
   "Is that why Janos chose whips tonight, to remind you where you came from?"
   "Yes."
   "You weren't born into the aristocracy?"
   "I was born in a house with a dirt floor, ma petite."
   I looked at him. "Yeah, right."
   He raised his head. "If I was going to make something up, ma petite, it would be more romantic, more entertaining than being a French peasant."
   "So you were a servant in the castle?"
   "I was their only son's constant companion. When he had clothes made, so did I. His tutor was my tutor. His riding instructor, mine. I learned swordplay and dancing and the proper way to eat at table. And when he was bad I was punished, because he was their only child, their only heir to an old family name. People speak of child abuse now." He leaned back in the tub, cuddling down into the warm water. "They complain of spanking. They have no idea what true abuse is. When I was a boy, parents thought nothing of taking a horse whip to a misbehaving child, or beating them bloody. Even the aristocrats beat their children. It was normal.
   "But he was the only heir, the only child. So they paid money to my parents and took me. The lady of the manor chose me because I was fair of face. When the vampire who made me sought me out, she said my beauty called to her."
   "Wait a minute."
   He turned his head to give me the full weight of those dark blue eyes. I worked hard at not looking away.
   "This gorgeous body and face is all vampire illusion, right? I mean, no one's this beautiful."
   "I told you once that it was not my power that made you see me as you do, not most of the time at any rate."
   "Serephina said you were a catamite for any vampire that would have you. What did she mean?"
   "Vampires kill for food, but they bring others over for many reasons. Some for money, wealth, even title, love, but I was brought over for lust. When I was young and weak, they passed me around among them. One would grow tired of me, but there was always another."
   I stared at him, horrified. "You're right. If you were going to make up a story, this wouldn't be it."
   "The truth is so often disappointing, or ugly; don't you find that, ma petite?"
   I nodded. "Yeah. Serephina was old. I thought vampires weren't supposed to age."
   "Whatever age we die at is the age we remain."
   "Did you know Serephina when you were young?"
   "Yes."
   "Did you sleep with her?"
   "Yes."
   "How could you let her touch you?"
   "I was given to her as a gift by a master that makes even her new and improved powers seem weak. I had very little choice." He stared at me. "She knows what you want. Your greatest need, your most treasured wish, and she'll make it come true, or seem to. What did she offer you, ma petite? What could she offer you that nearly won you tonight?"
   I looked away then; I didn't want to meet his eyes. "What did she offer you all those years ago?"
   "Power."
   I looked up at that. "Power?"
   He nodded. "Power to escape them all."
   "But you had to have the ability to be a master vampire inside you from the beginning. No one can give that to you," I said.
   He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "I know that now, but then I thought only she could save me from an eternity of . . ." His words trailed off and he submerged, leaving only a few black locks floating on the top of the water. He sat up with a loud breath of air, blinking the water from his eyes. The water had clumped his thick, dark eyelashes. He ran his hands through his wet hair, and it trailed over his shoulders.
   "Your hair wasn't this long when we first met."
   "You seem to prefer longer hair on your men."
   "If you're dead, how can your hair grow?"
   "That is a question for you to answer," he said. He ran his hands through his hair again, squeezing the ends out. He reached out a hand for a towel.
   I scrambled to my feet. "I'll leave you to get dressed."
   "Have Jason and Larry returned?" he asked.
   "No."
   "Then I won't be getting dressed." He stood, drawing the towel towards him. I had a glimpse of one side of his pale naked body, water streaming from it. The towel moved into view just in time. I fled.
   
   

30
   I huddled in the straight-back chair farthest from the bedroom. But I was staring at the doorway. Shit. I wanted to run from the room, but why? It wasn't Jean-Claude I didn't trust. It was me. Fuck.
   I touched the gun in my robe pocket. It was smooth and hard and reassuring, but it wouldn't help me now. Violence I understood; sex gave me more problems.
   I honestly didn't want to sleep with him, but part of me was hoping for another glimpse of naked flesh. A long line of naked thigh, perhaps. Or maybe . . . I put the palms of my hands over my eyes, as if I could get the image out of my head by just pressing.
   "Ma petite?" His voice sounded closer than the bathroom.
   I didn't want to look, as if, just as Grandma Blake had said, I'd be struck blind. I felt him standing in front of me. Felt the movement of air. I lowered my hands a millimeter at a time. He was kneeling in front of me, one of the thick white towels wrapped around his waist.
   I lowered my hands to my lap. Beads of water still clung to his skin. He'd combed his hair, but it was wet, slicked back, leaving his face plainer, more unadorned than normal. His eyes seemed bluer without his hair to frame them.
   He put a hand on each chair arm and raised himself up. His lips brushed mine in a soft, nearly chaste kiss. He moved back from me, letting go of the chair.
   I could taste my heart in my throat, and it wasn't fear.
   Jean-Claude touched my hands, lifted them up. He placed my hands on his bare shoulders. The skin was warm, smooth, wet. He held my wrists in his hands, lightly, very lightly. I could have pulled away at any time. He ran my hands down his slick body.
   I pulled my hands free. He said nothing, did nothing. He stayed kneeling, looking at me. Waiting. I could see the pulse in his neck jumping against the skin, and I wanted to touch it.
   I slid my hands across his shoulders and lowered my face to his. He started to move into me for a kiss, but I slid my hand along his jaw and turned his head away. I touched lips to his neck and slid my mouth down his skin, until I could taste his pulse beating against my tongue. He tasted of perfumed soap, water, and clean skin.
   I slid from the chair to the floor, kneeling in front of him. He was taller now, but not too tall. I licked water off his chest, and let myself do something I'd wanted to do for months. I ran my tongue over his nipple, and he shuddered against me.
   I licked water off the center of his chest and ran my hands along his waist up the damp curve of his back.
   He pulled the sash of my robe, and I didn't protest. I let his hands slide under the robe, around my waist, with nothing but the t-shirt between his flesh and mine. He ran his hands up my sides, his thumbs playing over my rib cage. The gun swung heavily in the loose cloth. It was annoying.
   I raised my face to his. His arms slid behind my back, pressing me against the long wet line of his body. The towel was perilously loose.
   His lips brushed mine; then the kiss became something more. Harder, nearly bruising, with his arms locked behind my shoulders. My hands slid down his waist, rubbed the sliding top of the towel, and found it had already slipped. My hand touched the smooth top of his buttocks. Only the pressure of our bodies kept the towel in place.
   He ate at my mouth and I felt something sharp, painful. I jerked back and tasted blood.
   Jean-Claude let me go. He sat back on his heels, the towel gathered in his lap. "I am sorry, ma petite. I got carried away."
   I touched my mouth and came away with a spot of blood. "You nicked me."
   He nodded. "I am truly sorry."
   "I'll just bet you are," I said.
   "Do not go all self-righteous on me, ma petite. You have finally admitted to yourself, to me, that you feel the pull of my body."
   I sat on the floor by the chair with my robe in disarray. The t-shirt had ridden up to my waist. I guess it was a little too late to protest my innocence.
   "Fine, lust; you happy?"
   "Almost," he said, and now there was something in his eyes. Something dark and drowning, and older than it should have been.
   "I can offer you my mortal body, and more, ma petite. It can be between us much more than any human lover could offer."
   "Would I lose a little blood each time?"
   "That was an accident," he said.
   I stared at him, all pale and damp, kneeling on the floor with the white towel bundled into his lap, leaving nearly every inch of him bare.
   "This is the first time I've cheated on Richard," I said.
   "You have been dating me for weeks," he said.
   I shook my head. "But I haven't been cheating. Thisis cheating."
   "Then have you been cheating on me, with Richard?"
   I didn't know what to say to that. "Go get dressed."
   "Do you really want me to dress?" he asked.
   I looked away. I was embarrassed now and uncomfortable. "Yes, please."
   He stood up, the towel gripped in his hands. I looked down at the floor and didn't have to see his face to picture the smile on it.
   He walked away from me, and didn't bother moving the towel around behind him. Muscles moved under his skin from calf to waist. He walked naked into the bedroom, and I enjoyed the view.
   I touched my finger to my tongue. It was still bleeding. That's what I got for French kissing a vampire. Even thinking about it made me nervous.
   "Ma petite?" he called from the other room.
   "Yeah."
   "Do you have a blow dryer?"
   "In my suitcase. Help yourself."
   Thankfully, I'd dragged my suitcase into the bedroom beside the bathroom door. One point for laziness. I was spared another glimpse of his naked body. Now that hormones were receding, I was embarrassed.
   I heard the dryer and wondered if he was standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror while he dried his hair. I was very aware that all I had to do was go to the doorway and I could see for myself.
   I stood up, pulled my t-shirt down, tied my robe securely in place, and sat down on the couch. My back was to the bedroom. I wouldn't be seeing anything else. I took the Firestar out of my pocket and laid it on the coffee table in front of me. The gun sat there looking very solid, very black, and somehow accusatory.
   The dryer stopped, and he called to me again. "Ma petite?"
   "What?"
   "Come talk to me as the sun rises."
   I glanced up at the window he had opened. The sky outside was less black, not light yet, but not pure darkness anymore. I closed the drapes and went to the bedroom. I left the gun on the table. The Browning was in the bedroom anyway.
   Jean-Claude had neatly folded the bedspread and blanket at the foot of the bed. Only the wine-dark sheet covered him. He lay with his black hair soft and curling over the dark pillows. The sheet was bunched at his waist. "You can join me if you like."
   I leaned against the wall and shook my head.
   "I'm not offering sex, ma petite; dawn is too close for that. I offer you your half of the bed."
   "I'll take the couch; thanks anyway."
   He smiled, a slow knowing curve of lips—his old arrogance peeking back out. It was almost comforting to know nothing had really changed. "It is not me that you do not trust. It is you."
   I shrugged.
   He raised the sheet in front of his chest, an almost protective gesture. "It comes." Fear in his voice.
   "What comes?"
   "The sun."
   I glanced at the closed drapes against the far wall. They were double thick, but a line of greyish light edged them. "You'll be alright like this without your coffin?"
   "As long as no one opens the drapes." He looked at me for a long moment. "I love you, ma petite, as much as I'm able."
   I didn't know what to say. Saying I lusted after him didn't seem appropriate. Saying I loved him would be a lie.
   The light grew stronger, a white edge around the curtains. His body slumped back against the bed. He rolled onto his side, one hand outstretched, the other curling the sheets against his chest. He stared at the growing light, and I could taste his fear.
   I knelt beside the bed. I almost took his hand but didn't. "What happens now?"
   "You want the truth, then watch." I expected his eyes to flutter, his voice to grow sluggish as if he were falling asleep. It didn't happen that way. He closed his eyes all at once. Pain flashed across his face. He whispered, "It hurts." His face went slack. I'd seen people die, watched the light fade from their bodies. Felt their souls slip away. That was what I saw. He died. The light grew against the drapes, and when it was a solid white line, he died. His breath went out of him in a long rattle.
   I knelt beside the bed and stared. I knew dead when I saw it, and this was it. Shit.
   I put my arms on the bed and propped my chin on them. I watched him, waiting for him to breathe, to twitch, something. But there was nothing. I reached out to his one outstretched arm. My fingers hovered above his skin, then I touched him. The skin was still warm, still human, but he did not move. I checked his wrist, and there was no pulse. No blood moved in this body.
   Did he know I was here? Did he feel me touching him? I stared at him for what seemed like a long time. So this answered the question. Vampires were dead. Whatever animated them was like my own power, some sort of necromancy. But I knew death when I saw it. It gave necrophilia a whole new slant.
   Had I only imagined that I felt the brush of his soul leave his body? Surely vampires had no souls—that was part of the point—but I'd felt something leave. If not a soul, what? If a soul, where did it go for the daylight hours? Who watched all the vampires' souls while they lay dead?
   There was a knock at the door, probably the other boys. I stood up, pulling my robe in tight. I was cold, and wasn't sure why. I went to answer the door. The cut on my tongue had almost stopped bleeding.
   
   
31
   I dreamed. In the dream, someone held me in their lap. Smooth dark arms wrapped around me. I looked up into my mother's laughing face. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. I snuggled against her body, and the clean smell of her skin was there. She'd always smelled of Hypnotique bath powder. She bent and kissed me on the lips. I had forgotten the taste of her lipstick, the way she brushed my mouth with her thumb, and laughed because she'd gotten bright red lipstick on my small mouth.
   Her thumb came away with something brighter than lipstick. Blood dripped down her thumb. She'd pricked her skin with a safety pin. It was bleeding. She held her thumb out to me and said, "Kiss it, Anita, make it all better."
   But there was too much blood. It ran down her hand. I stared up at her laughing face, and blood ran down it like rain. I woke sitting bolt upright on the velvet couch, gasping for breath. I could still taste her lipstick on my mouth, and the smell of Hypnotique bath powder clung to me.
   Larry sat up on the love seat, rubbing at his eyes. "What's wrong? Did we get our wake-up call?"
   "No, I had a bad dream."
   He nodded, stretching, then frowned. "Do you smell perfume?"
   I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
   "Perfume or powder or something; do you smell it?"
   I swallowed and nearly choked on my own pulse. "Yeah. I smell it."
   I flung back the extra blanket and threw the lumpy pillow across the room.
   Larry swung his legs off the love seat. "What is wrong with you?"
   I went to the window and flung the drapes open. The bedroom door was closed, and Jean-Claude was safely inside. Jason was sleeping in there. I stood in the sunlight and let the heat sink into me. I leaned against the warm glass, and only then realized that I was wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and my undies. Oh, well. I stayed in the sunlight for a few minutes, waiting for my pulse to calm down.
   "Serephina sent me a dream. The smell is my mother's perfume."
   Larry came to stand beside me. He was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a green t-shirt. His curly red hair stuck up in all directions. His blue eyes squinted when he stepped into the light. "I thought only a vampire that had a connection with you, a hold on you, could invade your dreams."
   "That's what I thought," I said.
   "How could I smell perfume from your dream?"
   I shook my head, forehead against the glass. "I don't know."
   "Has she marked you?"
   "I don't know."
   He touched my shoulder, squeezing. "It'll be alright."
   I stepped away from him to pace the room. "It won't be alright, Larry. Serephina invaded my dreams. No one but Jean-Claude has ever done that." I stopped, because that wasn't true. Nikolaos had done it. But that was after she'd bitten me. I shook my head. Either way, it was a very bad sign.
   "What are you going to do?"
   "Kill her."
   "Murder her, you mean."
   If Larry's earnest eyes hadn't been staring at me, I'd have said, "You bet." But it's hard to contemplate murder with someone staring at you like you've kicked their favorite puppy.
   "I'll try to get a warrant," I said.
   "If you can't?"
   "If it's her or me, Larry, then it's her. Okay?"
   Larry looked at me sadly. "What I did last night was murder. I know that, but I didn't go in planning to kill someone."
   "You stay in this business long enough and you will."
   He shook his head. "I don't believe that."
   "Believe what you want, but it's still the truth. These things are too dangerous to play fair."
   "If you really believe that, then how can you date Jean-Claude? How can you let him touch you?"
   I shook my head. "I never said I was consistent."
   "You can't defend yourself, can you?"
   "Defend which one? Killing Serephina or dating Jean-Claude?"
   "Either, both. Hell, Anita, if you're one of the bad guys you can't be one of the good guys."
   I opened my mouth and closed it. What could I say? "I am one of the good guys, Larry. But I'm not going to be a martyr. If that means breaking the law, so be it."
   "Are you going to get a warrant?" His face was very neutral as he asked. He looked older suddenly. Even with his orangey curls sticking up, he looked solemn.
   I was watching Larry grow older before my eyes. Not in age, but in experience. The expression in his eyes was older than it had been a few months ago. Seen too much, done too much. He was still trying to be Sir Galahad, but Galahad had had God on his side. All Larry had was me. It wasn't enough.
   "The only way I could get a death warrant is to lie," I said.
   "I know," he said.
   I stared at him. "Serephina hasn't broken any laws, yet. I won't lie about that."
   He smiled. "Good. When do we meet Dorcas Bouvier?"
   "Three."
   "Have you figured out what you can sacrifice to raise the zombies Stirling wants done?" he asked.
   "Nope."
   He stared at me. "What are you going to tell Stirling?"
   I shook my head. "I don't know yet. I wish I knew why he's so hot and heavy to kill Bouvier."
   "He wants the land," Larry said.
   "Stirling and Company have been saying the Bouvier family, not Magnus Bouvier. That means he's not the only one suing them. So killing Magnus won't solve their problems."
   "So why do it?" Larry asked.
   "Exactly," I said.
   Larry nodded. "We need to talk to Magnus again."
   "Preferably without Serephina around," I said.
   "Amen to that," Larry said.
   "I'd love to talk to Magnus, but before we tackle Mr. Bouvier again, I'd like to find some fairie ointment."
   "Some what?"
   "Didn't you take any classes on fairies?"
   "It was an elective," he said.
   "Fairie ointment makes you proof against glamor. Just in case whatever else Magnus is hiding is nastier than Serephina."
   "Nothing's nastier than that," he said.
   "True, but just in case, he won't be able to work magic on us. In fact, it's not a bad precaution before we meet Dorrie. She may not be as scary as Magnus, but she shines, and I'd just as soon she didn't shine all over us."
   "You think Serephina will find Jeff Quinlan?"
   "If anyone can, she can. She seemed pretty confident she could take Xavier, but then Jean-Claude had been pretty confident he could take her last night. He was wrong."
   He frowned. "So we're rooting for Serephina?"
   It sounded wrong, put that way, but I nodded. "If it's a choice between a vampire that obeys most of the laws, and one that slaughters kids, yeah, we're on her side."
   "You were talking about killing her just a little bit ago."
   "I can stay out of her way until she saves Jeff, and kills Xavier."
   "Why would she kill him?" Larry asked.
   "He's killing people in her territory. She can say anything she wants, but that's a direct challenge to her authority. Besides, I don't think Xavier will give up Jeff without a fight."
   "What do you think happened to him last night?" Larry asked.
   I shook my head. "It doesn't do any good to dwell on it, Larry. We're doing all we can."
   "We could tell the FBI about Serephina."
   "One thing I've learned is that master vamps don't talk to the cops. Too many years of the cops killing them on sight, or trying to."
   "Okay," he said, "but we've still got to come up with something big enough to kill for raising the cemetery tonight," he said.
   "I'll think on it."
   "You really have no idea what to do?" He sounded surprised.
   "Short of a human sacrifice, Larry, I don't think I can raise several three-hundred-year-old corpses. Even I've got my limits."
   He grinned. "Nice to hear you admit it."
   I had to smile. "It'll be our little secret."
   He put his hand out, and I slapped it. He slapped mine back, and I felt better. Larry had a way of making me smile. Friends will do that to you.
   
   

32
   Dorcas Bouvier was leaning on a car in the parking lot. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight, swirling as she moved, like heavy water. In jeans and a green tank top, she was flawless.
   Larry tried not to stare at her, but it was hard work. Larry was wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans, white Nikes, and an oversized checked flannel shirt to hide his shoulder holster.
   I was in jeans and a navy blue polo shirt, black Nikes, and an oversized blue dress shirt. I'd had to borrow it from Larry after my black jacket had gotten covered in vampire goop. Had to have something to hide the Browning. Makes people nervous if you go around with a naked gun. Larry and I looked like we'd dressed from the same closet.
   Dorrie pushed away from the car. "Shall we go?"
   "We'd like to talk to Magnus."
   "So you can turn him in to the cops?"
   I shook my head. "So we can find out why Stirling is so hot to kill him."
   "I don't know where he is," Dorcas said.
   Maybe it showed on my face, because she said, "I don't know where he is, but if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Using magic on the police is a death penalty case. I won't turn him in."
   "I'm not the police."
   She looked at me, eyes narrowing. "Did you come to look at Bloody Bones, or to question me about my brother?"
   "How did you know to be waiting here for us?" I asked.
   "I knew you'd be on time." Her pupils swirled downward to pinpoints, like the eyes of an excited parrot.
   "Let's go," I said.
   She led us to the back of the restaurant where it nearly touched the woods. A path began at the edge of the clearing. It was barely wide enough for a man. Even though we walked single file, the branches whipped at my shoulders. The new green leaves rubbed like velvet along my cheek. The path was deep and rutted down to naked tree roots in places, but weeds were beginning to encroach on the path, as if it wasn't used as much as it once had been.
   Dorrie moved down the uneven path with an easy, swinging stride. She was obviously familiar with the path, but it was more than that. The tree limbs that caught on my shirt didn't get caught in her hair. The roots that threatened to trip me didn't slow her down.
   We'd found ointment at a health food store. So the bushes moving for her and not for us was real, not illusion. Maybe glamor wasn't the only thing to worry about. Which was why the Browning was loaded with nonsilver bullets. I'd had to go out and buy some special for the occasion. Larry was loaded up too, and for the first time I wished he had two guns. I still had the Firestar with silver ammo, but Larry was out of luck if a vamp jumped us. Of course, it was broad daylight. I was more worried about fairies than vamps right this minute. There was salt in our shirt pockets, not a lot, but you didn't need much, just enough to throw on the fey or the thing being magicked. Salt disrupted fey magic. Temporarily.
   A breeze came up the path. It grew into a wind in one fitful gust. The air smelled clean and fresh. You hoped the beginning of time smelled like that; like fresh bread, clean laundry, childhood memories of spring. It probably smelled like ozone and swamp water. Reality almost always smells worse than daydream.
   Dorrie stopped and turned back to us. "The trees across the path are just illusion. They're not solid."
   "What trees?" Larry asked. I cursed silently. It would have been nice to keep the ointment a secret.
   Dorrie took two steps back towards us. She stared at my face from inches away, then made a face like she'd seen something unclean. "You're wearing ointment." She made it sound like a very bad thing.
   "Magnus did try to bedazzle us twice. Nothing wrong with being cautious," I said.
   "Well, our illusions won't matter to you, then." She took off at a faster pace, leaving us to stumble after her.
   The path led into a clearing that was nearly a perfect circle. There was a small mound in the center with a white stone Celtic cross in the middle of a mass of vibrant blue flowers. Every inch of ground was covered with bluebells. English bluebells, thick and fleshy, bluer than the sky. The flowers never grew in this country without help. They never grew in Missouri without more water than was practical. But standing in the solid mass of blue surrounded by trees, it seemed worth it.
   Dorrie stood frozen nearly knee-deep in the flowers. She was staring open-mouthed, a look of horror on her lovely face.
   Magnus Bouvier knelt in the flowers on top of the mound, near the cross. His mouth was bright with fresh blood. Something moved around him, in front of him. Something more felt than seen. If it was illusion, the ointment should have taken care of it. I tried looking at it out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes peripheral vision works better on magic than straight-on sight.
   From the corner of my eye I could see the air swimming in something that was almost a shape. It was bigger than a man.
   Magnus turned and saw us. He stood up abruptly, and the swimming air blinked out like it had never been. He wiped a sleeve across his mouth.
   "Dorrie . . ." His voice was soft and strangled.
   Dorrie clawed her way up the hill. She screamed, "Blasphemy!" and smacked him. I could hear the slap all the way across the clearing.
   "Ouch," Larry said. "Why is she mad?"
   She hit him again, hard enough to sit him down on his butt in the flowers. "How could you? How could you do such a vile thing?"
   "What did he do?" Larry asked.
   "He's been feeding off Rawhead and Bloody Bones just like his ancestor," I said.
   Dorrie turned to me. She looked haggard, horrified, as if she had caught her brother molesting children. "It was forbidden to feed." She turned back to Magnus. "You knew that!"
   "I wanted the power, Dorrie. What harm did it do?"
   "What harm? What harm?" She grabbed a handful of his long hair and pulled him to his knees. She exposed the bite marks on his neck. "This is why that creature can call you. This is why one of the Daoine Sidhe, even a half-breed like you, is called by death." She let go so abruptly he fell forward on his hands and knees.
   Dorrie sat down in the flowers and cried.
   I waded into the flowers. They parted like water, but they didn't move. They were just never exactly where you were stepping.
   "Jesus, are they moving out of the way?" Larry asked.
   "Not exactly," Magnus said. He walked down the mound to stand at its base. He was wearing the white tuxedo from last night, or what was left of it. The smear of blood on his shirtsleeve was very bright against the whiteness.
   We waded through the flowers that were moving and not moving, to join him in front of the mound.
   He'd shoved his hair back behind his ears so his face was visible. And no, his ears weren't pointed. Where do these rumors get started?
   He met my eyes without flinching. If he was ashamed of what he'd done, it didn't show. Dorrie was still weeping in the bluebells like her heart would break.
   "So now you know," he said.
   "You can't bleed a fairie, in the flesh or not in the flesh, without ritual magic. I've read the spell, Magnus. It's a doozy," I said.
   He smiled at that, and the smile was still lovely, but the blood at the corner of his mouth ruined the effect. "I had to tie myself to the beastie. I had to give him some of my mortality in order to get his blood."
   "The spell isn't meant to help you gather blood," I said. "It's to help the fairies kill each other."
   "If it got some of your mortality, did you get some of its immortality?" Larry asked. It was a good question.
   "Yes," Magnus said, "but that wasn't why I did it."
   "You did it for power, you son of a bitch," Dorrie said. She came down the mound, sliding in the strange flowers. "You just had to do real glamor, real magic. My God, Magnus, you must have been drinking its blood for years, ever since you were a teenager. That's when your powers suddenly got so strong. We all thought it was puberty."
   "Afraid not, sister dear."
   She spit at him. "Our family was cursed, tied to this land forever in repentance for doing what you have done. Bloody Bones broke free last time someone tried to drink from his veins."
   "It's been safely imprisoned for ten years, Dorrie."
   "How do you know? How do you know that nebulous thing you called up hasn't been out scaring children?"
   "As long as it doesn't hurt any of them, what's the harm?"
   "Wait a minute," said Larry. "Why would it scare children?"
   "I told you, it's a nursery boggle. It was supposed to eat bad children," I said. I had an idea, an awful idea. I'd seen a vampire use a sword, but was I absolutely sure of what I'd seen? No. "When the thing got out and started slaughtering the Indian tribe, did it use a weapon, or its hands?"
   Dorrie looked at me. "I don't know. Does it matter?"
   Larry said, "Oh, my God."
   "It might matter a great deal," I said.
   "You can't mean those killings," Magnus said. "Bloody Bones cannot manifest itself physically. I've seen to that."
   "Are you sure, brother dear? Are you absolutely sure?" Dorrie's voice cut and sliced; she wielded scorn like a weapon.
   "Yes, I'm sure."
   "We'll have to have a witch look at this. I don't know enough about it," I said.
   Dorrie nodded. "I understand. The sooner the better."
   "Rawhead and Bloody Bones did not do those killings," Magnus said.
   "For your sake, Magnus, I hope not," I said.
   "What do you mean?"
   "Because five people have died. Five people who didn't do a damn thing to deserve it."
   "It's imprisoned by a combination of Indian, Christian, and fairie power," he said. "It's not breaking free of that."
   I walked around the mound slowly. The fleshy flowers still moved out of the way. I'd tried watching my feet, but it was dizzying, because the flowers moved yet didn't, like trying to watch one of them bloom. You knew it did, but you could never watch the actual event.
   I ignored the flowers and concentrated on the mound. I wasn't trying to sense the dead, so daylight was fine. There was magic here, lots of it. I'd never felt fairie magic before. There was something here that had a familiar taste to it, and it wasn't the Christianity. "Some kind of death magic went into this," I said. I walked around the mound until I could see Magnus's face. "A little human sacrifice, perhaps?"
   "Not exactly," Magnus said.
   "We would never condone human sacrifice," Dorrie said.
   Maybe she wouldn't, but I wasn't so sure about Magnus. I didn't say it out loud. Dorrie was upset enough already.
   "If it's not sacrifice, then what is it?"
   "Three hills are buried with our dead. Each death is like a stake to hold old Bloody Bones down," Magnus said.
   "How did you lose track of which hills belonged to you?" I asked.
   "It's been over three hundred years," Magnus said. "There were no deeds back then. I wasn't a hundred percent sure the hill was the right hill myself. But when they raked up the dead, I felt it." He huddled in on himself as if the air had suddenly grown colder. "You can't raise the dead from that hillside. If you do it, then Bloody Bones will be loosed. The magic to stop it is complicated. Truthfully, I'm not sure I'm up to it myself. And I don't know any Indian shamans anymore."
   "You have made a mockery of everything we stand for," Dorrie said.
   "What did Serephina offer you?" I asked.
   He looked at me, surprised. "What are you talking about?"
   "She offers everyone their heart's desire. What was yours, Magnus?"
   "Freedom and power. She said she'd find another guardian for Rawhead and Bloody Bones. She said she'd find a way for me to keep the power I'd borrowed from it without having to tend it."
   "And you believed her?"
   He shook his head. "I'm the only person in the family who has the power. We are the guardians forever as penance for stealing it, for letting it kill." He collapsed to his knees in the blue, blue flowers, his head bowed, hair spilling forward to hide his face. "I'll never be free."
   "You don't deserve to be free," Dorrie said.
   "Why did Serephina want you so badly?" I asked.
   "She's afraid of death. She says drinking from something as long-lived as I am helps her keep death at bay."
   "She's a vampire," Larry protested.
   "But not immortal," I said.
   Magnus looked up, strange aquamarine eyes glimmering out through his shining hair. Maybe it was the hair, or the eyes, or his being nearly covered in the strange moving, not moving flowers, but he didn't look very human.
   "She fears death," he said. "She fears you." His voice was low and echoing.
   "She nearly cleaned my clock last night. Why's she afraid of me?"
   "You brought death among us last night."
   "It can't be the first time," I said.
   "She came to me for my long life, my immortal blood. Perhaps she will go to you next. Perhaps instead of running from death, she will embrace it."
   The skin on my arms twitched, marching in gooseflesh up to my elbows. "She tell you that last night?"
   "There is a power involved, hurting her old enemy Jean-Claude, but in the end, Anita, she wonders if your power would make the difference. If she drank you up, would she be immortal? Would you be able to keep death from her with your necromancy?"
   "You could leave town," Larry said. I wasn't sure which of us he was speaking to.
   I shook my head. "Master vampires don't give up that easy. I'll tell Stirling that I won't be raising his dead, Magnus. No one else can do it but me, so it won't get done."
   "But they won't give back the land," Magnus said in his strange voice. "If they simply blow up the mountain, the result might be the same."
   "Is that true, Dorrie?"
   She nodded. "It could be."
   "What do you want me to do?" I asked.
   Magnus crawled through the flowers, peering at me through the shining curtain of his hair. His eyes were swirling bands of green and blue, whirling until I was dizzy. I looked away.
   "Raise a handful of the dead. Can you do that?" he asked.
   "No sweat," I said. "But will everybody's lawyers agree to that?"
   "I'll see that they do," he said.
   "Dorrie?" I asked.
   She nodded. "I'll see to it."
   I stared at Magnus for a moment. "Will Serephina really rescue the boy?"
   "Yes," he said.
   I stared down at him. "Then I'll see you tonight."
   "No, I'll be well and truly drunk again. It's not foolproof, but it helps drown her out."
   "Fine; I'll raise you a handful of dead. Keep your land safe."
   "You have our gratitude," Magnus said. He looked feral, frightening, beautiful crouched in the flowers. His gratitude might be worth something if Serephina didn't kill him first.
   Hell, if she didn't kill me first.
   
   
33
   I called Special Agent Bradford late in the day. They hadn't found Xavier. They hadn't found Jeff. They hadn't found any vampires that I needed to kill, and why the hell was I calling him? I was not on this case, remember? I remembered. And yes, the two youngest victims had been sexually assaulted, but not the same day they were killed. I probably should have brought Magnus in, but he was the only one who understood the spells on Bloody Bones. He wouldn't be any good to us locked up. Dorrie knew a local witch she trusted. I'd thought that maybe Bloody Bones was our killer. I'd never seen a vampire hide itself so completely from me as the one that killed Coltrain. I'd added it to my list of suspects, but hadn't told the cops. Now I was glad I hadn't. The sexual assault had Xavier written all over it. Besides, explaining that a nursery boggle from Scotland was committing murders on the ethereal plane sounded far-fetched even to me.
   The sky was thick with clouds that glowed like jewels. They shimmered and stretched across the sky like a gigantic gleaming blanket that some great beast had shredded with massive claws. Through the holes in the clouds, the sky peeked through black with a few diamond-chip stars bright enough to compete with the gleaming sky.
   I stood on the hilltop staring up at the sky, breathing in the cool spring air. Larry stood beside me, looking up. His eyes reflected the glowing light.
   "Get on with it," Stirling said.
   I turned and looked at him. Him, Bayard, and Ms. Harrison. Beau had been with them, but I'd made him wait at the bottom of the mountain. I'd even told him if he so much as showed his face up top, I'd put a bullet in it. I wasn't sure Stirling believed me, but Beau had.
   "Not an appreciator of nature's beauty, are you, Raymond?"
   Even by moonlight I could see his scowl. "I want this over with, Ms. Blake. Now, tonight."
   Strangely enough, I agreed with him. It made me nervous. I didn't like Raymond. It made me want to argue with him, regardless of whether I agreed. But I didn't argue. Point for me.
   "I'll get it done tonight, Raymond; don't sweat it."
   "Please stop calling me by my first name, Ms. Blake." He made the request through clenched teeth, but he had said "please."
   "Fine. It'll be done tonight, Mr. Stirling. Okay?"
   He nodded. "Thank you; now get on with it."
   I opened my mouth to say something smart, but Larry said very softly, "Anita."
   He was right, as usual. As much fun as it was to yank Stirling's chain, it was just delaying the inevitable. I was tired of Stirling, of Magnus, and of everything. It was time to do this job and go home. Well, maybe not straight home. I wouldn't leave without Jeff Quinlan, one way or another.
   The goat gave a high, questioning bleat. It was staked out in the middle of the boneyard. It was a brown-and-white-spotted goat with those strange yellow eyes they sometimes have. It had floppy white ears and seemed to like having the top of its head scratched. Larry had petted it in the Jeep on the drive over. Always a bad idea. Never get friendly with the sacrifices. Makes it hard to kill them.
   I had not petted the goat. I knew better. This was Larry's first goat. He'd learn. Hard or easy, he'd learn. There were two more goats at the bottom of the hill. One of them was even smaller and cuter than this one.
   "Shouldn't we have the Bouviers' lawyers present, Mr. Stirling?" Bayard said.
   "The Bouviers waived having their attorney present," I said.
   "Why would they do that?" Stirling asked.
   "They trust me not to lie to them," I said.
   Stirling looked at me for a long moment. I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but I could feel the wheels inside his head moving.
   "You're going to lie for them, aren't you?" he said. His voice was cold, repressed, too angry for heat.
   "I don't lie about the dead, Mr. Stirling. Sometimes about the living, but never about the dead. Besides, Bouvier didn't offer me a bribe. Why should I help him if he doesn't throw money at me?"
   Larry didn't call me on that one. He was looking at Stirling, too. Wondering what he'd say, maybe.
   "You've made your point, Ms. Blake. Can we get on with it now?" He sounded reasonable, ordinary suddenly. All that anger, all that mistrust, had had to go somewhere. But it wasn't in his voice.
   "Fine." I knelt and opened the gym bag at my feet. It held my animating equipment. I had another one that held vampire gear. I used to just transfer whatever I wanted into the bag. I bought a second bag after I showed up once at a zombie raising with the wrong bag. It was also illegal to carry vampire slaying stuff if you didn't have a warrant of execution on you. Brewster's law might change that, but until then . . . I had two bags. The zombie was my normal burgundy one; the vampire bag was white. Even in the dark, it was easy to tell them apart. That was the plan.
   Larry's zombie bag was a nearly virulent green with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it. I was almost afraid to ask what his vampire bag looked like.
   "Let me test my understanding here," Larry said. My words fed back to me. He knelt and unzipped his bag.
   "Go ahead, " I said. I got out my jar of ointment. I knew animators who had special containers for the ointment. Crockery, hand-blown glass, mystical symbols carved into the sides. I used an old Mason jar that had once held Grandma Blake's green beans.
   Larry fished out a peanut butter jar with the label still on it. Extra-crunchy. Yum-yum.
   "We have to raise a minimum of three zombies, right?"
   "Right," I said.
   He stared around at the scattered bones. "A mass grave is hard to raise from, right?"
   "This isn't a mass grave. It's an old cemetery that was disturbed. That's easier than a mass grave."
   "Why?" he asked.
   I laid the machete down beside the jar of ointment. "Because each grave had rites performed that would tie the dead individual to the grave, so that if you call it you have a better chance of getting an individual to answer."
   "Answer?"
   "Rise from the dead."
   He nodded. He laid a wicked curved blade on the ground. It looked like a freaking scimitar.
   "Where did you get that?"
   He dipped his head, and I would have bet he was blushing. Just couldn't see it by moonlight.
   "Guy at college."
   "Where'd he get it?"
   Larry looked at me, surprise plain on his face. "I don't know. Is something wrong with it?"
   I shook my head. "Just a little fancy for beheading chickens and slitting a few goats open."
   "It felt good in my hand." He shrugged. "Besides, it looks cool." He grinned at me.
   I shook my head, but I let it go. Did I really need a machete to behead a few chickens, no, but the occasional cow, yeah.
   Why, you may ask, didn't we have a cow tonight? No one would sell Bayard one. He had the brilliant idea of telling the farmers why he wanted the cow. The God-fearing folk would sell their cows to be eaten, but not for raising zombies. Prejudiced bastards.
   "The youngest of the dead here are two hundred years old, right?" Larry asked.
   "Right," I said.
   "We're going to raise a minimum of three of these corpses in good enough condition for them to answer questions."
   "That's the plan," I said.
   "Can we do that?"
   I smiled at him. "That's the plan."
   His eyes widened. "Damn, you don't know if we can do it either, do you?" His voice had dropped to an amazed whisper.
   "We raise three zombies a night every night routinely. We're just doing them back to back."
   "We don't raise two-hundred-year-old zombies routinely."
   "True, but the theory's the same."
   "Theory?" He shook his head. "I know we're in trouble when you start talking about theories. Can we do this?"
   The honest answer was no, but the thing that dictated more than anything else what you could raise and what you couldn't was confidence. Believing you could do it. So . . . I was tempted to lie. But I didn't. Truth between Larry and me.
   "I think we can do it."
   "But you don't know for sure," he said.
   "No."
   "Geez, Anita."
   "Don't get rattled on me. We can do this."
   "But you aren't sure."
   "I'm not sure we'll survive the plane ride home, but I'm still getting on the plane."
   "Was that supposed to be comforting?" he asked.
   "Yeah."
   "It wasn't," he said.
   "Sorry, but this is as good as it gets. You want certainty, be an accountant."
   "I'm not good at math."
   "Me either."
   He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Alright, boss, how do we combine powers?"
   I told him.
   "Neat." He didn't look nervous anymore. He looked eager. Larry may have wanted to be a vampire executioner, but he was an animator. It wasn't a career choice, it was a gift, or a curse. No one could teach you to raise the dead unless you had the power in your blood. Genetics is a wonderful thing: brown eyes, curly hair, zombie raising.
   "Whose ointment you want to use?" Larry asked.
   "Mine." I'd given Larry the recipe for the ointment and told him which ingredients you couldn't mess with, like the graveyard mold, but there was room for experimentation. Every animator had their own special recipe. You never knew what Larry's ointment would smell like. For sharing powers you used the same ointment, so we were using mine.
   For all I knew, we didn't have to use the same ointment, but I'd only shared my powers three times. Twice with the man who trained me as an animator. Each time we'd used the same ointment. I had acted as a focus all three times. Which meant I was in charge. Where I liked to be, right?
   "Could I act as a focus?" Larry asked. "Not this time, but later?"
   "If this comes up again, we'll try it," I said. Truth was, I didn't know if Larry had the power to be a focus. Manny, who taught me, couldn't do it. Very few animators could act as a focus. Those who could were mistrusted by the rest, and most wouldn't play with us. We would literally share our powers. A lot of animators wouldn't be willing to do that. There is a theory that you could permanently steal another's magic. But I don't buy it. Raising the dead isn't like a magic charm that someone can take with them, and leave you without. Animating is built into the cells of our bodies. It's part of us. You can't steal that.
   I opened the ointment, and the spring air suddenly smelled like Christmas trees. I used a lot of rosemary.
   The ointment was thick and waxy and always felt cool. Flecks of glowing graveyard mold looked like ground-up lightning bugs. I smeared ointment across Larry's forehead, down his cheeks. He untucked his t-shirt and raised it so I could dab it over his heart. Which is harder than it sounds with a shoulder holster on, but we'd both worn a gun apiece. I had left both knives and my backup gun in the Jeep. I touched his skin and could feel his heart pounding under my hand.
   I handed Larry the Mason jar. He dipped two fingers into the thick ointment. He traced ointment over my face. His hand was very steady, face blank with concentration. Eyes utterly serious.
   I unbuttoned the polo shirt and Larry slipped his fingers inside to touch my heart. His fingers rubbed the chain of my crucifix, spilling it out of my shirt. I slipped it back inside next to my skin. He handed the jar back to me, and I screwed the lid on tight. Wouldn't do to let it dry out.
   I'd never heard of anyone doing exactly what we were about to attempt. Not the age part, but the scattered bodies. We only wanted three, but there weren't three intact bodies. Even doing them one at a time, it was chancy. How to raise just so much dead and no more when they were lying jumbled together? I had no names to use. No gravesite to encircle with power. How to do it?
   It was a puzzlement.
   But for now we just had to close the circle. One problem at a time.
   "Make sure both of your hands have ointment on them," I said.
   Larry rubbed his hands together like he was putting on lotion. "Aye, aye, boss; what next?"
   I drew a deep silver bowl out of my bag. It gleamed in the moonlight like another piece of sky.
   Larry's eyes widened.
   "It doesn't have to be silver. There are no mystical symbols on it. You could use a Tupperware bowl, but the life of another living creature is going in here. Use something nice to show some respect, but understand that it doesn't have to be silver, or this shape, or anything. It's just a container. Okay?"
   Larry nodded. "Why not have the other goats up here on top? It's going to be a trek to get them up here every time."
   I shrugged. "First, they'd panic. Second, it seems cruel for them to watch their friends bite the dust, knowing they're next."
   "My zoology prof would say you're humanizing them."
   "Let him. I know they feel pain, and fear. That's enough."
   Larry looked at me for a long moment. "You don't like doing it either."
   "No. You want to help hold or feed the carrot?"
   "Carrot?"
   I dug a carrot, complete with leafy green top, out of the bag.
   "Was that what you got in the grocery store while I waited in the car with the goats?"
   "Yeah."
   I held the carrot up in the air. The goat strained to the end of its picket line, towards the carrot. I let the goat lip the leafy top. It bleated and strained towards me. I let him get a little more leaf. His stubby little tail started wagging. Happy goat.
   I handed Larry the silver bowl. "Put it on the ground under the throat. When the blood starts coming, catch as much as you can."
   I had the machete behind my back in my right hand, carrot in my left. I felt like a child's dentist. No, nothing behind my back. Pay no attention to that huge needle. Except this needle was permanent.
   The goat yanked most of the leaves off the carrot, and I waited while it snaked them up into its mouth. Larry knelt beside it, bowl on the ground. I offered the meat of the carrot to the goat. It got a taste of it, and I drew the carrot out, out, until the goat strained its neck out as far as it could, trying to get more of the hard orange flesh.
   I laid the machete against the hairy throat, not cutting, gentle. The neck vibrated against the blade, straining for the carrot. I drew the blade across the neck.
   The machete was sharp, and I had practice. There was no sound, only the shocked, widened eyes, and blood pouring from the neck.
   Larry picked up the bowl, holding it under the wound. Blood splashed down his arms onto the blue t-shirt. The goat collapsed to its knees. Blood filled the bowl, dark and glinting, more black than red.
   "There's bits of carrot in the blood," Larry said.
   "It's alright," I said. "Carrot's inert."
   The goat's head fell slowly forward until it touched the ground. The bowl sat under its throat, filling with blood. It had been nearly a perfect kill. Goats could be sort of pesky, but sometimes, like tonight, it all worked. Of course, we weren't done.
   I laid the bloody knife against my left arm and sliced it open. The pain was sharp and immediate. I held the wound over the bowl, letting the thick drops mingle with the goat's blood.
   "Give me your right arm," I said.
   Larry didn't argue. He just held out his bare arm. I'd told him what would happen, but it was still a very trusting gesture. His face turned up to me was without any trace of fear. God.
   I sliced his arm. He winced but didn't draw back. "Let it drip into the bowl."
   He held his arm over the bowl. All the blood was red-black in the moonlight.
   The beginnings of power trickled over my skin. My power, Larry's power, the power of a ritual sacrifice. Larry looked up at me with wide eyes.
   I knelt beside him and laid the machete across the mouth of the bowl. I held out my left hand to him. He gave me his right. We clasped hands and pressed the wounds in our forearms together, letting the blood mingle. Larry held one side of the blood-filled bowl and I held the other. Blood trickled down our arms to drip off our elbows into the bowl, onto the bloody naked steel.
   We stood still clasped together, still holding the bowl. I withdrew my hand from his slowly, then took the bowl from him. He followed my every movement like he always did. He'd be able to close his eyes and mimic me.
   I walked to the edge of the circle I had in my mind and plunged my hand into the bowl. The blood was still amazingly warm, almost hot. I grasped the handle of the machete with my bloody hand and began using the blade to sprinkle blood as I walked.
   I could feel Larry standing in the center of the circle that I walked like there was a rope stretched between us. As I walked, that rope stretched tighter and tighter like a rubber band being twisted. The power grew with each step, each drop of blood. The earth was hungry for it. I'd never raised the dead on ground that had seen death rituals before. Magnus should have mentioned that. Maybe he hadn't known. Charitable of me.
   It didn't matter now. There was magic here for blood and death. Something that was eager for me to close the circle. Eager for me to raise the dead. Hungry.
   I stood nearly where I'd begun. I was a sprinkle of blood away from closing the circle. The line of power between Larry and me was so tight it hurt. The potential power was frightening, and exhilarating. We'd awakened something old and long dormant. It made me hesitate. Made me not want to finish the circle. Stubbornness, and fear. I didn't completely understand what I was feeling. It was someone else's magic, someone's spell. We'd triggered it, but I didn't know what it would do. We could raise our dead, but it would be like walking a tightrope between the other spell and . . . something.
   I felt old Bloody Bones in its barrow miles away. I felt it watching me, urging me to take that last step. I shook my head as if the fey creature could see me. I just didn't understand the spell well enough to risk it.
   "What's wrong?" Larry asked. His voice sounded strangled. We were choking on unused power, and damned if I knew what to do with it.
   I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Ivy stood at the edge of the mountain. She was wearing hiking boots with thick white socks folded over them, baggy black shorts, and a skin-tight neon pink top, with a checked flannel shirt over it. The chain of her dangling earring gleamed in the moonlight. She'd dressed herself tonight.
   All I had to do was drop that last bit of blood, and the circle would close. And I could hold this circle against her, against them all. Nothing would cross it that I didn't want to cross it. Well, within reason. Demons and angels could probably cross it, but vampires couldn't.
   I felt a surge of triumph from the thing trapped in its mound. It wanted me to close the circle. I tossed the bowl and machete behind me towards the center of the circle, away from the outer edge so no blood would fall on it. Ivy started towards me in a faster-than-light display, a blur of speed. I went for my gun, felt it slide from the holster, and she smashed into me. The impact knocked the Browning out of my hand. I hit the ground with nothing in my hands but air.
   
   

34
   Ivy reared backwards, fangs flashing. Larry screamed, "Anita!" I heard the gun go off, felt the bullet hit her body. It hit her in the shoulder, twisted her body, but she turned back to me with a smile. She dug fingers into my shoulders and rolled us over, putting me on top, with one of her hands leeched to the back of my neck. She squeezed until I gasped.
   "I'll snap her spine unless you throw that toy away," she said.
   "She'll kill me anyway. Don't do it."
   "Anita . . ."
   "Now, or I'll kill her while you watch."
   "Shoot her!" But there wasn't a clear shot. He'd have to walk around me and fire point-blank. Ivy could kill me twice over before he got to us.
   Ivy forced my neck lower. I braced my right arm on the ground. She'd have to break something to get me down to her. If she broke my neck, it'd be over; a broken arm would just hurt.
   I heard something hit the ground, a dull, heavy thump. Larry's gun. Damn.
   She pressed harder on the back of my neck. I dug the palm of my hand into the ground hard enough to leave an imprint.
   "I can break that arm and bring you to me. Your choice: easy, or hard."
   "Hard," I said between gritted teeth.
   She grabbed for my arm, and I had an idea. I collapsed forward on top of her. It caught her off guard. I had a handful of seconds to pull the chain around my neck out of my shirt.
   Her hand slid through my hair like a lover's, pressing my face against her cheek, not hard, almost gentle. "Three nights from now you'll like me, Anita. You'll worship me."
   "I doubt that." The chain slid forward, the crucifix pooled against her throat. There was a blinding flash of white, white light. A rush of heat that singed my hair.
   Ivy screamed and clawed at the cross, scrambling from underneath me.
   I stayed on all fours with the cross dangling in front of me. The blue-white flames died away because it wasn't touching vampiric flesh anymore, but it glowed like a captive star, and she backed away from it.
   I didn't know where my gun was, but the machete gleamed against the dark earth. I wrapped my hand around it and got to my feet. Larry was behind me with his own cross out, held in front of him to the length of its chain. The white light with its core of blue was almost painfully bright.
   Ivy screamed, shielding her eyes. All she had to do was walk away. But she was frozen, immobile in the face of the crosses, and two true believers.
   "Gun," I said to Larry.
   "Can't find it."
   Both guns were matte black so they wouldn't reflect light at night and make us a target; now it made them invisible.
   We advanced on the vampire. She threw both arms up before her face and screamed, "Nooo!" She'd backed up nearly to the edge of the circle. If she ran, we wouldn't chase her, but she didn't run. Maybe she couldn't.
   I shoved the machete up under her ribs. Blood poured down the blade onto my hands. I drove the blade upward into her heart. I gave it that last little wrench to slice it up.
   Her arms fell away from her face slowly. Her eyes were wide, surprised. She stared down at the blade in her stomach, as if she didn't understand what it was doing there. The flesh of her neck was black where the cross had burned her.
   She fell to her knees and I went with her, keeping my grip on the machete. She didn't die. I hadn't really expected her to. I jerked the blade out of her, doing more damage. She made a low gurgling sound, but stayed on her knees. Her hands touched the blood flowing out of her chest and stomach. She stared at the gleaming darkness as if she'd never seen blood before. The blood flow was already slowing; unless I killed her soon, the wound would close.
   I stood over her and brought the machete back in a two-handed grip. I put everything I had into that downswing. The blade bit into her neck, down to the spine, catching on the bone.
   Ivy stared up at me with blood streaming down her neck. I swung back for another chop, and she watched me do it, too hurt to run now. I had to struggle to get the blade out of the spine, and still she blinked up at me. If I didn't finish her, she'd heal even this.
   I brought the blade down one last time and felt the last edge of bone give. The blade came out the other side, and her head slid off her shoulders in a spray of blood like a black fountain. That black blood poured over the circle and closed it.
   Power filled the circle until we were drowning in it. Larry fell to his knees. The light from the crosses faded like dying stars. The vampire was dead, and the crosses couldn't help us now.
   "What's happening?"
   I could feel the power like water on every side, choking close. I was breathing it in, soaking it up through my skin.
   I screamed wordlessly and fell to the ground. I fell through layers of power, and the moment I hit the ground I could feel the power below me, stretching downward, outward.
   I was lying on top of bones. They twitched like something moving in its sleep. I crawled to my knees, hands digging into the earth. I touched a long, thin arm bone, and it moved. I scrambled to my feet, slow, too slow through the pressing air, and watched.
   Bones slid through the earth like water, coming together. The earth heaved and rocked underfoot like giant moles were crawling.
   Larry was on his feet now, too. "What's happening?"
   "Something bad," I said.
   I'd never seen the dead coalesce. They always came to the surface of the grave all in one piece. I'd never realized it was like putting together a macabre jigsaw puzzle. A skeleton formed at my feet, and flesh began to crawl over it, flow like clay, molding itself back to the bones.
   "Anita?"
   I turned to Larry. He was pointing at a skeleton at the far edge of the circle. Half the bones were on the outside of the circle. Flesh crawled over this side of the bones and pushed against the blood circle. The earth gave one last heave, and the magic poured out over the ground. I heard it pop inside my head like a release of pressure. The air spread out, not so drowning-thick. It poured over the hillside like invisible flame, and everywhere it touched the dead formed bodies.
   "Stop it, Anita. Stop it."
   "I can't." The killing magic in the ground had stolen the reins. All I could do was watch and feel the power spreading outward. Enough power to ride forever. Enough power to raise a thousand dead.
   I knew when Rawhead and Bloody Bones burst its prison. I felt the power sag as the thing escaped. Then the power lashed back into this bit of ground and drove us to our knees. The dead struggled from the earth like swimmers dragging themselves to shore. When nearly twenty dead stood waiting with empty eyes, the power flowed outward. I felt it seeking more dead, something else to raise. This I could stop. The fairie was gone, out of the loop; he had what he wanted.
   I called the power back. I drew it into me, back through the ground, like pulling a snake by its tail out of a hole. I flung it into the zombies. Flung it into them and said, "Live."
   The wrinkled flesh filled out. The dead eyes gleamed. The tattered clothing, mended itself. Dirt fell away from a long gingham dress. A woman with midnight hair, dark skin, and Magnus's startled eyes looked at me. They all looked at me. Twenty dead, all over two hundred years old, and they could have passed for human.
   "My God," Larry whispered.
   Even I was impressed.
   "Very impressive, Ms. Blake." Stirling's voice was wrenching, as if he shouldn't have been there. He was a different part of reality from the near-perfect zombies. The fairie was out, but I'd do my job, for what good it would do any of us.
   "Which of you is a Bouvier?"
   There was a murmur of voices, most of them speaking French. Nearly all of them were Bouviers. The woman introduced herself as Anias Bouvier. She looked very alive.
   "Looks like you'll have to move your hotel," I said.
   "Oh, I don't think so," Stirling said.
   I turned and looked at him.
   He had a big shiny silver gun out. A nickel-plated .45. He held it like it was a movie, kind of out in front of him, waist-high. A .45 is a big gun; you don't hit much from a waist shot. Or that's the theory. With it pointed at us, I wasn't eager to try the theory.
   Bayard was pointing a .22 automatic vaguely in our direction. It didn't look like he'd held a gun before. Maybe he forgot and left the safety on.
   Ms. Harrison had a nickel-plated .38 pointed very steadily at me. She stood with her legs apart, balanced on her ridiculous high heels. She held the gun in a two-handed grip like she knew what she was doing.
   I flashed on her face. Her eyes in her thick makeup were a little wide, but she was rock steady. Steadier than Bayard and a better stance than Stirling. I hoped Stirling paid her well.
   "What's going on, Stirling?" I asked. My voice was even, but there was an edge of power to it. I was still riding the power, enough power to put the zombies back in the ground. Enough power to do a lot of things.
   He smiled visibly in the bright reflected light. "You've released the creature; now we shall kill you."
   "Why the hell do you care if Bloody Bones is out?" I saw the guns and still didn't know why.
   "It came into my dreams, Ms. Blake. It promised me all the Bouvier land. All of it."
   "The fey breaking out won't get you the land," I said.
   "It will with Bouvier dead. The deed that got us this hillside will be found to include all the land, once there's no one to fight it."
   "Even with Magnus dead, you won't get the land," I said, but my voice didn't sound so sure.
   "You mean his sister?" Stirling said. "She'll die just as easily as Magnus."
   My stomach was tight. "Her children?"
   "Rawhead and Bloody Bones loves children best of all," he said.
   "You son of a bitch." It was Larry. He took a step forward, and Ms. Harrison's gun swung to him. I grabbed his arm with my free hand. I still had the machete in my hand. Larry stopped, and the gun stayed on him. I wasn't sure that was an improvement.
   Tension sang down Larry's arm. I'd seen him angry, but never like this. The power responded to that anger. The zombies all turned to us in a rustle of cloth. Their glittering eyes, so alive, were waiting for us.
   "Move in front of us," I whispered. The zombies began walking towards us. The closest ones moved in front of us immediately. I lost sight of the gun-toting trio. Here was hoping they'd lost sight of us.
   "Kill them," Stirling said, loud, almost a yell.
   I started to drop to the ground, still holding Larry's arm. He resisted. Gunfire exploded around us and he kissed dirt, flat.
   With the side of his face pressed to the ground, he said, "What now?"
   Bullets were hitting the zombies. The bodies jerked and twitched. Some of the very alive faces stared down, alarmed as holes appeared in their bodies. But there was no pain. The panic was reflex.
   Someone was yelling; it wasn't us. "Stop it, stop it. We can't do this. We can't just kill them."
   It was Bayard.
   "It is late for an attack of conscience," Ms. Harrison said. It may have been the first time I'd heard her voice. She sounded efficient.
   "Lionel, you are either with me, or against me."
   "Shit," I muttered. I wormed forward, trying to see what was happening. I pushed aside a billowing skirt just in time to see Stirling shoot Lionel in the stomach. The .45 gave out a booming sound and nearly jerked itself out of Stirling's hand, but he held on. From less than ten inches away, you could shoot nearly anything with a .45.
   Bayard collapsed to his knees, looking up at Stirling. He was trying to say something, but no sound came out.
   Stirling took the gun from Bayard's hand and put it in his own jacket pocket. He turned his back on Bayard and walked out onto the hard, dry soil.
   Ms. Harrison hesitated, but she followed her boss.
   Bayard fell onto his side with a dark flood draining out of him. His glasses reflected the moonlight, making him look blind.
   Stirling and Ms. Harrison were coming in after us. Stirling pushed among the dead as if they were trees and he was wading through. The dead didn't move for him. They stood there like stubborn, fleshy barriers. I hadn't told them to move, so they wouldn't.
   Ms. Harrison had stopped trying to force her way through. Moonlight glinted on her shiny gun as she used a zombie's shoulder to sight on us.
   "Kill her," I whispered.
   The zombie she was using as a sighting post turned towards her. She made an exasperated sound, and the dead closed on her.
   Larry looked at me. "What did you tell them?"
   Ms. Harrison was screaming now. High, frightened shrieks. She fired her gun again and again. It clicked empty. Slow, eager hands and mouths latched onto her body.
   "Stop them," Larry said. He grabbed my arm. "Stop them."
   I could feel the hands tearing bits of flesh from Ms. Harrison. Teeth sank into her shoulder, tore that tender neck, and I knew when blood flowed into that mouth.
   Larry was along for the ride. "Oh, God, stop it!" He was on his knees pulling at me, begging.
   Stirling hadn't fired a shot. Where was he?
   "Stop," I whispered.
   The dead froze like automatons, stopped in mid-action. Ms. Harrison slid to the ground in a moaning heap.
   Stirling came in from one side, the big gun pointed very steadily at us, out in a two-handed grip like it was supposed to be held. He'd made his way behind us while the zombies worked over Ms. Harrison. He was standing nearly on top of us. It took a lot of nerve to come that close to the zombies.
   Larry's fingers dug into my arm. "Don't, Anita; please don't." Even staring down the barrel of a gun, Larry stuck to his morals. Admirable.
   "If you say a word, Ms. Blake, I will kill you."
   I just stared up at him. I was so close to him I could have reached out and touched his pants leg. The .45 was pointed very solidly at my head. If he pulled the trigger, I was gone.
   "Careless of you not to have the zombies attack both of us."
   I agreed with him, but all I could do was stare up at him. I still had the machete in one hand. I tried not to tighten my grip on it. Not to draw attention to it.
   I must have made some betraying motion because he said, "Take your hand away from the knife, Ms. Blake, slowly."
   I didn't do it. I stared up at him and his gun.
   "Now, Ms. Blake, or . . ." He thumbed back the hammer on the gun. Not necessary but always dramatic.
   I let go of the machete.
   "Hand away from it, Ms. Blake."
   I moved my hand away. I didn't move away from him and the gun. I wanted to, but I made myself be still. A few inches wouldn't make the gun less deadly, but it might make a big difference if I tried to jump him. Not my first choice, but if we ran out of other options . . . I wouldn't go down without a fight.
   "Can you lay these zombies to rest, Mr. Kirkland?"
   Larry hesitated. "I don't know."
   Good boy. If he'd said no, Stirling might have killed him. If he'd said yes, he'd have killed me.
   Larry let go of my arm and moved just a little away from me. Stirling's eyes flicked to him, back to me, but the gun barrel never wavered. Damn.
   Larry was on his knees, still moving away from me, forcing Stirling to keep an eye on both of us. The .45 moved an inch from the center of my forehead, towards Larry. I took a breath and held it. Not yet, not yet . . . If I tried something too soon, I'd be dead.
   Larry lunged for something on the ground. The .45 swung towards him.
   I did two things at once. I slipped my left hand behind Stirling's leg and pulled, and I grabbed his groin with my right and shoved with all I was worth. I was doing the wrong thing to cause a lot of pain, but it tipped him over. He fell flat on his back with the gun swinging back towards me.
   I'd hoped he'd drop the gun, or be slower. He didn't, and he wasn't. So I only had a split-second to decide whether to try to pull his privates out of his body, and cause as much pain as possible, or go for the gun. I went for the gun, not trying to grab it, but sweeping my hands into his arms. If I could control his arms, I could control the gun.
   The gun went off. I didn't look. No time. Larry was either hit, or he wasn't. If he wasn't, I had to get that gun. Stirling's arms were on the ground, my hands keeping them there, but I had no leverage. He raised his arms off the ground, and I couldn't stop him. I shoved my feet into the ground and forced his arms over his head, but it had become a wrestling match now, and he outweighed me by sixty pounds.
   "Drop the gun." Larry's voice behind me. I couldn't look. Couldn't take my attention from the gun. We both ignored him.
   "I will shoot you," Larry said.
   That got Stirling's attention. His eyes flicked to Larry; for just a moment his body hesitated. I kept my grip on his wrists and shoved myself forward, up his body. I dug my knee into his groin, trying to reach the ground through him. He let out a strangled cry. His hands spasmed.
   I moved my hands up and touched the gun. His grip tightened. He wasn't letting go.
   I came up beside Stirling's arms and braced his arms against my hip. I pulled the arm against my body, just one quick movement, and snapped his arm at the elbow. The hand went numb, and the gun fell into my hand.
   I crawled away from him, the gun in one hand.
   Larry was standing over us with a gun pointed at Stirling. Stirling didn't seem to care. He was rocking back and forth over the ground, trying to cradle both injuries at once.
   "I had a gun. You could have just moved away from him," Larry said.
   I just shook my head. I trusted Larry to shoot Stirling. I just hadn't trusted Stirling not to shoot Larry. "I had my hands on the gun. Seemed a shame to let it go," I said.
   Larry pointed the gun at the ground, but kept a nice two-handed grip on it. "It's yours; you want it?"
   I shook my head. "Keep it until we get to the car."
   I looked up at the zombies. They were watching me with calm eyes. There was blood on the mouth of the dark-haired woman. It had been her teeth that tore into Ms. Harrison's neck.
   Ms. Harrison was lying very still on the ground. Passed out, at the very least.
   The power was beginning to unravel at the edges. If I was going to put everybody back in the ground, it had to be now.
   "Go back into the ground. Back to your graves. Go back, all of you, go back."
   The dead walked upon the earth, moving among one another like children in a game of musical chairs. Then one by one they lay down upon the earth, and it swallowed them like water. The earth moved and buckled in waves, until they were all tucked out of sight.
   There were no bones protruding from the earth. The earth was smooth and soft, as if the entire top of the mountain had been dug up and smoothed over.
   The power shredded, flowing back into the ground, or wherever the hell it came from. We had to get down to the Jeep and start making phone calls. There was a rampaging fey on the loose. We at least had to get cops out to the Bouviers' place.
   Larry knelt beside Ms. Harrison. He touched her neck. "She's alive." His hand came away stained with blood.
   I looked at Stirling. He'd stopped rolling around and was just sort of huddled on his side, his arm held at an obscene angle. The look he gave me was part pain and part hate. If he ever got a second chance, I was dead.
   "Shoot him if he moves," I said.
   Larry got to his feet and pointed the gun dutifully at Stirling.
   I went to check on Bayard. He lay on his side, half-crumpled around the wound in his belly. A wide black circle showed where his blood had soaked into the thirsty ground. I knew dead when I saw it, but I knelt on the far side of his body so I could keep an eye on Stirling. It wasn't that I didn't trust Larry. I just didn't trust Stirling.
   There was no pulse in his neck. The skin was already cooling in the soft spring air. It hadn't been an instant death. Lionel Bayard had died while we were fighting. He'd died alone, and he'd known he was dying, and that he'd been betrayed. It was a bad way to die.
   I stood up and looked at Stirling. I wanted to kill him for Bayard, for Magnus, for Dorrie Bouvier, for her kids. For being a heartless son of bitch.
   He'd witnessed me using zombies as a weapon. Using magic as a killing weapon was punishable by death. Self-defense was not an acceptable plea.
   I stared very calmly across at Stirling and the unconscious Ms. Harrison, and realized that I could have crossed that ground and put a bullet in both of them, and slept just fine.
   Sweet Jesus.
   Larry glanced my way, gun still steady, but he'd taken his eyes off Stirling for a second. Not fatal, tonight, but I'd have to break him of it. "Is Bayard dead?"
   "Yeah." I started back towards them, wondering what I was going to do. I didn't think Larry would let me shoot them in cold blood. Part of me was glad. Part of me wasn't.
   Wind blew against my face. There was a rustling sound in the wind, like that made by trees or cloth. There were no trees on top of this mountain. I turned with the big .45 in a two-handed grip, and Janos was just there, on the edge of the mountain. Staring at his skeletal face, I think I stopped breathing. He was dressed all in black; even his hands were hidden inside black gloves. For one wild moment he looked like a floating skull. "We have the boy," he said.
   
   
35
   The crosses were still in plain sight. They glowed with a soft white radiance. No burning light, not yet. We weren't in active danger, but the cross grew warm even through my shirt.
   Janos put a hand in front of his eyes, the way I would guard my eyes from the sun in the car. "Please put those away, so we may talk."
   He hadn't asked us to take them off. I could live with tucking my cross in my shirt. It could come out again later. I spilled the chain back down my shirt one-handed, keeping the .45 ready. I realized then that I didn't know if the gun had silver ammo. Now was not the time to ask. Stirling would probably lie anyway.
   Larry slipped his own cross out of sight. The glowing night was just a little dimmer.
   "Alright, now what?" I asked.
   Kissa came up behind him, Jeff Quinlan in front of her like a shield. His glasses were gone, and he looked even younger without them. She had his arm behind his back, at an angle that could be painful with just a tug.
   He was wearing a cream-colored tuxedo with a cummerbund done two shades darker to match the bow tie. Kissa was in black leather. Jeff stood out against her in wonderful contrast.
   I swallowed; my pulse threatened to choke me. What was going on? "You alright, Jeff?"
   "I guess so."
   Kissa gave a little tug.
   He winced. "I'm okay." His voice was a little higher than it should have been. a little scared.
   I held out my hand to him. "Come here."
   "Not yet," Janos said.
   I'd tried. "What do you want?"
   "First drop your guns."
   "If we don't?" I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it.
   "Kissa will kill the boy, and you will have done all this for nothing,"
   "Help me," Stirling said. "She's mad. She attacked Ms. Harrison with zombies. When we tried to defend ourselves, she nearly killed us."
   That was probably what he'd say in court, too. And a jury would believe him. They'd want to believe him. I would be the big, bad zombie queen, and he would be the innocent victim.
   Janos laughed, his paper-thin skin threatening to split, but never quite doing it. "Oh, no, Mr. Stirling, I watched from the darkness. I saw you murder the other man."
   Fear flashed across his face. "I don't know what you mean. We hired him in good faith. He turned on us."
   "My master opened your mind to Bloody Bones. She freed him to whisper in your dreams about land, money, and power. All that you desire."
   "Serephina sent Ivy to kill me, or rather for me to kill her. So she'd be sure to have Bloody Bones free," I said.
   "Yes," he said. "Serephina told her she had to rid herself of the disgrace of losing to you."
   "By killing me."
   "Yes."
   "What if she'd succeeded?"
   "My master had faith in you, Anita. You are death come among us. A breath of mortality."
   "Why'd she want the thing freed?" I seemed to be asking that a lot tonight.
   "She wishes to taste immortal blood."
   "This is all sort of elaborate for a little extra kick in your food."
   He gave another rictus grin. "You are what you eat, Anita. Think upon it."
   I did, and my eyes widened. "She thinks by drinking immortal blood, she'll be truly immortal?"
   "Very good, Anita."
   "It won't work," I said.
   "We shall see," he said.
   "What do you get out it?" I asked.
   He cocked his skeletal head to one side, like a decaying bird. "She is my master, and she shares her bounty."
   "You want immortality, too?"
   "I want power," he said.
   Great. "And it doesn't bother you that the thing will kill children? That it's already killed some?"
   "We feed, Bloody Bones feeds, what does it matter?"
   "And Bloody Bones is going to just let you feed off it?"
   "Serephina has found the spell that Magnus's ancestor used. She controls the fairie."
   "How?"
   He shook his head and smiled. "No more delays, Anita. Drop the gun, or Kissa will taste him before your eyes."
   Kissa ran a hand through Jeff's short hair, a caressing gesture. It pushed his head to one side, baring a long smooth line of neck.
   "No!" Jeff tried to pull away, and Kissa yanked on his arm hard enough that he cried out.
   "I will break the arm, boy," she growled.
   The pain held him immobile, but his eyes were wide and terrified. He looked at me. He wouldn't plead, no begging, but his eyes did it for him.
   Kissa's lips pulled back from her teeth in a flashy snarl, fangs visible.
   "Don't," I said, and hated it. I tossed the .45 to the ground. Larry threw my gun down. Disarmed twice in one night. It was a record even for me.
   
   

36
   "Now what?" I asked.
   "Serephina awaits us at the party. She sent suitable clothing for you. You can change in the limousine," Janos said.
   "What party?" I asked.
   "The one we have come to invite you to. She is delivering Jean-Claude's invitation in person."
   That didn't sound good. "I think we'll pass on the party."
   "I don't think so," Janos said.
   Another vampire stepped out of the trees. It was the brunette that had tormented Jason. She stalked forward in a long black dress that covered her from neck to ankle. She slid her arms around Janos, nuzzling his neck, giving us a glimpse of her pale back. Only a fine webbing of black straps covered her back. The dress moved like it would slide down her body at the least movement, but somehow it stayed in place. Fashion-plate magic. Her dark hair was in a looping braid to one side of her face. She looked good for someone I'd seen ripped to rotting bits of flesh.
   I couldn't keep the surprise off my face.
   "I thought she was dead," Larry said.
   "So did I."
   "I would never have risked Pallas if I truly thought your werewolf could kill her," Janos said.
   A second figure came out of the dark woods. Long white hair framed a thin, fine-boned face. His eyes glowed blood-red. I'd seen vampires with glowing eyes before, but they always glowed the color of their irises. No one who had ever been human had red irises. He wore a proverbial black tux and tails, complete with a nearly ankle-length cape.
   "Xavier," I said softly.
   Larry looked at me. "This is the vampire that's been killing everyone?"
   I nodded.
   "Then what's he doing here?"
   "That's how you found Jeff so quickly. You're working with Xavier," I said. "Does Serephina know?"
   Janos smiled. "She is master of all, Anita, even him." He said the last like it impressed him.
   "You won't get to munch on your fairie for long if the cops trace Xavier to you."
   "Xavier was following orders. He was on a recruitment drive." Janos seemed to like saying that last bit like it was an in-joke.
   "Why did you want Ellie Quinlan?"
   "Xavier likes a bit of young boy now and then. It is his one weakness. He turned the girl's lover, and the boy wanted her with him forever. Tonight she will rise and feed with us."
   Not if I could help it. "What do you want, Janos?"
   "I was sent to make your life easier," he said.
   "Yeah, right."
   Pallas uncurled herself from Janos. She glided over to Stirling.
   Stirling stared up at her, cradling his broken arm. It had to hurt like hell, but it wasn't pain on his face now, it was fear. He stared up at the vampire; all the arrogance had slipped away. He looked like a kid who'd discovered the thing under the bed was really there.
   A third vampire moved out of the trees. It was the blonde half of the pair. She looked fine, like she'd never rotted right before our eyes. I'd never known a vampire that could look so dead, and not be.
   "You remember Bettina," he said.
   Bettina wore a black dress that left her pale shoulders bare. A throw of black cloth went over one shoulder and down the front of the dress. A gold belt held it in place, cinching her waist tight. Her yellow braid was wound in a crown atop her head.
   She walked towards us, and her face was perfect. The dry, rotting skin had been a bad dream, a nightmare. I wish. Fire, Jean-Claude had said, fire was the only surety. I thought he'd meant just Janos.
   Janos reached over and grabbed Jeff from Kissa. He gripped the boy's shoulders with both black-gloved hands. His fingers were longer than they should have been, as though they had an extra joint. Against the white of Jeff's jacket, you could tell that the index finger was as long as the middle finger. Another myth that was true, at least for Janos. Those long, strange fingers dug into Jeff just a little.
   Jeff's eyes were so wide it looked painful.
   "What's going on?" I asked.
   Kissa was dressed in the same black vinyl outfit she'd had on in the torture room, though it couldn't be the exact same one, because the first one had Larry's bullet hole in it. She stood beside him, her hands in fists. She stood very still, as only the dead can, but there was a tension to her, a wariness. She wasn't happy. Her dark skin was strangely pale. She hadn't fed yet tonight. I could always tell . . . with most vampires. There are always exceptions.
   Xavier moved in a shadow of that impossible blurring speed past Stirling, to stand beside the still unconscious Ms. Harrison. Larry shook his head. "Did he just appear there, or did I see him move?"
   "He moved," I said.
   I expected Janos to send Kissa out to join the others, but he didn't. A figure crawled over the lip of the hill, dragging itself into sight like it hurt to move. Pale hands dug into the naked dirt, pale arms bare to the spring night. The head drooped towards the ground, short dark hair hiding the face. With one upward motion, the face raised into the moonlight. Thin, bloodless lips drew back from fangs. The face was ravaged with hunger. I knew the eyes were brown only because I'd seen them staring lifelessly at the ceiling of Ellie Quinlan's bedroom. There was no pull to her eyes, but down in the dark depths a flicker of something burned. It wasn't sanity; hunger, maybe. An animal's emotion, nothing human. Maybe after they'd let her feed for the first time, she'd have time for emotions; now everything had narrowed down to one basic need.
   "Is that who I think it is?" Larry asked.
   "Yeah," I said.
   Jeff tried to run to her. "Ellie!"
   Janos jerked him tight against his chest, one arm around his shoulders like an embrace. Jeff struggled against that arm, tried to run to his dead sister. I was with Janos on this one. The newly risen have a tendency to eat first and ask questions later. The thing that had once been Ellie Quinlan would have gladly torn out her baby brother's throat. She'd have bathed in the blood, and minutes, or days, or weeks later, she would realize what she'd done. She might even regret it.
   "Go, Angela; go to Xavier," Janos said.
   "A new name won't change who she was," I said.
   Janos looked at me. "She is two years dead, and her name is Angela."
   "Her name is Ellie," Jeff said. He'd stopped struggling, but he looked at his dead sister with fresh horror, as if just beginning to really see her.
   "People will recognize her, Janos."
   "We shall be careful, Anita. Our new angel will see no one that we do not wish."
   "Well, isn't that cozy?" I said.
   "It will be," he said, "once she has drunk her fill."
   "I'm impressed that you dragged her this far without feeding her first."
   "I did it." Xavier's voice was surprisingly pleasant. It was disturbing hearing that voice coming from that pale, ghostly face.
   I looked at him, careful to avoid his gaze. "Impressive," I said.
   "Andy brought her over, and I brought Andy over. I am her master."
   Since Andy hadn't shown up, I was betting I'd killed him in the woods with Sheriff St. John. Probably not a good time to bring that up. "And who is your master?"
   "Serephina, for now," Xavier said.
   I glanced at Janos. "You haven't worked out which of you is top dog, have you?" I smiled.
   "You waste our time, Anita. Our master awaits you eagerly. Let us finish this. Call our angel."
   Xavier held out one pale hand. Ellie made a noise low in her throat, and scrambled on all fours over the raw dirt. The long black dress tangled around her legs. She tore at it impatiently. The cloth ripped like paper in her hands, the skirt shredding around her bare legs. She grabbed Xavier's hand like it was a lifeline. She bent over his wrist, and only his hand in her hair kept her from trying to feed on him.
   "There is no sustenance for you from the dead, Angela," Janos said. "Feed on the living."
   Pallas and Bettina knelt on either side of Stirling. Xavier fell gracefully beside Ms. Harrison, his black cape spread out around him like a pool of blood. He kept hold of Ellie's hair the whole way down, forcing her snarling face to touch the dirt. Her hands dug at his hands, mewling sounds crawling from her throat. Nothing that was human should have made sounds like that.
   "Ms. Blake," Stirling said, "you're the law. You have to protect me."
   "I thought you were going to see me in court, Raymond. Something about me attacking you and Ms. Harrison with zombies."
   "I didn't mean it." He glanced up at the kneeling vampires, then back to me. "I won't tell. I won't tell anyone. Please."
   I just looked at him. "Begging for mercy, Raymond?"
   "Yes, yes, I'm begging."
   "Like the mercy you showed Bayard?"
   "Please."
   Bettina caressed Stirling's cheek. He jerked like it had burned. "Please!"
   Shit.
   "We can't just watch," Larry said.
   "You have another suggestion?"
   "You never give anyone over to the monsters, not for any reason. It's a rule," he said.
   It was my rule. I'd believed in it once, back when I'd been sure who the monsters were.
   He was pulling the chain out from inside his shirt.
   "Don't do this, Larry. Don't get us killed for Raymond Stirling."
   His cross spilled out in the open air. It glowed like Serephina's eyes. He just looked at me.
   I sighed, and brought out my own cross. "This is a bad idea."
   "I know," he said. "But I can't just watch."
   I stared at his earnest face, and knew it was true. He couldn't just watch. I could have. I might not have enjoyed it, but I could have let it happen. More's the pity.
   "What are you doing with your little holy objects?" Janos asked.
   "Stopping this," I said.
   "You want them dead, Anita."
   "Not like this," I said.
   "Would you have me let you use your gun and waste all this blood?"
   He was offering to let me shoot them. I shook my head. "I don't think that's an option anymore."
   "It was never an option," Larry said.
   I let that go; no need to disillusion him. I walked towards Pallas and Bettina. Larry walked towards Ellie and Xavier, cross held outward to the length of its chain, as if that made it work better. Nothing wrong with a little dramatic gesture, but I'd have to clue him in that it didn't really help. But later.
   The cross's glow grew until it was like wearing a 100-watt lightbulb naked around your neck. I saw the world as a black circle outside the glow.
   Xavier was on his feet facing Larry, but the others had crawled away from their prey, beaten by the light.
   "Thank you, Ms. Blake," Stirling said. "Thank you." He grabbed my leg with his good hand, fawning over me. I fought an urge to shake him off.
   "Thank Larry; I'd have let you die."
   He didn't seem to hear me. He was nearly crying with relief, slobbering all over my Nikes.
   "Back away from them, please." The voice was female and honey-thick.
   I blinked over the glow of the cross and saw Kissa holding a gun. A revolver that looked like a Magnum; hard to tell in the glow. Whatever it was, it'd make a big hole.
   "Move away from them, now."
   "I thought Serephina didn't want me dead."
   "Kissa will shoot your young friend."
   I stopped in mid-breath and let it out. "If you kill him, I won't cooperate with whatever you have in mind for tonight."
   "You misunderstand us, Anita," Janos said. "My master does not require your cooperation. Everything she wants from you can be taken by force."
   I stared at him over the shining light. He had Jeff cuddled against him; most heartwarming.
   "Take off your crosses and throw them far out into the trees," Janos said. He ran a gloved hand along both sides of Jeff's face, planting a kiss on his cheek.
   "Now that we know you would give up your safety for both young men, we have one more hostage than is absolutely necessary." He put his hands on either side of Jeff's neck, just holding, not hurting, not yet.
   "Take off your crosses and throw them into the woods. I will not ask a third time."
   I stared at him. I didn't want to give up my cross. I glanced at Larry. He was still facing off against Xavier, his cross glowing bravely. Shit.
   "Kissa, shoot the man."
   "No," I said. I undid the chain. "Don't shoot him."
   "Don't do it , Anita," Larry said.
   "I can't watch them shoot you, not if I can stop it." I let the chain pool in my hand; the cross shone with a blue-white flame like burning magnesium. It was a bad idea to throw it away. A real bad idea. I tossed it into the woods. The cross glittered like a falling star and died out of sight in the dark.
   "Now your cross, Larry," Janos said.
   Larry shook his head. "You'll have to shoot me."
   "We'll shoot the boy," Janos said. "Or perhaps I'll feed upon him while you watch." He pinned Jeff against himself with one arm, while his other hand dug into the boy's hair, holding him immobile, neck exposed.
   Larry looked at me. "What do I do, Anita?"
   "You have to decide this one for yourself," I said.
   "They'll really kill him, won't they?"
   "Yeah, they will."
   He cursed under his breath and let the cross fall against his chest. He undid the chain and threw it out into the woods with a lot of force to it, as if he could throw his anger with it.
   When the light from his cross died away, we stood there in the darkness. The moonlight that had seemed so bright before was a dim substitute.
   My night vision returned in stages. Kissa stepped closer, the gun still pointed at us. The first time I'd seen her, she had exuded sexuality, power; now she was docile, quiet, as though some of her power had been drained away. She looked pale and drawn. She needed to feed.
   "Why haven't they let you feed tonight?" I asked.
   "Our master is not a hundred percent sure of Kissa's loyalty. It needed testing, didn't it, my dark beauty?"
   Kissa didn't answer. She stared at me with large, dark eyes, but the gun never wavered.
   "Feed, children, feed."
   Pallas and Bettina walked over to Stirling. They stared at me over him. I stared back.
   Stirling grabbed my leg. "You can't let them have me. Please, please."
   Pallas knelt by him. Bettina walked around to the side I was on. She pulled Stirling's hand off my leg. The vampire's lower back brushed my legs. I took a step back, and Stirling started screaming.
   Xavier and Ellie had already started to feed on the blessedly unconscious Ms. Harrison. Larry looked at me, hands out, empty, helpless.
   I didn't know what to say.
   "Don't touch me, don't touch me!" Stirling batted at Pallas with his good hand, and the vampire caught it easily, held it.
   "At least put him under," I said.
   Pallas looked up at me. "After he tried to kill you? Why show him mercy?"
   "Maybe I don't want to hear him scream."
   Pallas smiled. Her eyes flashed dark fire. "For you, Anita, anything."
   She grabbed Stirling's chin, forcing him to meet her gaze.
   "Ms. Blake, help me. Help . . ." The words died in his mouth.
   I watched everything slide out of his eyes, until they were empty and waiting.
   "Come to me, Raymond," Pallas said. "Come to me."
   Stirling sat up, his one good arm embracing the vampire. He tried to use the broken arm, but it wouldn't bend at the elbow.
   Bettina bent the broken arm backward and forward, laughing. Stirling never reacted to the pain. He snuggled against Pallas. The look on his face was one of happiness, joy. Eagerness.
   Pallas sank fangs into his neck. Stirling spasmed for a second, then relaxed and began making soft noises in his throat.
   Pallas moved Stirling's head to one side, sucking on the wound but leaving enough room on the other side for someone else. Bettina sank fangs into the exposed flesh.
   The two vampires fed, heads so close together their hair mingled, gold and black. And Raymond Stirling made happy noises while they killed him.
   Larry walked away to the edge of the clearing, hugging his arms tight across his chest.
   I stayed where I was. I watched. I had wanted Stirling dead. It would be cowardly to look away. Besides, I should have to watch. I needed to remember who the monsters were. Maybe if I forced myself not to look away, not to blink, I wouldn't forget again.
   I stared at Stirling's happy, eager face, until his arm dropped away from Pallas's back, and his eyes closed. He passed out from blood loss and shock, and the vampires hugged him tight, and fed.
   His eyes flew open wide, and a gurgling sound crawled out of his throat. Fear screamed out of his eyes. Pallas raised a hand and stroked Stirling's hair, a gesture you'd use on a frightened child. The fear died out of his eyes, and I watched the last light die with it. I watched Raymond Stirling die, and knew I would remember that last look of terror in my dreams for weeks to come.
   
   
37
   There was a rush of wind that raised a fine cloud of dirt. Jean-Claude appeared as if conjured from the air itself. I had never been so happy to see him. I didn't run to his arms, but I moved to stand near him. Larry followed me. Jean-Claude wasn't always the safest refuge, but right now he looked pretty damn good.
   He was dressed in one of his white shirts. This one had so much lace on the front it looked fluffy. A short white jacket hit him just at the waist. More lace peeked from the sleeves of the jacket. He wore tight white pants with a black belt. The belt matched his velvet black boots.
   "I did not expect you here, Jean-Claude," Janos said. I couldn't tell for sure, but he sounded surprised. Goody.
   "Serephina delivered her invitation in person, Janos, but it was not enough."
   "You surprise me, Jean-Claude," he said.
   "I surprised Serephina, as well." He sounded terribly calm. If he was afraid standing outnumbered on the hilltop, it didn't show. I'd have loved to know how he'd surprised Serephina.
   Jason walked up the far side of the hill, from the direction of the Jeep. He wore black leather pants that looked like they'd been poured on him, short black boots, and no shirt. There was what looked like a silver-studded dog collar around his neck, and a black glove on either hand, but other than that he was naked from the waist up. I hoped Jason had chosen his own outfit for tonight.
   The right side of his face was bruised from chin to forehead as though something large had hit him.
   "I see your pet joined the struggle," Janos said.
   "He is mine in every way, Janos. They are all mine."
   Just this once I let it go. If my choice was belonging to Jean-Claude or to Serephina, I knew what my vote would be.
   Larry moved so close to me that I could have taken his hand. Maybe he didn't like being included in Jean-Claude's menagerie.
   "You have lost that air of humbleness that I found so appealing, Jean-Claude. Have you refused Serephina's invitation altogether?"
   "I will come to Serephina's party, but on my own with my people around me."
   I glanced at him. Was he crazy?
   He frowned. "Serephina wanted you at the party in chains."
   "We can all live with this choice, Janos."
   "Are you saying you would challenge us all here and now?" There was an edge of laughter in his voice.
   "I will not die alone, Janos. In the end you may have me, but it will cost you dearly."
   "If you will truly come of your own free will, then come," Janos said. "Our master calls; let us answer that call." Janos, Bettina, and Pallas were just suddenly airborne. It wasn't flying, or levitation. I had no word for it. Larry whispered, "Dear God." The first time you see a vampire fly is a red-letter night.
   The others scattered into the trees in that blurring motion that made them disappear almost as fast as flying. Ellie Quinlan had vanished with the rest of them. Her brother had been carried away by Janos. Until that moment I hadn't known a vampire could carry more than its own body weight while "flying." Learn something new every night.
   We found our guns and walked down the mountainside. Our crosses were well and truly lost. Even Jean-Claude walked, and I knew he had other methods of transportation. Was it considered impolite to fly when others couldn't?
   The Jeep was still where I'd parked it. The night was still thick. It was hours until dawn, and I just wanted to go home.
   "I took the liberty of choosing clothes for you to wear tonight," Jean-Claude said. "They are in the Jeep."
   "I locked the Jeep," I said.
   He just smiled at me.
   I sighed. "Fine." When I tried the handle it was unlocked. Clothes were folded in the passenger seat. They were black leather. I shook my head. "I don't think so."
   "Your clothes, ma petite, are on the driver's side. Those are Lawrence's clothes."
   Larry peered over my shoulder. "You've got to be kidding."
   I walked around the Jeep and found a clean pair of black jeans. The tightest pair I owned. A bloodred tank top that I didn't remember buying. It felt like silk. There was a black duster coat that I had never seen. When I tried it for length it hit me at mid-calf, and billowed capelike when I moved. I liked the coat. The silk blouse I could have done without.
   "Not bad," I said.
   "Mine is bad," Larry said. "I don't even know how to get into these pants."
   "Jason, help him dress." Jason picked up the bundle of leather and carried them to the back of the Jeep. Larry followed him but didn't look happy.
   "No boots?" I said.
   Jean-Claude smiled. "I didn't think you would give up your jogging shoes."
   "Damn straight."
   "Change quickly, ma petite; we must arrive at Serephina's before she decides to kill the boy just for spite."
   "Would Xavier let her kill his new toy?"
   "If she is truly his master, he has no choice. Now, dress, ma petite, quickly." I walked towards the far side of the Jeep but that brought me within earshot, and nearly eyesight, of Larry. I stopped and sighed. What the hell.
   I turned my back on Jean-Claude and slid out of my shoulder holster. "How did you guys get away from Serephina?" I slipped my shirt over my head. I fought the urge to look back. I knew Jean-Claude was watching; why check?
   "Jason jumped her at a crucial moment. It was distraction enough for us to flee, but little else. I'm afraid the room is something of a mess."
   His voice was so mild I had to see his face. I slid the red tank top on and turned. He was standing closer than I'd thought, nearly within touching distance. He stood there in his white clothes, spotless and perfect.
   "Step a few paces back, please. I'd like a little privacy."
   He smiled, but he did what I asked. A first.
   "Had she underestimated you that badly?" I asked. I changed jeans as quickly as I could. I tried not to think of him watching. It was too embarrassing.
   "I was forced to flee, ma petite. Janos calls her master, and he defeated me. I cannot stand against her, not in a fair fight."
   I slipped the shoulder holster back on, threading the belt I'd been wearing back through it. The straps chafed a little with no sleeves but it was better than not having it. I got the Firestar from under my seat and tucked the inner pants holster down the front of my jeans. It would show, even with the duster. I finally put it at the small of my back, though it wasn't my first or even second choice of places. I got the silver knives out of the glove compartment and strapped them to my forearms. I also got out a small box. It held two extra crosses. Vampires seemed to always be taking them from me.
   Jean-Claude watched it all with interest. His dark eyes followed my hands like he was memorizing the movements.
   I put the duster on and walked a few steps to get the feel of everything. I drew both knives just to make sure the coat sleeves weren't too tight. I drew both guns and still didn't like the Firestar. I finally shifted the inner pants holster to one side. It dug into my side hard enough to bruise, but I could draw it in a reasonable time. That was more important than comfort tonight. I slipped an extra clip for both guns in the coat pockets. They were loaded with nonsilver bullets. It made me nervous to only have the silver bullets that were in the guns, but Rawhead and Bloody Bones was going to make his appearance sometime tonight. Magnus might even be there. I wanted ammo for everything I'd meet tonight.
   Larry came out from behind the Jeep. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. It wasn't that he looked bad, he just looked so uncomfortable. He seemed to have trouble walking in the black leather pants.
   "Just walk naturally," Jason said.
   "I can't," Larry said. He had a silk tank top that was the twin of mine except it was blue instead of red. He had short black boots on. The black jacket he'd borrowed from Jason last night completed the outfit.
   I looked at the boots.
   "Black jogging shoes perhaps, ma petite, but white jogging shoes with black leather? I do not think so."
   "I feel ridiculous," Larry said. "How can you wear this all the time?"
   "I like leather," Jason said.
   "We must be off," Jean-Claude said. "Anita, if you would drive?"
   "I thought you might want to fly," I said.
   "It is important we arrive together," he said.
   Larry and I added salt to our pockets. With the extra ammo clips in one pocket and salt in the other, my coat hung a little crooked, but hey, we weren't going to a fashion show. We all slid into the Jeep. There was a lot of protesting from the back seat. "These pants are even more uncomfortable sitting down."
   "I will remember your dislike of leather in the future, Lawrence."
   "My name is Larry."
   I drove the Jeep down the rutted road that led out of the construction site. "Serephina wants to be immortal." I turned onto the main road and headed back towards Branson, though of course we'd be stopping at Serephina's on the way.
   Jean-Claude turned in his seat to stare at me. "What are you saying, ma petite?"
   I told him. I told him about Rawhead and Bloody Bones, and Serephina's plan. "She's mad."
   "Not entirely, ma petite. It might not give her immortality, but it would give her undreamt-of power. The question remaining is, how did Serephina grow powerful enough to snag Janos before she fed off Magnus and Bloody Bones?"
   "What do you mean?"
   "Janos was in the old country. He would not have left voluntarily. He followed her. Where did she get the power to subjugate him?"
   "Maybe Magnus isn't the first fairie she's fed off," I said.
   "Perhaps," he said, "or perhaps she has found other food."
   "What other food?"
   "That, ma petite, is the question that I would very much like answered."
   "Thinking of changing diets?" I asked.
   "Power is always tempting, ma petite, but for tonight I was thinking of more practical matters. If we can discover her source of power, we might be able to undo it."
   "How?"
   He shook his head. "I do not know, but unless we can find some trick to pull out of our hats tonight, ma petite, we are doomed." He sounded remarkably calm about it. I wasn't calm. My pulse was thundering so fast I could feel it in my throat and wrists. Hear it like a rushing in my ears. Doomed: it had a bad ring to it. With Serephina waiting at the other end, it had a very bad ring to it indeed.