39
   Jean-Claude opened the bedroom door and stepped inside, ushering me through with a sweep of graceful hands. The bed stopped me. There'd been a change of bedding. Red sheets covered the bed. Crimson drapes formed a half canopy over the nearly black wood. There were still a dozen pillows on the bed and they were all screaming, brilliant red. Even after the night I'd had, it was eye-catching.
   "I like the new decor, I guess."
   "The linens needed to be changed. You are always complaining that I should use more color."
   I stared at the bed. "I'll stop complaining."
   "I will run your bath." He went into the bathroom without a single joke or risque comment. It was almost unnerving.
   Whoever had changed the sheets had also removed the chairs that Edward and Harley had used. I didn't want to sit on the clean sheets still covered in whatever the hell I was covered in. I sat down on the white carpet and tried not to think. Not thinking is a lot harder than it sounds. My thoughts kept chasing each other, like a werewolf chasing its tail. The image tore a laugh from my throat, and on the end of it a sound like a sob or a moan. I put the back of my hand against my mouth. I didn't like that sound coming out of me. It sounded hopeless, beaten.
   I was not beaten, dammit, but I was hurt. If what I felt had been an actual wound, I'd have been bleeding to death.
   The bathroom door opened at long last. A puff of warm, moist air flowed around Jean-Claude. He had taken off his shirt, and the cross-shaped burn scar marred the perfection of his chest. He held his boots in one hand, a towel as scarlet as the sheets in the other.
   "I washed up in the sink while the tub filled." He walked barefoot across the white carpeting. "I'm afraid I used the last clean towel. I will fetch you more."
   I took my hand away from my mouth and nodded. I finally managed to say, "Fine."
   I stood before he could offer to help me up. I didn't need any help.
   Jean-Claude moved to one side. His black hair lay in nearly tight curls across his pale shoulders, curled from the humidity of the bathroom. I ignored him as much as it was humanly possible and walked inside.
   The room was warm and misty, the black marble tub full of bubbles. He offered me a black lacquer tray from the vanity top. Shampoos, soap, bath crystals, and what looked like oils were grouped on the tray.
   "Get out so I can undress."
   "It took two people to dress you tonight, ma petite. Won't you need help getting undressed?" His voice was utterly bland. His face so still, his eyes so innocent, it made me smile.
   I sighed. "If you get the two straps in back, I think I can manage the rest. But no monkey business." I held my hands over the bra because one strap would loosen it. The other strap, as far as I could tell, was the pivot point for the rest of the outfit.
   His fingers moved to the top strap. I watched him in the fogged mirror. The strap came unbuckled, and the leather gave with a small sigh. He moved to the second strap without so much as an extra caress. He undid it and took a step back. "No monkey business, ma petite." He backed out of the room, and I watched him go like a phantom in the mist-covered mirrors. When the door was shut, I started on the rest of the straps. It was like peeling myself to get the goo-soaked leather off.
   I put the tray of bath accessories on the tub edge and slipped into the water. The water was hot, just this side of too hot. I sank into it up to my chin, but I couldn't relax. The gunk clung to my body in patches. I had to get it off me. I sat up in the tub and started scrubbing. The soap smelled like gardenia. The shampoos smelled like herbs. Trust Jean-Claude not to buy a name brand from the grocery store.
   I washed my hair twice, sinking under the water and coming up for air. I was scrubbed and virtuous, or at least clean. The mirrors had cleared and I had only myself to stare at. I'd washed off all the careful makeup. I smoothed my thick, black hair back from my face. My eyes were enormous and nearly black. My skin so pale, it was almost white. I looked shocked, ethereal, unreal.
   There was a soft knock on the door. "Ma petite, may I come in?"
   I glanced down at myself. The bubbles were still holding. I drew a pile of them a little closer to my chest and said, "Come in." It took a lot of effort not to hunch down in the water. I sat up straight, trusting in the bubbles. Besides, I would not huddle. So I was naked in a tub of bubble bath. So what. No one can embarrass you unless you let them.
   Jean-Claude came in with two thick, red towels. He closed the door behind him with a small smile. "We wouldn't want to let the hot air out."
   I narrowed my eyes but said, "I guess not."
   "Where do you want the towels? Here?" He started to lay them on the vanity.
   "I can't reach them there," I said.
   "Here?" He laid them on top of the stool. He stood there, staring down at me, still wearing nothing but the black jeans. His feet were startlingly pale against the black carpet.
   "Still too far away."
   He sat down on the edge of the tub, placing the towels on the floor. He stared down at me as if he could will the bubbles away. "Is this close enough?"
   "Maybe a little too close," I said.
   He trailed fingertips over the bubbles at the edge of the tub. "Do you feel better now, ma petite?"
   "I said no sexual innuendo, remember."
   "As I remember, you said no sexual innuendo until after you were clean." He smiled at me. "You're clean."
   I sighed. "Trust you to be literal."
   He trailed his fingers in the water. He turned his shoulder enough that I could see the whip scars on his back. They were slick and white, and I suddenly had an urge to trace them with my fingers.
   He turned back to face me. He wiped his wet fingers across his chest, trailing shining lines of moisture across the flat slickness of the burn scar, down along his belly. His fingers played with the line of dark hair that vanished into his pants.
   I closed my eyes and let out a sigh.
   "What is the matter, ma petite?" I felt him leaning over me. "Are you faint?"
   I opened my eyes. He had leaned his entire upper body across the tub, right arm on the far rim, the left near my shoulder. His hip was so far over the water that if I'd touched his chest, he'd have fallen in.
   "I don't faint," I said.
   His face leaned down over mine. "So glad to hear it." He kissed me lightly, a brush of lips, but even that small movement made my stomach jerk.
   I gasped and pushed him away. He fell into the tub, going completely under, only his feet sticking out. He landed on my naked body, and I screamed.
   He came up for air, his long, black hair streaming around his face, across his shoulders. He looked as surprised as I'd ever seen him. He crawled off me, mainly because I was shoving at him. He struggled to his feet. Water streamed down his body. He stared down at me. I was huddled against the side, staring up at him, pissed.
   He shook his head and laughed. The sound filled the room, played along my skin like a hand. "I have been a lady's man for nearly three hundred years, Anita. Why is it only with you that I am awkward?"
   "Maybe it's a hint," I said.
   "Perhaps."
   I stared up at him. He stood there, knee deep in bubble bath. He was soaking wet and should have been ridiculous, but he wasn't. He was beautiful.
   "How can you be so damn beautiful when I know what you are?"
   He knelt in the water. The bubbles covered his waist, so he looked naked. Water trailed down his chest in fine beads. I wanted to run my hands over him. I wanted to lick the water off his skin. I drew my legs to my chest and locked my arms around them, not trusting myself.
   He moved towards me. The water sloshed and curled around my naked body. He stayed kneeling, so close that his jeans brushed my huddled legs. The feel of him in the water, that close, made me hide my face against my knees. The pounding of my heart gave me away. I knew he could taste my need on the air.
   "Tell me to go, ma petite, and I will go." I felt him lean over me, his face just above my wet hair.
   Slowly, I raised my face.
   He placed a hand on the tub edge, one arm on either side of me, bringing his chest dangerously close to my face. I watched the water bead on his skin, the way that he sometimes watched blood on mine: a need almost too overwhelming to deny, an urge so complete that I didn't want to say no.
   I unclenched my arms from my knees and leaned forward. I whispered, "Don't go." I touched hands to his waist, tentative, as if it should burn, but his skin was cool under the slickness of water. Cool and smooth to the touch. I glanced up at his face and knew that there was something close to fear on my own face.
   His face was lovely, and uncertain, as if he didn't know what to do next. It was a look I never thought to see on Jean-Claude's face when I was naked in his arms.
   I kept my eyes on his face as I moved my mouth towards his stomach. I ran my tongue over his skin, a quick, tentative movement.
   He sighed, eyes fluttering shut, body almost sagging. I pressed my mouth against his skin, drinking the water off of him. I couldn't reach his chest. I moved to my knees, hands steadying me against his slender waist.
   The air was cool against my naked breasts. Kneeling had bared them. I froze, suddenly unsure. I wanted desperately to see his face and was afraid to look up.
   His fingertips brushed my shoulders, sliding down the wet skin. I shivered and glanced up. The look on his face caught my breath in my throat. Tenderness, need, amazement.
   "You are so beautiful, ma petite." He put his fingertips to my lips before I could protest. "You are beautiful. On this I do not lie."
   His fingers moved across my lips, down my chin. He slid his hands to my shoulders, down my back, in slow, teasing lines. His hands stopped on either side of my waist, mirroring my hands on his own waist.
   "Now what?" My voice was a little breathless.
   "Whatever you like, ma petite."
   I massaged my hands against his waist, feeling the flesh underneath, feeling him under my hands. I spread my hands wide, splaying my fingers tense against his skin, dragging my hands up his ribs.
   He kneaded his fingers into my waist, pressing his hands against my ribs. He inched his hands upward along my sides. Strong fingers pressed into my skin just enough to make me sigh. He stopped with his thumbs below my breasts. His touch was feather light, almost not touching at all. But that one small brush of his skin against my breasts made my body react, tightening, nipples hardening. My body wanted him. Wanted him so badly that my skin felt large and aching with the thought of it.
   My own hands were pressed against his chest. I realized that he was still mirroring me, waiting for me to move.
   I stared up into his face. I searched that beauty, those dark eyes. There was no pull to them, no power, except the thick black line of his lashes, and the rich color like the sky just before darkness swallows the world when you think all is black, but there in the west is a shade of blue, dark and rich as ink. Beauty had its own power.
   I slid my hands up his chest, fingers brushing across his nipples. I stared at his face while I did it, heart pounding in my throat, breath coming too fast.
   His hands slid upward, cupping my breasts. The touch of his hands made me gasp. He scooted lower in the water, still touching me. He bent over my breasts and laid a gentle kiss on them. He licked the water off my skin, lips working gently.
   I shuddered and had to steady myself on his bare shoulders. All I could see was his long, dark hair bent over me. I caught sight of us in the mirrors. I watched his mouth close over my breast, felt him take me into his mouth as far as he could. Fangs pressed against my breast. For a second I thought they would sink into my flesh, draw blood in a fine hot line, but he drew back. He dropped to all fours in the water, which made me taller, allowed me to look down into his face.
   There was no uncertainty in his face now. His eyes were still lovely, still human, but there was a knowledge in them now, a growing darkness. Sex, for want of a better word, but that look in a man's eyes is too primitive for vocabulary. It's the darkness we all have inside of us, peeking out. That part of us that we trap in our dreams and deny in daylight hours. He stayed crouched in the water with that feral light in his eyes, and I went to him.
   I kissed him, light, a brush of lips. I flicked my tongue along his lips and he opened his mouth for me. I cupped his face between my hands and kissed him, tasted him, explored him.
   He came up out of the water with a sound between a moan and a cry. His arms locked behind my back and he rolled us in the water like a shark. We came up gasping. He pushed away from me to lean against the far edge of the tub. I was breathing so hard I was trembling. My pulse thudded at the back of my throat. I could taste it on my tongue, almost roll the beating pulse in my mouth like candy. I realized it wasn't just my heart I was hearing. It was Jean-Claude's.
   I could see the pulse in his neck like something alive and separate, but it wasn't only my eyes that could see it. I could feel it like it was my own. I had never been so aware of the blood coursing through my body. The pulsing warmth of my own skin. The thick pumping of my heart. My life thundering inside me. Jean-Claude's body pulsed in time to mine. It was like he was riding my pulse, my blood. I felt his need, and it wasn't just sex, but for the first rime, I understood it wasn't just the blood, either. It was all of me. He wanted to warm himself in my body, like holding hands to a flame, gathering my warmth, my life, to him. I felt his stillness, a depth of quiet that nothing living could touch, like a still pool of water hidden away in the dark. In one crystalline moment, I realized that, for me, this was part of the attraction: I wanted to plunge my hands into his stillness, into that quiet place of death. I wanted to embrace it, confront it, conquer it. I wanted to fill him up with a burning wash of life, and I knew in that moment that I could do it, but only at the price of drinking in some of that still, dark water.
   "My deepest apologies, ma petite, you have almost undone me." He sank into the water, leaning against the edge of the tub. "I did not come here to feed, ma petite. I am sorry."
   I felt his heartbeat going away from me, pulling away from me. My pulse slowed. The only heart thudding in my ears was my own.
   He stood, water dripping down his body. "I will go, ma petite." He sighed. "You rob me of my hard-won control. Only you can do that to me, only you."
   I crawled through the water towards him and let the darkness fill my eyes. "Don't go," I said.
   He watched me with a look that was part amazement, part amusement, part fear, as if he didn't trust me—or didn't trust himself.
   I knelt at his feet, running my hands up the soaked cloth of his jeans. I dug my nails lightly into the cloth over his thighs and stared up at him. My face was dangerously close to places I had never touched before, not even with my hands. This close, I couldn't help noticing that he was stretched hard and firm under the tight, heavy cloth. I had a terrible urge to lay my cheek over his groin. I ran my hand lightly over him, barely touching. That small touch brought a soft groan from him.
   He stared down at me like a drowning man.
   I met his eyes. "No teeth, no blood."
   He nodded slowly. He tried twice before he found his voice. "As my lady wishes."
   I laid my cheek across him, feeling him firm and large against my skin. I felt his whole body tense. I rubbed my face against him like a cat. A small sound escaped him. I looked up. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back.
   I grabbed the waistband of his jeans and used it to pull myself to my feet. Water ran down my body, suds clung to my skin.
   His hands encircled my waist, but his eyes went lower. He met my gaze and smiled. It was the smile he always had. That smile that said he was thinking wicked little thoughts, things you'd only do in the dark on a dare. For the first time, I wanted everything that smile promised.
   I tugged at his jeans. "Off."
   He unsnapped the jeans carefully. He peeled the wet cloth away from his body. If there'd been underwear, I never saw it. The jeans ended up on the carpet. He was somehow suddenly nude.
   He was like carved alabaster, every muscle, every curve of his body pale and perfect. Telling him he was beautiful was redundant. Saying golly gee whiz seemed too uncool. Giggling was out. My voice came small and strangled, hoarse with all the words I couldn't find. "You're not circumcised."
   "No, ma petite. Is that a problem?"
   I did what I'd wanted to do since I first saw him. I wrapped my fingers around him, squeezing gently. He closed his eyes, shuddering, steadying his hands on my shoulders. "Not a problem," I said.
   He pulled me against him suddenly, pressing our naked bodies together. The feel of him hard and firm against my stomach was almost overwhelming. I dug fingers into his back to keep my suddenly weak knees from giving out.
   I kissed his chest. I rose on tiptoe and kissed his shoulders, his neck. I ran my tongue along his skin and tasted him, rolling the scent of him, the feel of him in my mouth. We kissed, a nearly innocent brush of lips. I locked my hands behind his neck, arching my body against him. He made a small sound low in his throat.
   He slid down my body, arms locked behind my back, holding me against him as he left my arms and left me standing, staring down at him.
   He licked my stomach with quick, wet flicks of his tongue. His hands played along my buttocks, teasing. He licked back and forth where stomach ended and lower things began. His fingers slid between my legs.
   I gasped. "What are you doing?"
   He rolled his eyes upward, mouth still pressed low on my stomach. He raised his face just enough to speak. "You may have three guesses, ma petite," he whispered. He put a hand on each of my thighs and spread my legs wider. His hand slid over me, exploring me.
   My mouth was suddenly dry. I licked my lips and said, "I don't think my legs will hold."
   He ran his tongue down my hip. "When the time comes, ma petite, I will hold you." He kissed his way down my thigh. His finger slid inside of me. My breath fell outward in a sigh.
   He kissed the inside of my thighs, running his tongue, his lips along my skin. The feel of his fingers between my legs tightened my body, and I could feel the beginnings of something large and overwhelming.
   He stood, hand still between my legs. He bent and kissed me, long and slow. The movement of his hand matched his mouth. Slow and lingering, teasing along my body. When his fingers plunged inside me, I cried out, shuddering against him.
   He left me standing in the water, alone and shivering, but not from cold. I couldn't even think enough to ask where'd he gone. He appeared in front of me with a condom in his hand like he'd plucked it from the air. He traced the foil down my body.
   I touched him while he unwrapped it. I held him in my hands and felt the velvet smoothness of him. The skin was unbelievably soft. He drew himself gently out of my hands with a shaking laugh.
   When he was ready, he picked me up, hands on the backs of my thighs. He pressed himself against me without entering, rubbing himself where his hand had touched. I whispered, "Please." He spread my legs and eased inside of me. Slowly, so slowly as if he were afraid he'd hurt me, but it didn't hurt.
   When he was sheathed inside me, he looked at me. The look on his face was haunting. Emotions flowed over his face. Tenderness, triumph, need. "I have wanted this for so long, ma petite, so very long." He eased in and out, slowly, almost tentatively. I watched his face until the play of emotions was too much, too honest. There was something like pain in his eyes, something that I didn't even come close to understanding.
   The movements of his hips were still slow, careful. It was amazing, but I wanted more. I brought my mouth up to his and said, "I won't break." I pressed my mouth to his hard enough to feel the press of fangs.
   He went to his knees in the water, pressing me against the side of the tub. His mouth fed at mine, and there was a small, sharp pain. Sweet copper blood filled my mouth, filled his mouth, and he plunged inside of me, hard and fast. I watched him in the mirrors. Watched his body coming in and out of mine. I gathered him in my arms, in my legs. I held him to me, feeling his body plunging inside of mine. Felt his need.
   Someone was making a high moaning sound, and it was me. I wrapped my legs around his waist. The muscles in my lower abdomen spasmed, tightened.
   I pressed my body against Jean-Claude as if I would climb through him, into him. I grabbed a handful of his long hair and watched his face from inches away. Watched his face while his body pumped into mine. The emotions were gone. His face was almost slack with need. Blood spilled down the corner of my mouth, and he licked it away, his body tightening against me.
   He slowed the rhythm of his body. I felt the effort strain through his arms and back. He slowed. Every time he thrust into me, it was like I could feel it into the middle of my chest. As if he'd grown impossibly large within me. My body spasmed around him, tightened like a hand. He cried out, and his body lost its rhythm. He plunged inside me faster, harder, as if he would meld our bodies together, weld us into one flesh, one body. A wave of pleasure burst over me in a skin-tingling, body-sweeping rush. It burst over me like a rush of cool flame, and still he was not done. Every thrust of his body reached inside of me and caressed things that should never have been able to be touched. It was as if his body could reach the places his voice could touch, as if it were more than his body that plunged inside of me. The world became for a moment a shining whiteness, a melting thing. I dug fingers into Jean-Claude's back. Noises fell from my mouth that were too primitive for screams. When I realized I was drawing blood on his back, I scratched my own arms. I hadn't asked what he thought about pain.
   I cuddled around him, letting him hold the full weight of my body. He climbed up the edge of the tub, lifting me out of the water. He crawled on all fours to the raised area around the tub with me hanging onto him. He lowered his body and I moved away from him. He slid out of me and was still as hard and ready as when he had started.
   I looked at him. "You didn't come."
   "I have not waited this long to end it so quickly." He lowered himself in a sort of push-up and ran his tongue down one of the scratches on my arm. He rolled his tongue around his lips. "If you did this for my benefit, I appreciate it. If you did it to keep from damaging me, it was not necessary. I do not mind a little pain."
   "Me, either."
   He slid his body across mine. "I noticed that." He kissed me slowly. He lay beside me, then scooted until he was lying on his back and I was almost back in the tub."I want to watch you move, ma petite. I want you above me."
   I straddled his waist and slid slowly over him. It was deeper from this angle, sharper somehow. His hands moved up my body, over my breasts. He lay back underneath me. His long, curling, black hair was almost completely dry. It fanned out around his face in a thick, soft wave. This was what I wanted. Seeing him like this. Feeling him inside me.
   "Move for me, Anita."
   I moved for him. I rode his body. He tightened inside me, and I gasped. I watched us in the mirrors. Watched my hips swaying above him.
   "Ma petite," he whispered, "look into my eyes. Let it be between us as it always could have been."
   I stared into his dark blue eyes. They were lovely, but they were just eyes. I shook my head. "I can't."
   "You must let me inside your mind, as you let me inside your body." He spasmed inside of me, and it was hard to think.
   "I don't know how," I said.
   "Love me, Anita, love me."
   I stared down at him and did. "I do love you."
   "Then let me in, ma petite. Let me love you."
   I felt it like a drape being pulled away. I felt his eyes, and they were suddenly drowning deep, an endless midnight blue ocean that somehow managed to burn. I was aware of my body. I could feel Jean-Claude inside my body. I could feel him like a brush of silk inside my mind.
   The orgasm hit me unexpectedly, opened my mind to him more than I'd planned. Flung me wide open and falling into his eyes. He cried out underneath me, and I realized I could still feel my body, feel my hands on his chest, feel my pelvis riding him. I opened my eyes and for a dizzying second I saw his face go slack, that moment of total abandon.
   I collapsed on top of him, trailing my hands down his arms, feeling his heart pound against my chest. We lay quietly for a few moments, resting, holding each other, then I slid off him, curling beside him.
   "You can't hold me with your eyes anymore. Even if I let you, I can still break the hold at any time."
   "Yes, ma petite."
   "Does that bother you?"
   He lifted a lock of my hair, running it between his fingers. "Let us say it does not bother me as much as it might have a few hours ago."
   I raised up on one elbow so I could see his face. "Meaning what? That now that I've had sex with you, I'm not dangerous?"
   He stared up at me. I couldn't read his eyes. "You will always be dangerous, ma petite." He raised upward, bending at the waist, bringing his lips against mine in a gentle kiss. He moved back from me just enough to speak, propping himself on one arm. "There was a time when you would have taken my heart with stake or gun." He took my hand in his and raised it towards his mouth. "Now you have taken it with these delicate hands and the scent of your body." He kissed the back of my hand ever so gently. He lay back, drawing me with him. "Come, ma petite, enjoy your conquest."
   I held my face back, avoiding a kiss. "You aren't conquered," I said.
   "Nor, ma petite, are you." He ran his hands up my back. "I am beginning to realize that you will never be conquered, and that is the greatest aphrodisiac of all."
   "A challenge forever," I said.
   "For all eternity," he whispered. I let him draw me down into a kiss, and part of me was still not sure if I'd done a good thing or a bad thing. But just for tonight, I didn't care.
   
   
40
   I woke surrounded by bloodred sheets, naked, and alone. Jean-Claude had kissed me good-bye and gone to his coffin. I didn't argue. If I'd awakened to him cold and dead beside me . . . Let's just say I'd had all the shock I could handle from my boyfriends for awhile.
   Boyfriend. That was a word for someone who walked you to your class. It didn't seem the right word after last night. I lay there, clutching the raw silk sheets to my chest. I could smell Jean-Claude's cologne on the sheets, on my skin, but more than that, I could smell him. I cuddled that scent to me, rolled in it. He said he loved me and for a time last night, I believed him. In the light of day, I wasn't so sure. How stupid was it to half-believe the vampire loved me? Not nearly as stupid as half-loving him. But I still loved Richard. One night of great sex didn't change that. I think I had hoped it would. Lust may die that easily, but love doesn't. True love is a much harder beast to kill.
   There was a soft knock on the door. I had to reach under two red pillows before I came out with the Firestar. I held it at my side and said, "Come in."
   A man entered the room. He was tall, muscular, with hair shaved on either side, the back left in a long ponytail.
   I pointed the gun at him and clutched the sheets to my chest. "I don't know you."
   His eyes went wide; his voice shook, "I'm Ernie, I'm supposed to ask if you want breakfast."
   "No," I said. "Now, get out."
   He nodded, eyes on the gun. He hesitated in the doorway, even staring down the barrel of a gun. I made a guess.
   "What did Jean-Claude tell you to do?" It was amazing how many people were more afraid of Jean-Claude than of me. I pointed the gun at the ceiling.
   "He said I was to be at your disposal, anything you want. He said I was to make that very clear to you."
   "It's clear. Now, get out."
   He still hesitated.
   I'd had enough. "Ernie, I am sitting here naked in a bed, and I don't know you. Get out or I'm going to shoot you on principle." I aimed the gun at him for dramatic emphasis.
   Ernie ran for it, leaving the door open. Great. Now I had the choice of walking to the door naked and closing it, or draping a king-size sheet around me and stumbling to the door and closing it. Sheet. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, with the sheet in front of me and most of my backside not covered, gun still clutched in one hand, when Richard appeared in the doorway.
   He was dressed in jeans, white T-shirt, jeans jacket, and white tennis shoes. His hair foamed around his face in a mass of golden brown waves. A claw had caught him across the face, leaving angry red welts that chased across the entire left side of his face. The injury looked days old. It had to have happened after I left last night.
   He had my leather coat in one hand and the Browning in the other. He just stood there in the doorway.
   I sat on the bed. Neither of us said anything. I wasn't slick and sophisticated enough for this. What do you say to boyfriend A when he finds you naked in the bed of boyfriend B? Especially if boyfriend A turned into a monster the night before and ate someone. I bet Miss Manners didn't cover this at all.
   "You slept with him, didn't you?" His voice was low, almost soft, as if he was trying very hard not to yell.
   My gut tightened. I was not ready for this fight. I was armed, but I was naked. I would have traded the gun for clothes in a hot second.
   "I would say it's not what it looks like, but it is." My attempt at humor did not work.
   He strode into the room like an approaching storm, his anger riding before him in a crackling wave. The power poured over me and I wanted to scream.
   "Stop leaking all over me."
   It stopped him, almost literally in midmotion. "What are you talking about?"
   "Your power, aura, it's raining all over me. Stop it."
   "Why? Does it feel good? Until you panicked last night, it felt good, didn't it?"
   I shoved the Firestar under the pillow and stood, clutching the sheet to me. "Yeah, it felt good until you shapeshifted on top of me. I was covered in that clear gunk, thick with it." The memory was new enough that I shuddered and looked away from him.
   "So you fucked Jean-Claude. Oh, that makes perfect sense."
   I looked at him and felt an answering anger. If he wanted to fight, he'd come to the right place. I held up my right hand. It was covered in a wonderful multicolored bruise. "You did this when you knocked my gun away."
   "There'd been enough killing, Anita. No one else had to die."
   "Do you really think that Raina is just going to let you take over? No way. She'll see you dead first."
   He shook his head, his face set in stubborn lines. "I am Ulfric now. I'm in control. She'll do what I say."
   "Nobody bosses Raina; not for long. Has she offered to fuck you yet?"
   "Yes," he said.
   The way he said it stopped me, brought my breath up short. "Did you, after I left?"
   "It would serve you right if I had."
   I couldn't meet his eyes on that one. "If you make her lupa, she'll let it go. She just doesn't want to lose her power base." I forced myself to look up, to meet his eyes.
   "I don't want Raina." Something passed over his face so raw, that it brought tears to my eyes. "I want you."
   "You can't want me now, not after last night."
   "Is that why you slept with Jean-Claude? Did you think it would keep you safe from me?"
   "I wasn't thinking that clearly," I said.
   He laid the coat and the gun on the bed. He gripped the end of the bed. The wood groaned under the strength of his hands. He jerked back from it as if he hadn't meant to do it. "You slept with him in this bed. Right here." He put his hand over his eyes as if he was trying to erase an image inside his head.
   He screamed wordlessly.
   I took a step towards him, hand out, and stopped. How could I comfort him? What could I say to make this better? Not a damn thing.
   He jerked at the bottom sheet, tugging it until it came loose. He grabbed the top mattress and pulled it off the bed. He grabbed the bottom of the bed and lifted.
   I screamed, "Richard!"
   The bed was antique solid oak, and he tossed it on its side like it was a toy. He pulled the bottom sheet off. The silk tore with a sound like skin peeling back. He was on his knees with the butchered silk in his hands. He held his hands out to me and the sheets fell away like blood.
   Richard got to his feet, a little unsteady. He caught himself against the bed and took a step towards me. The Firestar and the Browning were somewhere on the floor in the welter of red silk and tossed mattress.
   I backed away until I hit the corner, and I had nowhere else to go. I was still clutching the sheet around me like it was some kind of protection.
   I held out a hand towards Richard, as if that would help. "What do you want from me, Richard? What do you want me to say? I'm sorry. I am sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that I can't handle what I saw last night. I'm sorry."
   He stalked towards me, not saying anything, hands balled into fists. I realized that I was afraid of Richard. That I wasn't sure what he'd do when he reached me, and I wasn't armed. Part of me felt like I deserved to be hit at least once, that I owed that to him. But after seeing what he'd done to the bed, I wasn't sure I'd survive it.
   Richard grabbed the front of the sheet, balling it in his fist, jerking me against him. He used the sheet to raise me to tiptoe. He kissed me. For a second I froze. Hitting, yelling, that I'd expected, but not this.
   His mouth bruised against my lips, forcing my mouth open. The moment I felt his tongue, I jerked my head back.
   Richard put a hand on the back of my head like he'd force me to kiss him. The rage in his face was frightening.
   "Not good enough to kiss now?"
   "I saw you eat Marcus last night."
   He let me go so suddenly I fell to the floor, stumbling over the sheet. I tried to get to my knees, but my legs had tangled. The sheet slipped over one breast. I struggled to cover myself. Embarrassed at last.
   "Two nights ago, you let me touch them, suck them. Now I can't even see them."
   "Don't do this, Richard."
   He went to all fours in front of me, so we'd be on eye level. "Don't do what? Don't be mad that you let the vampire fuck you?" He crawled forward until our faces were almost touching. "You fucked a corpse last night, Anita. Did it feel good?"
   I stared at him from inches away, not embarrassed anymore. Instead, I was getting pissed. "Yeah, it did."
   He jerked back from me like I'd hit him. His face crumpled, and his eyes searched the room frantically. "I love you." He looked up suddenly, eyes wide and pain-filled. "I love you."
   I kept my eyes very wide so the tears in them wouldn't fall out and run down my cheeks. "I know, and I'm sorry."
   He turned away from me, still kneeling. He slapped his hands against the floor. He pounded his hands into the floor over and over until blood smeared on the white carpet.
   I got to my feet. I hovered over him, afraid to touch him. "Richard, Richard, don't, please don't." The tears fell and I couldn't stop them.
   I knelt beside him. "You're hurting yourself. Stop it!" I grabbed his wrists, held his bleeding hands in mine. He stared at me, and the look on his face was raw, human.
   I touched his face, gently tracing the claw marks. He leaned into me, tears spilling down his cheeks. The look in his eyes held me immobile. His lips brushed mine, soft. I didn't flinch, but I didn't kiss him back, either.
   He moved back from me, just enough to see my face clearly. "Good-bye, Anita." He got to his feet.
   I wanted to say so much, but none of it would help. Nothing would make it better. Nothing would erase what I'd seen last night or how it had made me feel. "Richard . . . I . . . I'm sorry."
   "So am I." He walked to the door. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. "I'll always love you."
   I opened my mouth, but no sound came. There was nothing left to say but, "I love you, Richard, and I am sorrier than I know how to say."
   He opened the door and stepped through it without looking back. When the door closed behind him, I sat on the floor, huddled in the silk sheet. I could smell Jean-Claude's cologne on the silk, but I could smell Richard now, too. His aftershave clung to the sheets, to my mouth.
   How could I let him go like this? How could I call him back? I sat on the floor and did nothing, because I didn't know what to do.
   
   

41
   I called Edward's answering service and left a message. I couldn't stay where I was. I couldn't stay here staring at the wrecked bedroom and remembering Richard's wounded eyes. I had to get out. I had to call Dominic and tell him I wasn't coming. The triad of power didn't work without at least two of us on the spot. Jean-Claude was in his coffin and Richard was out of the picture. I wasn't sure what would happen with our little triumvirate now. I didn't see Richard standing around watching me grope Jean-Claude, if I wasn't groping him, too. I couldn't blame him on that.
   Strangely, the thought of him sleeping with Raina still made me see green. I had no right to be jealous of him now, but I was. Go figure.
   I dressed in black jeans, a black, short-sleeved blouse, and a black blazer. I had to work tonight, and Bert would kick a fit about me wearing black. He thought it gave the wrong image. Screw him. Tonight, black fit my mood.
   The Browning in its shoulder holster, Firestar in the Uncle Mike's sidekick holster, a knife on each arm, and a knife down my spine. I was ready for work.
   I was going to give Edward ten more minutes, and then I was out of there. If there was still an assassin lurking around, I'd almost have welcomed him or her.
   There was a knock on the door. I sighed. "Who is it?"
   "Cassandra."
   "Come in."
   She opened the door, caught one sight of the wrecked bed, and grinned. "I've heard of rough sex, but this is ridiculous." She was wearing a long, white dress that fell nearly to her ankles. White hose and white canvas flats completed the outfit. She looked light and summery with her long hair trailing down her back.
   I shook my head. "Richard did it."
   The smile left her face. "He found out you slept with Jean-Claude?"
   "Does everyone know?" I asked.
   "Not everyone." She walked into the room, shutting the door behind her. She shook her head. "Did he hurt you?"
   "He didn't hit me, if that's what you mean, but I feel pretty shitty."
   Cassandra walked to the bed, staring up at it. She grabbed the edge of the frame. She pulled with one hand and steadied with the other. She pulled several hundred pounds of wood and metal around like it was nothing. She settled the bed gently to the carpet.
   I raised an eyebrow. "That was impressive."
   She smiled, almost shyly. "One of the fringe benefits of being a lycanthrope is that you can pretty much lift anything you want."
   "I see the appeal of that."
   "I knew you would," she said. She started picking up the pillows and ripped sheets. I joined her. "We should probably put the mattress back first," she said.
   "Okay. You need help?"
   She laughed. "I can lift it, but it's awkward."
   "Sure." I grabbed the other side of the mattress.
   Cassandra came up beside me, lifting the mattress with her left hand. A look passed over her face. "I am sorry."
   "I meant what I said about you and Richard earlier. I want him to be happy," I said.
   "That's very flattering. I like you, Anita. I like you a lot. I wish I didn't."
   I had time to frown at her, then her delicate fist came out of nowhere, a blur of speed that smashed into my face. I felt myself fall backwards. I smashed into the floor and couldn't save my head from that extra smack against the carpet. It didn't hurt. I didn't feel a damn thing when blackness closed over me.
   
   
42
   I rose out of the darkness slowly, dragging upwards like being awakened from deep sleep. I wasn't sure what woke me. I couldn't remember going to sleep. I tried to roll over and couldn't. I was suddenly very awake, eyes wide, body straining. I'd been tied up before; it was one of my least favorite things. I had a few moments of pure panic. I bucked against the ropes that tied me at the wrists and ankles. I fought, pulling until I realized that the knots were getting tighter as I struggled.
   I forced myself to lie very still. My heart pounded in my ears so loudly that I couldn't hear anything else. My wrists were tied over my head at an angle sharp enough to squeeze my shoulder blades and put strain all the way down to my wrists. Even raising my head the little bit I needed to see my ankles was painful. My ankles were tied together to the foot of an unfamiliar bed. I rolled my head back and saw the rope that tied my wrists to the head of the bed. The rope was black and soft, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was woven silk. It looked like something Jean-Claude might have lying around in a closet somewhere. I considered it for only a split second, then reality stepped into the room, and my heart stopped for just a second.
   Gabriel came to the foot of the bed. He was wearing black leather pants so tight they looked poured on, and high black boots that rode his thighs all the way up, with straps at the top to hold the soft leather in place. He was naked from the waist up, a silver ring through his left nipple and another through the edge of his belly button. More silver marched up his ears to the curve, glittering as he walked around the bed. His long, thick black hair fell across his face, framing his pale, storm grey eyes. He walked around behind the headboard, out of sight, then slowly back into frame.
   My heart had started beating again. It was beating so hard I was going to choke on it. They'd taken the Browning and Firestar, holsters and all. The wrist sheaths were gone. I tensed my back and could still feel the back sheath. When I put my head back, I didn't feel the knife's handle. I guess I was grateful they hadn't stripped me to get the sheath. The way Gabriel was circling the bed, I was betting we'd get to that.
   I tried to talk, couldn't, swallowed, and tried again. "What's going on?" My voice sounded amazingly calm. Even to me.
   A woman's laugh, high and rich, filled the room. But of course, it wasn't a room. We were at the farm where they made dirty movies. The room I was tied in had only three walls. The lights hung above me were dead, not on yet.
   Raina stalked into sight on high, spiked heels the color of blood. She was wearing what looked like a red leather teddy that left most of her long legs and hips bare. "Hello, Anita, you're looking well."
   I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out slowly. My heart slowed a bit. Good. "You should talk to Richard before you do anything drastic. The position of lupa just opened up today."
   She cocked her head to one side, puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
   "She slept with Jean-Claude." Cassandra came to stand on the edge of the fake room, back to the wall. She looked like she'd always looked. If she felt uncomfortable having betrayed me to Raina, it didn't show. I hated her a lot for that.
   "Aren't you going to sleep with both of them?" Raina asked.
   "Hadn't planned on it," I said. Every time I opened my mouth and nobody touched me, I got a little calmer. If Raina had done this to get me out of the way, then she didn't need to go any further. If it was revenge for Marcus, I was in deep shit.
   Raina sat down on the end of the bed near my feet. I tensed when she did it; I couldn't help myself. She noticed and laughed. "Oh, you are going to be a lot of fun."
   "You can be alpha female. I don't want the job," I said.
   Raina sighed, running her hand along my leg, massaging the muscle in my upper thigh, almost absently like you'd pet a dog. "Richard doesn't want me, Anita. He thinks I'm corrupt. He wants you." She squeezed my thigh until I thought she was going to grow claws and tear out the muscle. She forced a small sound out of my throat before she stopped.
   "What do you want?"
   "Your pain." She smiled when she said it.
   I turned my head to Cassandra. There had to be someone sane in this room. "Why are you helping them?"
   "I am Sabin's wolf."
   My eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
   Raina crawled up on the bed, lying beside me, insinuating her body against mine, one finger tracing over my stomach. It was an idle gesture, as if she wasn't really concentrating. I didn't want to be here when she started concentrating.
   "Cassandra was a plant from the very beginning, weren't you dear?"
   Cassandra nodded, coming to stand beside the bed. Her hazel eyes were calm, too calm. Whatever she was feeling was there behind that pretty face, carefully controlled. The trick was, was there anything behind that face that could help me?
   "Dominic, Sabin, and I are a triumvirate. We are what you and Richard and Jean-Claude could have been."
   I didn't like her using the past tense. "You're the woman he gave up fresh blood for?"
   "I believe in the sanctity of life. I thought I valued that above all. Watching Sabin's golden beauty rot away has convinced me otherwise. I will do anything, anythingto help him recover." Something like pain crossed her eyes and she looked away. When she looked back, her face was forcibly blank, the effort trembling down her hands. She noticed and hugged her hands to her arms. She smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "I have to make it up to him, Anita. I am sorry that you and yours have become entangled in our problems."
   "How am I caught up in it?"
   Raina slid her arm over my stomach, putting her face very near mine. "Dominic has a spell to cure Sabin of the rotting disease. A transfer of magical essence, you might say. All he needed was exactly the right donor." She leaned in so close that only my turning my head kept our lips from touching. She whispered against my skin, breath warm, "A perfect donor. A vampire who shares Sabin's powers exactly, a perfect match, and a servant, either alpha werewolf, or necromancer, bound to that same vampire."
   I turned and looked at her. I couldn't help it. She kissed me, pressing her mouth against mine, trying to force her tongue inside. I bit her lip hard enough that I tasted blood.
   She jerked back with a startled scream. She put her hand to her mouth and stared down at me. "That is going to cost you dearly."
   I spit her blood at her. It spattered along my chin. It was a stupid thing to have done. Making her angrier was not helpful, but watching the blood drip down her lovely face had almost been worth it.
   "Gabriel, entertain Ms. Blake."
   That got my attention. Gabriel slid onto the bed, folding himself against me as Raina had done on the other side. He was taller, six feet, so he didn't fit quite as well, but what he lacked in matching size he made up for in technique. He straddled my body and leaned over me in a sort of push-up, bringing his mouth close and closer. He licked my bloody chin, one quick flick of his tongue. I jerked my head away.
   He grabbed my chin with one hand, forcing me to look at him. He held my chin like a vise, fingers digging in when I struggled. The strength in his fingers was enough to crush my jaw if he squeezed. He licked the blood off my chin and lips in slow, lingering licks.
   I screamed, then mentally cursed myself. This was what they wanted. Panic would not help. Panic would not help. I kept repeating it over and over until I stopped pulling at the ropes. I would not lose it, not yet, not yet.
   Cassandra crawled up on the bed. I could only see her white dress out of the corner of my eye. Gabriel still held me immobile.
   "Let go of her face so she can look at me."
   Gabriel glanced at her and hissed.
   A low, rolling growl trickled out from behind her lips. "I'm in the mood for a fight tonight, kitty, don't make it easy for me."
   "Aren't you expected at the ceremony?" Raina said. "Doesn't Dominic need you there for it to work?"
   Cassandra reared back, and the voice that came was low and fell from her human lips with effort. "I will speak with Anita before I go, or I will not go."
   Raina came to stand on the other side of the bed. "You'll never find another master vampire who matches your master as perfectly as Jean-Claude. Never. You'd jeopardize his one chance at a cure?"
   "I will do as I wish on this one thing, Raina, for I am alpha. When Richard is gone, I will lead the pack. Do not forget that."
   "That wasn't our bargain."
   "Our bargain was that you would kill the Executioner before we arrived in town. You failed."
   "Marcus hired the best. Who knew she would be so hard to kill?"
   "I did, the first time I met her. You are always underestimating other women, Raina; it is one of your weaknesses." Cassandra leaned towards Raina. "You tried to kill Richard before Dominic could use him in the spell."
   "He was going to kill Marcus."
   Cassandra shook her head. "You panicked, Raina. You and Marcus. Now Marcus is dead, and you can't hold the pack. Too many of them hate you. And many of them love Richard, or at least admire him."
   I wanted to ask where Jean-Claude and Richard were, but I was afraid I knew. A ceremony, sacrifice, but they needed Cassandra to make it work. I didn't want her to rush off.
   "You were Dominic's alibi," I said. "Not that I'm complaining, but why am I still alive?"
   Cassandra looked down at me. "Gabriel and Raina want you on film. If you would give me your word that you would seek no revenge against any of us for the deaths of your two men, then I would fight to see you go free."
   I started to open my mouth and promise.
   She waved a finger in front of my mouth. "No lies, Anita, not between us."
   "Too late for that," I said.
   Cassandra nodded. "True, and that grieves me. Under other circumstances, we might have been friends."
   "Yeah." Of course, that made it hurt all the more. Nothing rubs salt in the wounds like betrayal. Richard could probably compare notes with me right now.
   "Where are Richard and Jean-Claude?"
   She stared down at me. "Even now you think you can save them, don't you?"
   I would have shrugged, but I couldn't. "It was a thought."
   "You were a lure and a hostage for the two men," Cassandra said.
   Gabriel had settled on top of me, body pressing along the length of my body. He was heavy. You never noticed how heavy a man was when you were enjoying yourself. He had sunk down, so that his feet trailed off the bed, and he could fold his arms across my chest. His chin rested on his arms, and he stared at me like that, like he knew he had all day, all night, all the time in the world.
   "I am very surprised that you broke up with Richard today, Anita," Raina said. "We sent him a lock of your hair with a note saying we'd send a hand next. He came alone and told no one, as we had said to do. He really is a fool."
   It sounded like something Richard would do, but it surprised me, anyway. "You didn't get Jean-Claude to hand himself over for a lock of my hair."
   Raina moved where I could see her better and smiled down. Her lip was already beginning to heal. "Very true; we didn't even try. Jean-Claude would have known we meant to kill you, regardless. He'd have come with all his vampires, all the wolves that are loyal to him. It would have been a bloodbath."
   "How did you get him then?"
   "Cassandra betrayed him. Didn't you, Cassandra?"
   Cassandra just looked at us. "If Richard hadn't broken with you, you might have been able to cure Sabin. Seeking your aid was originally only an excuse to enter Jean-Claude's territory, but you were more powerful than Dominic first thought. You surprised us by bearing none of the vampire's marks. You were supposed to be part of the sacrifice, but without at least the first mark, it will not work."
   Hurrah for me. "You saw me heal Damian's cut and the zombie. I can heal Sabin. You know I can, Cassandra. You saw it."
   She shook her head. "The sickness has moved inside Sabin. His brain is going. If you had cured him today, it would be moot. But he must be sane for the spell to work. Even one more day might be too late."
   "If you kill Richard and Jean-Claude, I won't have the power to heal Sabin. If Dominic came here planning to sacrifice all three of us, then the spell must need all three of us to work."
   Something flickered across her face. I was right. "Dominic's not sure it will work without a human servant in the loop, is he?"
   Cassandra shook her head. "It has to be tonight."
   "If you kill them both and it doesn't cure Sabin, you've destroyed the only real chance he has. Our triumvirate can cure him. You know it can."
   "I know no such thing. You would promise me the moon itself if you thought it would save you all."
   "That's true, but I still think we can cure him. If you kill Richard and Jean-Claude, the chance is gone. Let us at least try. If it doesn't work, you can sacrifice them tomorrow. I'll let Jean-Claude give me the first mark. We'll either cure Sabin tomorrow or we'll be the perfect sacrifice for Dominic's spell." I willed her to listen to me. To believe me.
   "Will Sabin be able to read his part of the spell tomorrow night?" Raina asked. She moved in very close to Cassandra. "Once his brain is rotted away, there will be nothing left to do but lock him in a box with crosses on it. Hide him away."
   Cassandra's hands balled into fists. A fine trembling ran through her body. Raw fear showed on her face.
   Raina turned to me almost conversationally. "Sabin won't die, you understand. He'll melt down into a little puddle of slime, but he won't die. Will he, Cassandra?"
   "No," Cassandra almost shouted. "No, he won't die. He'll just go insane. He'll still have all the powers of the triumvirate, but he'll be mad. We'll have to lock him away and pray that Dominic's spells can hold his power in check. If we can't hold his powers prisoner, the council will force us to burn him alive. Only that would be sure death."
   "But if you do that," Raina said, "you and Dominic will die, as well. All those vampire marks dragging you down to hell with him."
   "Yes," Cassandra said, "yes." She stared at me, anger and helplessness in her face.
   "Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" I asked.
   "No, Anita, you're just supposed to die," she said.
   I swallowed hard and tried to think of something useful. It was hard to do with Gabriel lying on top of me, but if I didn't think of something, we were all dead.
   Cassandra startled as if someone had touched her. A prickle of energy swept over my body from her, raising goose bumps where it touched. Gabriel ran his fingertips over the skin of my arms, making the gooseflesh stay just a little longer.
   "I must go," Cassandra said. "Before the night is over, you may wish you were being sacrificed." She looked from Gabriel to Raina. "A slit throat would be quicker."
   I agreed with her, but I wasn't sure what to say. We were discussing different ways to kill me. None of them seemed particularly good choices.
   Cassandra stared down at me. "I am sorry."
   "If you're really sorry," I said, "untie me and give me a weapon."
   She smiled wistfully. "Sabin has ordered me not to."
   "You always do what you're told?" I asked.
   "On this one thing, yes. If you'd watched Jean-Claude's beauty rot before you, you'd do anything to help him."
   "Who're you trying to convince, me or you?"
   She swayed slightly, and I felt the roll of power out of her body and along mine. Gabriel licked my arm.
   "I must go. The circle will be closed soon." She stared down at me, at Gabriel running his tongue up my arm. "I am truly sorry, Anita."
   "If you're looking for forgiveness, pray. God may forgive you; I won't."
   Cassandra stared down at me for another heartbeat. "So be it. Good-bye, Anita." She ran in a blur of white, like a fast-forward ghost.
   "Good," Raina said, "now we can set up the lights and make some test shots." The lights sprang into a dazzling brightness.
   I closed my eyes against the glare.
   Gabriel moved up my body, and I opened my eyes. "We were going to strip you naked and tie you spread-eagled, but Cassandra wouldn't let us. But now she's too busy with the spell."
   He put a hand on either side of my head, pinning some of my hair. "We did makeup on your face while you were out. We can make the body makeup part of the show. What do you think?"
   I tried to think of anything useful. Anything at all. Nothing came to mind. He leaned over me, bringing his face close and closer. He opened his mouth enough to show fangs. Not vampire fangs but small leopard fangs. Richard had told me once that Gabriel spent too much time in animal form so he didn't come completely back anymore. Great.
   Gabriel kissed me, lightly, then harder, forcing his tongue in my mouth. He drew back from me. "Bite me." He kissed me, then raised his lips back just enough to whisper, "Bite me."
   Pain excited Gabriel. I didn't want him more excited, but with his tongue halfway down my throat, it was hard not to give him what he wanted. He ran his hand over my breasts, squeezing hard enough to make me gasp. "Bite me, and I'll stop."
   I bit his lip. I bit him until he pulled back, the flesh straining between us. Blood poured from his mouth to mine. I let go and spit blood into his face. He was close enough that it splattered in a red rain.
   He laughed, wiping his fingers on the bloody lip, putting them in his mouth, sucking the blood off of them.
   "Do you know how I became a wereleopard?" he asked.
   I looked at him.
   He slapped me lightly, casually. Starbursts exploded across my vision. "Answer me, Anita."
   When I could focus, I asked, "What was the question?"
   "Do you know how I became a wereleopard?"
   I didn't want to play this game. I didn't want to participate in Gabriel's idea of pillow talk, but I didn't want to be hit again, either. It wouldn't take much for him to knock me unconscious. If I ever woke up again, I would be in worse shape than I was now. Hard to believe, but true.
   "No," I said.
   "I've always liked pain, even when I was human. I met Elizabeth. She was a wereleopard. We fucked, but I wanted her to change while we did it. She said she was afraid she'd kill me." He leaned over me. Blood dripped from his lip in slow, heavy drops.
   I blinked, turning my face, trying to keep the blood out of my eyes.
   "I almost died."
   I had turned my head completely to the side, while his blood dropped on the side of my face. "Was the sex worth it?"
   He leaned down and began to lick the blood oft my face. "Best sex I ever had."
   A scream started in my throat. I swallowed it, and it hurt going down. There had to be a way out of this. There had to he.
   A man's voice said, "Lie on top of her like you're going to do for the shot, and let's get some light readings."
   I realized that there was a crew here. A director, a cameraman, a dozen people scurrying around, not helping me.
   Gabriel drew a knife out of his high, black boot. The hilt was black, but the blade had a high silver sheen. I watched that knife, couldn't help myself. I'd been scared before, but not like this. The fear burned at the back of my throat, threatened to spill out in screams. It wasn't the sight of the blade that frightened me. A moment ago I'd have done anything to have him cut the ropes. Now I would have given anything for him not to cut the ropes.
   Gabriel put his hand on my stomach and slid one knee between my tied legs. There wasn't a lot of give. I was grateful. He twisted his upper body and reached downward with the knife. I knew what he was going to do before I felt the ropes give at my ankles. He cut my feet loose and collapsed his lower body against me at almost the same time. No time to struggle, no time to take advantage. He'd done this before.
   He wiggled his hips against me, spreading my legs wide enough that I could feel him against me through the jeans. I didn't scream, I whimpered and hated it. My face was pressed into his naked chest just above his pierced nipple. His chest hair was coarse, scratchy against my cheek. His body covered me almost completely. They couldn't have seen much more than my hands and my legs from the camera.
   I had a very strange idea. "You're too tall," I said.
   Gabriel had to raise up a little to look down at my face. "What?"
   "The camera will never see anything but your backside. You're too tall."
   He crawled backwards, raising himself in a little push-up position. He looked thoughtful. He turned around without getting off of me. "Frank, can you see her at all?"
   "Nope."
   "Shit," Gabriel said. He stared down at me, then smiled. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back." He slid off me.
   With my feet free, I could sit up. My hands were still above my head, but I could huddle against the headboard. It was an immense improvement.
   Gabriel, Raina, and two men in scruffy clothes were talking in a huddled group. I caught snatches of the conversation. "Maybe if we hang her from the ceiling?" "We'll have to change the room setup for that."
   I had bought some time, but time for what? There was a long table near the room. My weapons were on it, laid in neat lines like props. Everything I needed was right there, but how could I get to it? Raina wasn't going to hand me a knife so I could cut myself loose. No, Raina wouldn't, but maybe Gabriel would.
   He walked towards the bed, moving as if he had more muscles, more something, than a human did. He moved like a cat, if a cat could walk on two legs.
   He knelt on the bed and started untying the rope from the headboard, but leaving my wrists bound.
   "Why not cut the rope?" I asked.
   "Frank got pissed that I cut the first one. This is real silk. It's expensive."
   "Nice to know that Frank's fiscally responsible."
   Gabriel grabbed my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "We're going to change the room and tie you standing up. I'm going to fuck you until you go with me inside you, then I'm going to change and I'll rip you apart. You may even survive like I survived."
   I swallowed and spoke very carefully. "Is that really your fantasy, Gabriel?"
   "Yes."
   "Not your best fantasy," I said.
   "What?"
   "Raping me while I'm helpless isn't your idea of hot sex."
   He grinned, flashing fangs. "Oh, yes it is."
   Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic. I leaned into him, and he released my face so I could do it, but he jerked the rope up tight, making sure my hands stayed in sight. He had definitely done this before.
   I forced myself to lean into his naked chest, my tied hands pressed against his skin. I leaned my face towards him and whispered, "Don't you want a blade inside you while you do it?" I touched the silver ring in his nipple, pulled on it until the flesh bowed outward and he gave a little gasp.
   "Don't you want the feel of silver burning up inside you while you're shoving yourself inside of me?" I went up on my knees so our faces would be closer together. "Don't you want to know I'm trying to kill you while you fuck me? Your blood pouring over my body while you fuck me, isn't that your fantasy?" I whispered the last against his lips.
   Gabriel had gone very, very still. I could see the pulse in his throat thudding against the skin. His heart beat fast and hard against my hands. I jerked the ring out of his nipple and he let out a low moan. Blood trickled down his chest. I raised the ring, and he let the rope go so I could move my hands. I raised the bloody ring between our lips, almost as if we'd both kiss it.
   "You'll only have one chance to fuck me, Gabriel. One way or another, Rainy will see me dead tonight. You'll never get another chance at me."
   The tip of his tongue curled out and caught the ring, licking it from my fingers. He rolled it in his mouth and brought it back out, clean and free of blood. He held it out to me on the tip of his tongue. I picked the ring off and wrapped my fingers around it.
   "You just want me to give you a knife," he said.
   "I want to shove a silver blade so deep inside you that the hilt bruises your flesh."
   He shuddered, breath escaping in a long sigh.
   "You'll never find anyone else like me, Gabriel. Play with me, Gabriel, and I'll be the best sex you ever had."
   "You'll try and kill me," he said.
   I slid my fingers along the top of his leather pants. "Oh, yeah, but have you ever really been in danger of dying since that first time with Elizabeth? Since she shapeshifted underneath you, have you ever feared for your life during sex? Did you ever ride that thin, shining line between pleasure and death again?"
   He turned away from me, not meeting my eyes. I touched his face with my bound hands, turned him back to me. "Raina hasn't let you, has she? Just like she won't let you tonight. You're alpha, Gabriel, I can feel it. Don't let her steal this from you. Don't let her steal mefrom you."
   Gabriel stared at me, our bodies touching, faces close enough to kiss. "You'll kill me."
   "Maybe, or you'll kill me."
   "You might survive," he said, "I did."
   "Are you still fucking Elizabeth, now that you survived?" I kissed him softly, running my teeth along his skin.
   "Elizabeth bores me."
   "Would you bore me, Gabriel? If I survive, would you be boring?"
   "No," he whispered. I knew I had him, just like that. I either had the beginnings of a brilliant plan, or I'd bought myself some time, some options. It was an improvement. The real question was how much time did Jean-Claude and Richard have? How long until Dominic cut them open? If I couldn't get there in time, I didn't want to get there at all. If they both died, I almost wanted Gabriel to finish me. Almost.
   
   

43
   They kept me tied to the bed, but Gabriel slipped the knives back in the wrist sheaths. He held the big knife that went down along my spine up to the light. I thought he wouldn't give it back, but in the end, he swept my hair to one side and slipped it into the sheath.
   "Don't cut the ropes until I'm in the shot. I want the camera to know why you're scared. Promise not to spoil it."
   "Give me a gun and I'll wait until you're on top of me to pull the trigger."
   He smiled and waved a finger in my face like you'd scold a child. "Uh, uh, uh. No rough stuff."
   I took a deep breath and let it out. "Can't blame a girl for trying."
   Gabriel laughed, high and nervous. "No, can't blame you for trying."
   We had lights, camera, all we needed was action. Gabriel had wiped the blood off his chest and put the silver ring back into his flesh. We were starting over for the camera. They'd even cleaned the blood off my mouth and freshened the makeup. It was the young woman, Heidi, the lycanthrope that did the makeup. Her eyes were too wide. Her hands shook when she touched me.
   She whispered as she dabbed at my face. "Be careful when he kisses you. He ate a girl's tongue out once."
   "Can you get me a gun?"
   She shivered, eyes rolling white and panicked. She shook her head. "Raina'd kill me."
   "Not if she's dead."
   Heidi shook her head over and over and backed off the bed.
   Most of the rest of the crew walked out. When the director realized they were going to lose too many people to run things, he offered bonuses. Big bonuses, and a few people stayed. The rest left. They didn't do snuff films. They wouldn't watch Gabriel kill me, but they wouldn't stop it, either. Maybe one of them would call the police. It was a nice thought, but I didn't pin any hopes on it.
   Power rushed over me in a skin-prickling wave. It tugged at something low and deep in my body. The sensation was gone almost as soon as it came, but a smell lingered over my skin like I'd walked through somebody's ghost. I smelled Richard's aftershave. Richard was trying to tell me something, either on purpose or because he was being driven by fear. Either way, time was running out. I had to save them. I had to. There was no other choice. Saving them meant bringing Gabriel in close enough to kill him. Close to me. A mixed blessing at best.
   "Get on with it," I said.
   "You are terribly eager for someone who's about to die a truly horrible death," Raina said.
   I smiled. I made the smile everything Gabriel wanted it to be, confident, dangerous, sexual. "I don't plan to die."
   Gabriel's breath sighed outward. "Let's do it."
   Raina shook her head and stepped back out of the shot. "Fuck her, Gabriel, make her cry out your name before you kill her."
   "My pleasure," he whispered. He stalked onto the floor of the fake bedroom.
   I unsheathed a wrist knife and cut the rope that held me to the headboard. My wrists were still bound. I watched him while I turned the blade to cut between my hands. He could have jumped me then, but he didn't. He glided around the bed while I cut my hands loose.
   He ended on his knees beside the bed, staring at me. I backed away from him, knife in my right hand. I was going to get off the damn bed.
   Gabriel crawled up on the bed as I crawled off it. He mimicked my movements but made them graceful and painfully slow. He shimmered with contained energy. He wasn't doing a damn thing but crawling across a bed, but the promise of violence and sex rode the air like lightning.
   He was faster than me. His reach was almost twice mine. He was certainly stronger than I was. The only thing I really had going for me was the fact that I planned on killing him as quickly as possible, and he planned on raping me first. It meant I was willing to do things he wasn't. At least at first. If it wasn't over quickly, I was sunk.
   I dropped to one knee and braced myself, with a blade in each hand. He wanted to come in close. He even wanted to be hurt, so no feinting, no trying each other's skill. I'd make him come to me, and I'd cut him up.
   Power curled inside my stomach. It burst over me in a wave of sensations. The smell of the summer woods was so strong it was choking. For a second, I couldn't see the room. I had a glimpse of somewhere else, chaotic bits and pieces like a jigsaw puzzle thrown across the ground. I came away with three thoughts; fear, helplessness, and need.
   My vision cleared to Gabriel frowning down at me. "What is wrong with you, Anita? Did Cassandra hit you a little too hard?"
   I shook my head and took a shaky breath. "Are you all talk and no bite, Gabriel?"
   He smiled, a slow, lazy grin that showed his fangs. He was suddenly there. I slashed out without thinking, pure reaction, no thought. He leaped away, and blood seeped down his stomach in a thin, crimson line.
   He rubbed his fingers in the blood slowly, sensuously, then licked them with long, slow tongue movements. Playing for the camera. He crawled onto the bed and wrapped the white sheets around his body, rolling in them until he was tangled. He leaned over backwards, exposing his neck. Almost within reach of me. "Come play, Anita."
   It was tempting, and it was meant to be, but I knew better. I'd seen Richard rip sheets earlier like they were paper. "I'm staying here, Gabriel. You're going to have to come to me."
   He rolled onto his stomach. "I thought I'd get to chase you. This isn't any fun."
   I smiled. "Come closer, and it'll be a lot of fun."
   He rose onto his knees. The sheets were smeared with blood as he crawled out of them. Gabriel was just suddenly there, too fast for me to see it. He was by me and past me before I could react.
   I fell back on my butt, trying desperately to keep him in sight. But he stood there, just out of reach. A second later, a sharp pain ran through my right arm. I glanced, and found bleeding claw marks on my upper arm.
   He raised one hand in front of his face, and claws sprang out from under his fingernails. "Meow," he said.
   I tried to swallow my beating heart and couldn't. This meant that even if he didn't kill me, a month from now I might be sprouting fur.
   It wasn't a scream that you could hear with your ears. It wasn't a sound. I had no words for it, but I felt Richard scream inside me. His power poured over me, and down that long line I felt Jean-Claude. Something tight and painful held him down. I tried to get to my feet and stumbled.
   "What's wrong, Anita? I didn't hurt you that badly."
   I shook my head, and got to my feet. He wasn't going to come to me. Richard was growing desperate. I reached outward with that flare of power and I could feel Dominic's spell. He'd been shielding it somehow, but he couldn't hide from me. The spell was growing. The time of sacrifice was coming. I didn't have time for Gabriel to play with me. "Stop playacting, Gabriel, or don't you want me?"
   His eyes narrowed. "You're up to something."
   "You bet. Now, fuck me, Gabriel, if you've got the balls for it."
   I put my back to the wall and hoped it would be enough, and knew it wouldn't be. I threw a thread of power back to Richard, hoping he'd get the hint and not interrupt for the next few minutes. If he distracted me at the wrong time, it would be all over.
   Gabriel stalked in front of me, daring me to come out from the wall and get him. I did what he thought I would do. I tried for him and he just wasn't there. It was like trying to cut air.
   He slashed out with one hand and sliced the back of my left hand open. I slashed at him with my right hand, trying to hold onto the left-hand knife. He hit the hand again, not with claws but backhanded. My hand spasmed, and the knife went spinning.
   His body hit mine full out, slamming me to the floor. I shoved the right-hand knife into his stomach before my back hit the ground. But shoving the knife in meant I took the full force of the fall. It stunned me for a heartbeat. A heartbeat was all he needed.
   He ran his hands under my arms, not trying to pin them, but forcing them up away from the knife in his stomach. He pinned me to the floor with his body. I expected him to draw out the blade, but he didn't. He pressed the hilt against my body and pushed. He shoved the blade into him up to the hilt and kept pressing. The hilt bruised against my stomach and he ground it into both of us.
   He shuddered over me. He raised his upper body off me, pinning me with his lower body, snuggling it between my legs so I could feel him, hard and firm. He pulled the blade out in a burst of crimson and plunged it downward so fast my arms were only halfway up to protect my face when the blade bit into the carpet. He drove the blade hilt deep into the plywood floor, so close to my head that it pinned my hair on one side.
   He undid the button on my jeans. He wasn't even trying to control my hands, but I only had one knife left. If I lost it, I couldn't kill him. We were about to find out just how good my nerves were.
   Richard's power flowed over me again, but it wasn't the same. It was less frantic, more as if he was trying to whisper something to me, offer me something. Then I realized what it was. The first mark. Jean-Claude and Richard, for it was they, couldn't do it now without my permission. I was too powerful to be forced, at least psychically.
   Gabriel kept my legs pinned with his hips and grabbed the front of my jeans, fingers pointing outward, away from my body. His claws sprang out through the cloth, and he ripped upward, slicing the cloth nearly to my pubic bone.
   I screamed and let Richard do me. Better the monster you know than the monster about to go down your pants. A line of warmth ran through my body. It had been even simpler when Jean-Claude did it on his own, once upon a time. Even knowing what it was, it didn't feel like much.
   But I felt better instantly; clearer-headed, more . . . something. Gabriel hesitated on top of me. "What the hell was that?" The skin of his bare arms was prickled with gooseflesh. He'd gotten a taste of the power.
   "Didn't feel a thing," I said. I tugged on the knife in the floor, pulling at it. Gabriel ripped my jeans in both hands, and they split down the middle, leaving nothing between him and me but my panties and his leather pants. I was at a bad angle for the knife and it was only halfway out when he slid his hand down my panties.
   I screamed. I screamed, "Richard!"
   The power flowed over me. With Jean-Claude, I had watched his burning blue eyes enter me. With Richard as focus, there was nothing to see, but smells, the forest, his skin, Jean-Claude's perfume. I could taste them both in my mouth like drinking two strong wines one mouthful after another.
   Gabriel's hand froze down the front of my body. He was staring down at me. "What did you just do?" His voice was a whisper.
   "Did you think raping me would be easy?" I laughed, and it unnerved him. I saw something close to fear in his storm grey eyes. He'd moved his hand. Not having him down my underwear was too big an improvement for words. I never wanted him to touch me like that again. Never.
   I had two choices. I could bluff and hope I could run, or I could reinitiate sex and kill him. The second mark didn't give me that much more power. In fact, it gave the boys more pull on my power than the other way around. So, sex it was.
   "What's wrong?" Raina asked out of camera range.
   "Gabriel's getting cold feet," I said. I raised up on my elbows. The knife he'd shoved in the floor held my hair pinned, and I kept raising up, tearing a hunk of my hair out. It was a small pain, but I knew it would appeal to Gabriel. It did.
   I was sitting up with my legs on either side of his thighs. He picked me up, hands sliding over my undies, cupping my buttocks. He leaned back on his knees, supporting my weight. He watched me, and I saw something slide through his eyes, felt it tremble through his hands. For the first time, he thought I really might kill him, and it turned him on. Fear was the rush.
   He kissed the side of my face gently. "Go for the last knife, Anita. Go for it." He leaned into me while he said it, biting gently down my face. I felt the pressure of his fangs down my jawline, onto my neck. He set his teeth into the side of my neck, bearing down, hard and harder, a slow, building pressure. His tongue licked across the skin.
   I didn't go for the knife. I ran my hands through his thick hair, pulled it back from his face. His teeth continued to press into my skin. His hands slid inside my underwear, cupping my bare buttocks. I stiffened, then forced myself to relax. This would work. It had to work.
   I traced my fingers along his face. His teeth bit in enough to draw the first faint blood. I gasped, and his claws dug into me. I ran my fingers along either side of his face, tracing his cheeks, his eyebrows. He came up for air, eyes wide and unfocused, lips half-parted. I caressed his face and pulled him in for a kiss. I traced his thick eyebrows. As he kissed me, he closed his eyes, and I put my thumbs over his eyelids. His eyelashes fluttered against my skin. I shoved my thumbs into both eyes, digging, trying to shove my thumbs into his brain and out the other side.
   Gabriel reared back, shrieking. His claws ripped up my back. I gasped but didn't have time for screaming. I drew the big knife from the back sheath.
   Raina screamed instead.
   I shoved the blade under Gabriel's ribs. I shoved it into his heart. He tried to fall backwards, but my weight pinned his knees, so his back bowed backwards, but he didn't fall. I shoved the blade through him. I felt the tip of it burst out the other side.
   Raina was suddenly there, grabbing me by the hair, flinging me off him. I flew through the air, smashed into the fake wall, and kept going. The wall splintered. I lay on my stomach, relearning how to breathe. My pulse was so loud in my head, I was deaf for a few seconds. My body stopped being numb in stages, and let me know it was scraped and bruised, but nothing was broken. It should have been. Two marks and I was suddenly Anita the human battering ram. When it happened the first time, I hadn't appreciated it. Now I did. I wasn't hurt badly, hurrah, but I still had to get past Raina. Everybody else would fold and run for cover if she were dead. Question was, how to get her there?
   I looked up and realized I was right next to the prop table with my guns on it. Were they loaded? If I went for them and they weren't, Raina was going to kill me. Of course, if I just lay here and bled, she'd kill me anyway.
   I heard her high heels coming my way. I pushed to my knees, my feet, and went for the table. She still couldn't see me through the partial wall, but she could hear me. She rushed up her side of the wall in those ridiculous high heels.
   I grabbed for the Firestar and rolled over the table as I moved. I ended on my back, staring up as she leapt over the table. I hit the safety with my thumb and pulled the trigger. The gun exploded in my hand and took her in the upper stomach. The bullet seemed to slow her in midmotion, and I had time for another shot, higher up in the chest.
   Raina collapsed to her knees, honey brown eyes wide with shock. She reached out one hand, and I scooted backwards, still on my butt and lower back. I watched her eyes go, that light sliding away. She slumped over on her side, her long hair spilling like auburn water across the floor.
   The crew had hightailed it. Only Heidi was crouched by the wall, crying, covering her ears as if afraid to leave or stay.
   I got to my feet, using the prop table for support. I could see Gabriel's body now. Blood and clear fluid flowed down his face from his eyes. His body still hadn't fallen. It knelt in a strange parody of life, as if he would open his eyes and it would all be pretend.
   Edward came in through the covered door. He had a shotgun at his shoulder. Harley followed at his side with a machine gun. He surveyed the room and finally came back to me. "Is Anita in this room?"
   "Yes," Edward said.
   "I can't recognize her," Harley said.
   "Hold your fire. I'll go find her for you." He walked towards me, eyes taking it all in.
   "How much of this blood is yours?" he asked.
   I shook my head. "How'd you find me?"
   "I tried to return your message. Nobody knew where you'd gone. Then nobody knew where Richard had gone, or Jean-Claude, or Raina."
   I felt Richard scream through me and I didn't fight it this time, I let the scream come out my mouth. If Edward hadn't caught me, I would have fallen. "We've got to get to Jean-Claude and Richard. Right now!"
   "You can't even walk," he said.
   I grabbed his shoulders. "Help me, and I'll run."
   Edward didn't argue; he simply nodded and slid one arm around my waist.
   Harley handed my knives and the Browning to Edward. I was inches away, but he didn't try to touch me. He looked past me as if I wasn't there. Maybe, for him, I wasn't. I cut the legs of my jeans off, which left me in nothing but underwear and Nikes from the waist down, but I could run now, and we needed to run. I could feel it. I could feel the power growing on the summer night. Dominic was preparing the blade. I could taste it. I prayed as we ran. Prayed that we'd be in time.
   
   
44
   We ran. I ran until I thought my heart would burst, jumping trees and dodging things in the dark only half-felt and not seen at all. Branches and weeds raked my legs in thin scratches. A branch caught my cheek and sent me stumbling. Edward caught me. Harley said, "What is that?"
   There was a bright, white glow through the trees. It wasn't fire. "Crosses," I said.
   "What?" Harley asked.
   "They've hung Jean-Claude with crosses." As the words left my mouth, I knew they were the truth. I ran towards the glow. Edward and Harley followed.
   I spilled out to the edge of the clearing with them at my back. I raised the Browning without thinking about it. I had a second to take it all in. Richard and Jean-Claude were bound so thick with chains that they could barely move, let alone escape. A cross had been thrown around Jean-Claude's neck. It glowed like a captive star, resting on the folds of chain. Someone had blindfolded him as if afraid the glow would hurt his eyes. Which was odd, since they meant to kill him. Considerate murderers.
   Richard was gagged. He'd managed to work one hand free, and he and Jean-Claude were touching fingertips, straining to retain that touch.
   Dominic stood over them in a white ceremonial robe. The hood was thrown back, his arms wide, holding a short sword half the length of my body. He held something dark in his other hand. Something that pulsed and seemed to live. It was a heart. Robert the vampire's heart.
   Sabin sat in Marcus's stone chair, dressed as I'd seen him last, hood up, hiding in the shadows. Cassandra was a shining whiteness on the other side of the circle of power, forming the last point of a triangle with her two men. My two men lay bound on the ground.
   I pointed the Browning at Dominic and fired. The bullet left the gun. I heard it, I saw it, but it didn't go near Dominic. It didn't seem to go anywhere. I blew my breath out and tried again.
   Dominic stared at me. His dark-bearded face was calm, totally unafraid. "You are of the dead, Anita Blake, neither you, nor anything of yours may pass this circle. You have come only to watch them die."
   "You've lost, Dominic, why kill them at all, now?"
   "We will never find what we need again," the necromancer said.
   Sabin spoke, his voice thick, awkward, as if talking was hard. "It must be tonight." He pushed to his feet and shoved the hood back. His flesh was almost completely gone, only straggles of hair and raw, putrefying tissue were left. Dark liquid oozed from his mouth. Maybe he didn't have one more night of sanity. But that wasn't my problem.
   "The vampire council has forbidden any of you to fight each other until Brewster's Law is either passed or voted down. They'll kill you for disobeying them." I was half guessing on this, but I'd been around enough masters of the city to know how very seriously they took disobedience. The council was, in fact, the biggest, baddest, master of the city around. They would be less forgiving, not more.
   "I will take that chance," Sabin said, every word careful, showing the effort it took to speak.
   "Did Cassandra tell you about my offer? If we can't cure you tomorrow, I'll let Jean-Claude mark me. Tonight you only have part of what you need for the spell. You need me, Sabin, one way or another, you need me." I didn't tell them I was already marked. They obviously hadn't felt it. If they knew I was already marked, all I could offer was to die tonight with the boys.
   Dominic shook his head. "I have searched Sabin's body, Anita. Tomorrow will be too late. There will be nothing to save." He dropped to his knees beside Richard.
   "You don't know that for sure," I said.
   He laid the still-beating heart on top of Richard's bare chest.
   "Dominic, please!"
   It was too late for lies. "I'm marked, Dominic. We're the perfect sacrifice. Open the circle, and I'll come inside."
   He looked at me. "If this is true, then you are all far too dangerous to trust. The three of you together without the circle would overwhelm us. You see, Anita, I have been part of a true triumvirate for centuries. You have no dreams of the power you can touch. You and Richard are more powerful than Cassandra and I. You would have been a force to be reckoned with. The council itself might have feared you." He laughed. "They may forgive us for that alone."
   He spoke words that curled power over me.
   I walked to the edge of the circle and touched it. It was like my skin tried to crawl off my bones. I fell forward and slid down something that couldn't be there. Jean-Claude shrieked. It hurt too much for me to scream. I lay curled by the circle, and even when I breathed, I could taste death, old, rotting death in my mouth.
   Edward knelt by me. "What is it?"
   "Without your other parts, you do not have the power to force this circle, Anita." Dominic got to his feet, raising the sword two-handed for a downward blow.
   Dolph had passed the circle earlier in the room where they had taken Robert's heart. I grabbed Edward's shirt. "You pass the circle. Now. And kill that son of a bitch."
   "If you can't, how can I?"
   "You're not magic, that's how."
   It was one of those rare moments when you understand how great trust can be. Edward knew nothing about the ceremony, yet he didn't argue. He accepted what I said, and simply did it. I wasn't a hundred percent sure it would work, myself, but it had to.
   Dominic brought the sword down. I screamed. Edward crossed the circle like it wasn't there. The sword bit into Richard's chest, pinning the beating heart to his body. The pain of the blade drove me to my knees. I felt it enter Richard's body. Then I felt nothing, like a switch had been turned off. Edward's shotgun blast took Dominic in the chest.
   Dominic didn't fall. He stared at the hole in his chest and then at Edward. He pulled the sword out of Richard's chest and slid the still-beating heart off it. He faced Edward with the sword in one hand and the heart in the other. Edward fired again, and Cassandra leapt on his back.
   Harley crossed the circle then. He grabbed Cassandra around the waist and pulled her off of Edward. They fell, rolling to the ground. A gun sounded, and Cassandra's body jerked, but her dainty fist came up and smashed downward.
   Edward fired the shotgun until Dominic's face vanished in a spray of blood and bones, and he fell slowly to his knees. His outstretched hand spilled the heart onto the ground beside Richard's terribly still body.
   Sabin levitated upward. "I will have your soul for that, mortal."
   I ran my fingers over the circle and it was still there. Edward started to turn the shotgun towards the vampire. The naked heart pulsed and shimmered in the cross's glare.
   "The heart, shoot the heart!"
   Edward didn't hesitate. He turned and shot the heart, exploding it into so much meat. Sabin hit him a second later and he went flying. He ended up very still on the ground with Sabin on top of him.
   I pushed my hand forward. It met empty air. I fired two-handed at Sabin as I walked towards him. I put three shots into his chest, forcing him to his feet, back from Edward.
   Sabin raised a hand in front of his skeletal face, almost a pleading gesture. I stared down the barrel of the gun into his one good eye and pulled the trigger. The bullet took him just above the crumbling remains of his nose. It made a nice big exit wound like it was supposed to, spattering blood and brains on the grass. Sabin collapsed backwards onto the grass. I fired two more shots into his skull until it looked like I'd decapitated him.
   "Edward?" It was Harley. He was standing over Cassandra's very still, very dead body. His eyes searched wildly for the one person he recognized.
   "Harley, it's me, it's Anita."
   He shook his head, as if I was a buzzing fly. "Edward, I still see monsters. Edward!" He raised the machine gun at me, and I knew I couldn't let him fire. No, it was more than that, or less. I raised the Browning and fired before I'd had time to think. The first shot sent him to his knees. "Edward!" He squeezed off a round of fire that went inches above the men's heads. I fired another into his chest, and put one through his head before he fell.
   I approached him, gun at the ready. If he'd twitched, I'd have shot him again. He didn't twitch. I knew nothing about Harley except he was genuinely crazy and very good with weapons. Now I'd never know because Edward didn't volunteer information. I kicked the machine gun out of Harley's dead hand and went for the others.
   Edward was sitting up, rubbing the back of his head. He watched me walk away from Harley's body. "Did you do it?"
   I faced him. "Yes."
   "I've killed people for less."
   "So have I," I said, "but if we're going to fight, can we unchain the boys first? I don't feel Richard anymore." I couldn't say the word deadout loud, not yet.
   Edward got to his feet, a little shaky, but standing. "We'll fight later."
   "Later," I said.
   Edward went to sit by his friend. I went to sit by my lover and my other boyfriend.
   I holstered the Browning, slipped the cross off Jean-Claude's neck, and threw it spinning into the woods. The darkness was suddenly velvet and intense. I bent to undo his chains and one of the links went spinning by my head.
   "Shit," I said.
   Jean-Claude sat up, sweeping the chains down his body like a sheet. He slipped off the blindfold last. I was already crawling to Richard. I'd seen the sword pierce his heart. He had to be dead, but I searched for the big pulse in his neck, and I found it. It beat against my hand like a weak thought, and I slumped forward with relief. He was alive. Thank you, God.
   Jean-Claude knelt on the other side of Richard's body. "I thought you could not bear his touch, that is what he told me before they gagged him. They were afraid he would call his pack to aid him. I have already called Jason and my vampires. They will be here soon."
   "Why can't I feel him in my head?"
   "I am blocking it. It is a fearful wound, and I am better practiced at dealing with such things."
   I pulled the gag from Richard's mouth. I touched his lips gently. The thought of how I'd refused to kiss him earlier that day bit at me. "He's dying, isn't he?"
   Jean-Claude broke Richard's chains, more carefully than his own. I helped him clear them from Richard's limp body. Richard lay on the ground in the bloodstained white T-shirt I'd last seen him in. He was just suddenly Richard again. I couldn't imagine the beast I'd seen. I suddenly didn't care. "I can't lose him, not like this."
   "Richard is dying, ma petite. I feel his life slipping away."
   I stared up at him. "You're still keeping me from feeling it, aren't you?"
   "I am protecting you." There was a look on his face that I didn't like.
   I touched his arm. His skin was cool to the touch. "Why?"
   He turned away.
   I jerked him hard, forced him to look at me. "Why?"
   "Even with only two marks, Richard can try and drain us both to stay alive. I am preventing that."
   "You're protecting us both?" I asked.
   "When he dies, I can protect one of us, ma petite, but not both."
   I stared at him. "You're saying that when he dies, you're both going to die?"
   "I fear so."
   I shook my head. "No. Not both of you. Not all at once. Dammit, you're not supposed to be able to die."
   "I am sorry, ma petite."
   "No, we can share power just like we did to raise the zombies, the vampires, like we did tonight."
   Jean-Claude slumped suddenly downward, one hand on Richard's body. "I will not drag you to the grave with me, ma petite. I would rather think of you alive and well."
   I dug my fingers into Jean-Claude's arm. I touched Richard's chest. A shuddering breath ran up my arm from him. "I'll be alive, but I won't be well. I'd rather die than lose you both."
   He stared at me for a long second. "You do not know what you are asking."
   "We are a triumvirate now. We can do this, Jean-Claude. We can do this, but you have to show me how."
   "We are powerful beyond my wildest dreams, ma petite, but even we cannot cheat death."
   "He owes me one."
   Jean-Claude flinched as if in pain. "Who owes you?"
   "Death. "
   "Ma petite. . ."
   "Do it, Jean-Claude, do it. Whatever it is, whatever it takes. Do it, please!"
   He slumped on top of Richard, head barely raised. "The third mark. It will either bind us forever, or kill us all."
   I offered him my wrist. "No, ma petite, if it is to be our only time, come to me." He lay half on Richard's body, arms open for me. I lay in the circle of his arms, and realized when I touched his chest there was no heartbeat. I turned and stared into his face from inches away. "Don't leave me."
   His midnight blue eyes filled with fire. He swept my hair to one side and said, "Open for me, ma petite, open for us both."
   I did, sweeping my mind open, dropping every guard I'd ever had. I fell forward, impossibly forward, down a long, black tunnel towards a burning blue fire. Pain cut the darkness like a white knife, and I heard myself gasp. I felt Jean-Claude's fangs sink into me, his mouth sealing over my flesh, sucking me, drinking me.
   A wind swept through the falling darkness, catching me like a net before I touched that blue fire. The wind smelled of growing earth and the musty scent of fur. I felt something else: sorrow. Richard's sorrow. His mourning. Not of his death, but of my loss. Dead or alive, he'd lost me, and among his many faults was a loyalty that went beyond reason. Once in love, he was a man to stay there, regardless of what the woman did. A knight errant in every sense of the word. He was a fool, and I loved him for it. Jean-Claude I loved in spite of himself. Richard I loved because of who he was.
   I wouldn't lose him. I wrapped his essence like winding myself in a sheet, except that I had no body. I held him in my mind, my body, and let him feel the love, my sorrow, regret. Jean-Claude was there, too. I half-expected him to protest, to sabotage it, but he didn't. That blue fire spilled upward through the tunnel to meet us, and the world exploded into shapes and images that were too confusing. Bits and pieces of memory, sensations, thoughts, like three separate jigsaw puzzles shaken and tossed into the air, and every piece that touched formed a picture.
   I padded through the forest on four feet. The smells alone were intoxicating. I sank fangs into a dainty wrist, and it wasn't mine. I watched the pulse underneath a woman's neck and thought of blood, warm flesh, and far-off and distant sex. The memories came fast, then faster, flowing like some sort of carnival ride. Blackness gained on the images, like ink filling water. When the darkness ate everything, I floated for an impossible second, then went out like a candle flame. Nothing.
   I didn't even have time to be scared.
   
   
45
   I woke in a pastel pink hospital room. A nurse in a matching pink smock smiled down at me. Fear pumped like fine champagne. Where was Richard? Where was Jean-Claude? What I finally managed to ask, was, "How did I get here?"
   "Your friend brought you." She motioned with her head.
   Edward sat in a chair by the far wall, leafing through a magazine. He looked up and our eyes met. His face gave away nothing.
   "Edward?"
   "My friends call me Ted, Anita, you know that." He had that good of boy smile that could only mean he was pretending to be Ted Forrester. It was his only legal identity that I'd ever met. Even the cops thought he was this Ted person. "Nurse, can we have a few minutes alone?"
   The nurse smiled, looked curiously from one to the other of us, and left, still smiling.
   I tried to grab Edward's hand and found my left hand was taped to a board and stuck with an IV. I grabbed at him with my right hand, and he held it. "Are they alive?"
   He smiled, a mere twitch of lips. "Yes."
   A relief like I'd never known flowed through my body. I collapsed back against the bed, weak. "What happened?"
   "You came in suffering from lycanthrope scratches and a very nasty vampire bite. He almost drained you dry, Anita."
   "Maybe that's what it took to save us."
   "Maybe," Edward said. He sat on the edge of the bed. His jacket gaped enough to flash his shoulder holster and gun. He caught me looking. "The police agree that the monsters might hold a grudge. There's even a cop outside your door."
   We weren't holding hands now. He stared down at me and something very cold passed over his face. "Did you have to kill Harley?"
   I started to say yes, but I stopped myself. I replayed it in my mind. Finally. I looked up at him. "I don't know, Edward. When you were knocked out, he couldn't see you anymore. I tried to talk to him, but he couldn't hear me. He started to raise the machine gun." I met Edward's empty blue eyes. "I shot him. You saw the body. I even put one through his head. A coupe de grace."
   "I know." His face, his voice gave nothing away. It was like watching a mannequin talk, except that this mannequin was armed and I wasn't.
   "It never occurred to me not to shoot, Edward. I didn't even hesitate."
   Edward took a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. "I knew that's what had happened. If you'd lied to me, I'd have killed you." He walked away to stand at the foot of the bed.
   "While I'm unarmed?" I tried to make light of it, but it didn't work.
   "Check your pillow."
   I slid my hand under and came up with the Firestar. I held it in my lap, laying it on my sheet-covered legs. "What now?"
   "You owe me a life."
   I looked up at that. "I saved your life last night."
   "Our lives don't count, we'd back each other up, no matter what."
   "I don't know what you're talking about then."
   "Occasionally I'll need help, like Harley. Next time I need help, I'll call you."
   I wanted to argue because I wasn't entirely sure what mess Edward would drag me into, but I didn't. Looking into his empty eyes, holding the gun he'd put under my pillow, I knew he'd do it. If I refused his bargain, his trade as it were, he'd pull down on me, and we'd find out once and for all who was better.
   I stared down at the gun in my hands. "I've already got the gun out; all I have to do is point."
   "You're injured. You need the edge." His hand hovered near the butt of his gun.
   I laid the gun on the sheets beside me, and looked at him. I lay back on the pillows. "I don't want to do this, Edward."
   "Then, when I call, you'll come?"
   I thought about it for another brief second, then said, "Yeah, I'll come."
   He smiled, his Ted (good ol' boy) Forrester smile. "I'll never find out how good you really are until you draw down on me."
   "We can live with that," I said. "By the way, why the invitation to come monster hunting now? And don't tell me it's about Harley."
   "You killed him, Anita. You killed him without thinking about it. Even now, there's no regret in you, no doubt."
   He was right. I didn't feel bad about it. Scary, but true. "So you invited me to come play because I'm now as much of a sociopath as you are."
   "Oh, I'm a much better sociopath," he said. "I'd never let a vampire sink his fangs into my neck. And I wouldn't date the terminally furry."
   "Do you date anyone, ever?"
   He just smiled that irritating smile that meant he wasn't going to answer. But he did. "Even Death has needs."
   Edward dating? That was something I had to see.
   
   
46
   I got out of the hospital with no permanent scars. That was a switch. Richard had touched the wounds Gabriel gave me, his face very serious. No one had to say it out loud. In a month, we'd know. The doctors offered to put me in one of the shapeshifter halfway houses (read prisons) for the first-time furry. It has to be voluntary, but once you sign yourself in, it's almost impossible to sign yourself out. I told them I'd take care of it myself. They scolded me, and I told them to go to hell.
   I spent the night of my first full moon with Richard and the pack, waiting to see if I was going to join the killing dance. I didn't. Either I'd gotten incredibly lucky or just as a vampire can't catch lycanthropy, neither could I. Richard wouldn't have much to do with me after that. I can't blame him.
   I still love him. I think he still loves me. I love Jean-Claude, too. But it's not the same kind of love. I can't explain it, but I miss Richard. For brief moments in Jean-Claude's arms, I forget. But I miss Richard.
   The fact that we are both bound to Jean-Claude doesn't help. Richard has accidentally invaded my dreams twice. Having him that close to me is too painful for words. Richard fought it, but he finally agreed to let Jean-Claude teach him enough control so that he doesn't leak all over both of us. He talks to Jean-Claude more than he talks to me.
   The triumvirate is useless. Richard is too angry at me. Too full of self-loathing. I don't know how he's doing with the pack. He's forbidden anyone to speak of pack business with me, but he hasn't chosen a new alpha female.
   Willie McCoy and the rest of the vampires I accidentally raised seem fine. Big relief there. Monica's baby is due in August. Her amnio came back clean. No Vlad syndrome. She seems to think I'm her friend now. I'm not, but I help out sometimes. Jean-Claude is playing the good master and taking care of her and the baby. Monica keeps talking about me babysitting. I hope she's kidding. Auntie Anita, she calls me. Gag me with a spoon. Funnier still, is Uncle Jean-Claude.
   My dad saw me on television in Jean-Claude's arms. He called and left a very worried message on my answering machine. My family are devout Catholics. There is no such thing as a good vampire to them.
   Maybe they're right. I don't know. Can I still be the scourge of vampire kind when I'm sleeping with the head bloodsucker?
   You bet.

1
   Most people don't stare at the scars. They'll look, of course, then do the eye slide. You know, the quick look, then drop the gaze, then just have to have that second look. But they make it quick. The wounds aren't like freak show bad, but they are interesting. Captain Pete McKinnon, firefighter and arson investigator, sat across from me, big hands wrapped around a glass of iced tea that our secretary, Mary, had brought in for him. He was staring at my arms. Not the place most men look. But it wasn't sexual. He was staring at the scars and didn't seem a bit embarrassed about it.
   My right arm had been sliced open twice by a knife. One scar was white and old. The second was still pink and new. My left arm was worse. A mound of white scar tissue sat at the bend of my arm. I'd have to lift weights for the rest of my life or the scars would stiffen and I'd lose mobility in the arm, or so my physical therapist had said. There was a cross-shaped burn mark, a little crooked now because of the ragged claw marks that a shapeshifted witch had given me. There were one or two other scars hidden under my blouse, but the arm really is the worst.
   Bert, my boss, had requested that I wear my suit jacket or long-sleeved blouses in the office. He said that some clients had expressed reservations about my ah . . . occupationally acquired wounds. I hadn't worn a long-sleeved blouse since he made the request. He'd turned the air conditioner up a little colder every day. It was so cold today I had goose bumps. Everyone else was bringing sweaters to work. I was shopping for midriff tops to show off my back scars.
   McKinnon had been recommended to me by Sergeant Rudolph Storr, cop and friend. They'd played football in college together, and been friends ever since. Dolph didn't use the word "friend" lightly, so I knew they were close.
   "What happened to your arm?" McKinnon asked finally.
   "I'm a legal vampire executioner. Sometimes they get pesky." I took a sip of coffee.
   "Pesky," he said and smiled.
   He sat his glass on the desk and slipped off his suit jacket. He was nearly as wide through the shoulders as I was tall. He was a few inches short of Dolph's six foot eight, but he didn't miss it by much. He was only in his forties, but his hair was completely grey with a little white starting at the temples. It didn't make him look distinguished. It made him look tired.
   He had me beat on scars. Burn scars crawled up his arms from his hands to disappear under the short sleeves of his white dress shirt. The skin was mottled pinkish, white, and a strange shade of tan like the skin of some animal that should shed regularly.
   "That must have hurt," I said.
   "It did." He sat there meeting my eyes with a long steady look. "You saw the inside of a hospital on some of that."
   "Yeah." I pushed the sleeve up on my left arm and showed the shiny place where a bullet had grazed me. His eyes widened just a bit. "Now that we've proven we're big tough he-men, can you just cut to the chase? Why are you here, Captain McKinnon?"
   He smiled and draped his jacket over the back of his chair. He took the tea off my desk and sipped it. "Dolph said you wouldn't like being sized up."
   "I don't like passing inspections."
   "How do you know you passed?"
   It was my turn to smile. "Women's intuition. Now, what do you want?"
   "Do you know what the term firebug means?"
   "An arsonist," I said.
   He looked expectantly at me.
   "A pyrokinetic, someone who can call fire psychically."
   He nodded. "You ever seen a real pyro?"
   "I saw films of Ophelia Ryan," I said.
   "The old black-and-white ones?" he asked.
   "Yeah."
   "She's dead now, you know."
   "No, I didn't know."
   "Burned to death in her bed, spontaneous combustion. A lot of the firebugs go up that way, as if when they're old they lose control of it. You ever see one of them in person?"
   "Nope."
   "Where'd you see the films?"
   "Two semesters of Psychic Studies. We had a lot of psychics come in and talk to us, demonstrate their abilities, but pyrokinetics is such a rare ability, I don't think the prof could find one."
   He nodded and drained the rest of his tea in one long swallow. "I met Ophelia Ryan once before she died. Nice lady." He started to turn the ice-filled glass round and round in his large hands. He stared at the glass and not at me while he talked. "I met one other firebug. He was young, in his twenties. He'd started by setting empty houses on fire, like a lot of pyromaniacs. Then he did buildings with people in them, but everybody got out. Then he did a tenement, a real firetrap. He set every exit on fire. Killed over sixty people, mostly women and children."
   McKinnon stared up at me. The look in his eyes was haunted. "It's still the largest body count I've ever seen at a fire. He did an office building the same way, but missed a couple of exits. Twenty-three dead."
   "How'd you catch him?"
   "He started writing to the papers and the television. He wanted credit for the deaths. He set fire to a couple of cops before we got him. We were wearing those big silver suits that they wear to oil rig fires. He couldn't get them to burn. We took him down to the police station, and that was the mistake. He set it on fire."
   "Where else could you have taken him?" I asked.
   He shrugged massive shoulders. "I don't know, somewhere else. I was still in the suit, and I held onto him. Told him we'd burn up together if he didn't stop it. He laughed and set himself on fire." McKinnon sat his glass very carefully on the edge of the desk.
   "The flames were this soft blue color almost like a gas fire, but paler. Didn't burn him, but somehow it set my suit on fire. The damn thing is rated for something like 6,000 degrees, and it started to melt. Human skin burns at 120 degrees, but somehow I didn't melt into a puddle, just the suit. I had to strip it off while he laughed. He walked out the door and he didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to grab him."
   I didn't say the obvious. I let him talk.
   "I tackled him in the hallway and slammed him into a wall a couple of times. Funny thing, where my skin touched him, it didn't burn. It was like the fire crawled over a space and started on my arms, so my hands are fine."
   I nodded. "There's a theory that a pyro's aura keeps them from burning. When you touched his skin, you were too close to his own aura, his own protection, to burn."
   He stared at me. "Maybe that is what happened, because I threw him hard up against the wall over and over. He was screaming, 'I'll burn you. I'll burn you alive.' Then the fire changed color to yellow, normal, and he started to burn. I let him go and went for the fire extinguisher. We couldn't put the fire on his body out. The extinguishers worked on the walls, everything else, but it wouldn't work on him. It was as if the fire was crawling out of his body from deep inside. We'd dampen some of the flames, but there was just more of it until he was made of fire."
   McKinnon's eyes were distant and horror-filled as if he was still seeing it. "He didn't die, Ms. Blake, not like he should have. He screamed for so long and we couldn't help him. Couldn't help him." His voice trailed off. He just sat there staring at nothing.
   I waited and finally said, gently, "Why are you here, Captain?"
   He blinked and sort of shook himself. "I think we've got another firebug on our hands, Ms. Blake. Dolph said that if anyone could help us cut the loss of life, it was you."
   "Psychic ability isn't technically preternatural. It's just talent like throwing a great curve ball."
   He shook his head. "What I saw die on the floor of the station that day wasn't human. It couldn't have been human. Dolph says you're the monster expert. Help me catch this monster before he kills."
   "He or she hasn't killed yet? It's just property damage?" I asked.
   He nodded. "I could lose my job for coming to you. I should have bucked this up the line and gotten permission from the chain of command, but we've only lost a couple of buildings. I want to keep it that way."
   I took in a slow breath and let it out. "I'll be happy to help, Captain, but I honestly don't know what I can do for you."
   He pulled out a thick file folder. "Here's everything we've got. Look it over and call me tonight."
   I took the folder from him and sat it in the middle of my desk blotter.
   "My number's in the file. Call me. Maybe it's not a firebug. Maybe it's something else. But whatever it is, Ms. Blake, it can bathe in flames and not burn. It can walk through a building and shed fire like sprinkling water. No accelerant, Ms. Blake, but the houses have gone up as if they've been soaked in something. When we get the wood in the lab, it's clean. It's like whatever is doing this can force the fire to do things it shouldn't do."
   He glanced at his watch. "I'm running late. I'm working on getting you on this officially, but I'm afraid they'll wait until people are dead. I don't want to wait."
   "I'll call you tonight, but it may be late. How late is too late to call?"
   "Any time, Ms. Blake, any time."
   I nodded and stood. I offered my hand. He shook it. His grip was firm, solid, but not too tight. A lot of male clients that wanted to know about the scars squeezed my hand like they wanted me to cry "uncle." But McKinnon was secure. He had his own scars.
   I'd barely sat back down when the phone rang. "What is it, Mary?"
   "It's me," Larry said. "Mary didn't think you'd mind her putting me straight through." Larry Kirkland, vampire executioner trainee, was supposed to be over at the morgue staking vampires.
   "Nope. What's up?"
   "I need a ride home." There was just the slightest hesitation to his voice.
   "What's wrong?"
   He laughed. "I should know better than to be coy with you. I'm all stitched up. The doc says I'll be fine."
   "What happened?" I asked.
   "Come pick me up and I'll tell all." Then the little son of a gun hung up on me.
   There was only one reason for him to not want to talk to me. He'd done something stupid and gotten hurt. Two bodies to stake. Two bodies that wouldn't have risen for at least another night. What could have gone wrong? As the old saying goes, only one way to find out.
   Mary rescheduled my appointments. I got my shoulder holster complete with Browning Hi-Power out of the top desk drawer and slipped it on. Since I'd stopped wearing my suit jacket in the office, I'd put the gun in the drawer, but outside the office and always after dark I wore a gun. Most of the creatures that had scarred me up were dead. The majority I'd done personally. Silver-plated bullets are a wonderful thing.
   
   
2
   Larry sat very carefully in the passenger seat of my Jeep. It's hard to sit in a car when your back has fresh stitches in it. I'd seen the wound. It was one sharp puncture and one long, bloody scrape. Two wounds, really. He was still wearing the blue T-shirt he'd started in, but the back of it was bloody and ragged. I was impressed he'd kept the nurses from cutting it off of him. They had a tendency to cut off clothing that stood in their way.
   Larry strained against the seat belt, trying to find a comfortable position. His short red hair had been freshly cut, tight enough to his head that you almost didn't notice the curls. He was five foot four, an inch taller than me. He'd graduated with a degree in preternatural biology this May. But with the freckles and that little pain wrinkle between his clear blue eyes, he looked closer to sixteen than twenty-one.
   I'd been so busy watching him squirm that I'd missed the turnoff to I-270. We were stuck on Ballas until we got to Olive. It was just before lunch, and Olive would be packed with people trying to shove food in their mouths and rush back to work.
   "Did you take your pain pill?" I asked.
   He tried to sit very still, one arm braced on the edge of the seat. "No."
   "Why not?"
   "Because stuff like that knocks me out. I don't want to sleep."
   "A drugged sleep isn't the same thing as regular sleep," I said.
   "No, the dreams are worse," he said.
   He had me there. "What happened, Larry?"
   "I'm amazed you've waited this long to ask."
   "So am I, but I didn't want to ask in front of the doctor. If you start asking questions of the patient, the docs tend to wander off and treat somebody else. I wanted to know from the doctor who stitched you up just how serious it was."
   "Just a few stitches," he said.
   "Twenty," I said.
   "Eighteen," he said.
   "I was rounding up."
   "Trust me," he said. "You don't need to round up." He grimaced as he said it. "Why does this hurt so much?" he asked.
   It might have been a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. "Every time you move an arm or a leg you use muscles in your back. Moving your head and muscles in your shoulders makes muscles in your back move. You never appreciate your back until it goes out on you."
   "Great," he said.
   "Enough stalling, Larry. Tell me what happened." We were stopped behind a long line of traffic leading up to the light on Olive. We were stuck between two small strip malls. The one on our left had fountains and V. J.'s Tea and Spice, where I got all my coffee. To our right was Streetside Records and a Chinese buffet. If you came up Ballas at lunch time, you always had plenty of time to study the shops on either side.
   He smiled, then grimaced. "I had two bodies to stake. Both vamp victims that didn't want to rise as vampires."
   "They had dying wills, I remember. You've been doing most of those lately."
   He nodded, then froze in mid-gesture. "Even nodding my head hurts."
   "It'll hurt more tomorrow."
   "Gee, thanks, boss. I needed to know that."
   I shrugged. "Lying to you won't make it hurt less."
   "Anybody ever tell you your bedside manner sucks?"
   "Lots of people."
   He made a small hmphsound. "That I believe. Anyway, I'd finished the bodies and was packing up. A woman rolled in another body. Said it was a vamp with no court order attached."
   I glanced at him, frowning. "You didn't do a body without paperwork, did you?"
   He frowned back. "Of course not. I told them, no court order, no dead vampire. Staking a vamp without a court order is murder, and I'm not going to be up on charges because someone screwed the paperwork. I told them both that in no uncertain terms."
   "Them?" I asked. I eased up the line of traffic, a little closer to the light.
   "The other morgue attendant had come back in. They went out in search of the misplaced paperwork. I was left with the vampire. It was morning. He wasn't going anywhere." He tried to look away and not meet my eyes, but it hurt. He ended up staring at me, angry.
   "I went out for a cigarette."
   I looked at him and had to slam on the brakes when the traffic just stopped. Larry was flung into the seat belt. He groaned, and when he was finished writhing on the seat, he said, "You did that on purpose."
   "No, I didn't, but maybe I should have. You left a vampire body alone. A vampire that might have had enough kills to deserve a court order of execution, alone in the morgue."
   "It wasn't just the cigarette, Anita. The body was just lying there on the gurney. It wasn't chained or strapped. There were no crosses anywhere. I've done executions. They plaster the vamps with silver chains and crosses until it's hard to find the heart. It just didn't look right. I wanted to talk to the medical examiner. She has to approve all vampires before execution, or somebody does. Besides the ME smokes. I figured we could have one together in her office."
   "And," I said.
   "She wasn't in, and I went back to the morgue. When I got there, the woman attendant was trying to pound a stake through the vamp's chest."
   It was lucky we were at a dead stop in traffic. If we'd been moving, I'd have plowed into someone. I stared at him. "You left your vampire kit unattended."
   He managed to look embarrassed and angry at the same time. "My kit doesn't include shotguns like yours does, so I figured, who would bother it."
   "A lot of people will steal things out of the bag for souvenirs, Larry." Traffic started to creep forward and I had to watch the road instead of his face.
   "Fine, fine, I was wrong. I know I was wrong. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off the vampire." His eyes slid downward, not looking at me. This was the part that bothered him, or the part he thought would bother me. "I turned my back on her to check the vampire. To make sure she hadn't hurt him."
   "She did your back," I said. We inched forward. We were now trapped between Dairy Queen and Kentucky Fried Chicken on one side, and an Infiniti car dealership and a gas station on the other. The scenery was not improving.
   "Yeah, yeah. She must have thought I was down for the count because she left me and went back to the vampire. I disarmed her, but she was still trying to get to the vampire when the other attendant came in. It took both of us to pin her. She was crazy, manic."
   "Why didn't you draw your gun, Larry?" His gun was sitting in his vampire kit because a shoulder holster and his back wound did not mix. But he went armed. I'd taken him out to the shooting range, and out on vampire hunts until I trusted him not to shoot his foot off.
   "If I'd drawn my gun, I might have shot her."
   "That's sort of the point, Larry."
   "It's exactly the point," he said. "I didn't want to shoot her."
   "She could have killed you, Larry."
   "I know."
   I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to mottle my skin, white and pink. I let out a long breath and tried not to yell. "You obviously don't know, or you would have been more careful."
   "I'm alive, and she's not dead. The vampire didn't even get a scratch. It worked out all right."
   I pulled out onto Olive and started creeping towards 270. We needed to head north towards St. Charles. Larry had an apartment over there. It was about a twenty-minute drive, give or take. His apartment looked out over a lake where geese nested in the spring and congregated in the winter. Richard Zeeman, junior high science teacher, alpha werewolf, and at that time, my boyfriend, had helped him move in. Richard had really liked the geese nesting just under the balcony. So had I.
   "Larry, you are going to have to get over this squeamishness or you're going to get killed."
   "I'll keep doing what I think is right, Anita. Nothing you can say will change my mind."
   "Dammit, Larry. I don't want to have to bury you."
   "What would you have done? Shot her?"
   "I wouldn't have turned my back on her, Larry. I could have probably disarmed her or kept her busy until the other attendant arrived. I wouldn't have had to shoot her."
   "I let things get out of control," he said.
   "Your priorities were screwed. You should have neutralized the threat before you checked on the victim. Alive, you could help the vamp. Dead, you're just another victim."
   "Well, at least I've got a scar you don't have."
   I shook my head. "You'll have to try harder if you want a scar I don't have."
   "You let a human shove one of your own stakes into your back?"
   "Two humans with multiple bites, what I used to call human servants, before I knew what the term really meant. I had one pinned and was stabbing him. The woman came at my back."
   "So yours wasn't a mistake," he said.
   I shrugged. "I could have shot them when I first saw them, but I didn't kill humans as easily back then. I learned my lesson. Just because it doesn't have fangs doesn't mean it can't kill you."
   "You used to be squeamish about shooting human servants?" Larry asked.
   I turned onto 270. "No one's perfect. Why did the woman have a hard-on to kill the vampire?"
   He grinned. "You're going to love this one. She's a member of Humans First. The vampire was a doctor in the hospital. He'd tucked himself into a linen closet. It was where he always slept the day away if he'd had to stay too late in the hospital to drive home. She just popped him on a gurney and wheeled him down to the morgue."
   "I'm surprised she didn't just push him out into the sunlight. The last sunlight of the day works as well as noonday."
   "The linen closet he used was on the basement floor just in case someone opened the door at the wrong time of day. No windows. She was afraid someone would see her before she could get him up in the elevator and outside."
   "She really thought you would just stake him?"
   "I guess so. I don't know, Anita. She was crazy, really crazy. She spit at the vampire and us. Said we'd all rot in hell. That we had to cleanse the world of the monsters. The monsters were going to enslave us all." Larry shivered, then frowned. "I thought Humans Against Vampires was bad enough, but this splinter group, Humans First, is genuinely scary."
   "HAV tries to work within the law," I said. "Humans First doesn't even pretend to care. They claimed they staked that vampire mayor in Michigan."
   "Claimed? You don't believe them?"
   "I think someone near and dear to his household did it."
   "Why?"
   "The cops sent me a description and some photos of the security precautions he'd taken. Humans First may be radical, but they don't seem very well organized yet. You'd have had to plan and be very lucky to get to that vampire during the day. He was like a lot of the old ones, very serious about his daytime safety. I think whoever did it is happy to let the right-wing radicals take the blame."
   "You tell the police what you think?"
   "Sure. That's why they asked."
   "I'm surprised they didn't have you come down and see it in person."
   I shrugged. "I can't go personally to every preternatural crime. Besides, I'm technically a civilian. Cops are sort of leery about involving civilians in their cases, but more importantly, the media would be all over it. The Executioner Solves Vampire Murder."
   Larry grinned. "That's a mild headline for you."
   "Unfortunately," I said. "Also, I think the killer is a human. I think it's just someone he was close to. It's like any well-planned murder except for the victim being a vampire."
   "Only you would make a locked-room vampire murder sound ordinary," Larry said.
   I had to smile. "I guess so." My beeper went off, and I jumped. I pulled the damn thing off my skirt and held it where I could see the number. I frowned at it.
   "What's wrong? Is it the police?"
   "No. I don't recognize the number."
   "You don't give out your beeper number to strangers."
   "I'm aware of that."
   "Hey, don't get grumpy at me."
   I sighed. "Sorry." Larry was slowly wearing me down on my aggression threshold. He was, by sheer repetition, teaching me to be nicer. Anybody else and I would have fed them their head in a basket. But Larry managed to push my buttons just right. He could caution me to be nicer and I didn't slug him. The basis of many a successful relationship.
   We were only minutes from Larry's apartment. I'd tuck him into bed and answer the call. If it wasn't the police or a zombie-raising, I was going to be pissed. I hated being beeped when it wasn't important. That's what beepers are for, right? If it wasn't important stuff, I was going to rain all over somebody's parade. With Larry asleep, I could be as nasty as I wanted to be. It was almost a relief.
   
   
3
   When Larry was safely tucked in bed with his Demorol, so deeply asleep that nothing short of an earthquake would have woken him, I made my phone call. I still didn't have the faintest idea who it was, which bothered me. It wasn't just inconvenient, it was unnerving. Who was giving out my private numbers and why?
   The phone didn't even finish a ring before it was picked up. The voice on the other end was male, soft, and panicked. "Hello, hello."
   All my irritation vanished in a wash of something very close to fear. "Stephen, what's wrong?"
   I heard him swallow on his end of the phone. "Thank God."
   "What's happened?" I made my voice very clear, very calm, because I wanted to yell at him, to force him to tell me what the hell was going on.
   "Can you come down to St. Louis University Hospital?"
   That got my attention. "How bad are you hurt?"
   "It's not me."
   My heart slid up into my throat, and my voice came out squeezed and tight. "Jean-Claude." The moment I said it, I knew it was silly. It was just after noon. If Jean-Claude had needed a doctor, they would have had to come to him. Vampires did not travel well in broad daylight. Why was I so worried about a vampire? I happened to be dating him. My family, devout Catholics, are simply thrilled. Since I'm still a little embarrassed about it, it's hard to defend myself.
   "It's not Jean-Claude. It's Nathaniel."
   "Who?"
   Stephen's breath went out in a long-suffering sigh. "He was one of Gabriel's people."
   Which was another way of saying he was a wereleopard. Gabriel had been the leopards' leader, their alpha, until I killed him. Why had I killed him? Most of the wounds he'd given me had healed. It was one of the benefits of the vampire marks. I didn't scar quite so easily anymore. But there was a curl of scars high up on my buttocks and lower back, faint, almost dainty, but I would always have a little reminder of Gabriel. A reminder that his fantasy had been to rape me, to make me cry out his name, then kill me. Though knowing Gabriel, he probably hadn't been so picky on when I died, after, or during—either would have worked for him. As long as I was still warm. Most lycanthropes aren't into carrion.
   I sounded casual about it, even in my own head. But my fingers traced along my back as if I could feel the scars through my skirt. Had to be casual about it. Had to be. Or you start screaming, and you don't stop.
   "The hospital doesn't know Nathaniel's a shapeshifter, do they?" I said.
   He lowered his voice. "They know. He's healing too fast for them not to know."
   "So why whisper?"
   "Because I'm out in the waiting room on a pay phone." There was a sound on the other end like he'd had to take the receiver away from his mouth. He muttered, "I'll be off in just a minute." He came back on. "I need you to come down, Anita."
   "Why?"
   "Please."
   "You're a werewolf, Stephen. What are you doing babysitting one of the kitty-cats?"
   "I'm one of the names in his wallet in case of emergencies. Nathaniel works at Guilty Pleasures."
   "He's a stripper?" I made it a question because he could have been a waiter, but it wasn't likely. Jean-Claude owned Guilty Pleasures, and he would never have wasted a shapeshifter off-stage. They were too damned exotic.
   "Yes."
   "The two of you need a ride?" It was my day for it, I guess.
   "Yes, and no."
   There was something in his voice that I didn't like. An unease, a tension. It wasn't like Stephen to be cagey. He didn't play games. He just talked. "How did Nathaniel get hurt?" Maybe if I asked better questions, I'd get better answers.
   "A customer got too rough."
   "At the club?"
   "No. Anita, please, there's no time. Come down and make sure he doesn't go home with Zane."
   "Who the hell is Zane?"
   "Another of Gabriel's people. He's been pimping them out since Gabriel died. But he's not protecting them like Gabriel did. He isn't alpha."
   "Pimping them out? What are you talking about?"
   Stephen's voice rose high and far too cheerful. "Hello, Zane. Have you seen Nathaniel yet?"
   I couldn't really hear the answer, just the buzz of all the people in the waiting room. "I don't think they want him to go just yet. He's hurt," Stephen said.
   Zane must have stepped very close to the phone, very close to Stephen. A low, growling voice came through the wire. "He'll go home when I say he goes home."
   Stephen's voice held an edge of panic. "I don't think the doctors will like that."
   "I don't give a shit. Who are you talking to?"
   For his voice to be that clear he had to have Stephen pinned against the wall. Threatening him, without saying anything specific.
   The growling voice was suddenly very clear. He'd taken the phone from Stephen. "Who is this?"
   "Anna Blake, and you must be Zane."
   He laughed, and it sounded too low, as if his throat were sore. "The wolves' human lupa. Oh, I'm so scared."
   Lupa was the word the werewolves used for their leader's mate. I was the first human so honored. I wasn't even dating their Ulfric anymore. We'd broken up after I saw him eat somebody. Hey, a girl's got to have some standards.
   "Gabriel wasn't scared of me either. Look where it got him," I said.
   Zane was quiet for a handful of heartbeats. He breathed over the phone like a dog panted, heavy, but not like he was doing it on purpose, more like he couldn't help it. "Nathaniel is mine. Keep off of him."
   "Stephen isn't one of yours," I said.
   "Does he belong to you?" I could hear cloth moving. A sense of movement on the other end of the phone that I didn't like. "He is sooo pretty. Have you tasted these soft lips? Has this long yellow hair swept over your pillow?"
   I knew without seeing it that he was touching Stephen, caressing him to match the words. "Don't touch him, Zane."
   "Too late."
   I gripped the phone tight and forced my voice calm, even. "Stephen's under my protection, Zane. Do you understand me?"
   "What would you do to keep your pet wolf safe, Anita?"
   "You don't want to push that button, Zane. You really don't."
   He lowered his voice to an almost painful whisper. "Would you kill me to keep him safe?"
   I usually have to meet someone at least once before threatening to kill them, but I was about to make an exception. "Yeah."
   He laughed, low and nervous. "I see why Gabriel liked you. So tough, so sure of yourself. Sooo dangerous."
   "You sound like a bad imitation of Gabriel."
   He made a sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a bah."Stephen shouldn't have interfered."
   "Nathaniel's his friend."
   "I am all the friend he needs."
   "I don't think so."
   "I am taking Nathaniel with me, Anita. If Stephen tries to stop me, I'll hurt him."
   "You hurt Stephen, I hurt you."
   "So be it." He hung up.
   Shit. I ran for my Jeep. I was thirty minutes away, twenty if I pushed it a lot. Twenty minutes. Stephen wasn't dominant. He was a victim. But he was also loyal. If he thought Nathaniel shouldn't go with Zane, he'd try and keep him. He wouldn't fight for him, but he might throw his body in front of the car. I had no doubts at all that Zane would drive right over him. Best case scenario. Worst case scenario was Zane would take both Stephen and Nathaniel. If Zane acted as much like Gabriel as he talked, I'd rather have taken my chances with the car.
   
   
4
   My second emergency room in less than two hours. It was a red-letter day even for me. Good news was that none of the injuries were mine. Bad news was that that might change. Alpha or not, Zane was a shapeshifter. They were able to bench-press medium-size elephants. I was not going to arm-wrestle him. Not only would I lose, but he'd probably pull the arm out of my socket and eat it. Most lycanthropes liked to try and pass for human. I wasn't sure Zane sweated little details like that.
   Yet I didn't want to kill Zane if I didn't have to. It wasn't mercy. It was the thought that he might force me to do it in public. I didn't want to go to jail. The fact that the punishment worried me more than the crime said something about my moral state. Some days I thought I was becoming a sociopath. Some days I thought I was already there.
   I carried silver-plated bullets in my gun at all times. Silver worked on humans, as well as on most supernatural beings. Why keep switching to normal ammo that only did humans and a very few creatures? But a few months ago I'd met a fairie that had damn near killed me. Silver didn't work on fairies, but normal lead did. So I'd taken to keeping a spare clip of regular bullets in the glove compartment. I peeled off the first two rounds of my silver clip and replaced them with lead. Which meant I had two bullets to discourage Zane with, before I killed him. Because, make no mistake, if he kept coming after I'd pumped him full of two Glazer Safety Rounds, which hurt a hell of a lot even if you could heal the damage, the first silver bullet was not going to be aimed to wound.
   It wasn't until I was going through the doors I realized that I didn't know Nathaniel's last name. Stephen's name wasn't going to help me. Damn.
   The waiting room was packed. Women with crying babies, children racing through the chairs belonging to no one, a man with a bloody rag around his hand, people with no visible injury staring dully into space. Stephen was nowhere in sight.
   Screams, the sound of breaking glass; metal clanked to the floor. A nurse ran out of the far hallway. "Get more security, now!" A nurse behind the admittance desk punched buttons on the phone.
   Call it a hunch but I was betting I knew where Stephen and Zane were. I flashed my ID at the nurse. "I'm with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. Can I help?"
   The nurse clutched my arm. "You're a cop?"
   "I'm with the police, yes." Prevarication at its best. As a civilian attached to a police squad you learn how to do that.
   "Thank God." She started to pull me towards the noise.
   I pulled my arm free and took out my gun. Safety off, pointed at the ceiling, ready to go. With normal ammo I wouldn't have pointed at the ceiling, not with a hospital full of patients above me, but Glazer Safety Rounds aren't called safety rounds for nothing.
   The back area was like every emergency area I'd ever been in. Curtains hung from metal tracks so you could make lots and lots of little individual examining rooms. A handful of curtains were closed, but patients were sitting up, staring through the curtains, watching the show. A wall divided the room down the middle to the corridor, so there wasn't much to see.
   A man wearing green surgical scrubs went flying through the air from around that wall. He smacked into the opposite wall, slid down it heavily, and lay very still.
   The nurse with me ran towards him, and I let her go. What lay beyond, what was tossing doctors around like toys, wasn't a job for a healer. It was a job for me. Two more figures in surgical scrubs lay on the floor, one male, one female. The woman was awake, eyes wide. Her wrist was at a 45 degree angle, broken. She saw my ID clipped to my jacket. "He's a shifter. Be careful."
   "I know what he is," I said. I lowered the gun just a touch.
   Her eyes flinched, and it wasn't pain. "Don't shoot up my trauma center."
   "Try not to," I said and moved past her.
   Zane stepped out into the corridor. I'd never seen Zane before, but who else could it be? He was carrying someone in his arms. I thought at first, a woman, because the hair was long and shining brown, but the exposed back and shoulders were too muscular, too male. It had to be Nathaniel. He fit easily into the taller man's arms.
   Zane was about six foot, stretched tall and thin. He wore only a black leather vest on his thin, pale upper body. His hair was cotton-white, cut short on the sides with the top long in moussed spikes.
   He opened his mouth and snarled at me. He had fangs, upper and lower, like a great cat. Sweet Jesus.
   I pointed the gun at him and let out the air in my body until I was still and quiet. I was aiming for a line of shoulder above Nathaniel's still form. At this distance I'd hit it.
   "I'll only ask once, Zane. Put him down."
   "He's mine, mine!" He took striding steps down the hallway, and I fired.
   The bullet spun him halfway around, and staggered him to his knees. The shoulder I'd hit stopped working, and Nathaniel slid out of his arms. Zane got to his feet with the smaller man tucked under his good arm like a doll. The flesh of his shoulder was already reknitting, rebuilding itself like a fast-forward picture of a flower blooming.
   Zane could have tried to rush past me, to use his speed, but he didn't. He just came walking towards me as if he didn't believe I'd do it. He should have believed.
   The second lead bullet took him square in the chest. Blood exploded out of his pale skin. He fell onto his back, spine bowing, struggling to breathe with a hole the size of a fist in his chest. I went for him, not running, but hurrying.
   I walked wide around him, out of arm's reach, and came up a little behind him, and to the side. The shoulder I'd shot was still limp, his other arm trapped under Nathaniel's body. Zane gasped up at me, brown eyes wide.
   "Silver, Zane, the rest of the bullets are silver. I'll make it a head shot and blow your freaking brains all over this nice clean floor."
   He finally managed to gasp out, "Won't." Blood filled his mouth and spilled down his chin.
   I pointed the gun at his face, about eyebrow level. If I pulled the trigger, he was gone. I stared down at this man I'd never met before. He looked young, nowhere close to thirty. A great emptiness filled me. It was like standing in the middle of white noise. I felt nothing. I didn't want to kill him, but I didn't care if I did. It didn't matter to me. It only mattered to him. I let that knowledge fill my eyes. That I didn't give a damn one way or the other. I let him see it, because he was a shapeshifter, and he'd understand what I was showing him. Most people wouldn't. Most sane people anyway.
   I said, "You are going to leave Nathaniel alone. When the police arrive, you are going to do everything they tell you to do. No arguments, no fighting, or I will kill you. Do you understand me, Zane?"
   "Yes," he said, and more blood flowed in a heavy line from his mouth. He started to cry. Tears welled down his bloodstained face.
   Crying? The bad guys aren't supposed to cry.
   "I'm so glad you've come," he said. "I tried to take care of them, but I couldn't. I tried to be Gabriel, but I couldn't be him." His shoulder had healed enough that he covered his eyes with his hand so we couldn't see him cry, but his voice was thick with tears, as well as blood.
   "I'm so glad you've come to us, Anita. I'm so glad we're not alone anymore."
   I didn't know what to say. Denying that I was going to be their leader seemed a bad idea with bodies littering the area. If I refused his offer, he might get nasty again and I'd have to kill him. I realized suddenly with something like a physical jolt that I didn't want to kill him. Was it the tears? Maybe. But it was more than that. It was the fact that I'd killed their alpha, their protector, and never given a thought what that might do to the rest of the wereleopards. It had never occurred to me that there was no second in command, no one to fill Gabriel's place. I certainly couldn't be their alpha. I didn't turn furry once a month. But if it would keep Zane from tearing up any more doctors, I could play along for a while.
   By the time the cops arrived, Zane was healed. He'd curled around Nathaniel's unconscious body like it was a teddy bear, still crying. He stroked Nathaniel's hair and muttered over and over, "She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe. She'll keep us safe."
   I think the "she" was me, and I was in way over my head.
   
   

5
   Stephen lay in the narrow hospital bed. His curly blond hair was longer than mine, sweeping across the white pillow. Angry red and pink scars crisscrossed his delicate face. He looked like he'd been shoved through a window, which is exactly what had happened. Stephen, who didn't outweigh me by twenty pounds, had stood his ground. Zane had finally shoved him through a wire-mesh safety window. Like shoving someone through a wire cheese grater. If it had been a human being, they'd be dead. Even Stephen was hurt, badly hurt. But he was healing. I couldn't literally see the scars fading. It was like trying to watch a flower bloom. You knew it happened, but you never got to see it. I'd glance back at him, and there'd be one less scar. It was unnerving as hell.
   Nathaniel was in the other bed. His hair was longer than Stephen's. Waist length, I was betting. Hard to judge since I'd only seen him prone. It was the darkest of auburns, almost brown but not. It was a rich, deep mahogany. The hair lay on the white sheets like the pelt of an animal, thick and shining.
   He was pretty rather than handsome, and couldn't have been more than five foot six. The hair helped the illusion of femininity. But his shoulders were disproportionately broad, part weightlifting, but part genetics. He had great shoulders, but they belonged on someone about half a foot taller. He had to be eighteen to strip at Guilty Pleasures. His face was slender, jaw too smooth. He might have been eighteen, but he wasn't much over. Maybe someday he'd grow into the shoulders.
   We were in a semiprivate room on the isolation ward. The floor that most hospitals kept for lycanthropes, vamps, and other preternatural citizens. Anything they thought might be dangerous. Zane would have been dangerous. But the cops had carted him away, wounds nearly healed. His flesh had pushed my bullets out onto the floor like rejected bits of organ. I didn't think we needed the isolation ward for Stephen and Nathaniel. I could be wrong on Nathaniel, but I didn't think so. I trusted Stephen's judgment better than that.
   Nathaniel hadn't regained consciousness. I'd asked what his injuries were, and they told me, because they still thought I was a cop, and I'd saved their asses. Gratitude is a wonderful thing.
   Someone had pretty much gutted Nathaniel. I don't mean just cut open his gut with a knife. I mean opened him up and let his intestines fall onto the floor; they found bits of debris on his intestines. There were signs of severe trauma to other parts of the body. He'd been sexually abused. And yes, a prostitute can be raped. All it takes is saying no. No one, not even a lycanthrope, would agree to being raped while their insides were spilling onto the floor. The rape could have been first, then they tried to kill him. It was a touch less sick done in that order. A touch.
   There were marks on his wrists and ankles like he'd been chained. The marks were rubbed bloody like he'd struggled, and they weren't healing. Which meant that they'd used chains with a high silver content so it would hurt and not just hold. Whoever had done this to him knew ahead of time they'd be getting a lycanthrope. They were prepared. Which raised some very interesting questions.
   Stephen said Gabriel had been pimping the wereleopards out. I understood why people would want something as exotic as a wereleopard. I knew that sadomasochism existed. Shapeshifters could take a hell of a lot of damage. So the combination even made a certain sense. But this was beyond sex games. I'd never heard of anything this brutal outside of a serial-killer case.
   I couldn't leave them alone, unprotected. Even without the threat of sexual murderers, there was still the wereleopards. Zane might have cried and kissed my feet, but there were others. If they had no pack structure, no alpha, they had no one to tell them to leave Nathaniel alone. Without a leader it might be a matter of having to back down or kill each of them individually. Not a pleasant thought. Real leopards don't sweat who's in charge much. They don't have pack structures, but shapeshifters aren't animals, they're people. Which meant no matter how solitary and uncomplicated the animal form, the people half will find a way to screw things up. If Gabriel had hand-picked his people, I couldn't trust that they wouldn't come and try for Nathaniel again. Gabriel had been one sick kitty, and Zane hadn't impressed me much either. Who you gonna call for reinforcements? The local werewolf pack, of course. Stephen was a member of their pack. They owed him protection.
   There was a knock on the door. I took the Browning out and held it on my lap underneath the magazine I'd been reading. I'd managed to find a three-month-old copy of National Wildlife, with an article on Kodiak bears. The magazine hid the gun nicely.
   "Who is it?"
   "It's Irving."
   "Come in." I left the gun out, just in case somebody would try to push in behind him. Irving Griswold was a werewolf and a reporter. For a reporter he was a good guy, but he wasn't as careful as I was. When I saw he was alone, then I would put the gun up.
   Irving pushed the door open, smiling. His frizzy brown hair encircled his head like a brown halo with the bald spot gleaming in the middle. Glasses perched on a small nose. He was short and gave the impression of being round without being fat. He looked like anything but a big bad wolf. He didn't even look much like a reporter, which was one of the things that made him such a great interviewer but would probably always keep him from being on-camera material. He worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and had interviewed me many times.
   He closed the door behind him.
   I put up the gun.
   His eyes widened. He spoke low, but not in a whisper. "How's Stephen?"
   "How did you get in here? There's supposed to be a cop on the door."
   "Gee, Blake, I'm glad to see you too."
   "Don't mess with me, Irving. There's supposed to be a guard out there."
   "He's talking to a very pretty nurse at the desk."
   "Dammit." I was not a real cop, so I couldn't go around yelling at them, but it was tempting. There was a law floating around Washington that might give vampire hunters federal badges soon. Sometimes I thought it was a bad idea. Sometimes, I didn't.
   "Talk to me fast before I get kicked out. How is Stephen?"
   I told him. "You don't care about Nathaniel?"
   He looked uncomfortable. "You know that Sylvie is de factopack leader while Richard is out of town working on his master's degree, right?"
   I sighed. "No, I didn't know."
   "I know you're not talking to Richard since you broke up, but I'd think someone else would have mentioned it."
   "All the other wolves creep around me like there's been a death. No one talks about Richard to me, Irving. I thought he'd forbidden them to talk to me."
   "Not to my knowledge."
   "I'm surprised you didn't come in here asking for a story."
   "I can't do this story, Anita. It's too close to home."
   "Because you know Stephen?"
   "Because everyone involved is a shapeshifter and I'm just a mild-mannered reporter."
   "You really think you'd lose your job if they found out?"
   "Job, hell. What would my mother say?"
   I smiled. "So you can't play bodyguard."
   He frowned. "You know, I hadn't thought about that. When one of the pack got hurt in public where it couldn't be hidden, Raina always used to ride to the rescue. With her dead, I don't think we have any alphas that aren't hiding what they are. No one I'd trust to guard Stephen, anyway."
   Raina had been the wolf pack's old lupa before I took the job. Technically the old lupa doesn't have to die to step down, unlike the Ulfric, or King Wolf. But Raina had been Gabriel's playmate. They'd shared certain hobbies, like making pornographic snuff films starring shapeshifters and humans. She'd been helping film while Gabriel tried to rape me. Oh, yeah, Raina had made it a real pleasure to punch her ticket.
   "That's the second time you've ignored Nathaniel," I said. "What gives, Irving?"
   "I told you Sylvie is in charge until Richard gets back in town."
   "So?"
   "She's forbidden any of us to help the wereleopards in any way."
   "Why?"
   "Raina used the wereleopards in her porno movies a lot, along with the wolves."
   "I've seen one of the films. I wasn't impressed. Horrified, but not impressed."
   Irving looked very serious. "She also let Gabriel and the cats punish wayward pack members."
   "Punish?" I made it a question.
   Irving nodded. "Sylvie was one of the ones who got punished, more than once. She hates them all, Anita. If Richard hadn't forbid it, she'd have used the pack to hunt the leopards down and kill them all."
   "I've seen what Gabriel and Raina thought was fun and games. I think I'm on Sylvie's side for once."
   "You cleaned house for us, you and Richard. Richard killed Marcus and now he's Ulfric, pack leader. You killed Raina for us, and now you're our lupa."
   "I shot her, Irving. According to pack law, so I'm told, using a gun negates the challenge. I cheated."
   "You're not lupa because you killed Raina. You're lupa because Richard picked you as his mate."
   I shook my head. "We aren't dating anymore, Irving."
   "But Richard hasn't picked a new lupa, Anita. Until he does, the job's yours."
   Richard was tall, dark, handsome, honest, truthful, brave. He was perfect except for being a werewolf. Even that had been forgivable, or so I thought. Until I saw him in action. Saw the whole enchilada. The meat had been raw and squirming, the sauce a little bloody.
   Now I was dating just Jean-Claude. I wasn't sure how much of an improvement dating the head vampire of the city was over dating the head werewolf, but I'd made my choice. It was Jean-Claude's pale, pale hands that held my body. His black hair that curled over my pillow. His midnight-blue eyes that I stared into while we made love.
   Good girls do not have premarital sex, especially with the undead. I didn't think good girls had regrets about ex-boyfriend A, when they've chosen boyfriend B. Maybe I'd been wrong. Richard and I avoided each other when we could. Which had been for most of the last six weeks. Now he was out of town. Easy to avoid each other now.
   "I won't ask what you're thinking about," Irving said. "I think I know."
   "Don't be so damn smart," I said.
   He spread his hands wide. "Occupational hazard."
   That made me laugh. "So Sylvie's forbidden anyone to help the leopards. Where does that leave Stephen?"
   "He went against her direct orders, Anita. For someone as low in the pack structure as Stephen, that took guts. But Sylvie won't be impressed. She'll tear him up, and she won't allow anyone to come down and baby-sit them. I know her that well."
   "I can't do this twenty-four hours a day, Irving."
   "They'll heal in a day or so."
   I frowned at him. "I can't sit here for two days."
   He looked away from me and went to stand beside Stephen's bed. He stared down at the sleeping man, hands clasped in front of him.
   I walked over to them. I touched Irving's arm. "What aren't you telling me?"
   He shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."
   I turned him around, made him face me. "Talk to me, Irving."
   "You aren't a shapeshifter, Anita. You aren't dating Richard anymore. You need to get out of our world, not further into it."
   He looked so serious, solemn, that it scared me. "Irving, what's wrong?"
   He just shook his head.
   I grabbed him by both arms and resisted the urge to shake him. "What are you hiding?"
   "There is a way for you to get the pack to guard Stephen and even Nathaniel."
   I took a step back. "I'm listening."
   "You outrank Sylvie."
   "I'm not a shapeshifter, Irving. I was the new pack leader's girlfriend. I'm not even that anymore."
   "You're more than that, Anita, and you know it. You've killed some of us. You kill easily and without remorse. The pack respects that."
   "Gee, Irving, what a rousing endorsement."
   "Do you feel badly about killing Raina? Did you lose sleep over Gabriel?"
   "I killed Raina because she was trying to kill me. I killed Gabriel for the same reason, self-preservation. So no, I didn't lose any sleep."
   "The pack respects you, Anita. If you could find some pack members that are already outed as shifters and convince them that you're scarier than Sylvie, they'd guard them, both of them."
   "I am not scarier than Sylvie, Irving. I can't beat them to a pulp. She can."
   "But you can kill them." He said it very quietly, watching my face, searching my expression.
   I opened my mouth, closed it. "What are you trying to get me to do, Irving?"
   He shook his head. "Nothing. Forget I said it. I shouldn't have said it. Get more cops in here and go home, Anita. Just get out of it while you can."
   "What's going on, Irving? Is Sylvie a problem?"
   He looked at me. His usually cheerful eyes, solemn, thoughtful. He shook his head. "I've got to go, Anita."
   I grabbed his arm. "You go nowhere until you tell me what's happening."
   He turned back to me slowly, reluctantly. I let go of his arm and stepped back. "Talk."
   "Sylvie has challenged everyone higher in the pack than she is, and won."
   I looked at him. "So?"
   "Do you understand how unusual it is for a woman to fight her way to second in command. She's about five foot six, small-boned. Ask how she's winning."
   "You're being coy, Irving. That's not like you. I'm not going to play Twenty Questions with you. Just tell me."
   "She killed the first two people she fought. She didn't have to. She chose to. The next three challenges she made just agreed she was dominant to them. They didn't want to risk being killed."
   "Very practical," I said.
   He nodded. "Sylvie's always been that. She finally picked one of the inner circle to fight. She's too small to be one of the enforcers; besides I think she was afraid of Jamil, and Shang-Da."
   "Jamil? Richard didn't drive him out? But he was one of Marcus's and Raina's flunkies."
   Irving shrugged. "Richard thought the transition would go smoother if he kept some of the old guard in power."
   I shook my head. "Jamil should have been driven out or killed."
   "Maybe, but actually Jamil seems to support Richard. I think it really surprised him when he wasn't killed instantly. Richard has earned his loyalty."
   "I didn't know Jamil had any loyalty," I said.
   "None of us did. Sylvie fought and won the place of Geri, second in command."
   "She kill for it?"
   "Surprisingly, no."
   "Okay, so Sylvie's tearing up the pack. She's second in command. Great, so what?"
   "I think she wants to be Ulfric, Anita. I think she wants Richard's job."
   I stared at him. "There's only one way to be Ulfric, Irving."
   "To kill the old king," Irving said. "Yeah, I think Sylvie knows that."
   "I haven't seen her fight, but I've seen Richard fight. He outweighs her by a hundred pounds, a hundred pounds of muscle, and he's good. She can't beat him in a fair fight, can she?"
   "It's like Richard is wounded, Anita. The heart's gone out of him. I think if she challenged and really wanted it, she'd win."
   "What are you telling me? That he's depressed?" I asked.
   "It's more than that. You know how much he hates being one of the monsters. He'd never killed anyone until Marcus. He can't forgive himself."
   "How do you know all this?"
   "I listen. Reporters make good listeners."
   We stared at each other. "Tell me the rest."
   Irving looked down, then up. "He doesn't discuss you with me. The only thing he said was that even you couldn't accept what he was. Even you, the Executioner, were horrified."
   It was my turn to look down. "I didn't want to be."
   "We can't change how we feel," Irving said.
   I met his eyes. "I would if I could."
   "I believe you."
   "I don't want Richard dead."
   "None of us do. I'm afraid of what Sylvie would do without anyone to stop her." He motioned to the other bed. "First order of business would be hunting down all the wereleopards. We'd slaughter them."
   I took in a deep breath and let it out. "I can't change how I feel about what I saw, Irving. I saw Richard eat Marcus." I paced the small room, shaking my head. "What canI do to help?"
   "Call the pack and demand that they acknowledge you as lupa. Make some of them come here and guard both of them against Sylvie's express orders. But you have to give them your protection. You have to promise them that she won't hurt them, because you'll see to it that she can't."
   "If I do that and Sylvie doesn't like it, I'll have to kill her. It's like I'm setting her up to be killed. That's a little premeditated even for me."
   He shook his head. "I'm asking you to be our lupa. To be Richard's lupa. To show Sylvie that if she keeps pressing, Richard may not kill her, but you will."
   I sighed. "Shit."
   "I'm sorry, Anita. I wouldn't have said anything, but . . ."
   "I needed to know," I said. I hugged him, and he stiffened in surprise, then hugged me back.
   "What was that for?"
   "For telling me. I know Richard won't like it."
   The smile faded from his face. "Richard has punished two pack members since he took over. They challenged his authority, big time, and he nearly killed them both."
   "What?" I asked.
   "He sliced them up, Anita. He was like someone else, something else."
   "Richard doesn't do things like that."
   "He does now, not all the time. Most of the time he's fine, but then he snaps and goes into a rage. I don't want to be anywhere near him when he loses it."
   "How bad has he gotten?" I asked.
   "He's got to accept what he is, Anita. He's got to embrace his beast, or he's going to drive himself mad."
   I shook my head. "I can't help him love his beast, Irving. I can't accept it either."
   Irving shrugged. "It's not so bad being furry, Anita. There are worse things . . . like being the walking dead."
   I frowned at him. "Get out, Irving, and thanks for telling me."
   "I hope you're still thankful in a week."
   "Me, too."
   Irving gave me some phone numbers and left. Didn't want anyone to stay too long. People might suspect him of being more than just a reporter. No one seemed to worry about my reputation. I raised zombies, slew vampires, and was dating the Master of the City. If people began to suspect me of being a shapeshifter, what the hell difference would it make?
   Three names of submissive pack members who Irving thought were tough enough to play bodyguard and weak enough to be bullied. I didn't want to do this. The pack was based on obedience: punishment and reward, mostly punishment. If the pack members I called refused me, I had to punish them, or I wasn't lupa, wasn't strong enough to back Richard. Of course, he probably wouldn't be grateful. He seemed to hate me now. I didn't blame him. He'd hate me interfering.
   But it wasn't just Richard. It was Stephen. He'd saved my life once and I still hadn't returned the favor. He was also one of those people that was everyone's victim, until today. Yeah, Zane had nearly killed him, but that wasn't the point. He'd put friendship above pack loyalty. Which meant that Sylvie could withdraw pack protection from him. He'd be like the wereleopards, anybody's meat. I couldn't let that happen to him, not if I could stop it.
   Stephen might end up dead. Richard might end up dead. I might have to kill Sylvie. I might have to maim or kill a few pack members to make my point. Might, might, might. Damn.
   I'd never killed before except in self-defense or for revenge. If I put my hat in the ring, it would be premeditated, cold-blooded murder. Maybe not in a technical sense, but I knew what I would be starting in motion. It was like dominoes. They all stayed straight and neat until you hit one of them; then there was no stopping them. I would end up with a pretty pattern on the floor: Richard solidly in power, Stephen and the wereleopards safe, Sylvie backed down, or dead. The first three things were going to happen. It was Sylvie's choice how the last bit turned out. Harsh, but true. Of course, there was one other option. Sylvie could kill me. That would sort of open things up for her again. Sylvie wasn't exactly ruthless, but she didn't let anyone get in her way. We shared that trait. No, I am not ruthless. If I was, I'd have just called Sylvie into a meeting and shot her on the spot. I wasn't quite sociopath enough to do it. Mercy will get you killed, but sometimes it's all that makes us human.
   I made the calls. I chose a man's name first, Kevin, no last name. His voice was thick with sleep, gruff, like he smoked.
   "Who the hell is this?"
   "Gracious," I said, "very gracious."
   "Who is this?"
   "It's Anita Blake. Do you know who I am?" When trying to be threatening, less is more. Me and Clint Eastwood.
   He was quiet for nearly thirty seconds, and I let the silence build. His breath had sped up. I could almost feel his pulse quickening over the phone.
   He answered like he was used to strange phone calls and pack business. "You're our lupa."
   "Very good, Kevin, very good." Condescending is also good.
   He coughed to clear his throat. "What do you want?"
   "I want you to come down to St. Louis University Hospital. Stephen and Nathaniel have been hurt. I want you to guard them for me."
   "Nathaniel, he's one of the wereleopards."
   "That's right."
   "Sylvie's forbidden us to help the wereleopards."
   "Is Sylvie your lupa?" Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly. Hard to be threatening when you look ill-informed.
   He was quiet for a second. "No."
   "Who is?"
   I heard him swallow. "You are."
   "Do I outrank her?"
   "You know you do."
   "Then get your butt down here, and do what I ask."
   "Sylvie will hurt me, lupa. She really will."
   "I'll see that she doesn't."
   "You're just Richard's human girlfriend. You can't fight Sylvie, not and live."
   "You're right, Kevin. I can't fight Sylvie, but I can kill her."
   "What do you mean?"
   "If she hurts you for helping me, I'll kill her."
   "You can't mean that."
   I sighed. "Look, Kevin, I've met Sylvie. Trust me when I say that I could point a gun at her head and pull the trigger. I can and will kill Sylvie if she forces me to. No jokes, no bluffs, no games." I listened to my voice as I said it. I sounded tired, almost bored, and so serious it was almost frightening.
   "All right, I'll do it, but if you let me down she may kill me."
   "You have my protection, Kevin, and I know what that means in the pack."
   "It means I have to acknowledge you as dominant to me," he said.
   "It also means that if anyone challenges you, I can help you fight your battles. Seems like a fair trade."
   Silence filled the phone lines again. His breathing had slowed, deepened. "Promise me you won't get me killed."
   "I can't promise that, Kevin, but I can promise that if Sylvie kills you, I'll kill her for you."
   Silence, shorter this time. "I believe you would. I'll be at the hospital in forty minutes or less."
   "Thanks, I'll be waiting."
   I hung up and made the other two calls. They both agreed to come down. I'd drawn a line in the sand with Sylvie on one side and me on the other. She wasn't going to like it, not one little bit. Couldn't blame her. If our places were reversed, I'd have been pissed. But she should have left Richard alone. Irving had said it was like Richard was wounded, like the heart had gone out of him. I'd helped put that wound there. I'd cut his heart into tiny little pieces and danced on them. Not deliberately. My intentions were good, but you know what they say about good intentions.
   I couldn't love Richard, but I could kill for him. Killing was the more practical of the two gifts. And lately I'd become very, very practical.
   
   
6
   Sergeant Rudolph Storr showed up before the baby-sitting werewolves could arrive. I'd called him myself. He was the man in charge of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, RPIT, or RIP. A lot of people call us RIP, for Rest in Peace. Hey, at least they know who we are.
   Dolph is six foot eight, built like a pro-wrestler, but it isn't just physical size that makes him impressive. He'd taken a squad that had been meant as a joke to appease the liberals and made it work. RPIT had solved more preternatural crimes in the last three years than any other police unit. Including the FBI. Dolph had even been invited up to lecture at Quantico. Not bad for someone who'd been given his command as a punishment. Dolph wasn't exactly an optimist, few cops are, but give him lemons and he made damn fine lemonade.
   He closed the door behind him and stared down at me. "The doctor said my detective was in here. I just see you."
   "I never said I was a detective. I said I was with the squad. They assumed the rest."
   He shook his head. His black hair actually hid the tops of his ears. He was overdue for a hair cut. "If you were playing cop, why didn't you yell at the uniform that was supposed to be on this door?"
   I smiled up at him. "I thought I'd leave that to you. I assume he knows that he was a bad boy."
   "I took care of it," Dolph said.
   He stayed standing at the door. I stayed sitting in my chair. I'd actually managed not to pull my gun on him. I was happy about that. He was staring at me hard enough to hurt without flashing a gun at him.
   "What's going on, Anita?"
   "You know everything I know," I said.
   "How did you happen to be Johnny-on-the-spot?"
   "Stephen called me."
   "Tell me," he said.
   I told him. I even put in the part about the pimping. I wanted that stopped. The cops are pretty good at stopping crime, if you tell the truth. I left out a few things, like me having killed the wereleopards' old alpha. It was the only thing I left out. For me, it was almost the same as being honest.
   Dolph blinked at me and took it all down in his trusty notebook. "Are you saying that our victim allowed someone to do this to him?"
   I shook my head. "I don't think it's that simple. I think he went there knowing they'd chain him up. He knew there'd be sex and pain, but I don't think he knew they'd come this close to killing him. The doctors actually had to give him blood. His body was going into shock faster than it could fix itself."
   "I've heard of wereanimals healing from worse wounds than this," Dolph said.
   I shrugged. "Some people heal better than others even among the shapeshifters. Nathaniel is pretty low in the power structure, so I'm told. Maybe part of being weak is not healing as well." I spread my hands wide. "I don't know."
   Dolph searched back through his notes. "Someone dropped him off at the emergency entrance wrapped in a sheet. No one saw anything. He just appeared."
   "No one ever sees anything, Dolph. Isn't that the rule?"
   That earned me a small smile. It was nice to see the smile. Dolph wasn't too happy with me lately. He'd only recently found out that I was dating the Master of the City. He didn't like it. He didn't trust anyone that socialized with the monsters. Couldn't blame him.
   "Yeah, that's the rule. Are you telling me everything you know about this, Anita?"
   I raised a hand in a scout's salute. "Would I lie to you?"
   "If it suited your purpose, yes."
   We stared at each other. The silence grew thick enough to walk on. I let it sit there. If Dolph thought I was going to break first, he was wrong. The strain between us wasn't this case. It was his disapproval of my choice of dates. His disappointment in me was always there now. Pressing, weighted, waiting for me to apologize or say, shucks, just kidding. The fact that I was dating a vampire made him trust me less. I understood. Two months ago, even less, and I'd have felt the same way. But here I was dating who, and what, I was dating. Dolph and I, both, had to deal with it.
   And yet, he was my friend, and I respected him. I even agreed with him, but if I could ever get out of this damn hospital, I had a date with Jean-Claude tonight. Regardless of my doubts about Richard, morals in general, and the walking dead, I wanted the date. The thought of Jean-Claude waiting for me made my body tight and warm. Embarrassing, but true. I don't think anything short of giving up Jean-Claude would have satisfied Dolph. I wasn't sure that was an option anymore for a lot of reasons. So I sat and looked at Dolph. He stared back. The silence grew thicker with each tick of the clock.
   A knock on the door saved us. The officer, now attentively on the door, whispered something to Dolph. Dolph nodded and closed the door. The look he gave me was even less friendly, if that was possible.
   "Officer Wayne says that there are three relatives of Stephen's out here. He also says that if they're all relatives, he'll eat his gun."
   "Tell him to pucker up," I said. "They're fellow pack members. Werewolves consider that closer than family."
   "But legally it's not family," Dolph said.
   "How many of your men you want to lose when the next shapeshifter comes through that door?"
   "We can shoot them just as good as you can, Anita."
   "But you still have to give them a warning before you shoot them, don't you? You still have to treat them like people instead of monsters or you end up in front of the review board."
   "Witnesses say you gave Zane, no last name, a warning."
   "I was feeling generous."
   "You were shooting him in front of witnesses. That always makes you generous."
   We went back to staring at each other. Maybe it wasn't just dating a vampire. Maybe it was the fact that Dolph was the ultimate cop and he was beginning to suspect that I was killing people, murdering people. People who hurt me or threatened me did have a tendency to vanish. Not many, but enough. And less than two months ago I'd killed two people where the bodies couldn't be hidden. Self-defense both times. Never saw the inside of a courtroom. Both assassins with records longer than I was tall. The woman's fingerprints had been the answer to several political killings that Interpol had lying around. Big-time bad guys that no one really mourned, at least not the cops.
   But it fed Dolph's suspicions. Hell, it did everything but confirm them.
   "Why'd you recommend me to Pete McKinnon, Dolph?"
   He didn't answer for so long, I thought he wasn't going to, but finally he said, "Because you're the best at what you do, Anita. I may not always approve of your methods, but you help save lives, put away the bad guys. You're better on a murder scene than some of the detectives on my squad."
   For Dolph, this was a speech. I opened my mouth, closed it, then said, "Thanks, Dolph. Coming from you, that's a big compliment."
   "You just spend too much time with the damn monsters, Anita. I don't mean who you date. I mean all of it. You've played by their rules so long, sometimes you forget what it's like to be normal."
   I smiled. "I raise the dead for a living, Dolph. I've never been normal."
   He shook his head. "Don't purposely misunderstand what I'm saying, Anita. It's not the fur or the fangs that make you a monster, not always. Sometimes, it's just where you draw the line."
   "The fact that I play with monsters is what makes me valuable to you, Dolph. If I played it straight, I wouldn't be as good helping you solve preternatural crimes."
   "Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I'd left you alone, not gotten you to consult with us, if you'd be . . . softer."
   I frowned at him. "Are you saying you blame yourself for what I've become?" I tried to laugh it off, but his face stopped me.
   "How often did you go to the monsters on one of my cases? How often did you have to make bargains with them to help put away a bad guy? If I'd left you alone . . ."
   I stood up. I reached out to him, then let my hand fall back without touching him. "I'm not your daughter, Dolph. You're not my keeper. I help the police because I like it. I'm good at it. And who else you gonna call?"
   He nodded. "Yeah, who else? The shifters outside can come in and . . . visit the patients."
   "Thanks, Dolph."
   He took in a long breath and let it out in a big rush of air. "I saw the window that your friend Stephen got shoved through. If he'd been human, he'd be dead. It's just luck that no civilians were killed."
   I shook my head. "I think Zane was being careful of the humans, at least. With the strength he has, it would have been easier to kill than to maim."
   "Why would he have cared?"
   "Because he's in jail, and he gets a bail hearing."
   "They won't let him out," Dolph said.
   "He didn't kill anyone, Dolph. Since when haven't you seen someone not get bail for assault and battery?"
   "You think like a cop, Anita. It's what makes you good."
   "I think like a cop and like a monster. That's what makes me good."
   He nodded, closed his notebook and slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket. "Yeah, that's what makes you good." He left without another word. He sent in the three werewolves and closed the door.
   Kevin was tall, dark, scruffy and smelled like cigarettes. Lorraine was neat and prim like a second-grade schoolteacher. She smelled of White Linen perfume and blinked nervously at me. Teddy, his preference not mine, weighed around three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. He'd buzzed his hair down to a fine dark prickle, and his head looked too small for his massive body. The men looked scary, but it was Lorraine's handshake that left power vibrating down my skin. She looked like a scared rabbit and had enough power to be the big bad wolf.
   Within twenty minutes I was free to leave. The mismatched trio of werewolves had divided the shifts so that one of them would be with the boys at all times. Did I trust the new wolves to guard them? Yeah. Because if they abandoned their posts and let Stephen get killed, I really would kill them. If they tried their best and were simply not strong enough, fine, but if they just gave up . . . I'd given Stephen, and now, Nathaniel, my protection. I wasn't kidding. I made sure that all of them knew that.
   Kevin said it best, "If Sylvie shows up, we'll send her to you."
   "You do that."
   He shook his head, playing with an unlit cigarette. I'd told him he couldn't smoke it, but even touching it seemed to comfort him. "You've pissed in her pond. I hope you can clean it up."
   I smiled. "Eloquent, Kevin, very eloquent."
   "Eloquent or not, Sylvie is going to bust your ass if she can."
   The smile widened. I couldn't help it. "Let me worry about my own ass. My job is to keep your ass out of the sling, not mine."
   The three werewolves looked at me. There was something on all their faces, almost the same expression, but I couldn't read it. "Being lupa is more than just fighting for dominance," said Lorraine in a small voice.
   "I know that," I said.
   "Do you?" she asked, and there was something childlike in the question.
   "I think so."
   "You kill us if we fail you," Kevin said, "but will you die for us? Will you risk the same price you ask us to pay?"
   I liked Kevin better when he wasn't being eloquent. I stared at these three strangers. People I'd just met. Would I risk my life for them? Could I ask them to risk their lives for me if I wasn't willing to return the favor?
   I looked at them, really looked at them. Lorraine's small hands clutching her purse so tightly her hands shook. Teddy, who stared at me with calm, accepting eyes, but there was a challenge in them, an intelligence that you might miss if you just looked at the body. Kevin, who looked like he should be in an alley looking for a fix, or in a bar drinking up his share of whiskey. There was something underneath the cynicism. It was fear. Fear that I'd be like all the rest. A user who didn't give a damn about them. Raina had been that, and now Sylvie. The pack was supposed to be their refuge, their protection, not the thing they feared most.
   Their warm, electric power filled the room, flowed out of them, dancing over my body. They were nervous, scared. Strong emotions made most shapeshifters leak power. If you were sensitive to it, you'd feel it. I'd felt it a lot over the years. This time was different somehow. I didn't just sense the power, my body reacted to it. Not merely a shivering of skin, a line of goose bumps, but something deeper. It was almost sexual, but that wasn't it either. It was as if the power had found a part of me, caressed a part of me, that I never knew was there.
   Their power filled me, touched something, and I felt it, whatever it was, open up like a switch being thrown. A rush of warm energy welled up inside of my body and spread out through my skin, as if every pore of my body was emitting a warm line of air. It brought a soft gasp to my throat. I knew the taste of the power, and it wasn't Jean-Claude. It was Richard. Somehow, I'd tapped into Richard's power. I wondered if he felt it all the way out of state, studying for his degree.
   Six weeks ago to save both their lives, I'd let Jean-Claude bind the three of us to each other. They were dying, and I couldn't let them go. Richard had invaded my dreams by accident, but mostly Jean-Claude had kept us apart because anything else was too painful. This was the first time I'd felt Richard's power since then. The first time I knew for certain that the tie was still there, still strong. Magic is like that. Even hate can't kill it.
   I suddenly had the words, words I couldn't have known. "I am lupa, I am the all-mother, I am your guardian, your refuge, your peace. I will stand with you against all harm. Your enemies are my enemies. I share blood and flesh with you. We are lukoi, we are pack."
   The warmth cut off abruptly. I staggered. Only Teddy's hand kept me from falling to the floor. "Are you all right?" he asked in a voice as deep and impressive as the rest of him.
   I nodded. "I'm fine, I'm fine." As soon as I could, I stepped back. Richard had felt the pull hundreds of miles away, and he'd cut me off. He'd slammed the door shut without knowing what I was doing, or why. A rush of rage danced down inside my head like a silent scream. He was so angry.
   We were both bound to Jean-Claude. I was his human servant and Richard was his wolf. It was a painful intimacy.
   "You aren't lukoi," Lorraine said. "You aren't a shapeshifter. How did you do that?"
   I smiled. "Trade secret." Truth was, I didn't know. I'd have to ask Jean-Claude tonight. I hoped he could explain it. He was only the third master vampire in their long history to have bound both a mortal and a shapeshifter into a single bond. I suspected strongly that there wasn't a manual, and that Jean-Claude winged it more often than I wanted to know.
   Teddy went down on his knees. "You are lupa." The other two followed him. They abased themselves like good little submissive wolves, though Kevin didn't like it, and neither did I. But I wasn't sure how much was form and how much was necessary. I wanted them submissive because I didn't want to have to fight anybody, or kill anybody. So I let them crawl on the floor and run their hands along my legs, and sniff my skin like dogs. Which is when the nurse came in.
   Everybody got up off the floor. I tried to explain and finally stopped. The nurse just stood there staring at all of us, a strange frozen smile on her face. She finally backed out without doing a damn thing. "I'll send Doctor Wilson in to check on them." She nodded her head too often and too rapidly and shut the door behind her. If she'd been wearing heels, I'd have bet we could have heard her run.
   So much for not being one of the monsters.
   
   
7
   Tucking in the baby-sitting werewolves made me late for my date. Taking time to read McKinnon's file made me later, but if there was a fire tonight, it'd be embarrassing not to be prepared. I learned two things from the file. One, that all the fires had been started after dark, which made me think instantly of vampires. Except that vampires couldn't start fires. It wasn't one of their abilities. In fact fire was one of the things they feared most. Oh, I'd seen a few vamps that could control existing flames to a small extent. Make a candle flame rise or fall, parlor tricks, but fire was the element of purity. Purity and the vamps didn't mix. The second thing I learned from the file was that I didn't know much about fires in general or arson in particular. I was going to need a book or a good lecture.
   Jean-Claude had made reservations at Demiche's, a very nice restaurant. I'd had to run home, to my new rented house, to change. It had put me late enough that I'd arranged to meet him at the restaurant. The trouble with fancy dates was where to put my weapons. Women's dress clothes are the ultimate challenge to concealed-weapon carry.
   Formals hid more but made grabbing the weapon harder. Anything form-fitting made it difficult. Tonight I was wearing a spaghetti-strap formal with slits so high on either side, I'd had to make sure that the hose were a matching off-black, and the underwear was lacy and black. I knew myself well enough to know that sometime during the evening I'd forget and flash the undies. And if I had to go for the gun, I'd certainly flash. So why wear it? Answer: I had a Firestar 9mm pistol tucked inside a bellyband.
   The bellyband was an elastic strap that went over the underwear, but under the outerwear. It was designed to wear under a button-down dress shirt. Pull the shirt up with the free hand, pull the gun out, and viola, start shooting. The bellyband didn't work well under most formals, because you had yards of cloth to raise before you could get to the gun. It was better than nothing, but only if the bad guy was patient. But this dress, all I had to do was put my hand up through one of the slits. I had to pull the gun out, down, and out from under the dress, so it still wasn't speedy, but it wasn't bad. The bellyband also did not work with an especially form-fitting dress. Nobody gains weight in the shape of a gun.
   I'd actually found a strapless bra that matched the black panties, so once I took off the gun and dress, I was wearing lingerie. The shoes were higher heels than I'd normally accept, but it was either that or hem the dress. Since I refuse to sew, heels it was.
   The one major drawback to the spaghetti straps was that it showed off all my scars. I'd thought about buying a little cover-up jacket, but this wasn't a dress that was meant for a jacket. So screw it. Jean-Claude had seen the scars before, and the few people rude enough to give second glances could have an eyeful.
   I was getting pretty good at makeup, eye shadow, blusher, lipstick. The lipstick was red—very, very red. But I had the coloring for it. Pale skin, black curly hair, pure brown eyes. I was all contrasts and strong colors the bright red lipstick matched. I was feeling pretty spiffy until I got a glimpse of Jean-Claude.
   He was sitting at the table, waiting for me. I could see him from the entryway, though the maitre d' was two people ahead of me. I didn't mind. I enjoyed the view.
   Jean-Claude's hair is black and curly, but he'd done something to it so it was straight and fine, falling past his shoulders, curled under at the ends. His face seemed even more delicate, like fine porcelain. He was beautiful, not handsome. I wasn't sure what saved his face from being feminine—some line of his cheek, bend of his jaw, something. You would never mistake him for anything other than male. He was dressed in royal blue, a color I'd never seen him in. A short jacket of a shining, almost metallic cloth was overlaid with black lace in a pattern of flowers. The shirt was his typical frilled, a la 1600's shirt, but it was a rich, vibrant blue, down to the mound of ruffles that climbed up his neck to frame his face and spill out the sleeves of the jacket to cover the upper half of his slender white hands.
   He held an empty wineglass in his hand, spinning the stem of the glass between his fingers, watching the light spill through the crystal. He couldn't drink wine more than a sip at a time and mourned it.
   The maitre d' led me through the tables towards him. He looked up, and seeing his face full-on made my chest tight, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. The blue so close to his face made his eyes bluer than I'd ever seen them, not the color of midnight skies, but cobalt blue, the color of a good sapphire. But no jewel ever had that weight of intelligence, of dark knowledge. The look in his eyes as he watched me walk towards him made me shiver. Not cold, not fear. Anticipation.
   In the heels, and with the slits on both sides of the dress, there was an art to walking. You had to sort of throw yourself into it, a sling-back, slouching, hip-swinging walk, or the dress wrapped around your legs and the heels twisted at your ankles. You had to walk like you knew you could wear it and look wonderful. If you doubted yourself, hesitated, you'd fall to the floor and turn into a pumpkin. After years of my not being able to wear heels and dress clothes, Jean-Claude had taught me in a month what my stepmother couldn't teach me in twenty years.
   He stood, and I didn't mind, though once upon a time I'd pissed off a prom date by standing every time that he did for the other girls at the table. One, I'd mellowed since then; two, I could see the rest of Jean-Claude's outfit.
   The pants were black linen, clinging smooth and perfect to his body, so form fitting that I knew there was nothing under the pants but him. Black boots climbed his legs to the knees. The boots were soft, crepe-like leather, wrinkled and pettable.
   He glided towards me, and I stood there watching him come. I was still half afraid of him. Afraid of how much I wanted him. I was like a rabbit caught in headlights, frozen, waiting for death to come. But did the rabbit's heart beat fast and faster? Did its breath come like a choking thing into its throat? Was there an eager rush to the fear, or was there just death?
   He wrapped his arms around me, drawing me close. His pale hands were warm as they slid over my bare arms. He'd fed on someone tonight, borrowed their warmth. But they'd been willing, even eager. The Master of the City never went begging for donors. Blood was about the only bodily fluid I wouldn't share with him. I slid my hands over the silk of his shirt, underneath the short jacket. I wanted to mold my body against his stolen warmth. I wanted to run my hands over the roughness of the linen, contrasting it to the smoothness of the silk. Jean-Claude was always a sensual feast, right down to his clothing.
   He kissed my lips lightly. We'd learned that the lipstick came off. Then he tilted my head to one side and breathed along my face, down my neck. His breath was like a line of fire along my skin. He spoke with his lips just above the big pulse in my neck. "You are lovely tonight, ma petite." He pressed his lips against my skin, softly. I let out a shuddering breath and drew back from him.
   It was a greeting among the vampires to plant a light kiss above the big pulse in the throat. It was a gesture reserved for the very closest friends. It showed great trust and affection. To refuse it meant you were angry or distrustful. It still seemed too intimate for public consumption to me, but I'd seen him use it with others and seen fights start with a refusal. It was an old gesture just coming back into vogue. In fact, it was becoming a chic greeting among entertainers and others of the same ilk. Better than kissing the air near someone's face, I guess.
   The maitre d' held my chair. I waved him off. It wasn't feminism, but lack of grace. I never managed to be scooted under a table without the chair banging my legs or being so far from the table I had to finish scooting forward on my own. So the heck with it, I'd do it myself.
   Jean-Claude watched me struggle into my chair, smiling, but he didn't offer to help. I'd finally broken him of that at least. He sat down in his own chair with a graceful fall. It was an almost foppish movement, but he was like a cat. Even at rest there was the potential of muscle under skin, a physical presence that was utterly masculine. I used to think it was vampire trickery. But it was him, just him.
   I shook my head.
   "What's wrong, ma petite?"
   "I felt pretty spiffy until I saw you. Now I feel like one of the ugly stepsisters."
   He tut-tutted at me. "You know you are lovely, ma petite. Shall I feed your vanity by telling you how much?"
   "I wasn't fishing for compliments." I gestured at him and shook my head again. "You look amazing tonight."
   He smiled, dipping his head to one side so his hair swept forward. "Merci, ma petite."
   "Is the hair permed straight?" I asked. "It looks great," I added hastily, and it did, but I hoped it wasn't as permanent as a perm. I loved his curls.
   "If it was, what would you say?"
   "If it was, you'd have just said so. Now you're teasing me."
   "Would you mourn the loss of my curls?" he asked.
   "I could return the favor," I said.
   He widened his eyes in mock horror. "Not your crowning glory, ma petite, mon Dieu." He was laughing at me, but I was used to it.
   "I didn't know you could get linen that tight," I said.
   His smile widened. "And I did not know you could hide a gun under such a . . . slender dress."
   "As long as I don't hug anybody, they'll never know."
   "Very true."
   A waiter came and asked if we wanted drinks. I ordered water and Coke. Jean-Claude declined. If he could have ordered anything, it would have been wine.
   Jean-Claude brought his chair over to sit almost beside me. When dinner came, he'd move back to his place setting, but picking out the meal was part of the night's entertainment. It had taken me several dinner dates to realize what Jean-Claude wanted—no, almost needed. I was Jean-Claude's human servant. I bore three of his marks. One of the side effects of the second mark was that he could take sustenance through me. So if we'd been on a long sea voyage, he wouldn't have had to feed off of any humans on the boat. He could live through me for a time. He could also taste food through me.
   For the first time in nearly four hundred years he could taste food. I had to eat it for him, but he could enjoy a meal. It was trivial compared to some of the other things he'd gained through the bonding, but it was the thing that seemed to please him most. He ordered food with a childlike glee and watched me eat, tasting it as I did. In private he'd roll on his back like a cat, hands pressed to his mouth as if trying to drain every taste. It was the only thing he did that was cute. He was gorgeous, sensual, but rarely cute. I'd gained four pounds in six weeks eating with him.
   He slid his arm over the back of my chair, and we read the menu together. He leaned close enough for his hair to brush my cheek. The smell of his perfume, oh, sorry, cologne, caressed my skin. Though if what Jean-Claude wore was cologne, then Brut was bug spray.
   I moved my head away from the caress of his hair, mainly because the feel of him this close was all I could think about. Maybe if I'd taken him up on his invitation to live with him at the Circus of the Damned, some of this heat would have dissipated. But I'd rented a house in record time in the middle of nowhere so my neighbors wouldn't get shot up, which is why I moved out of my last apartment. I hated the house. I wasn't a house kinda gal. I was a condo kind of gal. But condos had neighbors, too.
   The lace overlay on his jacket was scratchy against my nearly bare shoulders. He put his hand on my shoulder, smoothing his fingertips across my skin. His leg brushed my thigh, and I realized I hadn't heard a damn thing he'd said. It was embarrassing.
   He stopped talking and looked at me, gazed at me from inches away with those extraordinary eyes. "I have been explaining my menu choices to you. Have you heard any of it?"
   I shook my head. "Sorry."
   He laughed, and it hovered over my skin like his breath, warm and sliding over my body. It was a vampire trick but low on the scale, and had become public foreplay for us. In private we did other things.
   He whispered against my cheek. "No apologies, ma petite. You know it pleases me that you find me . . . intoxicating."
   He laughed again, and I pushed him away. "Go sit on your side of the table. You've been here long enough to know what you want."
   He moved his chair dutifully back to his place setting. "I have what I want, ma petite."
   I had to look down and not meet his eyes. Heat crept up my neck into my face, and I couldn't stop it.
   "If you mean what do I want for dinner, that is a different question," he said.
   "You are a pain in the ass," I said.
   "And so many other places," he said.
   I didn't think I could blush more. I was wrong. "Stop it."
   "I love the fact that I can make you blush. It is charming."
   The tone in his voice made me smile in spite of myself. "This is not a dress to be charming in. I was trying for sexy and sophisticated."
   "Can you not be charming as well as sexy and sophisticated? Is there some rule about being all three?"
   "Slick, very slick," I said.
   He widened his eyes, trying for innocent and failing. He was many things, but innocent wasn't one of them.
   "Now, let's start negotiating on dinner," I said.
   "You make it sound like a chore."
   I sighed. "Before you came along, I thought food was something you ate so you wouldn't die. I will never be as enamored of food as you are. It's almost a fetish with you."
   "Hardly a fetish, ma petite."
   "A hobby, then."
   He nodded. "Perhaps."
   "So just tell me what you like on the menu, and we'll negotiate."
   "All that is required is that you taste what is ordered. You do not have to eat it."
   "No, no more of this tasting shit. I've gained weight. I never gain weight."
   "You have gained four pounds, so I am told. Though I have searched diligently for this phantom four pounds and cannot find them. It brings your weight up to a grand total of one hundred and ten pounds, correct?"
   "That's right."
   "Oh, ma petite, you are growing gargantuan."
   I looked at him, and it was not a friendly look. "Never tease a woman about her weight, Jean-Claude. At least not an American twentieth-century one."
   He spread his hands wide. "My deepest apologies."
   "When you apologize, try not to smile at the same time. It ruins the effect," I said.
   His smile widened until a hint of fang peeked out. "I will try to remember that for the future."
   The waiter returned with my drinks. "Would you like to order, or do you need a few minutes?"
   Jean-Claude looked at me.
   "A few minutes."
   The negotiation began.
   Twenty minutes later I needed a refill on my Coke, and we knew what we wanted. The waiter returned, pen poised, hopeful.
   I'd won on the appetizer, so we weren't having one. I'd given up the salad, and let him have the soup. Potato-leek soup, hey, it wasn't a hardship. We both wanted the steak.
   "The petite cut," I told the waiter.
   "How would you like that prepared?"
   "Half well-done, half rare."
   The waiter blinked at me. "Excuse me, madam?"
   "It's an eight-ounce cut, right?"
   He nodded.
   "Cut it in half, and cook four ounces of it well-done, and four ounces of it rare."
   He frowned at me. "I don't think we can do that."
   "At these prices you should bring the cow out and have a ritual sacrifice at the table. Just do it." I handed him the menu. He took it.
   Still frowning, he turned to Jean-Claude. "And you, sir?"
   Jean-Claude gave a small smile. "I will not be ordering food tonight."
   "Would you like wine with dinner, then, sir?"
   He never missed a beat. "I do not drink—wine."
   I coughed Coke all over the tablecloth. The waiter did everything but give me the Heimlich. Jean-Claude laughed until tears trailed from the corners of his eyes. You couldn't really tell it in this light, but I knew that the tears were tinged red. Knew that there would be pinkish stains on the linen napkin when he was done dabbing his eyes. The waiter fled without having gotten the joke. Staring across the table at the smiling vampire, I wondered if I got the joke or was the butt of the joke. There were nights when I wasn't sure which way the grave dirt crumbled.
   But wh

8
   Dessert was raspberry-chocolate cheesecake. A triple threat to any diet plan. Truthfully, I preferred my cheesecake straight. Fruit, except for strawberries, and chocolate just muddied the pure cream cheese taste. But Jean-Claude liked it, and dessert took the place of the wine I'd refused to order with dinner. I hated the taste of alcohol. So Jean-Claude's choice of dessert. Besides, the restaurant did not serve plain cheesecake. Not artistic enough, I guess.
   I ate all the cheesecake, chased the last chocolate curl across the plate, and pushed it away. I was full. Jean-Claude had laid his arm across the tablecloth, rested his cheek on his arm, and closed his eyes, swooning, trying to savor every last taste. He blinked at me, as if coming out of a trance. He spoke, head still resting on his arm, "You have left some whipped cream, ma petite."
   "I'm full," I said.
   "It is real whipped cream. It melts on the tongue and glides across the palate."
   I shook my head. "I am done. If I eat any more, I'll be sick."
   He gave a long-suffering sigh and sat back up. "There are nights when I despair of you, ma petite."
   I smiled. "Funny, I think the same thing about you sometimes."
   He nodded his head, making a small bow. "Touche, ma petite, touche." He stared off past my shoulder and stiffened. The smile didn't fade from his face. It was wiped clean. His face was its blank unreadable mask. And I knew without turning around that someone was behind me, someone he feared.
   I managed to drop my napkin, and picked it up with my left hand. With my right hand I drew the Firestar. When I sat back up, the gun was in my hand in my lap. Though shooting up Demiche's seemed like a bad idea. But hey, it wouldn't be the first bad idea I'd had.
   I turned to see a couple walking towards us through the tables and crystal. The woman looked tall until you got a glimpse of the heels she was wearing. Stiletto, four inches. I'd have broken my ankle trying to walk in them. The dress was white, square necked, form-fitting, and more expensive than my entire outfit, even if you threw in the gun. Her hair was a white-blond so pale it matched the dress and the simple white mink stole curled around her shoulders. The hair was piled in a mound atop her head with a sparkle of silver and the crystal fire of diamonds to frame the hair like a crown. She was chalk-white, and despite the expert makeup I knew she hadn't fed yet tonight.
   The man was human, though there was a thrumming energy to him that made me want to take back the human part. He was tanned that wonderful rich brown that olive skin can manage. His hair was a luxuriant curling brown, shaved short on the sides, but done so it fell in curls near his eyes. The eyes were pure brown and watched Jean-Claude steadily, joyously, but it was a dark joy. He was dressed in a white linen suit, complete with silk tie.
   They stopped at our table like I knew they would. The man's handsome face was all for Jean-Claude. I might as well have not been there. He had very strong features, from high cheekbones to an almost-hooked nose. An inch either direction and his face would have been homely. Instead, it was striking, compelling, handsome in an utterly masculine way.
   Jean-Claude stood, hands loose at his side, face beautiful and empty. "Yvette, it has been a long time."
   She smiled wonderfully. "A very long time, Jean-Claude. You remember Balthasar?" She touched the man's arm, and he obligingly slid it around her waist. He planted a chaste kiss on her pale cheek. He looked at me then for the first time. It wasn't a look I'd ever gotten from a man. If it had been a woman, I'd have said she was jealous. The vampire's English was perfect. Her accent was pure French.
   "Of course, I remember him," Jean-Claude said. "Time spent with Balthasar was always memorable."
   The man turned back to Jean-Claude then. "But not memorable enough to keep you with us." He, too, sounded French, but there was an undercurrent of some other language. It was like mixing blue and red and getting purple.
   "I am master of my own territory. It is what everyone dreams of, is it not?"
   "Some dream of a seat on the council," Yvette said. Her voice was still mildly amused, but there was an undercurrent now, like swimming in dark water when you know there are sharks.
   "I do not aspire to such lofty heights," Jean-Claude said.
   "Really?" Yvette said.
   "Truly," Jean-Claude said.
   She smiled, but her eyes stayed distant and empty. "We shall see."
   "There is nothing to see, Yvette. I am content where I am."
   "If that is so, you have nothing to fear from us."
   "We have nothing to fear regardless," I said. I smiled when I said it.
   Both of them looked at me as if I was a dog that had done an interesting trick. I was really beginning not to like either of them.
   "Yvette and Balthasar are envoys of the council, ma petite."
   "Bully for them," I said.
   "She doesn't seem very impressed with us," Yvette said. She turned full-face to me. Her eyes were greyish-green, with tiny flecks of amber dancing round the pupils. I felt her try to suck me under with those eyes, and it didn't work. Her power raised goose bumps on my skin, but she couldn't capture me with her eyes. She was powerful, but she wasn't a master vampire. I could feel her age like an ache in my skull. A thousand years, at least. The last vamp I'd met who was that old had cleaned my clock. But Nikolaos had been Master of the City, and Yvette would never be that. If a vamp hadn't attained master status in a thousand years, she, or he, was never going to. A vamp gained power and abilities with age, but there was a limit. Yvette had reached hers. I stared into her eyes, let her power tickle across my skin, and wasn't impressed.
   She frowned. "Impressive."
   "Thanks," I said.
   Balthasar stepped around her and went to one knee in front of me. He put one hand on the back of my chair and leaned into me. If Yvette wasn't a master, then he wasn't her human servant. Only a master vampire could make a human servant. Which meant he belonged to someone else. Someone I hadn't met yet. Why did I get the feeling I'd be meeting that someone soon?
   "My master is a council member," Balthasar said. "You have no idea what kind of power he wields."
   "Ask me if I care."
   Anger flared across his face, darkening his eyes, making his grip on my chair tight. He laid his hand on my leg just above my knee and started to squeeze. I'd played with the monsters long enough to know what supernatural strength feels like. His fingers dug into my flesh, and I knew he could keep squeezing until muscle popped and he bared my bones to the air.
   I grabbed his silk tie and pulled him close, and shoved the barrel of the Firestar into his chest. I watched the surprise chase across his face from inches away.
   "Bet I can blow a hole in your chest before you can crush my leg."
   "You wouldn't dare."
   "Why not?" I asked.
   A touch of fear flowed through his eyes. "I am the human servant of a council member."
   "Not impressed," I said. "Try door number two."
   He frowned at me. "I don't understand."
   "Give her a better reason not to kill you," Jean-Claude said.
   "If you shoot me here in front of witnesses, you will go to jail."
   I sighed. "There is that." I jerked him close enough that our faces almost touched. "Take your hand off my knee, slowly, and I won't pull this trigger. Keep hurting me, and I'll take my chances with the police."
   He stared at me. "You would do it, you really would do it."
   "I don't bluff, Balthasar. Remember that for future reference, and maybe I won't have to kill you."
   His hand eased, then moved slowly away from me. I let him move back, his tie sliding through my hand like a fishing line. I eased back in my chair. The gun had never made it out from under the tablecloth. We'd been the soul of discretion.
   The waiter came over anyway. "Is there a problem?"
   "No problem," I said.
   "Please bring our check," Jean-Claude said.
   "Right away," the waiter said. He watched a little nervously while Balthasar got to his feet. Balthasar smoothed down the wrinkles in his linen pants, but there's only so much you can do with linen. It really isn't meant to be knelt in.
   "You have won the first round, Jean-Claude. Be careful that it does not become a Pyrrhic victory." Yvette said. She and Balthasar left without ever taking a table. Guess they weren't hungry.
   "What's going on?" I asked.
   Jean-Claude sat back down. "Yvette is a council toady. Balthasar is the human servant of one of the most powerful council members."
   "Why are they here?"
   "I believe it is because of Mr. Oliver."
   Mr. Oliver had been the oldest vampire I'd ever met. The oldest one I'd ever heard hinted at. He'd been a million years old, no joke, a million years, give or take. For all those with a head for prehistory, yes, that does mean he wasn't Homo sapiens. Homo erectus,and able to walk around during the day, though I never saw him cross direct sunlight. He'd been the only vamp to ever fool me for even a few moments into thinking he was human, which is nicely ironic, since he wasn't human at all. He'd had a plan to take out Jean-Claude, take over the vamps in the area, and force them to slaughter humans. Oliver had thought a slaughter like that would force the authorities to make vamps illegal again. He thought vampires would spread too quickly with legal rights and take over the human race. I'd sort of agreed with him.
   His plan might have worked if I hadn't killed him. How I managed to kill him is a long story, but I'd ended up in a coma. A week unconscious, gone, so close to death that the doctors didn't know how I survived. Of course, they hadn't been too clear on why I was in a coma to begin with, and no one felt like explaining vampire marks and Homo erectusvampires.
   I stared at Jean-Claude. "The crazy son of bitch that tried to take you out last Halloween?"
   "Oui."
   "What about him?"
   "He was a council member."
   I almost laughed. "No way. He was old, older than sin, but he wasn't that powerful."
   "I told you he agreed to limit his powers, ma petite. I did not know who and what he was at first, but he was the council member known as the Earthmover."
   "Excuse me?"
   "He could cause the earth to shake by his power alone."
   "No way," I said.
   "Yes way, ma petite. He agreed not to cause the earth to swallow the city because it would be blamed on an earthquake. He wanted the bloodletting to be blamed on vampires. You remember his plan was to drive vampires back to being illegal. An earthquake would not do that. A bloodbath would. No one, not even you, believes that a mere vampire can cause an earthquake."
   "Damn straight, I don't." I stared at his careful face. "You're serious."
   "Deadly serious, ma petite."
   It was too much to take in all at once. When in doubt ignore and be terribly unimpressed. "So we took out a council member, so what?"
   He shook his head. "There is no fear in you, ma petite. Do you understand what danger we are all in?"
   "No, and what do you mean the 'danger we are all in'? Who else is in danger besides us?"
   "All our people," he said.
   "Define 'all,' " I said.
   "All my vampires, anyone that the council considers ours."
   "Larry?" I asked.
   He sighed. "Perhaps."
   "Should I call him? Warn him? How much danger?"
   "I am not sure. No one has ever slain a council member and not taken their place."
   "I killed him, not you."
   "You are my human servant. The council sees all that you do as an extension of my actions."
   I stared at him. "You mean anyone I kill is your kill?"
   He nodded.
   "I wasn't your servant when I killed Oliver."
   "I would keep that bit of knowledge to ourselves."
   "Why?"
   "They may not kill me, ma petite, but a vampire hunter who killed a council member would be executed. There would be no trial, no hesitation."
   "Even though I'm your human servant now?"
   "That might save you. It is one of our most stringent laws not to destroy another's servant."
   "So they can't kill me because I'm your servant."
   "But they can harm you, ma petite. They can harm you so very much that you may wish for death."
   "You mean torture?"
   "Not in a traditional sense. But they are masters at finding that which terrifies you most and using it against you. They will use your desires against you and twist everything you are into a shape of their choosing."
   "I've met master vampires that could sense your heart's desire and use it against you."
   "Everything you have seen of us before, ma petite, is like a distant dream. The council is the reality. They are the nightmare on which we are all based. The thing that even we fear."
   "Yvette and Balthasar didn't seem that scary to me."
   He looked at me. There was no expression on his face. It was a mask, smooth, pleasant, hidden. "If they did not frighten you, ma petite, it is only because you do not know them. Yvette is a toady of the council because they are powerful enough to give her a ready supply of victims."
   "Victims? You aren't talking about human prey, are you?"
   "It can be human. But Yvette is considered perverted even by other vampires."
   I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but . . . "Perverted in what ways"
   He sighed and looked down at his hands. They lay very still on the tablecloth. It was like he was pulling away from me. I could see the walls clicking back into place. He was rebuilding himself into Jean-Claude, Master of the City. It was a shock to realize that there had been a change. It had been so gradual that I hadn't realized that with me, on our dates, he was different. I don't know if he was more himself or more what he thought I wanted him to be, but he was more "relaxed," less guarded. Watching him put on his public face while I sat across from him was almost depressing.
   "Yvette loves the dead."
   I frowned at him. "But she's a vampire. That's redundant."
   He stared at me, and it wasn't a friendly look. "I will not sit here and debate with you, ma petite. You share my bed. If I were a zombie, you would not touch me."
   "That's true." It took me a handful of seconds to understand what he'd just said. "Are you telling me that Yvette likes to have sex with zombies, real rotting corpses?"
   "Among other things, yes."
   I couldn't keep the disgust off my face. "Good Lord, that's . . ." Words failed me. Then I found a word. "She's a necrophiliac."
   "She will use a dead body if nothing else is available, but her true joy is the rotted animated corpse. She would find your talent most appealing, ma petite. You could raise her an unending stream of partners."
   "I wouldn't raise the dead for her amusement."
   "Not initially," he said.
   "No, not under any circumstances."
   "The council has a way of finding circumstances that can force you to do almost anything."
   I watched his face and wished I could read it. But I understood. He was hiding from them, already. "How deep is the hole we're in?"
   "Deep enough to bury us all, if the council chooses."
   "Maybe I shouldn't have put the gun up," I said.
   "Perhaps not," he said.
   The check came. We paid. We left. I made a stop at the ladies' room on the way out and retrieved the gun. Jean-Claude took my car keys, so I wouldn't have to handle anything but the gun. It was a short walk from bathroom to door. Black gun against a black dress. Either no one noticed, or no one wanted to get involved. What else was new?
   
   
9
   The parking lot was a dark expanse of shining blackness with pools of light spotlighting gleaming cars. Jaguars, Volvos, and Mercedes were the dominant species in the lot. I caught a glimpse of my Jeep at the far end of a line. I lost sight of it as we walked between the cars. Jean-Claude held my car keys cupped in his hand so they didn't rattle as he moved. We weren't holding hands, or anything else now. I had the Firestar in a two-handed grip, pointed at the ground, but ready. I was scanning the parking lot. My eyes flicking back and forth. I wasn't coy about it. A cop would have known what I was doing from yards away. I was searching for danger, searching for targets.
   I felt both silly and nervous. The skin across my bare shoulders was trying to crawl down my spine. It was silly, but I'd have felt better in jeans and a shirt. More secure.
   "I don't think they're out here," I said softly.
   "I'm sure you are right, ma petite. Yvette and Balthasar have delivered their message and run back to their masters."
   I glanced at him before turning my attention back to the parking lot. "Then why am I in combat mode?"
   "Because the council travels with an entourage. We have not seen the last of them tonight, ma petite. Of that, I can promise you."
   "Great."
   We came around the last cars between us and my Jeep. There was a man leaning against the Jeep. The Firestar was just suddenly pointing at him. No thinking, just paranoia—oh, sorry, caution.
   Jean-Claude froze beside me, utterly motionless. The old vampires can do that-just seem to stop, stop breathing, stop moving, stop everything. As if, if you looked away, they might just disappear.
   The man leaned on the back of my Jeep in profile. He was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. You'd have thought he hadn't seen us, but I knew better. I was pointing a gun at him. He knew we were there. The match flared, showing one of the most perfect profiles I'd ever seen. His hair shone golden in the light, shoulder-length, thick waves to frame his face. He tossed the match to the pavement with a practiced flick of his hand. He took the cigarette from his mouth and raised his face skyward. The street light played along his face and golden hair. He blew three perfect smoke rings and laughed.
   That laugh trailed down my spine as if he'd touched me. It made me shiver, and I wondered how the hell I'd thought he was human.
   "Asher," Jean-Claude said. That one word was spoken without emotion, empty of meaning. But it was all I could do not to look at Jean-Claude's face. I knew who Asher was, but only by reputation. Asher and his human servant, Julianna had traveled with Jean-Claude across Europe for a couple of decades. They'd been a menage a trois, the closest thing Jean-Claude had had to a family since he became a vampire. Jean-Claude had been called away to his dying mother's bedside. Asher and Julianna had been taken by the Church. Read witch-hunters.
   Asher turned and gave us his right profile. The street light that had caressed the perfection of his left side seemed harsh now. The right side of his face looked like melted candle wax. Burn scars, acid scars, holy water. Vampires couldn't heal damage done by holy objects. The priests had had a theory that they could burn the devil out of Asher one drop of holy water at a time.
   I kept the gun on him, solid, no wavering. I'd seen worse, recently. I'd seen a vampire whose face had rotted away on one side. An eye had been rolling in a bare socket. Compared to that, Asher was a GQcover boy. The thing that made the scarring worse somehow was that the rest of him was so perfect. It made it worse somehow, more obscene. They'd left his eyes pure, and the midline of his face, so his nose, the fullness of his mouth, sat in a sea of scars. Jean-Claude had saved him before the zealots killed him, but Julianna had been burned as a witch.
   Asher never forgave Jean-Claude for the death of the woman they both loved. In fact, last I'd heard, he was asking for my death. He would kill Jean-Claude's human servant as revenge. The council had refused him up until now.
   "Step away from the Jeep, slowly," I said.
   "Would you shoot me for leaning against your car?" He sounded amused, pleasant. The tone in his voice, the way he chose his words, reminded me of Jean-Claude when I'd first met him. Asher pushed to his feet using just his body. He blew a smoke ring at me and laughed again.
   The sound slithered across my skin like the touch of fur, soft and feeling—oh, so slightly—of death. It was Jean-Claude's laugh, and that was unnerving as hell.
   Jean-Claude took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped forward. He didn't block my line of sight though, and he didn't tell me to put the gun down. "Why are you here, Asher?" His voice held something I'd seldom heard, regret.
   "Is she going to shoot me?"
   "Ask her yourself. I am not the one holding the gun."
   "So it is true. You do not control your own servant."
   "The best human servants are those that come willingly to your hand. You taught me that, Asher you and Julianna."
   Asher threw the cigarette on the ground. He took two quick steps forward.
   "Don't," I said.
   His hands were balled into fists at his side. His anger rode the night like close lightning. "Never, never say her name again. You don't deserve to speak her name."
   Jean-Claude gave a shallow bow. "As you wish. Now, what do you want, Asher? Anita will grow impatient soon."
   Asher stared at me. He looked at me from head to toe, but it wasn't sexual, though that was in there. It was like he was looking me over, like I was a car he was thinking of buying. His eyes were a strange shade of pale blue. "Would you really shoot me?" He turned his head so that I couldn't see the scars. He knew exactly how the shadows would fall. He gave a smile that was supposed to melt me into my socks. It didn't work.
   "Cut the charm and give me a reason notto kill you."
   He turned his head so that a sheet of golden hair spilled over the right side of his face. If my night vision had been worse, it might have hidden the scars.
   "The council extends their invitation to Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis, and his human servant, Anita Blake. They request your presence this night."
   "You may put up the gun, ma petite. We are safe until we see the council."
   "Just like that," I said. "Last I heard, Asher here wanted to kill me."
   "The council refused his request," Jean-Claude said. "Our human servants are too precious to us for them to agree."
   "Very true," Asher said.
   The two vampires stared at each other. I expected them to try vampiric powers on each other, but they didn't. They just stood there, looking at one another. Their faces gave nothing away, but if they'd been people and not monsters, I'd have told them to hug and make up. You could feel their pain on the air. I realized something I hadn't before. They had loved each other once. Only love can turn to such bitter regret. Julianna had been their link, but it hadn't just been her they loved.
   It was time to put the gun up, but irritatingly, I'd have to flash the parking lot. I was really going to have to invest in more dressy pants suits. Dresses just sucked for concealed carry.
   There was no one else but the three of us in the parking lot. I turned my back on both of them and raised the dress enough to put up the gun.
   "Please, don't be modest on my account," Asher said.
   I smoothed the dress into place before I turned around. "Don't flatter yourself."
   He smiled, and the look on his face was amused, condescending, and something else. That "something else" bothered me. "Modest. Were you also chaste before our dashing Jean-Claude found you?"
   "That's enough, Asher," Jean-Claude said.
   "She was a virgin before you?" He made it a question and then threw his head back and laughed. He laughed until he had to lean against the Jeep to steady himself. "You, wasted on a virgin. It is simply too perfect."
   "I wasn't a virgin, not that it's any of your damn business."
   The laughter stopped so abruptly, it was startling. He slid down to the ground, sitting on the dark pavement. He stared up at me through a curtain of golden hair. His eyes looked strange and pale. "Not virginal, but chaste."
   "I've had enough games for one night," I said.
   "The games are just beginning," he said.
   "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
   "It means, ma petite, that the council await us. They will have many games for us to play, none of them pleasant."
   Asher rose to his feet like he'd been pulled by strings. He stood, brushing himself off. He settled his black overcoat more solidly into place. It was hot for a long coat. Not that he would necessarily care, but it was odd. Vamps usually tried to blend in better than that. Made me wonder what was underneath the coat. You could hide a pretty big gun under an ankle-length coat. I'd never met a vampire that carried a gun, but there was always a first time.
   Jean-Claude had said we were safe until we reached the council, but that didn't mean Asher couldn't pull a weapon then and blow us away. It had been beyond careless to put up my gun without patting Asher down first.
   I sighed.
   "What is wrong, ma petite?"
   Asher was a vampire. How much more dangerous could he be with a gun? But I couldn't do it. "Let me test my understanding. Is Asher going to ride in the car with us to the meeting?"
   "I must, to give you directions," Asher said.
   "Then lean against the Jeep."
   He frowned at me in an amused, condescending sort of way. "Excuse me?"
   "I don't care if you're the second coming of the Antichrist, you can't sit behind me in my own car until I know you're not carrying a weapon."
   "Ma petite, he is a vampire. If he is sitting behind you in a car, he is close enough to kill you without a gun."
   I shook my head. "You're right. I know you're right, but the point isn't logic, Jean-Claude. The point is that I simply can't let him in the car behind me without knowing what's under the coat. I just can't." It was true. Paranoid, but still true.
   Jean-Claude knew me better than to argue. "Very well, ma petite. Asher would you be so kind as to face towards the Jeep."
   Asher smiled brilliantly at both of us, flashing fang. "You want to pat me down? I could rip you into pieces with my bare hands, and you're worried I have a gun?" He chuckled, a low, skin-prickling sound. "That is so very cute."
   Cute? Me? "Just do it, please."
   He turned to face the Jeep, still laughing softly.
   "Hands on the hood, feet apart." I got out the gun one more time. Maybe I should just carry it on a chain around my neck. I pressed the barrel into his spine. I felt him stiffen under my hands.
   "You are serious about this."
   "Absolutely," I said. "Feet further apart."
   He shifted, but it wasn't enough.
   I kicked his feet apart until his balance was off-center and started searching him one-handed.
   "Dominant, very dominant. Does she like to be on top?"
   I ignored him. More surprising, so did Jean-Claude.
   "Slower, slower. Hasn't Jean-Claude taught you not to rush?" He drew in a breath at the appropriate moment. "Oooh, that's nice."
   Yes, it was embarrassing, but I searched him top to bottom. There wasn't a damn thing to find. But I felt better. I stepped back until I was out of reach and put the gun up.
   He was watching over his shoulder. "Do the panties match the bra?"
   I shook my head. "You can stand up now."
   He stayed against the car. "Don't you need to strip-search me?"
   "In your dreams," I said.
   He stood, smoothing his coat back into place. "You have no idea what I dream, Anita." I couldn't read the look on his face, but the look was enough. I didn't want to know what Asher saw when he closed his eyes at the break of day.
   "Shall we go?" Jean-Claude said.
   "Are you so eager to throw your life away?" Asher asked. The anger returned with a rush, chasing out the amused teasing gallant.
   "The council will not kill me tonight," Jean-Claude said.
   "Are you so sure?"
   "It is their own laws that have forbidden those of us in the United States to fight amongst ourselves until the law has passed or failed to pass in Washington. The council wants us to remain legal in this country. If they break their own rules, no one else will obey them."
   Asher turned full face into the light. "There are worse things than death, Jean-Claude."
   Jean-Claude sighed. "I did not desert you, Asher. What can I say to convince you of the truth? You can taste the truth in my words. I came to you as soon as I knew."
   "You have had centuries to convince yourself of what you want the truth to be, Jean-Claude. Wanting it to be true doesn't make it so."
   "So be it, Asher. But I would undo whatever you think I have done, if I could. I would bring her back if I could."
   Asher held up his hand as if he could push the thought away. "No, no, no! You killed her. You let her die. You let her burn to death. I felt her die, Jean-Claude. I was her master. She was so afraid. To the last she thought you would come save her. I was her master and I know that her last words were your name."
   Jean-Claude turned his back on Asher. The other vampire closed the distance between them in two striding steps. He grabbed Jean-Claude's arm and swung him around. The street light showed tears on Jean-Claude's face. He was crying for a woman who had been dead over two hundred years. It was a long time for tears.
   "You never told me that before," Jean-Claude said softly.
   Asher pushed him away hard enough that he stumbled. "Save your tears, Jean-Claude. You'll need them for yourself and for her. They've promised me my revenge."
   Jean-Claude touched the back of his hand to the tears. "You can't kill her. They won't allow that."
   Asher smiled, and it was most unpleasant. "I don't want her life, Jean-Claude. I want your pain." He walked around me, circling like a shark. I moved with him and knew he was too close. If he rushed me, I'd never get the gun out in time.
   "You've finally given me what I need to hurt you, Jean-Claude. You love someone else at last. Love is never free, Jean-Claude. It is the most expensive emotion we have, and I am going to see that you pay in full." He stood in front of Jean-Claude, hands in fists by his side. He was trembling with the effort not to strike out. Jean-Claude had stopped crying, but I wasn't sure he'd fight back. In that moment I realized he didn't want to hurt Asher. Guilt is a many splendored thing. Problem was, Asher wanted to hurt him.
   I stepped between them. I took a step forward. Asher was either going to have to step back or we'd be touching. He stepped back, staring down at me as if I'd just appeared. He'd forgotten me for just a second.
   "Love isn't the most expensive emotion, Asher." I said. I took another step forward, and he retreated another step. "Hate is. Because hate will eat you up inside and destroy you, long before it kills you."
   "Very philosophical," he said.
   "Philosophy's great," I said. "But remember this: don't ever threaten us again. Because if you do, I'll kill you. Because I don't give a fuck about your tortured past. Now, shall we go?"
   Asher stared at me for a few heartbeats. "By all means. I cannot wait to introduce you to the council."
   He meant it to be ominous, and it was. I didn't want to go and meet the bogeymen of vampirekind, but we were going. One thing I'd learned about master vampires. You can run, but not far enough. You can even hide, but not forever. Eventually, they catch you. And master vampires don't like to be kept waiting.
   
   
10
   I drove. Asher gave directions. He also hung on the back of the seat. I didn't ask him to buckle up for safety. Jean-Claude sat in the passenger seat next to me, silent, not looking at Asher or me.
   "Something's wrong," Jean-Claude said.
   I glanced at him. "You mean besides the council coming to town?" He shook his head. "Can't you feel it?"
   "I don't feel anything."
   "That is the problem." He turned as far as the seat belt would let him and met Asher's eyes. "What is happening to my people?"
   Asher sat so his face showed perfectly in the rearview mirror, as if he wanted me to see him. He smiled. His whole face moved when he smiled. The scarred skin had muscles underneath. Everything seemed to work just fine except for the scars. The look on his face was smug, self-satisfied. The kind of joy that cats get from tormenting mice.
   "I do not know what is happening to them, but you should. You are—after all—Master of the City."
   "What's going on, Jean-Claude? What else is wrong?" I asked.
   "I should be able to feel my people, ma petite. If I concentrate, it is like . . . background noise. I can feel the ebb and flow of them. In extreme duress I can feel their pain, their fear. Now I am concentrating, and it is like a blank wall."
   "Balthasar's master has kept you from hearing the cries of your vampires," Asher said.
   Jean-Claude's hand lashed out in a blur of speed that was almost magical. He grabbed Asher's coat collar, twisting it into a choking ring. "I-have-done-nothing-wrong. They have no right to harm my people."
   Asher didn't try to get away. He just stared at him. "There is an empty seat on the council for the first time in over four thousand years. Whoever empties that seat takes that seat. That is the law of succession."
   Jean-Claude released Asher slowly. "I don't want it."
   "You shouldn't have killed the Earthmover, then."
   "He would have killed us," I said.
   "Council's privilege," Asher said.
   "That's ridiculous," I said. "You're saying because we didn't roll over and die, we're going to be killed now?"
   "No one has come here planning to kill anyone," Asher said. "Believe me, that was my vote, but I was the minority. The council just wants to make sure that Jean-Claude isn't trying to set up his own little council."
   Jean-Claude and I both looked at him. I had to swing my attention back to the road before I was ready to stop being astonished.
   "You are babbling, Asher," Jean-Claude said.
   "Not everyone is happy with the current council's rules. Some say they are old-fashioned."
   "People have been saying that for four hundred years," Jean-Claude said.
   "Yes, but until now there was no alternative. Some see your refusal of the council seat as a blow for a new order."
   "You know why I did not take it."
   Asher laughed, a low roll that played along my skin. "Whatever do you mean, Jean-Claude?"
   "I am not powerful enough to hold a council seat. The first challenger would sense that and kill me, then they would have my council seat. I would be a stalking-horse."
   "Yet you killed a council member. How did you manage that, Jean-Claude?" He leaned on the back of my seat. I could feel him. He picked up a curl of my hair, and I jerked my head away.
   "Where the hell are we going? You were supposed to give directions," I said.
   "There is no need for directions," Jean-Claude said. "They have taken the Circus."
   "What?" I stared at him, and the only thing that kept the Jeep from swerving was luck. "What did you say?"
   "Don't you understand yet? The Traveler, Balthasar's master, blocked my powers and the powers of my vampires, and kept them from reaching out to me."
   "Your wolves. You should have felt something from your wolves. They're your animal to call," I said.
   Jean-Claude turned to Asher. "Only one vampire could have kept my wolves from calling out for help. The Master of Beasts."
   Asher rested his chin on the back of my seat. I felt him nod.
   "Get off my seat," I said.
   He raised his head but didn't really move back.
   "They must think me powerful indeed to send two council masters," Jean-Claude said.
   Asher made a harsh sound. "Only you, Jean-Claude, would be arrogant enough to believe that two council masters came to this country just for you."
   "If not to teach me a lesson, then why are they here?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "Our dark queen wished to know how this legality is working for the vampires in the States. We have traveled from Boston to New Orleans to San Francisco. She chose what cities we would visit, and in what order. Our dark queen left St. Louis, and you, for last."
   "Why would she do that?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "The Queen of Nightmares can do anything she likes," Asher said. "She says go to Boston, we go."
   "If she said, walk out into the sunlight, would you do it?" I asked. I glanced at him. He was close enough that turning my head was enough, no mirror needed.
   His face was blank and beautiful, empty. "Perhaps," he said.
   I turned back to the road. "You're crazy, you're all crazy."
   "Too true," Asher said. He sniffed my hair.
   "Stop that."
   "You smell of power, Anita Blake. You reek of the dead." He traced his fingers along my neck.
   I swerved the Jeep purposefully, sending him sliding around the back seat. "Don't touch me."
   "The council thought we would find you stuffed with power. Bloated with new-found abilities, yet you seem much the same. But she is different. She is new. And there is that werewolf. Yes, that Ulfric, Richard Zeeman. You have him bound to you, as well."
   Asher pulled himself back up to the seats, though not so close to me. "It is your servants who have the power. Not you."
   "Is Padma anything without his animals?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "Very true, though I might not say so in front of him." He leaned on the back of the seats again, not touching me this time. "So you admit it is your servants who have given you the power to take a council member."
   "My human servant and my wolf are merely extensions of my power. Their hands are my hands; their deeds, my deeds. That is council law. So what does it matter where my power comes from?"
   "Quoting council law, Jean-Claude. You have grown cautious since last we met."
   "Caution has served me well, Asher."
   "But have you had any fun?" It was a strange question coming from someone who was supposed to hate Jean-Claude.
   "Some, and you, Asher how fares it with you? Are you still serving the council, or did you come along on this mission to torment me?"
   "Yes, to both questions."
   "Why have you not fled the council?"
   "Many aspire to serve them," Asher said.
   "You didn't."
   "Perhaps revenge has changed my aspirations."
   Jean-Claude laid his hand on Asher's arm. "Ma petiteis right. Hatred is a cold fire, and it gives no warmth."
   Asher jerked back, sliding as far back as the seat would let him. I glanced in my rearview mirror. He was huddled in the dark, hugging himself. "When I see you weep for your beloved, I will have all the warmth I need."
   "We'll be at the Circus soon," I said. "What's the plan?"
   "I am not sure there is a plan. We must assume they have all our people in thrall. So it will be only what the two of us can do alone."
   "Are we going to try and take the Circus back, or what?"
   Asher laughed. "Is she serious?"
   "Always," Jean-Claude said.
   "Fine. What are we supposed to do?"
   "Survive if you can," Asher said.
   "Shut up," I said. "This is what I need to know, Jean-Claude. Do we go in there kicking butt, or crawling?"
   "Would you crawl to them, ma petite?"
   "They have Willie, Jason, and who knows how many others. So, yeah, if it would keep them safe, I'd do a little crawling."
   "I do not think you would be very good at it," Jean-Claude said.
   "I'm not."
   "But no, no crawling tonight. We are not strong enough to retake the Circus, but we go in, as you say, kicking butt."
   "Dominant?" I made it a question.
   "Oui."
   "How dominant?"
   "Be aggressive, but not foolish. You may wound anyone you are capable of hurting, but do not kill. We do not want to give them an excuse."
   "They think you've started a revolution, Jean-Claude," Asher said from the darkness. "Like all revolutionaries, dead you become a martyr. They don't want you dead."
   Jean-Claude turned so he could see the other vampire. "Then what do they want, Asher? Tell me."
   "They have to make an example of you. Surely you see that."
   "If I had planned on forging a second council in America, yes, I would see their point. But I know my limitations. I cannot hold a council seat against all comers. It would be a death sentence. I want simply to be left alone."
   Asher sighed. "It is too late for that, Jean-Claude. The council is here, and they will not believe your protestations of innocence."
   "You believe him," I said.
   He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, "Yes, I believe him. The one thing Jean-Claude has always done well is survive. Challenging the council is not a good way to do that." Asher slid forward against the seats, putting his face very near mine. "Remember, Anita, that all those years ago, he waited to save me. Waited until he knew he wouldn't be caught. Waited until he could save me at the least risk to himself. Waited until Julianna was dead, because it was too great a risk to take."
   "That is not true," Jean-Claude said.
   Asher ignored him. "Be careful that he does not wait to save you."
   "I don't wait around for anybody to save me," I said.
   Jean-Claude stared out the window at the passing cars. He was shaking his head gently, back and forth, back and forth. "I tire of you already, Asher."
   "You tire of me because I speak the truth."
   Jean-Claude turned and faced him. "No, I tire of you because you remind me of her, and that once, a very long time ago, I was almost happy."
   The two vampires stared at each other. "But now you have a second chance," Asher said.
   "You could have a second chance, too, Asher. If you would only let the past go."
   "The past is all I have."
   "And that is not my fault," Jean-Claude said. Asher slid back into the darkness, huddling against the seat. I thought Jean-Claude had won the argument for now. But just call it a feeling; I didn't think the fight was over.

11
   The Circus of the Damned is in a converted warehouse. From the front it looks like a carnival with posters promoting the freak show, and dancing clowns twirling on top of the glowing sign. From the back, it's just dark.
   I pulled the Jeep into the small parking lot reserved for employees. It was small because most of the help lived at the Circus. No need for a car if you never left. Here was hoping we'd be needing our car.
   I turned off the engine, and silence swirled into the car. Both vampires had sunk into that utter stillness that made me have to glance at them to make sure they were still there. Mammals can freeze, but a rabbit frozen waiting for the fox to pass is a vibrating thing. It breathes fast and faster. Its heart pounds. Vampires are more like snakes. A snake will put a length of its body out, then freeze. There is no sense of movement stopped. No sense that movement will continue. In that moment of frozen time a snake seems unreal, more like a work of art, something carved rather than something alive. Jean-Claude seemed to have fallen into a well of silence where movement, even breath, was forbidden.
   I glanced back at Asher. He sat in the back seat. Utterly still, a perfect golden presence, but not alive.
   The silence filled the Jeep like icy water. I wanted to clap my hands, yell, anything to make noise, to startle them into being again. But I knew better. All I'd get would be a blink and a look. A look that wasn't human and maybe never had been.
   The sound of my dress against the upholstery was loud. "Will they pat me down for weapons?" My voice seemed flat in the charged silence.
   Jean-Claude blinked gracefully, then turned his neck to look at me. The look was peaceful rather than empty. I had begun to wonder if the stillness was a form of meditation for the vampires. Maybe if we lived through the night I'd ask.
   "This is a challenge, ma petite. They will let us be dangerous. Though I would not flaunt your weaponry. Your little gun is fine."
   I shook my head. "I was thinking of more."
   He raised his eyebrows. "More?"
   I turned to look at Asher. He blinked and raised his eyes to me. I hit the dome light and saw his eyes' true color for the first time. They were blue. But that didn't do them justice. They were as pale a blue as Jean-Claude's were a dark blue. Pale, cold, blue, the startling color of a Husky's eyes. But it wasn't just the eyes, it was the hair. It had looked golden, but the normal gold of a dark blond. In the truer light of the car, I realized it wasn't just illusion and dim light, it was gold. His hair was the truest gold I'd ever seen outside of a bottle or a can of metallic paint. The combination of hair and eyes was amazing. Even without the scars he wouldn't have looked real.
   I glanced from one vampire to the other. Jean-Claude was the more beautiful, and it wasn't the scars. Asher was just a trace more handsome than he was pretty. "The same vamp made you both, right?" I asked.
   Jean-Claude nodded.
   Asher just stared at me.
   "Where'd she go?" I asked. "Unnaturally-Beautiful-Studs-R-Us?"
   Asher let out a harsh bark of laughter. He dragged his fingers down the scarred side of his face, making the skin stretch, drawing it away from his eye so you could see the pale inner flesh of the eye socket. He emphasized everything into a kind of hideous mask. "Do you think I am beautiful, Anita?" He released the skin, and it snapped back into place, resilient, perfect in its own way.
   I looked at him. "What do you want me to say, Asher?"
   "I want you to be terrified. I want to see on your face what I've seen on every face for the last two hundred years—disgust, derision, horror."
   "Sorry," I said.
   He leaned into the seats, showing the scars to the light. He seemed to have an innate sense of what any light would do to the wounds, to know just how the shadows would fall. Years of practice, I guess.
   I just looked at him. I met his pale, perfect eyes, gazed on the thick waves of golden hair, the fullness of his lips. I shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a hair and eye person, and you have great hair and amazing eyes."
   Asher threw himself back into his seat. He gazed at us both, and there was such rage in his eyes. Such horrible rage that it scared me.
   "There," he said. "There, you're afraid of me. I can see it, smell it, taste it." He smiled, pleased with himself, triumphant somehow.
   "Tell him what you fear, ma petite."
   I glanced at Jean-Claude, then back at Asher. "It's not the scars, Asher. It's your hatred that's frightening."
   He leaned forward, and I think without meaning to, his hair spilled around his face, camouflaging him. It had the look of long habit, long comfort. "Yes, my hatred is frightening. Terrifying. And remember, Anita Blake, that the hatred is all for you and your master."
   I knew he meant Jean-Claude, and I couldn't argue with the title anymore, though sometimes I wanted to. "Hatred makes us all ugly," I said.
   He hissed at me, and there was nothing human in the gesture.
   I gave him a bored look. "Come off it, Asher. Been there, done that. If you want to play big-bad-vampire, get in line."
   He stripped his overcoat off in an abrupt, violent movement. A brown tweed suit jacket ended up crumpled on the seat. He turned his head so I could see that the scars marched down his neck into the collar of his white dress shirt. He started unbuttoning the shirt.
   I glanced at Jean-Claude. His face was impassive, unhelpful. I was on my own. So what else was new?
   "Not that I don't appreciate the offer, but I don't usually let a man strip down on the first date."
   He snarled at me. He bared his chest to the light, shirt still carefully tucked into his pants. The scars dribbled down his flesh like someone had drawn a dividing line down the center of his body. One half pale and perfect, the other half monstrous. They'd been more careful of his face and neck. They had not been careful of his chest. The scars cut deep runnels. The skin so melted that it didn't even look real anymore. The scars flowed down his stomach into the belted top of his pants.
   I stared because that's what he wanted me to do. When I could finally meet his eyes, I had no words left. I'd had holy water poured on a vampire bite before. Cleansed, they called it. Torture was another word for it. I'd crawled and cursed and vomited. I couldn't imagine the pain he'd survived.
   His eyes were wide and fierce and fearful. "The scars go all the way down," he said.
   That left a trail of visuals that I'd been trying to avoid. I thought of a lot of things to say: "Wow," but it seemed too junior high school and cruel; "sorry" was totally inadequate. I spread my hands wide, kneeling on the seat looking at him. "I asked you once before, Asher. What do you want me to say?"
   He pushed himself as far away from me as he could, back against the Jeep's door. "Why doesn't she look away? Why doesn't she hate me? Why isn't she disgusted with this body?"
   Like he was disgusted. It hung unsaid on the air, but it was there in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Unspoken, the words hung in the air with the weight and push of thunder.
   He yelled, "Why don't I see in her eyes what I see in everyone's eyes?"
   "You do not see horror in my eyes, mon ami," Jean-Claude said.
   "No," Asher said, "I see worse. I see pity!" He opened the car door without turning around. I would have said he fell out of the car, but that isn't true. He floated upward before he could touch the ground. There was a backwash of wind that swept over me like a storm, and he was gone.
   
   
12
   We sat in silence for a few seconds, both of us staring at the open door. Finally, I had to fill the silence. "My, people do come and go quickly here."
   Jean-Claude didn't get the movie reference. Richard would have gotten it. He liked the "Wizard of Oz." Jean-Claude answered me seriously, "Asher always was very good at flying."
   Someone chuckled. The sound made me reach for the Firestar. The voice was familiar but the tone was new; arrogant, profoundly arrogant.
   "Silver bullets won't kill me anymore, Anita. My new master has promised me that."
   Liv appeared in the open car door, peering in at us, muscular arms propped on the sides of the door. She smiled broadly enough to flash fangs. When you pass the five-hundred mark like Liv, you only flash fangs when you want to. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat, very pleased about something. She wore a black sports bra and high-cut jogging shorts so that all that body-building muscle gleamed in the street lights. She was one of the vamps that Jean-Claude had invited into his territory recently. She was supposed to be one of his vampire lieutenants.
   "What canary did you eat?" I asked.
   She frowned at me. "What?"
   "The cat that ate the canary," I said.
   She continued to frown. Liv's English is perfect, no accent of any kind. Sometimes I forget that it's not her first language. A lot of the vamps have lost their original accents but they still don't understand all the slang. But, hey, I bet Liv knew some Slavic slang that I'd never heard.
   "Anna is asking why you are so pleased with yourself," Jean-Claude said, "but I think I already know the answer."
   I glanced at him, then back at Liv. I had the Firestar out but not pointed. She was supposed to be on our side. I was getting the feeling that might have changed.
   "Did Liv say, her new master?" I asked.
   "She did," Jean-Claude said.
   I raised the gun and pointed it at her. She laughed. It was unnerving. She crawled into the back seat, still laughing. Very unnerving. Liv may have been six hundred years old and some change, but she wasn't powerful. Certainly not powerful enough to laugh off silver ammo.
   "You know I'll shoot you, Liv. So what's the joke?"
   "Can you not feel it, ma petite? The difference in her."
   I steadied my hand on the back of the seat, gun pointed at her impressive chest. I was less than two feet from her, at this distance the bullet would take out her heart. She wasn't worried. She should have been.
   I concentrated on Liv. Tried to roll her power in my mind. I'd done her before, knew what she felt like in my head. Or thought I did. Her power beat along my skull, hummed down my bones. I could feel her power like a thrumming note so deep and low it was almost painful.
   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I kept the gun pointed at her. "If I pull this trigger, Liv, even with the boost in power you'll die."
   Liv looked at Jean-Claude. It was a long, self-satisfied look. "You know I won't die, Jean-Claude."
   "Only the Traveler could make such an extravagant promise, and hope to keep it," Jean-Claude said. "You are a little too feminine for his tastes, unless he has changed."
   Her face was disdainful. "He is above such petty desires. He offered me only power and I accepted."
   Jean-Claude shook his head. "If you truly believe the Traveler above the desires of the body, then he has been very . . . careful around you, Liv."
   "He is not like the others," she said.
   Jean-Claude sighed. "On that I will not argue, Liv. But be careful that his power does not become addictive."
   "You seek to frighten me, but it will not work, Jean-Claude. His power is like nothing I have ever felt before, and he can share it. I can be what I was meant to be."
   "He can fill you to bursting with his power, Liv, it will not make you a master. If he has promised you that, then he has lied to you."
   She hissed at him. "You would say anything to save yourself tonight."
   He shrugged. "Perhaps."
   "I thought Liv took an oath of loyalty to you," I said.
   "Oui."
   "Then what's going on?"
   "The council will be very careful to observe the rules, ma petite. The Circus is a public business, thus the council might have crossed the threshold uninvited. Instead, they found someone to invite them inside."
   I stared at the smirking vamp in the back of my Jeep. "She betrayed us?"
   "Yes," he said softly. He touched my shoulder. "Do not kill her, ma petite. The bullet would enter, but the Traveler would not allow her death. You would simply waste a bullet."
   I shook my head. "She betrayed you, all of you."
   "If they could not have bribed someone, they would have tortured someone else into betraying us. I much prefer this method," he said.
   I stared down the barrel of the gun at Liv's smiling face. I could have pulled the trigger and not worried about it. She'd done all the damage she could do. It wasn't like I'd be killing her to save us. I didn't want, or not want, to pull the trigger. I simply thought she deserved to die for betraying us. Not anger, or even outrage, just good business. It was a bad precedent to allow anyone to betray you and survive. It set a bad example. I realized with an almost physical jolt that killing her meant nothing to me. Just good business. Sweet Jesus. I put up the gun. I didn't want to kill anyone that coldly. Killing didn't bother me, but it should mean something.
   Liv leaned back in the seat, grinning, pleased I'd seen the futility of shooting her. If she only realized why I hadn't done it, she might still have been scared of me, but she was hiding behind the power of this Traveler. Confident that it was shield enough against anything. If she pissed me off enough tonight, maybe we'd test the theory.
   I shook my head. If I was going to meet the bogeymen of vampirekind I needed more weapons. I had my wrist sheaths, complete with silver knives, in the glove compartment. I often carried them in the Jeep when I wore something I couldn't wear them with, like the dress. Never knew when you'd need a good knife.
   "I'll tell them about any weapons I see," she said.
   I finished buckling the knives in place. "Yvette and Balthasar know I have the gun. I'm not trying to be subtle here, just prepared." I opened the door and stepped out. I scanned the darkness for more company, though the really old ones could hide almost in plain sight. Some vampires had chameleons beat all to hell when it came to blending with their surroundings. I'd seen one that could wrap himself in shadows, then fling them aside like a cloak. It had been impressive.
   Liv scooted out of the car to stand near me. She'd lifted a few too many weights to cross her arms comfortably but she was trying. Trying for that nonchalant bodyguard look. She was six feet tall and built like a brick outhouse; she didn't have to try hard to look intimidating.
   Jean-Claude got out of the car on my side, putting himself between the two of us. I wasn't sure who he was protecting; her or me.
   He had Asher's long coat in his arms. "I suggest, ma petite, that you wear this to cover the weapons."
   "I'll tell them about the knives," Liv said.
   "If the weapons are in plain sight, it is more of a challenge," Jean-Claude said. "Someone might feel compelled to take them from you."
   "They can try," I said.
   Jean-Claude handed me the coat, draped across his arms. "Please, ma petite."
   I took it from him. He didn't say "please" often.
   I slipped the black coat on. I was reminded of two things. One, it was too damn hot to wear a coat. Two, Asher was six foot or more, the coat was huge. I started rolling up the sleeves.
   "Anita," Liv said.
   I glanced at her.
   She looked serious now, her strong Nordic face blank and unreadable. "Look into my eyes."
   I shook my head. "What do you guys do, sit around watching old Dracula movies and stealing the dialogue?"
   Liv took a threatening step forward. I just stared up at her. "Save the big-bad-vampire routine, Liv. We've done this and you can't roll me with your eyes."
   "Ma petite," Jean-Claude said, "do as she asks."
   I frowned at him. "Why?" Suspicious, who me?
   "Because if the Traveler's extra power can bespell you through Liv's eyes, it would be better to know here in relative safety than inside among our greater foes."
   He had a point, but I didn't like it. I shrugged. "Fine." I stared at her face, into her blue eyes, though the color was a little washed out from the street light.
   Liv turned; a spill of yellow light from the open car door hit her eyes and made them that amazing violet-blue, almost purple. Her eyes were her best feature and I'd never had any trouble meeting that flower-petal gaze.
   I still could. Not even a twinge.
   Liv's hands balled into fists. She spoke, but I didn't think she was talking to either of us, "You promised me. Promised me enough power to roll her mind."
   There was a rush of wind, cold enough to make me shiver and huddle into the long coat.
   Liv laughed, a loud bray of sound. She raised her arms to the cold wind as if it were wrapping her around like drapes in the breeze.
   The cold wind raised the hairs on the back of my neck, but it wasn't the temperature, it was the power in it.
   "Now," Liv said, "look into my eyes, if you dare."
   "Little better on the dialogue," I said.
   "Are you afraid to meet my gaze, Executioner?"
   The cold wind that had come from nowhere died, then faded, a last icy caress. I waited until the summer heat slid over me like plastic wrap, waited until sweat trailed down my spine; then I looked up.
   Once upon a time I'd avoided looking any vamp in the eyes. I'd had some natural immunity, but even the lesser vamps were dangerous. Their gaze was one trick that almost all of them had to a lesser, or greater, extent. My powers had grown, and the vampire marks had cinched it. I was pretty much immune to vampire gaze. So why was I afraid now?
   I met Liv's violet gaze solid, no flinching. At first there was nothing but their extraordinary color. A tension went out of me, my shoulders loosened. They were just eyes. Then it was as if the violet of her eyes was water, and I was something that skated over the surface tension, until something rose from her eyes and pulled me down. Always before it had been like falling, but now something had me, something dark, and strong. It sucked me under like water under ice. I screamed, and lashed out. Lashed out against that cold film of ice, reached for a surface that wasn't physical, wasn't even metaphorical, but I fought to rise. Fought against the pull of that darkness.
   I came to myself, kneeling on the parking lot with Jean-Claude's hand grasped in mine. "Ma petite, ma petite, are you all right?"
   I just shook my head. I didn't trust my voice yet. I'd forgotten how much I hated being rolled by their gaze. Forgotten how helpless I felt. My own power was making me careless around the damn things.
   Liv leaned against the side of the Jeep. She seemed tired, too. "I almost had you."
   I found my voice. "You didn't have anything. It wasn't your eyes I was being sucked into. It was his."
   She shook her head. "He promised me the power to do you, Anita. To take your mind."
   I let Jean-Claude help me to my feet, which tells you how shaky I was feeling. "Then he lied, Liv. It's not your power, it's his."
   "You fear me now," she said. "I can feel your fear in my head."
   I nodded. "Yeah, I'm scared. If that makes you happy, then laugh it up." I started backing away from her. More weapons. I needed more weapons.
   "It does make me happy," she said. "You'll never know how happy it makes me."
   "His power has left you, Liv," Jean-Claude said.
   "It will return," she said.
   I was on the other side of the Jeep. I was headed for the back of it, but I didn't want to be within touching range of Liv right this second. I'd broken free, but I didn't want to keep pushing my luck.
   "The power may return, Liv, but Anita has broken his bond with you. She has pushed his power aside."
   "No," Liv said. "He has chosen to let her go."
   Jean-Claude laughed and it chased along my body, and I knew that Liv felt it, too. "The Traveler would have kept ma petite, if he could have held her. But he could not. She is too big a fish even for his net."
   "Liar!" Liv said.
   I left Liv and Jean-Claude to argue between themselves. I'd broken free of the Traveler's power, but it hadn't been pretty, or easy. Though come to think of it, as soon as I started to struggle, it had broken. The sad truth was I hadn't tried to shield myself. I'd stared into Liv's eyes empty and waiting, confident that she couldn't roll me. It had been stupid. No—arrogant. Sometimes there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two.
   I walked to the rear of the Jeep. I crawled in the cargo area. Edward, assassin of the undead, had persuaded me to let an acquaintance of his remodel my Jeep. The wheel well on one side was now a secret compartment. Inside was my extra Browning and extra ammo. I'd felt silly when he'd talked me into it. I didn't feel silly now. I opened the compartment and found a surprise. A mini-Uzi complete with shoulder strap. There was a note taped to the gun.
   "You can never have too much firepower."
   He hadn't signed it, but it was Edward. He'd started his career as a normal assassin, but humans became too easy so he switched to monsters. He did love a challenge. I had another mini-Uzi at home. It had been a gift from Edward, too. He had the best toys.
   I took off the coat and slid the Uzi's strap across my chest. When I slipped the coat back on, the Uzi hung at my back. Not perfect but not too noticeable. The second Browning Hi-Power was in the compartment, too. I put it in my pocket and two extra clips of ammo in the other pocket. When I slid to the ground, the coat hung funny, but it was so big on me that it wasn't conspicuous.
   The vampires weren't arguing anymore. Liv leaned against the Jeep looking sullen, as if Jean-Claude had had the last word, or won the argument.
   I stood watching her. I wanted to shoot her. Not because she'd betrayed us, but because she'd scared me. Not a good enough reason. Besides, it had been my own carelessness that let her scare me. I tried not to punish other people for my mistakes.
   "I can't let you go unpunished, Liv," Jean-Claude said. "The council would see it as a weakness."
   She just looked at him. "Hit me if it will make you feel better, Jean-Claude." She pushed away from the Jeep and crossed the distance between them with three long strides. She lifted her chin like a bully daring you to take the first swing.
   He shook his head. "No, Liv." He touched her face gently. "I had something else in mind." He caressed her face, rubbing his hand along her cheek.
   She sighed, rubbing her face against his palm. Liv had been trying to get into Jean-Claude's pants since she hit town. She'd never hidden her plan to sleep her way to the top. She'd been very . . . frustrated that he wouldn't cooperate.
   She laid a gentle kiss on his palm. "Things could have been so different if it weren't for your pet human."
   I walked up behind them and it was like I wasn't there. They were in some private place that just happened to be in plain sight.
   "No, Liv," Jean-Claude said, "it would not have been different. It was not Anita that kept you from my bed, it was you." His hand closed on her throat. His fingers convulsed in her flesh. He made a sharp movement and tore the front of her throat out.
   Liv collapsed to the pavement, choking, blood flowing in a crimson wash down her front, out of her mouth. She rolled onto her back, hands clawing at her throat.
   I came to stand beside him and stared down at her. I caught a glimpse of her spine deep in the wound. Her eyes were wide, pain-filled, frightened.
   Jean-Claude was wiping his hand off on a silk handkerchief he'd pulled from somewhere. He'd flung the gobbets of flesh to the pavement, where they lay looking small and not important enough to die over.
   We both watched her writhing on the pavement. Jean-Claude's face was that empty mask he wore, beautiful and distant, like trying to draw comfort from the moon. I didn't have a mirror, and my face would never be his lovely perfection, but it was just as empty. I watched Liv flop on the pavement and felt no pity.
   No cold wind came to save her. I think that surprised Liv, because she reached for Jean-Claude. Reached for him, begging with her eyes for him to help her. He was motionless, sunk into that great waiting stillness, as if he was willing himself to vanish. Maybe it did bother him to watch her die.
   If she'd been human, it would have been pretty fast. But she wasn't human, and it wasn't fast. She wasn't dying. I wasn't sure it was pity, but I couldn't just stand there and watch anyone in such pain, such terror.
   I pulled the Browning out of the coat pocket and pointed it at her head. "I'm going to end this."
   "She will heal, ma petite. It is a wound that her own vampire body will heal, in time."
   "Why isn't her new master helping her?" I asked.
   "Because he knows she will heal without his aid."
   "No wasted energy, huh?"
   "Something like that," he said. It was hard to tell through the blood, but it did look as if the wound was filling in; there was just so much to fill in.
   "We offer our throat, or wrist, or the bend of our elbow to each other as a formal greeting. The lesser offer up their flesh to the greater as an acknowledgment of power. It is a pretty thing, a polite thing, but this is the reality, ma petite. Liv offered me her throat and I took it."
   I stared into her wide, wide eyes. "Did she know this was a possibility?"
   "If she did not, then she is a fool. Such violence is never condoned unless the lesser vampire questions the authority of the greater vampire. She questioned my dominance over her. This is the price."
   Liv turned onto her side, coughing. Her breath rattled in her throat in a painful gasp. Things were re-forming. She was breathing again. When she had enough air to speak, she said, "Damn you, Jean-Claude." Then she coughed blood. Yummy.
   Jean-Claude held his hand out to me. He'd wiped it off, but you never get the blood out from around the fingernails without soap and water. I hesitated, then took his hand. We'd get bloodier before the night was over, it was almost guaranteed.
   We walked towards the Circus. The coat billowed behind me like a cape. The Uzi bounced lightly against my back. I'd added one extra thing from the glove compartment. A long silver chain with a cross on it. I'd gotten longer chains when I started dating Jean-Claude. The shorter ones spilled out of my clothing at awkward moments. I was loaded for bear, uh, vampire, and ready to go kill something. Edward would have been proud.
   
   
13
   The side door of the Circus has no handle. The only way in is if someone opens the door. Security measures. Jean-Claude knocked, and the door swung inward at his touch. Open, waiting, expecting us. Ominous.
   The door opened into a small storage room with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. A stark room with a few boxes against one wall. A door to the right led into the main part of the Circus, where people were usually riding the Ferris wheel and eating cotton candy. A smaller door led off to the left. There were no bright lights and cotton candy in that direction.
   The light swung back and forth as if someone had just hit it. The naked bulb made the shadows thicker, and the light dance until it was hard to tell shadow from light. Something glinted on the left-hand door. Something attached to its surface. I didn't know what it was, except it glinted dully in the strange light.
   I shoved the door flat against the wall just to make sure no one was behind it. Then I put my back to the door and trained the Browning on the room.
   "Stop the bulb from swinging," I said.
   Jean-Claude reached up and touched the bulb. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Whoever had set it swinging was over six feet.
   "The room is empty, ma petite," Jean-Claude said.
   "What's on the door?" It was flat and thin, and my mind couldn't make a shape out of it. Whatever it was, it was hammered to the door with silver nails.
   Jean-Claude let out a long sigh. "Mon Dieu."
   I crossed the room with the Browning pointed two-handed at the floor. Jean-Claude said the room was empty. I trusted that, but I trusted me more.
   Liv staggered to the door. The front of her body was covered with blood, but her throat was perfect. I wondered if the Traveler had helped her after we walked away. She coughed, and cleared her throat so violently it sounded painful. "I wanted to see your faces when you saw the Master of Beasts' compromise," she said. "The Traveler refused to let him and his people greet you in person. This is the Master of Beasts' calling card. How do you like it?" She sounded eager in a predatory, unpleasant sort of way. What the fuck was on the door?
   Even standing next to it, I didn't know what it was. Thin rivulets of blood were seeping down the door from it. The sweet metallic scent of blood warmed the stale air. The thing was almost paper thin, but had a consistency more like plastic. It curled at the edges, straining against the five silver nails.
   I suddenly had an awful idea. So awful, my eyes couldn't see it even after I'd thought it. I took three steps back from the thing and tried to see the silhouette. There; there; two arms, two legs, shoulders. It was a human skin. Once I found the shape of it, I couldn't stop seeing it. I knew that when I closed my eyes tonight that it would haunt me. That thin stretched thing that used to be a person.
   "Where are the hands and feet?" I asked. My voice sounded strange, distant, almost unattached. My lips and fingertips tingled with the pure horror of it.
   "It is merely the back of someone's body, not the entire skin, ma petite.Besides, it is hard to take the living skin off of fingers and toes when your victim is still struggling," Jean-Claude said. His voice was utterly flat, carefully empty.
   "Struggling? You mean whoever this was, was alive?"
   "You are the police expert, ma petite."
   "It wouldn't be bleeding this much if they hadn't been alive," I said.
   "Yes, ma petite."
   He was right. I did know that. But the sight of a human skin nailed to a door had thrown me. It was a first, even for me. "Sweet Jesus, do the silver nails mean the victim was vampire or lycanthrope?"
   "Most likely," Jean-Claude said.
   "Does that mean they're still alive?"
   He looked at me. His look managed to be empty and eloquent all at the same time. "They were alive when the skin was removed. If vampire, or lycanthrope, the mere removal of the skin would not be sufficient to kill them."
   A shudder ran through me from head to feet. It wasn't exactly fear. It was horror. Horror at the casualness of it, the callousness of it. "Asher mentioned Padma. Is he the Beast Master?"
   "The Master of Beasts," Jean-Claude said. "You cannot kill him for this indiscretion, ma petite."
   "You're wrong," I said. The horror was there like a coating of ice underneath my skin, but over that was anger. Rage. And under the rage was fear. Fear of anyone that would skin another person alive just to make a point. Told you something about a person. Told you how few rules they had. Told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should kill him as soon as I saw him.
   "We cannot punish them for this tonight, ma petite. Tonight is about survival for all of us. Remember that and curb your anger."
   I stared at the thing on the door. "I am way past anger."
   "Then curb your rage. We must save the rest of our people."
   "If they're alive."
   "They were alive when I came upstairs to wait for you," Liv said.
   "Who's skin is it?" I asked.
   She laughed, and it was her usual bray. All healed, all better. "Guess," she said. "If you guess right, I'll tell you, but only if you guess right."
   It took more control than was pretty not to point the Browning at her. I shook my head. "No games, Liv, not with you. The real games don't even begin until we get downstairs."
   "Well said, ma petite. Let us go down."
   "No," Liv said. "No, you'll guess. You'll guess who it is. I want to see your face. I want to see the pain in your eyes while you think about each of your friends, Anita. I want to watch the horror on your face while you picture it happening to each of them."
   "What did I ever do to you, Liv?"
   "You stood in my way," she said.
   I shook my head and pointed the gun at her. "Three strikes and you're out, Liv."
   She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
   "Betraying us was one. Trying to roll me with your eyes was number two. That was partly my fault, so I would have let it go. But you took an oath to protect all of Jean-Claude's people. You swore to use that wonderful body, that strength, to protect those weaker than yourself. Whoever belongs to that skin was someone you swore to protect. Instead, you betrayed them. Delivered them over to hell. Strike three, Liv."
   "You can't kill me, Anita. The Traveler will heal me, no matter what you do."
   I shot her in the right kneecap. She fell to the floor, holding the shattered leg, writhing, screaming.
   I felt myself smile, most unpleasant. "I hope it hurts, Liv. I hope it hurts like hell."
   The temperature in the room dropped like a stone. It felt cold enough that I half expected to see my breath. Liv's screams stopped, and she stared up at me with her violet eyes. If looks could have killed, I'd have dropped on the spot.
   "You cannot harm me, Anita. My master will not allow it." Liv got to her feet with the faintest of limps. She walked to the door with its awful burden. She stretched the edge of the thing, showing holes in the skin that had nothing to do with the skinning process. "I fed on him while they tortured him. I drank his blood while he screamed." Her fingers came away stained with blood. She licked them clean, sliding her fingers in and out of her mouth. "Hmm, tasty."
   All I had to do was guess who it was, and she'd tell me. All I had to do was play her game. I shot her in the other knee.
   She collapsed to the floor, shrieking. "Don't you understand? You can't hurt me."
   "Oh, I think I can, Liv, I think I can." I shot the right knee again. She lay on her back, screaming, grabbing at her shattered knees, and recoiling, because her own touch hurt.
   The Traveler's power raised the hair on my body in a shiver of goose bumps. He really was going to heal her. If I wasn't going to kill her, I needed to be somewhere else before she could walk. I knew Liv well enough to know that when she could stand she was going to be pissed. Not that I blamed her. In fact, if I just stood there long enough for her to get to her feet, it'd be self-defense. Of course, it'd be premeditated self-defense.
   "Come, ma petite, let her be. The Traveler does not give his blessings so easily a second time, or would this be the third? He will heal her at his own pace now. A blessing and a punishment rolled into one. As most of the council's gifts are wont to be."
   He opened the door that led downstairs. His hand came away with blood on it. He held the hand out in front of him like he didn't know what to do with it. He finally walked through the door, wiping his hand along the wall, smearing the blood down the stones in a faint crimson line.
   "The longer we delay, the more tortures they will think of." With that comforting line he started down the steps. I gave one last glance to Liv. She lay on her side, crying, shrieking. She was shrieking that she was going to see me dead. I should have shot her in the head until her brains leaked on the floor. If I was truly ruthless, I would have. But I didn't. I left her alive and screaming threats. Edward would have been so disappointed.
   
   
14
   The steps leading underground were taller than normal, as if whatever they were originally designed for wasn't quite human. I kicked the door shut, didn't want to touch the blood. The door cut Liv off in mid scream. I could still hear her very faintly, like the high buzzing of an insect, but the door was almost soundproof. Needed something to muffle the screams from below. Of course, tonight there was only silence on the stairs. A silence so deep that it vibrated in my ears.
   Jean-Claude moved in a boneless grace, like a big cat, down the awkward steps. I had to wrap the end of the coat over my left arm to keep from tripping over it. Even then, I didn't glide down the stairs. In three-inch heels I sort of limped.
   Jean-Claude waited at the bend of the stairs just before the landing. "I could carry you, ma petite."
   "No, thanks." If I took the shoes off, the dress would be so long I'd need to hold it up. I needed one hand free for a gun. If my choices were being slow and having a gun drawn, or being fast and having my hands full of dress . . . I'd be slow.
   The stairs stretched empty, wide enough to drive a small car down. The door at the base of the stairs was solid oak, iron bound like the door to a dungeon. Tonight, not a bad analogy.
   Jean-Claude pulled on the heavy door, and it swung open. It was usually kept locked. He turned to me. "The council can demand that I greet every vampire within these walls, formally."
   "You mean like you did with Liv?" I asked.
   He gave a very small smile. "If I do not acknowledge their dominance over me, then perhaps."
   "What if you do acknowledge them?" I asked.
   He shook his head. "If we had gone to the council for aid of some kind, then I would not fight. I would simply acknowledge their superiority and be done with it. I am not strong enough to be council. I know that." He smoothed his hands down the ruffles his shirt, adjusting the cuffs on his jacket so the ruffles at his wrists showed to best advantage. He often fussed with his clothes when he was nervous. Of course, he fussed with his clothes when he wasn't nervous, too.
   "I hear a 'but' coming," I said.
   He smiled at me. "Oui, ma petite. But they have come to us. They have invaded our lands. Harmed our people. If we acknowledge them as greater than ourselves without a struggle, they may set up a new master in my place. They may take all I have gained."
   "I thought the only way to step down as master was to die."
   "They would come to that, eventually."
   "Then we go in kicking butt."
   "But we cannot win by violence, ma petite. What we did with Liv was to be expected. She had to be punished. But in a struggle to kill or be killed, the council will win."
   I frowned up at him. "If we can't just say they're bigger and badder than we are, and we can't fight them, what can we do?"
   "We play the game, ma petite."
   "What game?"
   "The game that I mastered at court so long ago. It is a thing of diplomacy, bravado, insults." He raised my left hand to his lips and laid a gentle kiss on it. "You will be very good at part of the game, and very bad at others. Diplomacy is not your strong suit."
   "Bravado and insults are two of my best things."
   He smiled, still holding my hand. "Indeed, ma petite, indeed. Put the gun away. I am not saying do not use it, but have a care who you shoot. Not everything you will meet tonight can be harmed by silver bullets." He cocked his head to one side as if thinking. "Though come to that, I've never seen anyone try to kill a council member with modern silver ammunition." He smiled. "It might work." He shook his head as if to rid himself of the image. "But if it comes to trying to slay the council by bullets, then all is lost and all that will be left is to take as many of them with us as we can."
   "Let's save as many of our people as we can, too," I said.
   "You don't understand them, ma petite. If we are dead, there will be no mercy for those who are loyal to us. Any good revolution kills the loyalists first." He touched the back of my right hand lightly, reminding. I still had the gun out. Somehow, I just didn't want to put it away.
   But I did. I put the safety on. I didn't want them to know the gun was there, so I couldn't keep holding it. I put the safety on because I didn't want to shoot myself in the leg. It would be embarrassing as well as painful and probably wouldn't impress the council one little bit. I didn't understand "the game," but I'd hung around vampires long enough to know that if you could impress them, sometimes you walked out alive. Of course, sometimes they killed you anyway. Sometimes a show of bravado just earned you a slower death, like it did with some American Indian tribes that only tortured enemies they thought worthy of the honor. An honor I could do without. But sometimes in the midst of being tormented you could get away. If they just tore your throat out, all options were over. We were definitely going for impressive. If we couldn't impress them, we'd kill them. If we couldn't kill them . . . they'd kill us. Liv had just been the beginning of the evening's entertainment.
   The living room was a bare stone room once again. Jean-Claude's efforts at redecorating lay in piles of black and white cloth and broken wood. The only thing untouched was the portrait above the false fireplace. Jean-Claude, Julianna, and an unscarred Asher gazed down at the ruins. I expected an unpleasant surprise to be waiting for us. There was only Willie McCoy standing in front of the cold fireplace. He had his back to us, hands clasped behind him. His pea-green suit clashed with his slicked-back black hair. One sleeve was torn and bloodstained. He turned towards us. Blood seeped from a gash on his forehead. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief covered in dancing skeletons. It was silk and had been a gift from his girlfriend, a century-old vamp who had recently joined us. Hannah was as tall, leggy, and lovely as Willie was short, badly dressed, and well . . . Willie.
   He smiled at us. "So good of you to join us."
   "Can the sarcasm," I said. "Where is everybody?" I started walking towards him, but Jean-Claude stopped me with a hand on my arm.
   Willie's smile was almost gentle. He stared at Jean-Claude with a look of expectancy. It was an expression I'd never seen on Willie's face.
   I glanced at Jean-Claude's perfect mask of a face, closed and careful. No—fearful.
   "What's going on?" I asked.
   "Ma petite, may I introduce the Traveler."
   I frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"
   Willie laughed, and it was the same irritating bray he'd always had, but it ended in a low, chuckling growl that raised the hairs at the base of my neck. I looked at him and knew the shock showed on my face.
   I had to swallow before I could talk, even then I didn't know what to say. "Willie?"
   "He can no longer answer your call, ma petite."
   Willie stood there staring at me. He had been an awkward person alive. Dead, he hadn't been much better. He hadn't been dead long enough to master that otherworldly movement that the others had. He walked towards us in a wave of his own liquid grace. It wasn't Willie.
   "Shit," I said softly. "Is it permanent?"
   The stranger in Willie's body laughed again. "I am merely borrowing his body. I borrow a great many bodies, don't I, Jean-Claude?"
   I felt Jean-Claude draw me backwards. He didn't want to get closer. I didn't argue. We backed up. It was odd being backed up by Willie. Normally, he was one of the least scary vamps I knew. Now, tension sang down Jean-Claude's hand. I could taste his heart beating in my own head. He was afraid, and that made me afraid.
   The Traveler stopped, hands on hips, laughing. "Afraid I will use you as my horse, Jean-Claude? If you are truly strong enough to have slain the Earthmover, then you should be strong enough to withstand me."
   "I am cautious by nature, Traveler. Time has not lessened the habit."
   "You always did have a smooth tongue in your head and so many other places."
   I frowned at the double-entendre, not sure I caught the meaning, not sure I wanted to. "Let Willie go."
   "He is not being harmed," the vampire said.
   "He is still inside the body," Jean-Claude said. "He still feels, still sees. You have only pushed him aside, Traveler, not replaced him."
   I glanced at Jean-Claude. His face showed nothing. "You say that like you know from personal experience."
   "Jean-Claude was one of my favorite bodies, once upon a time. Balthasar and I enjoyed him very much."
   Balthasar walked out of the far hallway as if he'd been waiting for his cue. Maybe he had. He was smiling, but it was more a baring of teeth than pleasure. He strode into the room looking elegant and roguish in his white suit. He stood behind Willie, hands on the shorter man's thin shoulders. Willie, the Traveler, leaned back against Balthasar's chest. The bigger man wrapped his arms around him. They were a couple.
   "Will he know what they're doing with his body?" I asked.
   "Yes," Jean-Claude said.
   "Willie doesn't like men."
   "No," Jean-Claude said.
   I swallowed and tried to think reasonably, and just couldn't. Vampires could not take over another vampire's body. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. But I looked at Willie's familiar face with a stranger's thoughts flowing through his brown eyes and knew it was true.
   Those brown eyes smiled into mine. I dropped my gaze. If the Traveler could do me through Liv's eyes when he wasn't inside her, then he'd suck me down now for sure. It had been a long time since I had had to practice the trick of staring at a face without meeting the eyes. It was like tag with the vamp trying to capture my gaze, and me avoiding it. It was irritating, and scary.
   Jean-Claude had said that violence wouldn't save us tonight. He wasn't kidding. If a vamp had been holding Willie against his will, forcing him sexually, I'd have shot him. But it was Willie's body, and he'd get it back. Shooting it full of holes was a bad idea. What I needed was a good idea.
   "Does the Traveler like women?" I asked.
   "Are you offering yourself in his place?" the vampire asked.
   "No, just wondering how you'd like it if the tables were turned."
   "No one else has my ability to share a body," the Traveler said.
   "Would you like it if someone forced you to have sex with a woman?"
   Willie's face cocked to one side, and the expression was alien to him. The sense of otherness was strong enough to make my skin crawl. "I have never felt the draw of a woman's body."
   "You'd find it distasteful," I said.
   Willie, the Traveler, nodded. "Yes."
   "Then let Willie go. Pick someone who wouldn't mind so much."
   The Traveler snuggled into Balthasar's arms and laughed at me. "Are you appealing to my sense of mercy?"
   I shrugged. "I can't shoot you. You're council. I was hoping that would mean you had more rules than the rest of them. Guess I was wrong."
   He looked at Jean-Claude. "Does your human servant do all your talking now?"
   "She does well enough," Jean-Claude said.
   "If she seeks to appeal to my sense of fair play, then you have told her nothing about your time with us at court."
   Jean-Claude kept my left hand clasped loosely in his, but he stepped away from me. I felt him draw himself straighter as if he'd been hunched just a little, huddled around his panic. I knew he was still afraid, but he had rallied. Brave Jean-Claude. I wasn't that afraid yet. But then, I didn't know any better.
   "I do not dwell upon the past," Jean-Claude said.
   "He is ashamed of us," Balthasar said, rubbing his face against Willie's. He planted a soft kiss against Willie's temple.
   "No," the Traveler said. "He fears us."
   "What do you want of me, Traveler? Why has the council invaded my lands and taken my people hostage?"
   Willie's body pushed away from Balthasar to stand just in front of the taller man. Willie normally looked smaller than he was, sort of hunched and rabbity, but now he looked slim and certain of himself. The Traveler had given Willie the grace and assurance he never had on his own.
   "You slew the Earthmover but did not come to take his council seat. There is no other way to rise to the council except through the death of another. We have a vacancy that only you can fill, Jean-Claude."
   "I do not want it, nor am I powerful enough to keep it."
   "If not powerful enough, then how did you slay Oliver? He was a frightening force of nature." The Traveler walked towards us with Balthasar in his wake. "How did you slay him?"
   Jean-Claude didn't back up this time. His hand tightened on mine, but he stood his ground. "He agreed not to call the earth against me."
   The vampire and his servant circled us like sharks. One circling left, the other right, so it was hard to keep an eye on both of them.
   "Why would he limit his powers?"
   "He had gone rogue, Traveler. Oliver wished to bring back the days when vampires were illegal. An earthquake might have destroyed the city, but it would not have been blamed on a vampire. He wanted to possess my vampires and cause a blood bath that would bring us back to being hunted. Oliver feared we would destroy all the humans eventually, and thus ourselves. He thought we were too dangerous to be allowed legal rights and freedom."
   "We received your report," the Traveler said. He stopped by me. Balthasar stopped on the other side, closest to Jean-Claude. They were mirroring each other. I wasn't sure if it was the vampire controlling his servant or just centuries of practice. "I knew Oliver's ideas."
   I drew back against Jean-Claude. "Is it just vamps or can he take over humans, too?"
   "You are safe from his intrusion, ma petite."
   "Great," I said.
   I stared at the Traveler, and it was frightening how easily I was beginning to think of this body as the Traveler and not Willie. "Why didn't you stop Oliver, then?" I asked.
   The Traveler sidled closer and closer until only the barest inch kept us from touching. "He was council. Council cannot fight to the death among ourselves. And nothing short of true death would have stopped him."
   "You let him come here, knowing what he planned to do," I said.
   "We knew he had left the country but not where he fled to or what his plans were." The Traveler raised a hand towards my face. Balthasar did the same on his side for Jean-Claude. Willie's small hand hovered near my face.
   "You had declared him rogue," Jean-Claude said. "Any vampire that found him could slay him without violating our laws. That is what rogue means."
   The Traveler traced the barest of touches down my face. A trembling, tentative touch. "So you thought we would not come to your door because you had saved us the trouble of hunting him down ourselves."
   "Oui."
   Balthasar had stopped caressing Jean-Claude's face. He came to stand by his master. He watched the smaller man slide his hand along my face. Balthasar seemed puzzled, surprised. Something was happening, and I didn't know what it was.
   The Traveler cupped my chin in his hand. He turned my face to him. He slid his hand over my jaw, behind my neck, to run fingers in my hair.
   I pulled away from him. "I thought you didn't like girls."
   "I don't." He stood there, staring at me. "Your power is amazing." His hand lashed out too quick to see, too quick to react. He had a handful of my hair, and his eyes, Willie's eyes, met mine. I was shielding myself this time, prepared, but my heart still fell to my feet. I waited for that cold blackness to pull me under. Nothing happened. We stood there, inches apart, and they were just eyes. I could feel his power beating down his arm like a march of icy fingers, but it wasn't enough.
   He laid his hands on either side of my face almost as if he were going to kiss me. Our faces were so close that his next words seemed intimate, even though they weren't. "I could force my gaze upon you, Anita, but it would be an expenditure of power that I might regret before dawn. You have injured Liv twice this night. I am healing her, but that too takes power."
   He stepped back from me, hugging himself as if he'd gotten more from touching me than just the feel of skin. He took three gliding steps to put himself face to face with Jean-Claude. "Her power is a heady thing. Something to wrap around your cold skin and warm your heart for all eternity."
   Jean-Claude let out a slow breath. "She is my human servant."
   "Indeed," said the Traveler. "A hundred years ago I could invade you without touching your fair skin. Now I cannot. Has she given you this power?" He reached towards Jean-Claude's face as he had mine.
   I pulled Jean-Claude back, out of reach, and stepped between them. "He's mine, no sharing."
   Jean-Claude slid his arm around me, holding me loosely at his side. "If you would leave us in peace, I would let Balthasar and any person you chose use me, but I will not willingly be your horse ever again, Traveler."
   Willie's brown eyes stared up at Jean-Claude. There was a shrewdness, a frightening intensity, in those familiar eyes. "I am council. You are not. You will have no choice in the matter."
   "Are you saying that if he took the council seat, then you couldn't hurt him?" I asked.
   "If he is powerful enough to hold a council seat, then I should not be able to invade his lovely body, even were my lips pressed to him."
   "Let me test my understanding here. If he takes the council seat, you'll still try and force yourself on him, because if you can force him, then he's not powerful enough to be council? But if he doesn't take the seat, you'll do it anyway."
   The Traveler smiled beautifully at me, delight shining from his eyes, Willie's eyes. "Quite true."
   "Why is everything with you people a freaking Catch-22? You don't do business. You just do torture," I said.
   "Are you judging us?" he asked. His voice was suddenly lower and deeper than Willie's throat should have been able to hold. He took that last step forward, and I was suddenly touching them both. Their power flared over me; it was like being in the middle of two different fires, but it didn't burn. The Traveler's power was like Jean-Claude's, cool and swimming, a breath of mortality, the touch of the grave.
   The power pulled a gasp from my throat and raised every hair on my body. "Back off!" I tried to shove him away from us, but he grabbed my wrist too quick to stop, almost too quick to see. The feel of his bare skin on mine sent a wave of numbing cold through my body, like a spear of ice. He jerked me away from Jean-Claude.
   Jean-Claude caught my other wrist. The moment his hand touched my skin, the cold faded. His power swept through me like a flood of warm water, and it wasn't his power. I knew the taste of this warmth. It was Richard. Jean-Claude was drawing on Richard's power as I'd done earlier.
   He chased the Traveler's power out of me like summer heat on ice. It was the Traveler who released me. He stepped back rubbing his hand on his coat, as if it hurt. "Jean-Claude, you have been a very naughty boy."
   Jean-Claude drew me against him, one hand resting against my neck so that his fingers touched my skin. That electric warmth was still there playing over his skin and mine, and I knew in that moment that Richard had felt our urgency, our need.
   

15
   A noise turned us all to the far hallway. I didn't recognize the man. He was tall, slender, dark-skinned, maybe Hispanic, maybe something more exotic. He wore nothing but a pair of black satin pants with silver embroidery along the legs. He was dragging Willie's lady love, Hannah, by one arm.
   Her mascara had run in black tears down her face. Her expensive haircut still framed her face, still brought your eyes to her strong cheekbones and full lips. But her face was like a mask now, black tears, and burgundy lipstick smeared across her lower face like a wound.
   The Traveler said, "Why have you brought her here, Fernando?"
   "My father is as much council as you are, Traveler."
   "I do not dispute that."
   "Yet you forbid him come to this first meeting."
   "If he is council, then let him bend me to his will." The Traveler's voice was mocking. "We are all council, but we are not all equal."
   Fernando smiled. He grabbed Hannah's beaded blue dress and tore it down her back. She screamed.
   The Traveler swayed, putting a hand to his face.
   "I'm going to fuck her," Fernando said.
   Balthasar strode towards them, but two leopards the size of ponies crawled from the hallway. One black, one yellow spotted, both big enough to tear him to pieces. They growled low and deep, moving on huge padded feet between Balthasar and Fernando.
   Fernando grabbed Hannah around the waist, pulling her dress over her hips to expose pale blue garters. She turned and slapped him hard enough that he rocked back. She was as feminine as they come, but she was also a vampire and could have thrown him into the solid stone wall so that he stuck there.
   Fernando hit her back. Blood spattered from her mouth in shining beads. She sat half-stunned on the floor. Fernando's power boiled through the room as if he'd been holding it in check until now. Shapeshifter. Did he match the leopards that guarded his back? Maybe, but it didn't matter what flavor he was. He picked Hannah up by the front of her dress, dragging her to her knees. He drew his hand back to hit her again.
   I pulled the Browning out of the coat pocket. Willie collapsed to his knees on the floor. He stared up and said, "Angel-fangs." He tried to stand and couldn't. Jean-Claude picked him up under the arms and raised him easily.
   Fernando hit Hannah again. A casual slap that rocked her head back and rolled her eyes to white. "He must truly love you to fight off the Traveler's touch every time he sees you abused."
   Jean-Claude's hand on my arm brought me back to myself. I had the Browning pointed at Fernando. I had to let out a breath to keep from pulling the trigger. The safety was off, and I didn't remember doing it. Why Fernando and not the kitties? The wereleopards could close the distance in the blink of an eye, but I knew who the alpha was. Take out the leader, and the cats might go play somewhere else.
   Jean-Claude supported Willie with one arm, the other still lightly on my arm, as if afraid what I'd do. "Fernando," he said, "you've done what you set out to do. The Traveler is forced out, and it will take him a little time to find a second host. You can let Hannah go."
   Fernando grinned at us, white teeth bright in his dark face. "I don't think so." He dragged Hannah to her feet, arms around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides. He tried to kiss her. She turned her head and screamed.
   Willie was standing on his own now. He pushed away from Jean-Claude. "No, I won't let you hurt her."
   The black leopard dropped to its belly, crawling closer to Willie, to us.
   "If we're going to take them out, we have to do it now," I said. Fernando first, then one of the leopards, if I had time. If not . . . one problem at a time.
   "Not yet, ma petite. Fernando's father, Padma, will not waste precious time tormenting the little ones. The Traveler will return too soon for that."
   "The Traveler won't let me taste her once he returns," Fernando said. He kept Hannah pressed to his body with one arm and raised her dress with the other.
   "Does he seriously think we're going to stand here while he rapes her?" I asked.
   "My father is the Master of Beasts. You won't stop me, for fear of his wrath."
   "You just don't get it, do you, Fernando?" I pointed the gun very steadily at his head. "I don't give a fuck who your daddy is. Let go of her, and tell your furry buddies to back off or I'm going to make your daddy a very unhappy vampire."
   "You don't want me unhappy." The voice caused my eyes to flick to the hallway beyond, but the gun didn't move.
   The vampire in the doorway was Indian, as in from India. He was even wearing one of those long combo coat-tunic things. It was gold and white and shimmered on the edge of my vision as he walked further into the room. I kept my sights on his son. One monster at a time.
   Jean-Claude let his hand drop away from my arm. He stepped behind me and to one side, careful not to block my shot. "Padma, Master of Beasts, greetings and welcome to my home."
   "Jean-Claude, Master of the City, greetings. Your hospitality has been beyond my wildest expectations." He laughed then, but it was just a laugh. Theatrical and annoying, even sinister, but it didn't make my skin jump.
   "Tell him to let Hannah go," I said.
   "You must be Jean-Claude's human servant, Anita Blake."
   "Yeah, nice to meet you. Now tell your son to let go of our vampire, or I'm going to put a really big hole in him."
   "You wouldn't dare harm my son."
   It was my turn to laugh, short, abrupt, and not very funny. "Your son said almost the same thing. You are both so wrong."
   "If you kill my son, I will kill you. I will kill you all."
   "Fine, let me test my understanding. If he doesn't let her go, what's he going to do with her?"
   Fernando laughed, and it was low and hissing. The laugh was enough. Somewhere in that lovely body was black fur and big button eyes; wererat. "I will have her because the Traveler has forbidden it, and my father has given her to me."
   "No," Willie said. He took a step forward but Jean-Claude stopped him.
   "No, Willie, this is not your fight."
   Fernando slid his hand over Hannah's groin. Only Jean-Claude's hand on Willie's arm kept him from rushing the shapeshifters.
   Hannah said, "Master, help me."
   "He can't help you, child," Padma said. "He can't help any of you."
   I aimed two inches to the right of Fernando's head. The shot echoed in the big room. The bullet bit into the stone wall. Everyone froze.
   "The next bullet goes in Fernando's skull."
   "You wouldn't dare," Padma said.
   "You keep saying that. Let's get something straight, Beast Master. Fernando is not raping Hannah. No way. I'll kill him first."
   "Then I will kill you," Padma said.
   "Fine, but that won't bring back your son, now will it?" I let the breath out of my body and felt that stillness spill through me. "Decide, Beast Master, decide."
   "I am the Master of Beasts," he said.
   "I don't care if you're Santa Claus. He lets her go or he dies."
   "Jean-Claude, control your servant."
   "If you can control her, Padma, be my guest. But take great care. Anita never bluffs. She will kill your son."
   "Decide," I said softly, "—decide—decide—decide—decide." I wanted to shoot him. I really did, because I knew as surely as I was standing there that if I didn't shoot him now, I'd have to shoot him later. He was too arrogant to leave it alone, too blinded by his own power to leave Hannah alone, and he couldn't have her. That was a line he could not cross and live.
   "Let her go, Fernando," Padma said.
   "Father," the man sounded shocked.
   "She will pull the trigger, Fernando. She wants to pull it. Don't you, Anita?"
   "Yeah, I do."
   "Silver bullets, I assume," Padma said.
   "Never leave home without them," I said.
   "Let her go, Fernando. Even I cannot save you from a silver bullet."
   "No, she's mine. You promised."
   "I'd listen to your dad, Fernando."
   "Do you disobey me, my son?" There was a tone in Padma's voice that sent a rush of warm air through the room. The beginnings of anger. Something was flung over my skin, a backwash of power, but it wasn't vampiric power, not exactly. He wasn't trying to control Jean-Claude. It had a taste of warmer blood, an electric dance that said lycanthrope. Which wasn't really possible. A vampire can't be a lycanthrope, and vice-versa.
   Fernando cringed, clutching Hannah to him like a doll, hiding his face in her yellow hair. "No, Father, I would never disobey you."
   "Then do as I say."
   Fernando flung Hannah backwards. She scrambled to Willie. He took her in his arms, touching the blood on her face, blotting at it with the silken handkerchief.
   I lowered the gun.
   Fernando pointed a dark hand at me. "Maybe I'll ask for you to be my pet."
   "Tough talk, rat-boy. Let's see if you're man enough to back it up." I was baiting him. I realized that I wanted him to rush me. I wanted an excuse to kill him. Not good. Not good. I had to calm down or I was going to get us killed.
   The black leopard, taller at the shoulders than my waist, started creeping towards me. It was belly to the ground, muscles tensed and rippling. The gun just shifted to it. "Don't try it."
   "Elizabeth," Padma said.
   The name startled me. I'd seen Elizabeth in human form once, sort of from a distance. She was one of the local wereleopards. I'd assumed, until that moment, that the leopards were part of the entourage that Padma had brought with him. If Elizabeth was local, the other leopard might be, too. The only thing I was sure of was that it wasn't Zane or Nathaniel. Other than that, it could have been anybody. But Zane acknowledging me as his alpha had saved him from being here. If Zane had been alpha, then beating him would have given me all the leopards, and none of them would have been here. Or that was the theory. With me being merely human and not a lycanthrope, the Master of Beasts might still have called the kitties. But I would have tried to keep them safe. I wondered if Elizabeth had tried.
   She snarled at him, at me, at everyone. Her fangs were ivory-white, and at less than ten feet, impressive as hell. This close, even a real leopard might have gotten to me before I could fire a killing shot. You aren't supposed to hunt big game with a handgun.
   The leopard took another belly crawl forward. "Elizabeth." That one word flung outward burned along my skin and made me gasp. The leopard came up short like she'd hit the end of her leash. She rolled on the floor, struggling, slashing the air.
   "She hates you, Anita," Padma said. His voice was normal now, conversational, but whatever he was doing to the wereleopard was still happening. I could feel it like ants marching down my skin. Ants with red hot pokers in their little hands.
   I glanced at Jean-Claude, wondering if he could feel it. His face was blank, empty, unreadable. If he felt the pain, it didn't show.
   I wasn't sure admitting I could feel it was a good idea. "Stop it," I said.
   "She would kill you if I let her. You killed the one she loved, their leader. She would have her revenge."
   "You've made your point. Let her go."
   "Mercy for one who hates you so?" He glided into the room, slippered feet barely touching the floor, as if he rode always on tiny currents of his own power.
   I should have been sensing his vampire powers. But he was almost a blank, as if something was keeping him in check or protecting me. I glanced at Jean-Claude again. Was he powerful enough to keep us safe now? Had the triumvirate helped him that much? His face told me nothing, and I didn't dare ask, not in front of the Master of Beasts.
   The leopard lay on its side, panting heavily. It watched me with pale green eyes, and it was not a friendly look.
   "When I called them," Padma said. "she tried to bargain with me. They have no alpha and yet she tried to bargain. Elizabeth would bring the leopards without a struggle to do with as I like, if I would let her kill you. Help her kill you." The Beast Master motioned behind him, and a small, slender woman stepped up beside him, like she'd been waiting in the hallway for his call. Like a well-trained dog. She was nude except for a necklace that must have weighed five pounds and burned with diamonds. Her skin was that pale shade of dark that says African-American via Ireland. Bruises decorated her face, running in purple stains down her body. She was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, even with the bruises. She was perfectly proportioned from forehead to slender feet. Her eyes were brown and flicked from the leopard on the floor to Jean-Claude to the rat-man. Back and forth, back and forth, until finally she settled on me.
   She pleaded with her eyes, and I didn't need words to know that she was saying, Help me. That I understood, but why me?
   "When Elizabeth came, she brought the others with her. I chose Vivian as my present to myself." Padma stroked her hair absently, the way you'd pet a dog. "I will give her a gift for every harm I do her. She will be rich, if she survives."
   The air around her trembled like the wash of heat off a summer road. Another wereleopard that I'd never met. How many of them were there? How many people had Elizabeth delivered over to the bad guys?
   "What is this, a father-son rape outing?" I asked.
   Padma frowned at me. "I grow tired of you, Anita Blake."
   "It's mutual," I said.
   "We forced the Traveler out of his host body, but his power still shields you. He was to keep you from sensing your vampires' distress. Now he seems to be protecting you from the full rush of my powers. A pity. You would tremble at the feel of them."
   Jean-Claude touched my shoulder lightly. The touch was enough. I wasn't here to trade clever repartee with the Master of Beasts. Killing him sounded like a really good idea, but I've met older vamps that you couldn't take out with silver bullets. It would be just my luck that Padma was one of them.
   Padma called the leopards to him. The yellow one rolled around his ankles like a big kitty-cat. Elizabeth sat like a well-trained dog.
   Willie and Hannah were oblivious to the room. He touched her gently, as if she were glass. They kissed, and that one chaste touch of lips said it all, tenderness, love. Willie and Hannah were just plain gone on each other. It was beautiful.
   "You see why I gave her to my son. Such anguish her abuse would have caused them both. But the Traveler needed their bodies."
   I stared at him. It was bad enough when I thought the choice was just because Hannah was blond and lovely, but to know it was deliberate cruelty and not just lust—that made it worse.
   "You son of a bitch," I said.
   "Are you trying to make me angry?" Padma said.
   Jean-Claude touched me again. "Anita, please."
   He rarely used my real name. When he did, it was either very serious or something I wouldn't like. This time it was both.
   I don't know what I was about to say, because suddenly the Traveler lifted his shield. Padma's power crashed over us. It thundered over me, filling my head, scrambling every thought I had. I fell to my knees like I'd been hit by a hammer between the eyes.
   Jean-Claude stayed standing, but I felt him sway beside me.
   Padma laughed. "He cannot re-enter another host and maintain his shield."
   A voice came like a wind easing through the room. I wasn't sure if I heard the voice out loud or if it was just in my head. "He will need his powers in the hallway. I chose to lift the shield. Enough games, Padma. Let him see what lies beyond." There was a scent with the words; fresh turned earth, the smell of roots pulled from the ground. I could almost feel the crumble of rich black soil between my hands. I squeezed my hands around the Browning until they shook, and I still couldn't shake the sense of earth between my hands on the gun. Even staring at the gun, seeing it was clean, didn't make it go away.
   "What's happening?" I asked. Surprised and pleased that I could form a coherent sentence.
   "They are council," Jean-Claude said. "They have taken off, how would you say, the gloves?"
   "Shit," I said.
   Padma laughed. He stared at me, and I knew he was concentrating just for little ol' me. His power slammed over me, into me. It was halfway between putting your hand on a live electric wire and shoving the same hand into fire. The electric heat ate through my body. The heat gathered in the center of me. It flexed like a fist growing larger, larger. If he spread his fingers inside me, he'd tear me apart, burst me from the inside out with just his power. I screamed.
   
   
16
   A cool touch slid over the heat. A wind, cool and easeful as death, swept over my body. The wind blew my hair back from my face. Blessed coolness filled me. Jean-Claude's hands caressed my shoulders. He was kneeling on the floor, cradling me in his arms. I didn't remember falling. His skin was cool to the touch. I knew that somehow he was throwing his hard-won warmth away. His warmth to cool the fire.
   That awful pressure inside of me eased, then shrank. It was like Jean-Claude was a wind blowing out Padma's fire. But it cost him. I felt his heart slow. The blood in his veins flowed slow and slower. The warmth that mimicked life was leaving him, and death seeped inside to fill its place.
   I turned in his arms so I could see his face. The face was pale and perfect, and you'd never have known, just by watching, what it had cost him to save me.
   Hannah turned to us, her battered face set in calm lines. "My apologies, Jean-Claude. My compatriot has let your servant's defiance best his judgment."
   Willie stepped away from Hannah, shaking his head. "Damn you, damn you."
   Hannah's grey eyes turned to him, angry. "Do not tempt me, little one. You cannot trade insults with me and survive."
   "Willie," Jean-Claude said. There was no power to the word, just a warning. It was enough. Willie stepped back.
   Jean-Claude looked at the Traveler in his new body. "If he had killed Anita, I might have died with her. Is that why you have truly come? To kill us?"
   "I swear it is not." Where he'd made Willie glide, Hannah was awkward on her stiletto heels. He didn't fall, but he didn't glide either. It was almost heartening. He wasn't perfect.
   "To prove my sincerity," he said, "take your warmth back from your servant. We will not stop you."
   "He thrust me out," Padma said. "How can you allow him to grow strong again?"
   "You sound afraid," the Traveler said.
   "I do not fear him," Padma said.
   "Then let him feed."
   I leaned into Jean-Claude's chest, resting my cheek against the mound of silken ruffles on the front of his shirt. His heart had stopped beating. He wasn't even breathing. He'd used too much of himself up.
   I watched Padma from the safety of Jean-Claude's arms and knew I would kill him. I knew that Padma wanted us dead. I'd felt it. No one as powerful as he lost control that badly. He'd nearly killed me, us, and it would all have been a tragic accident. Bullshit.
   The Browning lay where I'd dropped it, but I'd tasted Padma's power now. Silver might not be enough to kill him. Wounding him seemed like a really bad idea. Kill or leave him the hell alone, like any big predator. Don't fuck with it unless you can finish the job.
   "Feed from your servant," Padma said. "I will not stop you. The Traveler has spoken." That last held a touch of bitterness. Council member or not, Padma feared the Traveler, or he'd have fought him more. Compatriots but not equals.
   I knelt, gripping Jean-Claude's arms through the rough lace and the glittering material of his jacket. His arms felt reassuringly solid, real. "What . . ."
   He stopped me with fingers on my lips, a delicate touch. "It is not blood that I need, Padma. It is her warmth. It is only a lesser master that must take blood from his servants."
   Padma's face had gone empty, blank. "You have not lost your knack of insulting without being insulting, Jean-Claude."
   I stared up at Jean-Claude, even kneeling he was taller. His voice eased through my mind. "No questions, ma petite, or they will know you are not wholly mine."
   Since I had a lot of questions, that pretty much sucked. But if I couldn't ask direct questions, there were other ways. "Does the Beast Master have to sink fang to jump-start his heart?"
   "Oui, ma petite."
   "How . . . vulgar," I said. It was one of the most civilized insults I'd ever come up with. It worked, too.
   Padma hissed at us. "Do not test my patience too far, Jean-Claude. The Traveler is not the head of the council. You have enough enemies here now that a vote might not go your way. Press me too hard and I will force a vote."
   "Force a vote to what end?" Jean-Claude asked. "The Traveler has promised that you are not here to kill me. What else would you vote upon, Master of Beasts."
   "Get on with it, Jean-Claude." Padma's voice was low with a sound that was almost a growl. It sounded more animal than vampire.
   Jean-Claude touched my face gently, turning me to look at him. "Let us show the Master of Beasts how it is done, ma petite."
   I didn't really like the sound of that. But I knew one thing for certain, Jean-Claude needed his strength back. He'd never be able to repeat the trick of thrusting out a council member when he was so cold, so drained.
   "Do it," I said. I had to trust him. Trust him not to hurt me. Trust him not to do something awful or embarrassing. I realized that I didn't trust him. That no matter how much I loved his body, I knew he was other. I knew that what he thought of as okay was not necessarily okay at all.
   He smiled. "I will bathe in your warmth, ma petite. Roll you around me until my heart beats only for you. My breath will grow warm from your kiss." He cupped my face between the chilled skin of his hands and kissed me.
   His lips were velvet, his touch light, caressing. His hands slid up the sides of my face, fingers gliding through my hair next to the scalp, kneading, massaging. He kissed my forehead and shuddered.
   I tried to kiss him again, and he drew back. "Remember, ma petite, if any of your fair body touches mine too much, it will deaden. Do not be so eager to lose the sweet sensation of your lips for the night."
   I went very still in his arms, thinking about what he'd just said. Bodies touching, bare skin needed, maybe? But if any part touched too long or too forcefully, my skin would deaden, but only for the night. Jean-Claude was really very good at giving information without seeming to. Made me wonder how often he'd had to do it in the past.
   He slipped the coat off my shoulders until it hung nearly to my waist. He ran his hands over my skin, kneading his fingers into me. His hands were warm. He slid his hands over the coat, gripping my arms through it, but no bare skin. He kissed my throat butterfly light, his face rubbing up my neck, my cheek.
   He drew back from me with a quick rush of breath. I put my hand over his heart, and there was nothing. I caressed his face, touching the big pulse in his throat. Nothing. I wanted to ask what we were doing wrong, but didn't dare. Didn't want the bad guys to know we didn't do things like this much. Sex we did, the otherworldly vampire shit we skipped if I could manage it.
   He started unbuttoning his shirt.
   I looked at him, eyes a little wide.
   He bared a circle of his stomach.
   I just looked at that glimpse of pale skin. "What?" I asked.
   "Touch me, ma petite."
   I glanced at the watching vampires. I shook my head. "No foreplay in front of the bad guys."
   "I could simply take blood, if you would prefer," he said softly. He said it as if we did it every night. We'd done it twice voluntarily on my part. Once had been to save his life. The second time had been to save him and Richard. I did not want to donate blood. Sometimes I thought bloodletting was more intimate than sex to a vampire. I didn't want to do that in front of company either.
   I stared up at him, getting angry. He was asking me to do very intimate things in front of strangers. I didn't like it, and he knew I wouldn't like it. So why hadn't he warned me? Had he really not thought we'd have to do this tonight?
   "She is angry with you," Padma said. "Is she truly that modest?" He sounded doubtful. "Could it be that you cannot truly do what you say you can do?"
   Hannah's body stood legs apart balancing on the unfamiliar high heels. "Are you as weak as Padma? Just another bloodsucker?" The Traveler shook his head, Hannah's hair sliding across the shoulders of her ruined dress. "What else have you been bluffing about, Jean-Claude?"
   "Damn you all to hell," I said. I slid my hands inside Jean-Claude's shirt, fingers sliding over his stomach. He was cold to the touch. Dammit. I pulled his shirt out of his pants, none too gently, and ran my hands over his skin. I kneaded my fingers along the muscles of his back, and could feel heat rise up my throat into my face. Under other circumstances, in the privacy of a bedroom, it had possibilities. Now, it was just embarrassing.
   He drew my arms out. "Careful, ma petite,or your hands will grow cold."
   My fingertips were cold as if I'd been outside without gloves. I stared up at him for a second or two. "If I can't touch you with my hands, what do you suggest I use?"
   Padma suggested something explicit enough to make me point a finger at him. "You stay out of this."
   He laughed at me. "She is truly embarrassed. How terribly precious. Asher said she was a virgin before you. I did not believe him, until now."
   I let my head drop to my chest. I was not going to say it. I did not owe the vampire council a rundown on my love life.
   Jean-Claude's hand moved into view. He never touched me, but just the movement of his hand brought my face up to meet his gaze. "I would not ask this of you here and now, if it were not necessary. You must believe that."
   Looking into his blue, blue eyes, I did believe him. Stupid, but true. "What do you want me to do?"
   He raised his fingers and put them just above my lips, so close that if I breathed in, he'd have had to touch me. "Use your lovely mouth over my heart. If our bond is as strong as I believe it to be, there are shortcuts, ma petite."
   I sighed and pulled his shirt up, baring his chest. In private I loved running my tongue over the cross-shaped burn scar on his chest. But this wasn't private. Hell with it.
   I laid my lips against the cool skin of his stomach, and licked a quick, wet line up his chest.
   He drew in a sharp hiss of breath. How could he be breathing and not have a heartbeat? No answer to that, but I'd seen it before. Vampires that breathed but did not have a pulse.
   I ran my tongue over the smoothness of the cross-shaped burn scar, ending with a kiss over his heart. I felt my lips grow cold. It wasn't the tingling cold of winter, though. It was just as he'd said. His body stealing my warmth. My life seeping away into him.
   I knelt back away from him, licking my lips, trying to feel them. "How's that?"
   He laughed, and the sound slid down my back like an ice cube, rubbed purposefully and long to the base of my spine.
   I shuddered. "You're feeling better."
   He lifted me suddenly, hands on my thighs. I let out a surprised yip, putting my hands on his shoulders for balance. He wrapped his arms around my legs and stared up at me. The pupil in his eyes had bled away to a shining blue fire.
   I felt his heartbeat in my throat. His pulse raced through my body. He let me slide slowly through his arms. "Kiss me, ma petite, as we are meant to kiss. I am warm and safe to touch."
   "Warm but never safe," I said. I started to kiss him when I was inches above his forehead and continued the kiss as I slid down his body. He kissed me like he would eat me from the mouth down. Fangs pressed hard and sharp, and he had to draw away or draw blood. The kiss left me breathless, tingling, but not with cold.
   I realized that he'd gotten a buzz from drinking in my warmth. That it had felt good in a more than practical way. Trust him to make a virtue out of necessity.
   "Now that you have your full powers once again," the Traveler said, "I will be leaving you. You drove Padma out without my aid. Surely you can defend yourself again."
   "He bested you, as well," Padma said.
   Hannah's face looked at us. "Yes, he did. I would expect nothing less from the master that slew the Earthmover." Hannah turned back to Padma. "And he did what you cannot. He regained his warmth with his human servant without drawing her blood. A trick that any true master can accomplish."
   "Enough of this," Padma said. He sounded angry. Having to share blood with your human servant seemed to be a real faux pas. "The night wanes. Now that you are at full strength, Jean-Claude, search for your people. See who does not answer your call."
   "I will leave you now, Jean-Claude. I will await you beyond." Hannah suddenly sagged. Willie caught her and lowered her gently to the floor.
   "Search, Jean-Claude, search for your people," Padma said. Jean-Claude stood, drawing me with him. His pupils swam through the shining blue of his eyes. His eyes settled into their normal color. He stared past me, past Padma. I didn't think he was seeing anything in the room. His power crept from his hands across my skin. I think if I hadn't been touching him, I wouldn't have felt a thing. The faintest shimmer of energy, as if this was a small thing to do.
   He blinked and looked at Padma. "Damian."
   Damian was one of Jean-Claude's lieutenants. Like Liv, he was over five hundred, but would never be a master.
   In Damian's case it was over a thousand years, but would never be a master. It was a frightening amount of time to have acquired so little power. Don't get me wrong, Damian was powerful. For a five-hundred-year-old he was scary. For a thousand years he was a baby. A dangerous, carnivorous baby, but still Damian had acquired all the power he might ever have. He could live until the sun expanded and swallowed the earth, and he'd be no more powerful than he had been at dusk today.
   He was one of the few vamps to ever fool me completely about his age. I'd underestimated his age by over half. I'd judged by power and was just beginning to learn that power was not the only thing to judge by.
   Jean-Claude had bargained with Damian's old master for his freedom to come here and play second banana.
   "What have you done to Damian?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "I, nothing, but is he dead?" Padma smiled and took Vivian's hand. "That is a question only his master may answer." He walked down the hallway, leading the wereleopard by the hand. Vivian looked back at me, watching me with wide, frightened eyes until they were lost to sight. The black leopard lingered, watching me.
   I spoke before I thought, instinct almost. "How could you have given them over to that thing?"
   She snarled at me, tail twitching.
   "You are weak, Elizabeth. Gabriel knew that and despised you for it."
   She let out a coughing roar. Padma's voice cut across the sound like a knife blade. "Elizabeth, come to me now or I shall be very angry."
   The leopard gave me a last snarl and padded out of sight.
   "Did Gabriel tell you she was weak, ma petite?"
   I shook my head. "She wouldn't have brought them here if she were stronger. He called and she came, but she should have come alone."
   "Perhaps she did her best, ma petite."
   "Then her best isn't good enough." I looked at Jean-Claude's careful, unreadable face. His body was still, calm. I laid my hand above his heart underneath his shirt. His heart was pounding.
   "You think Damian's dead," I said.
   "I know he is dead." He stared down at me. "Whether it is permanent, that is the question."
   "Dead is dead," I said.
   He laughed then and hugged me to him. "Oh, ma petite, you above all should know that is not true."
   "I thought you said they couldn't kill us tonight," I said.
   "So I thought," he said.
   Great. Every time I thought I understood the rules, they changed. Why was it that the damn rules always seemed to change for the worse?
   
   
17
   Willie came over to us, leading Hannah by the hand. "Thank you, master, Anita."
   There were gashes in his thin face, part of the initial fight for the Circus, I guess. They were already healing. He looked awful, even more like the walking dead than usual. "You look like hell," I said.
   He grinned at me, flashing fang. He hadn't been dead three years yet. It takes a little practice to smile without flashing fang. "I'm okay." He looked at Jean-Claude. "I tried to stop them. We all did."
   Jean-Claude had tucked his shirt back in his pants. He smoothed his hands down the front of the shirt and touched Willie's shoulder. "You fought the council, Willie. Win or lose, you did well."
   "Thanks, master."
   Jean-Claude usually corrected anyone when they called him master, but tonight, I guess we were going formal.
   "Come, we must attend Damian." He offered me his wrist, and when I didn't know quite what he wanted, he laid my fingertips over the pulse. "You touch me as if you were taking my pulse."
   "Is there some significance to this?"
   "It shows that you are more than my servant or my bed partner. It shows I consider you an equal."
   "What will the council think about that?" I asked.
   "It will force them to negotiate not only with me, but with you. It will complicate things for them and give us more options."
   I rested my hand on his wrist. His pulse was steady under my fingers. "Confusion to our enemies, eh?"
   He nodded, making it almost a bow. "Indeed, ma petite, indeed."
   I walked beside him towards the hallway, my right hand in my pocket on the Browning, which I'd rescued from the floor. When we got a clear view of the hallway, Jean-Claude's pulse sped under my fingers.
   Damian lay on his side curled around a sword. Blood had soaked around the blade into the dark material of the vest he wore as a shirt. The point came out his back. He'd been spitted. Hard to be a hundred percent sure, but it looked like a heart blow.
   There was a new vampire standing beside him. He held a two-handed sword in his hands, point down, like a cane. I recognized the sword. It was the one Damian slept with in his coffin.
   The new vamp was tall, six foot six or more, broad-shouldered. His hair was cut like a bowl of yellow ringlets around his face, leaving his ears bare. He wore a white tunic, white trousers, white on white in layers. He stood rigid, at attention, like a soldier.
   "Warrick," Jean-Claude said. "I had hoped you escaped Yvette's tender mercies."
   The tall vampire looked at us. His eyes flicked to my hand on Jean-Claude's wrist. He dropped to one knee and held Damian's sword across his hands. He bowed his head and offered the sword to us. "He fought well. It had been too long since I had such an opponent. I forgot myself and slew him. I would not have wished death on such a warrior. His final death is a great loss."
   Jean-Claude took the sword from the vampire's hands. "Save your apologies, Warrick. I come to save Damian, not to bury him."
   Warrick raised pale blue eyes to us. "But I have pierced his heart. If you were the master that had made him, then there would be a chance, but you did not call him from his grave to his second life."
   "But I am Master of the City, and Damian took a blood oath."
   Warrick laid the sword on the ground near Damian's still form. "Your blood may call to him. I pray that it will be enough."
   I stared at him. I'd never heard a vampire say "I pray." Vampires, for obvious reasons, didn't pray a lot. I mean, who was going to answer? Oh, yeah, there was the Church of Eternal Life, but they were more a humanist religion, sort of New Wavey. I'm not sure they talked much about God.
   Damian's hair was nearly blood-red, a startling color against the alabaster whiteness of his skin. I knew his eyes were a green that any cat would envy, but tonight his eyes were closed, and if things went badly, they'd never open again.
   Jean-Claude knelt beside Damian. He laid his hand on Damian's chest, near the sword. "If I pull out the sword and his heart does not beat, his eyes do not open, then he is gone. One chance, and one chance only. We could put him in a hole somewhere for a hundred years and until the sword was pulled out of his heart, there would still be a chance. If we do it here and now, we risk losing him forever."
   That last bit of lore is why you never ever remove a stake from a corpse's heart no matter how dead it appears to be.
   I knelt beside them. "Is there a ritual for it?"
   He shook his head. "I will invoke the blood oath he took. That will help call him back, but Warrick is correct. I did not make Damian. I am not his true master."
   "No, he's older than you are by about six hundred years." I looked down at the vampire, spitted on the sword, lying in a pool of his own dark blood. He was wearing a pair of dress pants that matched the vest. Without a conservative shirt under the vest it looked strangely erotic. I could still feel Damian in my head. His power, the beat and the pulse of centuries flowed through him. He wasn't dead, or at least not completely dead. I could still feel his aura, something.
   "I can still feel Damian," I said.
   "What do you mean, ma petite?"
   I had a horrible compulsion to touch Damian. To run my hands over his bare arms. I wasn't into necrophilia, no matter how close I walked the edge. What was going on?
   "I can feel him. His energy in my head. It's like coming on a fresh corpse before the soul has left the body. He's still intact, I think."
   Warrick was looking at me. "How can you know that?"
   I reached out towards Damian and stopped myself, hands curling into fists. My hands ached to touch him, not sexual exactly but like seeing a really fine sculpture. I wanted to trace the lines of his body, to feel the flow and ebb of him. To . . .
   "What is wrong, ma petite?"
   I touched my fingertips to Damian's arm, as if afraid he would burn. My hand slid over his cool flesh, almost without me wanting it to. The force that animated Damian's body flowed through his cooling skin, flowed over my hand, down my arm, marched in goose bumps across my body.
   I gasped.
   "What are you doing, ma petite?" Jean-Claude was rubbing his arms as if he, too, felt it.
   Warrick put out a hand towards me like he was holding his hand in front of fire, not sure if he could or should touch. He pulled back, rubbing his hand on his pants. "It is true. You are a necromancer."
   "You ain't seen nothing yet," I whispered. I turned to Jean-Claude. "When you pull out the sword, the trick is going to be to keep the power from leaving with the opening of the wound. To keep, for lack of a better word, his soul from fleeing, right?"
   Jean-Claude was watching me, as if he'd never really seen me before. Nice to know I could still surprise him. "I do not know, ma petite. I am not a witch or a student of magical metaphysics. I will invoke the oath, speak the ritual, and hope he survives."
   "Sometimes when I call a zombie from the grave, it's easier to call them a second time." I slid my hands down to hold Damian's limp hand, but it wasn't enough. My power and the power inside the vampire needed a more immediate touch than mere hands.
   "He is not a zombie, ma petite."
   "Warrick said you hadn't called Damian from the grave, but I have." Once upon a time, nearly by accident I had raised three of Jean-Claude's vampires. It was when he, Richard, and I first invoked the triumvirate. The power had been so overwhelming that I'd raised every true corpse near us as a zombie, but there had been too much power. I'd fed it to the vampires and they'd risen for me. Necromancers were rumored to be able to call all manner of dead to do their bidding. But that was legend. As far as I knew, I was the only living necromancer to pull off this particular trick.
   "What are you asking, ma petite?"
   I crawled around Damian's body. The blood was cool through my hose. My hand trailed up his arm, never losing contact with his body, with that power curled inside of him. The power that animated him had thrust me out once, cast me out, hurt me. But it was like once having brushed each other, we were linked.
   "You're linked to Damian, but you're also linked to me. I can feel Damian in my head. I don't know if it's a link, but it's something. Use it," I said.
   "You mean draw on your power to help strengthen my hold on him?" Jean-Claude said.
   "Yeah." I dragged Damian into my lap, on his side, the sword still spitting him. When Jean-Claude saw what I was doing, he helped me. I cradled Damian on his side, shoulders in my lap, his head resting on my arm. I slid my hand down his chest, searching for his heart, and found the blade instead. It had pierced his heart. Even with my help, even with Jean-Claude's help, if he hadn't been over five hundred, he'd be dead. Five hundred seemed to be an age where vamps gained a great deal of power. Being over a thousand could only help him. I could feel him, through my body, my head. Through the growing power, I realized I'd turned my back to the hallway. It was hard to think, but I said, "Do we have a truce until we raise him?"
   "You mean will they attack us while we save him?"
   "Yes."
   "I will guard you," Warrick said. He stood and took Damian's sword.
   "Isn't that a conflict of interest?" I asked.
   "If he does not rise, I will be punished for killing him. It is not just sorrow at my own carelessness that prompts me to help you. I fear what my mistress will do."
   Jean-Claude stared down at Damian. "Padma wishes to kill us for the power the triumvirate has given us, ma petite. Now that he knows you have called Damian from his coffin like a zombie, he will fear you even more."
   "Is Warrick going to tell him?"
   Jean-Claude gave a gentle smile. "There is no need for Warrick to tell, is there, Traveler?"
   A voice sighed around us. "I am here."
   I stared up at the air, at nothing. "You little son of bitch, you're an eavesdropper."
   Willie stumbled. Hannah jerked back from him. "I am many things, Anita." Willie turned to us with that ancient intelligence burning in his eyes. "Why have you withheld this information from us, Jean-Claude?"
   "You see us as a threat without this bit of information, Traveler. Do you blame me for hiding it from you?"
   He gave a small smile that was both gentle and condescending. "No, I suppose I don't."
   Jean-Claude gripped the hilt of the sword. He put his hand on Damian's chest to brace himself. His fingers brushed my hand. "You might wish to move your hand, ma petite. The sword is sharp."
   I shook my head. "I'm going to make his heart beat. I can't do that if I'm not touching it."
   Jean-Claude turned his head to one side, looking at me. "The magic grips you, ma petite, and you forget yourself. At least use your left hand."
   He was right. The magic, for lack of a better word, was building. I'd never felt my own power so strongly outside of a blood sacrifice. Of course, there was plenty of blood, just none that I'd spilt myself. But I could sense Damian's heart inside his chest. It was almost as if I could have reached inside and caressed the muscle. Like I was not seeing it, but feeling it, and that wasn't it either. I had no word for it. It wasn't touch or sight, but I could feel it just the same. I pulled my right hand away and slipped my left over Damian's still heart.
   "Are you ready, ma petite?"
   I nodded.
   Jean-Claude rose on his knees. "I am the Master of the City. My blood you have drunk. My flesh you have touched. You are mine, Damian. You gave yourself willing to me. Come to me now, Damian. Rise to me now. Come to my hand." He tightened his grip on the blade. I felt Damian's body shift boneless as the dead.
   I felt his heart, caressed it and it was cold, dead. "I am master of your heart, Damian," Jean-Claude said. "I will it to beat."
   "We will make it beat," I said. My voice sounded distant, strange, not like my voice at all. Power breathed through me, through Damian, into Jean-Claude. I felt it spreading outward and knew that every corpse in the place would feel the rush.
   "Now," I whispered.
   Jean-Claude looked at me one last time, then turned all his attention to Damian. He yanked the blade out in one harsh motion.
   Damian's essence tried to follow the blade out, tried to slip away through the wound. I felt it sliding away. I called to it, pressed it into the dead flesh, and it wasn't enough. I moved my hand over his heart. The sliding blade sliced my hand. Blood, fresh and warm and human, flowed over the wound. The thing inside Damian hesitated. It stayed to taste my blood. It was enough. I didn't caress his heart. I smashed it, filled it with the power that crawled over us.
   The heart thudded against his chest so that I felt it in my bones. His spine bowed, raising him out of my lap, throwing his head. His mouth opened in a silent scream. His eyes flew open wide. He slumped back into my lap.
   He stared up at me, wide-eyed, frightened. He grabbed my arm. He tried to talk and couldn't speak past the thundering of the pulse in his throat. I could feel the blood in his body, the beat of his heart, the rush of him.
   He reached out to Jean-Claude, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. He finally whispered, "What have you done to me?"
   "Saved you, mon ami, saved you."
   Damian slumped suddenly. His body began to quiet. I began to lose the sense of his pulse, the taste of his heart. It slid slowly away and I let it go. But I was almost sure I could have held it. I could have kept the feel and rush of his body. I could have made it rise and fall to my touch. I was almost sure.
   I ran my hand through his thick red hair and knew temptation, and it was only slightly tinged with sex. I raised my still bleeding hand where I could see it. It wasn't much of a cut; two, three stitches and I'd be fine. It hurt, but not enough.
   I ran the still bleeding hand through his hair. The thickness of his hair slid across the open wound, abrading it. The pain was suddenly sharper, aching and nauseating. Enough pain to bring me back to myself.
   Damian stared up at me, afraid. Afraid of me.
   

18
   "My how terribly impressive." I turned, Damian still in my lap. Yvette was stalking down the hallway towards us. She'd lost the mink stole, and the white dress was very simple, very elegant, very Chanel. The rest of the scene was pure Marquis de Sade.
   Jason, werewolf, flunky, sometimes voluntary appetizer to the undead, was with her. He was dressed in a cross between black leather pants and skin-tight chaps. Bare skin showed at his thighs, and what looked like a leather thong covered his groin. Around his neck was a metal-studded dog collar with a leash attached to it. Yvette was holding the leash. Fresh bruises marched down his face, neck, arms. There were cuts on his lower chest and stomach that looked like claw marks. His hands were bound behind his back, arms pulled so tight to his body that that alone had to hurt.
   Yvette stopped about eight feet from us, posing. She shoved Jason hard enough in the back for him to let out a small sound, forcing him to his knees. She drew the leash tight so he was almost hanging.
   She smoothed her hand through his yellow hair, adjusting it, like he was about to get his picture taken. "He's my gift while I'm here. Do you like the wrapping?"
   "Can you sit up?" I asked Damian.
   "I think so." He rolled off my lap, sitting up carefully, as if everything wasn't working quite right yet.
   I got to my feet. "How you doing, Jason?"
   "I'm okay," he said.
   Yvette jerked the leash tighter, so he couldn't talk. I realized that the inside of the collar had metal spikes on it, a choke collar. Great.
   "He is my wolf, Yvette. Mine to protect. You cannot have him," Jean-Claude said.
   "I have already had him," she said. "But I will have him again. I have not hurt him yet. The bruises are not my doing. He got that in defense of this place. In defense of you. Ask him yourself." She eased the collar, and then the leash itself.
   Jason took a long breath and looked at us.
   "Did she hurt you?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "No," he said.
   "You have shown great restraint," Jean-Claude said to Yvette. "Or have your tastes changed since last we embraced?"
   She laughed. "Oh, no, my tastes are the same as they always were. I will torment him now in front of you and you will be powerless to stop me. This way I torment several people for the price of one." She smiled. She looked better than she had at the restaurant. Not quite so pale.
   "Who'd you feed off of?" I asked.
   Her eyes flicked to me. "You'll see soon enough." She turned her attention to Warrick. He didn't exactly cringe, but he seemed suddenly smaller, less shining. "Warrick, you failed me."
   Warrick stood against the wall, Damian's sword still in his hand. "I did not mean to hurt him, mistress."
   "Oh, I don't mean that. You guarded them while they brought him back."
   "You said I would be punished if he died."
   "So I did, but would you really have used that great sword on me?"
   He dropped to his knees. "No, mistress."
   "Then how could you guard them?"
   Warrick shook his head. "I did not think . . ."
   "You never do." She pulled Jason in against her legs, cradling his face against her thigh. "Watch, Jason, watch and see what I do to bad little boys."
   Warrick got to his feet, putting his back to the wall. He dropped the sword, clattering on the stones. "Please, mistress, please do not do this."
   Yvette took in a deep breath, head back, eyes closed, caressing Jason's face. She was anticipating.
   "What's she going to do?" I asked.
   "Watch" was all Jean-Claude would say.
   Warrick was kneeling close enough for me to touch. Whatever was about to happen, we were going to have a ringside seat. Which was the point, I suppose.
   Warrick stared at the far wall, past us, ignoring us as much as he could. A white film spread across his pale blue eyes, until they were cloudy, blind. If I hadn't been standing within arm's reach, it would have been too subtle to see.
   His eyes collapsed inward, crumbling with rot. His face was still perfect, strong, heroic, like an engraving of St. George, but his eyes were empty, rotting holes. Thick greenish pus trailed down his cheeks, like thick tears.
   "Is she doing that to him?" I asked.
   "Yes," Jean-Claude said, almost too soft to hear.
   Warrick made a small sound low in his throat. Black fluid burst from his mouth, pouring down his lips. He tried to scream, and all that came out was a deep, choking gurgle. He fell forward onto hands and knees. The pus-filled liquid poured from his mouth, eyes, ears. It flowed in a puddle of liquid thicker than blood.
   It should have stunk, but as so often happened with vampires that rotted, there was no odor. Warrick vomited his own rotting internal organs onto the floor.
   We all began to move back from the widening pool. Didn't want to step in it. It wouldn't do us any harm, but even the other vampires stepped back from it.
   Warrick collapsed onto his side. His white clothes were nearly black with gore. But underneath the mess he was still whole. His body was untouched.
   His hand reached out blindly. It was a helpless gesture. A gesture that said better than words that it hurt, and he was still in there. Still feeling. Still thinking.
   "Sweet Jesus," I said.
   "You should see what I can do with my own body." Yvette's voice dragged our attention back to her. She was still standing there, cradling Jason against her leg. She was a white, gleaming figure, except for her hand. From the elbow down a green rot had started.
   Jason noticed it. He started to scream, and she yanked the collar too tight for speech. She caressed his face with her rotting hand, leaving a smear of something thick and dark and all too real.
   Jason went wild. He tore away from her. She pulled on the collar until his face turned pink, then red. He fought to stay away from her. Fought like a fish on a hook. His face turned purplish, and still he wouldn't come to her rotting hand.
   Jason collapsed to the floor. He was about to choke himself into unconsciousness. "He has tasted the pleasures of rotting flesh before with other vampires, haven't you, Jason? He is so afraid. It is why Padma gave him to me." Yvette started to close the distance between herself and Jason's prone body. "I doubt his mind will survive even a night. Isn't it delicious?"
   "We are so not doing this," I said. I took the Browning out of my pocket and showed it to her. "Don't touch him."
   "You are a conquered people, Anita. Don't you grasp that yet?" she asked.
   "Conquer this," I said. I raised the Browning towards her. Jean-Claude touched my arm. "Put away your gun, ma petite."
   "We can't let her have Jason."
   "She will not have Jason," he said. He stared down the hallway at Yvette. "Jason is mine. Mine in every way. I will not share him with you, and it is against the rules of hospitality that you do something to one of my people that will cause permanent damage. Breaking his mind is against council law."
   "Padma doesn't think so," Yvette said.
   "But you are not Padma." Jean-Claude glided towards them. His power began to fill the hallway like cool rising water.
   "You were my toy for over a hundred years, Jean-Claude. Do you really think you can stand against me now?"
   I felt her lash out, like a knife striking, but her power met Jean-Claude's and faded. It was like she was striking at mist. His power didn't fight back. It absorbed.
   Jean-Claude stepped up, almost touching her, and jerked the leash out of her hand. She touched his face with her rotting flesh, smearing things worse than blood down his cheek.
   Jean-Claude laughed, and it was bitter, like swallowing broken glass. It hurt to hear the sound. "I have seen you at your worst, Yvette. There is nothing new you can show me."
   She dropped her hands to her side and stared up at him. "There are more delights up ahead. Padma and the Traveler await you." She didn't know that the Traveler was already among us. Willie's body remained quiet, not giving the Traveler away. Interesting.
   Yvette held up her hand, and it was smooth and perfect once more. "You are conquered, Jean-Claude. You just don't know it yet."
   Jean-Claude hit her, a blur of speed that sent her careening along the floor to end in a not so elegant bundle against the wall. "I may be conquered, Yvette, but not by you. Not by you."
   
   
19
   Jean-Claude untied Jason's hands and tore the collar from around his neck. Jason huddled into a little ball on the floor. He was making small noises in his throat more primitive than words and more piteous.
   Yvette had gotten to her high heels and left us. Warrick was healing, if that was the right word. He sat up, still covered in the remains of his own bodily fluids, but his eyes were clear and blue, and he looked whole.
   The Traveler in Willie's body walked up to stand by Jean-Claude. "You have impressed me more than once this night."
   "I did none of it to impress, Traveler. These are my people. These are my lands. I defend them. It is not a game." He produced two handkerchiefs from somewhere. He handed me one. "For your hand, ma petite." He started to wipe the goop off Jason's face with the other handkerchief.
   I stared down at my left hand. Blood was running in a nice steady line down my hand. I'd forgotten about it, watching Warrick rot. Some horrors were worse than pain. I took the bit of blue silk from Jean-Claude. "Thanks." I wrapped the makeshift bandage around the wound, but couldn't tie it one-handed.
   The Traveler tried to help me tie the bandage. I pulled away from him.
   "I offer you aid, not harm."
   "No thanks."
   He smiled, and again it was not Willie's thoughts that slid over his face. "It upsets you so much that I inhabit this body. Why?"
   "He's my friend," I said.
   "Friendship. You claim friendship with this vampire. He is nothing. A power not to be reckoned with."
   "He's not my friend because he's powerful or not powerful. He's just my friend."
   "It has been a very long time since someone has invoked friendship in my presence. They will beg for mercy, but never on the grounds of friendship."
   Jean-Claude stood. "No one else would have thought of it."
   "No one else would have been so naive," the Traveler said.
   "It is a form of naivete," Jean-Claude said. "That is true, but how long has it been, Traveler, since someone, anyone, had the courage to be naive before the council? They come before you asking for power, safety, vengeance, but not friendship, not loyalty. No, that they will not ask of the council."
   Willie's head did that little turn to one side again, as if the Traveler were thinking. "Does she offer me friendship or ask it of me?"
   I started to answer, but Jean-Claude beat me to it. "Can you offer true friendship without asking for it in return?"
   I opened my mouth to say that I'd sooner be friends with a hungry crocodile, but Jean-Claude touched my arm gently. It was enough. We were winning. Don't blow it.
   "Friendship," the Traveler said. "Now that is indeed something I have not been offered since I took my seat upon the council."
   I spoke then, without thinking first. "That must be very lonely."
   He laughed, and it was that same eerie mixture of Willie's loud bray and a slithering chuckle. "She is like a wind through a window long closed, Jean-Claude. A mixture of cynicism, naivete, and power." He touched my face, and I let him. He cupped the side of my face in his hand in an almost familiar gesture. "She does have a certain . . . charm."
   His hand trailed down my face, fingertips lingering against my cheek. He dropped his hand suddenly, fingers rubbing against each other as if he were trying to feel some invisible something. He shook his head. "I and this body will await you in the torture room." He answered me before I could even say no. "I do not plan to harm this body, Anita, but I do need it to walk about. I will leave this host if there is one that you would prefer I take."
   He turned and stared at the rest of the group. His gaze came to rest at last on Damian. "I could take this one. Balthasar would enjoy that, I think."
   I shook my head. "No."
   "Is this one also your friend?"
   I glanced at Damian. "Not my friend, no, but he's still mine."
   The Traveler turned his head to one side, staring at me. "He belongs to you, how? Is he your lover?"
   I shook my head. "No."
   "Brother? Cousin? Ancestor?"
   "No," I said.
   "Then how is he . . . yours?"
   I didn't know how to explain it. "I won't give Damian to you to save Willie. You said it yourself. You're not hurting him."
   "And if I was? Would you trade Damian's safety for your friend?"
   I shook my head. "I'm not going to debate this with you."
   "I am merely trying to discern how important your friends are to you, Anita."
   I shook my head again. I didn't like where this conversation was going. If I said the wrong thing, the Traveler was going to start cutting Willie up. I could see it coming. It was a trap, and everything I thought to say led right into it.
   Jean-Claude interrupted, "Ma petitevalues her friends."
   The Traveler held up a hand. "No, she must answer this one herself. It is her loyalty that I wish to understand, not yours." He stared at me from less than a foot away, uncomfortably close. "How important are your friends to you, Anita? Answer the question."
   I thought of one answer that might not lead where the Traveler wanted to go. "Important enough to kill for," I said.
   His eyes flew wide. His mouth opened in amazement. "Are you threatening me?"
   I shrugged. "You asked a question. I answered it."
   He threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, what a man you would have made."
   I'd spent enough time around macho guys to know it was a compliment, a sincerely meant one. They never understood the implied insult. And as long as we weren't cutting up people I cared for, I wasn't going to point it out. "Thanks," I said.
   His face blanked instantly, the humor gone like a bad memory. Only his eyes, Willie's eyes, were still alive, glittering with a force that crept along my skin like a chill wind. He offered me his arm like Jean-Claude had done earlier.
   I glanced at Jean-Claude. He gave the barest of nods. I placed my still bleeding hand on the Traveler's wrist. His pulse beat hard and fast against my hand. It felt like the small wound had a second heartbeat, pounding in rhythm to his pulse. The blood flowed faster out of the cut, called by his power. It dripped in a tickling line down my arm to the elbow to fall inside the arm of the coat, soaking into the dark cloth. Blood spread over his wrist in crimson rivulets. My blood.
   My own heart sped up, feeding the fear, driving the blood faster. I knew in that moment that he could stand there and bleed me to death out of that small wound. That he could waste all the blood in me, all the power in me, to make a point.
   My heart was thudding in my ears. I knew I should move my hand, but I just never seemed to get around to moving it, as if something was interfering with the screaming in my head, before it could reach my hand.
   Jean-Claude reached out to me, but the Traveler spoke before he could touch us. "No, Jean-Claude. I acknowledge her as a power to be reckoned with if she can break this hold on her own."
   My voice was breathy, rushed, as if I'd been running, but I could talk, think, I just couldn't move my hand. "What do I get out it?"
   He laughed, pleased with himself. I think I'd finally asked a question he was comfortable with. "What do you want?"
   I thought about that as the pulse in my hand beat fast and faster. Blood was beginning to soak the Traveler's sleeve, Willie's sleeve. I wanted Willie back. "Safe passage for me and all my people and friends."
   He threw his head back and roared with laughter. The laughter stopped in mid-motion like a badly made film. He turned glittering eyes to me. "Break this hold, Anita, and I will grant you what you ask, but if you fail to break it, what do I gain?"
   It was a trap, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to get out of it. If he kept bleeding me I'd pass out from blood loss, and it would all be over.
   "Blood," I said.
   He smiled. "I have that now."
   "A willing drink from me. You don't have that."
   "Tempting but not enough."
   Grey spots were spreading across my vision. I was sweating and vaguely nauseous. It took a long time to pass out from blood loss, but he was speeding it up. I couldn't think what to offer him. I was having trouble thinking at all. "What do you want?"
   Jean-Claude let out a sigh, as if I'd said the wrong thing.
   "The truth."
   I collapsed slowly to my knees, and only his hand on my elbow kept me upright. My vision was going in large grey-white splotches. I was dizzy, and it was only going to get worse.
   "What truth?"
   "Who really killed the Earthmover? Tell me that and you are free."
   I swallowed hard, and whispered, "Fuck you." I slid to the ground still holding onto him, still bleeding. He bent over me, but through my ruined vision it was just Willie. Willie's sharp-angled face. Willie with his loud suits and worse ties. Willie who loved Hannah with a gentle devotion that made my throat tight. I reached out and touched that face, ran my tingling fingertips through his slicked-back hair, cradled his jaw in my hand, and whispered, "Willie, come to me."
   There was a jolt like a shiver of electricity, and I could see. My body still felt numb and distant, but my vision was clear. I looked into those glittering eyes and thought of Willie. There, deep inside was an answering scream. "Willie, come to me." My voice was stronger this time.
   The Traveler said, "What are you doing?"
   I ignored him. Willie was one of the other vampires I'd accidently called from their coffins, like Damian. And maybe, just maybe, he was mine in more than friendship. "With blood I call you, Willie McCoy. Rise and come to me."
   The third heartbeat in my hand slowed. The Traveler was the one trying to get away now, trying to break the hold he had forged, but it was a two-edged blade. It cut both ways, and I wanted to make my point deep and sharp.
   "Come to me, Willie. Rise to my voice, my hand, my blood. Rise and answer me. Willie McCoy, come now!" I watched Willie spill into those eyes like water filling a cup. I felt the Traveler forced out. I thrust him out, shoved him away, and slammed a door that I hadn't known I had in my head. In Willie's body. I forced the Traveler out, and he spun shrieking into the darkness.
   Willie stared at me, and it was him, but there was a look in his eyes I'd never seen before. "What would you have of me, master?"
   I collapsed on the floor, crying. I wanted to say, "I'm not your master," but the words died in my throat, swallowed by a velvet darkness that ate my vision and then the world.
   
   
20
   I'd fallen asleep with my head in my father's lap. He stroked my hair. I snuggled against his lap, my cheek resting on his bare thigh. Bare thigh? I was suddenly awake, pushing to a sitting position before I could really see. Jason sat leaning against a stone wall. It was his lap I'd woken up in. He gave me a very watered-down version of his usual come-hither smile, but it left his eyes cold and tired. He wasn't up to leering at me tonight. Things are rough when Jason stops teasing.
   Jean-Claude and Padma were arguing in French. They stood on either side of a wooden table. A man was bound face-down to the table with silver bands at wrist, ankles, and neck. Bands that were bolted to the table itself. He was nude, but more than his clothes were missing. The entire back of his body was one raw bloody mess. I'd found the owner of the skin on the door. Rafael's darkly handsome face was slack, unconscious. I hoped he stayed that way for a long time.
   Rafael, the Rat King, was head of the second-largest and strongest band of shapeshifters in the city. He was no one's toy. What the hell was he doing here like this? "What is Rafael doing here?" I asked Jason.
   He answered, voice tired, dragging, "The Master of Beasts wants the wererats. Rafael wasn't strong enough not to come when called, but he was strong enough to not bring any of the other rats. He delivered himself over like a sacrifice." Jason leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. "They couldn't break him. They couldn't break Sylvie either."
   "Sylvie?" I stared around the room. It was twenty by twenty, not that big. She was across the room chained to the wall. She sagged in the chains, full weight on her wrists, unconscious. Most of her was hidden from view by the table that Rafael was chained to. She didn't look hurt.
   "Why is she here?"
   "The Master of Beasts called the wolves, too. Richard wasn't here to answer, so Sylvie came. She protected the rest of us, just like Rafael did for his people."
   "What are Jean-Claude and the Beastie-Boy arguing about?"
   "The Traveler granted us our freedom, but they don't want to include Rafael in the bargain. The Master of Beasts says the Rat King is not our people, nor our friend."
   "He's my friend," I said.
   He smiled without opening his eyes. "I knew you'd say that."
   I got to my feet, pushing against the wall. I was a little unsteady, but not bad. I walked towards the arguing vampires. The French was hot and furious.
   Jean-Claude turned to me. "Ma petite,you are awake." His English was heavily accented. It often was after he'd been speaking a lot of French.
   Padma held up a hand. "No, do not influence her."
   Jean-Claude gave a sweeping bow. "As you like."
   I wanted to touch Rafael. I could see his back rising and falling, but I wouldn't really believe he was okay until I touched him. My hands sort of hovered over him, but there was almost no place left to touch that wasn't raw and hurting. I finally touched his hair, then drew back. I didn't want to wake him. Unconscious was better than anything else right now.
   "Who is this one to you?" Padma asked.
   "He's Rafael, the Rat King. He's my friend."
   Hannah walked in through the open dungeon door. The moment she appeared, I knew it was the Traveler. He leaned that very feminine body against the side of the door and managed to look masculine. "You cannot be friends with every monster in the city."
   I stared up at him. "Want to bet?"
   He shook his head, Hannah's blond hair bouncing back and forth just like in the shampoo commercial. He laughed, and it was girlish. "Oh, no, Anita Blake, I will not bargain with you again this night." He started down the steps. He'd taken off the high heels, and glided down the stairs in stocking feet. "But there will be other nights."
   "I asked for safe passage and you gave it," I said. "You can't hurt us anymore."
   "I gave safe passage for tonight only, Anita."
   "I do not remember a time limit being placed on your promise," Jean-Claude said.
   The Traveler waved the objection away. "It was understood."
   "Not by me," I said.
   He stopped on the other side of the table, by Padma. He stared at me with Hannah's grey eyes and frowned. "Anyone else would have known that I meant tonight alone."
   "As you yourself have said, Traveler, she is not anyone," Jean-Claude said.
   "He is one council member. He cannot bargain for all," Padma said. "He can force us to let you go tonight, but the rest he cannot do. He cannot free you all without a vote of all represented here."
   "Then his promise means nothing," I said.
   "If I had dreamt that you meant safety for our entire stay," the Traveler said, "I would have asked for more than merely the truth of the Earthmover's death."
   "We made a deal. I kept my end of it," I said.
   He tried to cross his arms over his chest, but had to settle for his stomach, arms cradling the breasts. Women are just not designed to look tough. "You have given me yet another problem, Anita. It might be wise to not be so problematic."
   "Threaten all you want," I said, "but for tonight you can't touch us."
   "Do not let it go to your head." His voice had crawled down a few octaves, dragging out of Hannah's throat.
   I moved around to stand at Rafael's head, wanting to stroke his hair and not daring to. Tears pressed like a hand against the back of my eyes. "Unchain him. He goes with us, or your word is worth shit, Traveler."
   "I will not give him up," Padma said.
   "You will do as you are told," the Traveler said.
   I turned away from the sight of Rafael's butchered body. I also didn't want the bad guys to see me cry. Turning away from Rafael gave me a better view of Sylvie. What I saw stopped me in my tracks.
   Her pants were down around her ankles, shoes still on. I took a step towards her, then another, and was almost running by the time I got to her. I slid to my knees beside her. Blood stained her thighs. Her hands were balled into fists, eyes squeezed tight. She was whispering something, very softly, over and over. I touched her arm and she flinched. Her voice rose just enough for me to hear the one word, "No, no, no." Over and over and over like a mantra.
   I was crying. I'd been talking about putting a bullet in Sylvie earlier today. Now I was crying for her. Some big tough sociopath I turned out to be. I had my problems with Sylvie, but this . . . She didn't even like men under the best of circumstances. It made what they'd done worse somehow, more insulting. Or maybe it was just that I remembered her as so proud, so confident and full of herself. To see her like this was almost more than I could bear.
   "Sylvie, Sylvie, it's Anita." I wanted to pull her clothes back in place, but was afraid to touch her again until I was sure she knew it was me. "Sylvie, can you hear me?"
   Jason came to stand with us. "Let me try."
   "She won't want a man to touch her."
   "I won't touch her." He knelt on the other side of her. "I smell like pack. You don't." He very carefully slid his arm in front of her face, trying not to touch her. "Smell the pack, Sylvie. Know the comfort of our touch."
   She stopped saying no, but that was it. She wouldn't even open her eyes.
   I stood up and faced the room. "Who did this?"
   "She could have stopped it at any time," Padma said, "given me the pack and it would all have been over. She could have gone free."
   I screamed, "WHO DID THIS!"
   "I did," Padma said.
   I stared down at the floor, and when I came back up, the Uzi was pointed at him. "I'm going to cut you in half."
   "Ma petite, you will hit Rafael and perhaps me."
   A machine gun was not made for one target in a crowd, but he'd survive the Browning. I shook my head. "He dies. For this, he dies."
   The Traveler stepped beside Padma. "Would you slay this body?" He spread his hands wide and stepped in front of Padma. "Would you kill your Willie's lady love?"
   Tears hot enough to scald trailed down my cheeks. "Damn you, damn you all."
   "Padma did not personally rape your friend," the Traveler said. "Any unskilled man can rape, but it takes a true artist to skin a live shapeshifter."
   "Who then?" My voice was just a little calmer. I wasn't going to use the machine gun, and we all knew it. I dropped the Uzi, letting it slide back under the coat. I wrapped my hand around the Browning and thought about it.
   Jean-Claude started walking towards me. He knew me too well. "Ma petite, we all walk out of here in safety at least this night. You have given us this. Do not destroy us all for vengeance now."
   Fernando walked through the door, and I knew. He might not be the only one, but he'd been one of them. He smirked at me. "The Traveler wouldn't let me have Hannah."
   I started to tremble, a fine quivering that started in my arms and spread across my shoulders and down my body. I'd never wanted to kill anyone as badly as I wanted to kill him right that second. He glided down the steps in his bare feet, hands roving across his chest, playing in the line of hair that started on his belly. Rubbing his hands along the silk of his pants.
   "Maybe I'll have you chained to a wall," he said.
   I felt a smile stretch across my face. I spoke very clearly, very carefully, because if I didn't, I was going to scream, and if I lost control of my voice, I was going to shoot him. I knew that just as surely as I was standing there. "Who helped you?"
   Padma stopped his son, drawing him into the circle of his arms. I saw real fear on the master vampire's face. His son was still too arrogant or too stupid to understand.
   "I did it myself."
   A laugh that was bitter enough to choke me came out. "You couldn't do this much damage on your own. Who helped you?"
   The Traveler touched Fernando's shoulder. "Others, unnamed others. If the woman can tell you, let her. If not, you do not need to know. You will not be hunting them, Executioner."
   "Not tonight," I said. The trembling was quieting. That cold, icy center of my soul, the place where I'd given up a piece of myself, spread outward. I was calm, deadly calm. I could have shot them all and not blinked. "But you said it yourself, Traveler: there will be other nights."
   Jason was talking in a low voice and Sylvie was answering. I glanced at her. She wasn't crying. Her face was pale and strangely stiff, as if everything was held inside, tight and hard. Jason undid the locks on the chains and she slid down the wall. He tried to help her pull up her pants, but she pushed him away.
   I knelt beside her. "Let me help, please."
   Sylvie tried to pull the pants up herself, but her hands weren't working right. She kept fumbling and finally collapsed to the floor in tears.
   I started to dress her, and she let me. She helped where she could, but her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn't do much. Her pants were pink linen. I couldn't find the underwear. It was gone. I knew she'd been wearing some, because Sylvie wouldn't go without. She was a lady, and ladies didn't do that.
   When everything was covered, she finally met my eyes. The look in her brown eyes made me want to look away, but I didn't. If she could have that much pain in her face, the least I could do was look at it. No flinching. I'd even stopped crying.
   "I didn't give them the pack," she said.
   "I know," I said. I wanted to touch her, reassure her, and was afraid to.
   She collapsed forward, sobbing; not crying, but sobbing like she'd cry out bits and pieces of herself on the floor. I put my arms around her, tentatively. She sagged against me, holding me. I held her half in my arms, half in my lap, rocking her slowly. I leaned over next to her ear and breathed a sound into it, "He's dead. They're all dead."
   She quieted slowly, then looked up at me. "You swear it?"
   "I swear it."
   She huddled against me and said softly, "I won't kill Richard."
   "Good, because I'd hate to kill you now."
   She laughed, and it turned it into more crying, but softer now, quieter, not quite so desperate.
   I looked up at the others. The men, dead and alive, were staring at me. "Rafael comes with us, no more debating."
   Padma nodded. "Very well."
   Fernando turned to him. "Father, you can't let her do this. The wolves, yes, but not the Rat King."
   "Hush, Fernando."
   "He cannot be allowed to live, if he does not submit."
   "You weren't rat enough to be dominant to him, were you, Fernando?" I said. "He's stronger than you'll ever be, and you hate him for it."
   Fernando took a step towards me. Padma and the Traveler both held him back, a hand on each shoulder.
   Jean-Claude stepped between us. "Let us be on our way, ma petite. The night grows long."
   The Traveler stepped away from Fernando slowly. I wasn't sure who he trusted least, me or the rat-boy. He started unfastening the chains that held Rafael in place. The wererat was still unconscious, oblivious to his fate.
   I got to my feet, and Sylvie came with me. She pushed away from me, tried to walk and nearly fell. I caught her, and Jason caught her other arm.
   Fernando laughed.
   Sylvie stumbled. She looked like she'd been slapped. The laughter cut more than any words. I laid my lips against her cheek, cradled her face against mine with my free hand, lips by her ear. "He's dead, remember that."
   She leaned into me for a moment, then nodded. She straightened and let Jason help her walk towards the stairs.
   Jean-Claude lifted Rafael in his arms as gently as he could, balancing the man over his shoulders. Rafael groaned, hands spasming, but his eyes stayed shut.
   I stared at the Traveler. "You'll need to find another horse to ride," I said. "Hannah comes with us."
   "Of course," he said.
   "Now, Traveler," I said.
   Arrogance spread across his face. It was a look I'd never seen on Hannah's face before. "Do not let one act of magical bravado make you foolish, Anita."
   I smiled and knew it wasn't pleasant. It was bitter and arrogant and angry. "My patience is all gone tonight, Traveler. Get out of her now, or . . ." I shoved the Browning into Fernando's groin. They were all huddled that close.
   Fernando's eyes widened, but he wasn't nearly as afraid as he should have been. I pressed the barrel in a little harder; makes most men back up. He gave a small grunt but leaned into me, face bending towards me. He was going to try and kiss me.
   I laughed. I laughed while his lips hovered over my mouth and the gun pressed into his body. It was the laughter, not the gun, that made him draw back.
   Hannah collapsed to her knees. The Traveler had gone. Someone needed to help her to the stairs. I thought of Willie and he came. He helped her to her feet without looking at me. I kept my eyes on the bad guys. One problem at a time.
   "Why are you laughing?" Fernando asked.
   "Because you are too fucking stupid to survive." I drew back from them, the gun still pointed at him. "Is he your only son?" I asked.
   "My only child," Padma said.
   "My condolences," I said. No, I didn't shoot him. But staring into Fernando's angry eyes, I knew there'd be other opportunities. Some people seek death through desperation. Some people fall into it out of stupidity. If Fernando wanted to fall, I was more than happy to catch him.
   
   
21
   Rafael lay on an examining table. We were not in the hospital. The lycanthropes had a makeshift emergency room in the basement of a building that they owned. I'd had my own wounds tended there once. Now Rafael lay on his stomach hooked up to an IV loaded with liquids and painkillers. Painkillers didn't always work well on lycanthropes but hey, they had to try something. He'd regained consciousness in the Jeep. He hadn't screamed, but the small squeezed whimperings that clawed from his throat every time I hit a bump were more than enough.
   Dr. Lillian was a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a no-nonsense style. She was also a wererat. She turned to me. "I've made him as comfortable as I can."
   "Will he heal?"
   She nodded. "Yes. The real danger with this type of injury once you survive the shock and blood loss is infection. We can't get infections."
   "Let's hear it for the terminally furry," I said.
   She smiled and patted my shoulder. "I know humor is your way of dealing with stress, but don't try it on Rafael tonight. He wants to speak with you."
   "Is he . . .?"
   "Well enough, no, but he is my king and he won't let me put him under until he's spoken with you. I'll go look in on our other patient while you hear whatever he thinks is so important."
   I touched her arm before she could move past me. "How is Sylvie?"
   Lillian wouldn't look at me, then finally she did. "Physically, she'll heal, but I'm not a therapist. I'm not equipped to deal with the aftereffects of an attack like this. I want her to stay here for the night, but she's insisting that she go with you."
   My eyes widened. "Why?"
   Lillian shrugged. "I think she feels safe with you. I think she doesn't feel safe here." The older woman was suddenly looking very intently at my face. "Is there a reason she shouldn't feel safe here?"
   I thought about that. "Have the wereleopards ever been treated here?"
   "Yes," she said.
   "Damn."
   "Why should that matter? This is a neutral place. We have all agreed to that."
   I shook my head. "For tonight you're safe, but anything that Elizabeth knew, the Master of Beasts knows. By tomorrow this may not be a safe haven."
   "Do you know that for sure?" she asked.
   "No, but I don't know for sure that you will be safe either."
   She nodded. "Very well. Take Sylvie with you, then, but Rafael must stay here at least for one night. I will make plans to move him by tomorrow." She looked around at all the medical equipment. "We can't take it all, but we'll do what we can. Now go talk to our king." She left the room.
   I was suddenly alone in the hush of the basement. I looked at Rafael. They'd arranged a sort of tent of a sheet over his body, covered but not touching. The naked skin was covered in salve but no bandages. Anything they could put on it would hurt worse than nothing. They were treating it sort of like a burn. I didn't know everything they'd done to treat him because I'd been off getting my hand stitched up part of the time.
   I walked around the table so that Rafael wouldn't have to move his head to look at me. Moving was bad. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was fast and ragged. He wasn't asleep.
   "Lillian said you wanted to talk to me."
   He blinked and looked at me. His eyes rolled at an awkward angle. He tried to move his head, and a sound came from low in his chest. I'd never heard a sound quite like it. I didn't want to hear it again.
   "Don't move, please." I found a little stool with wheels on it and brought it over. With me sitting, we were nearly the same height. "You should let her pump you full of drugs. You need to sleep if you can."
   "First," he said, "I must know how you freed me." He took a deeper breath, and the pain passed over his face in a flinching wave.
   I looked away, then back. No flinching. "I bargained for you."
   "What . . ." His hands spasmed, and he closed his full lips into a tight-pressed line. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, more careful, as if even a normal speaking voice hurt. "What did you give up for me?"
   "Nothing."
   "He would not . . . have given me up so easily." Rafael stared at me, his dark eyes willing me to tell him the truth. He thought I was lying, that was why he couldn't rest. He thought I'd done something noble and awful to save him.
   I sighed and told him a very abbreviated version of the night. It was the easiest way to explain. "See, it didn't cost any extra to throw you in."
   He almost smiled. "The wererats will remember what you did tonight, Anita. I will remember."
   "Maybe we don't go shopping together or even out to the shooting range, but you are my friend, Rafael. I know that if I called you for help, you'd come."
   "Yes," he said. "Yes, I would."
   I smiled at him. "I'll go get Lillian now, okay?"
   He closed his eyes and some piece of tension flowed out of him. It was almost as if now he could finally give himself over to the pain. "Yes, yes."
   I sent Lillian into him and went to find Sylvie. She was in a small room where Lillian had hoped she could get some sleep. Sylvie had been joined by her lady friend, significant other, lover, whatever. Jason had called her. I hadn't known she existed. Gwen's voice came very clearly down the hallway. "You have to tell her, Sylvie, you have to."
   I couldn't hear Sylvie's answer, but then the high heels weren't quiet. They knew I was coming. I stepped in through the open door to find Gwen looking at me, and Sylvie decidedly not. The white pillow framed her very short, very curly brown hair. She was three inches taller than me but managed to look fragile in the small bed.
   Gwen sat in a straight-backed chair beside the bed, holding Sylvie's hand in both of her own. Gwen had long softly waving blond hair and big brown eyes in a delicate face. Everything about her was dainty, feminine, like a pale, finely made doll. But the intensity in her face, the intelligence in her eyes, was a vibrating thing. Gwen was a psychologist. She would have been a compelling person even without the trickle of lycanthropic energy that trailed around her like perfume.
   "What do you need to tell me?" I said.
   "How do you know I was referring to you?" Gwen said.
   "Call it a hunch."
   She patted Sylvie's hand. "Tell her."
   Sylvie turned her head but still wouldn't meet my eyes. I leaned against the wall and waited. The machine gun pressed into the small of my back, forcing me to lean mostly shoulders against the cinderblock wall. Why hadn't I taken some of the weapons off? Lay a gun down somewhere, and that's when you'll need it most. I trusted the Traveler to keep his word, but not enough to bet my life on it.
   Silence spilled into the small room until the whirr of the air conditioner was as loud as the blood in your own ears. Sylvie finally looked at me. "The Master of Beasts ordered Stephen's brother to rape me." She looked down, then up again, anger spilling into her eyes. "Gregory refused."
   I didn't bother to hide the surprise on my face. "I thought Gregory was one of the stars of Raina's porno films."
   "He was," Sylvie said softly.
   What I wanted to ask was, when did he get to be squeamish? but that seemed crude. "Did he suddenly grow a conscience?" I asked.
   "I don't know." She was staring at the sheet, holding onto Gwen's hands like there was worse to come. "He refused to help torture me. The Master of Beasts said he'd punish him. Gregory still refused. He said that Zane had told him that Anita was their new alpha. That all bargains made through Elizabeth weren't binding. That he needed to deal with you for them."
   Sylvie withdrew her hand from Gwen's and stared up at me. Her brown eyes were furious, but it wasn't me she was angry with. "You can't be their leader and our lupa. You can't be both. He was lying."
   I sighed. "Afraid not."
   "But, how . . . "
   "Look, it's late, and we're all tired. Let's just do the short version. I killed Gabriel, technically that makes me the wereleopards' leader. Zane acknowledged me after I put a couple of non-silver bullets in him."
   "Why didn't you kill him?" Sylvie asked.
   "It's sort of my fault. I didn't understand what leaving them without a leader would mean. Someone should have told me that they were meat for anybody with out a leader."
   "I wanted them to suffer," Sylvie said.
   "I was told you wanted them all dead, that if you had your way, the pack would have hunted them down and killed them all."
   "Yes," she said, "yes. I want them all dead."
   "I know they helped punish you and other pack members."
   She shook her head, hands in front of her eyes. It took me a second to realize she was crying. "You don't understand. There's a film of me out there. A film of the leopards raping me." She brought her hands down and stared at me with tear-filled eyes. The rage and pain in her face was raw. "I was outspoken against Raina and Marcus. It was my punishment. Raina wanted to make an example of me for the others. It worked, too. Everyone was scared after that."
   I opened my mouth; closed it, then said, "I didn't realize."
   "Now do you see why I want them dead?"
   "Yes," I said.
   "Gregory had raped me once. Why wouldn't he do it again? Why did he refuse to hurt me tonight?"
   "If he really believes that I'm his leader, then he knows what I'd do to him."
   "Did you mean it in the room? Did you mean it about us killing them all?"
   "Oh, yeah," I said, "I meant it."
   "Then Gregory was right."
   I frowned at her. "What do you mean?"
   "He said you were their leoparde lionne,their rampant leopard."
   "I don't know the term," I said.
   Gwen answered. "Leoparde lionneis a term from French heraldry. It's a leopard, or even a lion, rampant in action on a crest. It symbolizes brave and generous warriors having done some brave deed. In this case it means a protector, even an avenger. Gabriel was a lion passant,a sleeping lion. He led but did not protect. In effect, Gregory did not merely refuse to harm Sylvie, he also told the Master of Beasts that if he was harmed, you would save him."
   "How can I be their leopardewhat-you-call-it if I'm not a leopard?"
   "Leoparde lionne," Sylvie said. "How can you be lupa and neither be wolf nor our Ulfric's lover?"
   She had me there.
   Fresh tears streamed down Sylvie's face. "Padma tried to get Vivian, his personal pet while he's here, to do things to me. Said I liked women, and maybe that would loosen my tongue. She refused, and she gave the same reason that Gregory did."
   I remembered Vivian staring at me, her frightened eyes pleading for me to help her. "Shit, you mean she really expected me to rescue her tonight."
   Sylvie just nodded. Gwen said, "Yes."
   "Shit."
   "I honestly didn't think of it until after we were in the Jeep. I swear I didn't think of it sooner," Sylvie said. "But I didn't say anything, because I wanted them to suffer. I can't stop hating them just like that. Do you understand?"
   I did. "Sylvie, you and I have one thing in common. We are both vindictive as hell. So, yeah, I understand, but we can't leave them there like that, not if they were expecting to be saved."
   She wiped at the tears. "You can't go up against them tonight. We can't do anymore tonight."
   "I'm not planning to fight anymore tonight, Sylvie."
   "But you're planning something." She sounded worried.
   I smiled. "Yeah."
   Gwen stood. "Don't be foolish, Anita."
   I shook my head. "Foolish. I'm way past foolish." I stopped in the doorway and turned back. "By the way, Sylvie, don't challenge Richard, ever."
   Her eyes widened. "How did you know?"
   I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is that I'll kill you if you kill him."
   "It would be a fair fight."
   "I don't care."
   "You haven't seen him, Anita. He's on the edge. You can forbid me from challenging him, but there are others, and they won't be nearly as good for the pack as I am."
   "Then make it carte blanche," I said. "If anyone kills Richard, I'll execute them. No challenge, no fair fight, I'll just take them out."
   "You can't do that," Sylvie said.
   "Oh, I think I can. I'm lupa, remember."
   "If you forbid fights of succession," Gwen said, "you're undermining Richard. You're saying in effect that you don't believe he can really lead the pack."
   "I've been told by two pack members today that Richard is out of control, damn near suicidal. That he's pulled his self-hatred, his loathing of his beast, and my rejection, down around his ears. I won't let him die because I chose someone else. In a few months when he's healthier, then I'll step down. I'll let him take care of himself, but not right now."
   "I'll pass the word," Gwen said.
   "You do that."
   "You're going to try and bring out the leopards tonight, aren't you?" Sylvie said.
   I kept seeing the bruises on Vivian's body. The pleading in her eyes. "They expected me to save them, and I didn't."
   "You didn't know," Gwen said.
   "I know now," I said.
   "You can't save everyone," Sylvie said.
   "Everyone needs a hobby." I started to walk out again, but Gwen called me back.
   I turned in the doorway.
   "Tell her the rest," Gwen said softly.
   Sylvie wouldn't look at me. She spoke staring down at the sheet. "When Vivian refused to hurt me, they called in Liv." She looked up, tears glittering in her eyes. "She used things on me. Did things to me." Sylvie covered her face with her hands and rolled onto her side, crying.
   Gwen met my eyes. The look on her face was frightening in its hatred. "You need to know who to kill."
   I nodded. "She won't leave St. Louis alive."
   "And the other one? The council member's son?" Gwen asked.
   "Him either," I said.
   "Promise it," she said.
   "I already have," I said. I walked out then, searching for a phone. I wanted to talk to Jean-Claude before I did anything. Jean-Claude had taken everyone else to my house. They were boarding up the basement windows so that the vamps could be tucked safely away before dawn. The Traveler had refused to let them take their coffins. Besides, have you ever tried to rent a truck on a weekend after midnight?
   What was I going to do about the wereleopards? Damned if I knew.