4
   I was swimming in black water, strong smooth strokes. The moon hung huge and shining, making a silver pathway on the lake. There was a black fringe of trees. I was almost to shore. The water was so warm, warm as blood. In that moment I knew why the waters were black. It was blood. I was swimming in a lake of fresh, warm blood.
   I woke instantly, gasping for breath. Eyes searching the darkness for . . . what? Something that had caressed my leg just before I woke. Something that lived in blood and darkness.
   The phone shrilled, and I had to swallow a scream. I wasn't usually this nervous. It was just a nightmare, dammit. Just a dream.
   I fumbled for the receiver and managed, "Yeah."
   "Anita?" The voice sounded hesitant, as if its owner might hang up.
   "Who is this?"
   "It's Willie, Willie McCoy." Even as he said the name, the rhythm of the voice sounded familiar. The phone made it distant and charged with an electric hiss, but I recognized it.
   "Willie, how are you?" The minute I said it, I wished I hadn't. Willie was a vampire now; how okay could a dead man be?
   "I'm doing real well." His voice had a happy lilt to it. He was pleased that I asked.
   I sighed. Truth was, I liked Willie. I wasn't supposed to like vampires. Any vampire, not even if I'd known him when he was alive.
   "How ya doing yourself?"
   "Okay, what's up?"
   "Jean-Claude got your message. He says ta meet him at the Circus of the Damned at eight o'clock tonight."
   "The Circus? What's he doing over there?"
   "He owns it now. Ya didn't know?"
   I shook my head, realized he couldn't see it, and said, "No, I didn't."
   "He says to meet 'im in a show that starts at eight."
   "Which show?"
   "He said you'd know which one."
   "Well, isn't that cryptic," I said.
   "Hey, Anita, I just do what I'm told. Ya know how it is?"
   I did know. Jean-Claude owned Willie lock, stock, and soul. "It's okay, Willie, it's not your fault."
   "Thanks, Anita." His voice sounded cheerful, like a puppy who expected a kick and got patted instead.
   Why had I comforted him? Why did I care whether a vampire got its feelings hurt, or not? Answer: I didn't think of him as a dead man. He was still Willie McCoy with his penchant for loud primary-colored suits, clashing ties, and small, nervous hands. Being dead hadn't changed him that much. I wished it had.
   "Tell Jean-Claude I'll be there."
   "I will." He was quiet for a minute, his breath soft over the phone. "Watch your back tonight, Anita."
   "Do you know something I should know?"
   "No, but . . . I don't know."
   "What's up, Willie?"
   "Nuthin', nuthin'." His voice was high and frightened.
   "Am I walking into a trap, Willie?"
   "No, no, nuthin' like that." I could almost see his small hands waving in the air. "I swear, Anita, nobody's gunnin' for you."
   I let that go. Nobody he knew of was all he could swear to. "Then what are you afraid of, Willie?"
   "It's just that there's more vampires around here than usual. Some of em ain't too careful who they hurt. That's all."
   "Why are there more vampires, Willie? Where did they come from?"
   "I don't know and I don't want to know, ya know? I got ta go, Anita." He hung up before I could ask anything else. There had been real fear in his voice. Fear for me, or for himself? Maybe both.
   I glanced at the radio clock on my bedstand: 6:35. I had to hurry if I was going to make the appointment. The covers were toasty warm over my legs. All I really wanted to do was cuddle back under the blankets, maybe with a certain stuffed toy penguin I knew. Yeah, hiding sounded good.
   I threw back the covers and walked into the bathroom. I hit the light switch, and glowing white light filled the small room. My hair stuck up in all directions, a mass of tight black curls. That'd teach me not to sleep on it wet. I ran a brush through the curls and they loosened slightly, turning into a frothing mass of waves. The curls went all over the place and there wasn't a damn thing I could do with it except wash it and start over. There wasn't time for that.
   The black hair made my pale skin look deathly, or maybe it was the overhead lighting. My eyes were so dark brown they looked black. Two glittering holes in the pastiness of my face. I looked like I felt; great.
   What do you wear to meet the Master of the City? I chose black jeans, a black sweater with bright geometric designs, black Nikes with blue swooshes, and a blue-and-black sport bag clipped around my waist. Color coordination at its best.
   The Browning went into its shoulder holster. I put an extra ammo clip in the sport bag along with credit cards, driver's license, money, and a small hairbrush. I slipped on the short leather jacket I'd bought last year. It was the first one I'd ever tried on that didn't make me took like a gorilla. Most leather jackets were so long-sleeved, I could never wear them. The jacket was black, so Bert wouldn't let me wear it to work.
   I only zipped the jacket halfway up, leaving room so I could go for my gun if I needed to. The silver cross swung on its long chain, a warm, solid weight between my breasts. The cross would be more help against vampires than the gun, even with silver-coated bullets.
   I hesitated at the door. I hadn't seen Jean-Claude in months. I didn't want to see him now. My dream came back to me. Something that lived in blood and darkness. Why the nightmare? Was it Jean-Claude interfering in my dreams again? He had promised to stay out of my dreams. But was his word worth anything? No answer to that.
   I flicked off the apartment lights and closed the door behind me. I rattled it to make sure it was locked, and I had nothing left to do but drive to the Circus of the Damned. No more excuses. No more delays. My stomach was so tight it hurt. So I was afraid; so what? I had to go, and the sooner I left, the sooner I could come home. If only I believed that Jean-Claude would make things that simple. Nothing was ever simple where he was concerned. If I learned anything about the murders tonight, I'd pay for it, but not in money. Jean-Claude seemed to have plenty of that. No, his coin was more painful, more intimate, more bloody.
   And I had volunteered to go see him. Stupid, Anita, very stupid.
   
   

5
   There was a bouquet of spotlights on the top of the Circus of the Damned. The lights slashed the black night like swords. The multicolored lights that spelled the name seemed dimmer with the huge white lights whirling overhead. Demonic clowns danced around the sign in frozen pantomime.
   I walked past the huge cloth signs that covered the walls. One picture showed a man that had no skin; See the Skinless Man. A movie version of a voodoo ceremony covered another banner. Zombies writhed from open graves. The zombie banner had changed since last I'd visited the Circus. I didn't know if that was good or bad; probably neither. I didn't give a damn what they did here, except . . . Except it wasn't right to raise the dead just for entertainment.
   Who did they have raising zombies for them? I knew it had to be someone new because I had helped kill their last animator. He had been a serial killer and had nearly killed me twice, the second time by ghoul attack, which was a messy way to die. Of course, the way he died had been messy, too, but I wasn't the one who ripped him open. A vampire had done that. You might say I eased him on his way. A mercy killing. Ri-ight.
   It was too cold to be standing outside with my jacket half-unzipped. But if I zipped it all the way, I'd never get to my gun in time. Freeze my butt off, or be able to defend myself. The clowns on the roof had fangs. I decided it wasn't that cold after all.
   Heat and noise poured out to meet me at the door. Hundreds of bodies pressed together in an enclosed space. The noise of the crowd was like the ocean, murmurous and large, sound without meaning. A crowd is an elemental thing. A word, a glance, and a crowd becomes a mob. A different being entirely from a group.
   There were a lot of families. Mom, Dad, the kiddies. The children had balloons tied to their wrists and cotton candy smeared on their faces and hands. It smelled like a traveling carnival: corn dogs, the cinnamon smell of funnel cakes, snow cones, sweat. The only thing missing was the dust. There was always dust in the air at a summer fair. Dry, choking dust kicked into the air by hundreds of feet. Cars driving over the grass until it is grey-coated with dust.
   There was no smell of dirt in the air, but there was something else just as singular. The smell of blood. So faint you'd almost think you dreamed it, but it was there. The sweet copper scent of blood mingled with the smells of cooking food and the sharp smell of a snow cone being made. Who needed dust?
   I was hungry, and the corn dogs smelled good. Should I eat first or accuse the Master of the City of murder? Choices, choices.
   I didn't get to decide. A man stepped out of the crowd. He was only a little taller than me, with curly blond hair that fell past his shoulders. He was wearing a cornflower-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing firm, muscular forearms. Jeans no tighter than the skin on a grape showed slender hips. He wore black cowboy boots with blue designs tooled into them. His true-blue eyes matched his shirt.
   He smiled, flashing small white teeth. "You're Anita Blake, right?"
   I didn't know what to say. It isn't always a good idea to admit who you are.
   "Jean-Claude told me to wait for you." His voice was soft, hesitant. There was something about him, an almost childlike appeal. Besides I'm a sucker for a pair of pretty eyes.
   "What's your name?" I asked. Always like to know who I'm dealing with.
   His smile widened. "Stephen; my name is Stephen." He put out his hand, and I took it. His hand was soft but firm, no manual labor but some weightlifting. Not too much. Enough to firm, not explode. Men my size should not do serious weightlifting. It may look okay in a bathing suit, but in regular clothes you took like a deformed dwarf.
   "Follow me, please." He sounded like a waiter, but when he walked into the crowd, I followed him.
   He led the way towards a huge blue tent. It was like an old-fashioned circus tent. I'd only seen one in pictures or the movies.
   There was a man in a striped coat yelling, "Almost showtime, folks! Present your tickets and come inside! See the world's largest cobra! Watch the fearsome serpent be taken through amazing feats by the beautiful snake charmer Shahar. We guarantee it will be a show you will never forget."
   There was a line of people giving their tickets to a young woman. She tore them in half and handed back the stubs.
   Stephen walked confidently along the line without waiting. We got some dirty looks, but the girl nodded to us. And in we went.
   Tiers of bleachers ran up to the top of the tent. It was huge. Nearly all the seats were full. A sold-out show. Wowee.
   There was a blue rail that formed a circle in the middle. A one-ring circus.
   Stephen scooted past the knees of about a dozen people to a set of steps. Since we were at the bottom, up was the only way to go. I followed Stephen up the concrete stairs. The tent may have looked like a circus tent, but the bleachers and stairs were permanent. A mini-coliseum.
   I have bad knees, which means that I can run on a flat surface but put me on a hill, or stairs. and it hurts. So I didn't try to keep up with Stephen's smooth, running glide. I did watch the way his jeans fit his snug little behind, though. Looking for clues.
   I unzipped the leather jacket but didn't take it off. My gun would show. Sweat glided down my spine. I was going to melt.
   Stephen glanced over his shoulder to see if I was following, or maybe for encouragement. He flashed a smile that was just lips curling back from teeth, almost a snarl.
   I stopped in the middle of the steps, watching his lithe form glide upward. There was an energy to Stephen as if the air boiled invisibly around him. A shapeshifter. Some lycanthropes are better than others at hiding what they are. Stephen wasn't that good. Or maybe he just didn't care if I knew. Possible.
   Lycanthropy was a disease, like AIDS. It was prejudice to mistrust someone for an accident. Most people survived attacks to become shapeshifters. It wasn't a choice. So why didn't I like Stephen as well, now that I knew? Prejudiced, moi?
   He waited at the top of the stairs, still pretty as a picture, but the air of energy contained in too small a space, like his motor was on high idle, shimmered around him. What was Jean-Claude doing with a shapeshifter on his payroll? Maybe I could ask him.
   I stepped up beside Stephen. There must have been something in my face, because he said, "What's wrong?"
   I shook my head. "Nothing."
   I don't think he believed me. But he smiled and led me towards a booth that was mostly glass with heavy curtains on the inside hiding whatever lay behind. It looked for all the world like a miniature broadcast booth.
   Stephen went to the curtained door and opened it. He held it for me, motioning me to go first.
   "No, you first," I said.
   "I'm being a gentleman here," he said.
   "I don't need or want doors opened for me. I'm quite capable, thank you."
   "A feminist, my, my."
   Truthfully, I just didn't want ol' Stephen at my back. But if he wanted to think I was a hard-core feminist, let him. It was closer to the truth than a lot of things.
   He walked through the door. I glanced back to the ring. It looked smaller from up here. Muscular men dressed in glittering loincloths pulled a cart in on their bare shoulders. There were two things in the cart: a huge woven basket and a dark-skinned woman. She was dressed in Hollywood's version of a dancing girl's outfit. Her thick black hair fell like a cloak, sweeping to her ankles. Slender arms, small, dark hands swept the air in graceful curves. She danced in front of the cart. The costume was fake, but she wasn't. She knew how to dance, not for seduction, though it was that, but for power. Dancing was originally an invocation to some god or other; most people forget that.
   Goosebumps prickled up the back of my neck, creeping into my hair. I shivered while I stood there and sweated in the heat. What was in the basket? The barker outside had said a giant cobra, but there was no snake in the world that needed a basket that big. Not even the anaconda, the world's heaviest snake, needed a container over ten feet tall and twenty feet wide.
   Something touched my shoulder. I jumped and spun. Stephen was standing nearly touching me, smiling.
   I swallowed my pulse back into my throat and glared at him. I make a big deal about not wanting him at my back, then let him sneak up behind me. Real swift, Anita, real swift. Because he'd scared me, I was mad at him. Illogical, but it was better to be mad than scared.
   "Jean-Claude's just inside," he said. He smiled, but there was a very human glint of laughter in his blue eyes.
   I scowled at him, knowing I was being childish, and not caring. "After you, fur-face."
   The laughter slipped away. He was very serious as he stared at me. "How did you know?" His voice was uncertain, fragile. A lot of lycanthropes pride themselves on being able to pass for human.
   "It was easy," I said. Which wasn't entirely true, but I wanted to hurt him. Childish, unattractive, honest.
   His face suddenly looked very young. His eyes filled with uncertainty and pain.
   Shit.
   "Look, I've spent a lot of time around shapeshifters. I just know what to look for, okay?" Why did I want to reassure him? Because I knew what it was like to be the outsider. Raising the dead makes a lot of people class me with the monsters. There are even days when I agree with them.
   He was still staring at me, with his hurt feelings like an open wound in his eyes. If he started to cry, I was leaving.
   He turned without another word and walked through the open door. I stared at the door for a minute. There were gasps, screams from the crowd. I whirled and saw it. It was a snake, but it wasn't just the world's biggest cobra, it was the biggest freaking snake I'd ever seen. Its body was banded in dull greyish black and off-white. The scales gleamed under the lights. The head was at least a foot and a half wide. No snake was that big. It flared its hood, and it was the size of a satellite dish. The snake hissed, flicking out a tongue that was like a black whip.
   I'd had a semester of herpetology in college. If the snake had been a mere eight feet or less, I would have called it a banded Egyptian cobra. I couldn't remember the scientific name to save myself.
   The woman dropped to the ground in front of the snake, forehead to the ground. A mark of obedience from her to the snake. To her god. Sweet Jesus.
   The woman stood and began to dance, and the cobra watched her. She'd made herself a living flute for the nearsighted creature to follow. I didn't want to see what would happen if she messed up. The poison wouldn't have time to kill her. The fangs were so damn big they'd spear her like swords. She'd die of shock and blood loss long before the poison kicked in.
   Something was growing in the middle of that ring. Magic crawled up my spine. Was it magic that kept the snake safe, or magic that called it up, or was it the snake itself? Did it have power all its own? I didn't even know what to call it. It looked like a cobra, perhaps the world's biggest, yet I didn't even have a word for it. God with a little "g" would do, but it wasn't accurate.
   I shook my head and turned away. I didn't want to see the show. I didn't want to stand there with its magic flowing soft and cold over my skin. If the snake wasn't safe, Jean-Claude would have had it caged, right? Right.
   I turned away from the snake charmer and the world's biggest cobra. I wanted to talk to Jean-Claude and get the hell out of here.
   The open door was filled with darkness. Vampires didn't need lights. Did lycanthropes? I didn't know. Gee, so much to learn. My jacket was unzipped all the way, the better for a fast draw. Though truthfully, if I needed a fast draw tonight, I was in deep shit.
   I took a deep breath and let it out. No sense putting it off. I walked through the door into the waiting darkness without looking back. I didn't want to see what was happening in the ring. Truth was, I didn't want to see what was behind the darkness. Was there another choice? Probably not.
   
   

6
   The room was like a closet with drapes all the way around. There was no one in the curtained darkness but me. Where had Stephen gone? If he had been a vampire, I would have believed the vanishing act, but lycanthropes don't just turn into thin air. So, there had to be a second door.
   If I had built this room, where would I put an inner door? Answer: opposite the first door. I swept the drapes aside. The door was there. Elementary, my dear Watson.
   The door was heavy wood with some flowering vine carved into it. The doorknob was white with tiny pink flowers in the center of it. It was an awfully feminine door. Of course, no rules against men liking flowers. None at all. It was a sexist comment. Forget I thought it.
   I did not draw my gun. See, I'm not completely paranoid.
   I turned the doorknob and swung the door inward. I kept pushing until it was flush against the wall. No one was hiding behind it. Good.
   The wallpaper was off-white with thin silver, gold, and copper designs running through it. The effect was vaguely oriental. The carpeting was black. I didn't even know carpet came in that color. A canopy bed took up most of one side of the room. Black, gauzy curtains covered it. Made the bed indistinct, misty, like a dream. There was someone asleep in a nest of black covers and crimson sheets. A line of bare chest showed it was a man, but a wave of brown hair covered his face like a shroud. It all looked faintly unreal, as if he was waiting for movie cameras to roll.
   A black couch was against the far wall, with blood-red pillows thrown along it. A matching love seat was against the last wall. Stephen was curled up on the love seat. Jean-Claude sat on one corner of the couch. He wore black jeans tucked into knee-high leather boots, dyed a deep, almost velvet black. His shirt had a high lace collar pinned at the neck by a thumb-size ruby pendant. His black hair was just long enough to curl around the lace.
   The sleeves were loose and billowing, tight at the wrists with lace spilling over his hands until only his fingertips showed.
   "Where do you get your shirts?" I asked.
   He smiled. "Don't you like it?" His hands caressed down his chest, fingertips hesitating over his nipples. It was an invitation. I could touch that smooth white cloth and see if the lace was as soft as it looked.
   I shook my head. Mustn't get distracted. I glanced at Jean-Claude. He was staring at me with those midnight blue eyes. His eyelashes were like black lace.
   "She wants you, Master," Stephen said. There was laughter in his voice, derision. "I can smell her desire."
   Jean-Claude turned just his head, staring at Stephen. "As can I." The words were innocent, but the feeling behind them wasn't. His voice slithered around the room, low and full of a terrible promise.
   "I meant no harm, Master, no harm." Stephen looked scared. I didn't blame him.
   Jean-Claude turned back to me as if nothing had happened. His face was still pleasantly handsome, interested, amused.
   "I don't need your protection."
   "Oh, I think you do."
   I whirled and found another vampire standing at my back. I hadn't heard the door open.
   She smiled at me, without flashing fang. A trick that the older vampires learn. She was tall and slender with dark skin and long ebony hair that swung around her waist. She wore crimson Lycra bike pants that clung so tight, you knew she wasn't wearing underwear. Her top was red silk, loose and blousy, with thin spaghetti straps holding it in place. It looked like the top to slinky pajamas. Red high-heeled sandals and a thin gold chain set with a single diamond completed the outfit. The word that came to mind was "exotic." She glided towards me, smiling.
   "Is that a threat?" I asked.
   She stopped in front of me. "Not yet." There was a hint of some other language in her voice. Something darker with rolling, sibilant sounds.
   "That is enough," Jean-Claude said.
   The dark lady twirled around, black hair like a veil behind her. "I don't think so."
   "Yasmeen." The one word was low and dark with warning.
   Yasmeen laughed, a harsh sound like breaking glass. She stopped directly in front of me, blocking my view of Jean-Claude. Her hand stretched towards me, and I stepped back, out of reach.
   She smiled wide enough to show fangs and reached for me again. I stepped back, and she was suddenly on me, faster than I could blink, faster than I could breathe. Her hand gripped my hair, bending my neck backwards. Her fingertips brushed my skull. Her other hand held my chin, fingers digging in like fleshy metal. My face was immobile between her hands, trapped.
   Short of taking my gun out and shooting her, there was nothing I could do. And if her movement was any clue, I'd never get the gun out in time.
   "I see why you like her. So pretty, so delicate." She half-turned towards Jean-Claude, nearly giving me her back, but still holding my head immobile.
   "I never thought you'd take in a human." She made it sound like I was a stray puppy.
   Yasmeen turned back to me. I pressed my 9mm into her chest. No matter how fast she was, she would be hurt if I wanted it. I can feel how old a vampire is inside my head. It's part natural ability, and part practice. Yasmeen was old, older than Jean-Claude. I was betting she was over five hundred. If she had been the new dead, high-tech ammo at point-blank range would have shredded her heart, killed her. But over five hundred and a master vampire, it might not kill her. Or then again, it might.
   Something flickered over her face; surprise, and maybe just a touch of fear. Her body was statue-still. If she was breathing, I couldn't tell.
   My voice sounded strained from the angle she held my neck, but the words were clear. "Very slowly, take your hands away from my face. Put both hands on top of your head and lace your fingers together."
   "Jean-Claude, call off your human."
   "I'd do what she says, Yasmeen." His voice was pleased. "How many vampires have you killed now, Anita?"
   "Eighteen."
   Yasmeen's eyes widened just a bit. "I don't believe you."
   "Believe this, bitch: I'll pull this trigger and you can kiss your heart good-bye."
   "Bullets cannot harm me."
   "Silver-plated can. Move off me, now!"
   Yasmeen's hand slid away from my hair and jaw.
   "Slowly," I said.
   She did what I asked. She stood in front of me with her long-fingered hands clasped across her head. I stepped away from her, gun still pointed at her chest.
   "Now what?" Yasmeen asked. A smile still curled her lips. Her dark eyes were amused. I didn't like being laughed at, but when tangling with master vampires you let some things slide.
   "You can put your hands down," I said.
   Yasmeen did, but she continued to stare at me as if I'd sprouted a second head. "Where did you find her, Jean-Claude? The kitten has teeth."
   "Tell Yasmeen what the vampires call you, Anita."
   It sounded too much like an order, but this didn't seem the time to bitch at him. "The Executioner."
   Yasmeen's eyes widened; then she smiled, flashing a lot of fang. "I thought you'd be taller."
   "It disappoints me, too, sometimes," I said.
   Yasmeen threw back her head and laughed, wild and brittle, with an edge of hysteria. "I like her, Jean-Claude. She's dangerous, like sleeping with a lion."
   She glided towards me. I had the gun up and pointed at her. It didn't even slow her down.
   "Jean-Claude, tell her I will shoot her if she doesn't back off."
   "I promise not to hurt you, Anita. I will be oh so gentle." She swayed over to me, and I wasn't sure what to do. She was playing with me, sadistic but probably not deadly. Could I shoot her for being a pain in the ass? I didn't think so.
   "I can taste the heat of your blood, the warmth of your skin on the air like perfume." Her gliding, hip-swinging walk brought her right in front of me. I pointed the gun at her, and she laughed. She pressed her chest against the tip of my gun.
   "So soft, wet, but strong." I wasn't sure who she was talking about, her or me. Neither option sounded pleasant. She rubbed her small breasts against the gun, her nipples caressing the gun barrel. "Dainty, but dangerous." The last word was a whispered hiss that flowed over my skin like ice water. She was the first master I'd ever met who had some of Jean-Claude's voice tricks.
   I could see her nipples hardening through the thin material of her shirt. Yikes. I pointed the gun at the floor and stepped away from her. "Jesus, are all vampires over two hundred perverts?"
   "I am over two hundred," Jean-Claude said.
   "I rest my case."
   Yasmeen let a warm trickle of laughter spill out of her mouth. The sound caressed my skin like a warm wind. She stalked towards me. I backed up until I hit the wall. She put a hand on either side of the wall near my shoulders and began to lean in like she was doing a pushup. "I'd like to taste her myself."
   I shoved the gun into her ribs, too low for her to rub herself against it. "Nobody lays a fang on me," I said.
   "Tough girl." She leaned her face over me, lips brushing my forehead. "I like tough girls."
   "Jean-Claude, do something with her before one of us gets killed."
   Yasmeen pushed away from me, elbows locked, as far away as she could get without moving her hands. Her tongue flicked over her lips, a hint of fang, but mostly wet lips. She leaned back into me, lips half-parted, but she wasn't going for my neck. She was definitely going for my mouth. She didn't want to tasteme, she wanted to taste me. I couldn't shoot her, not if she just wanted to kiss me. If she'd been a man, I wouldn't have shot her.
   Her hair fell forward over my hands, soft like thick silk. Her face was all I could see. Her eyes were a perfect blackness. Her lips hovered just above my mouth. Her breath was warm, and smelled of breath mints, but under the modern smell was something older: the sweet foulness of blood.
   "Your breath smells like old blood," I whispered into her mouth.
   She whispered back, lips barely caressing my mouth, "I know." Her lips pressed into mine, a gentle kiss. She smiled with our lips still touching.
   The door opened, nearly pinning us to the wall. Yasmeen stood up, but kept her hands around my shoulders. We both looked at the door. A woman with nearly white blond hair looked wildly around the room. Her blue eyes widened as she saw us. She screamed, high and wordless, rage-filled.
   "Get off of her!"
   I frowned up at Yasmeen. "Is she talking to me?"
   "Yes." Yasmeen looked amused.
   The woman did not. She ran towards us, hands outstretched, fingers curled into claws. Yasmeen caught her in a blurring moment of pure speed. The woman thrashed and struggled, her hands still reaching for me.
   "What the hell is going on?" I asked.
   "Marguerite is Yasmeen's human servant," Jean-Claude said. "She thinks you may steal Yasmeen away from her."
   "I don't want Yasmeen."
   Yasmeen shot me a took of pure anger. Had I hurt her feelings? I hoped so.
   "Marguerite, look; she's yours, all right?"
   The woman screamed at me, wordless and guttural. What might have been a pretty face was screwed up into something bestial. I'd never seen such instant rage. It was frightening even with a loaded gun in my hand.
   Yasmeen had to lift the woman off her feet, holding her struggling in mid-air. "I'm afraid, Jean-Claude, that Marguerite is not going to be satisfied unless she answers the challenge."
   "What challenge?" I asked.
   "You challenged her claim to me."
   "Did not," I said.
   Yasmeen smiled. The serpent must have smiled at Eve that way: pleasant, amused, dangerous.
   "Jean-Claude, I didn't come here for whatever the hell is going on. I don't want any vampire, let alone a female one," I said.
   "If you were my human servant, ma petite,there would be no challenge, because once one is bound to a master vampire, it is an unbreakable bond."
   "Then what is Marguerite worried about?"
   "That Yasmeen may take you as a lover. She does that from time to time to drive Marguerite into jealous rages. For some reason I do not understand, Yasmeen enjoys it."
   "Oh, yes, I do enjoy it." Yasmeen turned towards me with the woman still clasped in her arms. She was holding the struggling woman easily, no strain. Of course, vampires can bench press Toyotas. What was one medium-size human to that?
   "So what exactly does this mean to me personally?"
   Jean-Claude smiled, but there was an edge of tiredness to it. Was he bored? Or angry? Or just tired? "You must fight Marguerite. If you win, then Yasmeen is yours. If you lose, Yasmeen is Marguerite's."
   "Wait a minute," I said. "What sort of fight, pistols at dawn?"
   "No weapons," Yasmeen said. "My Marguerite is not skilled in weapons. I don't want her hurt."
   "Then stop tormenting her," I said.
   Yasmeen smiled. "It is part of the fun."
   "Sadistic bitch," I said.
   "Yes, I am."
   Jesus, some people you couldn't even insult. "So you want us to fight bare-handed over Yasmeen?" I couldn't believe I was even asking this question.
   "Yes, ma petite."
   I took a deep breath, looked at my gun, looked back at the screaming woman, then holstered my gun. "Is there any way out of this, besides fighting her?"
   "If you admit you are my human servant, then there will be no fight. There will be no need for one." Jean-Claude was watching me, studying my face. His eyes were very still.
   "You mean this was a setup," I said. The first warm rumblings of anger chased up my gut.
   "A setup, ma petite? I had no idea Yasmeen would find you so enticing."
   "Bullshit!"
   "Admit you are my human servant and all ends here."
   "And if I don't?"
   "Then you fight Marguerite."
   "Fine," I said. "Let's do it."
   "What would it cost you to admit what is true, Anita?" Jean-Claude asked.
   "I am not your human servant. I will never be your human servant. I wish you'd just accept that and leave me the fuck alone."
   He frowned. "Ma petite, such language."
   "Fuck off."
   He smiled then. "As you like, ma petite." He sat up on the edge of the couch, maybe so he could see better. "Yasmeen, any time you are ready."
   "Wait," I said. I took off my jacket and wasn't sure where to lay it.
   The man who had been sleeping on the black-canopied bed reached a hand through the black gauze. "I'll hold it for you," he said.
   I stared at him for a minute. He was naked from the waist up. His arms, stomach, chest showed signs of weightlifting, just enough, not too much. He either had a perfect tan or was naturally dark complected. Hair fell in a wavy mass around his shoulders. His eyes were brown and very human. That was nice to see.
   I handed him my jacket. He smiled, a quick flash of teeth that chased the last signs of sleep from his face. He sat up with the jacket in one hand, arms encircling his knees that were still hidden under the black and red covers. He laid his cheek on his knees and managed to look winsome.
   "Are you quite done, ma petite?" Jean-Claude's voice was amused, with an edge of laughter that wasn't humor at all. It was mockery. But whether he was mocking me or himself, I couldn't tell.
   "I'm ready, I guess," I said.
   "Put her down, Yasmeen. Let us see what happens."
   I heard Stephen say, "Twenty on Marguerite."
   Yasmeen said, "No fair. I can't bet against my own human servant."
   "I'll spot you both twenty that Ms. Blake wins." That came from the man in the bed. I had a second to glance at him, to see him smile at me; then Marguerite was coming.
   She slapped at my face, and I blocked it with my forearm. She fought like a girl, all open-handed slaps and fingernails. But she was fast, faster than a human. Maybe she got that from being a human servant, I don't know. Her fingernails raked down my face in a sharp, painful line. That was it: no more Ms. Nice Guy.
   I held her off with one hand. She dug her teeth into that hand. I hit her with my right fist as hard as I could, turning my body into it. It was a nice solid hit to the solar plexus.
   Marguerite stopped biting my hand and bent over, hands covering her stomach. She was gasping for breath. Good.
   My left hand had a bloody imprint of her teeth in it. I touched my left cheek and came away with more blood. Damn, that hurt.
   Marguerite knelt on the floor, relearning how to breathe. But she was staring up at me. The look in her blue eyes said the fight wasn't over. As soon as she got her breath back, she would start again.
   "Stay down, Marguerite, or I'll hurt you."
   She shook her head.
   "She can't give up, ma petite, or you win Yasmeen's body, if not her heart."
   "I don't want her body. I don't want anyone's body."
   "Now, that is simply not true, ma petite," Jean-Claude said.
   "Stop calling me ma petite."
   "You bear two of my marks, Anita. You are halfway to being my human servant. Admit that, and no one else need suffer tonight."
   "Yeah, right," I said.
   Marguerite was getting to her feet. I didn't want her on her feet. I moved in before she could stand, and foot-swept her legs out from under her. I forced her shoulders backwards at the same time, and I rode her down. I got her right arm in a joint lock. She tried to get up. I increased the pressure, and she lay back down.
   "Give up the fight."
   "No." It was only the second coherent thing I'd heard her utter.
   "I will break your arm."
   "Break it, break it! I don't care." Her face was wild, enraged. God. There was no way to reason with her. Great.
   Using the joint lock as a lever, I turned her over on her stomach, increasing the pressure to almost breaking, but not quite. Breaking her arm might not stop the fight. I wanted it over with.
   I used my leg and one arm to keep the joint lock on but knelt over her upper body, until my weight would keep her pinned. I took a handful of yellow hair and pulled her neck back. I released her arm and brought my right arm across her neck, with my elbow in front of her Adam's apple and the arm squeezing the arteries on both sides of her neck. I put my right hand on my left wrist and squeezed.
   She scratched at my face, but I buried my eyes in her back and she couldn't reach me. She was making small, helpless sounds because she didn't have enough air to make big ones.
   Her hands scratched at my right arm, but the sweater was thick. She pushed the sleeve up, exposing my bare arm, and began to shred the skin with her nails. I buried my face deeper into her back and squeezed until my arms shook and I was gritting my teeth. Everything I had was in that one arm, pressing into her slender throat.
   Her hands stopped scratching me. They beat against my arm like dying butterflies.
   It takes a long time to choke someone into unconsciousness. The movies make it look easy, quick, clean. It isn't easy, it isn't quick, and it sure as hell isn't clean. You can feel the pulse on either side of the neck pounding against your arm while you squeeze the life out of it. The person struggles a lot more than in the movies. And as far as choking someone to death, you better hold on for a long time after they stop moving.
   Marguerite went slowly limp, a body part at a time. When she was just dead weight in my arms, I let her go, slowly. She lay on the floor unmoving. I couldn't even see her breathe. Had I squeezed too long?
   I touched her neck and found the carotid pulse strong and even. Just out of it, not dead. Good.
   I stood and walked back towards the bed.
   Yasmeen went to her knees beside Marguerite's still form. "My love, my only one, has she hurt you?"
   "She's just unconscious," I said. "She'll come to in a few minutes."
   "If you had killed her, I would have torn your throat out."
   I shook my head. "Let's not start this shit again. I've had about all the grandstanding I can take for one night."
   The man in bed said, "You're bleeding."
   Blood was dripping down my right forearm. Marguerite may not have been able to do any real damage, but the scratches were deep enough that some of them might leave scars. Great; I already had a long, thin scar on the underside of my right arm from a knife. Even with the scratches, my right arm had fewer scars than my left. Work-related injuries.
   Blood was dripping down my arm rather steadily. The blood didn't show on the black carpeting. A good color if you planned to bleed much in a room.
   Yasmeen was helping Marguerite to her feet. The woman had recovered very quickly. Why? Because she was a human servant, of course. Sure.
   Yasmeen walked towards the bed, towards me. Her lovely face had thinned until the bones showed through. Her eyes were bright, almost feverish. "Fresh blood, and I haven't fed tonight."
   "Control yourself, Yasmeen."
   "You have not taught your servant good manners, Jean-Claude," Yasmeen said. She was looking very unkindly at me.
   "Leave her alone, Yasmeen." Jean-Claude was standing now.
   "Every servant must be tamed, Jean-Claude. You have let it go far too long."
   I looked over Yasmeen's shoulder at him. "Tamed?"
   "It is an unfortunate stage in the process," he said. His voice was neutral, as if he were talking about taming a horse.
   "Damn you." I pulled my gun. I held it two-handed in a teacup grip. Nobody was taming me tonight.
   Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone stand up on the other side of the bed. The man was still under the covers. It was a slender woman, her skin the color of coffee with cream. Her black hair was cut very close to her head. She was naked. Where the hell had she come from?
   Yasmeen was about a yard from me, tongue playing over her lips, fangs glistening in the overhead light.
   "I'll kill you, do you understand that, I'll kill you," I said.
   "You'll try."
   "Fun and games aren't worth dying for," I said.
   "After a few hundred years, that's all that is worth dying for."
   "Jean-Claude, unless you want to lose her, call her off!" My voice was higher than I wanted it to be, afraid.
   At this range the bullet should take out her entire chest. If it worked, there would be no resurrecting her as the undead; her heart would be gone. Of course, she was over five hundred years old. One shot might not do it. Lucky I had more than one bullet.
   I caught movement from the corner of my eye. I was half-turned towards it when something flattened me to the ground. The black woman was on top of me. I brought the gun around to fire, not giving a damn if she was human or not. But her hand grabbed my wrists, squeezing. She was going to crush my wrists.
   She snarled in my face, all teeth and a low growl. The sound should have had fur around it and pointy teeth. Human faces weren't supposed to look that way.
   The woman jerked the Browning out of my hands like taking candy from a baby. She held it wrong, like she didn't know which end of the gun went where.
   An arm came around her waist and pulled her backwards off me. It was the man on the bed. The woman turned on him, snarling.
   Yasmeen leapt for me. I scooted backwards, putting the wall at my back. She smiled. "Not so tough without your weapon, are you?"
   She was suddenly kneeling in front of me. I hadn't seen her come, not even a blur of motion. She appeared beside me like magic.
   She had her body up against my knees, pinning me to the wall. Yasmeen dug her fingers into my upper arms and jerked me towards her. Her strength was incredible. She made the black shapeshifter seem fragile.
   "Yasmeen, no!" It was Jean-Claude coming to my aid at last. But he was going to be too late. Yasmeen bared her teeth, raised her neck back for the strike, and I couldn't do a damn thing.
   She pulled me in tight against her, arms locked behind my back. If I'd been pressed any tighter I'd have come out on the other side.
   I screamed, "Jean-Claude!"
   Heat; something was burning inside my sweater, over my heart. Yasmeen hesitated. I felt her whole body shudder. What the hell was happening?
   A tongue of blue-white flame curled up between us. I screamed and Yasmeen echoed it. We screamed together as we burned.
   She fell away from me. Blue-white flame crawled over her shirt. Flames licked around a hole in my sweater. I shrugged out of the shoulder holster and pulled the burning sweater off.
   My cross still burned with an intense blue-white flame. I jerked the chain and it snapped. I dropped the cross to the carpet, where the flames smoldered, then died.
   There was a perfect cross-shaped burn on my chest, just above my breast, over the beat of my heart. The burn was covered in blisters already. A second-degree burn.
   Yasmeen had ripped her own blouse off. She had an identical burn, but lower down between her breasts because she was taller than I was.
   I knelt on the floor in just my bra and jeans. Tears were trailing down my face. I had a bigger cross-shaped burn scar on my left forearm. A vampire's human followers had branded me, thinking it was funny. They'd laughed right up to the minute I killed them.
   A burn is a bitch. Inch for inch, a burn hurts worse than any other injury.
   Jean-Claude stood in front of me. The cross glowed a white-hot light, no flames, but then he wasn't touching it. I looked up to find him shielding his eyes with his arm.
   "Put it away, ma petite. No one else will harm you tonight, I promise you that."
   "Why don't you just back off and let me decide what I'm going to do?"
   He sighed. "I was childish to let it get so far out of hand, Anita. Forgive me for my foolishness." It was hard to take the apology seriously while he cowered behind his arm, not daring to look at my glowing cross. But it was an apology. From Jean-Claude, that was a lot.
   I picked the cross up by its chain. I had broken the clasp getting it off. I'd need a new chain before it could go around my neck again. I picked my sweater up in my other hand. There was a melted hole bigger than my fist in it. Right over the chest area. The sweater was ruined. No help there. Where do you hide a glowing cross when you aren't wearing a shirt?
   The man in the bed handed my leather jacket to me. I met his eyes and saw in them concern, a little fear. His brown eyes were very close to me, and very human. It was comforting, and I wasn't even sure why.
   The shoulder holster was flopping down around my waist like suspenders. I shrugged back into the straps. They felt strange next to my bare skin.
   The man handed me my gun, butt first. The black shapeshifter stood on the other side of the bed, still naked, glaring at us. I didn't care how he'd gotten my gun from her. I was just glad to have it back.
   With the Browning in its holster, I felt safer, though I'd never tried wearing a shoulder holster over bare skin. I suspected it was going to chafe. Oh, well, nothing's perfect.
   The man held out a handful of Kleenex to me. The red sheets had slid down, exposing a long nude line of his body to about mid-thigh. The sheet was perilously close to failing off him all together. "Your arm," he said.
   I stared down at my right arm. It was still bleeding a little. It hurt so much less than the burn, I had forgotten about it.
   I took the Kleenex and wondered what he was doing here. Had he been having sex with the naked woman, the shapeshifter? I hadn't seen her in the bed. Had she been hiding under it?
   I cleaned up my arm as best I could; didn't want to bleed too heavily on the leather jacket. I slipped the jacket on, and put the stillglowing cross in my left pocket. Once it was hidden, the glow would stop. The only reason Yasmeen and I had gotten in trouble was that the sweater had a loose weave and her top had left a lot of bare flesh. Vampire flesh touching a blessed cross was always volatile.
   Jean-Claude stared down at me, now that the cross was safely hidden. "I am sorry, ma petite. I did not mean to frighten you tonight." He held one hand down towards me. The skin was paler than the white lace that covered it.
   I ignored his outstretched hand and used the bed to help me stand.
   He lowered his hand slowly. His dark blue eyes were very still, looking at me. "It never works as I want it to with you, Anita Blake. Why is that?"
   "Maybe you should take the hint, and leave me alone."
   He smiled, a bare movement of lips. "I'm afraid it is too late for that."
   "What's that supposed to mean?"
   The door swung open, banging against the wall and bouncing back. A man stood in the doorway, eyes wide, sweat running down his face. "Jean-Claude . . . the snake." He seemed to be having trouble breathing, as if he had run all the way up the stairs.
   "What about the snake?" Jean-Claude asked.
   The man swallowed, his breathing slowing. "It's gone crazy."
   "What happened?"
   The man shook his head. "I don't know. It attacked Shahar, its trainer. She's dead."
   "Is it in the crowd?"
   "Not yet."
   "We will have to finish this discussion later, ma petite." He moved for the door, and the rest of the vampires followed at his heels. Stephen went with them. Well trained.
   The slender black woman slipped a loose dress, black with red flowers on it, over her head. A pair of red high heels and she was out the door.
   The man was out of the bed, naked. There was no time to be embarrassed. He was struggling into a pair of sweats.
   This wasn't my problem, but what if the cobra got into the crowd? Not my problem. I zipped the jacket up enough to hide the fact I was shirtless but not so high up I couldn't draw my gun.
   I was out the door and into the bright open space of the tent before the nameless man had slipped on his sweat pants. The vampires and shapeshifters were at the edge of the ring, fanning out into a circle around the snake. It filled the small ring with black-and-white coils. The bottom half of a man in a glittering loincloth was disappearing down the cobra's throat. That's what had kept it out of the crowd. It was taking time to feed.
   Sweet Jesus.
   The man's legs twitched, kicking convulsively. He couldn't be alive. He couldn't be. But the legs twitched as they slid out of sight. Please, God, let it just be a reflex. Don't let him still be alive. The thought was worse than any nightmare I could remember. And I have a lot of material for nightmares.
   The monster in the ring wasn't my problem. I didn't have to be the bloody hero this time. People were screaming, running, arms full of children. Popcorn bags and cotton candy were getting crushed underfoot. I waded into the crowd and began pushing my way down. A woman carrying a toddler fell at my feet. A man climbed over them. I dragged the woman to her feet, taking the baby in one arm. People shoved past us. We shuddered just trying to stand still. I felt like a rock in the middle of a raging river.
   The woman stared at me, eyes too large for her face. I pushed the toddler into her arms and wedged her between the seats. I grabbed the arms of the nearest large male, sexist that I am, and shouted, "Help them!"
   The man's face was startled, as if I had spoken in tongues, but some of the panic faded from his face. He took the woman's arm and began to push his way towards the exit.
   I couldn't let the snake get into the crowd. Not if I could stop it. Shit. I was going to play hero, dammit. I started fighting against the tide, to go down when everybody else was coming up and over. An elbow caught me in the mouth and I tasted blood. By the time I fought my way through this mess, it would all be over. God, I hoped so.
   
   

7
   I stepped out of the crowd like I was flinging aside a curtain. My skin tingled with the memory of shoving bodies, but I stood alone on the last step. The screaming crowd was still up above me, struggling for the exits. But here, just above the ring, there was nothing. The silence lay in thick folds against my face and hands. It was hard to breathe through the thick air. Magic. But whether vampire or cobra, I didn't know.
   Stephen stood closest to me, shirtless, slim and somehow elegant. Yasmeen had on his blue shirt, hiding her naked upper body. She had tied the shirt up to expose a tanned expanse of tummy. Marguerite stood beside her. The black woman stood on Stephen's right. She had kicked off her high heels and stood flat-footed in the ring.
   Jean-Claude stood on the far side of the circle with two new blond vampires on either side. He turned and stared at me across the distance. I felt his touch inside me where no hand was ever meant to go. My throat tightened; sweat broke on my body. Nothing at that moment would have made me go closer to him. He was trying to tell me something. Something private and too intimate for words.
   A hoarse scream brought my attention to the center of the ring. Two men lay broken and bleeding to one side. The cobra reared over them. It was like a moving tower of muscle and scale. It hissed at us. The sound was loud, echoing.
   The men lay on the ground at its . . . feet? tail? One of them twitched. Was he alive? My hands squeezed the guardrail until my fingers ached. I was so scared I could taste bile at the back of my throat. My skin was cold with it. You ever have those dreams where snakes are everywhere, so thick on the ground you can't walk unless you step on them? It's almost claustrophobic. The dream always ends with me standing in the middle of the trees with snakes dripping down on me, and all I can do is scream.
   Jean-Claude held out one slender hand towards me. The lace covered everything but the tips of his fingers. Everyone else was staring at the snake. Jean-Claude was staring at me.
   One of the wounded men moved. A soft moan escaped his lips and seemed to echo in the huge tent. Was it illusion or had the sound really echoed? It didn't matter. He was alive, and we had to keep him that way.
   We? What was this "we" stuff? I stared into Jean-Claude's deep blue eyes. His face was utterly blank, wiped clean of any emotion I understood. He couldn't trick me with his eyes. His own marks had seen to that, but mind tricks—if he worked at it—were still possible. He was working at it.
   It wasn't words, but a compulsion. I wanted to go to him. To run to him. To feel the smooth, solid grip of his hand. The softness of lace against my skin. I leaned against the railing, dizzy. I gripped it to keep from falling. What the hell were these mind games now? We had other problems, didn't we? Or didn't he care about the snake? Maybe it had all been a trick. Maybe he had told the cobra to run amuck. But why?
   Every hair on my body raised, as if some invisible finger had just brushed it. I shivered and couldn't stop.
   I was staring down at a pair of very nice black boots, high and soft. I looked up and met Jean-Claude's eyes. He had left his place around the cobra to come to me. It beat the hell out of me going to him.
   "Join with me, Anita, and we have enough power to stop the creature."
   I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
   He brushed his fingertips down my arm. Even through the leather jacket I could feel his touch like a line of ice, or was it fire?
   "How can you be hot and cold at the same time?" I asked.
   He smiled, a bare movement of lips. "Ma petite, stop fighting me, and we can tame the creature. We can save the men."
   He had me there. A moment of personal weakness against the lives of two people. What a choice.
   "Once I let you inside my head that far, it'll be easier for you to come in next time. My soul is not up for grabs for anybody's life."
   He sighed. "Very well, it is your choice." He started to turn away from me. I grabbed his arm, and it was warm and firm and very, very real.
   He turned to me, eyes large and drowning deep, like the bottom of the ocean, and just as deadly. His own power kept me from falling in; alone I would have been lost.
   I swallowed hard enough for it to hurt, and pulled my hand away from him. I had the urge to wipe my hand against my pants, as if I had touched something bad. Maybe I had.
   "Will silver bullets hurt it?"
   He seemed to think about that for a second. "I do not know."
   I took a deep breath. "If you stop trying to hijack my mind, I'll help you."
   "You'll face it with a gun, rather than with me?" His voice sounded amused.
   "You got it."
   He stepped away from me and motioned me towards the ring.
   I vaulted the rail and landed beside him. I ignored him as much as I was able and started walking towards the creature. I pulled the Browning out. It was nice and solid in my hand. A comforting weight.
   "The ancient Egyptians worshipped it as a god, ma petite. She was Edjo, the royal serpent. Cared for, sacrificed to, adored."
   "It isn't a god, Jean-Claude."
   "Are you so sure?"
   "I'm a monotheist, remember. It's just another supernatural creepycrawlie to me."
   "As you like, ma petite."
   I turned back to him. "How the hell did you get it past quarantine?"
   He shook his head. "Does it matter?"
   I glanced back at the thing in the middle of the ring. The snake charmer lay in a bloody heap to one side of the snake. It hadn't eaten her. Was that a sign of respect, affection, dumb luck?
   The cobra pushed towards us, belly scales clenching and unclenching. It made a dry, whispering sound against the ring's floor.
   He was right; it didn't matter how the thing had gotten into the country. It was here now. "How are we going to stop it?"
   He smiled wide enough to flash fangs. Maybe it was the "we." "If you could disable its mouth, I think we could deal with it."
   The snake's body was thicker than a telephone pole. I shook my head. "If you say so."
   "Can you injure the mouth?"
   I nodded. "If silver bullets work on it, yeah."
   "My little marksman," he said.
   "Can the sarcasm," I said.
   He nodded. "If you are going to try to shoot it, I would hurry, ma petite. Once it wades into my people, it will be too late." His face was unreadable. I couldn't tell if he wanted me to do it, or not.
   I turned and started walking across the ring. The cobra stopped moving forward. It waited, like a swaying tower. It stood there, if something without legs could stand, and waited for me, whiplike tongue flicking out, tasting the air. Tasting me.
   Jean-Claude was suddenly beside me. I hadn't heard him come, hadn't felt him come. Just another mind trick. I had other things to worry about right now.
   He spoke, low and urgent; I think only I heard. "I will do my best to protect you, ma petite."
   "You were doing a great job up in your office."
   He stopped walking. I didn't.
   "I know you are afraid of it, Anita. Your fear crawls through my belly," he called, soft and faint as wind.
   I whispered back, not sure he would even be able to hear me. "Stay the fuck out of my mind."
   The cobra watched me. I held the Browning in a two-handed grip, pointed at the thing's head. I thought I was out of striking distance, but I wasn't sure. How far away is safe distance from a snake that's bigger than a Mack truck? Two states away, three? I was close enough to see the snake's flat black eyes, empty as a doll's.
   Jean-Claude's words blew through my mind like flower petals. I could even have sworn I smelled flowers. His voice had never held the scent of perfume before. "Force it to follow you, and give us its back before you shoot."
   The pulse in my neck was beating so hard, it hurt to breathe. My mouth was so dry I couldn't swallow right. I began to move, ever so slowly, away from the vampires and shapeshifters. The snake's head followed me, as it had followed the snake charmer. If it started to strike, I'd shoot it, but if it would just keep moving with me, I'd give Jean-Claude a chance at its back.
   Of course, silver bullets might not hurt it. In fact, the thing was so damn big, the ammo I had in the Browning might not do more than irritate it. I felt like I was trapped in one of those monster movies where the giant slime monster keeps coming no matter how much you shoot it. I hoped that was just a Hollywood invention.
   If the bullets didn't hurt it, I was going to die. I flashed on the image of the man's legs kicking as they went down. The lump was still visible in the snake's body, like it had fed on a really big rat.
   The tongue flicked out and I gasped, swallowing a scream. God, Anita, control yourself. It's just a snake. A giant man-eating cobra snake, but still only a snake. Yeah, right.
   Every hair on my body stood at attention. The power that I'd felt the snake charmer calling up was still here. It wasn't enough that the thing was poisonous and had teeth big enough to spear me with. It had to be magic, too. Great, just great.
   The smell of flowers was thicker, closer. It hadn't been Jean-Claude at all. The cobra was filling the air with perfume. Snakes don't smell like flowers. They smell musty, and once you know what they smell like, you never forget it. Nothing with fur ever smelled like that. A vampire's coffin smells a bit like snakes.
   The cobra turned its giant head with me. "Come on, just a little farther," I was speaking to the snake. Which is pretty stupid, since they're deaf. The smell of flowers was thick and sweet. I shuffled around the ring, and the snake shadowed me. Maybe it was habit. I was small and had long, dark hair, though not nearly as long as the dead snake charmer. Maybe the beastie wanted someone to follow?
   "Come on, pretty girl, come to mama," I whispered so low my lips barely moved. Just me and the snake and my voice. I didn't dare look across the ring at Jean-Claude. Nothing mattered but my feet shuffling over the ground, the snake's movements, the gun in my hands. It was like some kind of dance.
   The cobra parted its mouth, tongue flicking, giving me a glimpse of scythelike fangs. Cobras have fixed fangs, not retractable like a rattlesnake's. Nice to know I remembered some of my herpetology. Though I bet Dr. Greenburg had never seen anything like this.
   I had a horrible impulse to giggle. Instead, I sighted down my arm at the thing's mouth. The scent of flowers was strong enough to touch. I squeezed the trigger.
   The snake's head jerked backwards, blood splattering the floor. I fired again and again. The jaws exploded into bits of flesh and bone. The cobra opened its ruined jaws, hissing. I think it was screaming.
   Its telephone-pole body slashed the ground, whipping back and forth. Could I kill it? Could just bullets kill it? I fired three more shots into the head. The body turned on itself in a huge wondrous knot. The black and white scales boiled over each other, frenzied, bloodspattered.
   A loop of body rolled out and punched my legs out from under me. I came up on knees and one hand, gun in the other hand ready to point. Another coil smashed into me. It was like being hit by a whale. I lay half-stunned under several hundred pounds of snake. One striped coil pinned me to the ground. The beast reared over me, blood and pale drops of poison running down its shattered jaws. If the poison hit my skin, it would kill me. There was too much of it not to.
   I lay flat on my back with the snake writhing across me and fired at it. I just kept squeezing the trigger as the head rushed down on me.
   Something hit the snake. Something covered in fur dug teeth and claws into the snake's neck. It was a werewolf with furry, man-shaped arms. The cobra reared, pressing me under its weight. The smooth belly scales pushed at my nearly naked upper body like a giant hand, squeezing. It wasn't going to eat me, it was going to crush me to death.
   I screamed and fired into the snake's body. The gun clicked empty. Shit!
   Jean-Claude appeared over me. His pale, lace-covered hands lifted the coil off me as if it wasn't a thousand pounds of muscle. I scooted backwards on hands and feet. I crab-walked until I hit the edge of the ring, then I popped the empty clip and got the extra out of my sport bag. I didn't remember firing all thirteen rounds, but I must have. I jacked a round into the chamber, and I was ready to rock and roll.
   Jean-Claude was elbow deep in snake. He pulled a piece of glistening spine out of the meat, splitting the snake apart.
   Yasmeen was tearing at the giant snake like a kid with taffy. Her face and upper body were bathed in blood. She pulled a long piece of snake intestine out and laughed.
   I had never really seen vampires use every bit of their inhuman strength. I sat on the edge of the ring with my loaded gun and just watched.
   The black shapeshifter was still in human form. She had gotten a knife from somewhere and was happily carving the snake up.
   The cobra whipped its head into the ground, sending the werewolf rolling. The snake reared and came smashing down. Its ruined jaws plunged into the black woman's shoulder. She screamed. One fang came out the back of her dress. Poison squirted from the fang, splashing onto the ground. Poison and blood soaked into the back of her dress.
   I moved forward, gun ready, but I hesitated. The cobra was flinging its head from side to side, trying to shake the woman off. The fang was too deeply imbedded and the mouth too damaged. The cobra was trapped, and so was the woman.
   I wasn't sure I could hit the snake's head without hitting her. The woman was screaming, shrieking. Her hands clawed helplessly at the snake. She'd dropped her knife somewhere.
   A blond vampire grabbed the black woman. The snake reared back, lifting the woman in his jaws, worrying her like a dog with a toy. She shrieked.
   The werewolf jumped on the snake's neck, riding it like a wild horse. There was no way to shoot without hitting someone now. Dammit. I had to just stand there, watching.
   The man from the bed was running across the ring. Had it taken him that long to slip into the grey sweat pants and zippered jacket? The jacket was unzipped and flapped as he ran, exposing most of his tanned chest. He was unarmed as far as I could tell. What the hell did he think he could do? Dammit.
   He knelt beside the two men who had been alive when all the shit started. He dragged one of them away from the fight. It was good thinking.
   Jean-Claude grabbed the woman. He gripped the fang that speared her shoulder and snapped it off. The crack was loud as a rifle shot. The woman's shoulder stretched away from her body, bones and ligaments snapping. She gave one last shriek and went limp. He carried her towards me, laying her on the ground. Her right arm was hanging by strands of muscle. He had freed her from the snake, and damn near pulled her arm off.
   "Help her, ma petite." He left her at my feet, bleeding and unconscious. I knew some first aid, but Jesus. There was no way to put a tourniquet on the wound. I couldn't splint the arm. It wasn't just broken, it was ripped apart.
   A breath of wind oozed through the tent. Something tugged at my gut. I gasped and looked up away from the dying girl. Jean-Claude stood beside the snake. All the vampires were tearing at the body, and still it lived. A wind ruffled the lace on his collar, the black waves of his hair. The wind whispered against my face, pulling my heart up into my throat. The only sound I could hear was the thunder of my own blood beating against my ears.
   Jean-Claude moved forward almost gently. And I felt something inside me move with him. It was almost like he held an invisible line to my heart. pulse, blood. My pulse was so fast, I couldn't breathe. What was happening?
   He was on the snake, hands digging in the flesh just below the mouth. I felt myhands dig into the writhing flesh. Myhands digging at bone, snapping it. Myhands shoving in almost to the elbow. It was slick, wet, but not warm. Our hands pushed, then pulled, until our shoulders strained with the effort.
   The head tore away to land across the ring. The head flopped, mouth snapping at empty air. The body still struggled, but it was dying now.
   I had fallen to the ground beside the wounded woman. The Browning was still in my hand, but it wouldn't have helped me. I could hear again, feel again. My hands weren't covered in blood and gore. They had been Jean-Claude's hands, not mine. Dear God, what was happening to me?
   I could still feel the blood on my hands. It was an incredibly powerful sensory memory. God!
   Something touched my shoulder. I whirled, gun nearly shoved into the man's face. It was the man in the grey sweats. He was kneeling beside me, hands in the air, his eyes staring at the gun in my hands.
   "I'm on your side," he said.
   My pulse was still thumping in my throat. I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just nodded and stopped pointing the gun at him.
   He took off his sweat jacket. "Maybe we can stop some of the blood with this." He wadded the jacket up and shoved it against the wound.
   "She's probably in shock," I said. My voice sounded strange, hollow.
   "You don't look so good yourself."
   I didn't feel so good either. Jean-Claude had entered my mind, my body. It had been like we were one person. I started to shiver and couldn't stop. Maybe it was shock.
   "I called the police and an ambulance," he said.
   I stared at him. His face was very strong, high cheekbones, square jaw, but his lips were softer, making it a very sympathetic face. His wavy brown hair fell forward like a curtain around his face. I remembered another man with long brown hair. Another human tied to the vampires. He had died badly, and I hadn't been able to save him.
   I caught sight of Marguerite on the far side of the ring, watching. Her eyes were wide, her lips half-parted. She was enjoying herself. God.
   The werewolf pulled back from the snake. The shapeshifter looked like a very classy version of every wolfman that had ever stalked the streets of London, except it was naked and had genitalia between its legs. Movie wolfmen were always smooth, sexless as a Barbie doll.
   The werewolf's fur was a dark honey color. A blond werewolf? Was it Stephen? If it wasn't, then he had disappeared, and I didn't think Jean-Claude would allow that.
   A voice yelled, "Everybody freeze"' Across the ring were two patrol cops with their guns out. One of them said, "Jesus Christ!"
   I put my gun away while they were staring at the dead snake. The body was still twitching, but it was dead. It just takes longer for a reptile's body to know it's dead than most mammals.
   I felt light and empty as air. Everything had a faintly unreal quality. It wasn't the snake. It was whatever Jean-Claude had done to me. I shook my head, trying to clear it, to think. The cops were here. I had things I needed to do.
   I fished the little plastic ID card out of my sport bag and clipped it to the collar of my jacket. It identified me as a member of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. It was almost as good as a badge.
   "Let's go talk to the cops before they start shooting."
   "The snake's dead," he said.
   The wolfman was tearing at the dead thing with a long pointed muzzle, ripping off chunks of meat. I swallowed hard and looked away. "They may not think the snake is the only monster in the ring."
   "Oh." He said it very softly, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. What the hell was he doing with the monsters?
   I walked towards the police, smiling. Jean-Claude stood there in the middle of the ring, his white shirt so bloody it clung to him like water, outlining the point of one nipple hard against the cloth. Blood was smeared down one side of his face. His arms were crimson to the elbows. The youngest vampire, a woman, had buried her face in the snake's blood. She was scooping the bloody meat into her mouth and sucking on it. The sounds were wet and seemed louder than they should have been.
   "My name's Anita Blake. I work with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. I've got ID."
   "Who's that with you?" The uniform nodded his head in the man's direction. His gun was still pointed vaguely towards the ring.
   I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, "What is your name?"
   "Richard Zeeman," he said softly.
   Out loud I said, "Richard Zeeman, just an innocent bystander." That last was probably a lie. How innocent could a man be who woke up in a bed surrounded by vampires and shapeshifters?
   But the uniform nodded. "What about the rest of them?"
   I glanced where he was staring. It didn't look any better. "The manager and some of his people. They waded into the thing to keep it out of the crowd."
   "But they ain't human, right?" he said.
   "No," I said, "they aren't human."
   "Jesus H. Christ, the guys back at the station aren't going to believe this one," his partner said.
   He was probably right. I had been here, and I almost didn't believe it. A giant man-eating cobra. Jesus H. Christ indeed.
   

8
   I was sitting in a small hallway that served as the performers' entrance to the big tent. The lighting was permanently dim, as if some of the things rolling through wouldn't like a lot of light. Big surprise there. There were no chairs, and I was getting a little tired of sitting on the floor. I'd given a statement first to a uniform, then to a detective. Then RPIT had arrived and the questioning started all over again. Dolph nodded to me, and Zerbrowski shot at me with his thumb and forefinger. That had been an hour and fifteen minutes ago. I was getting a wee bit tired of being ignored.
   Richard Zeeman and Stephen the Werewolf were sitting across from me. Richard's hands were clasped loosely around one knee. He was wearing white Nikes with a blue swoosh, and no socks. Even his ankles were tan. His thick hair brushed the tops of his naked shoulders. His eyes were closed. I could gaze at his muscular upper body as long as I wanted to. His stomach was flat with a triangle of dark hair peeking above the sweat pants. His upper chest was smooth, perfect, no hair at all. I approved.
   Stephen was cuddled on the floor, asleep. Bruises blossomed up the left side of his face, black-purple and that raw red color a really bad bruise gets. His left arm was in a sling, but he'd refused to go to the hospital. He was wrapped in a grey blanket that the paramedics had given him. As far as I could tell, it was all he was wearing. I guess he'd lost his clothes when he shapeshifted. The wolfman had been bigger than he was, and the legs had been a very different shape. So the skin-tight jeans and the beautiful cowboy boots were history. Maybe that was why the black shapeshifter had been naked. Had that been why Richard Zeeman was naked, as well? Was he a shapeshifter?
   I didn't think so. If he was, he hid it better than anybody I'd ever been around. Besides, if he had been a shapeshifter, why didn't he join the fight against the cobra? He'd done a sensible thing for an unarmed human being; he'd stayed out of the way.
   Stephen, who had started out the night looking scrumptious, looked like shit. The long, blond curls clung to his face, wet with sweat. There were dark smudges under his closed eyes. His breathing was rapid and shallow. His eyes were struggling underneath his closed lids. Dream? Nightmare? Do werewolves dream of shapeshifted sheep?
   Richard still looked scrumptious, but then a giant cobra hadn't been slamming him into a concrete floor. He opened his eyes, as if he had felt me staring at him. He stared back, brown eyes neutral. We stared at each other without saying anything.
   His face was all angles, high-sculpted cheekbones, and firm jaw. A dimple softened the lines of his face and made him a little too perfect for my taste. I've never been comfortable around men that are beautiful. Low self-esteem, maybe. Or maybe Jean-Claude's lovely face had made me appreciate the very human quality of imperfection.
   "Is he all right?" I asked.
   "Who?"
   "Stephen."
   He glanced down at the sleeping man. Stephen made a small noise in his sleep, helpless, frightened. Definitely a nightmare.
   "Should you wake him?"
   "You mean from the dream?" he asked.
   I nodded.
   He smiled. "Nice thought, but he won't wake up for hours. We could burn the place down around him and he wouldn't move."
   "Why not?"
   "You really want to know?"
   "Sure, I've got nothing better to do right now."
   He glanced up the silent hallway. "Good point." He settled back against the wall, bare back searching for a more comfortable piece of wall. He frowned; so much for a comfortable wall.
   "Stephen changed back from wolfman to human in less than a two-hour time span." He said it like it explained everything. It didn't.
   "So?" I asked.
   "Usually a shapeshifter stays in animal form for eight to ten hours, then collapses and changes back to human form. It takes a lot of energy to shapeshift early."
   I glanced down at the dreaming shapeshifter. "So this collapse is normal?"
   Richard nodded. "He'll be out for the rest of the night."
   "Not a great survival method," I said.
   "A lot of werewolves bite the dust after collapsing. The human hunters come upon them after they've passed out."
   "How do you know so much about lycanthropes?"
   "It's my job," he said, "I teach science at a local junior high."
   I just stared at him. "You're a junior high science teacher?"
   "Yes." He was smiling. "You looked shocked."
   I shook my head. "What's a school teacher doing messed up with vampires and werewolves?"
   "Just lucky, I guess."
   I had to smile. "That doesn't explain how you know about lycanthropes."
   "I had a class in college."
   I shook my head. "So did I, but I didn't know about shapeshifters collapsing."
   "You've got a degree in preternatural biology?" he asked.
   "Yep."
   "Me, too."
   "So how do you know more about lycanthropes than I do?" I said.
   Stephen moved in his sleep, flinging his good arm outward. The blanket slid off his shoulder, exposing his stomach and part of a thigh.
   Richard drew the blanket back over the sleeping man, covering him, like tucking in a child. "Stephen and I have been friends a long time. I bet you know things about zombies that I never learned in college."
   "Probably," I said.
   "Stephen's not a teacher, is he?"
   "No." He smiled, but it wasn't pleasant. "School boards frown on lycanthropes being teachers."
   "Legally, they can't stop you."
   "Yeah, right," he said. "They fire-bombed the last teacher who dared to teach their precious children. Lycanthropy isn't contagious while in human form."
   "I know that," I said.
   He shook his head. "Sorry, it's just a sore topic with me."
   My pet project was rights for zombies; why shouldn't Richard have a pet project? Fair hiring practices for the furry. It worked for me.
   "You are being tactful, ma petite. I would not have thought it of you." Jean-Claude was in the hallway. I hadn't heard him walk up. But I'd been distracted, talking with Richard. Yeah, that was it.
   "Could you stamp your feet next time? I'm getting sick of you sneaking up on me."
   "I wasn't sneaking, ma petite. You were distracted talking to our handsome Mr. Zeeman." His voice was pleasant, mild as honey, and yet there was a threat to it. You could feel it like a cold wind down your spine.
   "What's wrong, Jean-Claude?" I asked.
   "Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?" Anger and some bitter amusement flowed through his voice.
   "Cut it out, Jean-Claude."
   "Whatever could be the matter, ma petite?"
   "You're angry; why?"
   "My human servant does not know my every mood. Shameful." He knelt beside me. The blood on his white shirt had dried to a brownish stain that took up most of the shirt front. The lace at his sleeves looked like crumpled brown flowers. "Do you lust after Richard because he's handsome, or because he's human?" His voice was almost a whisper, intimate as if he'd said something entirely different. Jean-Claude whispered better than anyone else I knew.
   "I don't lust after him."
   "Come, come, ma petite. No lies." He leaned towards me, long-fingered hand reaching for my cheek. There was dried blood on his hand.
   "You've got blood under your fingernails," I said.
   He flinched, his hand squeezing into a fist. Point for my side. "You reject me at every turn. Why do I put up with it?"
   "I don't know," I said, truthfully. "I keep hoping you'll get tired of me."
   "I am hoping to have you with me forever, ma petite. I would not make the offer if I thought I would grow bored."
   "I think I would get tired of you," I said.
   His eyes widened a bit. I think it was real surprise. "You are trying to taunt me."
   I shrugged. "Yes, but it's still the truth. I'm attracted to you, but I don't love you. We don't have stimulating conversations. I don't go through my day saying 'I must remember to share that joke with Jean-Claude, or tell him about what happened at work tonight.' I ignore you when you let me. The only things we have in common are violence and the dead. I don't think that's much to base a relationship on."
   "My, aren't we the philosopher tonight." His midnight blue eyes were only inches from mine. The eyelashes looked like black lace.
   "Just being honest."
   "We wouldn't want you to be less than honest," he said. "I know how you despise lies." He glanced at Richard. "How you despise monsters."
   "Why are you angry with Richard?"
   "Am I?" he said.
   "You know damn well you are."
   "Perhaps, Anita, I am realizing that the one thing you want is the one thing I cannot give you."
   "And what do I want?"
   "Me to be human," he said softly.
   I shook my head. "If you think your only shortcoming is being a vampire, you're wrong."
   "Really?"
   "Yeah. You're an egotistical, overbearing bully."
   "A bully?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
   "You want me, so you can't believe that I don't want you. Your needs, your desires are more important than anyone else's."
   "You are my human servant, ma petite. It makes our lives complicated."
   "I am not your human servant."
   "I have marked you, Anita Blake. You are my human servant."
   "No," I said. It was a very firm no, but my stomach was tight with the thought that he was right, and I would never be free of him.
   He stared at me. His eyes were as normal as they ever got, dark, blue, lovely. "If you had not been my human servant, I could not have defeated the snake god so easily."
   "You mind-raped me, Jean-Claude. I don't care why you did it."
   A look of distaste spread across his face. "If you choose the word rape, then you know that I am not guilty of that particular crime. Nikolaos forced herself on you. She tore at your mind, ma petite. If you had not carried two of my marks, she would have destroyed you."
   Anger was bubbling up from my gut, spreading up my back and into my arms. I had this horrible urge to hit him. "And because of the marks you can enter my mind, take me over. You told me it made mind games harder on me, not easier. Did you lie about that, too?"
   "My need was great tonight, Anita. Many people would have died if the creature had not been stopped. I drew power where I could find it."
   "From me."
   "Yes, you are my human servant. Just by being near me you increase my power. You know that."
   I had known that, but I hadn't known he could channel power through me like an amplifier. "I know I'm some sort of witch's familiar for you."
   "If you would allow the last two marks, it would be more than that. It would be a marriage of flesh, blood, and spirit."
   "I notice you didn't say soul," I said.
   He made an exasperated sound low in his throat. "You are insufferable." He sounded genuinely angry. Goody.
   "Don't you ever force your way into my mind again."
   "Or what?" The words were a challenge, angry, confused.
   I was on my knees beside him nearly spitting into his face. I had to stop and take a few deep breaths to keep from screaming at him. I spoke very calmly, low and angry. "If you ever touch me like that again, I will kill you."
   "You will try." His face was nearly pressed against mine. As if when he inhaled, he would bring me to him. Our lips would touch. I remembered how soft his lips were. How it felt to be pressed against his chest. The roughness of his cross-shaped burn under my fingers. I jerked back, and felt almost dizzy.
   It had only been one kiss, but the memory of it burned along my body like every bad romance novel you'd ever read. "Leave me alone!" I hissed it in his face, hands balled into fists. "Damn you! Damn you!"
   The office door opened, and a uniformed officer stuck his head out. "There a problem out here?"
   We turned and stared at him. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what was wrong, but Jean-Claude spoke first. "No problem, officer."
   It was a lie, but what was the truth? That I had two vampire marks on me and was losing my soul a piece at a time. Not something I really wanted to be common knowledge. The police sort of frown on people who have close ties with the monsters.
   The officer was looking at us, waiting. I shook my head. "Nothing's wrong, officer. It's just late. Could you ask Sergeant Storr if I can go home now?"
   "What's the name?"
   "Anita Blake."
   "Storr's pet animator?"
   I sighed. "Yeah, that Anita Blake."
   "I'll ask." The uniform stared at the three of us for a minute. "You got anything to add to this?" He was speaking to Richard.
   "No."
   The uniform nodded. "Okay, but keep whatever isn't happening to a dull roar."
   "Of course. Always glad to cooperate with the police," Jean-Claude said.
   He nodded his thanks and went back into the office. We were left kneeling in the hallway. The shapeshifter was still asleep on the floor. His breathing made a quiet noise that didn't so much fill the silence as emphasize it. Richard was motionless, dark eyes staring at Jean-Claude. I was suddenly very aware that Jean-Claude and I were only inches apart. I could feel the line of his body like warmth against my skin. His eyes flicked from my face down my body. I was still wearing only a bra underneath the unzipped jacket.
   Goosebumps rolled up my arms and down my chest. My nipples hardened as if he had touched them. My stomach clenched with a need that had nothing to do with blood.
   "Stop it!"
   "I am doing nothing, ma petite. It is your own desire that rolls over your skin, not mine."
   I swallowed and had to look away from him. Okay, I lusted after him. Great, fine, it didn't mean a thing. Ri-ight. I scooted away from him, putting my back to the wall, not looking at him as I spoke. "I came here tonight for information, not to play footsie with the Master of the City."
   Richard was just sitting there, meeting my eyes. There was no embarrassment, just interest, as if he didn't know quite what I was. It wasn't an unfriendly look.
   "Footsie," Jean-Claude said. I didn't need to see his face to hear the smile in his voice.
   "You know what I mean."
   "I've never heard it called 'footsie' before."
   "Stop doing that."
   "What?"
   I glared at him, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter. A slow smile touched his lips. He looked very human just then.
   "What did you want to discuss, ma petite? It must be something very important to make you come near me voluntarily."
   I searched his face for mockery, or anger, or anything, but his face was as smooth and pleasant as carved marble. The smile, the sparkling humor in his eyes, was like a mask. I had no way of telling what lay underneath. I wasn't even sure I wanted to know.
   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my mouth. "Alright. Where were you last night?" I looked at his face, trying to catch any change of expression.
   "Here," he said.
   "All night?"
   He smiled. "Yes."
   "Can you prove it?"
   The smile widened. "Do I need to?"
   "Maybe," I said.
   He shook his head. "Coyness, from you, ma petite. It does not become you."
   So much for being slick and trying to pull information from the Master. "Are you sure you want this discussed in public?"
   "You mean Richard?"
   "Yes."
   "Richard and I have no secrets from one another, ma petite. He is my human hands and eyes, since you refuse to be."
   "What's that mean? I thought you could only have one human servant at a time."
   "So you admit it." His voice held a slow curl of triumph.
   "This isn't a game, Jean-Claude. People died tonight."
   "Believe me, ma petite, whether you take the last marks and become my servant in more than name is no game to me."
   "There was a murder last night," I said. Maybe if I concentrated just on the crime, on my job, I could avoid the verbal pitfalls.
   "And?" he prompted.
   "It was a vampire victim."
   "Ah," he said, "my part in this becomes clear."
   "I'm glad you find it funny," I said.
   "Dying from vampire bites is only temporarily fatal, ma petite. Wait until the third night when the victim rises, then question him." The humor died from his eyes. "What is it that you are not telling me?"
   "I found at least five different bite radiuses on the victim."
   Something flickered behind his eyes. I wasn't sure what, but it was real emotion. Surprise, fear, guilt? Something.
   "So you are looking for a rogue master vampire."
   "Yep. Know any?"
   He laughed. His whole face lit up from the inside, as if someone had lit a candle behind his skin. In one wild moment he was so beautiful, it made my chest ache. But it wasn't a beauty that made me want to touch it. I remembered a Bengal tiger that I'd seen once in a zoo. It was big enough to ride on like a pony. Its fur was orange, black, cream, oyster-shell white. Its eyes were gold. The heavy paws wider than my outspread hand paced, paced, back and forth, back and forth, until it had worn a path in the dirt. Some genius had put one barred wall so close to the fence that held back the crowd, I could have reached through and touched the tiger easily. I had to ball my hands into fists and shove them in my pockets to keep from reaching through those bars and petting that tiger. It was so close, so beautiful, so wild, so . . . tempting.
   I hugged my knees to my chest, hands clasped tight together. The tiger would have taken my hand off, and yet there was that small part of me that regretted not reaching through the bars. I watched Jean-Claude's face, felt his laughter like velvet running down my spine. Would part of me always wonder what it would have been like if I had just said yes? Probably. But I could live with it.
   He was staring at me, the laughter dying from his eyes like the last bit of light seeping from the sky. "What are you thinking, ma petite?"
   "Can't you read my mind?" I asked.
   "You know I cannot."
   "I don't know anything about you, Jean-Claude, not a bloody thing."
   "You know more about me than anyone else in the city."
   "Yasmeen included?"
   He lowered his eyes, almost embarrassed. "We are very old friends."
   "How old?"
   He met my eyes, but his face was empty, blank. "Old enough."
   "That's not an answer," I said.
   "No," he said, "it is an evasion."
   So he wasn't going to answer my question; what else was new? "Are there any other master vampires in town besides you, Malcolm, and Yasmeen?"
   He shook his head. "Not to my knowledge."
   I frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
   "Exactly what I said."
   "You're the Master of the City. Aren't you supposed to know?"
   "Things are a little unsettled, ma petite."
   "Explain that."
   He shrugged, and even in the bloodstained shirt it looked graceful. "Normally, as Master of the City, all other lesser master vampires would need my permission to stay in the city, but"—he shrugged again—"there are those who think I am not strong enough to hold the city."
   "You've been challenged?"
   "Let us just say I am expecting to be challenged."
   "Why?" I asked.
   "The other masters were afraid of Nikolaos," he said.
   "And they're not afraid of you." It wasn't a question.
   "Unfortunately, no."
   "Why not?"
   "They are not as easily impressed as you are, ma petite."
   I started to say I wasn't impressed, but it wasn't true. Jean-Claude could smell it when I lied, so why bother?
   "So there could be another master in the city without your knowledge."
   "Yes."
   "Wouldn't you sort of sense each other?"
   "Perhaps, perhaps not."
   "Thanks for clearing that up."
   He rubbed fingertips across his forehead as if he had a headache. Did vampires get headaches? "I cannot tell you what I do not know."
   "Would the . . ." I groped for a word, and couldn't find one—"more mundane vampires be able to kill someone without your permission?"
   "Mundane?"
   "Just answer the damn question."
   "Yes, they could."
   "Would five vampires hunt in a pack without a master vampire to referee?"
   He nodded. "Very nice choice of word, ma petite, and the answer is no. We are solitary hunters, given a choice."
   I nodded. "So either you, Malcolm, Yasmeen, or some mysterious master is behind it."
   "Not Yasmeen. She is not strong enough."
   "Okay, then you, Malcolm, or a mysterious master."
   "Do you really think I have gone rogue?" He was smiling at me, but his eyes held something more serious. Did it matter to him what I thought of him? I hoped not.
   "I don't know."
   "You would confront me, thinking I might be insane? How indiscreet of you."
   "If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question," I said.
   "Very true."
   The office door opened. Dolph came out, notebook in hand. "You can go home, Anita. I'll check the statements with you tomorrow."
   I nodded. "Thanks."
   "Heh, I know where you live." He smiled.
   I smiled back. "Thanks, Dolph." I stood up.
   Jean-Claude stood in one smooth motion like he was a puppet pulled up by invisible strings. Richard stood slower, using the wall to stand, as if he were stiff. Standing, Richard was taller than Jean-Claude by at least three inches. Which made Richard six-one. Almost too tall for my taste, but no one was asking me.
   "And could we talk to you some more, Jean-Claude?" Dolph said.
   Jean-Claude said, "Of course, detective." He walked down the hall. There was a stiffness in the way he moved. Did vampires bruise? Had he been hurt in the fight? Did it matter? No, no, it didn't. In a way Jean-Claude was right; if he had been human, even an egotistical son of a bitch, there might have been possibilities. I'm not prejudiced, but God help me, the man has to at least be alive. Walking corpses, no matter how pretty, are just not my cup of tea. Dolph held the door for Jean-Claude.
   Dolph looked back at us. "You're free to go, too, Mr. Zeeman."
   "What about my friend Stephen?"
   Dolph glanced at the sleeping shapeshifter. "Take him home. Let him sleep it off. I'll talk to him tomorrow." He glanced at his wristwatch. "Make that later today."
   "I'll tell Stephen when he wakes up."
   Dolph nodded and closed the door. We were alone in the buzzing silence of the hallway. Of course, maybe it was just my own ears buzzing.
   "Now what?" Richard said.
   "We go home," I said.
   "Rashida drove."
   I frowned. "Who?"
   "The other shapeshifter, the woman whose arm was torn up."
   I nodded. "Take Stephen's car."
   "Rashida drove us both."
   I shook my head. "So you're stranded."
   "Looks that way."
   "You could call a cab," I said.
   "No money." He almost smiled.
   "Fine; I'll drive you home."
   "And Stephen?"
   "And Stephen," I said. I was smiling and I didn't know why, but it was better than crying.
   "You don't even know where I live. It could be Kansas City."
   "If it's a ten-hour drive, you're on your own," I said. "But if it's reasonable, I'll drive you."
   "Is Meramec Heights reasonable?"
   "Sure."
   "Let me get the rest of my clothes," he asked.
   "You look fully dressed to me," I said.
   "I've got a coat around here somewhere."
   "I'll wait here," I said.
   "You'll watch Stephen?" Something like fear crossed his face, filled his eyes.
   "What are you afraid of?" I asked.
   "Airplanes, guns, large predators, and master vampires."
   "I agree with two out of four," I said.
   "I'll go get my coat."
   I slid down to sit beside the sleeping werewolf. "We'll be waiting."
   "Then I'll hurry." He smiled when he said it. He had a very nice smile.
   Richard came back wearing a long black coat. It looked like real leather. It flapped like a cape around his bare chest. I liked the way the leather framed his chest. He buttoned the coat and tied the leather belt tight. The black leather went with the long hair and handsome face; the grey sweats and Nikes did not. He knelt and picked Stephen up in his arms, then stood. The leather creaked as his upper arms strained. Stephen was my height and probably didn't weigh twenty pounds more than I did. Petite. Richard carried him like he wasn't heavy.
   "My, my, grandmother, what strong arms you have."
   "Is my line, 'The better to hold you with'?" He was looking at me very steadily.
   I felt heat creeping up my face. I hadn't meant to flirt, not on purpose. "You want a ride, or not?" My voice was rough, angry with embarrassment.
   "I want a ride," he said quietly.
   "Then can the sarcasm."
   "I wasn't being sarcastic."
   I stared up at him. His eyes were perfectly brown like chocolate. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. A tactic I should probably use more often.
   I turned and walked away, fishing my car keys out as I moved. Richard followed behind. Stephen snuffled against his chest, pulling the blanket close in his sleep.
   "Is your car very far?"
   "A few blocks; why?"
   "Stephen isn't dressed for the cold."
   I frowned at him. "What, you want me to drive the car around and pick you up?"
   "That would be very nice," he said.
   I opened my mouth to say no, then closed it. The thin blanket wasn't much protection, and some of Stephen's injuries were from saving my life. I could drive the car around.
   I satisfied myself with grumbling under my breath, "I can't believe I'm a door-to-door taxi for a werewolf."
   Richard either didn't hear me, or chose to ignore it. Smart, handsome, junior high science teacher, degree in preternatural biology, what more could I ask for? Give me a minute and I'd think of something.
   
   

9
   The car rode in its own tunnel of darkness. The headlights were a moving circle of light. The October night closed behind the car like a door.
   Stephen was asleep in the back seat of my Nova. Richard sat in the passenger seat, half-turned in his seat belt to look at me. It was just polite to look at someone when you talk to them. But I felt at a disadvantage because I had to watch the road. All he had to do was stare at me.
   "What do you do in your spare time?" Richard asked.
   I shook my head. "I don't have spare time."
   "Hobbies?"
   "I don't think I have any of those, either."
   "You must do something besides shoot large snakes in the head," he said.
   I smiled and glanced at him. He leaned towards me as much as the seat belt would allow. He was smiling, too, but there was something in his eyes, or his posture, that said he was serious. Interested in what I would say.
   "I'm an animator," I said.
   He clasped his hands together, left elbow propped on the back of the seat. "Okay, when you're not raising the dead, what do you do?"
   "Work on preternatural crimes with the police, mostly murders."
   "And?" he said.
   "And I execute rogue vampires."
   "And?"
   "And nothing," I said. I glanced at him again. In the dark I couldn't see his eyes, their color was too dark for that, but I could feel his gaze. Probably imagination. Yeah. I'd been hanging around Jean-Claude too long. The smell of Richard's leather coat mingled with a faint whiff of his cologne. Something expensive and sweet. It went very nicely with the smell of leather.
   "I work. I exercise. I go out with friends." I shrugged. "What do you do when you're not teaching?"
   "Scuba diving, caving, bird watching, gardening, astronomy." His smile was a dim whiteness in the near dark.
   "You must have a lot more free time than I do."
   "Actually, the teacher always has more homework than the students," he said.
   "Sorry to hear that."
   He shrugged, the leather creaked and slithered over his skin. Good leather always moved like it was still alive.
   "Do you watch TV?" he asked.
   "My television broke two years ago, and I never replaced it."
   "You must do something for fun."
   I thought about it. "I collect toy penguins." The minute I said it, I wished I hadn't.
   He grinned at me. "Now we're getting somewhere. The Executioner collects stuffed toys. I like it."
   "Glad to hear it." My voice sounded grumpy even to me.
   "What's wrong?" he said.
   "I'm not very good at small talk," I said.
   "You were doing fine."
   No, I wasn't, but I wasn't sure how to explain it to him. I didn't like talking about myself to strangers. Especially strangers with ties to Jean-Claude.
   "What do you want from me?" I said.
   "I'm just passing the time."
   "No, you weren't." His shoulder-length hair had fallen around his face. He was taller, thicker, but the outline was familiar. He looked like Phillip in the shadowed dark. Phillip was the only other human being I'd ever seen with the monsters.
   Phillip sagged in the chains. Blood poured in a bright red flood down his chest. It splattered onto the floor, like rain. Torchlight glittered on the wet bone of his spine. Someone had ripped his throat out.
   I staggered against the wall as if someone had hit me. I couldn't get enough air. Someone kept whispering, "Oh, God, oh, God," over and over, and it was me. I walked down the steps with my back pressed against the wall. I couldn't take my eyes from him. Couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't cry.
   The torchlight reflected in his eyes, giving the illusion of movement. A scream built in my gut and spilled out my throat. "Phillip!"
   Something cold slithered up my spine. I was sitting in my car with the ghost of guilty conscience. It hadn't been my fault that Phillip died. I certainly didn't kill him, but . . . but I still felt guilty. Someone should have saved him, and since I was the last one with a chance to do it, it should have been me. Guilt is a many splendored thing.
   "What do you want from me, Richard?" I asked.
   "I don't want anything," he said.
   "Lies are ugly things, Richard."
   "What makes you think I'm lying?"
   "Finely honed instinct," I said.
   "Has it really been that long since a man tried to make polite small talk with you?"
   I started to look at him, and decided not to. It had been that long. "The last person who flirted with me was murdered. It makes a girl a little cautious."
   He was quiet for a minute. "Fair enough, but I still want to know more about you."
   "Why?"
   "Why not?"
   He had me there. "How do I know Jean-Claude didn't tell you to make friends?"
   "Why would he do that?"
   I shrugged.
   "Okay, let's start over. Pretend we met at the health club."
   "Health club?" I said.
   He smiled. "Health club. I thought you looked great in your swimsuit."
   "Sweats," I said.
   He nodded. "You looked cute in your sweats."
   "I liked looking great better."
   "If I get to imagine you in a swimsuit, you can look great; sweats only get cute."
   "Fair enough."
   "We made pleasant small talk and I asked you out."
   I had to look at him. "Are you asking me out?"
   "Yes, I am."
   I shook my head and turned back to the road. "I don't think that's a good idea."
   "Why not?" he asked.
   "I told you."
   "Just because one person got killed on you doesn't mean everyone will."
   I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make my hands hurt. "I was eight when my mother died. My father remarried when I was ten." I shook my head. "People go away and they don't come back."
   "Sounds scary." His voice was soft and low.
   I didn't know what had made me say that. I didn't usually talk about my mother to strangers, or anybody else for that matter. "Scary," I said softly. "You could say that."
   "If you never let anyone get close to you, you don't get hurt, is that it?"
   "There are also a lot of very jerky men in the twenty-one-to-thirty age group," I said.
   He grinned. "I'll give you that. Nice-looking, intelligent, independent women are not exactly plentiful either."
   "Stop with the compliments, or you'll have me blushing."
   "You don't strike me as someone who blushes easily."
   A picture flashed in my mind. Richard Zeeman naked beside the bed, struggling into his sweat pants. It hadn't embarrassed me at the time. It was only now, with him so warm and close in the car, that I thought about it. A warm flush crept up my face. I blushed in the dark, glad he couldn't see. I didn't want him to know I was thinking about what he looked like without his clothes on. I don't usually do that. Of course, I don't usually see a man buck naked before I've even gone out on a date. Come to think of it, I didn't see men naked on dates either.
   "We're in the health club, sipping fruit juice, and I ask you out."
   I stared very hard at the road. I kept flashing on the smooth line of his thigh and lower things. It was embarrassing, but the harder I tried not to think about it, the clearer the picture seemed to get.
   "Movies and dinner?" I said.
   "No," he said. "Something unique. Caving."
   "You mean crawling around in a cave on a first date?"
   "Have you ever been caving?"
   "Once."
   "Did you enjoy it?"
   "We were sneaking up on bad guys at the time. I didn't think much about enjoying it."
   "Then you have to give it another chance. I go caving at least twice a month. You get to wear your oldest clothes and get really dirty, and no one tells you not to play in the mud."
   "Mud?" I said.
   "Too messy for you?"
   "I was a bio-lab assistant in college; nothing's too messy for me."
   "At least you can say you get to use your degree in your work."
   I laughed. "True."
   "I use my degree, too, but I went in for educating the munchkins."
   "Do you like teaching?"
   "Very much." Those two words held a warmth and excitement that you didn't hear much when people talked about their work.
   "I like my job, too."
   "Even when it forces you to play with vampires and zombies?"
   I nodded. "Yeah."
   "We're sitting in the juice bar, and I've just asked you out. What do you say?"
   "I should say no."
   "Why?"
   "I don't know."
   "You sound suspicious."
   "Always," I said.
   "Never taking a chance is the worst failure of all, Anita."
   "Not dating is a choice, not a failure." I was feeling a wee bit defensive.
   "Say you'll go caving this weekend." The leather coat crinkled and moved as he tried to move closer to me than the seat belt would allow. He could have reached out and touched me. Part of me wanted him to, which was sort of embarrassing all on its own.
   I started to say no, then realized I wanted to say yes. Which was silly. But I was enjoying sitting in the dark with the smell of leather and cologne. Call it chemistry, instant lust, whatever. I liked Richard. He flipped my switch. It had been a long time since I had liked anybody.
   Jean-Claude didn't count. I wasn't sure why, but he didn't. Being dead might have something to do with that.
   "Alright, I'll go caving. When and where?"
   "Great. Meet in front of my house at, say, ten o'clock on Saturday."
   "Ten in the morning?" I said.
   "Not a morning person?" he asked.
   "Not particularly."
   "We have to start early, or we won't get to the end of the cave in one day. "
   "What do I wear?"
   "Your oldest clothes. I'll be dressed in coveralls over jeans."
   "I've got coveralls." I didn't mention that I used my coveralls to keep blood off my clothes. Mud sounded a lot more friendly.
   "Great. I'll bring the rest of the equipment you need."
   "How much more equipment do I need?"
   "A hard hat, a light, maybe knee pads."
   "Sounds like a boffo first date," I said.
   "It will be," he said. His voice was soft, low, and somehow more private than just sitting in my car. It wasn't Jean-Claude's magical voice, but then what was?
   "Turn right here," he said, pointing to a side street. "Third house on the right."
   I pulled into a short, blacktopped driveway. The house was half brick and some pale color. It was hard to tell in the dark. There were no streetlights to help you see. You forget how dark the night can be without electricity.
   Richard unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door. "Thanks for the ride."
   "Do you need help getting him inside?" My hand was on the key as I asked.
   "No, I got it. Thanks, though."
   "Don't mention it."
   He stared at me. "Did I do something wrong?"
   "Not yet," I said.
   He smiled, a quick flash in the darkness. "Good." He unlocked the back door behind him, and got out of the car. He leaned in and scooped Stephen up, holding the blanket close so it didn't slide off. He lifted with his legs more than his back; weightlifting will teach you that. A human body is a lot harder to lift than even free weights. A body just isn't balanced as well as a barbell.
   Richard shut the car door with his back. The back door clicked shut, and I unbuckled my seat belt so I could lock the doors. Through the still-open passenger side door Richard was watching me . Over the idling of the car's engine his voice carried, "Locking out the boogeymen?"
   "You never know," I said.
   He nodded. "Yeah." There was something in that one word that was sad, wistful, innocence lost. It was nice to talk with another person who understood. Dolph and Zerbrowski understood the violence and the nearness of death, but they didn't understand the monsters.
   I closed the door and scooted back behind the steering wheel. I buckled my seat belt and put the car in gear. The headlights sparkled over Richard, Stephen's hair like a yellow splash in his arms. Richard was still staring at me. I left him in the dark in front of his house with the singing of autumn crickets the only sound.
   
   

10
   I pulled up in front of my apartment building at a little after 2:00 A.M. I'd planned to be in bed a long time before this. The new cross-shaped burn was a burning, acid-eating ache. It made my whole chest hurt. My ribs and stomach were sore, stiff. I turned on the dome light in the car and unzipped the leather jacket. In the yellow light bruises were blossoming across my skin. For a minute I couldn't think how I'd gotten hurt; then I remembered the crushing weight of the snake crawling over me. Jesus. I was lucky it was bruises and not broken ribs.
   I clicked off the light and zipped the jacket back up. The shoulder straps were chafing on my bare skin, but the burn hurt so much more that the bruises and the chafing seemed pretty darn minor. A good burn will take your mind off everything else.
   The light that usually burned over the stairs was out. Not the first time. I'd have to call the office once it opened for the day and report it, though. If you didn't report it, it didn't get fixed.
   I was three steps up before I saw the man. He was sitting at the head of the stairs waiting for me. Short blond hair, pale in the darkness. His hands sat on the top of his knees, palms up to show that he didn't have a weapon. Well, that he didn't have a weapon in his hands. Edward always had a weapon unless someone had taken it away from him.
   Come to think of it, so did I.
   "Long time no see, Edward."
   "Three months," he said. "Long enough for my broken arm to heal completely."
   I nodded. "I got my stitches out about two months ago."
   He just sat on the steps looking down at me.
   "What do you want, Edward?"
   "Couldn't it be a social call?" He was laughing at me, quietly.
   "It's two o'clock in the freaking morning; it better not be a social call."
   "Would you rather it was business?" His voice was soft, but it carried.
   I shook my head. "No, no." I never wanted to be business for Edward. He specialized in killing lycanthropes, vampires, anything that used to be human and wasn't anymore. He'd gotten bored with killing people. Too easy.
   "Is it business?" My voice was steady, no tremble. Good for me. I could draw the Browning, but if we ever drew down on each other for real, he'd kill me. Being friends with Edward was like being friends with a tame leopard. You could pet it and it seemed to like you, but you knew deep down that if it ever got hungry enough, or angry enough, it would kill you. Kill you and eat the flesh from your bones.
   "Just information tonight, Anita, no problems."
   "What sort of information?" I asked.
   He smiled again. Friendly ol' Edward. Ri-ight.
   "Can we go inside and talk about it? It's freezing out here," he said.
   "The last time you were in town you didn't seem to need an invitation to break into my apartment."
   "You've got a new lock."
   I grinned. "You couldn't pick it, could you?" I was genuinely pleased.
   He shrugged; maybe it was the darkness, but if it hadn't been Edward, I'd have said he was embarrassed.
   "The locksmith told me it was burglarproof," I said.
   "I didn't bring my battering ram with me," he said.
   "Come on up. I'll fix coffee." I stepped around him. He stood and followed me. I turned my back on him without worrying. Edward might shoot me someday, but he wouldn't do it in the back after telling me he was just here to talk. Edward wasn't honorable, but he had rules. If he planned to kill me, he'd have announced it. Told me how much people were paying him to off me. Watched the fear slide through my eyes.
   Yeah, Edward had rules. He just had fewer of them than most people did. But he never broke a rule, never betrayed his own skewed sense of honor. If he said I was safe for tonight, he meant it. It would have been nice if Jean-Claude had had rules.
   The hallway was middle-of-the-night, middle-of-the-week, had-to-get-up-in-the-morning quiet. My day living neighbors were all asnooze in their beds without care. I unlocked the new locks on my door and ushered Edward inside.
   "That's a new look for you, isn't it?" he asked.
   "What?"
   "What happened to your shirt?"
   "Oh." Suave comebacks, that's me. I didn't know what to say, or rather, how much to say.
   "You've been playing with vampires again," he said.
   "What makes you think so?" I asked.
   "The cross-shaped burn on your, ah, chest."
   Oh, that. Fine. I unzipped the jacket and folded it over the back of the couch. I stood there in my bra and shoulder holster and met his eyes without blushing. Brownie point for me. I undid the belt and slipped out of the shoulder holster, then took it into the kitchen with me. I laid the gun still in its holster on the countertop and got coffee beans out of the freezer, wearing just my bra and jeans. In front of any other male, alive or dead, I would have been embarrassed, but not Edward. There had never been sexual tension between us. We might shoot each other one fine day, but we'd never sleep together. He was more interested in the fresh burn than my breasts.
   "How'd it happen?" he asked.
   I ground the beans in the little electric spice mill I'd bought for the occasion. Just the smell of freshly ground coffee made me feel better. I put a filter in my Mr. Coffee, poured the coffee in, poured the water in, and pushed the button. This was about as fancy as my cooking skills got.
   "I'm going to get a shirt to throw on," I said.
   "The burn won't like anything touching it," Edward said.
   "I won't button it, then."
   "Are you going to tell me how you got burned?"
   "Yes." I took my gun and walked into the bedroom. In the back of my closet I had a long-sleeved shirt that had once been purple but had faded to a soft lilac. It was a man's dress shirt and hung down nearly to my knees, but it was comfortable. I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and buttoned it halfway up. I left it gapping over the burn. I glanced in the mirror and found that most of my cleavage was covered. Perfect.
   I hesitated but finally put the Browning Hi-Power in its holster behind the headboard. Edward and I weren't fighting tonight, and anything that came through the door, with its new locks, would have to go through Edward first. I felt pretty safe.
   He was sitting on my couch, legs out in front of him crossed at the ankle. He'd sunk down until the top of his shoulders rested on the couch's arm.
   "Make yourself at home," I said.
   He just smiled. "Are you going to tell me about the vampires?"
   "Yes, but I'm having trouble deciding exactly how much to tell you."
   The smile widened. "Naturally."
   I set out two mugs, sugar, and real cream from the refrigerator. The coffee dripped into the little glass pot. The smell was rich, warm, and thick enough to wrap your arms around.
   "How do you like your coffee?"
   "Fix it the way you'd fix it for yourself."
   I glanced back at him. "No preference?"
   He shook his head, still resting against the couch arm.
   "Okay." I poured the coffee into the mugs, added three sugars and a lot of cream to each, stirred, and sat them on the two-seater breakfast table.
   "You're not going to bring it to me?"
   "You don't drink coffee on a white couch," I said.
   "Ah." He got up in one smooth motion, all grace and energy. He'd have been very impressive if I hadn't spent most of the night with vampires.
   We sat across from each other. His eyes were the color of spring skies, that warm pale blue that still manages to look cold. His face was pleasant, his eyes neutral and watching everything I did.
   I told him about Yasmeen and Marguerite. I left out Jean-Claude, the vampire murder, the giant cobra, Stephen the Werewolf, and Rick Zeeman. Which meant it was a very short story.
   When I finished Edward sat there, sipping his coffee and staring at me.
   I sipped coffee and stared back.
   "That does explain the burn," he said.
   "Great," I said.
   "But you left out a lot."
   "How do you know?"
   "Because I was following you."
   I stared at him, choking on my coffee. When I could talk without coughing, I said, "You were what?"
   "Following you," he said. His eyes were still neutral, smile still pleasant.
   "Why?"
   "I've been hired to kill the Master of the City."
   "You were hired for that three months ago."
   "Nikolaos is dead; the new master isn't."
   "You didn't kill Nikolaos," I said. "I did."
   "True; you want half the money?"
   I shook my head.
   "Then what's your complaint? I got my arm broken helping you kill her."
   "And I got fourteen stitches, and we both got vampire bit," I said.
   "And cleansed ourselves with holy water," Edward said.
   "Which burns likes acid," I said.
   Edward nodded, sipped his coffee. Something moved behind his eyes, something liquid and dangerous. His expression hadn't changed, I'd swear to it, but it was suddenly all I could do to meet his eyes.
   "Why were you following me, Edward?"
   "I was told you would be meeting with the new Master tonight."
   "Who told you that?"
   He shook his head, that inscrutable smile curling his lips. "I was inside the Circus tonight, Anita. I saw who you were with. You played with the vampires, then you went home, so one of them has to be the Master."
   I fought to keep my face blank, too blank, so the effort showed, but the panic didn't show. Edward had been following me, and I hadn't known it. He knew all the vampires I had seen tonight. It wasn't that big a list. He'd figure it out.
   "Wait a minute," I said. "You let me go up against that snake without helping me?"
   "I came in after the crowd ran out. It was almost over by the time I peeked into the tent."
   I drank coffee and tried to think of a way to make this better. He had a contract to kill the Master, and I had led him right to him. I had betrayed Jean-Claude. Why did that bother me?
   Edward was watching my face as if he would memorize it. He was waiting for my face to betray me. I worked hard at being blank and inscrutable. He smiled that close, canary-eating grin of his. He was enjoying himself. I was not.
   "You only saw four vampires tonight: Jean-Claude, the dark exotic one who must be Yasmeen, and the two blonds. You got names for the blonds?"
   I shook my head.
   His smile widened. "Would you tell me if you had?"
   "Maybe."
   "The blonds aren't important," he said. "Neither of them were master vamps."
   I stared at him, forcing my face to be neutral, pleasant, attentive, blank. Blank is not one of my better expressions, but maybe if I practiced enough . . .
   "That leaves Jean-Claude and Yasmeen. Yasmeen's new in town; that just leaves Jean-Claude."
   "Do you really think that the Master of the freaking City would show himself like that?" I put all the scorn I could find into my voice. I wasn't the best actor in the world, but maybe I could learn.
   Edward stared at me. "It's Jean-Claude, isn't it?"
   "Jean-Claude isn't powerful enough to hold the city. You know that. He's, what, a little over two hundred? Not old enough."
   He frowned at me. Good. "It's not Yasmeen."
   "True."
   "You didn't talk to any other vampires tonight?"
   "You may have followed me into the Circus, Edward, but you didn't listen at the door when I met the Master. You couldn't have. The vamps or the shapeshifters would have heard you."
   He acknowledged it with a nod.
   "I saw the Master tonight, but it wasn't anyone who came down to fight the snake."
   "The Master let his people risk their lives and didn't help?" His smile was back.
   "The Master of the City doesn't have to be physically present to lend his power, you know that."
   "No," he said, "I don't."
   I shrugged. "Believe it or not." I prayed, please let him believe.
   He was frowning. "You're not usually this good a liar."
   "I'm not lying." My voice sounded calm, normal, truthful. Honesty-R-Us.
   "If Jean-Claude really isn't the Master, then you know who is?"
   The question was a trap. I couldn't answer yes to both questions, but hell, I'd been lying; why stop now? "Yes, I know who it is."
   "Tell me," he said.
   I shook my head. "The Master would kill me if he knew I talked to you."
   "We can kill him together like we did the last one." His voice was terribly reasonable.
   I thought about it for a minute. I thought about telling him the truth. Humans First might not be up to tangling with the Master, but Edward was. We could kill him together, a team. My life would be a lot simpler. I shook my head and sighed. Shit.
   "I can't, Edward."
   "Won't," he said.
   I nodded. "Won't."
   "If I believe you, Anita, it means I need the name of the Master. It means you are the only human who knows that name." The friendly banter seeped out of his face like melting ice. His eyes were as empty and pitiless as a winter sky. There was no one home that I could talk to.
   "You don't want to be the only human who knows the name, Anita."
   He was right. I didn't, but what could I say? "Take it or leave it, Edward."
   "Save yourself a lot of pain, Anita; tell me the name."
   He believed. Hot damn. I lowered my eyes to look down into my coffee so he wouldn't see the flash of triumph in my eyes. When I looked back up, I had my face under control. Me and Meryl Streep.
   "I don't give in to threats, you know that."
   He nodded. He finished his coffee and sat the mug in the middle of the table. "I will do whatever is necessary to finish this job."
   "I never doubted that," I said. He was talking about torturing me for information. He sounded almost regretful, but that wouldn't stop him. One of Edward's primary rules was "Always finish a job."
   He wouldn't let a little thing like friendship ruin his perfect record.
   "You saved my life, and I saved yours," he said. "It doesn't buy you anything now. You understand that?"
   I nodded. "I understand."
   "Good." He stood up. I stood up. We looked at each other. He shook his head. "I'll find you tonight, and I'll ask again."
   "I won't be bullied, Edward." I was finally getting a little mad. He had come in here asking for information; now he was threatening me. I let the anger show. No acting needed.
   "You're tough, Anita, but not that tough." His eyes were neutral, but wary, like those of a wolf I'd seen once in California. I'd just walked around a tree and there it had been, standing. I froze. I had never really understood what neutral meant until then. The wolf didn't give a damn if it hurt me or not. My choice. Threaten it, and the shit hit the fan. Give it room to run, and it would run. But the wolf didn't care; it was prepared either way. I was the one with my pulse in my throat, so startled that I'd stopped breathing. I held my breath and wondered what the wolf would decide. It finally loped off through the trees.
   I'd relearned how to breathe and gone back down to the campsite. I had been scared, but I could still close my eyes and see the wolf's pale grey eyes. The wonder of staring at a large predator without any cage bars between us. It had been wonderful.
   I stared up at Edward now and knew that this, too, was wonderful in its way. Whether I had known the information or not, I wouldn't have told him. No one bullied me. No one. That was one of my rules.
   "I don't want to have to kill you, Edward."
   He smiled then. "You kill me?" He was laughing at me.
   "You bet," I said.
   The laughter seeped out of his eyes, his lips, his face, until he stared at me with his neutral, predator eyes.
   I swallowed and remembered to take slow, even breaths. He would kill me. Maybe. Maybe not.
   "Is the Master worth one of us dying?" I asked.
   "It's a matter of principle," he said.
   I nodded. "Me, too."
   "We know where we stand, then," he said.
   "Yeah."
   He walked towards the door. I followed, and unlocked the door for him. He paused in the doorway. "You've got until full dark tonight."
   "The answer will be the same."
   "I know," he said. He walked out without even glancing back. I watched him until he disappeared down the stairs. Then I shut the door and locked it. I stood leaning my back against the door and tried to think of a way out.
   If I told Jean-Claude, he might be able to kill Edward, but I didn't give humans to the monsters. Not for any reason. I could tell Edward about Jean-Claude. He might even be able to kill the Master. I could even help him.
   I tried picturing Jean-Claude's perfect body riddled with bullets, covered in blood. His face blown away by a shotgun. I shook my head. I couldn't do it. I didn't know why exactly, but I couldn't hand Jean-Claude over to Edward.
   I couldn't betray either of them. Which left me ass-deep in alligators. So what else was new?
   
   

11
   I stood on the shore under a black fringe of trees. The black lake lapped and rolled away into the dark. The moon hung huge and silver in the sky. The moonlight made glittering patterns on the water. Jean-Claude rose from the water. Water was streaming in silver lines from his hair and shirt. His short black hair was in tight curls from being wet. The white shirt clung to his body, making his nipples clear and hard against the cloth. He held out his hand to me.
   I was wearing a long, dark dress. It was heavy and hung around me like a weight. Something inside the skirt made it stick out to either side like a tiny malformed hoop. A heavy cloak was pushed back over my shoulders. It was autumn, and the moon was harvest-full.
   Jean-Claude said, "Come to me."
   I stepped off the shore and sank into the water. It filled the skirt, soaking into the cloak. I tore the cloak off, letting it sink out of sight. The water was warm as bath water, warm as blood. I raised my hand to the moonlight, and the liquid that streamed down it was thick and dark and had never been water.
   I stood in the shallows in a dress that I had never imagined, by a shore I did not know, and stared at the beautiful monster as he moved towards me, graceful and covered in blood.
   I woke gasping for air, hands clutching at the sheets like a lifeline. "You promised to stay out of my dreams, you son of a bitch," I whispered.
   The radio clock beside the bed read 2:00 P.M. I'd been asleep for ten hours. I should have felt better, but I didn't. It was as if I'd been running from nightmare to nightmare, and hadn't really gotten to rest. The only dream I remembered was the last one. If they had all been that bad, I didn't want to remember the rest.
   Why was Jean-Claude haunting my dreams again? He'd given his word, but maybe his word wasn't worth anything. Maybe.
   I stripped in front of the bathroom mirror. My ribs and stomach were covered in deep, nearly purple bruises. My chest was tight when I breathed, but nothing was broken. The burn on my chest was raw, the skin blackened where it wasn't covered in blisters. A burn hurts all the way down, as if the pain burrows from the skin down to the bone. A burn is the only injury where I am convinced I have nerve endings below skin level. How could it hurt so damn bad, otherwise?
   I was meeting Ronnie at the health club at three. Ronnie was short for Veronica. She said it helped her get more work as a private detective if people assumed she was male. Sad but true. We would lift weights and jog. I slipped a black sports bra very carefully over the burn. The elastic pressed in on the bruises, but everything else was okay. I rubbed the burn with antiseptic cream and taped a piece of gauze over it. A man's red t-shirt with the sleeves and neck cut out went over everything else. Black biker pants, jogging socks with a thin red stripe, and black Nike Airs completed the outfit.
   The t-shirt showed the gauze, but it hid the bruises. Most of the regulars at the health club were accustomed to my coming in bruised or worse. They didn't ask a lot of questions anymore. Ronnie says I was grumpy at them. Fine with me. I like to be left alone.
   I had my coat on, gym bag in hand, when the phone rang. I debated but finally picked it up. "Talk to me," I said.
   "It's Dolph."
   My stomach tightened. Was it another murder? "What's up, Dolph?"
   "We got an ID on the John Doe you looked at."
   "The vampire victim?"
   "Yeah."
   I let out the breath I'd been holding. No more murders, and we were making progress; what could be better?
   "Calvin Barnabas Rupert, friends called him Cal. Twenty-six years old, married to Denise Smythe Rupert for four years. No children. He was an insurance broker. We haven't been able to turn up any ties with the vampire community."
   "Maybe Mr. Rupert was just in the right place at the wrong time."
   "Random violence?" He made it a question.
   "Maybe."
   "If it was random, we got no pattern, nothing to look at."
   "So you're wondering if I can find out if Cal Rupert had any ties to the monsters?"
   "Yes," he said.
   I sighed. "I'll try. Is that it? I'm late for an appointment."
   "That's it. Call me if you find out anything." His voice sounded positively grim.
   "You'd tell me if you found another body, wouldn't you?"
   He gave a snort of laughter. "Make you come down and measure the damn bites, yeah. Why?"
   "Your voice sounds grim."
   The laughter dribbled out of his voice. "You're the one who said there'd be more bodies. You changed your mind on that?"
   I wanted to say, yes, I've changed my mind, but I didn't. "If there is a pack of rogue vampires, we'll be seeing more bodies."
   "Can you think of anything else it could be besides vampires?" he asked.
   I thought about it for a minute, and shook my head. "Not a damn thing."
   "Fine, talk to you later." The phone buzzed dead in my hand before I could say anything. Dolph wasn't much on hello and good-bye.
   I had my back-up gun, a Firestar 9mm, in the pocket of my jacket. There was just no way to wear a holster in exercise clothes. The Firestar only held eight bullets to the Browning's thirteen, but the Browning tended to stick out of my pocket and make people stare. Besides, if I couldn't get the bad guys with eight bullets, another five probably wouldn't help. Of course, there was an extra clip in the zipper pocket of my gym bag. A girl couldn't be too cautious in these crime-ridden times.
   
   

12
   Ronnie and I were doing power circuits at Vic Tanny's. There were two full sets of machines and no waiting at 3:14 on a Thursday afternoon. I was doing the Hip Abduction/Hip Adduction machine. You pulled a lever on the side and the machine went to different positions. The Hip Adduction position looked vaguely obscene, like a gynecological torture device. It was one of the reasons I never wore shorts when we lifted weights. Ronnie either.
   I was concentrating on pressing my thighs together without making the weights clink. Weights clinking means you're not controlling the exercise, or it means you're working with too much weight. I was using sixty pounds. It wasn't too heavy.
   Ronnie lay on her stomach using the Leg Curl, flexing her calves over her back, heels nearly touching her butt. The muscles under her calves bunched and coiled under her skin. Neither of us is bulky, but we're solid. Think Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.
   Ronnie finished before I did and paced around the machines waiting for me. I let the weights ease back with only the slightest clink. It's okay to clink the weights when you're finished.
   We eased out from the machines and started running on the oval track. The track was bordered by a glass wall that showed the blue pool. A lone man was doing laps in goggles and a black bathing cap. The other side was bordered by the free weight room and the aerobics studio. The ends of the track were mirrored so you could always see yourself running face on. On bad days I could have done without watching myself; on good days it was kind of fun. A way to make sure your stride was even, arms pumping.
   I told Ronnie about the vampire victim as we ran. Which meant we weren't running fast enough. I increased my pace and could still talk. When you routinely do four miles outside in the St. Louis heat, the padded track at Vic Tanny is just not that big a challenge. We did two laps and went back to the machines.
   "What did you say the victim's name was again?" She sounded normal, no strain. I increased our pace to a flat-out run. All talking ceased.
   Arm machines this time. Regular Pull-over for me, Overhead Press for Ronnie, then two laps of the track, then trade machines.
   When I could talk, I answered her question. "Calvin Rupert," I said. I did twelve pullovers with 100 pounds. Of all the machines, this one is easiest for me. Weird, huh?
   "Cal Rupert?" she asked.
   "That's what his friends called him," I said, "Why?"
   She shook her head. "I know a Cal Rupert."
   I watched her and let my body do the exercise without me. I was holding my breath, which is bad. I remembered to breathe and said, "Tell me."
   "When I was asking questions around Humans Against Vampires during that rash of vampire deaths. Cal Rupert belonged to HAV."
   "Describe him for me."
   "Blond, blue or grey eyes, not too tall, well built, attractive."
   There might be more than one Cal Rupert in St. Louis, but what were the odds that they'd look that much alike? "I'll have Dolph check it out, but if he was a member of HAV, it might mean the vampire kill was an execution."
   "What do you mean?"
   "Some of HAV thinks the only good vampire is a dead vampire." I was thinking of Humans First, Mr. Jeremy Ruebens's little group. Had they killed a vampire already? Was this retaliation?
   "I need to know if Cal was still a member of HAV or if he'd joined a new, more radical group called Humans First."
   "Catchy," Ronnie said.
   "Can you find out for me? If I go down there asking questions, they'll burn me at the stake."
   "Always glad to help my best friend and the police at the same time. A private detective never knows when having the police owe you one may come in handy."
   "True," I said.
   I got to wait for Ronnie this time. On leg machines she was faster. Upper body was my area. "I'll call Dolph as soon as we're finished here. Maybe it's a pattern? A hell of a coincidence if it's not."
   We started around the track and Ronnie said, "So, have you decided what you're wearing to Catherine's Halloween party?"
   I glanced at her, nearly stumbling. "Shit," I said.
   "I take that to mean you forgot about the party. You were bitching about it only two days ago."
   "I've been a little busy, okay?" I said. But it wasn't all right. Catherine Maison-Gillett was one of my best friends. I'd worn a pink prom dress with puff sleeves in her wedding. It had been humiliating. We'd all told the great lie of all bridesmaids. We could cut the dress short and wear it in normal life. No way. Or I could wear it at the next formal occasion I was invited to. How many formals are you invited to once you graduate college? None. At least none where I'd willingly wear a pink, puff-sleeved, hoop-skirted, reject from Gone With the Wind.
   Catherine was throwing her very first party since the wedding. The Halloween festivities started long before dark so that I could make an appearance. When someone goes to that much trouble, you have to show up. Dammit.
   "I made a date for Saturday," I said.
   Ronnie stopped running and stared at me in the mirror. I kept running; if she wanted to ask questions she'd have to catch me first. She caught me.
   "Did you say date?"
   I nodded, saving my breath for running.
   "Talk, Anita." Her voice was vaguely threatening.
   I grinned at her and told her an edited version of my meeting with Richard Zeeman. I didn't leave out much, though.
   "He was naked in a bed the first time you saw him?" She was cheerfully outraged.
   I nodded.
   "You do meet men in the most interesting places," she said.
   We were jogging on the track again. "When's the last time I met a man?"
   "What about John Burke?"
   "Other than him," Jerks did not count.
   She thought about that for a minute. She shook her head. "Too long."
   "Yep," I said.
   We were on our last machine, the last two laps, then stretching, showers, and done. I didn't really enjoy exercising. Neither did Ronnie. But we both needed to be in good shape so we could run away from the bad guys, or run them down. Though I hadn't chased after many villains lately. I seemed to do a lot more running away.
   We moved over to the open area near the racquetball courts and the tanning rooms. It was the only place with enough room to stretch out. I always stretched before and after exercising. I'd had too many injuries not to be careful.
   I started rotating the neck slowly; Ronnie followed me. "I guess I'll have to cancel the date."
   "Don't you dare," Ronnie said. "Invite him to the party."
   I looked at her. "You've got to be kidding. A first date surrounded by people he doesn't know."
   "Who do you know besides Catherine?" she asked.
   She had a point there. "I've met her new husband."
   "You were in the wedding," Ronnie said.
   "Oh, yeah."
   Ronnie frowned at me. "Be serious, ask him to the party, make plans for the caving next week."
   "Two dates with the same man?" I shook my head. "What if we don't like each other?"
   "No excuses," Ronnie said. "This is the closest you've been to a date in months. Don't blow it."
   "I don't date because I don't have time to date."
   "You don't have time to sleep, either, but you manage it," she said.
   "I'll do it, but he may say no to the party. I would rather not go myself."
   "Why not?"
   I gave her a long look. She looked innocent enough. "I'm an animator, a zombie-queen. Having me at a Halloween party is redundant."
   "You don't have to tell people what you do for a living."
   "I'm not ashamed of it."
   "I didn't say you were," Ronnie said.
   I shook my head. "Just forget it. I'll make the counteroffer to Richard, then we'll go from there."
   "You'll want a sexy outfit for the party now," she said.
   "Do not," I said.
   She laughed. "Do too."
   "All right, all right, a sexy outfit if I can find one in my size three days before Halloween."
   "I'll help you. We'll find something."
   She'd help me. We'd find something. It sounded sort of ominous. Pre-date jitters. Who, me?
   
   

13
   At 5:15 that afternoon I was on the phone to Richard Zeeman. "Hi, Richard, this is Anita Blake."
   "Nice to hear your voice." His voice was smiling over the phone; I could almost feel it.
   "I forgot that I've got a Halloween party to go to Saturday afternoon. They started the party during daylight so I could make an appearance. I can't not show up."
   "I understand," he said. His voice was very carefully neutral—neutral cheerful.
   "Would you like to be my date for the party? I have to work Halloween night, of course, but the day could be ours."
   "And the caving?"
   "A rain check," I said.
   "Two dates; this could be serious."
   "You're laughing at me," I said.
   "Never."
   "Shit, do you want to go or not?"
   "If you promise to go caving a week from Saturday."
   "My solemn word," I said.
   "It's a deal." He was quiet on the phone for a minute. "I don't have to wear a costume for this party, do I?"
   "Unfortunately, yes," I said.
   He sighed.
   "Backing out?"
   "No, but you owe me two dates for humiliating myself in front of strangers."
   I grinned and was glad he couldn't see it, I was entirely too pleased. "Deal."
   "What costume are you wearing?" he asked.
   "I haven't got one yet. I told you I forgot the party; I meant it."
   "Hmm," he said. "I think picking out costumes should tell a lot about a person, don't you?"
   "This close to Halloween we'll be lucky to find anything in our size."
   He laughed. "I might have an ace up my sleeve."
   "What?"
   He laughed again. "Don't sound so damn suspicious. I've got a friend who's a Civil War buff. He and his wife do re-creations."
   "You mean like dress up?"
   "Yes."
   "Will they have the right sizes?"
   "What size dress do you wear?"
   That was a personal question for someone who'd never even kissed me. "Seven," I said.
   "I would have guessed smaller."
   "I'm too chesty for a six, and they don't make six and a halfs."
   "Chesty, woo, woo."
   "Stop it."
   "Sorry, couldn't resist," he said.
   My beeper went off. "Damn."
   "What's that sound?"
   "My beeper," I said. I pressed the button and it flashed the number—the police. "I have to take it. Can I call you back in a few minutes, Richard?"
   "I'll wait with bated breath."
   "I'm frowning at the phone, I hope you know that."
   "Thanks for sharing that. I'll wait here by the phone. Call me when you're done with (sob) work."
   "Cut it out, Richard."
   "What'd I do?"
   "Bye, Richard, talk to you soon."
   "I'll be waiting," he said.
   "Bye, Richard." I hung up before he could make any more "pitiful me" jokes. The really sad part was I thought it was cute. Gag me with a spoon.
   I called Dolph's number. "Anita?"
   "Yeah."
   "We got another vampire victim. Looks the same as the first one, except it's a woman."
   "Damn," I said softly.
   "Yeah, we're over here at DeSoto."
   "That's farther south than Arnold," I said.
   "So?" he said.
   "Nothing, just give me the directions."
   He did.
   "It'll take me at least an hour to get there," I said.
   "The stiff's not going anywhere, and neither are we." He sounded discouraged.
   "Cheer up, Dolph, I may have found a clue."
   "Talk."
   "Veronica Sims recognized the name Cal Rupert. Description matches."
   "What are you doing talking to a private detective?" He sounded suspicious.
   "She's my workout partner, and since she just gave us our first clue, I'd sound a little more grateful, if I were you."
   "Yeah, yeah. Hurrah for the private sector. Now talk."
   "A Cal Rupert was a member of HAV about two months ago. The description matches."
   "Revenge killings?" he asked.
   "Maybe."
   "Half of me hopes it's a pattern. At least we'd have some place to start looking." He made a sound between a laugh and a snort. "I'll tell Zerbrowski you found a clue. He'll like that."
   "All us Dick Tracy Crimebusters speak police lingo," I said.
   "Police lingo?" I could feel the grin over the phone. "You find any more clues, you let us know."
   "Aye, aye, Sergeant."
   "Can the sarcasm," he said.
   "Please, I always use fresh sarcasm, never canned."
   He groaned. "Just get your butt out here so we can all go home." The phone went dead. I hung up.
   Richard Zeeman answered on the second ring. "Hello."
   "It's Anita."
   "What's up?"
   "The message was from the police. They need my expertise."
   "A preternatural crime?" he asked.
   "Yeah."
   "Is it dangerous?"
   "To the person who was killed, yeah."
   "You know that's not what I meant," he said.
   "It's my job, Richard. If you can't deal with it, maybe we shouldn't date at all."
   "Hey, don't get defensive. I just wanted to know if you would be in any personal danger." His voice was indignant.
   "Fine. I've got to go."
   "What about the costumes? Do you want me to call my friend?"
   "Sure."
   "Will you trust me to pick your costume?" he asked.
   I thought about that for a few heartbeats. Did I trust him to get me a costume? No. Did I have time to hunt up a costume on my own? Probably not. "Why not?" I said. "Beggars can't be choosers."
   "We'll survive the party and then next week we'll go crawl in the mud."
   "I can't wait," I said.
   He laughed. "Neither can I."
   "I've got to go, Richard."
   "I'll have the costumes at your apartment for inspection. I'll need directions."
   I gave him directions.
   "I hope you like your costume."
   "Me too. Talk to you later." I hung the receiver on the pay phone's cradle and stared at it. That had been too easy. Too smooth. He'd probably pick out a terrible costume for me. We'd both have a miserable time and be trapped into a second date with each other. Eek!
   Ronnie handed me a can of fruit juice and took a sip of her own. She had cranberry and I had ruby red grapefruit. I couldn't stand cranberry.
   "What'd cutesie pie say?"
   "Please don't call him that," I said.
   She shrugged. "Sorry, it just sort of slipped out." She had the grace to look embarrassed.
   "I forgive you, this once."
   She grinned, and I knew she wasn't repentant. But I'd ribbed her often enough about her dates. Turnabout is fair play. Payback is a bitch.