Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The audience was silent with tension, as the vampires landed on the stage again. They surrounded her, hiding her from view. It gave the illusion that all of them were feeding at once, though I knew logistically that wasn’t possible. Too many mouths to fit like that.

  A new vampire stalked onto the stage. He was dark-haired, and darker-skinned, pale, but I couldn’t tell if it was makeup or skin tone. He chased back the other vamps. He saw the bloody almost-corpse, and he wept. His shoulders rose and fell with it.

  Adonis laughed at him, one of those big stage laughs, with the head back.

  The dark vampire raised a face livid with anger. They began to dance around the stage. They danced with her bloody corpse as their centerpiece. The other vampires vanished behind the stage. The two men danced. Adonis had more bulky muscles. The dark man was tall and lean, and more graceful than anyone I’d ever seen. He moved like a dream of water, and even that didn’t do him justice.

  Adonis’s dancing came across as clunky, human in comparison. Somewhere in the middle of the dance, I realized I was looking at Merlin.

  Merlin won the dancing fight. For that was what it became. They fought in the air, and on the ground, and it looked real. Real anger seemed to be involved, and I wondered if it was projecting, or if they were truly pissed at each other and the fight gave them an excuse to vent it.

  Adonis was vanquished, not killed, and that left Merlin on stage alone with his dead love. He leaned over her, held her in his arms, and rocked her. My throat was tight, damn him. He wept and I fought not to weep with him. Jean-Claude did some of this with the audience at the clubs, but he wasn’t this good. No one I’d ever met was this good at projecting emotions.

  A mob entered from stage right. They had crossbows and torches. They shot the weeping vampire. The crossbow bolt appeared in his chest like magic. Even knowing it was stage trickery it looked real. He collapsed on top of his dead love, and the lights circled round the two dead lovers. He died curled around her, as if, even in death, he would protect her.

  The mob came, and the weeping man who had shot the vampire picked up the dead girl. He cradled her in his arms, and a woman from the crowd joined him in weeping. Parents, I thought. They cradled her, much as the dead vampire had. They carried her offstage, weeping, and left the vampire dead.

  The stage was empty for a moment, then the vampires returned. They crept out on the stage, cautious, afraid. They seemed bewildered by the dead vampire. It was Adonis who knelt by him, touched his face, and wept. He picked the fallen man up in his arms, cradling him. Then he rose skyward, and the vampires flew away with their fallen leader. They flew away weeping to the sounds of music that sounded like the violins were weeping with them.

  The curtain went down and there was a moment of utter silence. Then the audience went wild, clapping, making noises of all kinds. The audience came to its feet and the curtain reopened. The humans came out first, the chorus, but the audience stayed on their feet through it all. When Adonis took the stage, they clapped louder. When the girl and Merlin came down to bow, well, the crowd actually screamed. You don’t hear screaming much at the ballet, but you heard it now.

  Roses were delivered to the girl, and to Merlin. More than one bouquet of them, in different colors. They bowed, and bowed again, and finally the audience began to quiet. Only then did the curtain close, and the dancers exited to the soft sound of applause and the excited babble of the audience, already asking themselves, “Did you see what I saw? Was it real?”

  We’d survived the ballet. Now all we had to survive was the cast party afterward. The night was young. Damn it.

  53

  I WAS IN Jean-Claude’s office at Danse Macabre. It was black-and-white elegant, with framed kimonos and fans on the walls as the only color. I sat behind his elegant black desk, with a drawer open. I had an extra gun in that drawer. I’d loaded it with silver shot while we waited. Asher sat beside me, in a chair pulled up so he could be close enough to touch me. He was the reason the drawer was open and the gun was loaded, but not sitting in plain sight on the desk, or in my hand already. He thought it might make the discussion get off on a hostile foot. Damian stood on my other side, hand on my shoulder. His touching me, sharing his calmness, was probably why Asher had won his argument about the gun. The other reason he’d won the fight about the gun was leaning up against the door: Claudia, Truth, and Lisandro, looking very bodyguardy against the wall. Where was Jean-Claude? He was out being the media darling. Elinore, as manager here, was also playing to the media. For public events like this, she made a much better hostess. Besides, I was handling other business. The kind the human media didn’t get to know about.

  Merlin was sitting in a chair facing us. Adonis and the dark-haired woman from the chorus were sitting on the couch against the wall. Her name was Elisabetta, and her vaguely Eastern European accent was thick enough to walk on. Merlin’s and Adonis’s accents seemed to flow with their moods, but were mostly absent.

  Merlin was answering my questions in that elegant from-anywhere-and-everywhere voice: “I wanted the show to be magical for the entire audience, not just the humans.”

  “So you tried to roll everyone’s mind, including the master vampires and lycanthropes, because you didn’t want them to miss the show?” I didn’t fight to keep the sarcsasm out of my voice. I’d have lost the fight, so why try?

  “Yes,” he said, simply, as if, of course.

  Damian’s hand squeezed a little tighter on my bare shoulder, his fingers caressing the edge of the collarbone scars.

  “I find that a little hard to believe,” I said. There, that was calm. I hadn’t called him a lying bastard.

  “Why else would I have done it?” he asked. His face was very calm. I knew his eyes were dark, pure brown, but other than color I couldn’t describe them much, because I wasn’t making eye contact. This vampire had damn near rolled us all with no gaze. I wasn’t chancing it. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was not European. No, something darker, farther east, as in Middle East. There was something very Egyptian about him, or maybe Babylonian, because he was old. Old enough that he made my bones ache with his age. Not power, just age. I was a necromancer, and I could taste the power and age of most vampires. It was a natural ability that had gotten better as my power had grown. Now that ability made my bones thrum with the weight of ages that sat smiling in front of me.

  “Using power that way on a Master of the City is a direct challenge to his or her authority. You know that.”

  “Not if you don’t get caught at it,” Adonis said from the couch.

  I glanced at him, avoiding his eyes. That made him laugh. He liked that he could roll me with his gaze. All right, that we both thought he could.

  Asher spoke then. “Are you implying that Merlin rolled the minds of all the masters in all the cities that you performed in, and they did not know it?” His voice was empty, pleasant, even happy. It was a lie. He wanted Adonis to chat himself into a corner.

  Merlin raised a darkly pale hand. That one gesture stopped Adonis with his mouth parted. “No,” Merlin said, “no. We have answered the question of Jean-Claude’s servant. When she speaks it is with his voice. But why are you here, Asher? Why do you sit so close and join these talks?”

  “I am Jean-Claude’s témoin.”

  “How have you earned this place of trust and power, Asher? It is not through strength. There are at least four vampires here, perhaps more, who are more powerful than you. And you were never known for your skill in battle. So why do you sit at his right hand, and now at hers?”

  “I can tell you why he’s here tonight, sitting beside me,” I said.

  Merlin gave me a quizzical look. It was so hard not to look him in the eye when he moved. I’d lost the knack of not making eye contact with vampires. “Do enlighten me, Miss Blake.”

  I reached in the drawer and wrapped my hand around the gun. I felt better holding it. The moment the gun flashed to the room, the tension level rose. I felt rather th
an saw Adonis and Elisabetta begin to move forward on the couch.

  Claudia said, “Don’t.”

  Merlin said, “Do not react. That is what she wants.”

  It was probably their master’s voice, not Claudia’s warning, that kept them on the couch. Or hell, maybe she’d been speaking to me.

  I put the gun on the desk with my hand sort of caressing it. Not exactly holding it, but touching it. “I wanted to have the gun naked on the desk when you came through the door. Asher talked me out of it.”

  “So he is here to see you do not do anything foolish.”

  “He is here because I trust him, and I don’t trust you.”

  “You are not a fool. I would not expect you to trust me.”

  “And what would you do with your little gun?” Adonis asked.

  “Shooting you and Merlin here seems like a possibility.”

  “On what grounds?” Merlin asked. “What laws have we broken? We are allowed mass hypnosis for theatrical purposes.”

  I hated to admit it, but he was right. I shrugged. “If I think on it, I’m sure I can come up with something.”

  “Would you, as you Americans say, frame us?”

  I sighed, and let my hand fall away from the gun. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “Then I say again, why are we here? What have we done to anger Jean-Claude?”

  “You know exactly what you did,” I said, “and why we’re pissed at you.”

  “No, truly, Miss Blake, I do not.”

  “It’s Ms. Blake, or Marshal Blake, to you.”

  He made a small gesture. “Ms. Blake, then.”

  “What would you have done if you had succeeded in rolling the minds of six Masters of the City?” Asher asked. His hair hid half his face, a golden distraction.

  “I will not answer your question for you are not master here, nor powerful enough to be témoin.”

  “Fine, what he said.”

  Merlin looked at me. “What is that, Ms. Blake?”

  “Don’t make me repeat the question, Merlin, just answer it.”

  “I don’t understand what you hope to gain by this little discussion, Ms. Blake. Truly, I do not.”

  “You tried to mind-fuck six Masters of the City, plus a half-dozen or more rulers of the local lycanthropes. Hell, we’ve got animals to call of several masters, plus human servants. You tried to bite off a great, big, bloody chunk, and you weren’t master enough to swallow it.”

  “Merlin could have taken you all.” This from Elisabetta.

  I shook my head without looking at her. “No, he couldn’t, or he’d have done it.”

  “What do you want from us, Ms. Blake?” Merlin asked.

  “I want to know why you did it. Don’t give me shit about wanting all your audience to enjoy the show. If you have truly been mind-fucking all the masters at all the performances, then you wanted to know if you could take them all here tonight. I want to know, why?”

  “Why what, Ms. Blake?”

  “Why try to roll everyone? Why run the risk of insulting all of them? Why throw this big a gauntlet down? You’re a master vampire. You’re so damn old you make my bones ache just sitting there. Vamps like you don’t make mistakes, Merlin. Vamps like you always have a reason for everything they do.”

  “Perhaps I do not believe that a human who has barely seen three decades of mortal life would be able to understand my motives.”

  “Try me. Better yet, try Jean-Claude. You said it yourself; when you speak to me, you speak to him.”

  He went very still then. I knew the quality of that stillness. I’d surprised him in some way. Stillness could be as telling on a vampire as a gesture on a human.

  “Touché, Ms. Blake.” He made another small gesture with his hands. “You will not believe that I did it only to make our production more enjoyable to all.”

  “No,” I said.

  He did that hands-out gesture again. I was beginning to wonder if it was his version of a shrug. “Perhaps, after succeeding in city after city, I had simply grown arrogant. Perhaps I truly believed I could do you all.”

  “I believe you’re arrogant. I might even believe that you rolled the rest of the masters individually. I’m not sure on that one, yet. I’ve felt your mind; I won’t say you couldn’t do it, just that you might not have tried.”

  “Then why did I try tonight?” he asked.

  I smiled. It didn’t feel like a happy smile, more like that curl of lips when I’m pissed. “That’s what I’m trying to find out, and what you keep avoiding answering.”

  “Am I avoiding the question?” he asked.

  I nodded, and this time my smile was almost happy. “Yeah, you are.”

  “Perhaps I have answered it, and you simply do not like the answer.”

  “Perhaps you’re trying not to outright lie in case Damian, or Asher, or one of the others smells or feels the lie. But you are definitely not answering the question completely.”

  “Do you truly believe that if I wished to lie in front of the people you have in this room, that I could not do it successfully?”

  I thought about that for a second. I fought the urge to look at Asher. Damian played his hand along my shoulder. “I think you could, but not without using more mind power than you want to use around me.”

  “And why do I not wish to use mind powers around you, Ms. Blake?” His voice held disdain, almost amusement. I wasn’t insulted; his voice was like everything about him, practiced, calculated.

  “Because you’re afraid that Mommie Dearest will hear it, and pay a second visit tonight.”

  He tried for arrogant disdain, and made it, but I could taste the change in him. The faintest, thinnest taste of fear. “And who is Mommie Dearest?”

  I stared very hard at that graceful line of jaw. I’d have loved eye contact, but didn’t want to risk it. “Do you really want me to say her name?”

  “You can say anything you like,” he said.

  I nodded, and found my own heart beating faster, my newly scarred hand clenched into a fist. “Fine”—and my voice was a little breathy—“you’re afraid the Mother of All Darkness will show up again.”

  Did the lights grow a shade less bright, or was it my imagination?

  “She is lost to us, Ms. Blake. You know nothing of her.”

  “She lies in a room that is underground, but high up. There are windows around the front of that room that look out upon a cave, or underground building. There’s always firelight down below, as if whoever watches is afraid of the dark.”

  “I am aware that Valentina has been inside the room you describe, and lived to tell the tale. Do not seek to impress me with secondhand stories.”

  I was beginning to think that Merlin didn’t know that I’d been in his head with her. Did he not know that I’d seen his memory of her coming out of the darkness? “Let’s try another secondhand tale, then. I saw her in the shape of a great cat, maybe a type of extinct lion, bigger than anything that we have today. I watched her stalk you in a night where the world smelled of rain and jasmine, or something like jasmine. I mean, I don’t know how long jasmine has existed as a plant; maybe my mind just calls it ‘jasmine’ because it’s the closest smell I know.”

  I thought he’d gone still before, but I had been wrong, because now he went so still that I had to concentrate on his chest to make sure he didn’t just disappear. So still, more still than any snake, still in the way that live things don’t get. Still, as if he were willing himself not to be there anymore.

  His voice was as empty as his body when he said, “You shared her memory tonight.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Then you know her secret.”

  “She’s got a lot of them, but if you mean that she’s a shapeshifter and a vampire, simultaneously, then yeah, I know that secret.”

  He drew a breath. A lot of them did that when they came back from that still-stillness. They drew a breath as if to remind themselves they aren’t dead yet.

  “B
ut Ms. Blake, everyone knows that you cannot be both.”

  “The strain of vampirism that we have today is destroyed by the lycanthropy virus, but maybe once it wasn’t, or maybe it’s a different kind of vampirism. Whatever. I know what I’ve seen.”

  “Musette brought some of the Dark Lady’s cats to visit us,” Asher said, “they were both, and neither.”

  “Yes, Belle Morte says the sleeping cats of our mother have woken to her call,” Merlin said. “What do you think of that, Ms. Blake? Do you think Belle Morte has grown so powerful that the servants of the mother have woken to her call?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why no?” he asked. His voice was still empty, his body not moving much. He wasn’t trying to play human now.

  “Because Belle Morte doesn’t have that kind of power.”

  “You have never seen her in the flesh,” Adonis said, “or you would not be so quick to judge.” He didn’t sound happy as he said it, which was interesting. It was the first time I felt that he’d lost control of his voice.

  I glanced at him. “She’s powerful, but it’s not the same kind of power as Mommie Dearest. It’s just not.”

  “If Belle Morte did not wake the servants of our good mother, then who did?” Merlin asked.

  I had a moment of insight. I don’t get them often. I debated on whether to act on it, or ask Asher’s opinion first. Then I thought, to hell with it. I was tired. I’d fed, but the healing had taken more than the feeding had given back. I was too tired for games.

  “Do you want her to wake up, Merlin? Or do you fear her waking up?”

  He sank back into that stillness again. “I do not know how to answer that question.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “Then I will not answer it.”

  “Are you a flunky of the vampire council, is that it?”

  “Merlin has been outside the circle of inner power for centuries,” Asher said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, you guys filled me in on the limo ride here. He grew so powerful that he was given a choice of giving up his territory, or being killed. He gave it all up, and vanished into the mists of time. Jean-Claude thought there might be a place for him here on American soil.” In my head, I thought, and the next time that Jean-Claude offers refuge to someone this fucking powerful, he better run it by me first. I’d made that clear in the limo. He hadn’t even argued with me.