Danse Macabre ab-14

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Auggie as he came and went inside me. My legs were wrapped around them both, as much as I could, so that Jean-Claude's body brushed against my foot as he moved. I felt that heavy, delicious weight begin to grow between my legs. I knew that orgasm was coming and that this one couldn't afford to be a surprise. But I didn't have to tell Jean-Claude, he knew.

  He stared down at me over Augustine's shoulder, his eyes all drowning blue fire, as if a midnight sky could burn. His hair had come loose, strands of it sticking to the sweat on his face. I knew that my eyes were dark brown flame, as if I were a vampire. It had happened before. We stared at each other over Augustine's shoulder, and I felt that weight growing, growing, growing.

  Augustine whispered, "Your breathing's changed."

  I came screaming, and it was as if that had been the moment both men had been waiting for, as if they had fought long and hard not to go, and sud­denly they could.

  Augustine shoved himself twice, three times as fast and hard as he could inside me. He brought me again, screaming and writhing on the floor, and only then did he go inside me. His body spasming above me, his body try­ing to dig deeper inside me, so that I cried out. Jean-Claude's head went back, eyes closed, his body bowed above us both, and we fed. We didn't just feed off Augustine, we fed off all his people in our terri­tory. I felt Haven, the werelion, spasm against the floor, where he still lay in the fallen curtains. I felt Benny, behind the wheel of a car, lose control and have to screech to the side of the highway. Pierce fell against a wall and slid to the floor, his body spasming. Octavius collapsed on the stairs, choking, clawing at the stone, breaking his nails to bloody bits to try to 'keep it from happening. But nothing could save them, any of them. If we'd been in Chicago we could have fed off every beast and vamp that owed allegiance to Auggie, and he would have let us. For this pleasure he would have sold what was left of his soul and the souls of everyone who worked for him.

  We drank them down, all of them; we fed, and fed, and fed, and while we fed Augustine's body kept spasming, and every thrust of pleasure brought me again, which brought Jean-Claude. We fed and orgasmed until Augustine went still between us, collapsed, body twitching. Jean-Claude looked down at me over Auggie's sweating body, a fierce smile on his face. He stared down at me with his eyes gone to blue fire so bright that the skin of his face glowed with it. He glowed with the power we had drunk. So much power, so very much power. I felt like a distant echo that Richard was leaning against a wall somewhere, staggered by the power we'd taken, and shared.

  A thought was enough. Micah and Nathaniel were sitting just outside, one against the wall, the other sitting on trie floor. Nathaniel laughed with the power rush of it all. We'd shared the power with all our people, all of them. Good, bad, indifferent, everyone with a connection to us was power drunk and glowing tonight. If there had been a metaphysical satellite up there in the sky, our territory would have glowed from orbit.

  10

  IT TOOK ABOUT an hour to get everyone separated to places where they could clean up. Claudia had sent for reinforcements, so that the wrecked liv­ ing room was nearly a solid wall of black-shirted guards. Werewolves, were- fats, and werehyenas, the people we had treaties with for guard work, all Stood around while Octavius had hysterics. If he'd had more guards with him, and we'd had less, it could have gotten violent, but when you're out-numbered, outmuscled, and your master is saying, Let it go, well, Octavius Shad to eat it. He didn't like it, neither did Pierce, but Haven, of the Cookie-Monster-blue hair, was voting with Auggie. They both liked us just fine. Jean-Claude and I lay back in his huge bathtub. My clothes were ruined hut I had my knife and gun on the edge of the tub. Nothing else had been Salvageable. We'd scrubbed and cleaned, and now were just soaking in the hot water. Auggie had probably already finished in the showers down the hall, but Requiem and Asher were in charge of seeing that our guests didn't do anything unfortunate. They were both master vampires over four hun­dred years old, they could handle it. We'd handled everything I wanted to handle for one night.

  Jean-Claude lay back against the edge of the tub, and I lay in his arms, the back of my body cradled against the front of his. He trailed his hand down my arm, and hugged me tighter against him. His body was quiet, pressed against my body. I think we'd both had all we could handle for one night.

  His voice came lazy, with that edge that sleep can give it. "What are you thinking about, ma petite}"

  "If you hadn't shut the marks down so tight, you might not have to ask." I snuggled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and chest. "You shut them down as soon as we were finished with Auggie. Why?"

  His body tensed against me, even his arms where they were wrapped around me, not so comforting anymore. "Perhaps I was afraid of what you would find in my thoughts." His voice wasn't sleepy now, but had that bland emptiness that he used to hide behind.

  "What would I have found?" I asked, but I wasn't cuddling now. Tension is contagious.

  "If I had wanted you to know the answer to that question, I would not have shut the marks down."

  I started to protest, but another thought stopped me. With the marks that wide open, it had only been chance that I hadn't thought of the baby ques­tion. Chance and the fact that die ardeur tended to wipe out anything that wasn't pertinent to the moment. Now the fear came crawling back, tighten­ing my stomach, tensing my muscles. Please, God, don't let me be pregnant.

  "What is wrong, ma petite?" he asked.

  I let out a breath that shook around the edges and said, "You know, Jean-Claude, normally I'd push for honesty, but I think I've had all the revelations I can handle for one night. It's okay, whatever you thought, it's okay."

  "It is okay without your ever knowing what the thought was?" he asked.

  I settled back into his arms, willing the hot water and the touch of his body to take away that awful tension. "Yes," I said, "yes."

  He moved me to the side, holding me in the water, so he could see my face. "Yes, just like that?" His face showed his skepticism.

  I stared up into him; his hair was wet and slicked back from his face, so that nothing took away from it. Those eyes a blue as dark as blue could be and hold no touch of black. His lashes thick and black—it had taken me months in his bed to see his upper lashes by candlelight and realize that he had a double row of upper lashes. Him and Elizabeth Taylor. You only saw it if the light was just right, and his head turned just right. Until then, they were just this unbelievable lace around his eyes. I traced the lines and curves of his face, down to the grace of his lips. I let him see in my eyes what I saw, what I felt, gazing at him.

  He leaned in, and laid a kiss upon my lips. Then he cuddled me back against him, as we'd been before the questions started. No more personal questions tonight, but there were other questions I wanted answered. "Why did Requiem look like someone had pounded his face into a wall?"

  "Because someone had."

  That made me turn enough to look at him. "Who?"

  "Meng Die," he said, voice soft, face solemn.

  "Was that the emergency?"

  "Oui. Thank you for sending the extra guards, ma petite, it was wise of you."

  I shrugged, and turned so that I was sitting across his legs, my hands against his chest, his arms around me still, but I could see his face now. "How did it get so out of hand?"

  "I was called in rather late, ma petite. In truth, I do not know exactly how

  Requiem and Meng Die allowed their spat to get so terribly out of hand, and so terribly public. Asher, as manager of the Circus, came down to stop it, or take it to a backstage area. That should have been the end of it." His face was closing down, hiding what he thought of the fight, and the aftermath.

  "Why wasn't that the end of it?"

  "Because Meng Die decided to fight them both."

  I sat up in his lap. "Why fight Asher? She's never been his lover."

  "But he is your lover."

  I frowned at him. "So what?"

  "I believe that if a ma
ster vampire had appeared who wasn't in your bed, had never been in your bed, the fight might have calmed instead of escalating."

  "I'm totally lost here, Jean-Claude."

  He looked directly at me, but his face was empty enough that it gave me nothing. "You have not asked the right question yet, ma petite."

  "What is the right question?"

  "What the fight was about." I frowned harder, and said, "Okay, I give, what was the fight about?"

  "You."

  Now I was really lost. "What?"

  "They were arguing about you."

  "What about me?"

  "Meng Die thinks you have stolen Requiem from her."

  I pushed back enough in the water so I was kneeling, and not cuddled. The water was deep enough that it came to my shoulders. "Requiem isn't my lover. I've worked really hard to make sure he isn't my lover."

  "But you have fed the ardeur from him."

  "In an emergency, yes. It was to feed, or I was about to suck Damian's life away. I had to feed, but we didn't have intercourse, we didn't even take our clothes off." I thought about it, and added, "Not all of our clothes. I mean, Requiem was fully clothed." I started blushing and couldn't prevent it. I had to stop explaining before it sounded worse and worse. "He has offered to feed you more completely."

  "I know."

  "Why have you refused him?"

  I looked at Jean-Claude, trying to see behind that perfect mask of a face. I think I was under the impression that I'm having sex with enough men."

  His lips twitched. He was fighting not to smile.

  "This isn't funny."

  He let himself smile. "Ma petite, there have been women over the cen-

  turies who traded lands, titles, their honor, everything, for one more night in Requiem's bed. His master in London used him much as Belle Morte used Asher and me. Though because Requiem only did women, he wasn't as flex­ible as we."

  I let that last part go. I still wasn't completely sure how I felt about Jean-Claude doing Auggie. At the time I hadn't minded—in fact, I'd liked it. I'd liked us both doing him at the same time. We'd fucked him in every way pos­sible, physically and metaphysically, and it had felt a-fucking-mazing. That last part was probably going to bug me the most. But one disaster at a time.

  "Are you saying you're surprised I turned him down?"

  "No, it is typical of you to turn a man down at first."

  "At first?" I said, and sounded a little outraged.

  He laughed, and it was that touchable sound, as if it were the sound of pure sex, and it went through my head and all the way down my body. "Stop that," I said.

  He smiled, face lit with suppressed laughter, but he stopped. "To my knowledge, the only man you have never said no to is your Nimir-Raj, Micah. But the ardeur was newly woken, and so I do not think we can count that one completely. It was your exception, not your rule."

  "Fine, but I'm still lost. I have avoided Requiem. Graham made some re­mark that Requiem was refusing Meng Die's bed and somehow that was my fault."

  "Apparently, Requiem told Meng Die that he would not be her lover any longer, because you do not share your men with other women. He seemed to believe that his being in her bed was what kept you from accepting his offer to be your new pomme de sang."

  I shook my head. "He shouldn't have assumed that."

  He nodded. "Because that isn't why you refused him, is it?"

  I shook my head hard enough to move the water around my body. "No. And if Requiem had asked me why I was saying no, I would have told him it wasn't because he was screwing Meng Die."

  "Then why?"

  "What does it matter?"

  "Because he has left his lover's bed in the hope that you will take him to your bed. He is third in rank among my vampires, and second, or perhaps third, in power. Meng Die is powerful enough to be my second-in-command, but her temperament is not suited to it. As she demonstrated today. You have set two of my most powerful vampires at each other's throats, ma petite. I need to know why."

  "I did not start that fight," I said.

  "No, but you were the cause of it, and if you are to convince Requiem that you will not take him as your pomme de sang, then you must give him a rea­son that does not include his being Meng Die's lover. His reasoning was sound, ma petite. You have refused all the pomme de sang candidates who have a female lover."

  "Graham, Clay, and Requiem are all Meng Die's lovers," I said.

  He gave that wonderful Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing. "So. Is it that you will not take Meng Die's seconds?"

  I shook my head. "No, that's not it. You know why not Graham; he might do for a meal, but he'd be a disaster as a permanent member of the house­hold."

  "Agreed," he said.

  "Clay is in love with Meng Die, she's just about broken his heart, but he wants her, and I say more power to him."

  "And Requiem?"

  I leaned back against the side of the tub, out of reach. The bath had stopped being comforting. "Did we have to do this tonight?"

  "Meng Die threw both Requiem and Asher around like dolls in front of humans. We will be lucky if your police do not come calling and asking questions. She tried to kill Requiem, ma petite, not wound him. She did not care that there was an audience, but Requiem and Asher did not want to kill her in front of an audience. I had the same problem when I arrived on the Scene." He was angry now, the first thread of it filling his eyes with light. ?She is even now locked in a cross-wrapped coffin. But it is a temporary measure. I must let her out tomorrow night, or kill her. She will see one night as a fit punishment, but beyond that it will be an insult, and she is too powerful to eat such an insult." He fixed those brilliant eyes on me. "So, I »sk again, what will you tell Requiem when he tells you that he is free of iMeng Die? What excuse will you give?"

  * "I'm dating three men, living with two more, and having occasional sex .with two others. That's seven men. I'm like a pornographic Snow White. I think seven is plenty."

  ! ; "But it is not, ma petite. Emotionally it may be too many, but metaphysi­cally, and for the sake of our power base, seven is not enough. You must add a lover who is not metaphysically connected to you, and you must pick a new Pomme de sang now that Nathaniel is your animal to call."

  "I thought this was optional—you're making it sound like it's almost an emergency. And wait, did you say add a lover and a pomme de sang} I thought I was adding just one, if I added anybody."

  "I tasted vour oower tonieht. ma betite: it needs to be fed and fed well. You

  are like one of those dieting women that thinks she can survive on lettuce leaves and water. It may feel like food, but your body dies anyway."

  "I'm not dying," I said.

  "No, but your power is seeking a new pomme de sang. Don't you under­stand what is happening, ma petite} The ardeur is seeking for you."

  "Okay, I'm confused now."

  "It is not like Augustine to lose control. He is over two thousand years old, ma petite; one of the first vampires Belle made. You do not thrive for so long if you make such mistakes as he did this night."

  "Belle messed with him, and widi me."

  He shook his head. "He raised your ardeur first, before she appeared, did he not?"

  "Yeah, he said now he could do what he'd wanted to do all along, and no one could be mad at him."

  Jean-Claude laughed, and it was just humor this time. He could control his laugh if he worked at it. "He doesn't know you very well yet. But when I said Augustine is my friend, I meant it. He would not have overstepped his bounds as my guest, not without something being wrong."

  "And what's wrong?"

  "The ardeur needs more food, ma petite, and like any predator it is seek­ing prey."

  "It's just a metaphysical ability, Jean-Claude, not its own entity."

  He gave me a look, and it was eloquent. "You know exactly what the ardeur is, ma petite. You know that it has a mind of its own, similar to the beasts you carry. But I believe that the ardeur c
an do something your beasts cannot. It is, I believe, putting out the welcome mat."

  "Welcome mat?"

  He sighed, and slid down in the water until his chin touched it. "You may not like Meng Die, but she is... proficient in bed. I find it inexplicable that Requiem would leave her body, on only the chance that he might be your lover. As I find it inexplicable that Augustine would purposefully insult me by raising the ardeur in you. He, in effect, attacked you, and through you, me."

  "He told me to feed from him, because then I'd win the fight, and once you got into the room he said you'd lose."

  Jean-Claude sat up so abruptly that he sloshed water in my face. I brushed my eyes clear, while he said, "He said that?"

  I blinked at him, still trying to keep water out of my eyes. "Yes."

  "Then it is as I have feared. The ardeur is seeking what it needs."

  "Are you saying that the ardeur is putting out, what, pheromones?"

  "I do not know this word."

  "Pheromones, it's a chemical or hormone that some animals give out. The scent attracts mates. I think it was first discovered in moths."

  "Yes, pheromones then, yes."

  "I'm not agreeing with you, but say it is true; why does it only seem to work on certain people? I mean, it doesn't work on Clay, and I think Gra­ham just wants to fuck. Why Requiem and Auggie?"

  "What do they have in common?" he asked.

  "They're both vamps of Belle's bloodline, and they're both masters. But thanks to all our imports from London, there are a couple more vampires in town who qualify. They aren't buzzing around me." "But they do not approach the power level of Augustine and Requiem."

  "Are you saying the ardeur is shopping for powerful food?"

  "I offer it as an idea."

  I thought about it, but finally looked at him. "If this is what's happening, Ind I'm not saying it is, then is it only vamps from Belle's line, or any mas­ter vampire of a certain power level?" "I do not know."

  "Then we need to know before tomorrow's big party," I said. "If there is even the faintest chance that the ardeur is going to do some funky shit with every master vampire above a certain power level, then no way can I go to the party tomorrow. We're going to be neck-deep in Masters of the City. It Would be bad if they all decided they wanted to be my sweetie."