Danse Macabre ab-14

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Not at first; at first he was as out of it as you were."

  "How did you know he wasn't just dead to the world like normal?"

  "He was breathing."

  I felt Jean-Claude stir against me, as if that fact had startled him. "Breath­ing. How... interesting." His voice was very careful.

  "Shouldn't you have been breathing?" I asked.

  "No," he said.

  I turned around in his arms until I could study his face. That face showed me nothing. It was as beautiful and unreadable as a painting, as if instead of a face with movement and breath, it were just a moment caught in time, a single lovely expression. He was at his most careful, hiding, when he was like that.

  "Why is your breathing more surprising than your not dying at dawn?" I asked.

  "I also dreamed," he said.

  I frowned at him. "You were asleep. You dream when you're asleep."

  "I have not dreamed in almost six hundred years."

  "What did you dream?" Micah asked.

  "A very practicial question, mon chat.'"

  I looked from one to the other of them. "Am I missing something?"

  Jean-Claude looked at me. "What did you dream, ma petite} Who did you dream of?" His voice never changed from diat friendly lilt.

  "You ask like you already know," I said.

  "You must say it, ma petite."

  "The Mother of All Darkness," I said, softly, and just saying it seemed to make the room not quite bright enough.

  "Marmee Noir," he said, nodding.

  "Yes," I said. I tried to read past that pleasant exterior, and failed. "You dreamed of her, too?"

  "Obi."

  "You both dreamed of the head of the vampire council?"

  "She is much more than that," Jean-Claude said. "She is the creator of our civilization. Our laws are her laws. Some say she was the first vampire, and that she truly is the mother of us all."

  I cuddled in closer to him, and he tucked me under his arm, so I could wrap my arms around his waist. Somehow, close wasn't close enough when talking about the Mother of All Darkness.

  "What did you dream, exactly?" Micah asked.

  "She tried to play human for me, but, God, she was bad at it."

  "I saw her bend over you, ma petite. I saw her begin to take you away from me. But I could not reach you, the darkness held me as her figure bent over you." He shuddered, and held me right against his body. "I could not reach you, and her voice taunted me for my carelessness." He kissed the top of my head. "But she also told me that if I had given you the fourth mark, that she would have killed you, for if she could not control you, then she would de­stroy you."

  Micah came to us, tucked himself against me, pressing Jean-Claude's arm between us, his own arm going across Jean-Claude's shoulders. Micah was on his knees beside me, because their heads came together over mine, and Micah wasn't tall enough for that without some help. "But you woke before Anita," Micah said. "Why?"

  "I thought if I could break my dream, it would free ma petite. It did not, but I was able to break Marmee's hold on my mind. That, in itself, is a sur­prising thing."

  "Surprising doesn't begin to cover it," I said. "How did you break free?"

  "How did you?" he asked.

  "I called the only animal I have that isn't a cat. She only does cats. I saw her in that room, where her real body is. I saw her body jerk. My wolf bit her, for real, I think."

  The two men held me tighter, pressing me between them, as if something about what I'd said scared them. I guess it was scary, but... "Am I missing something here, guys? You're suddenly both even more afraid."

  "The ability to send a spirit animal through dream and harm another is rare among us."

  "Among vampires, you mean," I said.

  "Oui."

  "Us, too," Micah said, "but..." Then he stopped abruptly.

  "But what?" I asked. When he didn't answer, I pulled away from them both, so I could see his face. Jean-Claude, if he wanted to, could hide any­thing behind his face, but Micah wasn't that good. If I looked hard enough, I might get a hint.

  He lowered his eyes, as if he knew what I was doing.

  I touched his face, turned him to look at me. "What, Micah, what is it?"

  "Chimera could invade your dreams."

  "Could he hurt someone that way?"

  "No"—then he seemed to think about it—"not when he took over my original pard, he couldn't. He had grown in power in the years I was with him, so maybe? Ask some of the dominants he took, who survived. Ask them if he could hurt them in their dreams."

  "It is very rare for a lycanthrope to be able to invade dreams like a vam­pire," Jean-Claude said.

  "Chimera was a rare kind of guy," I said, and just thinking about him scared me. He was dead, I'd killed him, but he had been one of the scarier tilings I'd ever fought.

  Micah looked at me, and his face held such pain, as if whatever he was thinking was something so awful.

  "What?" I asked.

  "We learned last month that you carry lion lycanthropy. That had to come from your fight with Chimera."

  I nodded. "He was in lionman form when he cut me up, yeah."

  Micah licked his lips, as if there were any possibility in the hot, misty tub that his lips were dry. "What if you gained more from him than just lion ly-cantliropy?"

  I frowned at him. "I'm not following."

  "He means, ma petite, what if you gained not simply lycanthropy, but the kind of lycanthropy that Chimera held? He was not a werelion, he was a panwere. He held over a half-dozen types of lycanthropy, did he not?"

  Micah nodded. "Leopard, lion, wolf, hyena, anaconda, bear, and then he took die cobra's leader. I think if he'd lived until next full moon, he would have been cobra, too."

  "Chimera thought tliat once he hit his first full moon, the animals he had were all he got."

  "I don't think that was true," Micah said.

  "Are you sure it wasn't true?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "No, but it would explain what's happening to you."

  "What do you mean, what's happening to me?"

  "Anita, you almost shifted tonight. Blood came out from under your nails. It was close."

  "We're not sure I'm a panwere."

  "No, but if you are, then you won't lose the leopards when you shift."

  I shook my head. "I'll pick leopard, if I have to pick, thanks, just in case."

  "I agree," he said, "but if you are a panwere, and you're close to shift­ing ..." He stopped talking, then looked down.

  "You are thinking what I am thinking, mon chat, and you know she will not like it," Jean-Claude said.

  "What?" I asked.

  Jean-Claude answered, "If you are to be a panwere, and there is a chance that you will gain new animals until your first change of shape, then we have the opportunity to gain great power."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "If you are going to shift, then wouldn't it make sense to add more types of lycanthropy?" Micah said.

  "Make sense, no," I said, "no, it wouldn't make sense."

  "Why not, ma petite} You called the lions, and they came to your call. You call the leopards and they come. You call wolves, and I begin to wonder if it is my power that attracts them to you, or something more."

  "You're saying I should deliberately infect myself with other types of ly­canthropy?"

  They exchanged glances. "Put that way, no," Micah said.

  "It is a thought, ma petite, merely a thought."

  "Are you always thinking about how I can help you be more powerful?"

  He sighed. "We must be powerful, and stable. We must show the other masters that we do not pose a threat to the council in Europe or anyone else."

  "Powerful we can do, but stable—" I shrugged. "I don't know about that one."

  "We aren't a threat to the council," Micah said, "but they may not believe that."

  "They may not," Jean-Claude said.

  There was a knock on the door. "
Who is it?" Jean-Claude called.

  "Remus."

  "Is there something you need, Remus?"

  "Claudia ordered me to check in, physically, with you for the shift change."

  Jean-Claude glanced at us. He held an arm out. "Come to me, ma petite, let us make certain you are hidden from sight, then allow him to enter."

  "I don't see why he needs to enter," I said.

  "We will ask him." Jean-Claude took me into the curve of his shoulder. Micah moved in front of me. I wrapped my arms around Micah's shoulders, drawing him in against my breasts. Yeah, the water covered me, but Remus was still one of the newer guards. I didn't know him well enough to be com­fortable in the tub with him in the room.

  "You may enter," Jean-Claude said.

  The door opened; Remus stepped inside, but kept his hand on the door­knob, as if he were no happier about invading our bath than I was. His eyes were green-gray, nice eyes, if he'd ever look directly at you. He never did, or at least he never did at me, or Jean-Claude, or Micah, or Nathaniel. Why? Remus's face had been broken at some point, and been put back together. There was no one thing you could point to and say, "That's out of place," but the overall effect was lopsided, and looked almost uncomfortable, like a ceramic mask that had been glued back together wrong.

  I couldn't make complete sense of Remus's face, because he wouldn't look at me. I wanted badly to tell him to just look at me, but I couldn't without raising a subject that was probably painful, and none of my business. So I let it go.

  The rest of him was dressed in the usual bodyguard black. If there were injuries under the clothes, it didn't show when he moved. He moved like there were steel springs in the lean muscles of his body.

  "Claudia ordered anyone who takes over to check with you in person, eye to eye. Her orders."

  "Did she say why?" I asked, because it was a change.

  He looked up then, gave that lopsided smile. I had a moment to see dis­belief on his face, before he looked away. "She filled me in on what's been happening. She wants at least two guards in the room with you, at all times."

  "I don't think so," I said.

  "That's what I told her you'd say." He gave another glance at me, and I had a second of those green-gray eyes, angry, then down and away again. "With Micah with you, it's not a problem, but if it were only Jean-Claude—" he shrugged. "If you shift for the first time and it's wolf, then he may be able to control you, but if you shift to an animal he doesn't control, then what if you eat him?"

  "He's a Master of the City; I think he can handle it."

  "You don't get it," Remus said, and he came into the room a step, letting go of the doorknob. He finally looked at me, and held my gaze. Since I give absolute eye contact, it left us staring at each other. His eyes flinched, but he kept the gaze. It was a relief to be able to see his face straight on. "Jean-

  Claude is powerful, but in plain unarmed combat, shifters beat vampires. Unless they can mind-fuck us, we will win a fight."

  I glanced at Jean-Claude to see how he felt about that. He gave the same lovely, blank face. I turned back to Remus. "So, what, you guys get to watch?"

  "Do you think this makes me happy?" he said, and his power flared through the room like a hot wind. He closed his eyes, and counted to ten, or something, because the heat vanished. He gave calmer eyes to all of us, but he knew it was mostly me he had to persuade, so he stared at me. The angry defiance, was back in his eyes. "You have no idea how dangerous you could be when you first shift. You won't just be a lycanthrope—that's bad enough, but you'll be this uber-preternatural power. You'll be a shifter with powers over the dead. If you lose control of one power, maybe you'll lose control of all of them. Do you have any idea what could happen?"

  I stared up at him, scared, and not liking it. I could be scared, or I could get angry. Guess which I picked. "The beast blocks the necromancy. Once I give in to one hunger that completely, the others go away."

  "Are you a hundred percent sure of that?" he asked.

  I opened my mouth to say yes, then hesitated.

  Micah answered for me, patting my arm as he did so, "No."

  No was truthful, but... "So what do we do?"

  "You have to have at least one shapeshifter with you at all times, someone powerful enough to handle the emergency."

  "Handle how?" I asked.

  "Keep you from hurting anyone too badly."

  "Who's on the list of powerful enough?" I asked.

  "Me, Claudia, Fredo, Lisandro, Socrates, Brontes, Bobby Lee, Mickey, Ixion. A lot of the wererats are ex-military and meres. But some of them are better at killing than minimizing the damage." He shrugged. "Claudia and Bobby Lee will be in charge of the list, but I know that you won't be left with just Graham and Clay again. Maybe one of them, but they'll need to be paired up with someone with more real-world experience."

  "Real-life experience?" I made it a question.

  "Ex-military, mere, ex-cop, professional bodyguard. Raphael recruits from some very hardcore places."

  "Narcissus doesn't?" I asked.

  Remus shrugged again. "He does now. He lost nearly three hundred men when Chimera took them over. They slaughtered them. Narcissus had a lot of muscle and athletes, but he didn't have many real fighters. One of the rea­sons that the werehyenas got taken over by such a small force was that they

  weren't the real deal. Narcissus found out that martial arts training doesn't stand up to true warriors. War ain't an Olympic event; it's no place for am­ateurs."

  "And you are not an amateur," Jean-Claude said in that pleasant, empty voice.

  "No, sir," Remus said, "I am not."

  25

  I WENT TO the bathroom for a few minutes and came back out to find that Jean-Claude wasn't the only vampire in the bedroom. Elinore stood near the bed. She was dressed in a white gown with a high lacy collar and a cream robe that managed to look graceful, and not like jammies at all. Her long blond hair fell in a pale wave around her body, like a second robe, so long. She was a vision in pale delicate colors, then she looked at me. Her eyes were a pale icy blue, the wrong color of blue for that delicate face. Her face was a near-perfect oval, dainty and unreal, as if someone had carved her from some white, pure rock, and breathed life into her. Unless she worked at it, hers was a cold beauty. If her eyes had been a brighter blue, I think it would have made her look warmer. The eyes gave the lie to the rest of her. The eyes were serious, careful, watchful. Hidden under all those clothes was a round, curvy body, soft. She didn't believe in weight lifting, too unlady­like. But she had a body that was as lovely and desirable as the face, if a little soft for my tastes. She had the blond Nordic beauty that I'd craved as a child. Craved so I'd fit in with my blond, blue-eyed father and his new family.

  I'd tried to hate her, just on principle. I'd failed, why? Under that lady­like exterior she was tough, fair, and harder than a box of nails. She just hid it much better than I did. We got along. Besides, all the male vamps were prettier than me, why shouldn't some of the female vamps be pret­tier, too?

  "Elinore," I said, "what ..." I checked my wristwatch. "What are you doing awake before noon?"

  "That is what I was asking Jean-Claude," she said in that silky voice that matched all the lace and cream satin.

  Jean-Claude looked at me from where he sat on the edge of the bed. He was in his black brocade robe with all the fur on it. They looked like oppo­site ends of a dream; one so pale, the other so dark.

  "All our people have gained from what we did last night, ma petite? He

  motioned toward Elmore. "This is proof of just how much they may have gained."

  I started walking around the end of the bed toward them. "Is this the ear­liest you've woken as a vampire?"

  She nodded.

  "How do you feel?" I asked.

  She seemed to take the question seriously. She screwed that pretty little face up in a look of concentration. I was never sure if Elinore really had that many cute mannerisms or whether she'd sp
ent so many centuries using them as camouflage that she couldn't get rid of them now. Whatever, she was al­ways doing things that made me think, little girl, doll-like, cute. Until she de­cided not to be cute; then she was positively frightening. I wondered how many enemies had been lured in by that softness only to find the steel dag­ger inside all that silk. If I'd been willing to play to my packaging, I might have pulled it off, but it just wasn't in me to try.

  "I feel fine," she said at last.

  "Have you fed?" I asked.

  "Can you not tell?" she asked, giving me a very direct blue gaze.

  "You always look a little ethereal to me, so no. I can't tell with you."

  She gave a small smile. "Quite a compliment that the Executioner cannot tell whether I've fed."

  "Do you feel the thirst?" Jean-Claude asked.

  She thought about that for a second, making the pretty little face. "No. I could feed, but I do not have to."

  I felt a stab of triumph from Jean-Claude. Triumph, and right on its heels, fear. Then he closed the leak in his shields tight.

  "Why afraid? Why triumphant? Why both?" I asked.

  "Jean-Claude fed the ardeur well and truly last night, and it is sustaining me. That is very impressive," Elinore said.

  "Yeah, I get that, but..." I tried to think how to form the question. "Why are you both so pleased?"

  "If we wished to travel as a group in countries where we are illegal, only one of us would need to feed. It would mean Jean-Claude could take quite a large group of his own vampires into another territory without leaving much evidence behind. Certainly we could hide from the human authorities."

  "But we're not going to invade anyone's territory."

  "No," Jean-Claude said, "but it is always good to have options, ma petite.'"

  "Where's your sweetie? Your knight?"

  "He did not wake with me," and there was just a hint of sadness to that.

  "So are you the only one who gained—" There was a knock on the door.

  "Yes, Remus," Jean-Claude called.

  Remus opened the door and closed it behind him. "Requiem is out here."

  "Requiem," Elinore said, "interesting."

  "Send him in, Remus," Jean-Claude said.