I met his gaze, and again, his face was like a beautiful weapon. He leaned over me, his face painted with the stage makeup. He leaned in, as if he'd kiss me, and some part of me that was still sane knew that if he kissed me, it would be bad.
I smelled Jean-Claude's cologne, and the scent of Richard's neck. Jean-Claude had opened the marks wider. It made me startle, and take a step back, away from the blond.
I reached backward, and Jean-Claude took my hand. The touch of my master, and I was proof against the pale-eyed blond.
He smiled, an arrogant curl of lips. The smile said it all: I almost had you. He was right. He had almost had me. And still there was a breathing presence of power out there in the theatre, flowing over the crowd, and that power wasn't the blond in front of us. There was still something even more powerful waiting in the wings. Something even more powerful that we'd invited to our town. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, what had we done?
46
THE BLOND FLUNG himself over our heads, and out into the air. The air was full of vampires. They had flown up and over the audience, and in that instant the vampire let them go. He released his hold on the audience and they were left gasping, shrieking. Not at the fact that their minds had been messed about with, because they didn't know that, but at the vampires suddenly appearing above them like magic.
Jean-Claude helped me back to my seat. I needed the help; my knees were shaky. I looked around at all of us, and only the vampires hid their fear. The rest of us were wide-eyed and a little pale.
I leaned into Jean-Claude and whispered, "Did they do that every show?"
He shook his head, and spoke mind-to-mind. Yeah, maybe some of the other masters could overhear us, but we knew for dead certain they'd hear us whisper. "He bespelled the humans and some of the wereanimals, but he did not try for the vampires. He left them alone."
"Why now," I whispered, "why tonight?"
Of course, he didn't know. That didn't make me feel any better, strangely.
Claudia asked permission to check on the other guards. I gave it. I, like Claudia, wanted to see for sure that the other guards were up and running.
Lisandro was cursing very softly under his breath. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," over and over, like he said it with every breath.
He'd taken the words right out of my mouth.
The vampires danced on the air, at least a dozen of them. They defied gravity, and made it look effortless. It was beautiful, but I couldn't enjoy it. I was too scared.
The blond hovered in front of our box for a moment. He blew me a kiss. I smiled sweetly and gave him a one-fingered salute. He laughed, and flew away.
Other vampires flew low over the crowd, and they blew kisses at other women and other men. There were three or four women among them. It was sort of the reverse of most ballet companies, where there seemed to be more women than men.
The drapes at the back of our box opened, and it was Auggie. I got a glimpse of Pierce and Octavius on the other side of the curtain with Wicked and Truth. Auggie didn't look any happier than I felt.
He leaned over us, smiling, pretending he'd just come to say hi. "He did not do this in Chicago."
"Who didn't? Who's doing this?" I asked.
"Merlin," Auggie said, "troupe leader, dance master. The blond is Adonis. He used to be Belle's. Now he belongs to Merlin."
I felt that power breathing back on the air, like the smell of smoke drifting through the forest, when you don't know yet from which direction the flames will come, but you know they're on the way.
Auggie touched my bare shoulder. His power slid over my skin like a fall of silk. He offered his hand to Jean-Claude. "You rolled me; use it now."
Jean-Claude took his hand. To a casual viewer, they were shaking hands. Auggie's hand tensed on my bare shoulder, touching the edge of scars where a vamp had once worried at my collarbone like a dog with a rat. I wasn't entirely sure what Auggie meant for us to do. But Jean-Claude was sure, and you only need one driver on the metaphysical bus. Jean-Claude opened the marks between him and me, opened them wide. If it had been me, I couldn't have opened them that wide without involving at least Richard, but Jean-Claude had centuries of control under his belt. He used his free hand to touch my arm, and that was all we needed.
It was as if he pulled aside a curtain, a thick, velvet curtain. I could almost feel it sliding through my body, and then my necromancy flowed out from me like a chill wind. His power met mine, and the cold grew. But not the cold that blankets and coats would cure. This was the cold of the grave, spilled down our skins. Jean-Claude took that cold power and poured it down our hands and into Auggie. His power burst over Auggie, sudden enough that he had to close his eyes. His power was warmer than Jean-Claude's, warmer than my necromancy. He tasted not just of vampire, but of lion. More than any vampire I'd ever touched, he was also his beast. Interesting.
His cold warm power rose up, then spilled down his body to meet ours. It was a rush of power that tightened my throat, clenched my hand tight on Jean-Claude's. Only feasting on Auggie earlier let me know how small this power rush was compared to what we could do with him.
My lion tried to rise to roll his power. It was Auggie who soothed the lion, like a hand to stroke her quiet. But his power, far into me, found something else to rise. The ardeur started to flare, and it was Jean-Claude who rode it down, dampened those fires. He took the power, firm and hard, in his hand,
the way he could suddenly take charge during lovemaking. You go from it being a team sport, to suddenly having him on top, and holding you still, so he can do exactly what he wants, in exactly the way he wants it, giving you more pleasure than you could have found on your own. He rode the power, and Auggie and I were just along for the ride.
The audience below us was oohing, aahing, giving little fake screams. It sounded like a crowd at a fireworks display, except this display was whirling, floating, diving bodies. I watched the dancers distantly. Their beauty no longer moved me. The power that Jean-Claude was building was the only thing that truly touched me.
But I heard the rustling of birds again; that got through the power haze. Merlin was about to pour power over the crowd again. He was going to hide the dancers, so they would vanish again, poof.
Jean-Claude used our power like a slap, a feint to let the other vampire know to back off. I heard birds flutter, as if they'd been disturbed in their sleep. I whispered, "Birds," and I couldn't tell if I said it out loud or not.
"His animal to call," Auggie whispered back, and that was a voice in my head.
I felt the power pull back, as if this Merlin had taken a deep breath. I had a moment to think he'd gotten the message, but the next moment that breath came back at us. Power poured over the audience. I felt the humans snuff out like matches, one by one. Vampires are allowed group hypnotism, because group mind tricks aren't permanent. Once die power is over, no harm, no foul. But this felt different. This felt like something that would linger, and change what it had touched.
"What's he doing?" and that was aloud.
Jean-Claude's voice breathed through my mind, "He is going to try to take us."
"What is he doing to the crowd?"
"He's trying to take us, all of us," Auggie said, "and that's too much power for the humans."
"He'll own them," I said.
"No," Jean-Claude said, "they are ours." He didn't try to fight for the minds of the crowd; he went straight for the source of our problem. He used the power of the three of us to smash into that mind.
The power staggered, as if we'd hit him, then the sound of birds filled the theatre. Twittering, crying, fluttering; the sound of hundreds of birds. The sound was so real that I searched the theatre for the flock, but there was nothing to see.
Nathaniel said, "I hear birds."
I didn't have time to wonder why he could hear them, too, because the birds were upon us. Feathers everywhere, touching, beating at me, trying to get me to move, to run. Jean-Claude's hand had a death grip on mine. A
ug-gie's fingers dug into my shoulder, and the pain helped. It helped chase back the beating wings. I remembered the last time that a vampire's power had beat against my body like wings. Beat against me, not to frighten or make me run, but to be let inside. The power had cried in the dark, to be let inside me. Obsidian Butterfly, Master of the City of Albuquerque, had found her way inside me. She had filled my eyes with the blackness between suns, and the cold light of stars. She had also shared her power with me. That power came again, as if the touch of wings had called it.
Auggie cursed under his breath, his hand desperate on my shoulder. Jean-Claude said, "Ma petite, do not ..." But whatever I wasn't to do he never said, because Obsidian Butterfly's gift dropped my shields and cut me open for Merlin's power. That metaphysical wind of wings and twittering calls poured inside me. The power poured inside me and I felt Merlin's triumph like the scream of some huge bird of prey. He thought he'd broken my shields, broken our shields, but he was wrong.
Jean-Claude and Auggie clung to me, trying to shore up what they, too, thought was a break in our power. But it wasn't a breach, it was a mouth.
It felt as if my body were a cave, a fleshy, soft cave, and the birds that I had heard and felt poured inside me, as if they'd found a home. I swear I could feel the brush of feathers, tiny bodies, fluttering, diving, filling me. Merlin's power poured into me, and tried to find Jean-Claude and Auggie. The power tried to find a way out of me and into them. Merlin poured more and more power into me, and I swallowed it.
Auggie and Jean-Claude clung to me, afraid to let go, afraid not to let go, I think. So much power, so much that it began to leak through into the other two vampires. The moment it touched them, they both understood. Merlin wasn't going to break me, we were going to eat him.
He must have figured it out at the same time, because he tried to stop the power, just cut it off. But I had the taste of him, and I didn't want it to stop.
The torrents of invisible birds slowed, but didn't stop. Obsidian Butterfly's power called to them, helped me know sweet words to use, to coax that power. The power kept coming, and I felt the flash of fear. It was sweet, and good, and I longed to taste the sweat on his skin. And I could, I licked down his skin, where he watched from the shadows.
He stared at me with dark eyes that held crimson like a pinpoint tear inside them. I'd seen eyes like that before. Never were human, were you? I thought.
He tried to break the contact, and he couldn't do it. Not with Auggie and Jean-Claude hooked up to me. He was big and bad and powerful, but he was not a Master of the City. He was not two Masters of the City, and he didn't know what the hell I was; in that moment neither did I.
I smelled jasmine and rain. I smelled a tropical night that hadn't existed for thousands on thousands of years. A voice rode the smell of rain. The Mother of All Darkness whispered, "I know what you are, necromancer."
I didn't want to ask, but it was as if I couldn't stop my mouth from forming the word. "What?"
"Mine."
47
I SCREAMED, AND I shut it down. I shut it all down. No more birds from Merlin. But in my panic, I shut down the tie with Auggie and Jean-Claude. For an instant, it was just me and her inside my head. I felt rain on my face, cool and warm. The moon rode full and bright, and I was too tall, and too male. I thought it was Jean-Claude's memory, but the hand I could see was too rough, too dark. Whose memory was I trapped in?
"Mine," she said again.
Oh, yeah, her. So why was I inside the head of the man she was about to eat? Why wasn't I inside her body?
Something moved in the moonlight. Something huge and pale, like some muscular ghost, sliding along the ground toward me. The head moved, and the eyes caught the moon, shining at me. I stared into the face of that great cat, and knew that nothing like it had walked the earth for thousands of years. "Cave lion," I thought, "huh, they were striped." The cat crouched to spring.
A wolf appeared between me and it. A white wolf with a dark saddle and head. Me, my wolf. This was a dream, which meant I was unconscious. Weird.
The wolf's hackles rose, and it gave that low, bass growl that all the canids use when they aren't kidding anymore. The wolf looked fragile beside that crouching figure. We were out of our weight class by a few hundred pounds.
I smelled wolf. I smelled pine, and forest loam. I smelled things that never grew here in this land, where the Mother of All Darkness had taken Merlin, or whoever he'd been once. I smelled the trees of home, the earth of pack land. I smelled the soft musk of wolf.
The cave lion tensed, and I knew this was it. The wolf braced for the spring, and the body I was wearing readied a spear that would not help.
Something touched my hand. I grabbed for it, without thinking, and the night exploded into white, hot light. Light, and pain, a great deal of pain.
Voices. "Let go, Anita, let go!"
Hands touching the pain. I tried to jerk away. It felt as if the blood in my hand had been replaced with molten metal. I knew that pain. A different voice, "Anita, let go!"
"Open your hand, Anita, just open your hand." Micah's voice.
My left hand was a lump of agony. I couldn't even feel my fingers. How could I open it, if I couldn't feel it? All I could feel was pain. It made me open my eyes. My vision was ruined, spotted, gray and black and white, as if I'd looked into a bright flash of light.
I had a moment to see the ring of faces: Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, Graham, and Richard. I saw them, but all my attention went to the agony that was my left hand. I looked at it, and on the outside it was fine. A thin gold chain trailed out of my fist. My hand looked fine, but I knew it wasn't.
There were heavy drapes behind us. We were still at the Fox. They'd just carried me out of the box, and put me somewhere where the audience couldn't see. I knew why there were no vampires kneeling with us. The Mother of All Darkness had tried to take me, again, and some fool had given me a cross to hold.
"Open your hand, Anita, please." Micah whispered it again, stroking my hair.
I found my voice, and whispered, "Can't."
Richard cradled my hand in his, and started trying to pry my fingers open. He peeled a finger up. I whimpered, then bit my lip. If I started making noises, I'd end up screaming, or weeping, loudly. They'd managed to hide me away from the crowd. If I started screaming that would all be for nothing.
"I'm sorry, Anita, I'm sorry." Richard whispered it over and over as he pried my hand open.
"Curse if you want to," Jason said.
I shook my head. Bad burns hurt too much for cursing to make anything better. I forced myself to feel past the pain. I could still feel my hand, but distant, as if the hand around the pain were almost asleep. The pain overrode everything else—as if the nerves just couldn't handle it all so they transmitted the important parts, that it fucking hurt, all else was secondary.
Richard made a sound and it made me glance at him. The look on his face made me look where he was looking—my hand.
Most of the blisters had burst, so that my palm and fingers were a mass of ruptured skin and clear fluid. But the glint of gold in my palm was buried inside the mass of torn flesh. The cross had melted into my hand.
I looked away then; I didn't want to think about what was going to be needed to clean it up.
Nathaniel leaned over me, blocking my view, which panicked me. I pushed him away, so I could see what Richard was doing by my hand. No way was that cross coming out without medical help. Painkillers, good painkillers, yeah, that was the ticket.
I reached my good hand back up to Nathaniel. He leaned over so I could whisper, "Doctor." I whispered because I was afraid if I talked any louder, I'd start yelling.
He nodded. "Dr. Lillian is on her way."
I nodded. Not caring how the doc was getting into the event. For once in my life, I just wanted the help. Most pain you can ride out, but burns just seem made to eat the world. The pain eats everything else. You can't think about anything but the pain. The
grinding, biting, aching, nauseating pain. I'd had burns before, but this one was going to be the worst. Weeks of recovery, and depending on how deep the cross was embedded, maybe permanent damage to the hand. Shit, fucking shit.
Dr. Lillian came into sight. I didn't recognize her at first, and it wasn't just the pain. Makeup had softened her face, brought out what she must have looked like ten years ago. The soft blue of the dress complemented the soft gray of her hair, and the pastel shades of lipstick and eye shadow. I didn't look at her and think, She must have been lovely a decade ago. I looked up at her and thought, She is lovely now.
She shook her head. "What am I going to do with you people tonight?"
I swallowed hard. "Didn't do it on purpose."
She lifted the long skirt enough so she could kneel comfortably. "I would say not." Her face was neutral, pleasant, a good doctor's face. She started to reach for my hand, and I jerked away.
She leaned back, giving me a little smile. "If you promise to do everything I tell you to do, exactly the way I tell you to do it, I'll shoot you up with a painkiller before I touch your hand."
I nodded.
"Your word of honor that you won't argue with me, Anita. That you'll just do what I tell you to do?"
If I hadn't been out of my head with pain, I might have thought harder about her wording, but all I could think about was the pain. I nodded, and whispered, "I promise."
She smiled at me. "Good." She looked behind her. Claudia came into view, kneeling so the other woman could whisper to her. Claudia nodded, stood, and left.
Lillian turned away to get the shot ready. Normally, I made a fuss about needles. I was almost as phobic of needles as I was of flying. But tonight, 1
wasn't complaining. I was too busy fighting off the urge to start screaming, Make it stop, make it stop.
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