I walked a little into the center of the triangle made by the three benches. I waited for Colin to join me.
He just stood there next to the black-eyed vamp, smiling. “Now why would I waste the energy to walk even a few yards when I can undress you from here?”
I smiled and I made it mocking. “Scared to get too close?”
“I admit you are a delicate little thing, but appearances are often deceiving. I have used this youthful face of mine more than once to fool the unwary. I am not the unwary, Anita Blake.” He extended a pale hand, and I felt the power thrill over my skin before it slashed through the front of the velvet top. The cross spilled out of the velvet like a captive star set free. The cross flared white and I was careful to look sideways from it. It burned like magnesium, so bright it was almost painful. Crosses glow around vamps, but they don’t glow like small supernovas unless you are in serious trouble. I’d never had one glow like this when I wasn’t afraid yet. I’d always assumed the cross reacted to my level of fear like a holy mood ring. Tonight, for the first time, I realized that it may have been my faith that enabled it to glow, but once the faith was in place, something else took over. Not my will, but thine.
Colin’s vampires reacted just as they were supposed to. They cowered, throwing their arms or their jackets or in one case, a skirt, in front of their eyes. Hiding from the light.
Except for Colin and the black-eyed vamp. Why was I not surprised that those two were old enough and powerful enough to face the cross? They weren’t happy about it. They were protecting their eyes, squinting against the light, but they weren’t cowering.
“Slash me again, fang-boy, see what else falls out.”
He did what I asked. I really hadn’t thought he’d try. He slashed at me through the air, but the power fell away like water parting around a rock.
“If you want to hurt me, Colin, you’re going to have to get up close and personal.”
“I could have Nikki rip it from your throat.”
“I thought you were hot shit, Colin. Or is that just when you have young men tied up and helpless? Is that what you need to feel like a big bad vampire? Someone tied up and helpless, or is it young men that does it for you?”
Colin said one word: “Barnaby.”
The black-eyed vampire moved in front of Colin, closer to the cross. But he stopped, unable to come closer. Then, over the glow of the cross, I watched Barnaby’s face begin to rot. That smooth flesh sloughed away, sliding in wet gobbets of flesh down his face, until tendons glistened wetly and bone showed as his nose collapsed, showing his face like a skull covered by rotted things.
He limped towards me, one hand held out, and it reminded me of Damian’s hands earlier in the night. The flesh bursting in a stinking wave of blackness. Except there was no smell. The last vamp I’d seen who could rot at will had also been able to control the smell, like a magical deodorant.
If it had been a fight, I’d have drawn a gun and blown him away before he took the cross, but this was a contest of wills more than anything. If he was vampire enough to touch my cross, then I had to be brave enough to let him do it. I hoped he didn’t press it between our bodies. I’d had one vampire do that, and a second degree burn on my breast wasn’t my idea of fun.
The cross burned brighter and brighter as he came for me. I had to turn my head away from the light; it was so bright it hurt me to look at it. I knew it hurt the vampire more.
I felt that rotted hand slide across my chest, leaving something wet and semisolid to slide between my breasts. He grabbed the chain and not the cross, smart vampire. He jerked the chain and it broke. The cross swung into his arm, and the silver burned with a flame as white and pure as the light had been.
The vampire screamed and threw the cross, which spun in a glittering arc like a tiny comet until it was swallowed by the dark.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim lantern light once more, I said, “Don’t worry about it, Barnaby, I’ve got extras.”
He’d fallen to his knees, cradling his arm. He was still a walking rotted nightmare, but the flesh of his hand had blackened.
“But not everyone has your faith,” Colin said. Again, just like in the forest, I didn’t feel his vampire powers reach out, but I was suddenly afraid. Now that I knew what it was, it wasn’t as bad, but it was different from any other ability I’d ever sensed. Quieter somehow, and more frightening because of it.
“Barnaby, the young blond werewolf is very afraid of you. He’s tasted your kind before.”
Barnaby got to his feet and tried to move around me. I stepped in front of him. “Jason is under my protection.”
“Barnaby won’t hurt him, just play with him a little.”
I shook my head. “I gave Jason my word that I wouldn’t let the vampire that did Nathaniel touch him.”
“Your word?” Colin said. “You’re a modern American. Your word means nothing.”
“My word means something to me,” I said. “I don’t give it lightly.”
“I can taste the truth of your words, but I say that Barnaby shall play with your young friend, and you cannot stop him without breaking truce. Whoever breaks truce first will have the Council to answer to.”
I kept moving with Barnaby so that he was slowly backing me up, but I kept getting in his way. “Colin, you can feel fear, so I’m told. You can feel how very afraid he is of your friend here.”
“Oh, yes, I will feast tonight.”
“You could break his mind,” I said. Someone touched my back and I jumped. It was Asher. I’d been backed up all the way to the bench.
Richard and his bodyguards had moved around Jason. They might not protect Asher, but they would protect Jason. Barnaby moved to one side, trying to get around me. I was forced to jump on and over the bench to put myself in his way again.
I put my left hand against that decaying chest. The right was on the butt of the Browning. I made sure he saw it.
Colin spoke. Though Barnaby’s body should have blocked his view, it was almost as if he could see through the other vampire’s eyes. “If you shoot one of my vampires, then you will have broken truce.”
“You sent Nathaniel back to us dying. Asher said it was a compliment of sorts, that you truly thought we could cure him.”
“And you did, didn’t you?” Colin said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, let me pay you the same compliment. I think if I shoot Barnaby point-blank, he’ll survive it. I’ve shot rotting vamps before, and their clothes took more damage than they did.”
“You can taste the truth in her words,” Asher said. “She believes he’ll live, which means it is not a breach of truce.”
“She believes it, but she hopes for his death,” Colin said.
“Breaking the mind of one of our entourage,” Asher said, “will break the truce, as well.”
“I do not agree,” Colin said.
“Then we’ve got a stalemate,” I said.
“I think not,” Colin said. He turned to Verne. “Verne, earn your keep. Strip the young one of his protectors.”
Verne stood and his wolves flowed around him. They moved into the clearing on a roil of energy that made the nape of my neck dance and my hand go for a gun.
Richard said, “Verne.”
But Verne wasn’t looking at Richard. He was looking at me. He was carrying a small covered basket in his hands. I didn’t wait to find out what he had in the basket. I pointed the gun at his chest.
19
“EASE DOWN , GIRL,” Verne said. “It’s a present.”
I kept the gun nice and steady on the center of his body. “Yeah, right.”
“When you see what it is, you’ll know that we aren’t on his side.”
“Don’t pick the wrong side, puppy dog,” Colin said. “Or I will make you very, very sorry.”
Verne looked at the vampire. I watched his eyes bleed from human to wolf while he held that basket out to me. But he kept those angry, frightening eyes on Colin.
“You
have no animal to call,” Verne said, in a voice gone rough and growling low. “You dare to stand in our place of power and threaten us. You are less than the wind outside our cave. You are nothing here.”
“She is not one of you, either,” Colin said.
“She is lupa of the Thronnus Roke Clan.”
“She is human.”
“She stands between you and a werewolf. That’s lupa enough for me.”
Barnaby had backed off. I don’t know if he thought I’d jump the gun and shoot him or if Colin had whispered a new plan in his rotting skull. I wasn’t sure I even cared. There was a glob of something heavy and wet sliding down into the bra. It was like feeling a tear slide down your cheek but worse, so much worse. I’d resisted the urge to wipe it away with Barnaby staring me down. As soon as he crept back to Colin, I used my left hand to scoop the leftover part out and fling it on the ground.
“What’s the matter, Anita? Too up close and personal for you?”
I wiped my hand on the leather skirt and smiled. “Fuck you, Colin.”
Verne stepped into the center of the triangle alone. His wolves stayed huddled in front of the far bench. He came to stand a couple of yards in front of our bench with that basket in his hands.
I glanced at Asher. He shrugged. Richard nodded like I was supposed to go meet him. A present, Verne had called it.
I went to meet him. He knelt, setting the basket on the ground between us. He stayed kneeling. I knelt, too, because he seemed to expect it. He just kept looking at me with those wolfish eyes. He still looked like an aging Hell’s Angel, but those eyes . . . I wondered if I would ever get used to seeing wolf eyes in a human face. Probably not.
I raised the hinged lid of the small basket. A face, a head, looked up at me. I scrambled to my feet. The Browning just appeared in my hand. I pointed it at Verne, then the ground, then pressed the flat of the barrel to my forehead.
I found my voice, finally. “What is that?”
“You said you wanted Mira’s head in a basket. That if we gave you that, it would make it right between our two clans.”
I took a sharp breath and blew it out. I looked down into the basket, still standing, still holding the gun like the comfort object it was. The mouth was open in a soundless scream, the eyes half closed as if they’d caught her napping, but I knew they hadn’t. Someone had simply closed the eyes after they took her head. Even dead, like this, the bones of the face were delicate, and you knew at least the face had been pretty.
I forced myself to put up the gun. It couldn’t help me now. I dropped back to my knees, staring at it. I finally looked up at Verne. I was shaking my head over and over. I looked into his face and tried to read something in it that I could yell at or talk to. But the expression was alien, and it wasn’t just the eyes.
You’d think after all this time, I would stop forgetting that they weren’t human. But I had. I’d been pissed, and I’d spoken as if I was talking to another human being, but I hadn’t been. I’d been speaking to werewolves, and I’d forgotten that.
I heard someone whispering, and it was me. I was whispering, “This is my fault. This is my fault.” I started to put my left hand in front of my face, and I caught a whiff of Barnaby’s rotted flesh. It was enough.
I crawled to one side and vomited. I knelt on all fours, waiting for it to pass. When I could speak, I said, “Don’t any of you people understand the term? It’s just a fucking expression!”
Richard was there, kneeling by me. He touched my back gently. “You told him what you wanted, Anita. She had betrayed the pack’s honor. It can carry a death penalty. All you helped them choose was the method of execution.”
I glanced sideways at him. I had a horrible urge to cry. “I didn’t mean it,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I know.” There was a look in his eyes of such sorrow, of a shared knowledge of how many times you never really meant what you said, but the monsters were listening, and they always took you at your word.
20
“I THOUGHT YOU were tough, Miss Blake.”
Richard helped me stand and I let him. I leaned against him for a second, my forehead against the smooth skin of his arm. I pushed away from him and stood on my own. I met Colin’s eyes. They were definitely grey, not blue.
“I know we’re supposed to go through all the protocol and waltz for a while, Colin. But the last of my patience is sitting in that basket. So state your grievance and let’s all get the fuck out of here.”
He smiled. “So tenderhearted, maybe your reputation is just talk after all.”
I smiled then and shook my head. “Maybe it is, but since we’re not supposed to kill each other tonight, Colin, it doesn’t matter.”
Colin walked away from me. He went to stand closer to his own people but faced Asher. I had been dismissed as his own human servant had been dismissed.
“I will not be replaced, Asher.”
“I have not come to replace you,” Asher said, voice empty, neutral.
“Why would Jean-Claude send a master almost exactly my age into my lands against my express orders?”
“I could have hidden what I was,” Asher said. “But Jean-Claude thought you would misinterpret that. I came in hiding nothing.”
“But still you came,” Colin said.
“I cannot change what has happened,” Asher said. “What would satisfy us all?”
“Your death,” Colin said.
Everybody went very still, as if we’d all caught our collective breaths. I started to say something and Richard touched my shoulder. I closed my mouth and let Asher talk, but it was hard.
Asher laughed that wonderful touchable laugh. “Breaking the truce, aren’t you, Colin?”
“Not if I kill a rival sent to supplant me. Then I am merely protecting myself and making an example for other ambitious vampires.”
“You know I have not come to supplant you,” Asher said.
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“I am content where I am.”
“Why?” Colin asked. “You could be the master of a city somewhere far from their triumvirate. Why would you be content with less?”
Asher gave a very small smile. “I prefer gentler persuasions over power.”
Colin shook his head. “I have been told you are in love with her, and with Jean-Claude himself. I have been told that you are bedding them both and that is why the Ulfric seeks a new lupa.”
“If he would only cooperate, it could be a happy foursome,” Asher said.
Richard, startled beside me, stiffened. It was my turn to touch his arm and keep him from saying what he was thinking.
“I have been told many things,” Colin said. “My people have watched you from afar. We believe you are enamored of the girl and of Jean-Claude. We are aware of your history together. We even believe that a lover of men like yourself would do their Ulfric if he would let you. What we do not believe is that you are bedding any of them. We believe that this is a pathetic story to save yourself.”
I started walking to Asher. The plan was that we would put on a mild show of petting. I’d warned him it better be mild, but I never got the chance.
There was movement in the dark. Dozens of vampires appeared out of the darkness, encircling the clearing. Colin had been distracting us while the vampires moved up to flank us, and neither Asher nor I, nor any of the wereanimals had sensed them.
“Let us have Asher and the rest of you may go free.”
“You are breaking the truce now,” Asher said. He sounded calm, empty, as if Colin hadn’t just demanded his death.
Verne strode forward. “This is our lupanar. We can close it to all strangers.”
“Not without your vargamor. You left her safe at home just in case things went wrong. So protective of your human pet. I counted on it.” He raised an arm as if summoning his people. “No one you have with you is witch enough to invoke the circle.”
“If you kill Asher it will break truce.”
“I will
not harm Jean-Claude’s triumvirate. I merely remove a rival.”
The vampires moved up through the trees. They didn’t hurry. They moved like solid shadows, slow, as if they had all night to tighten the circle and take us. “Asher?” I asked without taking my gaze from those slowly menacing figures.
“Oui.”
“Does this break truce?”
“Oui.”
“Great,” I said.
I felt him move towards me, but I had eyes only for the outer dark and that ever-shrinking circle. I picked one vampire out. Male, slender, youngish in appearance. He wore no shirt. His chest was a pale, almost glowing whiteness in the darkness.
“What is it, ma cherie?” Asher was standing very close to me now. I moved him to one side with my left arm and brought the mini-Uzi out with my right, swinging it around my body, shooting before I’d actually pointed so the bullets cut across the vampire’s legs, making him jerk. I grabbed it with both hands and fought the gun to spray it back and fourth across his body. I was screaming as I did it, wordless, not to sound menacing. You couldn’t hear the screams over the machine gun. I screamed because I couldn’t help myself, because the tension, the horror, something came up my hand from the gun and out my mouth.
The blood that sprayed from his body was black from distance and night. It looked like his body was torn in half by some giant hand. His upper body fell slowly to one side. His lower body collapsed to its knees.
The circle of vampires had frozen or had dived for cover. The silence was thunderous. My own labored breathing seemed painfully loud. My voice came breathy, but clear, a shout, “Nobody move, nobody fucking move!”
No one moved.
Asher’s voice broke the stillness. “We can all walk away from here tonight, Colin.”
“Impressively violent,” Colin said, “but I think you are mistaken. Poor Archie will not be walking anywhere.”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 102
