The lid went back in that halfway position that coffin lids do. Nothing moved. There was just Jason standing there in his cutoff jean shorts, bare back to the room. Gretchen didn’t come bounding out and eat anybody, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
Jason stayed there, gazing down, unmoving, hands frozen on the lid. He finally turned towards the rest of us, and there was a look on his face that I’d never seen. It was a mixture of horror and pity. His spring blue eyes were wide, and there was a glitter of tears, I thought. Jason and Gretchen hadn’t been close. The reaction couldn’t be personal. What was in that coffin to put that look on Jason’s face?
I was moving forward without realizing it. “Ma petite, do not go closer.”
I looked at him. “What’s the matter with her? Why does Jason look so . . . stricken?”
Jason answered, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
I had to see now, I had to. I kept walking towards the coffin. Jean-Claude met me, blocked my path. “Please, ma petite, do not go closer.”
“I’m supposed to watch the process, right? I’m going to have to see what she looks like sooner or later, Jean-Claude. Might as well be sooner.”
He studied my face, as if he’d memorize it. “I did not anticipate that she would be so . . .” He shook his head. “You will not be happy with me after you see her.”
“You don’t know what she looks like either,” I said.
“No, but Jason’s reaction tells me many things I do not wish to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He just stepped aside. “Gaze upon her, ma petite, and when you have forgiven me, come back to me.”
Forgiven him? I did not like the phrasing. I’d been scared of Gretchen pouncing out and trying to kill me; now I was more frightened of looking at her, of what horror awaited me inside that coffin. My pulse was trying to climb out my throat, and I couldn’t breathe past it. Jason’s face, Jean-Claude’s sorrow, and the utter stillness from the coffin had left me so scared my mouth was dry.
Jason moved to one side, turning away from the coffin, leaning his butt against it, arms hugging his sides. He looked pale and ill. I wondered if he’d changed his mind about letting Gretchen touch him.
I stood just far enough back that I couldn’t see into the coffin. I didn’t want to see something so horrible that it made Jason pale. I didn’t want to see it, but I had to.
I stepped up to the coffin, like stepping up to the plate, knowing that the ball coming at you is going a hundred-plus miles an hour and you have no chance to swing. My eyes couldn’t make sense of what I saw at first. My mind simply refused to understand. It’s a safety feature that we all have. If something is too horrendous, sometimes our brain just says, nope, not going to see this, not going to record this, nope, it would break us. But if you stare long enough, the mind says, well damn, we’re not turning away, and finally, finally, you’ll see it, and once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it.
It lay against white satin so that the dry, brown color was very stark, painfully outlined. It looked like a wizened mummy, one of those bodies they find every once in a while in the desert, where the dryness makes natural mummies. The brown skin had molded to the bones, there was no muscle under it, just bones and skin. The mouth was open wide, as if the jaw hinge had broken. The fangs were dry, but white like a skull. The entire head had dried down to just the skull covered by a light coating of brown skin. Patches of bright blond hair clung to that skull, and the bright color made it worse, more obscene somehow. The eyes opened. I jumped, but the eyes that stared back at me were filled with something brown and dried, like big raisins. They blinked once, slowly, and a sound like wind sighing came out of the mouth.
I fell back from the coffin, fell to my knees. Jason grabbed my arm, drew me to my feet. I shook his hand off and went for Jean-Claude. He stood there, face patient, empty. I hit him without ever breaking stride. Maybe he expected me to stop, take a stance, but I hit him in the face, closed fist, like it was a continuation of the movement of my body. I twisted my fist—my whole body—into it, and he was suddenly on the floor, looking up at me, with blood on his face.
55
“YOU BASTARD, YOU fed off her energy while she was in there.” I had to stalk away from him to keep from kicking him. Some things you did not do; some lines you did not cross.
He touched the back of his hand to his mouth. “What if I had nothing to do with it?”
“What if?” I came to stand over him. “What if ? Are you really going to try and tell me that you didn’t feed off of her?” I pointed back towards the coffin and must have glanced back, because the next thing I knew he had my legs, and I was suddenly falling towards the ground. I slapped the hard stones with my arms like I’d been taught in Judo. That took some of the impact, kept my head from hitting the stone floor, but it took concentration. By the time my body hit the ground, Jean-Claude was on top of me, pinning my arms to the floor with his forearms, the rest of his body trapping the rest of mine.
“Get off of me.”
“Non, ma petite, not until you hear me out.”
I tried to raise my arms, not because I thought I could outmuscle him, but because I had to try. I’ve never been able not to struggle even when I know it’s a lost cause.
I was able to raise my arms a little—not enough to get away, but enough to make him bear down, enough to widen his eyes, enough to make him tense. Good to know the marks were helping me gain useful things like strength and not just crap.
Blood was a bright surprise against that pale skin. The blood dripped from an open cut on his mouth. “How do you know that this is not what all vampires would be reduced to after years?”
I glared up at him because I couldn’t do much else. “Liar.”
“How are you so certain?” He pressed himself harder against me for emphasis I think because he wasn’t happy to be there; his body was all about anger not sex. “How do you know, Anita?”
He’d used my real name. “I’m a necromancer, remember?”
His face clearly said he didn’t believe the answer was that simple, and he was right. I was remembering my visit to New Mexico and what I’d learned there. A monster rising above the bar in a club in Albuquerque. It rose above the bar in a thin line of pale flesh, like the rising of a crescent moon, then a face came into view. It was a woman’s face with one eye gone stiff and dry like some kind of mummy. Face after face rose brown and withered, like a string of monstrous beads strung together with pieces of body, arms, legs, and thick black thread like gigantic stitches holding it all together, holding the magic inside. It rose up and up until it towered against the ceiling, curving like a giant snake to stare down at me. I estimated forty heads, more, before I lost count, or lost the heart to count anymore.
There had been another club in that town, and it had been worse in some ways, because the torture was part of the entertainment . . . Lines had appeared on the man’s skin. The muscles under his skin began to shrink, as though he had a wasting disease, but what should have taken months was happening in seconds. No matter how willing the sacrifice, it can still hurt. The man started screaming as fast as he could draw breath. His lungs were working better than the first man’s, and he drew breath so fast, it was like one continuous shriek. His skin darkened as it drew in and in, like something was sucking him dry. It was like watching a balloon shrivel. Except there was muscle, and when the muscle vanished, there was bone, and finally there was nothing but dried skin over bones. And still he screamed.
The last insult, or gift, or horror, had been the Master of the City of Albuquerque’s power. Her power had beat against me like frantic wings, birds crying that they’ve been shut out in the dark and they want inside to the light and the warmth. How could I leave them crying in the dark, when all I had to do was open and they would be safe? I’d fought it, but in the end the wings erupted into a torrent of birds. My body seemed to open, though I knew it didn’t. An
d the winged things—only half-glimpsed—spilled into that opening. The power flowed into me, through me, and out again. I was part of some great circuit, and I felt the connection with every vampire she’d touched. It was as if I flowed through them, and they through me, like water coming together to form something larger. Then I was floating in the soothing dark, and there were stars, distant and glittering.
Images then, and they had force to them like things slamming into my body. I saw the Master of the City standing on the top of a pyramid temple surrounded by trees, jungle. I could smell the rich greenness of it and hear the night call of a monkey, the scream of a jaguar. Her human servant knelt and fed from the bloody wound on her chest. He became her servant, and he gained power, many powers. And one of them was this—how to take the life force of something, someone, and feed upon it, without killing it. And I understood how he’d taken the man’s essence, during that terrible entertainment. More than that, I understood how it was done, and how it was undone. I knew how to unmake the creature in the bar, though what had been done, being sewn together into a Frankenstein nightmare, might mean that to bring them back to flesh would kill them. I didn’t need the necromancer who had trapped them to undo the spell; I could do it myself.
The memories were so vivid, it was like reliving them. I came back to the present almost with a jolt, staring up into Jean-Claude’s eyes, still trapped under his body, still in the punishment room thousands of miles away from Obsidian Butterfly and her small army. But it was the look on Jean-Claude’s face that caught my breath in my throat.
His eyes were wide, and I knew in that moment that he’d seen my memories, that he’d shared them the way I sometimes shared his. Fuck.
His voice had a shakiness to it that I rarely heard. “Ma petite, you were a busy girl while you were away from us.”
“You saw what I saw, and you know how I feel about what you did to Gretchen.”
His hands tightened on my arms, fingers digging into my skin just a little. “I know how you feel, ma petite. But I will not take this blame gently. I am the Master of the City, my vampires live through me. Unless they are masters themselves, their life force comes through the line that bred them, until they take blood oath to a Master of the City. Then that master makes their hearts beat. If I run short of power, then some will simply not wake in the night, or they will become revenants, animals to be destroyed as Damian has become.”
I moved under him. “I don’t . . .”
“Shhh, ma petite, I will not be condemned without a hearing, not this time. Perhaps you can save Damian, but he is over a thousand years old. Even though not a master, that is a long time, long enough to accumulate power enough to survive. But vampires like Willie and Hannah who are not masters and not that old, they would fade or go mad, and there would be no saving them.” He shook me, digging into my arms, raising his elbows so that I could have gone for a weapon if I’d wanted, but I just watched him and listened.
“Is that what you want, Anita? Which of them would you sacrifice to save Gretchen? Gretchen whom you hate. I took power from her because you denied it to me.”
“Don’t blame this on me,” I said.
He moved suddenly, sitting up on his knees, his body straddling my legs. He lifted me into a sitting position, fingers brushing against my arms. “The system of master and servant has worked well for thousands of years, but you keep fighting it, and you keep forcing me to do things I do not wish to do.” He raised me up close to his face, and I watched his eyes bleed to burning blue from inches away. He shook me more violently this time, almost hard enough to scare me.
“If I could have fed the ardeur as it was meant to be fed, then this would not have been necessary. If I could have fed through my human servant, this would not have been necessary. If I could have fed through my animal to call, this would not have been necessary. But you and Richard bind me ’round with rules, you cripple me with your morality, and you force me to do such as I swore I would never do. I have been in the box and been food for my master, and it was the worst thing I have ever endured. And now because you and he had your moral high ground to keep you pure, you have forced me to be more practical than I have ever wanted to be.”
He released me so suddenly I fell back against the floor, slamming an elbow into the stones. He stood over me, as angry as I’d ever seen him, and I had no anger to give back. I finally said, “I didn’t know.”
“That is becoming a poor excuse, ma petite.” He went to the coffin and gazed down at what lay inside. “I gave her my protection once, and this is not protection.” He turned and glared at me. “I do what I must, ma petite, but I take no pleasure from it, and I tire of the necessity of it. If you would but meet me even halfway, we could avoid so much pain.”
I sat up, fighting the urge to rub my elbow. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry? I am. Do you want permission to feed off of me, is that it?”
“The ardeur, yes,” he said. “But in truth, if you are in the mood for it, simply having the marks open and married gains me much.”
He held his hand out to Jason, and for one of only a few times, I saw Jason hesitate before taking Jean-Claude’s hand. Jean-Claude didn’t even look at him, as if his obedience was simply a fact, like gravity. “If she were stronger it would be a more dangerous feeding, but she is very weak, so it will not be so very bad.” The words were comforting, but he never looked at Jason as he lowered the younger man’s wrist towards what lay in that coffin.
I got to my feet, watching Jason’s face. He was pale, eyes wide, breath coming too short, too fast. He didn’t normally have a problem letting vamps feed on him, but I understood. What lay in that coffin was something out of a nightmare. Most of the time if you saw a vamp looking like something made of dried sticks, it was well and truly dead.
Jason pulled on his arm, keeping himself just out of reach, I think. Jean-Claude turned to him, but there was no anger. He kept the one hand on Jason’s arm, and the other he touched to his face, gently. “Would you have me take your mind, before she strikes?”
Jason nodded, wordlessly.
Jean-Claude cradled his hand against Jason’s face. They stared into each other’s eyes, one of those long, lingering stares, like lovers, except I felt the moment that Jason slipped away. I felt his mind release, his will evaporate. His face went slack, his mouth half-parted, eyes fluttering. Jean-Claude kept his hand on the other man’s face, as he guided the wrist into the coffin.
Jason’s body tensed, and I knew that Gretchen had bitten him. But his eyes stayed closed, his face pleasant. I found myself beside the coffin without meaning to be. The dried stick hands raised as I watched, clutching at Jason’s arm, holding him against the mouth. Jean-Claude moved his hand back, as the thing in the coffin pressed Jason’s wrist to its mouth. Blood flowed over that brown skin, soaked the white satin pillow, and still that lipless mouth fed.
The room was suddenly too warm, almost hot. I turned away and found Micah watching me. I couldn’t read his expression, wasn’t sure I wanted to. I looked away from whatever was in his eyes. I didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes right now. I’d fought so long and so hard not to be what I was. Not to be Jean-Claude’s human servant, not to be Richard’s lupa, not to be anything to anyone. Everyone seemed to be paying the price for that. I hated having other people pay the price for my problems. It was against the rules somehow.
Jean-Claude’s voice drew me back to the coffin. “Drink, Gretchen, drink of my blood. I gave you life once, let it be so again.” Jason was sitting slumped beside the coffin, cradling his bloody wrist with a beatific expression on his face. The dried thing was sitting up with Jean-Claude’s arm behind its shoulders. It looked . . . better, but still not alive, not even quite real. He offered the pale flesh of his wrist to that lipless mouth, still red with Jason’s blood, and it bit down. I heard Jean-Claude sigh, but that was the only sign that it might hurt.
“Blood to blood, flesh to flesh.” Jean-Claude spoke the words, and with each wo
rd, with each suck of blood, I felt the power grow, felt it curl in my stomach, shorten my breath. Gretchen’s body began to stretch and fill. The pieces of hair thickened and began to flow around her. The dried things in her eye sockets filled and began to have a hint of blue to them. When Jean-Claude moved his wrist from her mouth, they were full-pouting lips. She had blue eyes and a wealth of yellow hair. She was thin, her bones showing under the near translucent paleness of her skin. Her eyes were filled with fire, nothing human. Her hands were still painfully thin, her body fragile, but she looked almost like the vampire that had tried to kill me years ago.
He picked her up in his arms; her body didn’t fill out the clothes that hung from her frame. “Breath to breath,” he said and leaned in towards her. They kissed, and I felt the power pass between them. I knew that that kiss could have drained her life away again, but it didn’t. When he raised back from her, her face was full and rounded, human looking. It was like Prince Charming waking Sleeping Beauty, except that this beauty’s eyes found me, and the hatred in them was a burning thing.
I sighed. Some people never learn. I met that hateful gaze and said, “Gretchen, I promise you two things, you’ll never have to go back in that box, and if you try to hurt me or mine again, I’ll kill you. And that would be a damn shame since I’m the one who persuaded Jean-Claude to let you out in the first place.”
She just looked at me the way that tigers behind bars watch the visitors, biding their time. Jean-Claude hugged her to him. “If you try and harm my human servant again, I will see you destroyed, Gretal.” Gretal had been her original name, so I’d been told.
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