[Anita Blake 15] - The Harlequin

by Laurell K. Hamilton

“Anita,” he said, “you’re awfully quiet.”

  “I know.”

  “Anita, it’s not true. You’re not a daywalking vamp.”

  “Not the vampire part, not exactly.”

  “How not exactly?”

  “Do you know the term ardeur.”

  “I know the French word, but that’s not what you mean, is it?”

  I explained, briefly, as coldly as I could, just the facts, what the ardeur was.

  “You have to fuck people every few hours, or what?”

  “Eventually I die, but before that I start draining the life out of Damian and then Nathaniel.”

  “What?”

  “I have a vampire servant and an animal to call.”

  “What!” I’d never heard him sound so astonished.

  I repeated myself.

  “There isn’t even a rumor about this, Anita. Human servants can’t have vampire servants; it doesn’t work that way.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Nathaniel is your animal to call?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Does the council know this?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, shit, no wonder they sicced their dogs on you. You’re lucky they didn’t just kill you.”

  “The council is divided on the appropriate action to take about Jean-Claude and us.”

  “Divided how?”

  “Some of them want us dead, but it’s not a majority vote. They can’t agree.”

  “So the Harlequin come to break the tie, is that it?” he asked.

  “Maybe; honestly, I’m not sure.”

  “Is there anything else you’ve done that might make them decide to kill you quicker, like before I can get there?”

  I thought about the fact that I might be a panwere. I thought about a lot of things, then sighed. Then I thought of one thing that we’d done that might bother the other Masters of the City in the United States enough to cry for council help. “Maybe.”

  “How ‘maybe’? Anita, can you wait for me to get backup, or do I need to get a plane and get my ass to St. Louis? That’s what I need to know.”

  “Truth, Edward, I don’t know. Jean-Claude and I did something back in November that was pretty powerful. It might be enough to scare the Harlequin.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We had a little private get-together with a couple of the visiting Masters of the City. The two that Jean-Claude calls friends.”

  “And,” he said.

  “And Belle Morte interfered from all the way in Europe. She messed with me and the Master of Chicago.”

  “Augustine,” he said. “Auggie to his friends.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of him,” Edward said.

  “Then you know how powerful he is.”

  “Yes.”

  “We rolled him, Edward.”

  “Rolled how?” he asked.

  “Jean-Claude and I fed off him; we both fed the ardeur off him. We fed on him, and through him we fed on every person he had brought to our lands. We did this massive feed on them all. It was an amazing power rush, and all of us, vamps, beasties, anyone tied to either Jean-Claude or me by metaphysics, gained power from it.”

  “I’ll contact the backup I want; they can join me later. I’ll be on the ground in”—he paused as if checking his watch—“four hours, five at the outside. I’ll be in St. Louis before sundown.”

  “You think it’s that serious?” I asked.

  “If I were a vampire, and you had a vampire servant, I might kill you just for that. But if you guys rolled Augustine, one of the most powerful masters in this country, then yeah, Anita, they’ll be nervous. I’m just surprised the Harlequin didn’t hit St. Louis earlier.”

  “I think they needed the excuse of Malcolm and his misbehaving church. The council is truly divided about Jean-Claude and his power base. I think maybe the council wouldn’t agree to let the Harlequin near us, but now that they’re here checking out the Church of Eternal Life, well, two birds with one stone.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Anita.”

  “Thanks, Edward.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll see you in a few hours, Anita. Watch your back like a son of a bitch; if these guys are masters they may have wereanimals and humans to do their daywalking. Just because the sun is up doesn’t make you safe.”

  “I know that, Edward. I probably know that better than you do.”

  “Maybe, but be careful until I get there.”

  “I’ll do my best.” But I was already talking to an empty phone line. He’d hung up. I hung up, too.

  11

  NATHANIEL WAS ASLEEP in Jean-Claude’s red silk sheets. Jean-Claude himself was in Asher’s room for the day, but he’d made a point of telling me he’d had the sheets changed to red because the three of us look so lovely against red. Micah’s eyes caught the light from the partially opened bathroom door. His curly brown hair was a heavy darkness around the delicate triangle of his face. The door was our version of a night light here, since there was no bedside lamp, and the other light switch was across the room by the door. Micah’s eyes caught that faint glow and glittered with it. His eyes were leopard eyes, or looked like leopard eyes. A doctor had told him that the optics were still human, but the eyes themselves weren’t. Splitting hairs, I guess. Chimera, the same bad guy who’d made the ambush that caused Nathaniel to pick up a gun and shoot for real, had also forced Micah into animal form so long that he couldn’t come all the way back. His eyes were never human. I’d asked him once what color they’d started as, and he’d said brown. I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t picture his face with anything but the green-gold of the eyes he’d come to me with. They were simply Micah’s eyes; anything else would have made it the face of a stranger.

  His voice was quiet, that voice you use when you’re trying not to wake someone in the room. “What did he say?”

  “He’ll be here in four or five hours. His backup will be following.” I came to the edge of the bed.

  “What backup?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “No.” Truthfully, it had never occurred to me to ask.

  “You trust him that much?” Micah asked.

  I nodded.

  Micah rolled under the red silk so he could reach my hand. He tried to draw me onto the bed, but in a silk robe, on silk sheets, I’d learned better. They were too slippery. I took my hand back and undid the robe’s sash. He lay back and watched me with that look a man can get—the look that is part sex, part possession, part just male. It’s not a look that has much to do with love, not the kind that includes hearts and flowers anyway, but it has everything to do with being together, being real. Edward was right. Micah was my lover. Not my boyfriend. We dated. We did movies, theatre, picnics even, at Nathaniel’s insistence, but in the end what had drawn us together had been sex. Lust like a forest fire that could have burned our lives down around our ears, but instead had saved us. Or that’s how I felt. I hadn’t really asked him in so many words.

  “Serious face,” he whispered.

  I nodded and let the robe slip to the floor. I stood in front of him naked and had the feeling I’d had from almost the first moment, that my skin was thick with need. He reached for me again, and this time I let him help me climb up on the big bed. The bed was big enough that he could draw me down beside him without either of us touching Nathaniel’s sleeping form.

  In November, when Jean-Claude and I had rolled Augustine of Chicago, we’d also figured out something else. My instant lust for Micah, and his for me, had been vampire powers. Not Jean-Claude’s, or Augustine’s, but mine. My vampire powers, mine and mine alone. My powers may have started with Jean-Claude’s marks, but they had mutated with my necromancy and become something else, something more. I was like a vampire of Belle Morte’s line, and all of her line had power
s dealing with sex and love, though not real love, not usually. That was beyond most of Belle’s line. My version of her ardeur allowed me to see the strongest need in someone’s heart, and my own, and meet those needs. When Micah had come to me, I’d needed a helpmate, someone to help me run the shapeshifter coalition that we’d just established. Someone to help me with the wereleopards that I’d inherited when I killed their old leader. I’d needed help and someone who didn’t see my cold-blooded practicality as a bad thing. Micah had met those needs, and I had given him his greatest wish, to have his own wereleopards safe from Chimera, the sexual sadist who had taken them over. I’d killed Chimera, freed them all, and Micah had moved in with me. Just like that. It had been so unlike me, and in November we’d realized why; my own vampire tricks had made us a couple.

  Micah was under the silk and I was on top of it. His hands danced down my body as our lips found each other. We must have moved too much because Nathaniel made a small noise. It made us freeze in midmotion and look at him. His face was still peaceful, eyes still closed, his hair a gleam in the near dark.

  Vampire powers had made Nathaniel my animal to call, and made us love each other, too. It was real love, true love, but it had begun with vampire mind tricks. But Belle Morte’s powers cut both ways. As Auggie had said, “You can only cut someone as deep as you’re willing to be cut.” Apparently, I’d been willing to be cut to the heart.

  Nathaniel stirred in his sleep again. His face flexed, frowned. He made another small sound. It was his bad dream sound. He’d had more nightmares of late. His therapist said it was because he felt safe enough with us to explore his deeper pain. We were his safe haven. Why did safety raise all the shit deeper? It seemed like it should have been the other way around, didn’t it?

  We reached for him at the same time—Micah’s hand going for the bare paleness of his shoulder, my hand going for his cheek. We stroked him wordlessly. Most of the time petting him in his sleep was all it took to chase the bad things away. Real-life bad things weren’t so easy.

  There was a soft knock on the door. We both looked toward it and Nathaniel stirred, one arm pulling out of the covers. He blinked awake, his eyes confused, as if he expected to be somewhere else. He saw us and visibly relaxed. He smiled, and said, “What is it?”

  I shook my head, still lying pressed in Micah’s arms. Micah said, “Don’t know.”

  I called, “What?”

  It was Remus, one of the ex-military werehyenas. They’d been hired after Chimera nearly destroyed the bodybuilders and martial artists of the hyenas. As Peter had said, it wasn’t real. The hyenas had liked showy muscle that had never seen real battle. They’d learned that just because muscle is pretty doesn’t mean it’s the real deal. “It’s the Ulfric. He wants in.”

  Ulfric, wolf king, Richard Zeeman was at our door. The question was, why? I wanted to ask what he wanted, but he might take it wrong, so I looked at Micah.

  He shrugged, lying back, one arm still curved around me, holding me along the line of his body. I stayed propped up so I could see the door, and so most of my nakedness was covered. Richard was my lover, but he didn’t share nearly as well as everyone else did. I wouldn’t get out of bed for him, but I wouldn’t make it as bad as it could be by flaunting either. No matter what I did, we’d probably end up fighting. When we weren’t having sex, that’s what we did. We fought and had make-up sex, and he let me feed the ardeur off him. It wasn’t much of a relationship lately.

  “Anita”—Richard’s voice—“let me in.”

  “Let him in, Remus,” I said.

  Nathaniel rolled onto his back so that the covers pooled at his waist, and the expanse of his upper body was naked to the light that came in through the door as Richard came inside. He hesitated at the door, watching us in the rectangle of light from the hallway. His hair had finally grown out enough to go a little past his shoulders in heavy chestnut waves. His hair looked black with a nimbus of gold around it now, but his hair was brown with highlights of gold and copper when the light hit it just right. He was wearing jeans and a jean jacket with a heavy wool collar. He had a small suitcase in one hand. He set it down on the floor as he came through the door.

  I caught a glimpse of the guards in the hallway as he shut the door. Claudia, wererat and one of the few other women who carried a gun besides me, looked a question at me. I shook my head. It was my way of saying, Let it go. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I couldn’t figure out a way to refuse him access to the bedroom without starting a fight. I didn’t want to start the fight.

  “May I turn on the light?” he asked, very polite.

  I looked at the other two men. They nodded, and shrugged. “Sure,” I said.

  I was left blinking into the sudden glare. It wasn’t that bright a light, but after almost complete darkness it seemed bright. When my eyes adjusted I could finally look at Richard. He was as he had always been: six feet one inch of handsome masculinity. Perfect cheekbones and a nearly permanent tan showed that somewhere back in all that Dutch blood was something darker and less European. I’d always bet on American Indian, but they actually didn’t know. He was almost heartrendingly handsome. So why hadn’t my new vampire powers made us the perfect couple, too? Because for my abilities to work you had to know what you wanted, what you really wanted. Richard didn’t know that. He was too conflicted, too full of self-loathing, to know what his heart’s desire was.

  He looked at the coffin that sat near the far wall, closer to the door than to the bed. “Jean-Claude?” He made it a question.

  “Damian,” I said.

  He nodded. “So if you start draining him of life you’ll be able to check on him.” Richard had actually carried Damian’s nearly lifeless body to me once, so I could save the vampire.

  “Yes.” I pulled up the sheet so that my breasts were more covered. It bared a little more of Micah’s chest, but that was okay. His body was already blocking all but the upper curve of my hip from Richard’s sight. Covered was better until I knew what Richard wanted.

  “Where’s Jean-Claude sleeping?”

  “Asher’s room,” I said.

  He had left his suitcase by the door, but he was in the middle of the floor, halfway between the door and the bed. He licked his lips and wouldn’t quite look at us. He was nervous—why?

  “Jason has his new girlfriend bunking with him.”

  “Perdita, Perdy,” I said. She’d come to us from the master of Cape Cod. She was a mermaid. A real live mermaid. The first I’d ever met. Though I’d never seen her look anything but human. I was told she really could be part fish, but I’d never seen it.

  Richard nodded.

  Micah moved against me and let me know he’d thought of something. Oh. “Do you want to stay here with us?” Micah asked.

  Richard closed those perfectly brown eyes, the color of milk chocolate. He took a deep breath, let it out slow, then nodded.

  We all exchanged a look, which was almost finished by the time he opened those eyes. We must have looked surprised, though, because he said, “I’m a shapeshifter; we like big puppy piles for sleeping.”

  “Most of you guys do,” I said, “but you’ve never willingly slept with me and any of the other guys.”

  “This is who you are, Anita. This is who we both are.” He shoved his big hands into his jacket pockets and looked at the floor. “I was on a date when I got the call that some insanely powerful vampires are in town.” He looked up, and his face held that anger that he’d gotten from me through Jean-Claude’s vampire marks. He shared my rage at the world, and it had made him even harder to deal with. “I had to call it an early evening, and I couldn’t explain to her why.”

  “We had to cut our date short, too,” Nathaniel said.

  Richard looked at him; it was not an entirely friendly look, but his words were civil. “You guys were trying to celebrate some kind of anniversary.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Sorry it got ruined.”

  “Sorr
y your date got cut short,” I said. My, we were being terribly polite.

  “They found bugs in my house, Anita. My dates, my phone calls, everything recorded.” He rocked on the heels of his boots.

  “I know,” I said. “Same for us.”

  “The Circus is the most secure place we have, so I’m here for the duration.”

  “Scary,” I said.

  “The scary part is that I might be endangering the kids I teach. If it’s not fixed by Monday, maybe I should take a leave of absence.”

  He seemed to be asking my opinion and I didn’t know what to say, but Micah did. “We’ve all been blindsided by this. Let’s get some sleep.”

  Richard nodded his head, a little too rapidly, a little too often. There were guest rooms in the underground. There was even a couch big enough for him to use in the living room. So why was he here?

  “I can stay?” He asked it without looking at us.

  “Yes,” Micah said.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice soft.

  He looked up. “Nathaniel?”

  “I’m not dominant to anyone in this room; I don’t get a vote.”

  “It’s polite to ask,” Richard said.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is. I appreciate it.”

  “So do I,” Nathaniel said, “but you don’t have to ask. It was your bed before it was ours.”

  That seemed a little impolitic, but strangely Richard smiled. “Nice of someone to remember that.” But he didn’t sound angry as he said it. He picked up his suitcase and started walking toward the bed. He walked past the bed, and we all watched him. He put the suitcase down beside the armoire in the corner that held extra clothes for all of us. He knelt, opened the case, and began to unpack. He took his jacket off first and put it on a hanger in the armoire. Then he took out shirts, socks, and underwear and put them in the drawers. He unpacked as if we weren’t there. We all exchanged looks again. This was too weird, entirely too civilized for Richard. The other shoe had to drop soon, and all hell would break loose, wouldn’t it?

  Micah moved the covers, letting me know to get off them enough to get under them. He was right; discretion was the better part of valor. We were all three under the red silk sheets when Richard finally finished putting everything away—including one trip with a toiletry kit to the bathroom. He left the door wide open so he had plenty of light, then walked to the light by the door and turned it off. It was so normal, it scared me. I hadn’t seen him this reasonable in months, maybe years. My shoulders and arms were tight with tension. It felt like the quiet before the storm, but I couldn’t tell if the tension was just me projecting. Richard and I could share each other’s dreams, let alone thoughts, but right now he and I were shielding so tight that nothing got through. We were separate from each other metaphysically, or as separate as Jean-Claude’s marks would let us be. It was safer that way.