The Harlequin

by Laurell K. Hamilton

Chapter 7-8

  Chapter Seven

  REQUIEM GLIDED IN wearing a long, hooded cloak as black as his hair. He was the only vamp I'd ever met who wore a cloak like that.

  Byron came behind him, carrying a towel that seemed to be full of something. He was still wearing nothing but his G-string. There was still money stuffed in it. He grinned at me. "Hi, duckie. "

  "Hey, Byron. "

  He always talked like he had just stepped out of an old British movie: lots of loves and duckies. He talked that way to everyone, so I didn't take it personally. He up-ended the towel on the couch beside me. It was suddenly raining money.

  "Good night," Nathaniel said.

  Byron nodded and started taking the money out of his G-string. "Jean-Claude used that sweet, sweet voice of his during my act. The pigeons always give it up for him. " He slipped off the G-string, letting some bills flutter to the floor. I used to protest the nudity in front of me, but they were strippers, and after a while either you stopped being bothered by the casual nudity, or you didn't hang at the club. Nudity didn't mean to the dancers what it meant in the real world. Stripping is about the illusion that the customers can have them - the illusion of sex, not the reality of it. It had taken me a while to understand that.

  Byron used the towel to dry some of the sweat off his body. He winced, and turned to show bloody scratches high on one buttock. "Got me from behind, just at the end of m' act. "

  "Hit-and-run, or did she give you extra money for it?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Hit-and-run. "

  I must have looked puzzled, because Nathaniel explained. "A hit-and-run is when a customer gets an extra grope, or scratch, or something intimate, and we don't know who did it, and they don't pay for it. "

  "Oh," I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't like watching my boyfriends being groped by strangers. It was another reason I stayed away.

  " 'The evening star, love's harbinger, sits before me, and does not even waste a smile upon me. ' " Requiem's greeting to me. It wasn't what he always said, but it was typical. He'd started calling me his "evening star. "

  "You know, I looked up the quote. It's John Milton's Paradise Lost. I'm not sure, but I think it's your very poetic way of complaining. "

  He glided in, making sure the cloak showed nothing but the long oval of his face, and even that was mostly hidden by the Vandyke-style beard and mustache. The only color on him was the swimming blue of his eyes: the richest, deepest, medium blue I'd ever seen.

  "I know what I am to you, Anita. "

  "And that would be?" I said.

  "I am food. " He bent over me, and I turned my face so that the kiss he gave was on the cheek and not the mouth. He didn't fight me on it, but the kiss was empty and neutral, the kind of kiss you'd give your aunt. But I'd made certain it wouldn't be more. I'd turned away first, so why did it bug me that he'd just accepted the rebuff and not tried to make the kiss more? I didn't want him pursuing me harder than he was; I'd made that clear, so why did his just accepting the cheek bother me? God only knows, because I had no idea. I was mad at Nathaniel for demanding more of me, and irritated with Requiem for not demanding anything. Even in my own head I was confused.

  He glided away to sink into the empty chair near the desk. He made sure the cloak covered him completely, only the tips of his black boots peeking out. "Why the frown, my evening star? I did exactly what you wished me to do, didn't I?"

  I fought not to frown harder, and probably failed. "You bother me, Requiem. "

  "Why?" he asked, simply.

  "Why, just why, no poetry?" I asked.

  Nathaniel patted my shoulder, either reminding me he was there or trying to stop me from picking a fight. Either way, it worked, because I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wasn't sure why Requiem got on my nerves lately, but he did. He was one of my lovers. He was food. But I didn't like it, any of it. He was wonderful in bed, but. . . there was always that feeling from him that no matter what I did it was never enough. Never what he wanted me to do. There was a constant, unspoken pressure from him. I knew the feeling, but unless you were going to have a "relationship" with a man, it was a pressure you didn't deserve, or wouldn't respond to. He was food, and we were lovers; he was Jean-Claude's third-in-command. I'd tried to be his friend, but somehow the sex had ruined that. I think without the sex we could have been friends, but with it. . . with it we were neither friends, nor boyfriend or girlfriend. We were lovers, but. . . I had no words for what was wrong between us, but I could feel it, like an old ache in a wound you thought had healed.

  "You told me you were tired of my 'constantly quoting poetry' to you. I'm practicing speaking simply. "

  I nodded. "I remember, but. . . I feel like you're unhappy with me, and I don't know why. "

  "You have allowed me into your bed. I share the ardeur once more. What could any man desire above that?"

  "Love," Nathaniel said.

  Requiem looked past me to the other man. There was a flash of blue fire in the vampire's eyes: anger, power. Requiem hid it, but I'd seen it. We'd all seen it.

  " 'Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?' "

  "I don't know who you're quoting," Nathaniel said, "but Anita doesn't love at first sight, or at least she didn't me. "

  "He's quoting from Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe," Byron said. The other vampire was counting the money he'd rained down on the couch. He had his back to the other vampire. "And what's bothering him is that he thinks he's wonderful, and he can't understand why you don't love him. "

  "Do not tempt me, Byron. My anger seeks only a target," Requiem said.

  Byron turned with his stacked and counted money in his hand. "I can resist anything but temptation," he said. He glanced at me. "He hates it when you quote back at him. "

  "Your tongue doth overstep your purpose, Byron," Requiem said, his voice purring low with warning.

  "My purpose," Byron said, his gray eyes flashing with a moment of shining power like quiet lightning. He laid his money on the lacquered coffee table and turned to face the other vampire. "I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not. " He sat in Nathaniel's lap, putting his legs across my lap.

  Nathaniel put an arm around him, almost automatically, and gave me a look. The look said, What's going on? but since I didn't know, I had no answers. It was like we'd stepped into a fight I hadn't known was happening. I had my hands in the air, above Byron's bare legs. I could ignore the nudity most of the time now, but not when that nudity was sitting in my boyfriend's lap and had flung itself across my legs. My ability to ignore just wasn't that good.

  "What's going on?" I asked, my hands finally coming to light on Byron's bare legs, because I felt stupid keeping my hands in the air. If he'd been more on my lap than Nathaniel's I might have just dumped him on the floor, but whatever was happening he'd involved Nathaniel, too, and that meant I couldn't simply act. I had to think, too. Simply reacting was so much easier, not always in the long run, but in the short run, it felt so much better.

  "Ask Byron," Requiem said. "I have no idea why he's acting like this. "

  I patted Byron's calf and said, "Why are you sitting in our laps?"

  Byron wrapped his arms around Nathaniel's shoulders, cuddling his face next to his. He stared at me, giving me a look out of those gray eyes that made me fight off a shiver. Not a shiver of fear, but one that was all about sex. Nathaniel looked faintly puzzled as their faces pressed next to each other. It was the blatant sex look that made me slide out from under his legs and stand up. "I don't know what game this is, Byron, but Nathaniel and I don't want to play. "

  Byron slid off Nathaniel's lap and knelt on the far side of him, so that I could still see the two of them clearly. It was like he was doing serious flirting. Byron flirted, but not seriously, more like it was a casual hobby. There was nothing casual about the look on his face.

  He sl
id his hand along Nathaniel's neck, then grabbed his braid. Grabbed it, and yanked Nathaniel's neck backward at a painful angle. Nathaniel's breath came in fast pants, his pulse visible like a trapped thing in his throat.

  My gun was just in my hand. I didn't remember drawing it. I didn't remember aiming it. My own pulse was hammering in my throat. Years of practice had a gun pointed at Byron's face. He was staring at me, his gray eyes straight on, face still serious, but not threatening. I didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was, someone was going to get hurt if it didn't stop.

  "Let him go," I said, and my voice was as steady as the gun pointed at his forehead. I had a sense of Lisandro moving away from the door, coming toward us. I wasn't sure if I wanted the interference, or even if I needed it.

  "He doesn't want me to let him go, do you, Nathaniel?" Byron's voice was very careful, even, as if he finally realized that his game could turn deadly.

  Nathaniel's voice came strangled with the angle of his neck, and the force of the vampire's hand on his hair, but what he said was, "No, no, don't stop. "

  I finally let myself glance at Nathaniel. I didn't normally look away from someone I was pointing a gun at, but there was no sense of menace to Byron. Whatever we were doing, I wasn't sure it was about violence. Nathaniel's hands were gripping Byron's arm, but not like he was trying to stop the vampire from hurting him, more like he was just holding on. But it was the look on Nathaniel's face that made me lower the gun to point at the floor.

  Nathaniel's lips were half parted, his eyes fluttering closed, his face slack with pleasure. His body was tense with anticipation. He was enjoying the pain, enjoying being manhandled. Shit.

  Byron let go of Nathaniel abruptly, almost with a throwaway gesture. Nathaniel fell back onto the couch, gasping for breath, his eyes rolled back into his head behind fluttering eyelids. His spine bowed, throwing his head back, making him writhe against the back of the couch.

  Byron stood there and watched him. "Duckie, this much reaction, you have been neglecting your boy. "

  He was right. I'd have liked to argue it, but he was right. The proof of neglect was writhing on the couch in some sort of ecstasy that I couldn't even begin to understand. I liked a little force now and then, but it didn't do this for me. Nathaniel began to grow quiet, eyes still closed, and a smile on his face. I understood for the first time that the violence could be sex for him, really, truly could.

  I looked at Byron. "And your point?" I was pretty sure I knew what the point was, but I'd be damned if I'd help him make it.

  "I heard rumors that you weren't doing dominance and submission with the boy, but I didn't believe it. I mean, how can you be with Nathaniel and not do BDSM? Bondage and submission is the boy's bread and butter. "

  I nodded, and put my gun up. "Do you know how close you came to getting yourself shot?"

  "I did once I saw your gun pointed at my face. " The joking was gone again, so serious, and then he smiled. "So exciting. "

  "Are you saying you got off on the fact that I damn near shot you?" I laughed a little at the end, but it was a nervous laugh.

  "Not got off the way that Nathaniel does, but I like to be dominated sometimes. " He sat down on the couch, squeezed between Nathaniel and the couch arm. He wrapped his arms around Nathaniel's shoulders again, though he was sitting on his knees so that he couldn't put their faces next to each other. Nathaniel cuddled in against him, a peaceful look on his face. It creeped me out. But he cuddled Byron's arms tighter around him, as if he were his favorite teddy bear. He'd never liked Byron that much, and now just a little abuse and he was his best buddy. I did not get it, I just didn't.

  Byron hugged him back and stroked the side of his hair. "I'm a switch, Anita, in every sense of the word. "

  I frowned at him. "Switch means bisexual, right?"

  "There's another meaning for it, duckie. "

  "Just tell me, Byron. I'm not very good at subtle. "

  "It means that I'm both a sub and a dom. "

  "Submissive and dominant," I said.

  He nodded.

  "What are you offering?" I said.

  "I could help you tame your kitty-cat here. "

  "How?" I let the word hold all the suspicion it could.

  He laughed. "You can put so much menace and doubt into one word, duckie. "

  "Answer the question," I said.

  "Feed the ardeur on me and Nathaniel, while I abuse him. If this is a preview, the energy will be amazing. "

  "And what do you get out of it?"

  "I get to have sex with you, duckie. "

  I shook my head. "Try again, Byron. You like boys a lot more than you like girls. "

  "I get to have sexual contact with Nathaniel. "

  I felt my eyes narrow at him. "You've never acted like Nathaniel was your type before. "

  "I know that he's unhappy, and I want my friends to be happy. "

  "That's not all of it," I said.

  "Don't know what you mean, lover. " He settled into the corner of the couch. Nathaniel and he cuddled like they had done it before, though I didn't think they had.

  "He's doing it for my benefit," Requiem said.

  I looked at the other vampire, who had never moved from his chair. "Explain," I said.

  "Tell her, Byron, tell her why you're offering. "

  "Where has all your poetry gone, Requiem?" Byron asked.

  " 'In chains and darkness, wherefore should I stay, And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?' " Requiem said.

  "That's better," Byron said. "Have you thought about ending it all, duckie? Is the fact that Anita doesn't adore you that painful to you?"

  Requiem just stared at him, and something in that look made Byron shiver. I wasn't sure if it was a shiver of fear or of other things. If he wasn't afraid, he should have been. I'd never seen Requiem look at anyone with that coldness before.

  "This has the smell of something that will get out of hand and get people hurt. Since part of my job is to protect everyone who could get hurt, talk to me," I said.

  Byron looked at me. "Nathaniel needs his pain, Anita. I'll help you give it to him, while you're in the bed with us. You get to supervise but you don't have to do the dirty work. "

  "Did Nathaniel talk to you about this problem?"

  "I know what it's like, Anita, to want a certain kind of touch and be denied it. I spent centuries being given to masters that didn't give a damn what I wanted or needed. You love Nathaniel and he loves you, but eventually, needs left unanswered can curdle love like milk left to spoil in the sun. "

  "So this little demonstration is out of the kindness of your heart," I said, and let my tone say how little I believed that.

  "He's tried to tell you, duckie, but you didn't understand. "

  "I'm not sure I understand now," I said.

  "But did it help, my little show?"

  I wanted to say no, but it would have been a lie. Most vamps could smell or feel a lie, so why bother? "Hate to admit it, but yeah, it helped. Don't pull shit like this again, but you've made your point. "

  "Have I?" he said, sliding lower on the couch, so that he and Nathaniel were more intertwined. If it bothered Nathaniel to be that up close and personal with a naked man, it didn't show. Okay, a naked man who wasn't one of our sweeties. Had just a little hair pulling made him like Byron that much? Was Nathaniel's need that great, or had I just neglected his needs that much?

  Byron hadn't done anything that I wasn't willing to do. He hadn't done anything bad. Would it be so bad to just tie Nathaniel up and have the sex we would have had without the tying up? Was that so awful? I looked at the two men, cuddled together, the look of peaceful contentment on Nathaniel's face, and realized that I'd been arrogant. I'd assumed that if our relationship ended, it would be me doing the ending. That I'd dump him for being too needy, or too something. In that instant I realized that he might dump me for simply not trying hard enough to
meet his needs. The thought made my chest tight. I loved him, I really did. I could not imagine my life without him. So what was I willing to do to keep him? How far would I go, and did I need help to get there? I'd had sex with Byron once before. I'd fed the ardeur off him. Could Byron teach me how to dominate Nathaniel? Maybe, maybe not. But his little show had proved one thing: that I needed someone to show me how Nathaniel worked. I would never have dreamed that simply pulling his hair, putting a little force behind it, would get such an amazing reaction out of him.

  "You look like you're thinking too hard, lover. "

  "I'm thinking about your little show; isn't that what you wanted?" I asked.

  "I wanted it to excite you, but that's not excitement in your eyes. " It was his turn to frown.

  "She is not easily captured," Requiem said.

  "She likes two men at once. "

  "Not just any two men," Requiem said, "just as she does not prefer just any single man. "

  "You're talking about me like I'm not here; I really hate that," I said.

  "Sorry, duckie, but I was hoping that the sight of Nathaniel and me together would do something for you. "

  "It puzzled me. "

  Byron laughed, and it made his face look younger, gave you a glimpse of what he might have been at a human fifteen when a vampire found him and made sure he'd never see sixteen. "Puzzlement wasn't exactly what I had in mind. "

  I shrugged. "Sorry. "

  He shook his head. "Not your fault, dearie. I don't do it for you. "

  "I don't do it for you either," I said.

  He laughed again. "The sex was lovely. "

  "But you'd have liked it better if it had been Jean-Claude. "

  A look slid through his eyes. He actually looked down, lowering his eyes in a show of coyness to hide the look. When he raised his gaze to me again, it was that smiling blankness that he hid behind. "Jean-Claude loves you, duckie; he's made that abundantly clear. "

  I might have asked what he meant by that, but the door opened and the vampire in question glided through. His clothes had just looked dark in the club; his usual black. The clothes were black, but they weren't usual.

  He was wearing a tuxedo complete with tails - though once you made it out of leather, was it still a tuxedo? Braces like silk suspenders slid over the bare flesh of his chest. I stared at that bare skin the way some men stare at a woman's breasts. It wasn't like me. I mean, it was a nice chest, but to stop there and not look at his face was just wrong. Because as nice as the chest was, the face was better. I raised my gaze to that face. The hair fell past his shoulders in black curls. The line of his neck was encircled with a black velvet ribbon and a cameo I'd bought for him. Up to the kissable curve of his mouth, the curve of his cheek like a swallow's wing, all grace and. . . Swallow's wing? What the hell did that mean? I would never have described anyone's jawline like that.

  "Ma petite, are you well?"

  "No," I said, softly, "I don't think I am. "

  He moved closer and I had to move my eyes upward, had to meet that midnight blue gaze. It was like back at the movies when I'd first seen Nathaniel. I was too fascinated, too taken with him. I actually had to close my eyes so the vision of him didn't distract before I could say, "I think someone's messing with me. "

  "What do you mean, ma petite?"

  "You mean like at the movie theatre," Nathaniel said. His voice was closer than the couch. He must have moved toward us.

  I nodded, eyes still closed.

  Jean-Claude's voice came from right in front of me. "What happened at the theatre?"

  Nathaniel explained. "She had to get her cross out before it got better. "

  "But I'm wearing my cross now," I said.

  "It's inside your shirt now. It was in plain sight before," Nathaniel said.

  "That shouldn't matter unless the vampire is in the room with me. "

  "Try bringing it into the light," Jean-Claude said.

  I opened my eyes a crack, glancing at him. He was still heartrendingly beautiful, but I could think again. "That shouldn't matter for this. " I stared up into his face, straight into those wondrous eyes. They were just eyes, beautiful, captivating, but not literally. "It's gone again. "

  "What's going on, duckies?" Byron asked. He walked up to us, looking from one to the other.

  "Lisandro, leave us," Jean-Claude said.

  Lisandro seemed to think about protesting, but he didn't. He just asked, "Do you want me to stay on the door, or go back to the club?"

  "The door, I think," Jean-Claude said.

  "Don't our guards need a heads-up?" I asked.

  "This is not the business of the rodere. "

  "Lisandro raised a point before you came in, that if we're going to endanger them, they have a right to know why. "

  Jean-Claude looked at Lisandro. It was not a completely friendly look. "Did he?"

  Lisandro gave him a flat look back. "I was talking about when Anita picks another animal to call, nothing about your orders, Jean-Claude. "

  "All that concerns ma petite concerns me. " There was a dangerous purr to his voice.

  Lisandro shifted a little and visibly let out a breath. "No offense, but don't you want her to pick a stronger beast next time? Someone who will help your power base?"

  Jean-Claude stared at him, and Lisandro fought to both look at the vampire and not look - a trick that I'd mastered over the years, but was glad I'd become powerful enough to give up. So hard to be tough when you can't look someone in the eyes.

  "Is my strength the concern of the rats?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "Yes," Lisandro said.

  "How?" One word, flat and unfriendly.

  "Your strength keeps us all safe. The wererats remember what St. Louis was like when Nikolaos was Master of the City. " Lisandro shook his head, face darkening. "She didn't protect anyone or anything but the vampires. You think about the entire preternatural community, Jean-Claude. "

  "I think you will find it is ma petite who thinks of such things. "

  "She's your human servant," Lisandro said. "Her actions are your actions. Isn't that what the vampires believe, that their human servants are just extensions of their masters?"

  Jean-Claude blinked and moved farther into the room, collecting me by the hand as he moved. "A pretty conceit, but you know that ma petite is her own person. " His hand in mine felt solid, real, and the world was suddenly safer. Just the touch of his hand and I felt more myself.

  "Whatever or whoever is messing with me is still here," I said, "around the edges somehow, but still here. "

  "What do you mean, ma petite?"

  "When you touched me, I felt more solid. Your touch chased back a fuzziness I didn't even know was there. "

  He drew me in against his body, so that it was almost a hug. I caressed the butter softness of his leather lapels. "Is that more solid still?" he asked.

  I shook my head.

  "Try touching skin to skin," Requiem said.

  He had stayed in the chair by the desk. We'd moved until we were close to him, not intentionally, at least not on my part.

  I kept one hand in Jean-Claude's, but the other I put against his bare chest. The moment I touched that much of his skin, it was good. "Even better," I said. I traced my hand over the smooth, firm muscles of his chest. I traced the cross-shaped burn scar. Better still.

  "Why did you want to speak to Byron and me, Jean-Claude?" Requiem looked up at us, his face fighting for blankness but failing around the edges. He reclined in the chair, body at ease, but his eyes gave him away: tight, careful.

  "You've seen this before, haven't you?" I asked.

  "Once," he said, his voice more neutral than his eyes.

  "When?" I asked.

  He looked at Jean-Claude. "The wererat should leave. "

  Jean-Claude nodded. "Go, for now, Lisandro. If we can tell you more, we will. "

  Lisandro looked at m
e as he left, as if he thought I was the one most likely to tell him the truth later. He was right.

  Chapter Eight

  BYRON LOOKED AT all of us. His usual joking face was utterly serious. "Someone talk to us poor little peons, please. "

  "Did you receive a gift?" Requiem asked.

  "Oui. "

  "What kind of gift?" Byron asked.

  "A mask," Jean-Claude said.

  Byron paled; he'd fed tonight so he had enough color to do it. "No, no, fuck me, not here, not again. "

  "What color was it?" Requiem said in a voice that had fallen away to emptiness, the way some of the old vampires could do.

  "White," Jean-Claude said.

  Byron relaxed so suddenly he almost fell. Nathaniel offered him a hand that he took. "I'm all weak-kneed, duckies. Don't scare me like that. White, we're safe with white. "

  Nathaniel helped him back to the couch, but didn't stay by him. He moved back toward us.

  "What color did your master in England get?" I asked.

  "Red first, then black," Requiem said.

  "What does red mean?" I asked.

  "Pain," Jean-Claude said. "It is typically a bid to punish a master, to bring him to heel. The council does not use the Harlequin lightly. "

  The name fell into the room like a stone dropped down a well. You strained to hear the splash. I leaned my face in against Jean-Claude's chest. There was no heartbeat to hear. He would breathe only when he needed to speak. I raised my head away from his chest. Sometimes it still disturbed me to lay my ear against a silent chest.

  Byron broke the silence. "Red means they fuck with you. "

  "Like someone has been doing tonight?" I asked.

  "Yes," Requiem said.

  "And black?" I asked.

  "Death," Requiem said.

  "But doesn't white mean they just observe us?" Nathaniel said.

  "It should," he said. I'd begun to dread when Requiem answered in short, clipped sentences. The poetry might occasionally get on my nerves, but the short, choppy words meant something had gone wrong, or he was pissed, or both.

  "You said you'd explain more about them when I got to Guilty Pleasures. Well, I'm here. Explain. "

  "Harlequin is now merely a figure for jest. Once he was, or they were, the Mesnee d'Hellequin. Do you know what the wild hunt is, ma petite?"

  "The wild hunt is a common motif all over Europe. A supernatural leader leads a band of devils, or the dead, with spectral hounds and horses. They chase and kill either anyone who crosses their path, or only the evil, and take them to hell. It depends on who you read whether it's a punishment to join the hunt, or a reward. It's usually considered really bad to be outside when the hunt goes by. "

  "As always you surprise me, ma petite. "

  "Well, it's such a widespread story that there has to be some basis for it, but it hasn't been seen for real since the time of one of the Henrys in England. I think Henry the Second, but I'm not a hundred percent on that one. Usually the leader of the hunt is some local dead bad guy, or the devil. But before Christianity got hold of it, a lot of the Norse gods were said to lead it. Odin's mentioned a lot, but sometimes goddesses like Hel, or Holda - though Holda's version gave gifts as well as punishment. Some of the other hunts did, too, but generally it was really bad to get caught, or even see them ride by. "

  "Harlequin is one of those leaders," Jean-Claude said.

  "That's a new one on me, but then I haven't read up on it since college. I think the only reason it stuck with me is that it's such a widespread story, and it stops abruptly a few hundred years ago. Almost every other legend that has that many witness stories is true. Or at least that's what I've found. So why did it stop? Why did the wild hunt just stop riding, if it was real?"

  "It is real, ma petite. "

  I looked at him. "Are you saying it was vampires?"

  "I am saying that the legend existed and we took advantage of it. The Harlequin adopted the persona of the wild hunt. For it was something that people already feared. "

  "Vampires scare people already, Jean-Claude. You guys didn't need to pretend to be Norse gods to be frightening. "

  "The Harlequin and his family were not trying to frighten people, ma petite. They were trying to frighten other vampires. "

  "You guys already scare each other; Mommie Dearest proves that. "

  "Early in our history, Marmee Noir decided we were too dangerous. That we needed something to keep us in check. She created the idea of the Harlequin. As you say, ma petite, there were so many wild hunts over the face of Europe, what was one more? Vampires begin life as people, and the idea of the wild hunt was something many already feared. "

  "Okay, so what does this fake wild hunt have to do with us?"

  "They are not fake, ma petite. They are a supernatural troop that can fly, that can punish the wicked and kill mysteriously and quickly. "

  "They aren't the original wild hunt, Jean-Claude; that makes them fake in my book. "

  "As you will, but they are the closest thing that vampires have to police. They are taken from all the major bloodlines. They owe allegiance to no one line. They are called upon when the council is divided. They are divided about us, about me. "

  "What do they do, exactly?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Disguise and subterfuge are their meat and drink. They are assassins, spies of the highest order. No one knows who they are. No one has ever seen their faces and lived. They come to us masked if they mean us no harm. Masked in the manner of Venice when the rich and powerful wore masks, caps, and hats, so all looked alike, and none could be distinguished from the other. If they appear before us in those costumes, then they are merely here to observe. If they appear in the masks of their namesakes, then it could go either way. They could be merely observing, or they could mean to kill us. They would wear their namesakes, both to hide their faces and to let us know that if we do not cooperate they could turn deadly. "

  "What do you mean, namesakes?" I asked.

  "There is only one Harlequin at a time, but there are other Harlequin as a group name. Whatever names they had once, they have adopted the names and masks of the commedia dell'arte. "

  "I don't know the term," I said.

  "It was a type of theatre that flourished before I was born, but it gave rise to many characters. The women were not originally masked on stage, but there are those among Harlequin's band that have taken female personas; whether they are actually women or only seek to confuse the matter is open for debate, but does not truly matter. As for namesakes, there are dozens, but some names have been known for centuries: Harlequin, of course; Punchinello; Scaramouche; Pierrot or Pierrette; Columbine; Hanswurst; Il Dottore. There could be dozens more, or a hundred. No one knows how many are in the Harlequin's raid. Most of the time they will only appear in nearly featureless masks of black and white. They will simply say, 'We are the Harlequin. ' The best possible scenario is that we never learn who individually has come to our city. "

  "How serious a breach of vampy etiquette is it that we get a white mask but they're acting like it's red?" I asked.

  Jean-Claude and Requiem exchanged a look that I couldn't read exactly, but it wasn't good.

  "Talk to me, damn it," I said.

  "It should not be happening, ma petite. Either this is an attack by some other vampire powerful enough to fool us all, or the Harlequin are breaking their own rules. They are deadly within their rules; if the rule of law were to break down. . . " He closed his eyes and hugged me, hugged me tight.

  Nathaniel came to stand beside us, his face uncertain. "What can we do about it?"

  Jean-Claude looked at him, and smiled. "Very practical, mon minet, as practical as our Micah. " He turned to look at Requiem, whose smile had vanished. "Is this how it began in London?"

  "Yes, one of the Harlequin could increase our emotions of desire. But only emotions we already owned. It was very subtle at first, then wors
ened. Truthfully, what has happened tonight to Anita went unnoticed among us. It simply seemed to be couples finally deciding to consummate their friendships. "

  "How did it worsen?" Nathaniel asked.

  "I don't know if it was the same vampire, but they began to interfere when we used the powers of Belle's line. Making the lust go terribly wrong. "

  "How terribly?" I asked.

  "The ardeur at its worst," he said.

  "Shit," I said.

  Nathaniel touched my shoulders and Jean-Claude opened his arms to pull the other man into our embrace, so that he hugged us both, and I was firmly in the middle of them. It was as if I could finally catch my breath. "Better and better," I said.

  "The more you touch your power base, the more surety you have against them, at first," Requiem said.

  "What do you mean, 'at first'?" I asked.

  "Eventually, our master was tormented by them no matter who he touched. Whatever he touched turned ill, and whatever touched his skin was poisoned. "

  "Poisoned with what?" I asked.

  "They turned our own powers against us, Anita. We were a kiss made up almost entirely of Belle Morte's line. They turned our gifts against us so that the blade bit deep, and we bled for them. "

  "They didn't torment Elinore and Roderick," Byron said from the couch.

  The three of us looked at him, still clinging to each other.

  "Not true. She was bothered at first like all of us. So smitten with Roderick she couldn't do her job. "

  "But, how did you say it, when the madness overcame us, they were spared," Byron said. There was a tone to his voice that held anger, or something close to it.

  Jean-Claude hugged us both, and Nathaniel hugged back until it was hard to breathe, not from some vampire trick, but from the strength in their bodies. Jean-Claude eased away, and Nathaniel did the same. Jean-Claude moved us to the desk edge. He leaned upon it, drawing my back in against his body. He held a hand out to Nathaniel and drew him to the desk. Nathaniel sat on the desk, his feet dangling in the air. But he kept his hand in the vampire's, as if afraid to let go. I guess we all were.

  "What do you mean, madness?" I asked.

  "We fucked our brains out, dearie. "

  I tried to think of a polite way to say it.

  Byron laughed. "The look on your face, Anita. Yes, sex is our coin, and we did a lot of it, but you want to have a choice, don't you?" He looked past us to Requiem. "You don't like having your choices taken away, do you, lover?"

  Requiem gave him a look that should have stopped his heart, let alone his words, but Byron was already dead, and the dead are made of stouter stuff than the living. Or maybe Byron just didn't care anymore. "Requiem found that men were on the menu, didn't you, lover?" There was a purring insolence in his voice, bordering on hatred.

  I got the implications; they'd become lovers after the Harlequin messed with them all badly enough. Requiem didn't do men, period. Belle had punished him over the centuries for refusing to bed men. To refuse Belle Morte anything was never a good idea, so he'd been serious about saying no. Someone on the Harlequin's team was very good at manipulating emotions. Scary good.

  I hugged Jean-Claude's arm tight to me and reached out to Nathaniel. I ended up touching his hip, just running my hand lightly along it. Shapeshifters were always touching each other, and I'd begun to pick up the habit. Tonight I didn't fight it.

  "You are never to speak of it," Requiem said, his voice low and very serious.

  "How much does it bother you to know that I've had sex with Anita, too?"

  Requiem stood in one swift motion, the black cloak swinging out, revealing that he wasn't wearing much under the cloak.

  "Stop," Jean-Claude said.

  Requiem froze, his eyes blazing with blue-green light. His shoulders rose and fell with his breathing, as if he'd been running.

  "I believe that lust is not the only emotion the Harlequin can incite," Jean-Claude said.

  It took Requiem a moment, and then he frowned and turned those sparkling eyes to us. "Our anger. "

  Jean-Claude nodded.

  The light began to fade, like light moving away through water. "What are we to do, Jean-Claude? If they do not even observe their own rules, we are doomed. "

  "I will ask for a meeting with them," he said.

  "You'll what?" Byron said, his voice squeaking just a little.

  "I will ask for a meeting between them and us. "

  "You do not seek the Harlequin out, Jean-Claude," Requiem said. "You hide, cowering in the grass, praying that they pass you by. You do not invite them closer. "

  "The Harlequin are honorable. What is happening is not honorable behavior. "

  "You are mad," Byron said.

  "You think one of them is disobeying the rules," I said, quietly.

  "I hope so," Jean-Claude said.

  "Why hope so?" I asked.

  "Because if what is happening is being done with the full weight and approval of the Harlequin behind it, then Requiem is correct, we are doomed. They will play with us, then destroy us. "

  "I don't do doomed," I said.

  He kissed the top of my head. "I know, ma petite, but you do not understand what force is against us. "

  "Explain it to me. "

  "I have told you, they are the bogeymen of vampirekind. They are what we fear in the dark. "

  "Not true," I said.

  "They're bloody frightening, lover," Byron said. "We do fear them. "

  "The bogeyman of all vampires is Marmee Noir, Mommie Dearest, your queen. That's who scares the shit out of all of you. "

  They were quiet for a heartbeat or two. "Yes, the Harlequin fear the Queen of Darkness, our creator," Jean-Claude said.

  "Everyone fears the dark," Requiem said, "but if the Mother of All Darkness is our nightmare, then the Harlequin are the swift sword of the dark. "

  Byron nodded. "No arguments from me on that one, duckie. Everyone fears her. "

  "What are you suggesting, ma petite?"

  "I'm not suggesting anything. I'm saying, I've stood in the dark and seen her rise above me like a black ocean. She's invaded my dreams. I've seen the room where her body lies, heard her voice whisper through my head. Tasted rain and jasmine choking on my tongue. " I shivered and could almost feel her moving restless in the dark. She lay in a room with windows, and they kept a fire below her, a continuous watch. She'd fallen into a "sleep" longer ago than most of them remembered. Once I'd thought they watched to celebrate her awakening, but I'd begun to realize most of them were as afraid of her as I was, which meant they were scared shitless. Marmee Noir liked me for some reason. I interested her. And from thousands of miles away, she messed with me. She'd made a cross melt into my hand. I'd have the scar until I died.

  "Speak of the devil and you bring him closer," Requiem said.

  I nodded and tried to think of something else. Oh, yeah, I knew what to think about. "The Harlequin are just vampires, right, which means they're subject to your laws, right?"

  "Oui. "

  "Then let's use the law against them. "

  "What do you propose, ma petite?"

  "This is a direct challenge to our authority. The council has forbidden any Master of the City to fight in the United States until the law decides whether you guys are staying legal or not. "

  "You're not suggesting that we fight them?" Byron said.

  "I'm saying that we act in accordance with the law," I said.

  "Don't you understand, Anita," Byron said, "the Harlequin are who we turn to when the bad things happen, sort of. They are the police for us. "

  "When the police go bad, they aren't police anymore," I said.

  "What are they?" he asked.

  "Criminals. "

  "You cannot seriously suggest that we are to fight the Harlequin?" Requiem said.

  "Not exactly," I said.

  "What exactly the
n?"

  I looked up at Jean-Claude. "What would you do if someone powerful moved in on us like this?"

  "I would contact the council in hopes of avoiding open war. "

  "Then contact them," I said.

  "I thought not everyone on the council liked us," Nathaniel said.

  "They do not, but if the Harlequin are breaking the law, then that would take precedence over more petty concerns," Jean-Claude said.

  "Have you forgotten how petty the council can be?" Requiem said.

  "Non, but not all on the council have forgotten what it means to live in the real world. "

  "Which council member will you contact first?" Byron asked.

  There was a knock on the door. All of us with heartbeats jumped. Nathaniel gave that nervous laugh, and I said, "Shit. "

  Lisandro's voice: "There's a delivery for you, Jean-Claude. "

  "It can wait," he said, his voice showing some of the strain.

  "The letter with it says you're expecting it. "

  "Enter," Jean-Claude said.

  Lisandro opened the door, but it was Clay who walked in with a white box in his hands. A box just like the one I'd found in the rest-room. I think I stopped breathing, because when I remembered to breathe, it came in a gasp.

  Clay looked at me. "What's wrong?"

  "Who delivered this?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "It was just sitting by the holy-item check desk. "

  "And you just brought it in here," I said, my voice rising.

  "No, give me some credit. We checked it out. The note says Jean-Claude is expecting it. "

  "What is it?" I asked, but was afraid I knew.

  "A mask," Clay said. He was looking at all of us now, trying to see why we were so upset.

  "What color is it?" Jean-Claude's voice was as empty as I'd ever heard it.

  "White. "

  The tension level dropped a point or two.

  "With little gold musical notes all over it. Didn't you order it?"

  "In a way, I suppose I did," Jean-Claude said.

  I stared up at him and moved away enough so I could see his face clearly. "What do you mean, you suppose you did?"

  "I said I wanted to meet with them, did I not?"

  "Yeah, but so what?"

  "That's what this mask means, ma petite. It means they wish to meet, not to kill us, or torment, but to talk. "

  "But how did they know what you'd said?" Nathaniel asked.

  Jean-Claude looked at me, and there was something in that look that made me say, "They're listening to us. "

  "I fear so. "

  "When was the mask delivered?" Requiem asked.

  Clay was still looking at us, as if waiting for us to throw him a clue. "We're not sure. I went on break about thirty minutes ago. It must have come while I was off the door. "

  "How long have you been back on the door?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "Maybe five minutes. "

  "They were listening," Requiem said.

  "They knew what Jean-Claude was going to say," Byron said, and his voice held more panic than most vampires would have shown. He just couldn't quite keep all the emotion out of his face and voice.

  "What is going on?" Clay asked.

  "Something big and bad has come to town," Lisandro said. "They won't tell us about it, but they'll expect us to fight it, and die because of it. " His voice sounded bitter.

  "What are the rules about telling our soldiers about. . . them?" I asked.

  Jean-Claude took in a deep, deep breath, and shook, almost like a bird settling its feathers. "Mutable. "

  "Mutable - oh, it depends. "

  He nodded.

  Then I had a smart idea. "I believe we'd know if someone was listening in on us metaphysically, especially another vampire. "

  "They are very powerful, ma petite. "

  "Lisandro," I said.

  He came to his version of attention; he gave me all his concentration. There was a demand to his dark eyes. If I widowed his wife, he wanted to know why. I thought he deserved to know why, but first things first. "I need this room swept for bugs. "

  "What kind of bugs?"

  "Anything that would let someone listen to us. "

  "You think they are relying on technology, ma petite?"

  "I don't believe that any vampire could spy on us like this without our sensing it. "

  "They are very powerful, ma petite. "

  "They are fucking ghosts, lover," Byron said.

  "Fine, they're ghosts, but it doesn't do any harm to look for technology. If the room is clean, then we can blame it on spooky stuff, but let's look for tech first. "

  Jean-Claude looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. "It would be interesting if they used listening devices. "

  "Did you look for bugs in London?" Nathaniel asked.

  Byron and Requiem exchanged a look, then both shook their heads. "It never occurred to us, duckies. I mean this is the bloody. . . " Byron licked his lips and stopped himself before saying their name, just in case. "They are ghosts, bogeys, walking nightmares. You don't expect the bogeyman to need technology. "

  "Exactly," I said.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

  "It means that most vampires don't use technology much. If these guys use it a lot, then it would seem like magic, if you didn't know what it was. "

  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Requiem said.

  I nodded.

  He stared at me. "My evening star, you are full of surprises. "

  "I just don't think like a vampire. "

  "Does Rafael have someone he trusts to clean a room of such things?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "Yes," Lisandro said.

  "Then do it. "

  "How soon do you need it?"

  "We said we wanted to meet with them a minute or two ago, and the mask arrives with the invitation," I said.

  "So, like yesterday," Lisandro said.

  "Or sooner," I said.

  He nodded. "I'll make the call. " He hesitated at the door. "I'll put someone on the door, and I'll use a phone outside the club. "

  "Good thinking," I said.

  "It's what I do. " Then he was gone.

  "Where do you want this?" Clay asked, motioning with the box.

  "Put it on the desk with the other one, I guess. "

  He put it beside the first one. Jean-Claude didn't seem to want to touch it. I was the one who opened it and found the white mask staring sightless up at me. But this one looked more finished, with gilt musical notes decorating the face. I touched a note and found it was raised above the rest of the mask. The note with it said only, "As you requested. "

  "Is there writing inside the mask?" Jean-Claude asked.

  I lifted it out of the tissue paper. Inside the smooth bow of the mask was writing. "Do not read it out loud, ma petite. "

  I didn't, I just handed it to him. Inside the mask was written "Circus of the Damned," and a date that was two days away. The date was written backward with the day first, then the month, then the year like they wrote it in Europe. They'd chosen one of Jean-Claude's own businesses for the meeting. Was that good, bad, or neither? Did it mean we had home-court advantage, or that they were planning to torch the place? I wanted to ask, but didn't want our enemies to hear the question. If we did find bugs in this office, we'd have to look everywhere. All the offices, all the businesses, my house, all of it.

  I was praying we found bugs, because the alternative was that these vamps were so good that they could plant psychic bugs inside our brains. You could find and destroy mechanical shit in the rooms; if they were good enough to use magic inside our heads, then we were fucked. We'd die when they wanted us to die, or we'd live, and either way it would be their idea, and not ours. I never thought I'd pray to have our offices turn out to be bugged. Funny, what turns out to be the lesser evil some
nights.