"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 me 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 vamp
ires 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 worsened. 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 y
ou 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.
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