We have to do magic, Jason said, and you arent allowed to see it. He told half the truth. We didnt want them to see it, but I let the half-truth stand, because I couldnt think of a better way to get rid of them.
Why, you have to kill us if we see it? Chuck said, voice derisive.
Jason and I looked at him. I was the one who said it. We wouldnt have to kill you, Chuck. Wed consider it a bonus. Now get out. Now! I screamed the last at them, flinging myself off the bed. I drew the Browning and pointed it at them, screaming for them to leave. Me calm might not have moved them, but me hysterical and armed helped Jason get them out of the room.
I fell to my knees, the gun still naked in my hand. The tigers swirled inside me. I waited for one of them to run up toward me, inside me, and try to tear its way out, but they didnt. They just paced in the not-trees, the almost-shadows. They seemed to be waiting for something.
The smell of jasmine filled the air. My cross flared to life alongside the glowing lines of the charm. Then the smell of rain and flowers faded. It faded, and the cross quieted. The room was suddenly very quiet, quiet enough that I could hear the blood in my own ears pounding.
Jason knelt beside me. I saw his lips move, but could hear no sound. My gun fell from my hand, and I grabbed his arms, tried to say something, anything. Then I felt it. A sound, a call, a smell, a feeling, and yet that wasnt it either. It was all of those things, none of those things. The tigers that I could see in my minds eye like some sort of waking nightmare stood still. They raised their faces to the air, and roared. The sound of it bowed my spine, sent me to the floor, screaming. It was as if my body were some great bell, and their sound had struck a chord in me. I heard that sound not with my ears, but with my skin, like a silent tuning fork pressed against the spine to vibrate its message along every nerve ending.
Jasons hands were on me. He tried to hold me. I heard his shouts, broken in pieces, as if the ringing call let me hear only snatches of any other sound.
The charms lines glowed again like metal taken fresh from the fire, cherry red, hot enough to sear flesh. I could feel the warmth of it through my shirt. I waited for it to begin to melt through my shirt the way a cross could do, but if it would keep the vampires tigers from tearing me apart, I was willing to get one more burn scar.
Jason tried to get up. I held on to his arm. He mouthed something; I heard, door. He went to the door and opened it. Someone must have knocked, but I hadnt heard it.
It was Crispin, the white-haired stripper. He must have done his dance already because he was wearing nothing but an iridescent G-string. He knelt beside me, and the moment I looked into those strange blue eyes there was silence inside me. The tigers all looked up that long metaphysical tunnel.
Jason came to kneel on the other side of me. Is it better? he asked.
Yes, I said, my voice a hoarse whisper.
I heard your call, Crispin said. I had to answer it.
I wanted to ask, What call? or what he had heard, but he touched my arm. It was such an innocent gesture. The white tiger leapt forward from the rest. It charged up that impossible path inside me like a white blur of grace and muscle and death.
Jason tried to give me his arm to smell, but it was too late for distractions. The tiger was coming, and I wasnt sure how to stop it.
39
C RISPIN LAY DOWN beside me so that we could look each other in the eyes. He gave me those human eyes with that tiger color, and just seeing his eyes like that calmed me. Calm usually meant that the beast in question would stop and begin to retreat, but the visual in my head showed the white tiger gaining speed the way they will do when theyve committed to the huntthat last burst of speed, strength, everything thrown on one leap.
Crispin put a hand on the side of my face, and the touch helped, quieted my pulse. He leaned over me and spoke just before he kissed me. I hear the ladys call and I answer. It sounded more ritualized than anything we did at home, but it was as if he knew exactly what I needed from him.
The tiger hit the surface of my body, bucking me off the floor, slamming me into Crispins body. It was like being hit by a small car from the inside out. Crispins hands held my face secure, so the kiss didnt hurt either of us. I had a fleeting thought, that hed done this before, and then there was no thought, only pain.
The tiger roared through me, poured out of me. It felt as if it had made its own exit, as if it were tearing out through my stomach. I screamed, shrieked, and Crispin screamed with me.
He was up on his arms above me, as if he were trying to get farther away. The charm floated between us. It fucking levitated, and I dont think either of us was doing it. The tiger flowed between us like a rush of white light that you could almost see between his stomach and mine. He should have changed by now. But he stayed human above me. The charm burned bright, and was almost touching his chest.
Crispin put an arm between his body and the charm. It touched his arm, and several things happened at once. The charm stopped glowing, and fell back like any other piece of jewelry. Crispins body flowed with fur, like white-and-cream water flowing over that tall body. I was drenched with clear fluid as his body remade itself above me, on top of me. But it wasnt his beast that rode him, it was mine. I lay pinned underneath him as muscles and bone moved and popped and reknit themselves. Always before when I gave my beast to a shapeshifter in an emergency it had been more like an explosion. One second human, the next theyd been their beast. So violent that bits of flesh had decorated the room, and I had been drenched in that hot clear liquid that ran from their bodies. But this was different, slower, more controlled, morepowerful.
The white tiger wasnt tearing me apart anymore; it was filling up the man on top of me. I could feel his beast, or a beast, or a power, something warm and real, and more than just the shifting of forms. I had a flashback to the first time Id been underneath a lycanthrope when they shifted. It had been Richard, and he had just won his fight to be Ulfric. Hed offered me the power to be bound to the pack. I could have ridden the power and run with the pack that night, but they were about to feed on human flesh, and I couldnt do it.
Richard had said, You refused the power. Hed been right.
Crispin stared down at me with a face gone white and fur-covered. His eyes were still in there, but the rest of him was that graceful half-man, half-cat shape. It was similar to the wereleopards, but different. The proportions were different, bigger, a little less human in the head shape, and a little more tiger.
There were brown stripes on the white fur, narrow but there; he wasnt completely white like the tiger in my vision. He stared down at me with the blue eyes that hed had all along, as if the eyes never changed the way Micahs leopard eyes were always in his face in whatever form he chose.
The only weretiger Id ever seen in half-form had been female, and pale yellow stripes on white. Again, not like the color of a real tiger. Staring at the white-and-chocolate image above me, I wondered if none of the weretigers shifted into that classic orange-and-black design. Maybe Id spent too much time with the wereleopards in their half-forms, but I gazed up at Crispin and noticed that his chest, like theirs, was less furred and more like an overly muscled human chest. The half-form was taller, more muscular, and edged by that white and pale-chocolate-striped fur, but the skin revealed was pale and human-looking down the center of his body. The wolves seemed to be furrier in half-form than the cats Id met, so far. My gaze traveled down his body to find that, like in every half-form, everything was bigger. Noticing made me turn my head, and fight not to blush. I might have told him to get off me, but I saw whod been watching the show.
Chuck, Shadwell, and Rowe stood staring down at us, guns bare but not pointed at anything. Jason said, You both screamed like you were being killed. I had to let them in or they would have busted down the door.
I raised a hand and smoothed some of the clear, slightly thick liquid away from my forehead so it wouldnt drip into my eyes. I wasnt covered in it, but there was enough of it that Id need a sh
ower before I left the room. With as much dignity as I could muster, I said, As you can see, Im fine. Now get out.
What we just saw is a lot of things, Rowe said, and fine aint one of em.
I think because I hadnt told him to move, or maybe because things hurt, Crispin curled on top of me. He moved his much taller body down so that he wasnt covering my face with his chest. It meant that certain things werent touching me as intimately as they had been through my jeans, which was fine, but it did mean that he was curled around me like some gigantic stuffed toy. A stuffed toy with a pulse that snuggled against me when I touched its furred back. But Crispin had saved me, saved me in a way that Jason couldnt havein fact, that no one in town could have done. I owed him, so I didnt tell him to get up in front of the humans. I didnt embarrass him, or react like somemundane. I acted as if this were all just as ordinary as it could be, as if I did this all the damn time.
I wouldnt expect you to understand; just leave so we can Several words went through my mind: talk, finish, do what we have to do, none of them sounded right.
Jason finished for me. There are things we need to do, and theyll weird you out just as much as this. You should see your faces: white, shocked, horrified. You look like youve been to the freak show.
Thats not fair, Shadwell said. We had no idea what was happening in here.
Now you do, I said, still on the floor. Go, just go.
Shadwell licked his lips and glanced at Rowe. Rowe shrugged.
I think we should give themarshal here some privacy like she asked, Chuck said. I wondered what hed been about to say before he came up with marshal? Better not to know.
I half-expected the other men to argue, to say they didnt take orders from Chuck, but they didnt. I think they wanted out of the room, too. Sometimes the weird factor just goes too far for comfort.
Shadwell nodded, and holstered his gun. Rowe hesitated, giving the weretiger wide eyes, but a hard look from Shadwell made him holster his weapon. He didnt like it, but he did it. Training; it will keep you alive, and out of trouble with your superiors.
Well be outside, Shadwell said, until were relieved.
Rowe said, How do we know if theres a problem? I mean the screamingwe really thought that was it. That you were being attacked.
Sorry about that, I said, Ill try to be quieter.
The weretiger moved against me in a motion that seemed to send a wave down his entire body. His tail rose up, to twitch, and then to curve back over the very human rise of his buttocks.
He turned and gave the men the full look at that half-and-half face. His voice came growling low, Ill be good.
Rowe swallowed hard and began to lose the little color hed regained. He just nodded and started for the door. Shadwell followed him, and never looked back. Chuck was the last to leave. He hesitated with his hand on the open door.
I didnt think you knew our dancers tonight, Marshal Blake.
I didnt, I said.
He looked at the tiger on top of me. Do you usually make friends this fast?
What could I say? Sometimes.
He nodded. Sometimes, he repeated, shaking his head. You go back to making friends, Blake. Ill leave Shadwell and Rowe on the door. Though I think youre right. If the vampire threat is real, I sort of hope he picks your window tonight, Mr. Schuyler. Nothing personal, but I think if he climbs in here, he wont be climbing back out.
Jason and I spoke at the same time. No. We looked at each other, and then he motioned at me, and I said, He wont.
Crispin said, Is there a big bad vampire around?
Maybe, I said.
Oh, goody, the weretiger said, something to play with.
Chuck shook his head again, and closed the door quietly, but very firmly behind him.
40
T HE WERETIGER SIGHED and was suddenly heavier on top of me, as if some tension had left his body. Always so hard in front of the humans, he said in that growling voice.
Off, and I added, please. He had saved us; saved me, but he was still heavy.
He half-rolled, half-fell off me, to collapse on his side beside me. He blinked those strange blue eyes at me.
Im sorry if I hurt you, I said.
He smiled; it was a smile full of teeth that could have shredded my throat, but it was a smile. And Id learned through working with the police on serial killer cases that humans had teeth, too. I had so learned things about my fellow human beings that I did not want to know. It made me calmer around the monsters, because I knew scratch us deep enough and we were all monsters.
You fought your tiger. If you had just given it to me, then it wouldnt have hurt either of us.
It must have shown on my face, because his face looked curious, speculative. You didnt know that, he said.
I know that if a lycanthrope fights his beast, the change is more violent; I guess I just never made the logic leap.
Youve done this before with someone, Jason said.
Of course I have. Im an adult male of my clan. This is how we keep our pregnant females from losing our babies.
Jason and I both looked at him. I said it out loud. The weretigers do this routinely with their pregnant females?
Yes, Crispin said, and then he frowned, though his face made it more of a snarl. And you should know that. He frowned/snarled harder. Though your tiger was white, and were the only white tiger clan in the United States. You should be one of our females, but youre not. He rose up on one elbow, balancing with the other arm flat on the wet carpet as if he were still shaky. His face showed concern, all sympathy. You survived an attack, but it cant be one of our clan. We would never do that. Its against the law of every clan to bring someone over against their will. He went back to frowning. And when our master says to attack, it is for killing. We dont leave survivors. He said it easily, as if he knew he could confess all his sins to me.
I felt compelled to say, I really am a federal marshal, Crispin. Be careful what you say to me.
Do they know youre one of us?
I looked at Jason. What could we tell this stranger? What was safe to share? He seemed to understand the look, as he so often did.
Youre one of Maxs tigers from Las Vegas, right? Jason said.
Crispin moved his gaze to the standing man. Yes.
Max knows what Anita is, and isnt. If he didnt share that with you, its probably not something he wants shared with you. Nothing personal, but I think my master would have to talk to yours before we could explain.
Are you hinting that shes not a weretiger? Crispin asked.
The humans say a picture is worth a thousand words. We know a smell is worth a hell of a lot more.
Crispin just nodded.
Jason knelt in the damp carpet on the other side of me from the weretiger.
The beasts are quiet, I said. I really dont want you both to go furry on me, literally or figuratively.
Do you feel well enough to sit up? he asked.
I thought about it, explored my body not with hands but with thought. I hurt, but not as bad as Id feared. I started to struggle to sit up, and Jasons arm was there only seconds before Crispins longer one. They looked at each other over my head, and I had a moment to feel the testosterone rise.
Dont even think it, I said.
Among our people a female mates with only one male. Its all about competition.
Jason swallowed a laugh, which puzzled the weretiger and made me frown at him. Sorry, Jason said, but Im just thinking that tiger would so not be Anitas animal.
I frowned harder at him.
Just think about your wolf, just enough to bring it to smelling depth.
Smelling depth? I made it a question.
Trust me, Anita, just a little thought, and hell get the idea.
I dont want to, Jason. Im tired, and I hurt, and I dont want this to get out of hand again.
He tried to hug me to him, but Crispins arm was in the way. Crispins long, clawlike hand curled around my waist, between my body and Jasons.
I lean
ed in against Jasons body as much as that furred and muscled arm would let me. Jason cradled my face against his chest, pressed me to the scent of his skin underneath the T-shirt. I got a glimpse of dark gold eyes surrounded by white and dark fur. My body reacted to it, and the wolf simply started trotting up the metaphysical path inside me. I thought, No. Back.
She hesitated, the wolf, then looked at me. There was suddenly something in her eyes that said No right back at me.
You smell of wolf now, Crispin said. He leaned in, snuffling along my hair and face. It brought the scent of tiger again. Tiger should have been quiet, but there were still tigers inside me. Still striped faces to move in the dark.
I clung harder to Jason, but the wolf wasnt cooperating either. The wolf gave me that flat look, as if to let me know that she obeyed me because she had to, but she still wanted out. She still wanted freedom.
She cant be both wolf and tiger, Crispin said.
You have no idea, Jason said.
Crispin snuffled against my neck, tickling with fur and almost nibbling. It made me shiver, made my body react low and hard. It wasnt a fear reaction. The wolf started trotting harder, and the tigers trailed behind, not too close, but coming. The only thing that made it not an absolute complete clusterfuck was that leopard and lion were still in hiding. But we didnt need them to have it go horribly, horribly wrong.
You have to feed the ardeur, Anita, now. Thats part of whats wrong.
We fed the ardeur before the party.
Youre acting like we didnt, like you need to feed again.
I pushed away from both of them, trying to breathe in things that didnt smell like either animal. God, it was like I almost needed someone who wasnt furry to quiet the beasts tonight.
The ardeur was the talk of everyone who came back from St. Louis after the big meeting. That you have to feed off sex like a real succubus. I thought it was just rumor. Are you saying its true?
16 Blood Noir ab-16 Page 21
