Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He shook his head. "She-Who-Made-Me killed me, Anita. Make no mistake about that."

  I wasn't sure I agreed with his definition of life and death and when he was killed, but if it gave him comfort, who was I to argue with it? I believed in heaven, and wasn't Valhalla just Damian's version of that? If it wasn't, the difference was a question for a priest and I wasn't one of those, so I let him take his comfort and I kept mine.

  "I'll see you later tonight, then," I said.

  "I can't go to work like this," he said. "I smell like fresh blood and sweat. It's disgusting."

  "I haven't noticed you smelling bad; maybe just take a bird bath in the bathroom back here," I suggested.

  "You haven't gotten close enough to smell my skin," he said.

  "You just said you don't want me closer since you sweated blood from one touch."

  He sighed. "Yes, I did."

  "I'm heading to the Circus of the Damned, then. I've got people waiting for me."

  "Can I catch a ride with you? I need a shower and clean clothes."

  "You fly better than almost any vampire I know; you don't need a car."

  "I don't feel myself tonight, Anita. I'd rather use a car."

  "How did you get here tonight without one?"

  "Cardinale and I carpool. You know that."

  "Sorry. You're right. I do."

  "Look, if you don't want to give me a ride, just say so."

  "I'm not sure you and I in a car alone together is a good idea until we know why shaking hands made you bleed."

  He took in a lot of air and let it out slow. Was he breathing more than normal for him, and for most of the vampires I knew, or was I just more aware of it? I almost asked, but then left it alone. I'd ask Jean-Claude later after he'd had time to watch Damian tonight.

  "You're right," he said.

  "Maybe you can drive the car to the Circus, shower, and come back for the big dance number at the end of the evening," I said.

  "Sensible," he said.

  "You sound like you'd rather I not be sensible."

  "The urge to touch you is always there, Anita, even after what just happened."

  Since I wasn't as drawn to him as he was to me, I kept quiet, because when a man tells you something like that it's just mean to tell him you don't feel the same. I did my best not to hurt anyone's feelings if I could help it.

  "You're shielding so hard, Anita, harder than when you came through the door."

  "We shook hands and you sweated blood, Damian, and I don't know if I caused it. So yes, I'm shielding as hard as I can from you right now."

  "It's like you're not there at all now."

  "You can see me," I said.

  He shook his head. "It's not the same, Anita."

  "I haven't cut our ties as master and servant. I know enough not to do that by accident now."

  "You might as well be on the far side of the world for all the energy you're sharing with me."

  "See my earlier statement, Damian."

  "You're probably right to do it, but I feel worse, as if a little bit more of my air was cut off and I'm suffocating more quickly."

  "You're a vampire. You don't have to breathe except to talk."

  "I tell you how I feel, and you're going to argue semantics with me?"

  It was my turn to take in a lot of air and let it out slow. I wanted to get impatient, maybe even angry, but I tried to do better. "You're allowed to feel the way you feel, Damian, but vampires can't suffocate. It was just odd phrasing."

  "There's a lot odd about me lately, Anita."

  "I'm going for my date now. You tell Cardinale why you're borrowing the car and missing part of your shift."

  "I'll talk to Angel about working around me in the dances. We really need another male vampire that can take some of my performances, or hers. She's a great assistant manager, but we both need someone to take the dance floor for us sometimes so we can manage things."

  "Mention it to Jean-Claude tonight. He'd probably know which of our people might be good at it."

  "You know all our vampires, too, Anita."

  "I can tell you which of them would be the best for security, or law enforcement backup, but I can't tell you who could dance some of the old routines you perform here at Danse every night."

  "Nathaniel might know, too," Damian said.

  "Yeah, or Jason," I said.

  "I'll ask them, and could I find you after I shower and change to talk about everything?"

  "Text me when you're done showering and changed. If we're at a stopping point, I'll text you back, but if I don't reply, then we'll talk an hour before dawn like we planned."

  "Fair enough," he said, but he still stood there shirtless and looking lost. If I hadn't been afraid of touching him again, I'd have given him a hug. Since I couldn't do that, I went for the door. I had a rare night off and a date. There'd been a time when I would have allowed Damian's issues to derail the whole night, but there was always a fresh emergency, and there always would be. Police work had taught me that, and it had taught me something else: that if I wanted to have a life outside of the blood, death, and scary stuff, I had to fight for it. I had to protect my free time as fiercely as I did anything else in my life, because if I didn't, then my "life" would be another casualty as surely as any other crime victim.

  I kept my metaphysical shields as tight as I could between me and the vampire behind me, because otherwise I'd have felt all the emotions that were making him look lost and I might not have been able to go for the door. I reached for the door, and it crashed open toward me. I jumped backward, pulling my gun as I moved, just automatic when a door opened with that much angry force. If it was someone who'd done it by accident, I'd apologize for scaring them, but I didn't have to apologize, because it was Cardinale and she hadn't come to be scared--she'd come to be scary.

  In her stilettos she was over six feet tall, all thin bones and angles, the makeup that carved her face into model-perfect beauty floating on the white glow of her skin like water lilies on a pool. The cross inside my blouse was warm. I kept one hand very steady on the gun and used the other to drag the chain up and put the glowing cross on the outside of the silk. It wasn't glowing bright enough to burn flesh yet, but it could. Holy fire wasn't always careful what it burned when evil was in the room.

  I could see the bones in Cardinale's skull as she turned to look at me, like shapes half seen under the glow of her flesh. I should have sensed her that deep in her power, so close, which meant I'd been shielding from Damian too hard to sense any other vampire.

  "Don't shoot her, Anita!"

  "I'd rather you shoot me than fuck him behind my back." She yelled it at me, her teeth and fangs moving almost like one of those X-ray short films they used to show in biology class, except this image glowed like light carved into a pretty monster. Her long red hair fanned around her glowing skull like airborne blood frozen in a cloud that would not fall to the floor, her eyes were like blue fire.

  "I haven't touched Damian since you told me you were monogamous." I was having to squint against the growing glow of my own cross, like having a white star hanging around my neck; soon I'd be blind except for the light. I had to shoot her before that happened, or I wouldn't be able to see to aim. I hated to kill Cardinale over a jealous misunderstanding, but I'd hate her tearing my throat out even more.

  "Tone the power down, Cardinale, or I will shoot you!"

  "We were just talking about my illness, Cardinale."

  "You stand there half naked with her bloody nail marks down your back and you were just talking!" She screamed it at him and moved toward him, which was better than her moving toward me.

  "I started sweating blood again. I could not reach my back to clean it off."

  The cross around my neck was filling the room with bright white light; it wasn't actually hot, like flame, and wouldn't be unless it touched vampiric flesh, or demon, or someone who had given their soul to evil, or . . . hell, it burned if evil with a capital E touched i
t. The glow of the cross was mingling with the glow of the vampire, so it seemed to be swallowing her to my sight, though I knew that wasn't it. She'd have to touch the cross to burn. The fact that she wasn't hiding her eyes from the glow was a bad sign. It meant she was more powerful than I'd given her credit for, or she was so pissed she didn't care yet.

  I couldn't risk glancing at Damian to see if he was hiding his eyes from the glow; the room was too small, and Cardinale was too close to me. If I was going to have to shoot it would be in the blink of an eye, and glancing anywhere but at the vampire that was menacing me would cost me that blink.

  "I give you my word of honor, my heart, that I started to sweat blood again. I took the jacket off so it would not be ruined. My back is covered in the blood I could not reach."

  The cross's glow was almost complete. I aimed at the glow of her blue eyes, set in the swimming blood of her hair, because that was all I could see past the white light. Take out the brain and all the monsters die.

  "Cardinale!" I screamed her name, and my finger started to squeeze the trigger.

  3

  THE WHITE LIGHT died abruptly like someone had turned a switch. I took my finger off the trigger and pointed the gun in as neutral a direction as I could find. Cardinale stood there with her orange-red hair in careless curls around her shoulders, her blue eyes blinking at me in the careful makeup that made them look like a bright blue sky to match Damian's perfect summer green. My pulse was in my throat still; I hadn't even gone to the quiet place in my head where I normally went when I was going to shoot someone. Maybe I'd known she didn't mean it? Maybe I hadn't wanted to shoot her? My body felt so full of blood and heartbeat that I was shaking with it, which meant I'd have probably missed the shot anyway. Fuck.

  Cardinale was very still as she looked at me. It wasn't just vampire stillness, though they could be statue still, but I think she was trying not to make any sudden moves. If she was trying not to spook me, she was a little late.

  "Thank you for not shooting her," Damian said. I thought he was talking to just me, and then I saw the security guards in the doorway behind her. One had his gun out; the other one didn't. The fact that I hadn't realized they were there meant I was still shielding too tight not just against Damian, but vampires and apparently shapeshifters since both bodyguards were that, or maybe part of my metaphysical ability picked up normal humans, too, because as soon as I lowered my shields a fraction, I could feel more of the energy of the customers already out in the club beyond us.

  It took me a second to adjust from almost no psychic input to having more, and in a shooting emergency that second could have cost me my life. I had to find a middle ground for shielding around Damian, damn it. But one problem at a time. "Where the fuck were you while all this was going on?" I asked.

  The two men just inside the door glanced at each other, and then the one with the gun out, Ricky, said, "I didn't have a clear shot, Anita."

  "I'm not mad that you didn't shoot Cardinale, Ricky," I said. I had my gun loose in my hand, but I still hadn't holstered it because once a vampire goes that apeshit around me, especially in a small room, I like my gun out.

  "Then what are you mad about?" he asked, and he fought not to sound sullen. He was tall, dark, and handsome if you liked the standard Midwestern Romeo type who usually got the prom queen's virginity, or promised you the moon at the dance club with a few drinks, and meant none of it. I might be prejudiced; Ricky and I had had a serious misunderstanding the first time we met. He was still digging his way off my shit list, and I was still not his favorite boss. Fine with me; I wasn't here to win popularity contests. I was here to make sure everyone stayed safe and as happy as I could manage. Safe was easier than happy most nights.

  The other guard was new, too, and I couldn't place his name. We had too many new people lately doing security; I should know the names of everyone that I might have to depend on for backing me in an emergency.

  "What's your name?" I asked the other guard, who was standing there with no visible weapon and looking worriedly from me to Ricky and the vampires. God, he looked young, big and tough looking, but young.

  "Roger, Roger Parks." Most shapeshifters didn't give their last name in introductions, which meant he was very new, maybe even to being a wereanimal. Great.

  "Well, Roger, Roger Parks, what's the first thing you saw when you opened the door?"

  He did that nervous glance around at all of us again, then said, "Light, white light."

  "Is that all?" I asked.

  "There were a red glow and a green-and-blue glow, which could have been either of the vampires."

  "What alerted you that there was trouble?"

  "Echo alerted us," Roger said.

  I looked at Ricky. "Do I need to ask you the next question, or can you just answer it?"

  He took in a lot of air and let it out slowly, licked his lips, and said, "We were told there was an issue in the manager's office, and that you and Damian were both in the room, and to be kept safe."

  "What about me?" Cardinale asked; her voice was very careful as she asked, as if she didn't want to even raise her voice. She was being very careful now, which was good; she'd need to be very careful for a long time around me after this.

  Ricky glanced at me, and I knew he was asking for guidance; he could be taught. I said, "You were endangering two of the principals that our security force is charged with keeping safe, Cardinale. That makes you a liability, not an asset."

  "What does that even mean?" she asked, her voice holding more of that British Isles accent than her normal middle-of-nowhere one. It was like most of our British vamps had been given voice lessons to sound like all the announcers on the major news sources so that they blended in everywhere and nowhere.

  Ricky looked at me again, and this time I just nodded.

  "How blunt do you want me to be, boss lady?" Ricky asked.

  "Tell her what you were told about your job," I said.

  "Echo is head of security at Danse Macabre now, Anita."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "She uses pretty cold logic."

  "That's fine. Just say it, Ricky. Maybe it'll help keep Cardinale alive."

  He nodded, then looked back at Cardinale. "The job of security is to protect assets. Danse Macabre running smoothly and making money is an asset. Anita is one of the principal assets that we are all charged with keeping safe, and Damian is another asset both as the manager of the club and as Anita's servant. You are an employee here at Danse Macabre, but you are not one of the major dancers, or a headliner of any kind, nor do you have a direct metaphysical tie to any of our principal assets."

  "What does all that mean?" she asked, her voice trying for neutral but holding the first hint of anger.

  "It means you aren't a principal, so we don't have to protect you like you are one. You aren't an important financial asset either, so we have to put even less energy into protecting you, which means none of us has to put our body between you and a bullet, or whatever."

  "So I'm not important at all," she said.

  "You said it. I didn't," Ricky said.

  "What are your orders when a principal is in danger?" I asked.

  "To protect them at all costs and to take out the threat," Ricky said.

  "Tonight that threat was you, Cardinale. If they'd come to the door before the light blinded us all you'd be shot, if not dead, so get jealous all you want, but don't do it on the clock where security is going to have to help deal with it, because it's going to get you dead."

  "He was half naked and covered in blood down his back. How was I supposed to know that you hadn't already fucked each other?"

  Damian spoke for the first time. "I have never cheated on you, Cardinale, never."

  "But you were sleeping with her when you started sleeping with me." And she pointed a very accusing finger at me. I'd have said it was overly dramatic, but after all the glowing and holy objects, it wasn't that dramatic.

  "I never lied about Anita
or anyone else, Cardinale. I never lied to you about anything."

  "I can't stand the thought that you want to be with other people."

  "I don't want to be with other people."

  "But you think Anita is beautiful, and you think Echo is beautiful, and you admire Fortune."

  "I admire beautiful women with a look, or a glance, but that is all."

  "That is not all you do with the customers that you take blood from."

  "That is not all you do with the ones you drink from either."

  "But I don't enjoy it; it is just food, and it is more than that to you."

  I felt like we were in the middle of an old fight, and I was tired of it already.

  "I've told you that feeding was all the softness I had in my existence for centuries, so it means more to me than simple food. It was all the kindness She-Who-Made-Me would allow me."

  "Why am I not enough for you?" She yelled that part.

  "Because I cannot feed on another vampire! Because it is my job to seduce the crowd and choose someone to feed upon. It is part of the show here, and it gains us money and more customers, which makes us more money, and that is what this club is supposed to do."

  "I cannot watch you flirt with all the women night after night, and know that if I would allow it you would fuck them while you feed." She wasn't yelling, but her hands were in fists as she fought to keep her voice even.

  "I would not have public sex with strangers, Cardinale. That is very different from feeding on blood in public," he said.

  "But you'd fuck Anita in private if I allowed it, wouldn't you?"

  "It's a girl trap," I said out loud.

  Damian looked at me and said, "I know, but I don't care."

  "Do not drag me into this further than I already am."

  "I'm sorry, but you're already in it, because she won't let you out of it," he said.

  "What's happening?" Roger the guard asked.

  "He's about to tell the truth," Ricky said.

  "Why is that bad?" Roger asked.

  "It just is."

  "Shut up," Cardinale said. "This is between Damian and me."

  "Then have the conversation with just the two of you," I said, and started for the door. Surely with two security guards to back me up, I could get out of the office without Cardinale doing something we'd all regret.