Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Cousin said you were life energy, fertility, not death," Slane said.

  "Well, I do my best, but I do raise the dead. I won't hide that I am a necromancer."

  "I saw some of the stuff on YouTube from Colorado last year," Slane said. "You are the stuff of legends, Ms. Blake."

  "I never know what to say when people use words like legend," I said.

  "It is just the truth," Nim said. "Accept it and stop being embarrassed by it."

  "I'll try," I said.

  She smiled. "Since we can be of so little help, we will let you go so that you do not waste all your daylight, for I fear for our city once night falls again."

  I nodded. "Me, too."

  She got to her feet and both Slane and Flannery moved to help her up. I wasn't sure if it was a sign of respect, or if she really needed the help, but Nicky stood up as if he'd help, too, and we all stood up then, though I put Dev's hand in mine, along with Nathaniel's on the other side. My gun wasn't going to help me as much in here as whatever Dev was able to do. I'd be asking him in private exactly what he had done and how he'd known to do it, but not yet.

  Auntie Nim leaned more heavily on her cane than she had before, and I realized that part of what her glamour had done was to give her that smooth gait. Now I saw how much she needed the cane. Her skirt had caught on itself, and I had a glimpse of her feet. One old-fashioned black shoe and one black hoof, split like the hoof of a goat. No wonder she needed the cane.

  I watched her walk back to the table with Slane at her side. Flannery went ahead of us, leading us toward the outside door. I couldn't help looking at him harder than I had before. He looked like a normal human, but there was always something to mark us, Nim had said. For the first time I was wondering what a man was hiding under his clothes and it had absolutely nothing to do with sex.

  49

  FLANNERY GOT CALLED back into the pub for one more private word with his aunt, so he sent us ahead to the car. Fine with me, because that meant we could talk in private, too.

  "What did you do in there, Devereux?" Nicky asked from behind us. I was holding Nathaniel's hand and Dev was holding his other one. The three of us abreast were taking up all the sidewalk and then some. The world really wasn't made for walking in threes; hell, twos were hard on some streets. We were getting some glances, which we could have avoided if I'd been in the middle of our hand-holding, but the two men were lovers, so screw it.

  "What did you do that made her call you a witch?" Domino asked.

  Dev laughed. "I added power and clarity to Anita and Nathaniel, that's all."

  "But how did you do it?" Ethan asked.

  Dev looked across at the other man. "I've been trained since birth like all of us in our clan."

  "But trained to do what? I mean, what did you do today, just now, that was part of your training?" Ethan asked.

  "To be whatever my master needed me to be."

  "We know that," I said, "but what did you do in there?"

  He looked at me, his face serious. "I was trained as if I was going to be one of the Harlequin in a lot of ways. They couldn't be the spies and executioners of all vampirekind if they couldn't keep clean of other people's psychic abilities."

  "The Harlequin are either master vampires themselves or their animals to call are protected by their own masters against crap like this, but I'm your master and I was caught. How did you help break us free of the illusions?"

  "Did you see through her illusions from the beginning?" Nicky asked.

  "Yes," Dev said.

  "How?" he asked.

  Dev seemed to think about that as we walked. A light pole came up and we had to decide who was letting go of whom so we didn't walk into it. Dev let go and walked wide, dipping down into the brick-lined street, before rejoining us on the sidewalk. "Would it make sense if I said we were all raised to be a sort of living talisman?"

  "I heard the sentence and all the words are English, but I still don't understand," I said.

  "Jake will probably explain it better, but they used magic on us from the time we were babies. They sort of forged us into . . . talismans. All of us see through illusion and magic better than anyone but a true adept of the mystical arts. We can act as a sort of familiar to add to our masters when they perform or fight magical energies."

  "All of us can act as power boosts and familiars for Anita," Nicky said.

  "We can?" Ethan said.

  "News to me," Domino said.

  "She's done it with me, Micah, and Nathaniel, and I think with one of the vampires that's out of town now."

  "Requiem," I said. "I may be able to use any undead for a power boost, or it may need to be one that's bloodbound to Jean-Claude and me."

  "I didn't know that," Dev said. "That does give you more options."

  "So you're almost proof against certain kinds of magic?" I said.

  "Yeah. If you want details on how it was done and how it works, ask Jake and Kaazim."

  "Could any of us do it with training?" Domino asked.

  "I think you have to be gold tiger."

  "Could I do it, then?" Ethan asked.

  "You're part gold tiger, so maybe. Ask Jake, though you may need to have started from a baby. That's what they did with us."

  "What if someone evil and crazy had won, like the Lover of Death we defeated last year in Colorado? Would you have served him, too, just like you serve me?"

  Dev wasted a very nice smile on me. "I don't think I was his type."

  "It's a serious question," I said.

  The smile slipped away until he was almost as solemn as I ever saw him. "We were raised to serve whoever killed the Mother of All Darkness and became the new King of Tigers. They trained us to serve all the vampire bloodlines, so I guess in the end, I'm supposed to say yes."

  Nathaniel stopped and turned to look up into Dev's eyes. "The Lover of Death drew power from causing death by violence or disease. The only way for him to grow strong enough to rule would have been to constantly slaughter people. Would you really have helped him do that?"

  "I don't think I could have done that, but I have cousins who could have and maybe would have. Literally, Jake went through us like a litter of kittens, or puppies, and periodically made us into smaller groups that concentrated on one set of skills over another. Pride, Envy, and I were in the group that was more schooled in Belle Morte's bloodline, which is one of the reasons that we were offered to Jean-Claude and you."

  "Who was in the Lover of Death's box?" I asked.

  "It doesn't matter, Anita. He's dead. No one has to serve him now."

  "You don't want to tell me, because you're afraid I'll hold it against the ones who would have gone to him."

  "I know you'll hold it against them. I can feel it just standing here with Nathaniel between us."

  I sighed and let my breath out slowly. "Is it really the jet lag that's making me so emotional?"

  "You need real food and a couple of hours of sleep in the hotel, and then we need to do something outside in the sunlight," Nicky said.

  "Will that help me stop losing control like this?"

  "Sleep will help everybody feel better."

  "Why the sunlight?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Because the more daylight you get in the time zone you're in, the faster you adjust to it."

  "Fine. Let's get to the car and either get food or a nap," I said. "I need to feel more like myself."

  "Necromancy doesn't work here the way it does anywhere else in the world, so they keep saying. Could that be affecting you?" Nathaniel asked.

  I looked at him. "I don't know, maybe."

  "That's an excellent point, though," Ethan said.

  "We still don't know if my necromancy will work at all here."

  "We can't find out until full dark," Nicky said.

  "And by then we'll be ass deep in newly risen vampires," I said.

  "Yeah."

  "You should try to raise a zombie while you're here in Dublin, just in case," Nathaniel said.r />
  "In case of what?" I asked.

  "To see if you can raise the other kind of undead to help us."

  "You mean use zombies to help us fight the new vampires?" I asked.

  "Why not?"

  "If Ireland doesn't know what to do with vampires, they sure as hell aren't going to know what to do with zombies."

  "They go back in their graves," he said.

  "If I can raise them at all."

  "I just think it would be a good idea to find out just how much necromancy works in Ireland."

  "We are not going to have a zombie-versus-vampire war through the streets of Dublin, Nathaniel."

  "I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just saying that it's good to know what our resources are, that's all."

  "You mean like extra weapons," Nicky said.

  "Yes."

  "I like it," Nicky said.

  "Well, I don't," I said. "I don't raise zombies without a good reason, and just seeing if I can do it isn't good enough."

  "Nap, food, and sunshine, and then we'll see how you're feeling," Nicky said.

  "I am not going to raise a zombie in Ireland just to see if I can do it."

  "It's hours until dark, Anita. We'll revisit the topic later."

  "No, we won't," I said very firmly.

  Nicky leaned in and whispered, "You want to know if you can raise the dead here. You want to know if you can be the first necromancer to ever raise the dead in Ireland. I can feel what you want, Anita."

  What could I say to that? I didn't want to raise the dead there, and I tried to never raise zombies without a reason. I'd raised them to answer historical questions, to tell which will was the real one, or to finish giving court testimony, but to just raise one to see if I could didn't seem to qualify as a good reason, but . . . Nicky was right: There was a part of me that wanted to know if I could do what I'd been told was impossible there. Was it ego to want to see if I was really legendary enough to raise zombies in Ireland? Yes. Was I going to give in to that much ego? No. No, really, I wasn't. No raising zombies in Ireland. I'd gone there to help with the vampire problem. I wasn't going to make a second undead problem for them. Nope, not going to do it, but part of me was really wondering if I could.

  50

  AS WE ROUNDED the corner and were finally in sight of the car, Nathaniel jiggled my hand in his and said, "If you tell me that Ted is good at undercover work, I'll believe you, but wow."

  I looked down the brick-lined street to where Edward and Nolan were waiting beside the truck, car, vehicle. Edward was leaning against it with his cream-colored cowboy hat pulled low over his face as if he were napping. He'd bent one leg so that the bottom of his black cowboy boot was against the side of the truck. He'd opened his marshal coat enough that you could glimpse his white button-up shirt. Normally he'd have been in tactical pants and boots made for fieldwork that didn't involve horses, but except for the jacket, he looked like he'd come from central casting for a Western movie.

  "He is undercover," I said. "He's pretending to be Ted Forrester, good ol' boy."

  Nicky added, "He's being what most foreigners want Americans to be: cowboys. They'll see the stereotype and not look as closely at the reality of him."

  Nathaniel looked from one to the other of us. "So you're saying he's hiding by not hiding?"

  "Something like that," I said.

  Nolan stepped out from behind the vehicle and he was all in black. He'd gotten out of his special teams battle rattle like the powers that be had strongly suggested, but he was still wearing tactical pants, boots, and a black Windbreaker, and well, he just looked so damn military. It was partially his choice of civilian clothes, but it was also the attitude. He was so on alert, while Edward looked almost asleep.

  "Nolan is the same no matter what he wears," Nathaniel said.

  "Ted changes like a chameleon. You just haven't seen him do it much, because he gets to be himself around me."

  "Where are Jake and Kaazim?" Dev asked.

  "We'll ask Ted and Nolan," I said.

  When we were close enough, Ted folded himself off the car and came toward us. He was smiling his best happy-to-see-you smile. Even his blue eyes seemed a warmer shade of color, as if he believed the smile all the way up and through. The world had lost a scarily good character actor when Edward went into covert ops.

  "Jacob is saving us a table at a restaurant that Nolan says will give us a good opinion of Irish cuisine."

  "Sounds good," Nicky said without missing a beat. I looked from one to the other of them.

  "Maybe I'll learn a new recipe we can use at home," Nathaniel said.

  "Sure, but after food, Nicky says a couple of hours' nap will help me deal with the jet lag."

  "You having a problem with it?" Nolan asked.

  "She's crankier than normal," Dev said.

  Edward laughed out loud, his head back, his whole face shining. "Crankier, and no one's bleeding or dead yet?" He laughed some more. I was beginning to think it wasn't his Ted act, but just him being genuinely amused. Nolan was starting to chuckle along.

  I looked at them, my face totally deadpan, and said, "Flannery isn't with us anymore, is he?"

  Nolan stopped laughing and looked at me. Edward laughed harder. The other men with me managed to look solemn. Nicky said, "It was him or us."

  Edward laughed so hard, he was starting to cry as Nolan said, "Where's Flannery?"

  It would have been even funnier if Flannery hadn't cleared the corner behind us just then. Nolan scowled at all of us. "That wasn't funny."

  "Yeah, it was," I said.

  Edward just nodded, laughing so hard, he had to lean against the car. The other men held out until Flannery came up and said, "What's so funny?" Then we all lost it.

  51

  WHEN EDWARD HAD finished laughing his ass off, he came over and hugged me, which he almost never did. He even apologized for laughing at me, which he did even less often. During all the unheard-of hugging and apologizing he managed to whisper, "Local informant wants to talk."

  I pulled back as if everything was normal and said, "So, where is this amazing Irish food?"

  He grinned, very Ted, and said, "Pub."

  I gave him a look, suspecting this was the Irish version of his cowboy act. Pubs and drinking, very Irish, right? God, I hoped not, because as a teetotaler, I'd learned years ago that people are far less interesting drunk than they think they are, and they don't have nearly as good a time as they remember. I drank occasionally for Jean-Claude, because he could taste solid food, wine, and liquor through me. It was one of the common benefits of having a human servant: You could taste food that you hadn't tasted in centuries. I'd never be the wine snob that he was, but I was learning to appreciate a few vintages.

  The pub was full of dark wood just like the last one, but this one had more tables placed closer together so it was more like those back home. It seemed the owner of the place planned on making money from all the crowded tables. It was so crowded in fact that if Jake and Kaazim hadn't already been there holding tables in the corner, we'd have never gotten seats together and maybe not at all.

  Normally I wouldn't have liked the level of noise and crowd, but today it was a nice change from the strangely empty pub where Flannery had taken us. This one felt like a real business; the other one had felt like a front where you did things that didn't really have to do with drinking or food.

  There is always that moment when you have police officers or combat vets when no one wants to sit with his back to the door, but there's usually no way to avoid it for a large party. Jake and Kaazim had gotten there first, so they had seats with a good view of the room and a solid wall at their backs. I expected them to offer me a seat beside them--I was queen and all, or was going to be--but Jake stood up and did the air-kiss thing as a greeting, which he'd never, ever done, but he used it to whisper, "You need to sit where you can get up easily."

  I was already tired of the whole clandestine thing, but I nodded, smiled and went along
with it. I ended up sitting at the end of the table with my back to part of the room, but at least I could see the main door from the corner of my eye, and the bar with the door to the kitchen area was straight in front of me. Nathaniel sat by me, but at the corner of the table so his back was to the main door. He was used to sitting that way most of the time when we went out with enough of the guards. Damian was tucked under the table at our feet again. Dev didn't fight that his back was to the door here any more than he had at the last pub, because he could hold Nathaniel's hand. But he looked at the mirror above our table and I realized he could see the whole room in it, including the door. I tried to remember if there had been a mirror in the last place, but if there'd been one, it had been too small for me to notice. Ethan drew the short straw and had to sit beside Dev, but he was using the mirror, too. Really, there were no terrible seats here. Jake and Kaazim had done well. Edward sat beside Kaazim so he'd be closer to our conversation, with Nicky and Domino beside him. Nolan and Flannery were actually on the other end, opposite me. I thought at first their seats were bad because they had their backs to the bar and kitchen entrance, but there was another large mirror on the wall in front of them. Either through reflections or direct line of sight, we all had pretty good seats.

  The waitress got our drink orders. I asked for a Coke and a glass of water, because apparently hydration helped with jet lag, so part of my problem was I hadn't had enough water, or so Edward told me. At Nolan's suggestion, most of us ordered the Guinness beef stew. Most of the men ordered either Guinness to go with the stew or another local beer or ale. Nathaniel was the only one who got just water; even Edward indulged in a local stout that Flannery recommended.

  The waitress set a couple small, useless napkins down in front of me before she set my water on one, but she hesitated before putting the Coke on the other napkin, and I realized there was writing on the napkin. In neat block letters, the message read, "Ladies' room, five minutes."

  I fought not to look up at the waitress in any way that wasn't perfectly normal. She had medium brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, dark brown eyes, and a pale face, so either she needed just a little makeup or she was pale for other reasons. Was she going to be meeting me in the bathroom? Was she the informant? Was she scared? Was that why she was pale?