Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "You recover yourself very quickly, Anita. It makes you very interesting to me."

  "Maybe we can go shopping sometime and have girl talk," I said, and even managed a smile.

  "Are you making fun of me?"

  "No, if you wanted to go out shopping, gossiping, and girl bonding, I'd be totally down with that."

  She frowned at me. "I do not understand you."

  "Just offering to be friendly," I said.

  "You cannot be friends with your food, Anita. You have already fed upon me, and I will return the favor soon."

  "I'm engaged to be married to a vampire. I can be very friendly to people who feed off of me."

  "I, too, feed upon my servants," she said, and motioned at Keegan, "but would never allow them to feed upon me, even were they capable of it." It was really good to know that he was her human servant. I'd thought probably, but it was nice to have it confirmed. If I got a chance to try to kill anyone, other than her, he'd go to the top of the list, because now I knew that killing him might kill her, too. Yippee.

  "Most servants of vampires can't feed on their masters," I said.

  "Not just most, Anita, all, or all save for Jean-Claude and his new bloodline. There seems much confusion in his newfound power on who is master and who is slave."

  "We understand who wears the pants in the family," I said. I could be calm as long as I didn't look at Nathaniel, but just focused on the white bitch in front of me. I was doing my best to sort of pretend he wasn't here. It helped me think better.

  "You may find that the pants have changed owners," she said, then called out, "Roarke, bring our other guest."

  And just like that my heart was racing, and I looked at Nathaniel. His eyes widened as if to tell me something with a look, but for once I couldn't read his expression. Without our ties open between us, I was head blind and just had to watch as Roarke, King of the Roane, walked down the steps. His dark eyes stared at me as if he'd never begged me to kill him or been anything but tall, imposing, and hers. He came into the room radiating energy much more than he had at the church. He was leading another man by the hand. It took me a second to realize it was Damian. My fear spiked again until I realized Damian wasn't chained or restrained in any way that I could see. He just walked down the stairs with Roarke like they were buddies. What the fuck was going on?

  80

  MOROVEN WENT TO Roarke and greeted him with a kiss. If he didn't want to kiss her back, it didn't show. Had he lied in the church, or was her control of him just that good outside of the church? If we all survived long enough, I'd ask.

  Damian stood beside them, his face almost blank. His eyes were open, but it was as if he didn't see anything in the room. I realized that Roarke wasn't leading him by the hand; he was holding Damian's wrist. It seemed odd, but then Damian just standing there while the two of them kissed was odd.

  "Damian!" I called his name, and he jumped as if I'd startled him. "Damian!" He blinked and looked at me then; for a second he was in there looking at me. He said, "Anita!"

  Moroven laid her hand beside Roarke's so they were both touching him at the same time, and his eyes went blank again.

  "What have you done to him?" I asked.

  She looked at me and smiled that unpleasant smile that Keegan shared with her. I wondered if it had started out as his or hers. "Once I separated you from your servants, Damian was mine again, as he has always been. He gave himself and Mr. Graison over to me once your powers were not clouding his mind."

  "I don't believe that."

  "He betrayed your Nathaniel, as soon as I called to him. He came back to me, because you are not vampire enough to hold him."

  There was no way that Edward would have let them just walk out of the police station. It made me want to ask if anyone besides Nathaniel had been betrayed. But there was nothing for me in that line of questioning. Once we got out of here, then I'd ask Damian and Nathaniel all sorts of questions, but not in front of her, not with her making his eyes go dead. I had to believe we would get out of here, because I had too much at stake to think anything else.

  Moroven leaned in against Damian's body, raising her face up toward him for a kiss. His eyes were alive again, his again, and he actually flinched away from her. She said, "Kiss me, Damian!" She made it an order, and he bent toward her, but his eyes stayed aware. He did not want to kiss her, and that was enough to bring him partially out of her control, even with her and her animal to call touching him.

  "Damian, don't kiss her," I said.

  He stood back up straight and tall, too tall for her to reach him. She turned to me with a hiss; her eyes glowed blue. "He is mine!"

  "You sent him to Jean-Claude. You were done with him once, Moroven. Why do you want him so badly now?"

  "Because he is mine!" She screamed it, the glow fading from her eyes.

  "If all you wanted was your lover back, you could have sent a letter," I said.

  She moved away from Roarke and Damian, and I expected his eyes to go back to being blank, but they didn't. Something about the interchange between us all was helping him fight it. If I could only figure out what had helped and keep doing it.

  "A letter would not have brought me you, Anita, and that is what I wanted. That you brought Damian back to me is a wonderful gift, and I will never give him up again."

  "Why did you give him up to Jean-Claude in the first place?" I asked; more information could only help, right?

  "Your lord and master wrote to me, said that he had dreamed of Damian's pale flesh for centuries and that he would force Damian to be his catamite. It was something that our crimson-haired vampire had a near . . . mortal terror of," and she laughed at her own wordplay. Most of the people in the room who belonged to her laughed. Rodina and Hamish were the exceptions. Maybe their white bitch of a queen wasn't all she was cracked up to be for them.

  "You had men here," I said. "You didn't have to send Damian all the way to America for a little sodomy."

  She made an unhappy face. "What good to me is a man who prefers men? I do not collect such men. I gave him up to be tormented by Belle Morte's prize pupil, only to find that when Damian returns home, he has a taste for men now. Jean-Claude must possess some witchery that I did not envision."

  I fought to keep my face blank, because I knew it wasn't Jean-Claude's witchery, at all. Nathaniel was two for two, being the only male lover of two heterosexual men. I was pretty sure Jean-Claude and Asher had more to their credit, but no one that I knew.

  She tried to walk all the way around Nathaniel and the two Roane, but Rodina was in the way of her skirts. "Oh for Goddess' sake, girl, rise and go stand with Hamish."

  Rodina didn't make Moroven order twice, just got to her feet and moved over to stand with her fellow Harlequin. They might not like each other a lot, but neither of them liked Moroven at all. I wasn't sure how I was so positive of that, but I was, and somehow I knew I was right.

  "Jean-Claude is one of the most beautiful men on the planet," I said. "I mean, I may be prejudiced in his favor, but he is the king of seduction."

  "I know how seductive he can be, Anita, or did he neglect to mention that he was my lover?"

  "He told me that Belle Morte and you traded Damian and him for a while."

  "I tried to keep him, but Belle would not give up one of her favorite poppets."

  "I heard that, too," I said.

  "Did they tell you what one of my passions is, Anita?"

  "I'm not sure," I said because I wasn't.

  "Ruined beauty," she said.

  "No," Damian said loud and clear. He actually stepped forward with Roarke still gripping his arm.

  She turned and looked at him. "How are you fighting free without her power to bolster you?"

  "I am here. I'll stay with you. Just let Anita and Nathaniel go unharmed."

  "Tempting but I did not create a near army of vampires in Dublin for fun and frolic, Damian. I was beginning to wonder what horrors I would have to unleash on Dublin before the gre
at vampire expert would finally come to Ireland." She looked at me and smiled.

  "Are you saying that you did all that just to get me here?"

  "The only power you possess that is more attractive to the Mother of All Darkness is your necromancy. It is also what allows you to control vampires, so I lured you to the only country in the world where your personal magic will not work. Now, when I kill you and take the rest of the Mother's power into myself, it won't linger over your necromancy. The magic will simply come to me, as it was destined to."

  "If you kill Anita, I may die with her," Damian said.

  Moroven looked back at him. "I do hope not, but even the joy of tormenting you with your new face is not enough to make me forgo collecting all the power that is due me." She came to stand in front of me again. "How ever did you change his face? I thought only Belle Morte could do that."

  I tried for the truth. "I'm not really sure."

  "Come now, Anita, eventually you will tell me all your truths, so do not bother lying."

  I glanced at Hamish and Rodina, because any wereanimal or vampire powerful enough should have been able to tell that I'd just told the truth. Hamish gave a blank face, but Rodina smirked just a little. They knew that their new queen couldn't tell if someone was lying. The only other master vampires that I'd ever met that couldn't act like undead lie detectors had been ones that were so self-delusional that it compromised their ability to tell what was real.

  "Since I didn't know that it was possible to make a vampire servant out of anyone, it was all a little accidental."

  "Lies, but I know how to get the truth." She motioned for the men with Nathaniel to move over in front of me.

  Keegan went just behind the opening to the stairs, but on the opposite side that people seemed to walk down. I saw his arms move, as if he pressed or pulled something in the walls, and a thick chain snaked down from the ceiling. It wasn't a pair of them like the ones on my wrists, but just a single thick line of chain with a large hook on the end of it.

  "No!" Damian said. He started to push past Roarke, and then I saw the Roane's eyes glow like black diamonds. Damian's eyes unfocused and he stopped moving forward.

  I looked into Nathaniel's eyes just feet in front of me. He was starting to struggle as much as the chains would allow, which wasn't much. Whatever the men were going to do, they didn't want him moving around. My heart was in my throat. I pulled on the chains at my wrists and knew doing so was useless.

  "Damian, wake up!"

  He startled awake, shoved Roarke, and then hit him solid in the face. Roarke fell to the ground. Rodina and Hamish moved in a blur of speed to catch Damian's arms. Rodina put a blade to his throat.

  "This is why we had to gag your Mr. Graison. If you call out to him again, Anita, I will gag you, and I'll cut out your lover's tongue." Rodina's eyes blazed blue as if spring skies could burn. I believed she meant everything she said.

  The chain was directly in front of me so that I'd have a good view of whatever the men were planning to do to Nathaniel. Or hell, maybe he'd have a good view for what they were going to do to me. Whichever way the pain went, they meant for us to watch each other endure it. Sadist much?

  Keegan hooked the end of the single chain through the chains at Nathaniel's ankles. He tugged the connection, and when he was happy with it, he nodded. The two men holding Nathaniel began to lower him to the floor as Keegan went back to the wall and reached around an outcrop. I could see just the edge of the silver handle as he began to rotate it and the chain started going back up into the ceiling. The two Roane held Nathaniel gently until they were told to let him go. I'd have expected them to use it as an excuse to hurt him, but they didn't.

  Keegan moved the chain up until Nathaniel's face was almost perfectly in front of mine so we could look into each other's eyes. He was hanging only about four feet in front of me, out of reach, but not by much. I looked into those lavender eyes, my flower-eyed boy, and my stomach was clenched so tight, I didn't know if I was going to throw up or hyperventilate. There had to be a way to stop this from happening. The thick braid of his hair trailed down from his body like an auburn rope to pool on the floor.

  "M'Lady," Damian said, "please do not do this."

  "Have pleas for mercy ever moved me, Damian?"

  "No," he said, and he tensed in Hamish's and Rodina's grips.

  Rodina asked, "Can I slit his throat if he keeps struggling?"

  "No, that might kill Anita too soon. I need her terror to open her to me for feeding, and then I will feed on all her power. If she dies before I crack this so-tough nut, then the Mother's power may seek yet another vessel, and that stops here with me."

  "If we can't cut him up, how do you want us to subdue him from rescuing his boy toy?" Rodina asked.

  "You are the Harlequin. Are you so inadequate that you cannot even control one vampire for a few minutes?" Moroven yelled at them.

  "Can we injure him?" Rodina asked.

  "No! Now do your job!" Moroven turned back to us, and I didn't want that, because whatever was about to happen was going to be bad, like, nightmare bad.

  "You're the motherfucking Harlequin. Are you going to let her talk to you that way?" I asked.

  "She's the boss," Rodina said.

  "Only because you follow her."

  "We follow the Mother's power," Hamish said, "whatever vessel it chooses."

  "Enough!" Moroven screamed. She walked around the edge of the wall just like Keegan had, except she didn't make any more chains appear. She came back with a big knife in her hand. It gleamed silver, and just the way the edge caught the sunlight let me know it was sharp. I didn't know for certain it was a silver blade except in color, but I was betting it was, even as I prayed that it wasn't.

  "I want you to look into those big, pretty eyes, at that lovely hair and that fit and strong chest, and think upon this, Anita Blake. I am going to make a nightmare of his beauty, and then I will fuck him in front of you, and when you are filled with terror at what I will do next to your two men, I will drink you down!"

  Moroven strode to Nathaniel in a swirl of white skirts. Damian and I both screamed, "No!"

  She grabbed the thick braid of Nathaniel's hair like a handle to hold him steady. She moved to the side so we could watch each other. She put the blade against his hair and sawed through it. She could have done so many worse things--I knew that--but watching that long, thick braid of auburn hair fall to the floor took my breath. I sagged in the chains, because my knees didn't hold me in that moment.

  We stared into each other's eyes, and I watched one lone tear trail down Nathaniel's face. I screamed, not a scream of terror or sorrow but of rage. I lost my shit and cursed her, threatened her, and finally told her, "Kill me now. Because every minute you leave me alive gives me more chances to kill you first, you evil bitch!"

  Moroven laughed in my face, then threw the blade down on the floor between us. "Anger, I cannot eat anger, Anita. But I give you my word, when I come back, I will pick up that blade again and I will carve up that beautiful body, or maybe I will take an eye. I want him to have at least one good eye so he can see the ruin of his beauty and your horror at it, but he doesn't need two for that."

  I fed my anger as if it were a real fire. I fed it so that it would blaze higher, because she couldn't feed on me, couldn't kill us if she couldn't find my fear. I touched that boiling pool of anger that had been inside me since my mother's death and been fed by every horror I'd seen since, and I let her see it in my face.

  "If my using the blade upon Nathaniel does not frighten you, then I will use it on you, but I will find what frightens you, Anita, and then you are mine." Moroven walked to Damian, who was still held between the two Harlequin. "You believe me, don't you, Damian? You believe that I will do everything I have promised."

  "Yes," he whispered, his eyes wide, showing too much white around the edges, like those of a horse about to bolt. She touched his face and his personality just slid away so that his eyes were like empt
y windows.

  Moroven turned to me with a smile. "He's afraid for you both. It opened him to me, and now he is mine again." She led Damian up the stairs as if he were a zombie with no will of his own. "Enjoy your last view of Nathaniel's beauty, Anita. I give you my word that the hour I give you now will be the last time you see him whole."

  81

  WE WERE ALONE except for the two Roane, who stood to either side of the doorway like good guards. They were both armed with handguns, peeking out from underneath their shirts, which seemed almost un-Irish by this time. In a country where most of the police--excuse me: Gardai--aren't armed, it seemed wrong for anyone else but us.

  Nathaniel and I looked at each other. I concentrated on those big beautiful eyes of his and did my best not to look at his hair. It would grow back. It would. But if I paid attention to it at all, I was either going to start crying or screaming, and neither was going to help us. We needed to help ourselves, not hurt ourselves. Moroven was going to do that for us in an hour. I pushed her threats away, shoved the hatred in her eyes out of my head, or as much as I could. None of it helped me. I stared into Nathaniel's eyes and thought how much I loved him. I looked down at the braid of his hair lying underneath him like a promise of things to come, which was exactly what it was. Fuck. I prayed for an idea of how to get us out of here, along with Damian.

  Nathaniel rubbed the side of his face against the chain that was across his shoulder; he scraped the gag out of his mouth. He worked his jaws and said softly, "Gag was fastened over my braid."

  "Once she cut it, you had slack," I said.

  He smiled. "It will grow back."

  I nodded and managed to smile back at him.

  The guard with the paler brown hair came toward us. "How did you get the gag out?"

  Nathaniel answered, "It was tied around my hair, so now the gag is loose."

  The answer seemed to make the man uncomfortable. "You should do whatever she wants you to do," he said.