Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "Fine." I took his arm with one hand and put the other hand inside my pocket, where the gun was weighing it down. The gun made me feel better, though I admit it was tempting with him on my arm to just turn and kill him where he stood. If Nathaniel hadn't been with me, I might have, but he was, and we were outside. We were escaping. I'd kill him later.

  The triplets led us down the grassy headland, across a parking lot that still had plenty of cars in it, and toward the town that lay spread out before us. It was still daylight and the only daywalking vampires behind us were Moroven and Damian. The Roane were the greatest danger as long as the sun was up. I felt like I had a target between my shoulder blades, and it took everything I had not to look back, but with my hood up, I actually did blend in. There were even a couple of other women with skirts as short as mine, though they were wearing tights under theirs. My legs were still so cold that I could barely feel them. It was like I'd been able to ignore the cold until I got outside in the wind. Nathaniel's new haircut helped us blend in, but every time I saw him without all his hair it was like a little punch in the gut. He'd wiped most of the blood that was visible off on a cloth that Rodina had given him, and the sweatshirt hid the rest. He was much better at playacting than I was, so they looked much more like a couple than Rodrigo and I did. Rodrigo was probably better at pretending to be a couple, but he was worried what I'd do if he did. Ru had separated from us to walk ahead through the tourists. I'd catch a glimpse of him here and there, which probably meant he wasn't hiding that hard from us.

  We were crossing a stone bridge over a river that flowed into the sea. It was all really pretty, but it was moments from full dark. We needed cover before that happened. "We need to not be out in the open," I said.

  Rodina leaned in against Nathaniel, smiling as if I'd said the best thing. "We'll head for one of the churches that will keep the vampires out."

  "What about the Roanes?" I asked.

  "You and your men have killed four of them already today."

  "How many more are there here?" I asked.

  "Dozens," she said, still smiling.

  "We need a plan," I said.

  "Where're Dev and Edward?" Nathaniel asked.

  He was right. I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and then I did. Damian was fighting to stay with us, and not let her take him again, but he had all three of them touching his skin: Moroven, Keegan, and Roarke. He could fight off one of them, even two, but three . . . It was like they were trying to steal a piece of us. I stumbled and had to clutch at Rodrigo. "What's wrong?" he asked.

  Nathaniel answered, "Damian." He'd thrown his arms around Rodina as if he were hugging her, which looked less suspicious than me clutching at just Rodrigo's arm. Then Damian was gone, vanished from my mind, my heart. Moroven had captured him again. Damn it!

  Rodrigo said, "Are you all right?" He was holding me around the waist; apparently I was closer to falling down than I'd realized. My skirt was not long enough for around-the-waist holding. He helped me stand up and pull everything back into place.

  "She's got Damian again," I said.

  Ru suddenly appeared beside us. "We need to keep moving."

  He was right. Nathaniel asked, "Did she take Damian over again because she knows what we've done or just because?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  "There's no general alarm yet," Rodina said.

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  "We aren't running," she said.

  "Good point," I said.

  We were walking like two ordinary couples with Ru as our third wheel on yet another quiet, picturesque street. There was a line of boats bobbing in the water along the quay with a blue building on the other side of the road that was apparently a seafood restaurant and a shop called the Lighthouse and the Fishman, respectively. There was fresh Irish seafood, or so the signs said. We walked without running. Rodina managed to giggle at something Nathaniel said.

  Rodrigo said, "Do you want me to do the girlish laughter, while you pretend to be clever?"

  I fought not to glare at him, which would have ruined the whole "touristy couple" camouflage. The best I could do was lean in and say, "Fuck you."

  He smiled as if I'd said something wonderful. I actually saw an older couple across the street smile at him. I lowered my face against his shoulder to hide the fact that my expression didn't match. It made it look like I was cuddling against him. Great.

  Ru had stopped walking and was staring down into the dark water. There was a seal in the dark water; you could just see it. It stared up at us with huge black eyes that reminded me of Roarke's, except under the water like this it looked like a drowning victim. I whispered against Rodrigo's neck, "Is it just a seal?"

  "When they're in seal form, you can't always tell them apart," he whispered back.

  Ru knelt by the water and made soft sounds somewhere between growls, grunts, and purrs. The seal ducked underwater and vanished. Ru got to his feet fast. "That wasn't a seal." He was backing away from the water.

  "Fuck," Rodina said. She let go of Nathaniel's hand and faced the water.

  "What do we do?" Nathaniel asked.

  The water, which had been quietly sloshing between the boats, began to boil with whitecaps, but there was nothing visible agitating the water. "Run!" Rodina said, and grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and started down the street. The rest of us followed. We got stared at by the few people still on the quiet street, but it didn't matter anymore. It was too late to pretend. The seals threw themselves out of the water onto the street behind us. I saw one shiver, and it stood up a man, fully clothed and pointing at us. Fuck!

  Rodrigo dragged me around the side of a building. In the distance, I saw a church. It would keep out the vampires when it got dark, but it wouldn't keep out the Selkies now.

  We had to scramble over a wall to get into the churchyard, and suddenly we were surrounded by tombstones. It was a graveyard. Nathaniel grabbed my arm. "Raise the dead. Raise zombies, Anita."

  "I'm not sure zombies will rise here."

  "Try," he said.

  "I'd rather not die with our new queen, not just yet," Rodina said. "Try."

  "If they find us, we'll hold them off," Rodrigo said.

  "We are your Brides now, Anita Blake. We must keep you safe and happy," Ru said, and he moved into the darkness, vanishing into the shadows as if by magic.

  Rodina moved the two of us into the shadows on the edge of the gravestones. "Do what only you can do, Anita. We'll do what we are good at and protect our queen."

  "We need a knife," Nathaniel said.

  I'd thought she'd dig out the blade we'd used to kill the Roane in the Black Castle, but she handed me a clean blade from a sheath at her side. "And the one we used in the castle," I said.

  Rodina didn't question it, just fished it out of her backpack. I heard a noise at the wall. "Do magic, Anita. Do it for the man beside you." Then she ran for the wall and the quiet sounds of struggle.

  I stood in that peaceful green space and realized it wasn't dark yet; almost no one could perform necromancy before dark. Necromancers were like vampires; we didn't function well in daylight. It was dark on the streets, but there was still light up there in the sky. I could feel it. I reached into the ground underneath our feet and searched for the dead. It was dirt, living earth.

  "I can't feel the dead, Nathaniel."

  He used the clean knife to slice across his palm and offered it to me. "Help me walk the circle with you." I saw Rodrigo or Ru throw someone back over the wall.

  Nathaniel touched my face. "Anita, I need you."

  I looked up into his eyes and thought about what would happen if they captured us again. I sliced my hand open, which startled him, but I clasped our hands together, blood to blood, and said, "We walk the circle together."

  I visualized it like a line of white light shining down as we walked. I ignored the sounds of fighting, because I had to trust the three Harlequin to protect us long enough for
me to do this. The dead would not rise here, but there was power here that I could use all the same. I prayed for protection and guidance. Nathaniel was an extra kick of energy, but I was already heavy with energy from having drained the Roane in the castle. I heard the circle close with an almost audible pop and felt a pressure change that made us both have to swallow as if we'd changed elevations. I took the knife with the Roane blood still on it, not even dried completely, and I pushed it into the ground. I hoped it would do what we needed.

  The three Harlequin were backing toward us with a crowd three deep surrounding us. How many seal guards did Moroven have? Shit. They rushed us, and the triplets did their best. Rodina threw one over her shoulder and it fell through the circle. That could have been accidental, but then he stood up and stepped back through the circle to draw a sword almost as tall as I was, but half his body went through the circle.

  "It'll keep out vampires, but not these guys," I said. Then full dark came. I felt it in my bones like an echo. The triplets all backed up through the circle and to us so that we were standing almost back to back. There was a solid wall of the Roane in human form waiting outside the circle, which I knew they could cross.

  "Not that I'm complaining, but what are they waiting for?" I asked.

  "The vampires to arrive," Rodrigo said. "She's told them to wait."

  "I won't be captured," Rodina said.

  "Nor I," Ru said.

  "Crap," I said, and looked around for something, anything to help us. I saw something not that far away that gleamed in the dark. When I looked at it straight on, it wasn't there, but out of the corner of my eye, it was like a white phosphorous glow, a ghostly glow.

  "The prophecy says that to guarantee our dark mistress will be lost and the Master of Tigers triumphant, they must marry one of the clan tigers," Rodrigo said.

  "Is this really the time for a history lesson, Roddy?" Rodina said.

  "If I die here, I need someone else to understand what's happened."

  "What are you babbling about now?" she asked.

  "What's in that direction that would be really haunted?" I asked, motioning.

  There was a moment where the three of them sort of shifted and thought, and then Ru said, "Wicklow Gaol."

  "It's just a historic site now," Rodina said.

  A wind blew high and shivering through the trees overhead. It didn't smell of rain, but it felt like a storm was coming. There was a black cloud boiling in the sky toward the sea. "What is that?" Nathaniel asked.

  "It's her," Rodina said, "her and all her dark court."

  "We will give our lives for you," Ru said.

  The black "cloud" began to separate into individual shapes. It was vampires flying in a mass like some Halloween witch poster. I leaned into Rodina. "Can you fight your way free to the gaol?"

  "I cannot promise."

  "Is it important enough for us to die for?" Rodrigo asked.

  "There are dead there that will rise," I said.

  "You won't have to kill me for what I did to your lover, Anita. The sea folk will do it for you." He gave a battle cry, which was the only term I had for the sound, and leapt into the mass of enemies.

  83

  IT WAS SUDDENLY a hand-to-hand fight, and we were outnumbered. It was Nathaniel who used a gun first, the sound thunderous even outside. It startled the man in front of me so that I stabbed him through the heart and was able to throw him back into the mass of his friends. And then suddenly, they stopped fighting. They cried out in confusion, almost in pain. I had no idea what had happened. I knew it wasn't any magic of mine.

  Rodrigo and Rodina grabbed us and started running while Ru guarded our backs, but none of the others chased us. We ran. I tapped that part of me that was my beasts, that part that helped me work out with real lycanthropes in the gym, and I ran so that the streets were a black blur. I ran until the evil wind at our backs wasn't fast enough to keep up. Nathaniel stayed at my side easily, and so did Rodina and Rodrigo, but Ru stumbled and his sister had to grab him to keep him with us. I raced toward the white light shining as if the full moon had fallen to earth. I could see it more in front of my eyes the closer we got to it.

  The triplets were actually behind us as we ran through the entrance to the huge stone building. If we survived, I'd make them do more cardio. A white-haired woman dressed in a long skirt and what was supposed to be authentic clothing but wasn't quite said, "We're closing for the day."

  Rodrigo pulled a gun and showed it to her. "Run away now. Bad things are coming."

  She ran away, yelling for help. She went through a side door into a cafe that was apparently still open. I hoped no one got brave. I wanted to use the ghosts, not make new ones.

  Damian was suddenly loud in our heads again. He wanted to know where we were, and we thought it at him. He was above us in the night sky, and he thought of the gaol as old hunting grounds.

  Two dark shapes appeared in the doorway. They were dark-haired, pale-skinned, dressed in black as if they'd come from central casting for vampires, one male, one female, but they were the real deal. They stalked in through the doors because they didn't need anyone's permission to get inside a public building. They looked at the people huddling in the cafe. They grinned wide enough to flash fangs.

  "We will feast tonight, as of old," the man said.

  The woman said, "They've seen us. We have to kill them now."

  "No," I said, "you will not harm these people."

  "You have no power over the dead in Ireland, necromancer," the woman said.

  "You will not harm anyone in this building tonight," I said. I heard a whisper in the hallway and felt a cold wind down my spine. It wasn't vampires. I closed my eyes briefly and the whole building burned with ghosts like white phosphorus, thick with the moving pulse of hundreds, maybe thousands of restless spirits. They were angry. I'd never felt so much anger from ghosts before, and then I realized why. They were angry at the vampires.

  "How many people did you kill in here over the centuries?" I asked.

  They smirked at each other. "Enough," she said, and he nodded.

  I pressed my still bleeding hand against the stone wall and felt the power shivering through the building, just waiting. Nathaniel put his hand over mine, and you could feel the building's bones shift and surge.

  "What was that?" the male vampire asked.

  Damian ran through the doorway, shoving past the two vampires. He joined us, breathing as if he'd run a race. He held his hand out to me. I cut his hand, and he reached out toward ours as we touched the stones.

  "What is it?" he asked, as he placed his bleeding hand over ours against the stones.

  "Vengeance."

  The building shuddered around us, and a wind started down the hallway at our backs, not from the outside, but from inside the building. The two vampires went for the door, but a new vampire was there to stop them. He was huge by any standard, a giant of a man who had to stoop through the door and straighten up carefully.

  "Damian, you shit bag. You killed Roarke!"

  "Bachman, I see she called you back from Dublin."

  "It served its purpose, for there stands the power that will make M'Lady into the new Queen of All Darkness."

  "This is the one who's been tearing people apart in Dublin," Damian said.

  "And now that you've let all these people see us, I'll get to slaughter them all," he growled at us.

  "He's always been more beast than vampire," Damian said.

  The Harlequin brought up their guns and Bachman did rush into battle, but not with us. He dived through the doorway into the cafe and screams followed.

  "Save them!" I said.

  "We can't leave you alone," Rodina said.

  The wind spilled our hair around our faces. I could see the light like white fire burning through the building. It shuddered above us, like a giant waking.

  "We aren't alone," I said. "Go and save them. That's an order!"

  "No more people die here because of us," Dami
an said. Somewhere in all of it, the two vampires had vanished outside again. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought they were more afraid of Bachman than us.

  The triplets went through the door and toward the sound of screams. We walked forward and the ghosts came with us. The light was so bright that I could see the individual shapes of the vampires in the blackness as they swept toward us. I'd never seen so many that could fly like that. It was a rare gift and I remembered that Damian was amazing at it, too. It was her bloodline; they could all fly.

  A vampire had a man in its grasp, feeding at his throat as it rose into the air. A gun exploded near us; the vampire wavered and dropped the man, who fell heavily to the parking lot. A second shot, a heavier boom of a sound, and the vampire exploded in a fine red mist. I knew who it was before I saw Edward step out of cover and say, "Did you forget to invite me to the party?"

  "Never. Keep them off of the civilians."

  "Who keeps them off of you?"

  "They do," I said, motioning at the ghosts.

  "You told me ghosts can't hurt people."

  "They can't on their own," I said.

  The ghosts swarmed around us, formed a pulsing, throbbing cloud as white and shining as Moroven's was black and dark. She stepped out of that cloud of shadows and illusion and called out, "Ghosts cannot harm us!"

  "We harmed them!" Damian yelled, and he shared memories of walking into cells where people who could not afford to pay the gaoler starved to death, so the bite was a mercy in the end. Skin fever hot to the touch, vampires feasting on them like vultures at a corpse, draining them dry. The new prisoners, still healthy and beautiful, but Moroven liked beauty and collected them for herself. The victims that were tortured as part of their sentence, and pleased her because of new scars. Children weeping in the dark held, comforted, and killed. So many dead, so much murder. Moroven's kiss of vampires had treated the gaol as their personal grocery store for centuries. It was as if Damian's memories joined with the ghosts, made their stories, their lives, real again. The power of it roared upward like a thunderous waterfall of ghosts. They wailed and began to talk, and a lot them remembered exactly which vampire had killed them.

  The townsfolk were screaming and pointing now; even they could see it. The ghosts cried out for vengeance the way a murdered zombie will go after its murderer above all else. Ghosts don't have a physical form that can harm anyone, but I'd given them blood and I was holding the hand of my vampire servant and my moitie bete. We touched our bleeding hands together the way I'd combined power with another necromancer to raise a bigger, older zombie, and the ghosts became a roaring storm of wind and rage that attacked the vampires.