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"I thought you were tough, Miss Blake."
Richard helped me stand and I let him. I leaned against him for a second, my forehead against the smooth skin of his arm. I pushed away from him and stood on my own. I met Colin's eyes. They were definitely grey, not blue.
"I know we're supposed to go through all the protocol and waltz for a while, Colin. But the last of my patience is sitting in that basket. So state your grievance and let's all get the fuck out of here."
He smiled. "So tenderhearted, maybe your reputation is just talk after all."
I smiled then and shook my head. "Maybe it is, but since we're not supposed to kill each other tonight, Colin, it doesn't matter."
Colin walked away from me. He went to stand closer to his own people but faced Asher. I had been dismissed as his own human servant had been dismissed.
"I will not be replaced, Asher."
"I have not come to replace you," Asher said, voice empty, neutral.
"Why would Jean-Claude send a master almost exactly my age into my lands against my express orders?"
"I could have hidden what I was," Asher said. "But Jean-Claude thought you would misinterpret that. I came in hiding nothing."
"But still you came," Colin said.
"I cannot change what has happened," Asher said. "What would satisfy us all?"
"Your death," Colin said.
Everybody went very still, as if we'd all caught our collective breaths. I started to say something and Richard touched my shoulder. I closed my mouth and let Asher talk, but it was hard.
Asher laughed that wonderful touchable laugh. "Breaking the truce, aren't you, Colin?"
"Not if I kill a rival sent to supplant me. Then I am merely protecting myself and making an example for other ambitious vampires."
"You know I have not come to supplant you," Asher said.
"I know nothing of the kind."
"I am content where I am."
"Why?" Colin asked. "You could be the master of a city somewhere far from their triumvirate. Why would you be content with less?"
Asher gave a very small smile. "I prefer gentler persuasions over power."
Colin shook his head. "I have been told you are in love with her, and with Jean-Claude himself. I have been told that you are bedding them both and that is why the Ulfric seeks a new lupa."
"If he would only cooperate, it could be a happy foursome," Asher said.
Richard, startled beside me, stiffened. It was my turn to touch his arm and keep him from saying what he was thinking.
"I have been told many things," Colin said. "My people have watched you from afar. We believe you are enamored of the girl and of Jean-Claude. We are aware of your history together. We even believe that a lover of men like yourself would do their Ulfric if he would let you. What we do not believe is that you are bedding any of them. We believe that this is a pathetic story to save yourself."
I started walking to Asher. The plan was that we would put on a mild show of petting. I'd warned him it better be mild, but I never got the chance.
There was movement in the dark. Dozens of vampires appeared out of the darkness, encircling the clearing. Colin had been distracting us while the vampires moved up to flank us, and neither Asher nor I, nor any of the wereanimals had sensed them.
"Let us have Asher and the rest of you may go free."
"You are breaking the truce now," Asher said. He sounded calm, empty, as if Colin hadn't just demanded his death.
Verne strode forward. "This is our lupanar. We can close it to all strangers."
"Not without your vargamor. You left her safe at home just in case things went wrong. So protective of your human pet. I counted on it." He raised an arm as if summoning his people. "No one you have with you is witch enough to invoke the circle."
"If you kill Asher it will break truce."
"I will not harm Jean-Claude's triumvirate. I merely remove a rival."
The vampires moved up through the trees. They didn't hurry. They moved like solid shadows, slow, as if they had all night to tighten the circle and take us. "Asher?" I asked without taking my gaze from those slowly menacing figures.
"Oui."
"Does this break truce?"
"Oui."
"Great," I said.
I felt him move towards me, but I had eyes only for the outer dark and that ever-shrinking circle. I picked one vampire out. Male, slender, youngish in appearance. He wore no shirt. His chest was a pale, almost glowing whiteness in the darkness.
"What is it, ma cherie?" Asher was standing very close to me now. I moved him to one side with my left arm and brought the mini-Uzi out with my right, swinging it around my body, shooting before I'd actually pointed so the bullets cut across the vampire's legs, making him jerk. I grabbed it with both hands and fought the gun to spray it back and fourth across his body. I was screaming as I did it, wordless, not to sound menacing. You couldn't hear the screams over the machine gun. I screamed because I couldn't help myself, because the tension, the horror, something came up my hand from the gun and out my mouth.
The blood that sprayed from his body was black from distance and night. It looked like his body was torn in half by some giant hand. His upper body fell slowly to one side. His lower body collapsed to its knees.
The circle of vampires had frozen or had dived for cover. The silence was thunderous. My own labored breathing seemed painfully loud. My voice came breathy, but clear, a shout, "Nobody move, nobody fucking move!"
No one moved.
Asher's voice broke the stillness. "We can all walk away from here tonight, Colin."
"Impressively violent," Colin said, "but I think you are mistaken. Poor Archie will not be walking anywhere."
"My apologies to Archie," I said.
"I must have payment for him, Miss Blake."
"You can bill me."
"Oh, I intend to, Miss Blake. I intend to take it out of your hide."
"How many of your people do you want me to kill tonight, Colin? I've got lots more bullets."
"You cannot kill them all, Miss Blake."
"Yeah, but I can kill about a half dozen and wound twice that many. I don't see them lining up for it, Colin."
I badly wanted to see his face, but I kept my attention on the vamps in the trees. They hadn't moved. The vampires already inside the lupanar were someone else's problem. My job was keeping the others at a distance. I think Asher knew the division of labor. I just hoped Richard did.
"I don't know how Jean-Claude runs his territory, but I know how I run mine. What you fail to appreciate, Miss Blake, is that nothing you can do to them will make them fear you more than they already fear me."
"Death is the ultimate threat, Colin, and I don't bluff."
"Neither do I."
I felt something move out through the trees. Power moving from Colin to those waiting figures. I started to turn the gun from the darkness to Colin, but Asher touched my arm. "He is mine. Watch the others."
I slid the gun a fraction back to the still forms. "You get the Master of the City and I get all the rest. Sounds fair."
Richard moved up beside me. "You don't get all of them," he said.
I wanted to ask if he would kill them. If he would use that preternatural strength to snap spines and tear their bodies apart with his bare hands as I had done with the machine gun. But I didn't ask. How good Richard's threat was was between him and his conscience. The only thing that bothered me about Richard's conscience was that I couldn't count on him for a single kill tonight. He'd hurt people and toss them around, but if he wouldn't kill, that meant that he couldn't account for any of them. There were over a hundred bad guys, vampires, and only eight of us. Sixteen if I could count Verne, but I didn't know if I could count on him and his people. It would have been nice to be able to trust Richard at my back, but I didn't.
The vampires out in the dark began to rot. Not all of them, but damn near half. I'd never seen so many. For a vampire to rot, it m
eans that the vamp that made them was the same kind of creature. Which meant that Barnaby had made half of Colin's people. No Master of the City would allow any subordinate to have such power. But the proof was staring me in the face with eye sockets gone to black dripping ruin.
"You have been very bold, Colin, to share your power with your second to this degree," Asher said.
"Barnaby is my right hand, my second eye. Together we are a stronger master than either of us would be apart."
"As are Jean-Claude and I," Asher said.
"But Barnaby is a corruptor. He brings that to the dance," Colin said. "What do you bring to Jean-Claude's dance, Asher?" Fear breathed through the lupanar. I shivered as it prickled down my skin, tightened my chest, and tried to stop my breath in my throat.
"Night hag," Damian spoke, his voice a hiss. He spit on the ground in the general direction of Colin, but he didn't walk any closer.
"I smell your fear, Damian. I can taste it like rich, nutty ale on the back of my tongue," Colin said. "Your master must have been a fine piece of work."
Damian moved back a step, then stopped. "You ask why Asher is content to remain with Jean-Claude when he could go elsewhere and be his own master. Maybe he is tired as I am tired of the struggle. The in-fighting. The fucking politics. Jean-Claude ransomed me from my master. I am not a master vampire, nor will I ever be. I have no special powers. Yet, Jean-Claude bargained for me. I serve him not out of fear but out of gratitude."
"You make Jean-Claude sound weak. The Council does not fear weaklings, yet they fear him," Colin said.
"Compassion is not weakness," Richard said. "Only those without compassion think otherwise."
I glanced at him, but he was looking at the vampires, not me. The fact that I felt it was a personal remark to me was just me being overly sensitive.
"Compassion." Colin shook his head. He threw back his head and laughed. It was sort of unnerving. I kept my attention on the outer darkness and the waiting vamps, but it was hard not to watch the laughing vampire. Hard not to ask what was so funny.
"Compassion," Colin said again. "Now that is not a word I would have used for Jean-Claude. Has he fallen in love with his human servant? I do not think love is the path to Jean-Claude's heart. Is it sex?" He raised his voice and called to me. "Is that it, Miss Blake? Has the seducer finally been seduced? Are you that good a piece of ass, Miss Blake?"
That made my shoulders hunch. But I kept my eye on the other vampires, the machine gun held in both hands. "A lady doesn't kiss and tell, Colin."
That made him laugh again. "Jean-Claude would never forgive me if I killed the best piece of ass he's found in centuries. I say again, give me Asher, and the blond wolf. Asher's life and the wolf's fear at Barnaby's hands. That is the price for safe passage through my lands."
It was my turn to laugh, a soft, harsh sound. "Fuck you."
"I take it that is a no," he said.
"No," I said. I watched the vampires out in the dark. They hadn't moved, but somehow there was a sense of movement, an increased energy. It was nothing I could start shooting about, but I didn't like it.
"Does Miss Blake speak for all of you?" Colin asked.
"You can't have Jason to torture," Richard said.
"I would not willingly give up my life," Asher said.
"The human servant speaking for all. How very strange. But if the answer is no, then the answer is no."
Asher yelled, "Anita!"
I started to rotate the gun back towards them, but something slashed down my face, over one eye. It made me hesitate, one hand going over my eye, holding it. I had time to think, stupid, and start to lower my hand, start to raise the gun back up, and a vampire slammed into me, taking us both to the ground.
I was flat on my back with a woman on top of me, mouth wide, fangs snapping at my face like a dog. I pulled the trigger with the muzzle pressed to her body. The bullets exploded out her back in a rain of blood and thicker bits. Her body danced on top of mine, twitching, jerking. I had to push her body off of me, and when I could sit up, it was too late. The vampires were inside the lupanar and the fighting was joined.
I couldn't see out of my right eye. It was too full of blood, and more kept pouring down. A figure appeared in front of me and I fired up the length of its body until the bullets exploded its head in a burst of splattering rain. I closed my right eye and did my best to ignore it. Nursing the wound was going to get me killed.
I looked around for the others. Verne tore the head off a vampire and sent it spinning into the dark. Richard was at the center of a mob, almost lost to sight with bodies hanging off him. Asher was covered in blood, facing Colin. There were werewolves everywhere in wolf or manwolf form. Two vamps came for me and sight-seeing was over.
One of them was rotting down to bones, the other was solid. I shot the solid one first because he, I was sure, I could kill. Rotting vamps don't also die from bullets. The solid one fell to his knees in a spray of blood, face split in half like a ripe melon.
The rotting vamp jumped me in a blur of speed and we went tumbling across the ground as I tried to bring the gun up. The mouth stretched above my face, naked tendons straining between the bones of his cheeks, fangs came for my face. I fired into the body, but the gun was at a bad angle and missed anything vital. All I got for my troubles was the scream of a wolf, and I knew that I'd shot someone that was on our side. Shit.
I turned my head and the fangs sank through the leather jacket into my shoulder. I screamed, my hand fumbling for the jacket pocket and my backup cross. A rotted hand caressed my face, sliding over the wound above my eye. The leather jacket acted as a sort of armor, keeping the fangs from getting a good lock on my shoulder. The mouth worried at my shoulder like a dog with a bone, trying to dig through the thick leather into the flesh beyond. It hurt, but not as much as it was going to hurt if I didn't do something.
The cross flared to life like a captive star, but the vamp had its face buried in the leather. It couldn't see the cross. I swung the cross by the chain into its bare skull. Smoke rose from the bone, and the vampire jerked its face back from me, naked teeth opened in a scream. I shoved the cross in its face, and those teeth snapped at it like a dog telling you to stay away. But those teeth caught the chain, and bit through it. There was a moment where even without most of the flesh left on the skull I could see surprise on its face. I flung my arms across my face and heard the dull explosion, the spatter of debris. There was a sharp pain in my hand, and when I could look, I had a bone shard in my left hand. I pulled the shard out, and only then did I bleed.
The vampire was just so much mess scattered around me. The cross lay on the ground still glowing, smoke rising off its surface as if the metal had been freshly made and quenched in the blood of the vampire. I started to pick it up by the chain, and Nikki, Colin's human servant, was standing over me. I caught the dull flash of her knife and rolled away, coming to one knee with the Browning in one hand. She was right above me waiting for an underhand strike, but I wasn't standing, and she didn't have time to change her strike. I started to pull the trigger and a werewolf barreled into her, took them both off into the dark. Shit. What was I supposed to do, yell "mine" like in a volleyball game?
I heard Jason yelling. He was standing only about a yard away with both arms stuck through the chest of a rotting vampire. He was pulling desperately on his arms, but they seemed trapped, caught on the ribs. The vampire didn't seem to mind. It licked his face, and he screamed. Another rotter was on his back, riding him, head back for a strike. I sighted down my arm at the head and fired. The head jerked back, and brains spilled out a hole on the other side in a dark gush, but the vampire turned its head slowly and looked at me. I fired into that calm face three more times in a tight cluster before the head collapsed in upon itself like an empty eggshell. The vampire fell away from Jason.
I walked towards Jason and the other vampire. Now it was the vampire who was struggling to get free of Jason, but they were entwined like bumpers
after a car wreck. I put the gun barrel under the vampire's chin, my other hand over Jason's eyes to protect them, and fired. It took three shots for the brain to be destroyed and the body to go limp.
I moved my hand from Jason's eyes, and he looked past me, eyes widening. I was already turning before he could yell, "Behind you!"
The blow came before I'd finished the turn. My shoulder and arm went numb. My hand opened and the Browning slipped out while I was still trying to see what had hit me. I dived for the ground, rolling on my good shoulder and came up to my knee to see Nikki holding a very big stick. I was lucky she'd lost the knife somewhere.
I started to draw the big knife down my back, but I was using my left hand, because my right still wasn't working. Left-handed I was slower, and Nikki was unbelievably fast. She moved in a blur of motion that was beyond human. She was on me, slashing the air with the club, and I gave up trying to draw a knife, and worked just at not being hit. The attack was so quick, so savage, that I didn't have time to stand. All I could do was roll on the ground barely ahead of each blow.
The jagged end of the branch sank into the ground next to my face. She struggled for a second to free it, and I kicked her in the knee. It made her stagger, but didn't dislocate it, or she'd have screamed. It did force her back from the club. I rolled away, trying to get to my feet. She grabbed me, and lifted me over her head like she was bench-pressing me. The next thing I knew I was airborne. I hit the ground just short of the oak, falling into the bones beneath the tree hard enough that some of them shattered. The jolt of power that ran through me from hands to knees drove what air I had left from my body. I lay there half-stunned, not just from being thrown across the clearing, but from the power roaring across my body from the bones. It was death magic, and though different from mine, it recognized me, recognized my power. I knew as I lay in the bones that I could bring the circle to life? But what would happen when the wards flared to life? This pack worshipped Odin. If I set the circle of power would it count as a holy place? Would it suddenly be like standing inside a church? It had possibilities if I could warn Asher and Damian.
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