Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I don’t think it’s sex she’s wanting,” Nathaniel said, voice quiet.

  His voice turned my gaze to him. If what was driving me had been the ardeur, it might have been enough to have me crawl to him. But Nathaniel was right, this wasn’t about sex, this was about food, and Nathaniel wasn’t food. Did that mean that Caleb was food? Not a pretty thought.

  “What do you mean?” Caleb asked.

  I gazed up at Caleb’s bare chest, that young, half-finished face. He looked so puzzled. I said it out loud, though I wasn’t talking to anyone in the car. “He doesn’t understand.”

  Belle’s whisper, “He will soon enough.”

  “It looks like it’s your turn to take one for the team,” Jason’s voice from the front.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to get munched on,” Jason said.

  The combination of my own moral dilemma with the fact that Belle had picked an odd spot for taking blood, one that just didn’t make sense to me, was helping me swim to the surface. I knelt back in the floorboard, pulling a little free of Caleb’s body.

  “No,” I said out loud, and none of the men answered me, as if they’d all caught up to the fact that I wasn’t really talking to any of them.

  Belle’s voice in my head. “I have been gentle until now, ma petite.”

  “I am not your ma petite, so stop fucking calling me that.”

  “If you will not take kindness from me, then I will cease to offer it.”

  “If this is your idea of kindness, then I’d hate to see . . .” I never finished the thought, because Belle showed me that indeed she had been kind.

  She didn’t roll over me, she crashed into me, in a mind-numbing, breath-stealing, heart-stopping, swat of power. For an instant, or for an eternity, I hung suspended. The Jeep was gone, Caleb was gone, I couldn’t see, or feel, or be. It was neither light, nor dark, nor up, nor down. I’d had near-death experiences, I’d fainted before, passed out, but that moment when Belle’s power fell through me, that was the closest to true nothingness that I’d ever experienced.

  Into that nothingness, that void, Belle’s voice fell, “Jean-Claude has begun the dance, but he has left it unfinished between you, the wolf, and himself. He has allowed sentiment to cloud his judgment. It makes me question how well I taught him.”

  I tried to speak but couldn’t remember where my mouth was, or how to draw a breath. I couldn’t remember how to answer her.

  “I discovered this with the wolf, but could not mend it, for he is not my animal to call. I do not understand dogs, and a wolf is very much a dog.” Her voice whispered through me, low and lower, trembling through my body, but for her voice to dance through my body, I had to have a body for her to use. I fell back into my body as if falling from a great height. I was left gasping on the floorboards, eyes staring up at Caleb’s startled face and Nathaniel’s worried one.

  Belle’s voice glided through my body like a knowledgeable hand. I suddenly knew who had trained Jean-Claude to use his voice as a tool of seduction. “But you, ma petite, I understand you.”

  I drew a deep, quaking breath and it hurt all the way to my chest, as if I’d gone a long time without breathing. My voice came hoarse, “What are you talking about?”

  “The fourth mark, ma petite, without the fourth mark, you are not truly Jean-Claude’s. It is like the difference between engagement and marriage; one is permanent, the other not necessarily so.”

  I understood what she meant a second before I saw two dancing honey-colored flames appear in the air over me. I knew it was the second mark because I’d had the second mark three times before; twice from Jean-Claude, and once from a vampire I’d killed. I’d never been able to protect myself from it before. I knew from experience that nothing physical would save me. It wasn’t something you could hit, or shoot. I hated things you couldn’t hit or shoot. But I had other skills now that weren’t exactly physical.

  I reached down that long metaphysical cord to Jean-Claude. Belle’s voice floated over me, she was delaying her moment, drawing out her pleasure and my fear. “Jean-Claude is hours dead, he cannot help you.”

  The dark flames of her eyes began to descend, like some evil angel coming to eat my soul. I did the only thing I could think to do. I reached down the other half of our metaphysical cord. I reached out to a place that hadn’t helped me for months. I reached out to Richard.

  I had an image of Richard in the hot bath water, cradled in Jamil’s arms. Richard looked up as if he could see me. He whispered my name, but either he was too weak to push me away, or he didn’t try. For a moment, it was as if it was meant to be, then I was yanked back, shoved into my own head, my own body again. Richard hadn’t cast me out this time. Dark honey flames hovered over my face, and there was a vague outline, a ghost of long dark hair, the mist of a face.

  Caleb was yelling, “What’s in the car with us? I can’t see anything, but I can feel it. What the fuck is it?”

  Nathaniel’s voice came hushed, and strangely loud, “Belle Morte.”

  I had no time to look up, to see the others, because those phantom lips were speaking. “I will not allow you to gain strength from your wolf. I have given you the first mark and you did not even know it. I will give you the second mark here and now, and tonight with Musette as my proxy I will give you the third. When Jean-Claude and I are equal within you, three for three, then you will come to me, ma petite. You will travel the world if I ask it, do anything, simply to taste my sweet blood.”

  That phantom mouth lowered towards mine. I knew somehow that if she laid a ghostly kiss on me that I would be hers. I did what I always did, I tried to hit at that face, and there was nothing to touch. I screamed wordlessly, and sent out a metaphysical cry, “Help me!”

  Suddenly, I could smell forest, trees, fresh-turned earth, wet leaves underfoot, and the sweet musk of wolf.

  Belle could stop me from reaching out to Richard, but she couldn’t keep him from reaching out to me.

  Richard’s power rose like a sweet-scented cloud above me, pushing back those glowing eyes, that phantom mouth.

  She laughed, and it slid over my body, made me shudder, my breath catch in my throat. It felt so good, so good, even while my head screamed that it was bad.

  “Did you hear someone laugh?” Caleb asked it.

  Jason said no. Nathaniel said yes.

  Belle whispered along my skin, and even Richard’s power breathing against my body couldn’t keep her voice out. “With the touch of your wolf’s flesh, you might keep me at bay, but not from a distance. The closer the flesh, the closer the ties, and the more powerful. You are already mine, ma petite, you cannot win free of me.” Those eyes began to float lower again. Richard’s power rose above me like a soft shield. Belle’s power floated on the surface of that energy like a leaf on a pond, then she began to push into it, through it.

  “Help me!” I screamed it out loud to everyone, anyone, and no one. I felt Nathaniel’s hand on mine, and that phantom kiss did hesitate, did turn and look at Nathaniel. I felt her call him, like a deep thrumming down my bones. Leopard had been her first animal to call. If she owned me, she’d own my pard.

  Nathaniel reached out his free hand as if he could see her.

  “No!” I jerked free of him and the moment I broke physical contact it was as if Nathaniel was less real to her. She turned those dark-honey eyes back to me.

  “I will have them all, ma petite, eventually.”

  “No,” I said it, but my voice was soft, because I believed she was right.

  “You will give them to me, all of them.”

  Fear poured through me as if I’d been plunged into ice water. The thought of what Belle would do to my pard, my friends. No, I could not let this happen.

  “Fuck you, fuck you, Belle, and the horse you rode in on.” My anger, my fear, seemed to feed Richard’s power. The sweet, nose-wrinkling musk of wolf was so thick it was like being wrapped in invisible fur.

  The Jeep slewed to one sid
e. The angry honking of horns and squealing brakes followed it. Jason had given up on finding a safe place and just stopped against the concrete median. Nathaniel and Caleb were thrown across the seat and into the passenger side doors. I didn’t have time to worry about the fact that no one seemed to be wearing their damn seat belts.

  Belle’s eyes pushed through Richard’s power. It wasn’t effortless. He made her work for every inch, but those burning eyes, that ghostly outline got closer, closer . . . until I held my breath as if afraid, if I breathed in too hard it would bring her against my mouth.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Jason was between the seats. He’d stopped the Jeep, thrown off his seat belt. He shoved his hand through the ghost thing above me, as if he couldn’t see it. He grabbed my shoulder and the moment he touched me, Richard’s beast welled up inside me. I’d always thought it was my beast that moved through me, but this, whatever this was, was Richard, not me.

  His wolf poured into me like scalding water rushing into a cup, filling me to the brim, emptying my skin of leopard or death, until my spine bowed, my hands flailed, my mouth opened in a soundless scream. I could feel fur rubbing inside my body, strong nails, digging. The wolf was struggling to find some way out of my body.

  Belle hissed at me like some great ghostly cat. The eyes retreated, hovering in the air near the Jeep roof, as Jason pulled me into the front seat and cradled me against his body. His closeness seemed to quiet the wolf, so that I felt it sit, panting, eager-eyed, staring up at the shape by the ceiling with hungry, arrogant eyes. Jason’s eyes were his wolf’s eyes, and today they seemed perfect for his face. But it was Richard’s power, the power of the Thronnos Rokke clan that wrapped around both of us. I had never felt Richard’s beast so thick inside me. It was as if I was a purse, a bag, holding his beast, feeling it pace inside me as if my flesh were a cage it could not escape from.

  Belle’s voice floated down upon us, and this time it stung, hot with her anger. “You can ride all day in the arms of your wolf, but there is still the banquet tonight. Musette will be there, and through her, ma petite, I will be there.”

  My voice came out with a low edge of growl, “I am not your ma petite.”

  “You will be,” she said, and the eyes slowly faded, until only the lingering scent of roses remained to remind me that we’d won this round, but there would be others. Jean-Claude’s memories knew Belle too well to think otherwise. She would never give up, not once she decided to own something, or someone. Belle Morte had decided that I would be hers. Jean-Claude had never known her to change her mind about something like that. That was so unfair, wasn’t it a lady’s prerogative to change her mind? Of course, Belle wasn’t exactly a lady.

  She was a two-thousand-year-old vampire, and they weren’t known for changing their minds, their habits, or their goals. The last time a Master Vamp had come to town and tried to steal me from Jean-Claude, I’d ended up in a coma for a week. Richard had gotten his throat torn out, and Jean-Claude had nearly died for real. Vampires were always either trying to kill me, or own me. God I hated being popular.

  29

  NATHANIEL HAD GOTTEN one of the extra crosses out of the glove compartment. I always carried spare crosses, just like spare ammo; when you hunt vampires, running out of either one is really bad. It was sheer stupidity on my part to have put crosses around the Circus of the Damned, but not on me. Some days I’m just slow.

  I was back in the front seat, but I was shaking. No, that didn’t quite cover it. There was a fine tremble in my hands; small muscles in my body kept twitching at odd moments. I was cold, and it was one of those glorious end of summer days, sun-warmed, sparkling, bright, and soft at the same time. We drove through a wash of blue sky, and sunshine, and I was cold—a cold that no amount of blankets was really going to help.

  Nathaniel was curled over my lower body like a living blanket, wedged between my legs and the floorboard. I’d bitched about how dangerous it was, but I hadn’t complained too much. I didn’t have any real blankets in the car. I was spending so much time in shock lately, I’d have to remedy that. The trees along 44 had given way to houses and an occasional old school being rehabbed into apartments, churches, buildings of no discernable use, but old, tired. OK, maybe that last was just me.

  I stroked my hand over Nathaniel’s head, over and over, on the warm silk of his hair. His head in my lap, his arms wrapped around my waist, his body wedged between my legs. Sometimes Nathaniel made me think about sex, but sometimes, like now it was just comfort. Just closeness. You can’t have that with most people, because they’re busy thinking about sex. I think that’s why dogs are so damn popular. You can cuddle a dog as much as you like and the dog never thinks about sex, or pushing your social boundaries in any way, unless you happen to be eating. Dogs will invade your social boundaries for table scraps, unless trained to do otherwise. But hey, it’s a dog, not a person in a fur suit. Right now, what I needed was a pet, not a person. Nathaniel could be both. An uncomfortable, but truthful fact.

  Jason drove. Caleb had the backseat to himself. No one spoke. I don’t think anyone knew what to say. I wanted Jean-Claude awake. I wanted to tell him what Belle had done. I wanted him to tell me there was a way to keep her from doing anything else, short of giving me the fourth mark. The fourth mark would make me ageless and immortal as long as Jean-Claude didn’t die. Theoretically, he could live forever, and with the fourth mark, so could I. So why had I refused it so far? One, it scared me. I wasn’t sure as a Christian how I felt about living forever. I mean, what happened to heaven, and God, and the judgment thing? Theologically, what would it mean? On a more mundane level, how much closer would it bind me to Jean-Claude? He could already invade my dreams, what would it mean if I took that last step? Or was refusing the fourth mark just another way to not give myself completely to anyone? Maybe. But if the only way to keep Belle from taking me was to let Jean-Claude have me, I knew which choice I was making. I wondered, if I called my priest now, could he get back to me on the theological implications of the fourth mark before full dark tonight? Father Mike had answered questions equally as weird for me over the years.

  “Anita,” Jason said, and his voice held a note of anxiety.

  I glanced at him and realized he’d probably been trying to get my attention for a while. “Sorry, thinking too hard.”

  “I think we’re being followed.”

  That raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “When I nearly caused the four-car pileup so I could touch you, I caught a glimpse of a car in the rearview. It was close, like tailgating close. It was one of the cars that nearly hit us when I slammed on the brakes.”

  “So, we’re in heavy traffic, a lot of people tailgate.”

  “Yeah, but everyone else that was close to us when I stopped got away from us as fast as they could. This car is still behind us.”

  I glanced in the side mirror, and saw a dark blue Jeep. “Are you sure it’s the same car?”

  “I didn’t get a number, but it’s the same make, same color, and there are two men in it, one dark-haired, one blond with glasses.”

  I studied the Jeep that seemed to be following our Jeep. Two men, one dark, one light; it could have been a coincidence. Of course, maybe it wasn’t.

  “Let’s go on the theory that it is following us,” I said.

  “What?” Jason said, “I lose them?”

  “No,” I said, “cut across traffic and take the first exit as long as it doesn’t take us to the Circus. I don’t want to lead them to Jean-Claude.”

  “Almost every monster in St. Louis knows that the Master of the City’s lair is under the Circus of the Damned,” Jason said, but he changed lanes, moving us a little closer to the exit row.

  “But the guys behind us don’t know that that’s where we’re headed.”

  He shrugged and moved over two more lanes, setting up for the exit. The blue Jeep waited until we were actually exiting with two cars between us before it crosse
d over. If we hadn’t been watching for it, or there had been a taller car between our Jeep and theirs, I wouldn’t have seen them exit. But I was, and there wasn’t, and I did.

  “Shit,” I said, but I was feeling warmer. Nothing like action to ground and center a person.

  “Who are these guys?” Jason asked out loud what I was wondering.

  Caleb glanced behind. “Why would someone be following us?”

  “Reporters?” Jason made the word a question.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I’d lost sight of everything but the top of the Jeep floating above the car roofs behind us.

  “Which way do I turn?” He’d come to the bottom of the exit ramp.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, dealer’s choice.” Who were they? Why follow us? Usually when people start following me I know that I’m into something. Today, I had no clue. Neither of the current cases that I was helping RPIT with should have had people following me. I wished they were reporters, but the situation didn’t have that feel to it.

  Jason turned right. One car turned left, one turned right, and the Jeep pulled in behind it. There were little flags on the street signs, Italian flags with the words, “The Hill,” on them. People on The Hill always let you know you were there and they loved their Italian heritage. Even the fire hydrants were painted green, red, and white like the flags.

  Nathaniel raised his head off my thigh enough to say, “Is it Belle?”

  “What?” I asked, vision still glued to the side mirror.

  “Are they daytime help for Belle?” he asked in his quiet voice.

  I thought about that. I’d never run into a vamp that had more than one human servant, but I’d run into several that had more than one Renfield. Renfield is what most American vamps called humans that served them not through mystical connections, but because they acted as blood donors and wanted to be vampires themselves. Back when I hunted vampires and didn’t sleep with them, I’d called all humans associated with vamps human servants, now I knew better.

  “They could be Renfields, I guess.”