Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “We have no lions,” Jean-Claude said.

  I thought about it. I thought, I need a lion. I thought about the golden fur, the dark, orange-amber eyes. I put the call out, not for my lion, but for a lion. I felt an answer, like a distant voice. I felt two answering tugs, almost as if I held two leashes. One was reluctant, the other was eager.

  “They’re coming, or at least he is,” I whispered.

  “Who’s coming?” Nathaniel said in that growling voice.

  “Cookie,” I said, because for the life of me I couldn’t think of his real name. All I could think of was what I’d nicknamed him in my head because of his Cookie Monster–blue hair.

  We heard raised voices before anyone knocked at the door. Men’s voices, arguing just outside the door. Lisandro went to the door after Claudia nodded. He opened the door to reveal Cookie with his blue spiked hair, and the brunette werelion. Cutting—no, Pierce. His name was Pierce. Cookie was smiling as he came through the door, wearing nothing but jeans, with a gun stuck inside the waistband. As if the reason for the pants wasn’t modesty, but a place to put the gun. Pierce glowered as he came through the door. He was completely dressed, though his shirt was buttoned crookedly, and his jacket tucked badly on one side to flash the shoulder holster. The gun looked like a Beretta. Not my choice for concealed carry, but then I have small hands.

  I wasn’t surprised to see them. I’d called them. I was surprised to see Octavius, Augustine’s human servant, at their heels. He was dressed as impeccably as he’d been earlier except that he had no tie, and his cuffs were loose in the sleeves of his elegant suit jacket. If the cuffs hadn’t been loose, he wouldn’t even have looked like he’d rushed.

  “This is outrageous,” he said. “First you insult and humiliate my master, then you try to steal his lions. Did you think that since Augustine is asleep for the day you could simply take them?” He got a good look at me on the bed. He stopped, I think, because some of the people in the room had moved so he could see me on the bed. Me and Nathaniel. I don’t know what he thought we’d been doing, but I suddenly saw it through an outsider’s eyes. Me, nude on the bed covered in clear, sticky liquid. Nathaniel nude and excited in leopardman form cuddled in my arms. Other men in the room already nude. What would I have thought if I’d walked in on all this? Probably the same thing Octavius was thinking.

  The look on Cookie’s face showed that he was thinking the same thing, but he was happy about it. He started toward the bed, but Pierce grabbed his arm, held him. Cookie growled at him, and that one trickle of sound made the lion inside me tense.

  “Don’t let her mind-fuck you,” Pierce said.

  “You heard her call, too,” Cookie said. “You couldn’t say no, either.”

  “But I don’t want to go to her. I don’t want her to use me.” He turned the other man so he was facing away from the bed. Cookie had a tattoo of Cookie Monster, as in Sesame Street, on his right shoulder. A happy little Cookie Monster eating cookies. So the hair color wasn’t an accident.

  “I want her to use me.”

  “Fight it,” Pierce said.

  “I don’t want to fight it,” Cookie said.

  “If our master were awake, you would not dare do this,” Octavius said. He walked around them both, walked closer to the bed. Claudia and Lisandro stepped between him and the bed. But it was when he saw Jean-Claude stepping out from the wall that his face fell apart. Fear, fear and confusion, chased over his face. He was totally shocked to see Jean-Claude there. He fought, and finally mastered his face. But the first look was enough, the first look and his remark that Augustine was asleep. For the first time I figured it out. It wasn’t that we’d slept the day away and Claudia and the rest were back on duty. It was that we’d barely been asleep at all, and Jean-Claude had not died at dawn. He, like Damian, did not die at dawn if he slept touching me.

  Octavius gave arrogance, but shelved the anger, as if he didn’t want to start the fight. He bowed. “Jean-Claude, I did not think you would be up. I did not see you standing there. I do have better manners than this; my anger made me forget myself. Please, forgive me.” His words were clear, but he said them a little too fast. I think it was his version of babbling nervously.

  “There is nothing to forgive, Octavius—if you do not hinder us, that is.”

  Octavius faced him, and nothing could keep the discomfort out of the set of his shoulders. “Hinder you in what way?”

  Jean-Claude stood before the man, still nude, but as comfortable as any of the shapeshifters. He wore his body as if it were the most costly robe in the world, or as if he were not aware he was naked. “Augustine said that these two werelions are supposed to be pomme de sang candidates for ma petite.”

  Octavius gave a small nod. “That is true.”

  “We may have been too hasty with our rejection of them earlier. I believe that there were errors of etiquette on both sides, would you not say that was true?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps we were all a little hasty earlier,” Octavius admitted, his voice showing that he wasn’t sure where this was going, and was trying to be cautious without being insulting. I think if Jean-Claude hadn’t been standing there, and his own master dead to the world, he’d have been less cautious and more angry. Hell, if it had just been me and the shapeshifters, I think he’d just have told us to go fuck ourselves, or some polite version of that.

  “Ma petite would taste one of your lions now. I think in light of all that has happened it might be well to cement a stronger tie with your master. We are, after all, two of the most powerful masters in this country, and between us we are certainly the most powerful territories in the middle of this country.” I followed the phrasing. It implied, but did not say, that between the two of them they could rule the middle of this country, and wouldn’t it be better to be allies than enemies? Or maybe I was actually picking up a little of Jean-Claude’s thoughts, just a touch. He had no intention of doing some sort of war of conquest, but to imply it gave us both the leverage of fear and greed. Fear of being our enemy, and greed to take part in the spoils if we did decide to conquer. Jean-Claude played him.

  Octavius licked his lips, then stood a little straighter as if he’d realized he was slumping. “Perhaps. I know that Augustine’s intent was to offer the lions as pommes de sang. Or as barter for one of your females.”

  “I do not barter my people. I believe ma petite made that clear to your master.”

  Octavius nodded. “Yes, very clear.” Anger threaded through his voice, and he fought it off, so that his next words were empty and unoffensive. “I think it would please my master if you found his pomme de sang candidates worthy of attention.”

  Jean-Claude looked at me then. His face was empty, lovely, but it was his voice in my head, soft, the merest brush of contact, that told me what he wanted. “Call them.”

  I held my hand out to them, and said, “Come to me.”

  Cookie turned immediately, only Pierce’s hand on his arm stopping him. “Don’t make me fight you, Pierce.”

  “If he is not strong enough to resist,” Octavius said, “release him to his fate.”

  Cookie looked at Octavius. “You don’t understand; I don’t want to resist her. I want her to take me.”

  Pierce tried to turn Cookie back to him. “Don’t you see, that’s wrong. She’s already rolled you, man. She’s already done you, and you don’t even know it.”

  “Maybe, but if that’s what’s happening, I’m okay with it.” The edge of smile I had seen vanished, and his voice was low and serious when he said, “Take your hands off me, Pierce. I won’t ask again.”

  “Let him go,” Octavius said. “That is an order, Pierce.”

  Pierce gave him an angry look, but he let the other man go. He even raised his hands in the air, as if it wasn’t his fault.

  There was a small part of me that wanted to see if I could force Pierce to come too, but Cookie was coming. One lion was enough, for now.

  23

  CLAUDIA STOPP
ED HIM, standing in his way, towering over him. It was probably the first time he’d met a woman tall enough and muscular enough to do that. Just seeing his reaction to it would say a lot about him.

  “Call your rat off, Blake,” Cookie said.

  “Give up the gun and I move,” she said.

  “I was more armed than this when she touched me earlier.”

  “Then you were bodyguarding your master, now you’re about to get up close and personal with one of mine.” Her voice was low and matter-of-fact. I thought it was interesting that she implied I was one of her masters. News to me.

  I could see one shoulder enough to know he shrugged, then he must have handed the gun over, because Claudia moved aside.

  He padded toward the bed on bare feet, the first button of his jeans already undone. Had it been before, or had he caught the gun on it as he pulled? The last would be careless. Was he careless?

  I was way too calm. I watched him come toward the bed with a detachment that surprised me. It was like a type of shock, almost, or…the lion was utterly dispassionate about the man walking toward us. In some ways animals are more reactive than we are; people mistake that for emotion, but it’s not. There was no emotion from the cat in my head. She waited. Waited with a sort of cold, wary patience, as if she could have watched him forever, and felt nothing. It was his choice whether we got along, or chased him away. If he did something stupid, or weak, she wouldn’t accept him. She’d kill him before she’d accept him, but there was no passion to the decision. It was colder than any thought I’d ever had, except when I’d decided to kill. Then there is a moment of cold clarity, a moment of something that is almost peaceful. My moment of peaceful sociopathy was stretched to an eternity in the head of that big cat.

  Nathaniel moved, and that made me turn to him, but the lion in my head roared at me, swiped a claw across the inside of my body. She let me know that she needed my eyes and had no interest in leopard. The pain of her claws spasmed through me. I was partially healed from what I’d done with Nathaniel, but that one swipe showed me that I was still hurt. Hurt in places that there’d be no way to bandage. Part of me wanted to fight her, and turn to Nathaniel, but I knew if I did, she’d do worse. I fought my own stubbornness for a moment, eyes closed, concentrating. Trying to decide if I’d grown up enough to let this small loss go, or if I had to win at every damn thing. If I let the lion think it could boss me around, would that set a bad precedent for later? Then a thought came to me; the lion was me. I was fighting with myself. How terribly Freudian, or would it be Jungian? Either way, how strangely me.

  The thought was so me, that it opened my eyes. Cookie was standing beside the bed. His hands were at his sides. The look on his face was eager, but wary, as if he’d finally figured out that something might be wrong. His blue hair was flattened on top as if he’d been asleep when I’d called him. His eyes were very blue as he stared down at me. I could see the tattoo on his left shoulder now: the faces of Bert and Ernie. I sensed a theme.

  “Any more tattoos?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, want to see?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You called me,” he said, and his voice was softer, as if he wasn’t sure what was happening, and was finally not sure he was happy to be here. Cautious, at last. It pleased the cat in my head. Pleased me, too, I guess.

  Micah said, “She needs to give you her beast.”

  Cookie turned to him, frowning. “I don’t understand.” His nostrils flared, as he scented the air. “She smells like lion, but she smelled like leopard earlier. She smelled like wolf, too.” He shook his head, as if clearing his mind from the scent. He looked down at me, frowning, speaking softly. “What are you?”

  The truth would have been, I wasn’t sure, but some of the people in this room weren’t our friends. Octavius would be our enemy if he could. I was about to try for half-truth, when Jean-Claude stepped up beside the bed and spoke. “Ma petite seems to have the ability to acquire the animals of the vampires she comes in close contact with. I knew she gained wolf through me, as some servants do. She gained leopard through contact with another. It may be her closeness with your own master that has brought lion to her.” Not a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the whole truth. But hey, I had no better suggestions.

  “That would make her very dangerous,” Octavius said from near the door. He and Pierce were still close to the door as if for a quick getaway.

  “It would make her powerful, yes,” Jean-Claude said.

  “Dangerous,” Octavius said. “Do the other masters know that they risk seduction and the loss of their animals to you, Jean-Claude, or are we your first victims?”

  Jean-Claude sighed, and the sound echoed through the room, and slid over my skin. The lioness paced, growled low and deep, and the sound slid from my lips. “Don’t,” I said.

  “My apologies, ma petite,” he said. He turned to Octavius. “Truth then between us, Octavius, before you think even worse of us. I know you of old; you will spread these rumors. So I give you truth, and I will know if you tell, because no one in this room will tell but you.”

  “I do not gossip.”

  “You have always gossiped.” He motioned to me. “Anita holds different types of lycanthropy inside her.”

  “That is not possible.”

  “Nor is it possible for her to have a vampire servant, or an animal to call that is not mine, but those are true things.”

  “We had heard, but we thought the servant was rumor.”

  Jean-Claude shook his head. “Augustine is powerful enough to see truth. When he sees her with Damian, he would know the truth anyway. I tell you only a night early, oh, a day early.” He said it as if he had just remembered that he was up at dawn. He had so not forgotten. “I swear to you that human doctors have drawn her blood and tested it. She carries more than one strain of lycanthropy, and yet has not shifted to any. She holds the animal but seems unable to turn. They have tried to tear their way out tonight, and still she cannot shift.”

  Micah added, “She’s stuck at that point where the beast is trying to get out, and you don’t know how to let it out.”

  “Ouch,” Cookie said. He looked down at me, smiling. “You’ve had a hard morning.”

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  “Yes he does,” Nathaniel growled from beside me.

  The two shapeshifters looked at each other. It was a long look. “Yeah, I remember the first time, we all do.”

  “She fought, fought it to a standstill.”

  He looked at me, eyes narrowing. “You can’t do that, no one can.”

  “Never underestimate how stubborn Anita can be,” Richard said from across the room. “You’ll regret it, if you do.”

  I looked at him. He’d taken one of the chairs near the fireplace, as far from the bed as he could get without leaving the room. He was mostly in shadow, so that I couldn’t see his face well. But then again, maybe I didn’t want to see his face right then.

  “Don’t mistake force of will for stubbornness,” Micah said. “There is a difference.”

  “It looks the same to me,” Richard said.

  “It would,” Micah said.

  A low growl trickled from Richard, and it echoed through the room, much the way Jean-Claude’s sigh had. The sound made me shiver but not with the promise of sex; it flared across my skin like heat, and the lion reacted to it. She spilled into my skin like the leopard had done, like the wolf had done. I was suddenly writhing on the bed, screaming again. I did not want to hurt again. But if I didn’t want to be wolf, I sure as hell didn’t want to be lion. I didn’t even know the lion pride here well. Shit. If sheer force of will was keeping me in human skin, my will was getting worn down. Eventually, I’d lose this fight. I didn’t want it to be now.

  I reached out for Cookie. He grabbed my hand, almost by reflex. I dragged him down to me, and he didn’t fight me. He could have, but he came to me. He laid his body on top of mine while the lion tried to come out. She
stretched, stretched, impossibly huge, trying to thrust claws out through my fingers and toes. She couldn’t come out, but those metaphysical claws cut through my skin. I screamed. I raised my hands up to hold him to me, and there was blood flowing down my fingers. Sweet Jesus, help me.

  From far away I heard Cookie say, “What do I do?”

  “Kiss her,” someone said.

  He kissed me. The moment his mouth touched mine, I let the lion go. I let it plow into him. With Nathaniel I’d tried to be a little controlled, but I was all out of control today.

  It hurt for it to leave me, like someone had thrust a shovel down my throat and was digging out my internal organs in one ripping, burning line. I screamed into his mouth, and he screamed back. He kept his mouth on mine, even while his body began to writhe in pain. His hands dug into the bed on either side of me, holding on, holding on, while that line of tearing, ripping, burning power ripped him open. There was no moment of bones sliding, or reshaping. One minute he was human, the next his skin had exploded outward, raining on the room in thick wet globs. The body under my hands was dry and furred, and the cheek I touched had a fringe of thick, golden mane. I had to wipe thick goo out of my eyes to be able to see. I wiped off bits of him that were thicker than clear liquid. The power had literally blown him apart. I had a moment to wonder if his tattoos would survive; then I could see his face.

  His eyes were golden, in a face that was a pale gold, with a mane around his head like a furry halo. The face was that strangely graceful mix of human and cat. His shoulders were broader than the leopards’, everything more muscular. His suddenly nude body was pressed between my legs, but not happy to be there. I had a glimpse of his tail flicking behind him, then he collapsed, partially on me and partially beside me.

  Where his weight hit, my body hurt. I made a small sound, and he rolled off me and lay there on the liquid-soaked sheets. He looked like some primitive golden god hunted to death. I lay where I was, covered in something I didn’t even want to see. It felt too thick, too…just too. I tried not to look at it, or think about it. I lay there covered in bits of his body, and knew I’d hurt him, badly.