“Very rare, in fact less than ten cases reported in this country. If the worst happens and it’s Vlad’s syndrome, then we have time to fix it. If it’s Mowgli syndrome, depends on the animal.” I heard computer keys clacking. “Do you know what type of shapeshifter he was?”
“It was only once, and yeah—” I stopped defending myself, and just said, “…leopard, okay, leopard.” Sweet Jesus, I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
I heard the computer keys again. “Leopard is between ninety and a hundred and six days, an average of around ninety-six days.”
“So?” I said.
“A human’s gestation is two hundred and eighty days.”
“Still, so what?”
“So this: I’ll assume you don’t have severe Mowgli syndrome, or you’d know it by now. You’d be almost ready to deliver.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“No,” he said, “but you don’t have that, obviously. You could still have a less severe version of Mowgli syndrome. If you do, then the pregnancy could kick into high gear, and you could go from being barely pregnant to being ready to deliver, in a matter of days.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m looking at the medical literature as we speak. The Internet is a wonderful tool sometimes. Two cases in this country of women who had milder forms of Mowgli syndrome. Even with the test, Anita, all we can tell you is yes or no. Think of it like Down syndrome; we can test and know if you have it, but even an amnio wouldn’t tell you the severity of it.”
“Vlad’s syndrome is an automatic abortion—what about Mowgli syndrome?” I asked.
He hesitated, then said, slowly, “Not automatic, no, but the birth defects can be pretty, um, severe.”
“It’s never good when your doctor sounds nervous, Dr. North. What am I missing that’s put that tone in your voice?”
“If you have even a mild form of Mowgli syndrome, then by Monday the fetus could come up on an ultrasound as over the age limit for abortion in this state. You really do not want to be out of options on this particular birth defect, Anita.”
O-kay, I thought. “Two o’clock, right?”
“Meet me at St. John’s, just come straight up to the maternity ward.”
My heart pounded up into my throat. “Maternity ward? Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself there, doc?”
“At my office, we’ll have to send out the blood for testing. At the hospital, we’ll get all the results back much faster. Depending on the test results, if we want a closer look, the hospital is set up with the ultrasound equipment we’ll want for this.”
“You’ve got ultrasound at your office,” I said.
“We do, but they’ve got more sensitive equipment at the hospital. We’ll get more information much quicker, and speed really is of the essence here, Anita.”
“Okay, I’ll be there at two.”
“Great.”
“Your bedside manner sucks today, by the way.”
He laughed. “I know you, Anita. If I didn’t scare you, you’d find excuses to delay coming in.”
“Did you exaggerate to scare me?” I asked.
“No, sorry, but no. I just told you more bluntly than I would normally have told a patient. But then most of my patients don’t need rough treatment just to get them into the office.”
“You’re not wanting me in the office, doc, you’re wanting to see me at the hospital. I only go to hospitals when I’ve gotten hurt in the line of duty.”
“Are you backing out on me?” he asked.
I sighed. “No, no, I’ll be there.” I thought of something, and figured I should ask. “I can bring company with me to the maternity ward, right? I mean it’s not like when I was a kid, and all restricted, is it?”
“You can bring a friend to hold your hand, if you want, but since we may have to do a pelvic exam, it should be a close friend.”
Pelvic exam, shit. “At least one of them will be close enough to stay in the room. The rest can wait outside.”
“The rest?” He made it a question.
“At least one boyfriend, maybe more, and bodyguards.”
“Bodyguards? Are you in danger?”
“Almost always, but this isn’t…it’s not like bad guys trying to hurt me, or anything. Let’s just say that I think this will be a pretty stressful visit for me, and for the foreseeable future I shouldn’t be going anywhere stressful without muscle.”
“Is that supposed to be a riddle?” he asked.
“Not on purpose,” I said.
“You’re usually pretty straightforward, Anita.”
“Sorry, but this isn’t something I can really explain on the phone.”
“Okay, does it affect your health, and this situation?”
I thought about it, then said, “Maybe, yes. I guess it does.” I realized if I shapeshifted for real that I’d lose the baby, and this entire medical emergency would be over before we’d even decided what to do about it. But I just couldn’t think of a quick way to explain what had been happening to me. “Can I bring the extra people?”
“If I say no?”
“Then we have a problem.”
“How many extra?”
“Hopefully no more than four.” I did quick math in my head. Two bodyguards, and at least one of each beast I held inside me. “Five.”
“Five,” he said.
“At least two of them will be boyfriends.”
“Potential fathers?”
“Yeah.”
“If they’re not disruptive, then I guess so.”
“If anybody gets disruptive, it’s gonna be me,” I said, and I hung up on him. It was rude, but my nerves just couldn’t take any more talk about it. I was scared, so scared that my skin felt cold with it. Cold? I touched my forehead and tried to decide if I really was cold. If I was, then I was endangering Damian, my poor vampire servant, who was the first of my metaphysical men I started draining energy from, if I went too long between feedings. Was I draining him to death, so he’d never wake from his coffin? I’d tamed the ardeur so that it wasn’t as demanding; I could push it off for a few hours, but the price was high. And sometimes the price had almost been Damian’s life. Theoretically, after Damian was dead then I’d start draining Nathaniel. I never wanted to find out if the theory was right.
I checked my watch: ten a.m. God, it had been a long, damn, morning. It was incredibly early for so many of Jean-Claude’s vamps to be awake. So far only master vamps had woken up, and that didn’t include Damian, but still…Was I already draining him, just because I hadn’t fed the ardeur or eaten any breakfast? Real food helped keep the other hungers back, from the ardeur to the beasts. I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet. It wasn’t the time of day, but how long I’d been awake without eating that made it a mistake. Maybe we’d eaten a big enough meal from Auggie last night, but I couldn’t chance that. I needed food. The only question was, which hunger to feed first? Sex, or coffee? Hmm, let me think.
29
IT TURNED OUT to be coffee first. Requiem wasn’t in the bedroom, and Micah came through the door with a tray of breakfast. He didn’t say that I’d waited too long to eat, and maybe endangered Damian, or risked raising my beasts again and hurting myself, or losing the baby, or that by neglecting myself I could make the ardeur more uncontrollable. No, he didn’t say any of that. He just brought in the food and put it on the bedside table. Two cups of coffee, croissants, cheese, and fruit. All food in the Circus was catered because there was no kitchen. The old Master of the City hadn’t kept many humans with her, and hadn’t given a damn for anyone’s comfort but her own. Jean-Claude had remodeled the bathrooms first. Priorities. Frankly, you could get good take-out food, but a decent bathroom, that they don’t deliver. Still, as I looked down at the tray of food, I thought, We need a kitchen.
I took one of the chunks of cheddar first. We’d found that protein worked best at keeping my energy up. Some of us just aren’t meant to be vegetarians.
>
“Are you all right, Anita? You look very…” Micah seemed to give up on finding a word.
I smiled at him. “Thanks for the food, and I’ve got a two o’clock appointment with my gynecologist.”
“Today?” he asked, “Is that wise?”
I nodded, picking up the first cup of coffee. I’d been good and eaten a piece of cheese first, but that wasn’t what I’d really wanted. I took that first sip of hot, strong coffee. Later in the day I’d drown it in sugar and cream, maybe, but first thing, I wanted it black, naked, the way I used to drink all my coffee. I closed my eyes as I sipped, letting the warmth flow through me. Was I addicted to coffee? Probably, but as addictions go, it could have been worse.
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Good coffee.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it, but by two we’ll have most of the vampires awake and moving around down here. We’ll have daywalking visitors, too.”
I nodded, and took a smaller sip this time. “I know.” I told Micah what the doctor had told me.
He blinked at me, that long slow blink that I used sometimes when I was trying to process too much information too quickly. “You have to go.”
“I know,” I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and made myself take a bite of croissant. The croissant was good, soft and buttery, but I wasn’t hungry. I wanted the coffee, but the rest of it I was eating because I had to. Eating to keep everybody alive and well. I’d never been a big breakfast eater, but today I think I was just too nervous. Fine, too scared.
“I’ll go with you, as boyfriend and leopard.”
I nodded. “Nathaniel probably won’t be back in human form by then, I know.”
“You know that Richard had arranged today off from his job.”
I nodded. “He arranged a substitute.”
“He’s going to want to go, you know he will.”
I nodded. “Probably.”
“He can be your wolf,” Micah said.
Someone cleared his throat. Remus was closer to the bed than I remembered. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“I’ll have to have at least two guards with me, so you needed to know anyway.”
He nodded. “Good, but Anita, from what Claudia told me, Richard wouldn’t let you bring his beast. What good is his wolf, if he won’t let you bring it?”
I nodded. “Point, but he’ll still want to go.”
“How about if I make sure one of the guards is a wolf?” Remus said.
“Do it quietly.”
“I’ll make sure Richard doesn’t know,” Remus said. “Though maybe he’ll come through.”
I shook my head. “If he wouldn’t change here in the underground, then he is so not going to want to change in the middle of St. John’s maternity ward.”
“Can’t say that any of us would want to; it’s a good way to get the cops called on you,” Remus said.
I nodded. “I know, and I will do my damn level best to hold my shit together, but I’m scared, and it’s going to be stressful.”
“You need a lion. The new guy isn’t going to be in human form in time for the appointment,” Remus said.
“Didn’t someone mention that Joseph is bringing some of his lions by today so I can pick someone?”
Micah nodded.
“We need to call him, and see how early he can be here,” I said. I’d made myself finish the croissant, and one cup of coffee was gone. I took the lid off the second cup, and leaned back against the headboard. I had some food in me now, so I could allow myself to sip this cup without ruining it with food.
“I’ll check.” He pulled a tiny folding cell phone from somewhere on his person, and stepped away from the bed to give us some privacy. It was illusionary privacy, because he would hear anything we said, but I appreciated the effort.
Micah was wearing a man’s white dress shirt unbuttoned around the tan of his upper body. The sleeves were buttoned tight, but he wore it more like a jacket than a shirt. The jeans had started life black, but were now sort of gray. When he curled up on the bed beside me, his feet were bare. “You’re dressed in clothes you wouldn’t mind shifting in,” I said.
He nodded. He’d pulled his hair back in a ponytail, but missed a few curls, so they framed his face here and there. He looked very winsome, except for his eyes, which were way too serious for comfort.
“You think I’m going to have another”—I waffled my hand back and forth—“attack.”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s just say, I’m prepared.”
I drank my coffee a little faster, because it was cooling. “Have I eaten enough?”
“No,” he said softly.
I hung my head. “My stomach feels like a hard knot today.”
“Either one more croissant, or a whole piece of fruit, or all the cheese.”
I finished the coffee, and reached for the bread. When you didn’t want to eat, bread was less objectionable. I started nibbling at it.
“Jean-Claude needs to know about the appointment.”
“I know.”
“I could tell him.”
I frowned at him. “You don’t trust me to do it.”
He sat up, raising his hands. “I will do whatever will make this easier for you, Anita, but he needs to know as soon as possible that you are going to take his human servant, his animal to call, and at least two or three blood donors with you this afternoon.”
I tossed the half-eaten croissant back on the tray. “If there is another way to do this, tell me, and I’ll do it.”
“I didn’t say that. All I said was that Jean-Claude needs to know.”
“Then go tell him,” I said, and the first flare of anger came.
He didn’t give me hurt eyes, he gave me careful eyes. He tried to hold my hands, and I jerked away. “If you hold me, I’m going to fall apart.”
He pulled back. “No one would blame you if you fell apart.”
“I would.”
He sighed. “You always have to be so strong.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
He slipped off the bed to stand beside it, gazing at me. I didn’t want him standing there looking scrumptious. I wanted to be angry, and I always had trouble being angry when he looked cute. Hell, I had trouble keeping any fight going with any of the men in my life; all they had to do was strip, and they usually won. It was true, and that pissed me off, too.
“Anger is a luxury, Anita.”
I screamed, full-throated, deep and loud. I screamed until it echoed off the walls. I screamed until the door opened and more guards poured in. I yelled at them, “Get out, get the fuck out!”
They turned in a black-shirted mass to Remus. He motioned them out, but he kept two of them, so I was back to four guards. I guess I couldn’t blame him.
“Tell Jean-Claude, and send Requiem to me.” My voice sounded deeper, thicker.
“Anita…”
“If you comfort me, I’m going to lose it.” I looked up at him. “Please, Micah, please, just do what I ask.”
“I’ll talk to Jean-Claude, but are you sure about Requiem?”
“You mean am I sure I want to feed the ardeur on him?”
He nodded.
“No, I’m absolutely sure I don’t want to feed on him, but Jean-Claude and I talked. If I feed on Requiem and he’s mind-fucked again, then I’m too dangerous for the other pomme de sang candidates. I need to feed on Requiem before Auggie rises for the day. Because, if I truly freed Requiem’s mind from the ardeur, then we may be able to use the same technique to free Auggie of us.”
“A lot of ifs and maybes,” he said.
“And maybe I can heal Requiem while I feed. I seem to heal during metaphysical sex, with or without intercourse, sometimes. Meng Die’s little temper tantrum is not going to impress the visiting masters, and we can’t hide it if he’s as hurt as he is now.”
“You could feed off someone else, someone who’s already one of your sweeties.”
/> “You mean, I don’t need another shock for the day,” I said, and I started to laugh, but it ended in a sob that I bit my lip to keep inside. Panic was eating at me, eating holes in all my bones and organs, so that I was getting more and more fragile, and when I needed it most, there’d be nothing there to use; there’d be nothing but the fear.
I whispered, because I didn’t trust my voice any louder. I was either going to start screaming again, or crying. I didn’t want to do either. “Jean-Claude thinks Requiem’s power can overcome my reluctance. I have to feed the ardeur, and I so don’t want to. If Requiem’s power can make me want him, then send him, because right now, I don’t want anyone. I just want to be left the fuck alone.”
Anyone else would have looked hurt, but Micah didn’t. He took it, with that quiet face. He said, quietly, “We all have a breaking point, Anita, all of us.”
I shook my head, over and over. “We can’t afford for me to break today, Micah.”
He sighed. “Someday, I’d like for us to have a little time for you to be able to break down, if you wanted to.” I realized his eyes were glittering with unshed tears.
“Don’t cry,” I said.
“Why not, one of us needs to.” He turned away, with the first tear shining down his cheek.
I grabbed for his arm, and crawled over the bed, and pulled him in against me. And just like I’d known I would, I lost it. I cried, and screamed, and clung to him, and hated myself for doing it. So weak, so fucking weak.
30
SOMEWHERE IN THE middle of breaking down, I realized there were other hands holding me besides Micah’s. I pushed at the hands, half-fought, and half-clung, as if I couldn’t decide whether I wanted not to be touched, or never to be let go. I heard a voice, a hysterical voice, saying, “Don’t want to do this…can’t do this. I can’t do this.” I realized it was me, and even realizing it, I couldn’t stop the babbling. “Can’t do a baby, tests, don’t want to do the ardeur anymore, no more, no more men, no more adding to my life.” The talking fell into sobbing, and finally even that stopped. In the end, I just lay in the curve of their arms, and was quiet. Too tired to move, too tired to protest. Because somehow in the midst of it all, Richard had ended up holding me. His body cradling me. I didn’t feel anything about him holding me. Nothing, I felt nothing, and I was glad. I’d been feeling too much lately, too much.
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