He grabbed me, his hands digging into my shoulders. I saw his head coming forward, but the rest was lost to my sight. He bit me. Sudden, hard, fangs tearing my flesh. I yelled, because it hurt. There was no mind trick or sex to soften it. It just hurt.
I heard a startled male voice in the direction of the closest door. "Shit, another one!"
"She volunteered," Smith said, "to save his life."
"He's a fucking corpse, you can't save his life."
"Marshal Blake made the decision, Roarke, go back to the others."
"Shit," he said again.
I couldn't say anything, couldn't help explain. My hands were on Truth's arms. I think I was going to start struggling. It just fucking hurt.
Jean-Claude was there, harder in my head. "Relax, ma petite, do not fight him."
"I'm not fighting," I thought.
"Yes, you are. You are fighting his powers, you must lower your shields not just between yourself and me, but between him and yourself. Quickly, ma petite, quickly, or we will lose him."
I dropped my shields, the ones that kept out all the other vamps. The ones that were so automatic that I didn't usually notice them. The shields that I had naturally as a necromancer. They fell down, and suddenly... it didn't hurt anymore.
It was like suddenly being thrown into that part of sex where pain is pleasure, where the bite that you'd have slugged someone for is just the best thing you've ever felt.
I'd let him feed on my neck, but I'd been straining away from him, now I relaxed into him. It was like melting into a kiss that caught you off-guard, and suddenly you give in to it. You stop thinking it to death, and just let it be.
I gave myself to the feel of his mouth on my neck, the strength of his hands on my back, the press of his body against mine. His hand slid lower, down to my lower back, and farther, so that he cupped my ass. He pressed us together, bowing his neck and shoulders to keep his mouth sealed to my neck, and pressed our lower bodies tight against one another. Tight enough that I could feel him hard and thick against the front of his body.
I'd lowered my shields, all my shields. The only miracle had been that the ardeur hadn't tried to rise sooner. But it rose now, rose with the press of his body, the sucking of his mouth. Rose through my body, across my skin and into him.
He drew back from my neck with an exclamation, "Mother of Darkness save us, it's Belle Morte!"
I met that wide-eyed gaze. His eyes were bluer now than they had been, or seemed so. "Not Belle, Truth, just me, just Jean-Claude, just us." I whispered the last against his lips. The ardeur wanted me to kiss him, to press our mouths together and feed, energy for energy. I spoke with my mouth almost touching his, "Jean-Claude, help me, help me put the genie back in the bottle. Help me stop this."
"If I help you shield, the ardeur may spread here in the club, where I am."
"Then feed like you did last night. Feed on the willing, but let this cup pass me by tonight. I need to catch a murderer, not fuck everyone we bring over."
"Help us," Truth said, "help us, master."
I felt Jean-Claude's surprise thrill along my skin, as if curiosity was a touch. "Does he want to stop?" His question came out of my mouth, in my voice.
"Yes," Truth breathed it against my lips, so that I could smell my blood on his breath, "yes, help us stop this."
"Why?" Jean-Claude asked.
This question I stopped, because I'd had enough. "Satisfy your curiosity about him later, Jean-Claude. I've got police waiting in the other room. I need this over with."
"Very well, ma petite. " It wasn't like he reached out to me, he was already in me almost as deep as he could go. But reaching was the only word I had for it. He didn't shield me or Truth. He didn't shield anything or anyone. He took the ardeur that was rising in us, and did two things at once. He swallowed the ardeur, and he shut down the link between him and me, tight and final, like slamming a door between us.
I was left alone pressed against Truth's body, our faces still inches apart, but suddenly it was just us. We both let out a breath in shaking unison, as if we'd both been holding our breath.
He moved his arms away, so I could get out of his lap. There was no teasing, no sense of loss from him at the touch of the ardeur and its going away. He seemed as relieved as I did. If I'd had time and could have figured out a way to ask why he was relieved, without sounding like my pride was hurt, I would have. But I had work to do, so I stood up and swayed, and only Truth's hand on my arm kept me from bumping a wall.
"Are you alright?" Smith and Wicked asked at the same time. Smith glared at the vampire, but Wicked's face was neutrally handsome.
"Just been donating a little too much blood lately. I'm fine." To prove it, I stepped back from Truth's hand. I took a few deep breaths, and I was steady. But I was really going to have to see if I could go at least a night without opening a vein.
"I felt your master's power," Wicked said. "My brother is bound to him, but I am not. You promised you would take us both."
"I will, Jean-Claude will, but not tonight. This blood bank is closed for the night."
Wicked gave me a look that said he neither believed nor trusted me. His brother was simply standing beside him, as if he'd levitated to his feet. Maybe he had. He hugged Wicked one-armed across the shoulders. "She'll do what she promised." Truth was smiling.
"Why, because she helped you fight off the ardeur ?"
"Partly."
Wicked shook his head. "You must be even better than that felt, for Truth to trust you this much."
"I saved his life, that tends to impress people."
"Not him, not Truth."
"Fine, but I've got to go question a murder suspect, right now."
"We'll go with you," Truth said.
"Sorry, police business. Thanks for trying to catch the bad guy."
"Your power called to us when you touched Avery," Truth said.
"So when I said, catch him, you had to do it?"
They both nodded.
"Sorry about that."
"I'm not," Truth said.
Wicked gave me another cynical look. "I'll let you know. I'm not sorry, yet."
"Look, I give you my word that as soon as humanly possible I will give you to Jean-Claude."
"Give me?"
I frowned. "I give my word that as soon as humanly possible I will see that you will be bound to our Master of the City, good enough?"
"Promise me that you will bind me as you bound my brother."
"I just did."
"No, you didn't. For all I know you could pass me off to someone else in your master's household. My brother and I go together. To go together, we must go in the same way."
I wished I'd had Jean-Claude to ask, was there a problem with this promise, but he was busy making all the customers at Guilty Pleasures happy. I thought about what he'd asked, and I couldn't see the problem with it, so, I said, "Okay, I promise that I'll bind you like I did your brother. Happy now?"
He gave a small nod, with an even smaller smile.
"Then leave a card or number at one of Jean-Claude's clubs, and we'll arrange another meeting."
"We'll be there," Wicked said.
"Yes," Truth said, "yes, we will be there."
I turned toward the door and the other room. Smith came at my back. I reached my hand out to him. "Gun," I said.
He handed me my gun. I holstered it and kept walking toward the other room and the waiting bad guy and police. I had a vague feeling that I'd missed something just now with Wicked and Truth. "The Wicked Truth" Jean-Claude had called them, why? Just because they killed their bloodline? Or had I missed something. Something I'd regret missing later. I ran it over in my head, and all I had promised was to let Wicked take my blood and bind himself to Jean-Claude and me. That's all I'd promised, so why did I feel like the brothers were going to expect more than I'd offered. I thought, Jean-Claude, what did I just do?
To my surprise, he answered carefully, as if he were shielding me. "We h
ave our warriors, ma petite, just as you wished."
"You can't be done feeding the ardeur , yet."
" Non, but I remember Wicked, of old, and I thought it foolish not to check on you one more time."
"You're holding the ardeur in check while you talk to me mind-to-mind, in a room full of lusty women?"
" Oui. "
"Nice to know our little three-way gained you something."
"You make it sound as if you gained nothing, ma petite. It is you who called the Wicked Truth to us, to you, before they came to my hand. You said only last night that we needed people that could fight, not merely seduce, and less than forty-eight hours later, you have called two of our most legendary warriors to you. That, ma petite, is not just impressive, it is frightening."
I ignored the frightening comment and concentrated on the other part. I didn't remember wishing for fighters, or warriors. I remembered thinking we needed more muscle.
"Then we have more muscle, just as you wished."
I couldn't argue with him, but I'd have to be more careful what I wished for. Lately, it seemed I was getting it, no matter what I wished. Suddenly, the phrase be careful what you wish for had taken on a whole new meaning. I guess I'd just have to be damned careful what I wished for.
69
Of course, what I was wishing the second I entered the next room was that we could catch our serial killers before they killed again. I was pretty secure with that wish. It seemed like a wish we could all live with. They had sat the vampire in the chair with his hands cuffed through the rungs, again, just a delay, but if it went really wrong, a second's delay could save lives. I stared at the vamp's face. His hair was darker than Avery's, a brunette that some would have said was black if I hadn't been standing in the room. His eyes were brown and dark. He was good looking in a standard haven't-I-seen-a-hundred-faces-just-like-that-way, but that wasn't what made me stare. I knew him. At first it was just a niggling in the back of my head, that his face was familiar, then suddenly it came full blown.
"You're Jonah Cooper. I got interviewed about how I felt that one of my fellow vampire hunters had been slain by the vampires. What was that, nearly two years ago now, three?"
His look, which had been neutral, went to hostile. "Four." He said that last word like it was a bad one.
"They're legal now, Cooper, why didn't you come out of the closet and tell people you didn't die in that fire?"
He looked down, then up, and his eyes had gone dark, sparkling with anger and vampire powers. I leaned into him with a smile. I knew what smile I was giving him, it was the cold one that left my eyes dead. My gun was pressed, not too hard to his chest, just over his heart. "Or is it that you let, what was it, six policemen die in the fire?"
"Anita, what's going on?" Zerbrowski asked.
I told him. I didn't have to look up to know that Zerbrowski's face wouldn't be friendly. Nothing pisses off the cops like someone who kills one of their own. "How'd you survive, Cooper?" I asked.
He glared up at me. "You know how."
"You sold them to the vampires you were hunting, didn't you?"
He just looked at me, but he didn't deny it. That was enough.
"He took money to betray cops?" Marconi asked.
"No," I said, "not money."
"No," Cooper said, "not money."
"What then?" Smith asked.
"Immortality," I said, "right, Cooper?"
"Not just that."
"What then?" I said.
"You're the Master of the City's human servant, you know what else."
I blinked at him, not sure what to say, but I leaned back enough so that I wasn't pressing a gun into his chest. I knew what it was like to finally be seduced by the thing you hunted. Mine just happened to be a more traditional seduction. Okay, at least I was still among the living.
"What does he mean?" Smith asked.
Malcolm's rich voice filled the parish hall with its tables and punch bowl. Everything was all set out for cookies and punch, though the punch looked a little red for my tastes, a little thick. "Power, Officer, power and sex, that is what Jean-Claude offers."
"Be careful about the stones you throw, Malcolm, sometimes they get thrown back."
"Is that a threat?"
"No, just a friendly warning that only the pure of motive should cast stones."
"Ask your friend there. Ask him, was it sex with one of us that lured him. I have watched mortals come to this life for centuries for the sake of sex."
"First," I said, "he's not my friend. Second, it doesn't matter why, only that he did it." I'd touched Cooper while I searched him for weapons, and I'd gotten no flashes of information. No images. I hadn't acquired Malcolm's ability to see through touch, I'd only borrowed it. I wanted to borrow it again.
I guess I should at least pretend to try to do it the normal way. I turned to Cooper. "Where is your master? Where is he now?"
"Feeding, most likely."
"Where is the daytime lair?"
He shook his head, with something like a smile on his face. "I won't tell you anything, Anita Blake. I would no more betray my master than you would yours."
"But see, my master doesn't ask me to butcher helpless unarmed women, like yours does."
He shook his head again. "I will not betray him."
Now, technically the vampire had no more rights. I could have put a bullet in his brain now, legally. The warrant read that I could use the force I deemed necessary. No one talked about it much, but I knew, and the rest of us legal hunters knew, that some of us used that part of the warrant to justify torture. I didn't like torture, not on either side of the chains. Besides, Cooper had had a reputation for being tough. We didn't have the time for him to be tough. We needed to know where his master lived.
I walked over to Malcolm. He didn't look happy to see me that close to him. "What do you want, Ms. Blake? You have your villain, take him and go."
I lowered my voice so only we and the soon-to-be-dead Cooper would hear. "Try to read my mind by touch again."
"I did not..."
"If you deny it, I'll make sure that all those people that you've done negotiations with over the years know exactly how you outsmarted them. A shake of the hand, and you had them."
"I did not bespell anyone."
"No, but you read their minds, took knowledge from them, against their will. That's illegal."
"Is that a threat again, Ms. Blake?"
"Negotiation is simple with me, Malcolm. If you use your little clairvoyant powers on me now, it's our little secret. If you don't, then it won't be our little secret. See? Very simple."
"How can I trust you?"
"Maybe you can't, but what choice do you have?"
I felt his power then, like water filling the room. Once, I'd worried I'd drown in his power. Now, I knew I could swim in it, or simply ignore it. "Grandstanding won't win you any points with me."
"I will do this, but not because you forced me. I want these killings stopped, and if we harbored vipers among us, unbeknownst, then I want to know who they are. I will not have such things done in my church, or by my church members."
"Fine." I held my hand out to him. "Talk is cheap."
He frowned at me, but he gave me his hand, and the moment his fingers touched mine, I felt him riffle through my head. I felt him get a second image of the dead woman. A more complete image. I thrust my power outward like a defending blade. He was prepared this time. He simply drew his hand away and stepped back. "May it give you all the joy it has given me over the centuries."
It sounded like some kind of blessing turned curse, but I ignored it. Malcolm and I could squabble later. I had to use his gift while I still had it. I turned back to the vampire that was still cuffed to the chair.
He'd heard at least part of what Malcolm and I had said. His face was angry, defiant. "I won't talk."
"I won't ask you to."
"What's happening, Anita?" Zerbrowski asked.
"I'm going to find out
what we want to know."
"How?" He looked positively suspicious.
It made me laugh. "God, Zerbrowski, what do you think I'm about to do?"
"I don't know."
That made the laughter fade, and the smile went with it. It's always hard to see your friends look at you like they don't trust you not to be monstrous. "I'm not going to do anything you haven't seen me do already tonight."
He widened eyes at me. "This guy doesn't like you, the other one did."
"It won't matter."
He made a small gesture as if to say, help yourself, but he looked like he'd believe it when he saw it. I guess I couldn't blame him. I reached out toward Cooper's face.
"Don't touch me."
"Would you rather I shoot you?"
He just glared at me.
"Then hold still." If I hadn't been afraid that he'd either try to hurt me with his hands or his teeth, I'd have touched him from behind, but he was a vampire, and you don't cuddle one if you aren't sure about your safety. I touched him from the side, so if he tried to bite me I'd feel it, and could move. I touched the side of his face. He was clean shaven, but he was also cold. He hadn't fed tonight.
I thought, Who is your master?
He fought me. He tried to think random thoughts. I got chaotic images. I saw the second stripper, the one from last night. I saw her alive and dancing on the stage. I saw a cloaked figure huddled by her stage.
"No!" he jerked his head away from me.
I pressed my hip against his arm and put a hand on either side of his head. His hair was soft, but not as soft as Avery's. Cooper's hair had the texture of someone who, if they let it grow out at all, it would have body and wave to it.
"Don't," he said, but it wasn't a shout this time. He tried to think of anything, everything. But somewhere in those confused images, I recognized a face. A woman's face. I remembered her at a banquet table. I remembered her at Belle's court. It wasn't my memory.
I thought, Jean-Claude. He whispered through me, and this time I got a sense that he was busy, or about to be. "Do you need me to come to you, ma petite? I can put this off."
I said it out loud, but for his ears, though more heard it. "Who is she?"
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