‘The only reason we didn’t try to cure Ares the way that Asher and Damian cured Nathaniel in Tennessee was that we didn’t have a vampire with us, but you’re here now. You could heal Micah’s dad!’
We were dressed and Jean-Claude was fussing with my hair, using those long, graceful fingers of his to get the curls to lie just right. I stepped away from him enough to see his face. His expression was not comforting.
‘Why can’t you?’ I asked.
‘If it were fresh, I could have tried, but it is days old, ma petite. The doctors have cut away the initial wound and the corruption has spread to other places that have no wound to show.’
‘How do you know all that?’
‘Nicky reported to me on the plane as I traveled to your side. He is a very thorough and dispassionate observer without you awake and aware to feed him your emotions.’
‘So you knew everything I just told you about the vampires,’ I said.
He moved close enough to pick up another of my curls and begin to wind it around his finger. ‘I did, but you gave details that Nicky could not. He has no real psychic ability, or magic, except for being a werelion. It makes his reporting very physical. You add the metaphysical and I need to know that as well. I can ask you questions that he could not answer.’
‘Such as?’ I asked.
‘The Lover of Death is supposed to be dead, killed by other hands, but the Mother of All Darkness was supposed to be dead once before, and she was not. Was this he? Is this the Lover of Death come back from the dead, so to speak?’
I started to just say no, but then I stopped and made myself really think about the question.
Jean-Claude focused on entwining my hair around his fingers, serious as a small child. I let him do it, because my hair would look great, but it was also something that relaxed him. He usually only fussed with my hair as much as he fussed with his own when he was nervous or we were going to be out at some public event.
‘I’ve felt the Lover of Death’s energy when he was combined with Mommie Darkest. This didn’t feel the same. The vampire didn’t do that nifty trick that the council did, kind of appearing in vision above our heads, or in our heads. This one had to use the vampire he’d made as his puppet to talk to us.’
‘But you felt his energy, ma petite; was it the same?’
‘I didn’t feel the presence of this one and think, Oh, it’s the Lover of Death, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Yes, that is what I mean. So it is not him.’
‘No.’ I thought about it as I said it. Something was nagging at me, as if I’d forgotten something important.
‘What is it, ma petite? You look troubled.’
‘Was the Lover of Death able to take over the vampires he made like this?’
‘No, never.’
‘Could he control zombies?’
‘No.’
‘So how the hell did we end up with a master vampire that can jump bodies like the Traveller, make rotting vamps like the Lover of Death, control zombies like a necromancer, and control shapeshifters through a bite from his puppet vampires?’
‘The Traveller can move to almost any body that is his animal to call or a vampire; this master can use only his own creations, which was a gift that the Dark Mother possessed, and when she was in her prime I am told she could control all types of undead, not just vampires.’
‘How about the rotting bite and controlling shapeshifters through it?’
‘She made the Lover of Death, but like Belle Morte’s ability with sex it was something that sprang to life in the Lover of Death’s line of vampires. Most powerful master vampires can control their animal to call through a bite.’
‘Not a bite through another vampire they’ve created and possessed, though,’ I said.
‘I am not sure. I will ask the Traveller if he has that ability.’
‘But either way, Jean-Claude, where the hell did this vampire come from? We don’t have that many rotting vamps in America.’
‘That is true, and one this powerful I should be able to sense, but I cannot.’
I turned and made him stop fussing with my hair. ‘Jesus, that’s right, you’re the king. You can sense vampires that have blood-oathed to you, at least a little.’
‘You sense vampires, too, ma petite.’
‘I can if they’re not master level and not trying to hide.’
‘I believe that even some master vampires could not hide from your necromancy now. We have all gained power from my rising to the head of this country’s vampires.’
‘They gave up the power to you so you’d protect them from the bogey vampires.’
‘They feared the Mother of us all, and what the Lover of Death forced his descendant to do in Atlanta.’
‘He didn’t possess the Master of Atlanta, but he drove him crazy and made him and his vampires slaughter people. It’s similar enough to what this master is doing,’ I said.
‘Perhaps this master was hiding not from the human law, but from the Council.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘This new master is powerful, but he is not more powerful than the Mother of All Darkness, and if he is a rotting vampire, then he descends from Amor de Morte, which means until they were both destroyed he must have feared them possessing or destroying him.’
‘You mean he waited for us to kill everyone he feared and now he’s outing himself to us?’
‘I am not sure it is that simple, because he sounds quite mad. There is no real logic in madness, ma petite, though the mad always believe they are quite logical.’
‘Crazy is never logical outside the head of the crazy person,’ I said.
‘My point,’ he said.
‘So now that we’ve destroyed all his competition, this new master is challenging us, or is he too crazy to care about us like that?’
‘I think the latter.’
‘Shit,’ I said, ‘does he have a body for us to find and destroy?’
‘The Traveller still does, and he is the oldest of us left with the ability to jump from body to body, but if someone destroyed his original form he would die in truth.’
‘But Mommie Darkest didn’t die when her body was burned up.’
‘Non, but the body that had been trapped in Paris wasn’t her original body, or so I am told.’
I thought about it and shook my head. ‘You’re right, it wasn’t. She’d traded bodies before, which was one of the reasons she thought she could take mine or make me get pregnant so she could take the child over.’ I shuddered, as if I could still feel how evil she’d felt inside me. She had been the darkness made real. The night itself giving breath and life so it could slip in your window and do everything you feared would happen in the dark.
He went back to fussing with my hair. I wasn’t the only one who had been afraid of the DARK, if you spelled it with all capital letters.
‘Killing the spirit-walking vamps is so damned hard,’ I said.
‘Oui, you must first trap them in a body long enough to destroy them.’
‘It only worked last time because she wanted to possess my body. It made her stay put long enough for my necromancy and your power to help me kill her.’
‘Then you must find what this new master vampire wants badly enough to stay, as you say, put, so you and Edward can slay him.’
‘Can you help us find him? I mean, you’re king with metaphysical ties to most of the vampires. Can you use those ties to hunt for him?’
‘In all honesty, ma petite, I do not know. The powers attributed to the old Council head, the Mother herself, were more her magic than any power given to her as the leader of the Vampire Council. I am not the first vampire or the creator of our society. I am a leader, but not that kind of leader.’
‘The female vamp was created by him. Maybe if we use her as a link we could trace it back to him like a psychic cell phone. You have her phone turned on, and then you trace where she’s getting her messages from.’
‘
It is a good thought and one worth trying, ma petite.’
‘But you don’t think it will work,’ I said.
‘I do not know, and that is the truth.’
I took in a deep breath, let it out slow, and changed topics while I tried to think of how to find the new big bad vampire. ‘So there’s nothing anyone can do for Micah’s dad?’
‘Nothing that vampires can do for him, I am afraid, but we did save one of your law enforcement officers, Travers.’
I started to turn and look at him, but he kept my face turned so he could keep doing my hair. ‘You sucked the … corruption out of Travers?’ I asked.
‘No, Truth did.’
‘You brought Wicked and Truth with you?’ I said.
‘They are my main guards.’
‘It was more of a risk for Truth to do it. He’s not as powerful as you are,’ I said.
‘I am the king. That makes me powerful enough to have cured the officer, but it also means that I would have been tempted to drain power from local vampires if it went badly. I would not have allowed myself to rot to death for a stranger if I had the energy available to me to live. If I drain the life from wee vampires the first time I visit another master’s territory without asking his permission first, my reputation will be set like the old European council’s. I will be a monster and I do not want that.’
‘Is it that dangerous to feed on this corruption, even for you?’ I asked.
‘You witnessed Damian rotting from helping Asher drain corruption from Nathaniel. If you had not been there as his master to offer him clean and powerful blood, Damian would have died beyond all hope of healing, or recovery.’
‘But Asher had no problem doing it, and he wasn’t as powerful then as he is now, and certainly not as powerful as you are.’
‘Honestly, ma petite, I would not risk all that I am and all that I have for a stranger.’
I tried to turn again, and this time he moved so I could. ‘You wouldn’t risk it for Micah’s dad?’
‘I might have, but he is beyond such cures. No vampire can cleanse his blood now. It is too widespread in his body.’ He moved to the other side and started to patiently fuss with my hair.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but then I had another thought. ‘Edward mentioned that the media were calling it a zombie apocalypse, and I made international news footage.’
‘Oui,’ he said, winding a curl around his finger and not really looking at me.
‘Are we going to have to go through reporters to make the hotel? Is that why you’re fussing with my hair?’ I asked.
‘The police are keeping them well back on behalf of Micah’s family.’ He placed the curl among all the rest and began to work on that one problem area in the back of my hair that almost every person with long curly hair seemed to have.
‘I thought we might have to talk to the press.’
‘There is some talk of a conference tomorrow, but not tonight.’
‘Then why are you fussing this much with my hair?’
He hesitated and then continued to do each individual curl on the back of my head so it would curl and lie just so. ‘It gives me something to do with my hands while I think.’
‘So you are nervous?’
‘Oui,’ he said, softly.
I frowned, couldn’t help it. ‘Are you having second thoughts about the proposal?’
He looked at me then, face showing astonishment. ‘Mon Dieu, no, no!’ He hugged me, then moved back with his hands on my shoulders so we could see each other’s faces. ‘Ma petite, you have made me a very happy man by saying yes. Never doubt that I am ecstatic with our engagement and look forward to making a more formal presentation of it.’
I frowned harder. ‘Formal? Why formal?’
‘Because I am the vampire king of America, and kings do not become engaged quietly.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘It means that once you, Micah, and whoever else we deem involved have worked out the organization of who is marrying whom, then we will announce what we all wish to announce, whatever that is.’
‘Okay, that sounds very reasonable, so why are you nervous?’
‘It seems silly,’ he said. He drew back from me, running his hands down the lace on either side of the pearl buttons of his shirt. The lace was actually inlaid on either side of the button line trailing up to the collar, which was unbuttoned and lying loose over the black velvet jacket, which hit him just past the waist. The last time I’d seen the shirt, the collar had been high and buttoned all the way up his neck so that the soft, embroidered white-on-white lace framed the edge of his chin. He only wore the collar loose when he was at the end of his day and in private.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
He made a sharp, exasperated sound. ‘I am over six hundred years old; you would think I would be past such silliness.’
‘What silliness?’ I asked.
‘We need to gather our young men and retire to the hotel, but I am told that our chat has his family with him.’
Chat was French for cat, which meant Micah. Nathaniel was minet, kitten, or pussycat in French. ‘So we go up and we see how his father is doing. It’s hard, but …’
He shook his head. ‘It is not the sad fate of his father that leaves me so anxious.’
‘Then what is it?’ I asked.
‘The introduction to Micah’s family is troublesome.’
‘Did he not introduce you?’ I asked.
‘I came straight to your side, so he has not had time to introduce me.’
‘Then I am totally confused,’ I said.
He sighed. ‘I am being the girl, am I not?’
‘If you mean confusing, yes.’
‘I want to greet Micah, to comfort him, but I am not certain what he wishes me to do in front of his family. I am a vampire and male. I was told that they are very religious.’
I smiled. ‘Some of them are, but his parents will be okay about the guy-guy part.’ I explained the domestic arrangements of Micah’s parents.
By the time I finished, Jean-Claude was laughing. ‘Micah has agonized about being with Nathaniel and what his family would think, and all this time they have had their own ménage-à-trois. It is too perfect.’
I nodded, smiling. ‘They were cool about all the wereanimal stuff, so I think they’ll be okay with vampires.’
‘So they have welcomed both you and Nathaniel into their familial bosoms?’
I nodded. ‘It went really well.’
‘But a ménage-à-trois is more acceptable than our larger arrangement.’
I had a clue, at last, where he was going with his case of nerves. ‘Are you worried about how Micah will introduce you to his family?’
He gave that graceful Gallic shrug that meant everything and nothing.
I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, and he put his arms around my shoulders. I gazed up at him and smiled. ‘I think the fact that you’re worried about Micah and his family is one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard you say.’
‘It is not sweet, ma petite, it is ridiculous. The only man he loves is Nathaniel, and I know this.’
‘You don’t love him the way you love Asher,’ I said.
‘That is true, but Asher is no longer with us.’
‘Actually, I promised Dev I’d talk to you about Asher.’
‘What of Asher and our handsome Devil?’
‘Dev misses him.’
‘Many of us miss him, ma petite,’ he said, and there was the slightest tone to his voice that let me know just how much of that ‘us’ was him.
‘Have you spoken to him lately?’ I asked.
‘I have.’
I studied that handsome, unreadable face. He was hiding whatever he was feeling and thinking from me, which meant it was something he either didn’t want to share or thought I’d be upset about. I had a smart thought, or a potentially smart thought.
‘Did Asher tell you about the new man in his life?’
‘I’ll take the silence for a yes,’ I said.
‘He mentioned his new beau,’ Jean-Claude said in a voice as empty and neutral as he could manage. Once upon a time I would have thought he didn’t give a damn, but now I knew that sometimes his most neutral tone meant he cared very damn much.
‘Dev was supposed to call Asher while I was cleaning up,’ I said.
‘Was he?’ And again the voice was too neutral.
‘Yes, he was.’ I tightened my arms around his waist. ‘Dev wanted to double-check how many of the mean things Asher said were true and how many were said just to hurt our Devil.’
Jean-Claude looked at me then, his face still carefully neutral. ‘Asher does have a gift for cruel words.’
I nodded. ‘Dev misses him enough that he’s willing to give up everyone but Asher.’
Jean-Claude allowed his expression to thaw a little. ‘What made Mephistopheles change his mind?’
‘He’s never missed anyone as much as he misses Asher. I don’t think he understood that any one person might be worth giving up all the others for.’
‘Has our Devil never been in love before?’
‘Apparently not,’ I said.
‘No, because only love can make of parting such a hell,’ Jean-Claude said.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
His body relaxed around me then, so that he hugged me, rather than simply had his arms around me. That unsettling, almost reptile stillness was just gone, and his body had movement, flow, not just a sense of pulse and life, but as if he could stop his energy, his aura, from moving, too. Maybe that was it? Maybe it was a psychic thing, that vampire stillness, so that they could dampen down not just their physical movement, but all their ‘movement.’
I said, ‘It’s okay if you miss Asher.’
He pulled me in against his body so that my head rested on his chest, cradled against the velvet of his jacket. I snuggled in against him and knew from the softness of the jacket it wasn’t real velvet, but some modern synthetic. The modern stuff was always softer.
Affliction ab-22 Page 32