“Why would she do that?” Jean-Claude asked.
“The Queen of Nightmares can do anything she likes,” Asher said. “She says go to Boston, we go.”
“If she said, walk out into the sunlight, would you do it?” I asked. I glanced at him. He was close enough that turning my head was enough, no mirror needed.
His face was blank and beautiful, empty. “Perhaps,” he said.
I turned back to the road. “You’re crazy, you’re all crazy.”
“Too true,” Asher said. He sniffed my hair.
“Stop that.”
“You smell of power, Anita Blake. You reek of the dead.” He traced his fingers along my neck.
I swerved the Jeep purposefully, sending him sliding around the backseat. “Don’t touch me.”
“The council thought we would find you stuffed with power. Bloated with new-found abilities, yet you seem much the same. But she is different. She is new. And there is that werewolf. Yes, that Ulfric, Richard Zeeman. You have him bound to you, as well.”
Asher pulled himself back up to the seats, though not so close to me. “It is your servants who have the power. Not you.”
“Is Padma anything without his animals?” Jean-Claude asked.
“Very true, though I might not say so in front of him.” He leaned on the back of the seats again, not touching me this time. “So you admit it is your servants who have given you the power to take a council member.”
“My human servant and my wolf are merely extensions of my power. Their hands are my hands; their deeds, my deeds. That is council law. So what does it matter where my power comes from?”
“Quoting council law, Jean-Claude. You have grown cautious since last we met.”
“Caution has served me well, Asher.”
“But have you had any fun?” It was a strange question coming from someone who was supposed to hate Jean-Claude.
“Some, and you, Asher, how fares it with you? Are you still serving the council, or did you come along on this mission to torment me?”
“Yes, to both questions.”
“Why have you not fled the council?”
“Many aspire to serve them,” Asher said.
“You didn’t.”
“Perhaps revenge has changed my aspirations.”
Jean-Claude laid his hand on Asher’s arm. “Ma petite is right. Hatred is a cold fire, and it gives no warmth.”
Asher jerked back, sliding as far back as the seat would let him. I glanced in my rearview mirror. He was huddled in the dark, hugging himself. “When I see you weep for your beloved, I will have all the warmth I need.”
“We’ll be at the Circus soon,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
“I am not sure there is a plan. We must assume they have all our people in thrall. So it will be only what the two of us can do alone.”
“Are we going to try and take the Circus back, or what?”
Asher laughed. “Is she serious?”
“Always,” Jean-Claude said.
“Fine. What are we supposed to do?”
“Survive if you can,” Asher said.
“Shut up,” I said. “This is what I need to know, Jean-Claude. Do we go in there kicking butt, or crawling?”
“Would you crawl to them, ma petite?”
“They have Willie, Jason, and who knows how many others. So, yeah, if it would keep them safe, I’d do a little crawling.”
“I do not think you would be very good at it,” Jean-Claude said.
“I’m not.”
“But no, no crawling tonight. We are not strong enough to retake the Circus, but we go in, as you say, kicking butt.”
“Dominant?” I made it a question.
“Oui.”
“How dominant?”
“Be aggressive, but not foolish. You may wound anyone you are capable of hurting, but do not kill. We do not want to give them an excuse.”
“They think you’ve started a revolution, Jean-Claude,” Asher said from the darkness. “Like all revolutionaries, dead you become a martyr. They don’t want you dead.”
Jean-Claude turned so he could see the other vampire. “Then what do they want, Asher? Tell me.”
“They have to make an example of you. Surely you see that.”
“If I had planned on forging a second council in America, yes, I would see their point. But I know my limitations. I cannot hold a council seat against all comers. It would be a death sentence. I want simply to be left alone.”
Asher sighed. “It is too late for that, Jean-Claude. The council is here, and they will not believe your protestations of innocence.”
“You believe him,” I said.
He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Yes, I believe him. The one thing Jean-Claude has always done well is survive. Challenging the council is not a good way to do that.” Asher slid forward against the seats, putting his face very near mine. “Remember, Anita, that all those years ago, he waited to save me. Waited until he knew he wouldn’t be caught. Waited until he could save me at the least risk to himself. Waited until Julianna was dead, because it was too great a risk to take.”
“That is not true,” Jean-Claude said.
Asher ignored him. “Be careful that he does not wait to save you.”
“I don’t wait around for anybody to save me,” I said.
Jean-Claude stared out the window at the passing cars. He was shaking his head gently, back and forth, back and forth. “I tire of you already, Asher.”
“You tire of me because I speak the truth.”
Jean-Claude turned and faced him. “No, I tire of you because you remind me of her, and that once, a very long time ago, I was almost happy.”
The two vampires stared at each other. “But now you have a second chance,” Asher said.
“You could have a second chance, too, Asher. If you would only let the past go.”
“The past is all I have.”
“And that is not my fault,” Jean-Claude said.
Asher slid back into the darkness, huddling against the seat. I thought Jean-Claude had won the argument for now. But just call it a feeling; I didn’t think the fight was over.
11
THE CIRCUS OF the Damned is in a converted warehouse. From the front it looks like a carnival with posters promoting the freak show, and dancing clowns twirling on top of the glowing sign. From the back, it’s just dark.
I pulled the Jeep into the small parking lot reserved for employees. It was small because most of the help lived at the Circus. No need for a car if you never left. Here was hoping we’d be needing our car.
I turned off the engine, and silence swirled into the car. Both vampires had sunk into that utter stillness that made me have to glance at them to make sure they were still there. Mammals can freeze, but a rabbit frozen waiting for the fox to pass is a vibrating thing. It breathes fast and faster. Its heart pounds. Vampires are more like snakes. A snake will put a length of its body out, then freeze. There is no sense of movement stopped. No sense that movement will continue. In that moment of frozen time a snake seems unreal, more like a work of art, something carved rather than something alive. Jean-Claude seemed to have fallen into a well of silence where movement, even breath, was forbidden.
I glanced back at Asher. He sat in the backseat. Utterly still, a perfect golden presence, but not alive.
The silence filled the Jeep like icy water. I wanted to clap my hands, yell, anything to make noise, to startle them into being again. But I knew better. All I’d get would be a blink and a look. A look that wasn’t human and maybe never had been.
The sound of my dress against the upholstery was loud. “Will they pat me down for weapons?” My voice seemed flat in the charged silence.
Jean-Claude blinked gracefully, then turned his neck to look at me. The look was peaceful rather than empty. I had begun to wonder if the stillness was a form of meditation for the vampires. Maybe if we lived through the night I’d ask.
“This is a cha
llenge, ma petite. They will let us be dangerous. Though I would not flaunt your weaponry. Your little gun is fine.”
I shook my head. “I was thinking of more.”
He raised his eyebrows. “More?”
I turned to look at Asher. He blinked and raised his eyes to me. I hit the dome light and saw his eyes’ true color for the first time. They were blue. But that didn’t do them justice. They were as pale a blue as Jean-Claude’s were a dark blue. Pale, cold blue, the startling color of a husky’s eyes. But it wasn’t just the eyes, it was the hair. It had looked golden, but the normal gold of a dark blond. In the truer light of the car, I realized it wasn’t just illusion and dim light, it was gold. His hair was the truest gold I’d ever seen outside of a bottle or a can of metallic paint. The combination of hair and eyes was amazing. Even without the scars he wouldn’t have looked real.
I glanced from one vampire to the other. Jean-Claude was the more beautiful, and it wasn’t the scars. Asher was just a trace more handsome than he was pretty. “The same vamp made you both, right?” I asked.
Jean-Claude nodded.
Asher just stared at me.
“Where’d she go?” I asked. “Unnaturally-Beautiful-Studs-R-Us?”
Asher let out a harsh bark of laughter. He dragged his fingers down the scarred side of his face, making the skin stretch, drawing it away from his eye so you could see the pale inner flesh of the eye socket. He emphasized everything into a kind of hideous mask. “Do you think I am beautiful, Anita?” He released the skin, and it snapped back into place, resilient, perfect in its own way.
I looked at him. “What do you want me to say, Asher?”
“I want you to be terrified. I want to see on your face what I’ve seen on every face for the last two hundred years—disgust, derision, horror.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He leaned into the seats, showing the scars to the light. He seemed to have an innate sense of what any light would do to the wounds, to know just how the shadows would fall. Years of practice, I guess.
I just looked at him. I met his pale, perfect eyes, gazed on the thick waves of golden hair, the fullness of his lips. I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a hair and eye person, and you have great hair and amazing eyes.”
Asher threw himself back into his seat. He gazed at us both, and there was such rage in his eyes. Such horrible rage that it scared me.
“There,” he said. “There, you’re afraid of me. I can see it, smell it, taste it.” He smiled, pleased with himself, triumphant somehow.
“Tell him what you fear, ma petite.”
I glanced at Jean-Claude, then back at Asher. “It’s not the scars, Asher. It’s your hatred that’s frightening.”
He leaned forward, and I think without meaning to, his hair spilled around his face, camouflaging him. It had the look of long habit, long comfort. “Yes, my hatred is frightening. Terrifying. And remember, Anita Blake, that the hatred is all for you and your master.”
I knew he meant Jean-Claude, and I couldn’t argue with the title anymore, though sometimes I wanted to. “Hatred makes us all ugly,” I said.
He hissed at me, and there was nothing human in the gesture.
I gave him a bored look. “Come off it, Asher. Been there, done that. If you want to play big-bad-vampire, get in line.”
He stripped his overcoat off in an abrupt, violent movement. A brown tweed suit jacket ended up crumpled on the seat. He turned his head so I could see that the scars marched down his neck into the collar of his white dress shirt. He started unbuttoning the shirt.
I glanced at Jean-Claude. His face was impassive, unhelpful. I was on my own. So what else was new?
“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but I don’t usually let a man strip down on the first date.”
He snarled at me. He bared his chest to the light, shirt still carefully tucked into his pants. The scars dribbled down his flesh like someone had drawn a dividing line down the center of his body. One half pale and perfect, the other half monstrous. They’d been more careful of his face and neck. They had not been careful of his chest. The scars cut deep runnels. The skin so melted that it didn’t even look real anymore. The scars flowed down his stomach into the belted top of his pants.
I stared because that’s what he wanted me to do. When I could finally meet his eyes, I had no words left. I’d had holy water poured on a vampire bite before. Cleansed, they called it. Torture was another word for it. I’d crawled and cursed and vomited. I couldn’t imagine the pain he’d survived.
His eyes were wide and fierce and fearful. “The scars go all the way down,” he said.
That left a trail of visuals that I’d been trying to avoid. I thought of a lot of things to say: “Wow,” but it seemed too junior high school and cruel; “sorry” was totally inadequate. I spread my hands wide, kneeling on the seat looking at him. “I asked you once before, Asher. What do you want me to say?”
He pushed himself as far away from me as he could, back against the Jeep’s door. “Why doesn’t she look away? Why doesn’t she hate me? Why isn’t she disgusted with this body?”
Like he was disgusted. It hung unsaid on the air, but it was there in his eyes, in the way he held himself. Unspoken, the words hung in the air with the weight and push of thunder.
He yelled, “Why don’t I see in her eyes what I see in everyone’s eyes?”
“You do not see horror in my eyes, mon ami,” Jean-Claude said.
“No,” Asher said, “I see worse. I see pity!” He opened the car door without turning around. I would have said he fell out of the car, but that isn’t true. He floated upward before he could touch the ground. There was a backwash of wind that swept over me like a storm, and he was gone.
12
WE SAT IN silence for a few seconds, both of us staring at the open door. Finally, I had to fill the silence. “My, people do come and go quickly here.”
Jean-Claude didn’t get the movie reference. Richard would have gotten it. He liked the Wizard of Oz. Jean-Claude answered me seriously, “Asher always was very good at flying.”
Someone chuckled. The sound made me reach for the Firestar. The voice was familiar but the tone was new; arrogant, profoundly arrogant.
“Silver bullets won’t kill me anymore, Anita. My new master has promised me that.”
Liv appeared in the open car door, peering in at us, muscular arms propped on the sides of the door. She smiled broadly enough to flash fangs. When you pass the five-hundred mark like Liv, you only flash fangs when you want to. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat, very pleased about something. She wore a black sports bra and high-cut jogging shorts so that all that body-building muscle gleamed in the streetlights. She was one of the vamps that Jean-Claude had invited into his territory recently. She was supposed to be one of his vampire lieutenants.
“What canary did you eat?” I asked.
She frowned at me. “What?”
“The cat that ate the canary,” I said.
She continued to frown. Liv’s English is perfect, no accent of any kind. Sometimes I forget that it’s not her first language. A lot of the vamps have lost their original accents but they still don’t understand all the slang. But, hey, I bet Liv knew some Slavic slang that I’d never heard.
“Anita is asking why you are so pleased with yourself,” Jean-Claude said, “but I think I already know the answer.”
I glanced at him, then back at Liv. I had the Firestar out but not pointed. She was supposed to be on our side. I was getting the feeling that might have changed.
“Did Liv say, her new master?” I asked.
“She did,” Jean-Claude said.
I raised the gun and pointed it at her. She laughed. It was unnerving. She crawled into the backseat, still laughing. Very unnerving. Liv may have been six hundred years old and some change, but she wasn’t powerful. Certainly not powerful enough to laugh off silver ammo.
“You know I’ll shoot you, Liv. So what’s the joke?”
“Can you not feel it, ma petite? The difference in her.”
I steadied my hand on the back of the seat, gun pointed at her impressive chest. I was less than two feet from her, at this distance the bullet would take out her heart. She wasn’t worried. She should have been.
I concentrated on Liv. Tried to roll her power in my mind. I’d done her before, knew what she felt like in my head. Or thought I did. Her power beat along my skull, hummed down my bones. I could feel her power like a thrumming note so deep and low it was almost painful.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I kept the gun pointed at her. “If I pull this trigger, Liv, even with the boost in power you’ll die.”
Liv looked at Jean-Claude. It was a long, self-satisfied look. “You know I won’t die, Jean-Claude.”
“Only the Traveler could make such an extravagant promise, and hope to keep it,” Jean-Claude said. “You are a little too feminine for his tastes, unless he has changed.”
Her face was disdainful. “He is above such petty desires. He offered me only power and I accepted.”
Jean-Claude shook his head. “If you truly believe the Traveler above the desires of the body, then he has been very…careful around you, Liv.”
“He is not like the others,” she said.
Jean-Claude sighed. “On that I will not argue, Liv. But be careful that his power does not become addictive.”
“You seek to frighten me, but it will not work, Jean-Claude. His power is like nothing I have ever felt before, and he can share it. I can be what I was meant to be.”
“He can fill you to bursting with his power, Liv, it will not make you a master. If he has promised you that, then he has lied to you.”
She hissed at him. “You would say anything to save yourself tonight.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“I thought Liv took an oath of loyalty to you,” I said.
“Oui.”
“Then what’s going on?”
“The council will be very careful to observe the rules, ma petite. The Circus is a public business, thus the council might have crossed the threshold uninvited. Instead, they found someone to invite them inside.”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 50