Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  I wasn’t horrified anymore. Raina thought it would be a grand thing to fuck him as he died. I laid my lips against his, and his lips were cool, dry. I pressed my mouth over his and felt that fire pour into his mouth from mine.

  My fingers found the wounds in his chest and stroked them, pushing my fingers into the wound. The paramedic tried to pull me off of him, and Jason and someone else pulled her away. I dug into the wound until Nathaniel’s eyes opened and he moaned with pain. His eyes fluttered, pale, pale lilac in the artificial light. He looked up but didn’t see me, didn’t see anything.

  I covered his face in soft kisses, and each touch burned. I went back to his mouth and breathed into him. When I drew back, his eyes focused. His breath eased out in something too low to be a whisper. “Anita.”

  I straddled his body and laid my hands on his bare chest. I covered the wounds with my hands, but I touched the inside of his chest with something other than my hands. I could feel the damage. I could roll his damaged heart in the heat that fell from my hands, that sank into his skin, that filled his flesh.

  I was burning alive. I had to feed the heat into him. Had to share this energy. My hands left the wound on his chest and fumbled at my shirt. The dress shirt came off and vanished into the grass, but the tank top was trapped under the shoulder holster. Hands helped me slip the holster off my shoulders. It flopped heavy and awkward over my hips. I undid the belt and I think it was Marianne who helped me slip the belt out of the loops. I know it was Marianne who stopped me from undoing my pants. Raina snarled in my head.

  Hands caressed up my bare back and I knew it was Richard. He knelt behind me, legs straddling Nathaniel’s legs, but putting no weight on them. He cradled me back against his body. I was suddenly aware that we were the focus of the pack. They surrounded us like a wall of faces and bodies.

  Richard’s hands slipped off the spine sheath and the blade down my back. His hands found my bra strap and undid it. I started to protest, started to hold it, and he kissed my shoulders, sliding his lips down my back and sliding the bra away. He whispered, “Bare skin is best for this.” That prickling rush of energy filled the watching lukoi, filled them and spread into me. The energy of the munin fed on that power, grew until I thought my skin would burst with it.

  Richard guided my body to Nathaniel’s. My bare breasts touched Nathaniel’s chest, a brush of velvet skin against the torn flesh of his smooth chest. I shuddered against him, and that heat spilled from my bare skin. At first it was as if my naked flesh rode above his skin on a pool of sweat, then I felt the flesh give. My body fell against his with a sigh, and it was as if our bodies became plastic, liquid. Our bodies melded together into one flesh, one body, as if I were sinking into his chest. I felt our hearts touch, beating liquid against one another. I healed his heart, closed his flesh with mine.

  Nathaniel’s mouth found mine, and the power flowed between us like breath until it raised the skin from my body, and there was nothing but his arms around me, his mouth on me, my hands on his body, and distant like an anchor I felt Richard, and beyond him the rest of the pack. I felt them offer their energy, their power, and I took it. And beyond that, distant as a dream, I felt Jean-Claude. I felt his cool power join with ours and strengthen; life from death. I took it all and thrust it into Nathaniel until he tore his mouth from mine and cried out. I felt his body give under mine, and his pleasure rushed over my skin, and I threw it out into the waiting pack. I took their energy and gave them back pleasure.

  The munin left me in that rush of startled voices. Raina had never been able to take power from others. That was my doing. So even the bitch of the west had never pleasured this many people at once.

  I sat up, still straddling Nathaniel. He looked up at me with his lilac eyes and smiled. I ran my hands over his chest, and there was no wound, only a healing scar. He still looked pale and awful, but he’d live.

  Richard offered me the dress shirt I’d dropped. I slipped it over my breasts and buttoned it. I didn’t know what had happened to the rest of the clothes. Jason had my shoulder holster and knife. The important stuff.

  When I tried to stand, I stumbled, and only Richard’s arms kept me standing. He helped me through the crowd. They touched me as we moved through, running their hands along me. I didn’t mind or didn’t care. I put my arm around Richard’s waist and accepted it for tonight. I’d worry about what it all meant tomorrow, or maybe even the next day.

  Verne stepped out of the crowd. “Damn girl, you are good.”

  Roxanne was at his side. “I’m healed. How did you do that?”

  I smiled. “Talk to Marianne.” I kept walking.

  The paramedics were rushing forward. I heard the woman say, “Holy shit! It’s a miracle.” And maybe it was.

  Richard said, “I won’t be looking for another lupa.”

  I hugged him. “No more auditions?”

  “You are my lupa, Anita. Together we could be the most powerful mated pair I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s not just the two of us that make us powerful, Richard. It’s Jean-Claude.”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “I felt him when you called the power. I felt him give his power to us.”

  We’d stopped walking. I turned to look at him in the moonlight. “We are a threesome, Richard, like it or not.”

  “A ménage à trois,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Not unless you’ve been doing more than just talking with Jean-Claude.”

  Richard laughed and hugged me. “He hasn’t corrupted me quite that far.”

  “Glad to hear it.” We walked down the hill, holding each other. Charlotte was lying at the bottom of the hill on a stretcher.

  She reached her hands up to both of us. One of the hands was thickly bandaged. She smiled up at us. “Why didn’t you tell me, Richard?”

  “I thought it would make a difference. I thought you would stop loving me.”

  “Silly ass,” she said.

  “That’s what I told him,” I said.

  Charlotte started to cry softly, pressing Richard’s hand to her lips. I just smiled and held her hand. Life wasn’t perfect, but standing there watching Richard and his mother, holding their hands, it was close.

  46

  DANIEL’S NOSE WAS badly broken. The perfect profile isn’t quite as perfect. He says the women love it, makes him look tough. Daniel has never spoken to me about what happened. Neither has Charlotte, but on the first Sunday dinner after they both got out of the hospital, she broke down and cried. I was the one who went into the kitchen first. She let me hold her while she cried, saying how silly she felt, that everything was all right. Why should she be crying?

  If I could do resurrection for real, I’d bring Niley and all the rest back and kill them more slowly.

  Richard’s family thinks I can do no wrong, and they are not being subtle about their plans. Marriage—we should get married. Under other circumstances, not a bad idea. But we aren’t a couple. We’re a trio. Hard to explain that to Richard’s folks. Hard to explain that to Richard.

  Howard Grant, the psychic, is in jail for fraud. He confessed to some things he’d done in the past. I told him if he didn’t spend some time in jail, I’d kill him. His greed had started everything. He didn’t touch Charlotte or Daniel. He was horrified at what Niley was and what was happening, but his lies set it all in motion. He couldn’t get away scot free. I just gave him a choice of punishments.

  The police think Deputy Thompson fled the state. They’re still looking for him, and none of us are talking. I don’t know what Verne’s pack did with the body. Maybe it’s hanging on their tree waiting for a Christmas that will never come. Maybe they ate him. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

  The Vampire Council didn’t send anyone to kill us. Apparently Colin overstepped his bounds. We were within our rights to kill him, and his people. He didn’t survive his servant’s death. There is no new Master of the City yet. Verne and his pack are in no hurry for Colin’s replac
ement.

  I wake from dreams that aren’t my own. Thoughts, feelings, not my own. It is overwhelming enough to be in love, in that first heat of lust, but the marks are sucking me inside both of them. They’re swallowing me up. Every act of sex makes it worse. So . . . no more sex. I have to get control of the marks first.

  When I was sleeping with both of them, Richard catted around. Now that I’ve gone celibate, so has he. Jean-Claude, I think, knows I’m still looking for a good excuse to say, “Hah, see, you don’t really love me.” So he’s behaving himself like some dark angel.

  I took a month off and went back to Tennessee to learn from Marianne. Learning to control the munin is helping me to control the marks. Jean-Claude as my only teacher is just not a good idea. He has too much invested in me. I’m learning to put up barriers. Barriers so tall, so wide, so solid, that I’m safe from both of them. Safe behind my walls.

  But sex brings all the barriers crashing down. It’s like drowning. I think if I allowed it, and they allowed it, we could become like one organism with three parts.

  Richard doesn’t seem to see the danger. He’s still naive, or perhaps I just don’t understand him. I love him, but even thinking his thoughts, feeling his emotions, he’s still a mystery to me.

  Jean-Claude knows the danger. He says he can keep it from happening, but I don’t trust him. I love him, sort of, but I don’t trust him. I’ve felt his chortling joy as the power of the tri-umverate grows.

  He told me once he loved me as much as he was able. Maybe he does, but he loves power more.

  So, celibate again, damn it. How to be chaste with the two preternatural studs of all time at my beck and call? Be out of town.

  I’ve taken every animating job out of town that I could for three months. I spend weekends with Marianne. I have a great deal of power inside me, not the marks, but me. I’ve avoided confronting that power as much as possible, but Jean-Claude has forced me to face it. I have to learn how to control the magic.

  It sounds silly that someone who raises the dead for a living has been ignoring that she has magic inside her, but I have. I’ve always learned the minimum to get by. That’s over.

  Marianne tells me that I have the tools to survive in the tri-umverate. Until I feel confident in those tools, I’m avoiding the boys. Three months of not touching either of them. Of no one sharing my bed. Three months of not being lupa. I had to leave the pack to leave Richard. But I couldn’t leave the wereleopards. They don’t have anyone else but me. So I’m still Nimir-ra. Marianne is even teaching me how to forge the leopards into a healthy unit. She and Verne.

  I’ve abandoned as much of the preternatural stuff as I can. I have to find out what’s left of who I thought I was.

  I faced a demon with my faith and prayer. Does that mean God has forgiven me my sins? I don’t know. If He has forgiven me, He’s more generous than I am.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2001 by Laurell K. Hamilton

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://us.penguingroup.com

  ISBN: 1-101-14639-7

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: November, 2002

  This one is for all the Edward fans, who by their letters, questions, and sheer interest let me know that they were as interested in knowing more about him as I was.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Michael Miller who told me more about guns, and weapons in general, than I’d ever hoped to know. To Masaad Ayoob, who caught last-minute gun mistakes. He did not have the opportunity to read the entire book before final edit, so any missed gun mistakes are mine and mine alone. Steve (S. M.) and Jan Stirling, who read the book over to make sure I’d captured the flavor of the Santa Fe area. To all the people who made me feel so welcome in Santa Fe and Albuquerque while I wandered around asking questions and absorbing the atmosphere. And for my husband, Gary, who took care of our daughter Trinity while I was in New Mexico. And for Trinity, who shared my office chair while I finished the last third of this book. Chuck Holmes of the Bernallio County Sheriff’s Department, who answered my last-minute questions. To Deborah Millitello, who deserves special thanks for braving the wilds of New Mexico with me, sprained ankle and all. As always to my writing group, the Alternate Historians, who have been with me from the beginning: Deborah Millitello, Mark Sumner, Sharon Shinn, Marella Sands, Tom Drennan, N. L. Drew, and W. Augustus Elliot. Due to time constraints not everyone got to read this book, so it will be new to you guys, as well. What a switch.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For those of you who have never read an Anita Blake novel before, let me tell you a bit about her world.

  It’s just like the world we all live in—except that the creatures of the night—vampires, werewolves, zombies and such—are not the stuff of fiction. They are here-and-now. We co-exist with them—not always happily, not always peacefully.

  And sometimes we get to know them all too well . . .

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

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  EPILOGUE

  1

  I WAS COVERED in blood, but it wasn’t mine, so it was okay. Not only was it not my blood, but it was all animal blood. If the worst casualties of the night were six chickens and a goat, I could live with it, and so could everyone else. I’d raised seven corpses in one night. It was a record even for me.

  I pulled into my driveway at a quarter ’til dawn with the sky still dark and star-filled. I left the Jeep in the driveway, too tired to mess with the garage. It was May, but it felt like April. Spring in St. Louis was usually a two-day event between the end of winter and the beginning of summer. One day you were freezing your ass off and the next day it’d be eighty plus. But this year it had
been spring, a wet gentle spring.

  Except for the high number of zombies I’d raised, it had been a typical night. Everything from raising a civil war soldier for a local historical society to question, to a will that needed a final signature, to a son’s last confrontation with his abusive mother. I’d been neck deep in lawyers and therapists most of the night. If I heard, “How does that make you feel, Jonathan (or Cathy, or whoever)?” one more time tonight, I’d scream. I did not want to watch one more person “go with his or her feelings” ever. At least with most of the lawyers the bereaved didn’t come to the graveside. The court-appointed lawyer would ascertain that the zombies raised had enough cognitive ability to know what they were signing, then he would sign off on the contract as a witness. If the zombie couldn’t answer the questions, then no legal signature. The corpse had to be of “sound” mind to sign a legally binding signature. I’d never raised a zombie that couldn’t pass the legal definition of soundness, but it happened sometimes. Jamison, a fellow animator at Animator’s Inc., had a pair of lawyers come to blows on top of the grave. What fun.

  The air was cool enough to make me shiver as I walked down the sidewalk to my door. I could hear the phone ringing as I fumbled the key into the lock. I hit the door with my shoulder because no one ever calls just before dawn unless it’s important. For me that usually meant the police, which meant a murder scene. I kicked the door closed and ran for the phone in the kitchen. My answering machine had clicked on. My voice died on the machine and Edward’s voice came on.

  “Anita, it’s Edward. If you’re there, pick up.” Silence.