Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10

by Laurell Hamilton

  He was tall, slender, dressed head to foot in white satin, in a suit that matched my dress. Gold brocade glittered down his sleeves, the seams of the pants. White boots rode over his knees tied with huge white and gold ribbons. It was a foppish outfit, sissy to use a modern word, but he didn’t look foppish. He looked elegant and at ease like a man who’d pulled off his tie and slipped into something more comfortable. His hair fell in long black banana curls. Only the delicate masculinity of his face and his midnight blue eyes looked normal, familiar.

  I shook my head, and the weight of the hair made it awkward. “I am so out of here,” and I started to reach out to shred the dream.

  “Wait, please, ma petite. Truly, I have a warning for you.” He looked up as if seeing the mirror as a sort of prison. “This is to let you know that I will not touch you. I come only to talk.”

  “Then talk.”

  “Was it the Master of Albuquerque who harmed you?”

  It seemed an odd question. “No, Itzpapalotl didn’t hurt me.”

  He winced at her name. “Do not use her name aloud within this dream.”

  “Okay, but she didn’t hurt me.”

  “But you have seen her?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He looked puzzled, and he lifted a white hat and slapped it against his leg like it was a habitual gesture, though I’d never seen him do it before. But then I’d only seen him in clothes like this once before, and we’d been fighting for our lives, so there really hadn’t been time to notice the small stuff.

  “Albuquerque is taboo. The high council has declared the city off limits to all vampires and their minions.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Master of the City has slain every vampire or minion that has entered her city in the last fifty years.”

  I stared at him. “You’re joking.”

  “No, ma petite, I do not joke.” He looked worried, no, scared.

  “She didn’t try anything hostile, Jean-Claude, honest.”

  “Then there was a reason for it. Were the police with you?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head, slapping the hat against his leg again. “Then she wants something from you.”

  “What could she want from me?”

  “I do not know.” He slapped the hat against his leg again and stared out at me through the glass wall.

  “Has she really killed any vampire that just happened to be passing through?”

  “Oui.”

  “Why hasn’t the council sent someone to kick her ass?”

  He looked down, then up, and the fear was in his eyes again. “The council fears her, I believe.”

  Having met three of the council members personally, that raised my eyebrows as far as they would go. “Why? I mean I know she’s powerful, but she’s not that powerful.”

  “I do not know, ma petite, but I do know they decreed her territory taboo, rather than fight her.”

  That was just plain scary. “It would have been nice to know that before I got here.”

  “I know you value your privacy, ma petite. I have not contacted you in all these long months. I have respected your decision, but it is not merely our romance, or lack of it, that is important between us. You are my human servant whether you will or no. It means that you cannot simply enter another vampire’s territory without some diplomacy.”

  “I’m here on police business. I thought I could enter anyone’s territory as long as it was police business. I’m here as Anita Blake, preternatural expert, not as your human servant.”

  “Normally, that is true, but the Master whose lands you are in does not obey council decrees. She is a law unto herself.”

  “What does that mean for me here and now?”

  “Perhaps she fears human law. Perhaps she will not harm you for fear of the humans destroying her. Your authorities can be very effective at times. Or she simply wants something from you. You’ve met her. What do you think?” he said.

  It came to my lips before I thought about it. “Power, she’s attracted to power.”

  “You are a necromancer.”

  I shook my head, and again the hairpieces made it awkward. I closed my eyes in the dream, and when I opened them, my hair just hung around my shoulders like normal. “The hair was heavy.”

  “It could be,” he said. “I am happy that you left the dress. I cannot tell you how long I have wished to see you in something like it.”

  “Don’t push it, Jean-Claude.”

  “My apologies,” and he did a sweeping bow, using the hat in the gesture, so that it swept across his chest.

  “I think it’s more than the necromancy. She figured out that I was part of a triumvirate the first moment she met me. I felt her sift through the three of us, like unwinding a string. She knew. I think that’s what she wants. She wants to figure out how it works.”

  “Could she repeat it?” he asked.

  “She’s got a human servant and jaguars are her animal to call. Theoretically, I guess she could, though can you make it a three-way when you’ve already got marks on a human, and no animal?”

  “If the marks are recent, perhaps.”

  “No, not recent. They’ve been a couple a long time.”

  “Then no, her human’s marks will be too entrenched to stretch for a third.”

  “So she may be interested in me for a power she can’t have? If she finds out then I can’t be of help to her?” I said.

  “It would perhaps be best if she did not learn that, ma petite.”

  “You think she’d kill me.”

  “She has killed all that crossed her path for half a century. I do not see why she should change her ways now.”

  I was standing very close to the mirror now. Close enough that I could see the gold buttons on his jacket, and the rise and fall of his chest as he drew breath. This was the closest I’d been to him in months. It was just a dream, but we both knew it wasn’t just a dream. He’d put the mirror barrier between us because once we’d used our dreams to enter each other’s fantasies. He’d come like a demon lover in my dreams, in my sleep. We’d done the real thing, too, but the dreams had been sweet, sometimes a prelude to the real thing, sometimes an end in themselves.

  The glass grew thinner, as if the glass were wearing away. It was like a thin pane of spun sugar. He touched fingertips to it, and the glass moved like clear plastic, giving at his touch.

  My fingertips touched his, and the thin barrier vanished. Our fingers touched, and it was startling, electric. His fingers slid over mine, entwining, our palms touching, and even that one chaste touch sent my breath racing.

  I stepped back but didn’t let go of his hand, so the movement drew him out of the mirror. He stepped out of the golden frame and was suddenly standing in front of me, our hands still raised in front of us. I could feel his heart beating through his palm, feel the rise and pulse of his body through my hand as if all of him were contained in that one pale hand where it lay pressed against mine.

  He leaned down towards me, as if to kiss me, and I started to pull away, afraid, but the dream shattered, and I was suddenly awake, staring up at the hospital ceiling. A nurse was in the room, checking my vitals. She’d woken me. I wasn’t sure whether I was glad or sad.

  The marks had been open for less than a week, and Jean-Claude was already pushing me. Okay, okay, I needed the warning, but . . . Oh, hell. My teacher, Marianne, had told me that I couldn’t just ignore the boys, that that would be dangerous. I thought she meant ignoring the power that bound us, but maybe she meant more than that. I was Jean-Claude’s human servant, and that made things complicated when I traveled. Each vampire’s territory was like a foreign country. Sometimes you had diplomatic treaties between them. Sometimes you didn’t. Occasionally, you just had a couple of master vamps that were enemies pure and simple, so if you belonged to one, you stayed the hell out of the other one’s lands. By refusing to contact Jean-Claude, I could screw up, get myself killed or held hostage. But I’d tho
ught I was safe as long as I was on police business or animating zombies. That was work. It had nothing to do with Jean-Claude and vampire politics. But I could always be wrong, like now.

  Why, you may ask, did I believe Jean-Claude and his warning? Because it gained him nothing to lie about it. I’d also felt his fear. One of the things about the marks, you could usually tell what the other person was feeling. Sometimes that bugged me. Sometimes it was helpful.

  The nurse shoved a thermometer with a little plastic sheath on it under my tongue. She took my pulse while we waited for the thermometer to beep. What really bugged me about the dream was how attracted to him I was. When I had the marks closed off, I’d have never touched him in the dream. Of course, I hadn’t let him enter my dreams when I had the marks blocked off. With the barriers up, I’d policed my dreams, kept him and Richard out. I could still keep them out, but it took more work to do it. I was out of practice. I was going to have to get back into practice, fast.

  The thermometer beeped. The nurse read the little monitor on her belt, gave me an empty smile that could have meant anything, and made a note. “I hear you’re getting out of here today.”

  I looked up at her. “I am? Great.”

  “Doctor Cunningham will be in to see you before you leave.” She smiled again. “He seems to want to oversee your release personally.”

  “I’m one of his favorite patients,” I said.

  The nurse’s smile slipped just a touch. I think she knew exactly what Doctor Cunningham thought of me. “He should be in to see you soon.”

  “But I am definitely getting out of here today?” I asked.

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Can I call a friend to come pick me up?”

  “I can call them for you.”

  “If I’m getting out today, can’t I have a phone?” The good doctor had made sure there was no phone in my room because he didn’t want me trying to do work, any work, not even business phone calls. When I’d promised not to use the phone if he’d just give me one, he’d just looked at me, made some kind of note in his file, and left. I don’t think he trusted me.

  “If the doctor says you can have a phone, I’ll bring you one, but just in case, give me the number and I’ll contact your friend.”

  I gave her Edward’s number. She wrote it down, smiled, and left.

  There was a knock on the door. I expected Doctor Cunningham, but it was Detective Ramirez. His shirt today was a pale tan. The half-mast tie was deep brown with a small white and yellow design on it. But he’d also kept on a brown suit jacket that matched his pants. It was the first time I’d seen him with an entire suit on at once. I wondered if the sleeves were rolled up underneath the jacket sleeves. He had a bouquet of shiny Mylar balloons with cartoon characters on them. The balloons said things like “get well soon,” and “oh, bother.” That was the Winnie the Pooh balloon.

  I had to smile. “You already sent flowers.” There was a small, but nice arrangement running long to daisies and miniature carnations on the bedside table.

  “I wanted to bring something in person. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

  My smile wilted around the edges. “This level of apology is usually reserved for boyfriends or lovers, detective. Why are you feeling so guilty?”

  “I keep having to remind you to call me Hernando.”

  “I keep forgetting.”

  “No, you don’t. You keep trying to distance yourself.”

  I just looked at him. It was probably true. “Maybe.”

  “If I was your lover, I’d have followed you to the hospital and been by your side every minute,” he said.

  “Even with a murder investigation going on?” I asked.

  He had the grace to shrug and look sheepish. “I’d have tried to be here every minute.”

  “What’s been happening while I’ve been in here? My doctor has made sure I haven’t found out anything.”

  Ramirez put the balloons beside the flowers. The balloons had one of those little weights on them to keep them from drifting away. “The last time I tried to see you, your doctor made me promise not to talk about the case.”

  “I didn’t know you were here before.”

  “You were pretty out of it.”

  “Was I awake?”

  He shook his head.

  Great. I wondered how many other people had paraded through here while I was passed out cold. “I’m getting out today, so I think it’s safe to talk about the case.”

  He looked at me, and the expression was enough. He didn’t believe me.

  “Doesn’t anyone trust me?”

  “You’re like most of the cops I know. You never really get off work.”

  I raised my hand in the Boy Scout’s salute. “Honest, the nurse told me I’m being released today.”

  He smiled. “I saw your back, remember. Even if you’re being let out, you won’t be going back on the case, not in person anyway.”

  “What? I’m going to look at pictures and listen to the clues that other people find?”

  He nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Do I look like Nero Wolfe? I am not a staying at home, out of the firing line, kind of girl.”

  He laughed, and it was still a good laugh. A nice normal laugh. It had none of Jean-Claude’s touchable sex appeal, but in some ways I liked it better for its very normalcy. But . . . but as nice and warm as Ramirez was, I had the memory of Jean-Claude’s dream in my head. I could feel the touch of his hand on mine, a touch that lingered on my skin the way an expensive perfume will linger in a room long after the woman who wears it is gone.

  Maybe it was love, but whatever it was, it was hard to find a man who could compete with it, no matter how much I wanted to find one. It was as if when he was with me, all other men just faded into the background, except Richard. Was that what it meant to be in love? Was it? I wish I knew.

  “What are you thinking about?” Ramirez asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Whatever that nothing is, it makes you look very serious, almost sad.” He’d moved very close to the bed, fingers touching the edge of the sheet. His face was gentle, questioning, very open. I realized in a way that Ramirez had my ticket. He knew what punched my buttons, partly just coincidence, partly he read me well. He read what I liked and what I hated in a man better than Jean-Claude had for years. I liked honesty, openness, and a sort of little boy charm. There were other things that led to lust, but for my heart that was the way. Jean-Claude was almost never open about anything. He always had a dozen different motives for everything he did. Honesty was not his best thing, and his little boy charm . . . nope. Jean-Claude had gotten there first, and for better or worse that was the way things were.

  Maybe a little honesty would work here, too. “I’m wondering how different my life would be if I’d met you or someone like you first.”

  “First, that implies that you’ve already met someone.”

  “I told you I had two guys back home.”

  “You also said you couldn’t decide between them. My grandmother always said that the only reason a woman hesitates between two men is that she hasn’t met the right one.”

  “Your grandmother didn’t say that.”

  He nodded. “Yes, she did. She was being courted by two men, sort of halfway engaged to both, then she met my grandfather and she knew why she’d been hesitating. She didn’t love either of the two men.”

  I sighed. “Don’t tell me I’ve got caught up in some family folklore?”

  “You never said you were taken. Tell me I’m wasting my time and I’ll stop.”

  I looked up at him, really looked at him, let my eyes follow the smiling line of his face, the shining humor in his eyes. “You’re wasting your time. I am sorry, but I think you are.”

  “Think?”

  I shook my head. “Stop it, Hernando. I’m taken, okay.”

  “You’re not taken until you make a final choice, but that’s okay. I’m not the one. If I were, y
ou’d know it. When you meet him, you won’t have any doubts.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe in true love, soul mate kind of stuff.”

  He shrugged, fingers running up and down the edge of the sheet. “What can I say? I was raised on stories about love at first sight. My grandmother, both my parents, even my great-grandfather said the same thing. They met that special person, and no one else existed after that.”

  “You’re descended from a family of romantics,” I said.

  He nodded happily. “My great-grandfather, Poppy, talked about my great-grandmother like they were still school kids right up until he died.”

  “It sounds nice, really, but I don’t believe in true love, Hernando. I don’t believe that there’s only one special person for your whole life’s happiness.”

  “You don’t want to believe it,” he said.

  I shook my head. “This is about to go from cute to irritating, Hernando.”

  “At least you’re using my first name.”

  “Maybe because I don’t see you as a threat anymore.”

  “A threat? Just because I like you? Just because I asked you out?” He frowned when he said it.

  It was my turn to shrug. “Whatever I mean, Hernando, just cut the juice. It ain’t going nowhere. Whatever I decide, it’s between the two guys I have waiting for me back home.”

  “It sounds like you weren’t sure of that until just now.”

  I thought about that for a heartbeat, or two. “You know, I think you’re right. I think I’ve been looking around for someone else, anyone else. But it’s no good.”

  “You don’t sound happy about that. Love should make you happy, Anita.”

  I smiled and knew it was wistful. “If you think love makes you happy, Hernando, you’ve either never been in love, or never been in love long enough to have to start compromising.”

  “You’re not old enough to be this cynical.”

  “It’s not cynicism. It’s reality.”

  His face was soft and sad. “You’ve lost your sense of romance.”

  “I never had a sense of romance. Trust me, the guys at home will back me on it.”