The Killing Dance abvh-6

by Laurell Hamilton

  I pressed my hands suddenly forward, through the energy, against their bodies. I forced that energy back into them, and got a gasp from both of them. The shock of it ran up my arms and I bowed my head, breathing through the rush of power. I raised my face up to meet their eyes. I don't know what showed on my face, but whatever it was, Richard didn't like it. He started to take a step back. I dug fingernails into his stomach just enough to get his attention.

  "Don't break the connection."

  He swallowed. His eyes were wide and there was something close to fear in them, but he stayed put. I turned to Jean-Claude. He didn't look scared. He looked as calm and controlled as I felt.

  "Very good, Anita." Dominic's voice came soft, low. "Combine their power as if they were simply two other animators. You are acting as focus. You've done that before. You've laid the dead to rest a thousand times. This is only one more time."

  "Okay, coach," I whispered.

  "What?" Richard said.

  I shook my head. "Nothing."

  I stepped back from them slowly, hands extended towards them. The power trailed between us like two ropes. There was nothing to see, but from the look on Richard's face, we all felt it. I unsheathed the knife and picked up the golden bowl without looking down, my gaze on the two of them. There was a difference between this and combining with other animators, there was lust. Love. Something. Whatever it was, it acted like fuel, or glue. I had no words for what it was, but it was there when I looked at them.

  I held the gold bowl in my left hand, knife in the right. I walked back to them. "Hold the bowl for me, one hand apiece."

  "Why?" Richard asked.

  "Because I said so."

  He looked like he wanted to argue. I laid the flat of the blade against his lips. "If you question everything I say, it spoils my concentration." I took the knife away from his mouth.

  "Don't do that again," he said, voice soft, almost harsh.

  I nodded. "Fine." I held my wrist over the empty bowl and drew the knife down the skin in one sharp movement. Blood welled out of the cut, falling in thick drops, splashing down the sides and bottom of the gleaming gold bowl. Yes, it did hurt.

  "Your turn, Richard." I kept my wrist over the bowl; no need to waste the blood.

  "What do I do?"

  "Put your wrist over the bowl."

  He hesitated, then did what I asked. He put his arm over the bowl, hand balled into a fist. I turned his hand over to expose the underside of his arm. I steadied his hand with my still bleeding hand. The bowl wavered where his free hand was still holding it with Jean-Claude.

  I looked up at his face. "Why does this bother you more than Jean-Claude tasting you?"

  He swallowed. "A lot of things don't bother me when I'm thinking about sex."

  "Spoken like someone with only one X chromosome," I said. I drew the knife down his skin in one firm bite, while he was still looking at my face. The only thing that kept him from pulling away was my hold on him.

  He didn't struggle after that initial surprise. He watched his blood splash into the bowl, mingling with mine. The bottom of the bowl was hidden from sight, covered in warm blood. I released his hand and he held his bleeding wrist over the bowl.

  "Jean-Claude?" I said.

  He held his own slender wrist out to me without being asked. I steadied his wrist as I had Richard's. I met his dark blue eyes but there was no fear there, nothing but perhaps a mild curiosity. I cut his wrist and the blood welled crimson against his white skin.

  His blood splashed into the bowl. It was all red. Human, lycanthrope, and vampire. You couldn't tell who was who by just looking. We all bleed red.

  There still wasn't enough blood to walk a circle of power around the sixty or so zombies. There was no way short of a true sacrifice to get that much blood. But what I had in my hands was a very potent magic cocktail. Dominic thought it would be enough. I hoped so.

  A sound brought my attention away from the blood, and the growing warmth of power.

  Stephen and Jason were crouched near us, one in human form, one wolf, with nearly identical looks in their eyes: hunger.

  I looked past them to Cassandra. She was standing her ground, but her hands were balled into fists, and a sheen of sweat gleamed on her upper lip. The look on her face was near panic.

  Dominic stood smiling and unaffected. He was the only other human in the room.

  Jason growled at us, but it wasn't a real growl. There was a rhythm to the noise. He was trying to talk.

  Stephen moistened his lips. "Jason wants to know if we can lick the bowl?"

  I looked at Jean-Claude and Richard. The looks on their faces were enough. "Am I the only one in this room not lusting after the blood?"

  "Except for Dominic, I fear so, ma petite."

  "Do what you have to do, Anita, but do it quick. It's full moon, and fresh blood is fresh blood," Richard said.

  The two other vamps I'd raised shuffled towards me. Their eyes still empty of personality, like well-made dolls.

  "Did you call them?" Richard asked.

  "No," I said.

  "The blood called them," Dominic said.

  The vampires came into the room. They didn't look at me this time. They looked at the blood, and the moment they saw it, something flared in them. I felt it. Hunger. No one was home, but the need was still there.

  Damian's green eyes stared at the bowl with the same hunger. His handsome face thinned down to something beastial and primitive.

  I licked my lips and said, "Stop." They did, but they stared at the freshly spilled blood, never raising their eyes to me. If I hadn't been here to stop them, they might have fed. Fed like revenants, animalistic vampires that know nothing but the hunger and never regain their humanity or their minds.

  My heart thudded into my throat at the thought of what I'd almost loosed upon some unsuspecting person. The hunger wouldn't have differentiated between human and lycanthrope. Wouldn't that have been a fine fight?

  I took the bloody bowl, cradling it against my stomach, the knife still in my right hand.

  "Do not be afraid," Dominic said. "Lay the zombies to rest as you have a thousand times over the years. Do that and that alone."

  "One step at a time, right?" I said.

  "Indeed," he said.

  I nodded. "Okay."

  Everyone but the three vampires looked at me as if they believed I knew what I was doing. I wished I did. Even Dominic looked confident. But he didn't have to put sixty zombies back in the ground without a circle of power. I did.

  I had to watch my step on the rubble-strewn floor. It wouldn't do to fall and spill all this blood, all this power. Because that's what it was. I could feel Jean-Claude and Richard at my back like two braids of a rope twisting inside me as I moved. Dominic had said that I would be able to feel both of the men. When I'd asked for specifics about how I would be able to feel them, he had gone vague. Magic was too individualistic for exactness. If he told me one way and it felt another, it would have made me doubt. He'd been right.

  I stirred the knife through the blood and flung blood on the waiting zombies with the blade. Only a few drops fell on them, but every time the blood touched one, I could feel it, a shock of power, a jolt. I ended in the center of the once walled room, surrounded by the zombies. When the blood touched the last one, a shock ran through me that tore a gasp from my throat. I felt the blood close round the dead. It was similar to closing a circle of power, but it was like the closure was inside me, rather than outside.

  "Back," I said, "back into your graves, all of you. Back into the ground."

  The dead shuffled around me, positioning themselves like sleepwalkers in a game of musical chairs. As each one reached its place, it lay down, and the raw earth poured over them all like water. The earth swallowed them back and smoothed over them as if a giant hand had come to neaten everything up.

  I was alone in the room with the earth still twitching like a horse thick with flies. When the last ripple had died away, I loo
ked out of the blasted wall at the others.

  Jean-Claude and Richard stood at the opening of the wall. The three werewolves clustered around them. Even Cassandra had knelt on the ground beside the wolf that was Jason. Dominic stood behind them, watching. He was grinning at me like a proud papa.

  I walked towards them, my legs a touch rubbery, and I stumbled, splashing blood down the side of the bowl. Crimson drops fell onto the swept earth.

  The wolf was suddenly there, licking the ground clean. I ignored it and kept walking. Vampires next. Everyone moved to let me pass as if they were afraid to touch me. Except for Dominic. He crowded almost too close.

  I felt his own power crackle between us, shivering over my skin, down the ropes of power that bound me to Richard and Jean-Claude.

  I swallowed and said, "Back up."

  "My apologies." He moved back until I couldn't feel him quite so tightly. "Good enough?"

  I nodded.

  The three vampires waited with hungry eyes. I sprinkled them with the cooling blood. They twitched when the blood touched them, but there was no rush of power. Nothing. Shit.

  Dominic frowned. "The blood is still warm. It should work."

  Jean-Claude moved closer. I could feel it without turning around. I could feel him coming down the line of power between us like a fish being reeled in. "But it is not working," he said.

  "No," I said.

  "They are lost then."

  I shook my head. Willie was staring at the bowl of blood. The look was feral, pure hunger. I'd thought that the worst thing that could happen would be for Willie to simply lie down in his coffin and be truly dead. I was wrong. Having Willie crawl out of his coffin craving nothing but blood, knowing nothing but hunger, would be worse. I would not loose him, not yet.

  "Any bright ideas?" I asked.

  "Feed them the blood in the bowl," Dominic said, "but hurry before it grows colder."

  I didn't argue; there was no time. I wiped the knife on my jeans and sheathed it. I'd have to clean it and the sheath later, but I needed my hands free. I dipped my fingertips into the blood. It was still warm, but barely. The eyes were still brown as they followed my hand, but it wasn't Willie looking out of them. It just wasn't.

  I lifted the gold bowl to Willie's mouth and said, "Willie, drink." His throat moved, swallowing furiously, and I felt that click. He was mine again. "Stop, Willie."

  He stopped, and I took the bowl away from him. He didn't grab for it. He didn't move at all. His eyes were blank and empty above his bloody mouth. "Go back to your coffin, Willie. Rest until nightfall. Back to your coffin to rest."

  He turned and walked back down the hallway. I'd have to trust he was going back to the coffin. I'd check later. One down, two to go. Liv left like a good little puppet. The blood was getting pretty low by the time I raised it to Damian's lips.

  He drank at it, his pale throat swallowing. The blood passed down his throat and something brushed me. Something that wasn't my magic. Something else. Damian's chest rose in a great breath like a man struggling back from drowning. And that something thrust me backwards, cast out my power, turned it back on me. It was like a door slammed, but it was more than that. A force thrust at me, hit me, and the world swirled around. My vision was eaten away in greyness and white spots. I heard my own heartbeat impossibly loud. The thudding chased me down into the darkness, then even that was lost.

  33

  I woke, staring up at the white drapes above Jean-Claude's bed. There was a damp washcloth folded over my forehead and voices arguing. I lay there for a few seconds, just blinking. I couldn't remember how I'd gotten here. I remembered the sensation of being cast out of Damian. I'd been cast out like an intruder, something to be protected against. The force that touched me hadn't been evil. I'd felt evil before, and that wasn't it. But it certainly hadn't been a beneficent force, either. More neutral, maybe.

  The voices were Jean-Claude and Richard. The argument was about me. Big surprise.

  "How can you let her die when you could save her?" Richard asked.

  "I do not believe she is dying, but even if she was, without her permission, I will never again invade her mind."

  "Even if she was dying?"

  "Yes," Jean-Claude said.

  "I don't understand that."

  "You don't have to understand it, Richard. Anita would agree with me."

  I brushed the rag from my head. I wanted to sit up, but it seemed too much effort.

  Richard sat down on the bed, taking my hand. I wasn't sure I wanted him to, but I was still too weak to stop him.

  Jean-Claude stood behind him, watching me. His face was blank and perfect, a mask.

  "How do you feel?" Richard asked.

  I had to swallow before I could speak. "Not sure."

  Dominic walked into view. He had, wisely, stayed out of the argument. Besides, he was already a vampire's human servant. What was he going to say? That the mark was evil, or that it was no big deal. Lies either way.

  "I am very glad to see you awake."

  "It thrust me out," I said.

  He nodded. "Indeed."

  "What thrust her out?" Richard asked.

  Dominic looked at me.

  I shrugged.

  "When the power that animates the vampire returned and found Anita still inside the body, the power cast her out."

  Richard frowned. "Why?"

  "I shouldn't have been there."

  "Did the soul return as you touched it?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "I've felt the brush of a soul before, that wasn't it."

  Jean-Claude looked at me.

  I looked back.

  He was the one who looked away first.

  Richard touched my hair where it had gotten wet from the rag. "I don't care if it was a soul or the bogeyman. I thought I'd lost you."

  "I always seem to survive, Richard, no matter who else dies."

  He frowned at that.

  I let him. "Is Damian all right?" I asked.

  "He seems to be," Jean-Claude said.

  "What were you two arguing about?"

  "Dominic, could you leave us now?" Jean-Claude asked.

  Dominic smiled. "Gladly. I am eager to speak with Sabin. Tomorrow, you and Richard can raise him, and you, Anita"—he touched my face lightly—"can heal him."

  I didn't like him touching me, but there was almost a reverence in his face. It made it hard to yell at him.

  "I'll do my best," I said.

  "In all things, I think." With that, he bid us a good day and left.

  When the door closed behind him, I repeated my question. "What were you two arguing about?"

  Richard glanced behind at Jean-Claude, then back to me. "You stopped breathing for a few seconds. No heartbeat, either. I thought you were dying."

  I looked at Jean-Claude. "Tell me."

  "Richard wanted me to give you the first mark again. I refused."

  "Smart vampire," I said.

  He shrugged. "You have made yourself very clear, ma petite. I will not be accused of forcing myself upon you again. Not in any sense."

  "Did someone do CPR?"

  "You started breathing on your own," Richard said. He squeezed my hand. "You scared me."

  I drew my hand out of his. "So you offered me to him as his human servant."

  "I thought we'd agreed to be a triad of power. Maybe I don't understand what that means."

  I wanted to sit up but still wasn't sure I could do it, so I had to be content with frowning up at him. "I'll share power with you both, but I won't let Jean-Claude mark me. If he ever forces himself on me again, I'll kill him."

  Jean-Claude nodded. "You will try, ma petite. It is a dance I do not wish to begin."

  "I'm going to let him mark me before I leave for the pack tonight," Richard said.

  I stared up at him. "What are you talking about?"

  "Jean-Claude can't come tonight. He isn't a member of the pack. If we're joined, I can still call the power."

  I struggled to
sit up, and if Richard hadn't caught me, I'd have fallen. I lay cradled in his arms, digging fingers into his arms, trying to make him listen to me. "You don't want to be his servant for all eternity, Richard."

  "The joining of master and animal is not the same as between master and servant, ma petite. It is not quite as intimate."

  I couldn't see the vampire over Richard's broad shoulders. I tried to push myself up, and Richard had to help me. "Explain," I said.

  "I will not be able to taste food through Richard, as I could through you. It is a minor side effect, but in truth one I miss. I enjoyed tasting solid food again."

  "What else?"

  "Richard is an alpha werewolf. He is an equivalent power to mine in some ways. He will have more control over my entering his dreams, his thoughts. He would be able to keep me out, as it were."

  "And I couldn't," I said.

  He looked down at me. "Even then, before you had explored your powers of necromancy, you were harder to control than you should have been. Now," he shrugged, "now I am not sure who would be master and who would be servant."

  I sat up on my own. I was feeling just a tad better. "That's why you didn't mark me while you had the chance and Richard to take the blame. After what I did today, you're afraid that I'd be the master and you'd be my servant. That's it, isn't it?"

  He smiled softly. "Perhaps." He sat on the bed on the other side of Richard. "I have not worked for over two hundred years to be Master of my own lands to give up my freedom to anyone, even you, ma petite. You would not be a cruel master, but you would be an exacting one."

  "It's not pure master and servant. I know that from Alejandro. He couldn't control me, but I couldn't control him, either."

  "Did you try?" Jean-Claude asked.

  That stopped me. I had to think about it. "No."

  "You simply killed him," Jean-Claude said.

  He had a point. "Would I really be able to order you around?"

  "I have never heard of another vampire choosing a necromancer of your power as human servant."

  "What about Dominic and Sabin?" I asked.

  "Dominic is no match for you, ma petite."

  "If I agreed to the first mark, would you do it or not?" I asked.