Some of the werehyenas lowered their guns, but only one threw his away. Bobby Lee went to his knees and clasped his hands on top of his head. Claudia did it next, then one by one all the wererats followed. I knew why, they were afraid Musette/Belle would use them against us. But I wouldn't have wanted to be kneeling on the floor when the rats found me.
I finally could think enough to remember that Jean-Claude might be fighting for his life. But he wasn't. Belle held his beautiful face in her hands, but he was still standing. His own hands cupped hers, pressing her hands against his face. His face was still perfect, untouched. A soft smile played along his lips. It was Belle's eyes that were wide, her face that was unhappy. He couldn't eat her as she had Asher, but strangely, she seemed to be having trouble eating him.
I knew that Belle/Musette had called the rats. I didn't think she'd had a thing to do with the recuperative powers of the two children of the night. They were half crouched, one helping the other to stand, but they weren't looking at Belle, or anyone else. I had a moment to wonder if they were going to hold a grudge, when the wave of rats jumped on the first werehyena, tiny teeth trying to tear through the black leather. People were screaming, and the werehyenas began to fire into the small rats, blasting their bodies into red ruin. But there were so many of them.
The rats parted around the kneeling wererats like they were big rocks in a stream.
"Can you stand?" Richard asked.
"I think so."
He lowered me gently to the floor, then he glanced at the werewolves who were still standing in an unhappy group. Apparently Richard's point to Sylvie had been violent enough that none of them had disobeyed. Well, Jason was struggling in a joint lock that Shang-Da had on his arm, but no one else had tried to help. What the hell had Richard done to Sylvie?
The world suddenly smelled like the musk of wolf fur, the damp richness of leaf mold, the Christmas tree scent of evergreen, as if my furred shoulder had just brushed it with dew still on it, on a calm, still morning. I felt that piece of me that was Richard's beast pour up through my body and ease across my skin like wind.
Richard looked at me with amber wolf eyes. He'd opened the marks between us, opened them wide. He threw back his head and howled, and a dozen throats answered him, then the werewolves moved forward like a black wave of destruction.
Shang-Da and Jamil stayed at Richard's back, and they showed claws where fingernails should have been, the half-change of the very alpha. For the rest, I felt them slip their skin, felt the rush of energy like small tugging explosions in my gut.
I could feel now that Jean-Claude had shut his end of our triumvirate down as tight as he could. I could look at him, but for once I couldn't feel him at all. He'd expected to die, and he hadn't wanted to take us with him.
I found one of the guns that the wererats had discarded and felt instantly better. The weight of it in my hand was a very good thing.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only human servant that had found a gun. Angelito fired at a werehyena, sending him spinning round, falling into the mass of biting rats. He screamed and writhed, trying to beat them off him.
I shot into the rats close to him, but there were too many. It was like trying to shoot water, you moved it, but didn't hurt it.
I knew one way to stop the rats. I sighted down the barrel at Musette/Belle's head. If I killed her, the rats would go back to wherever they came from.
I let out my breath, stilled myself for a shot that was far too close to Jean-Claude for my comfort. A rat jumped on my hand, dug its teeth into me. The wave of them began to jump on my dress, their claws catching in the heavy fabric. I screamed, and suddenly Micah was there, half-crouched, hissing at the rats. Those on the floor scattered, squealing in terror. The ones already on my body seemed immune to the fear. He helped me pick them off and threw them into the scurrying mass. The rats poured over their injured comrades and ate them, too.
The rats seemed more afraid of the wereleopards than of the wolves, and the wereleopards began to spread out from the wall, hissing, sending the small rodents back, gaining an ever-widening space.
The two vampires that I thought I'd killed had grown claws and fangs that no vampire ever had. They were wading through the werewolves in a spray of blood and white bone.
One great hand was raised at Shang-Da's back, and without thinking I fired, able to aim because I stood in the circle the leopards had made. The vampire's head exploded again. I knew now that if we wanted him to stay dead, we needed to take his heart and burn it all. Scattering the ashes over different bodies of running water wouldn't have hurt either.
Shang-Da had time for the barest of glances my way, then the other vampire launched himself and sent all three of them to the floor for the rats to engulf.
Belle's voice rose over the noise like a storm, a thunderclap that froze all of us in mid-action. Even the furred sea of rats froze. "Enough!"
She stepped back from Jean-Claude, and he began to laugh. It wasn't his magical laugh that slithered across the skin and made you think of sex, it was just laughter, pure unadulterated joy.
"We will fight no more," Belle said, and though her voice was still deep, it had lost its sexy purr. She sounded not angry, but put out, as if she'd gotten badly surprised.
The rats pulled back like a furry ocean draining away. They squeaked and squealed, but they left. Most of the werewolves were covered in tiny crimson bite marks. The remains of the fallen werehyena looked like it had been mauled by something much bigger.
Jean-Claude found his voice, and it was as joyous as his laughter had been. "You cannot feed from me. You cannot take back what you gave me, because I am no longer of your line. I am sourdre de sang of my own line now."
Belle stared at him, her face that blank emptiness that I knew so well. She was hiding how she really felt. "I know what it means, Jean-Claude."
"You can no longer treat me as a lesser member of your line, Belle. There are different niceties to be observed between two sourdres de sang."
She smoothed her hands down her full skirt, and I knew that gesture, it was one of Jean-Claude's. Nervous, Belle Morte was nervous. "I was within my rights to do as I have done, for I did not know, nor did you."
"True enough, but now that we do know, you must take all your people and go. Leave our lands tonight, for if you are found in our territory come tomorrow night, your lives will be forfeit."
"You would not truly kill my Musette?" But her voice held the lightest thread of uncertainty.
"To be able to kill Musette, legally, with no political repercussions." He made a small tut-tut sound. "That has been the fondest wish of many a Master Vampire, and I will do it, Belle. You can taste the truth of my words."
She stiffened, just a little. "I will retain control of Musette until we are out of your lands. She has an unfortunate temper at times."
"It would be a bad thing if she lost her temper here in St. Louis," Jean-Claude said, and his voice was empty, the joy seeping away.
Cherry appeared at my elbow. "Sorry to interrupt, I'm not an expert on vampires, but I think Asher's dying."
49
Asher lay against the far wall. He was a skeleton with dried parchment skin. He lay on a bed of golden Christmas tree tinsel, the glorious remnant of his hair. His clothes had collapsed around his sunken body, like a deflated balloon. His eyes were closed, and only the roundness of his eyes underneath that thin skin was flesh and solid. Everything else seemed to have withered away.
I fell to my knees beside him, because suddenly I couldn't stand.
"He's not dead," Valentina's child voice came, but she stayed out of reach. She offered comfort, but she wasn't stupid.
I looked down at what was left of all that beauty and didn't believe her.
"See with something other than your eyes, ma petite," Jean-Claude said. He didn't kneel, but stayed standing, facing Belle Morte, almost as if he didn't dare turn his back on her.
I did what Jean-Claude told me to do; I looked
with power instead of my physical eyes. I could feel a spark inside Asher, some small part of him still burned. He wasn't dead, but he might as well have been. I looked up at Jean-Claude. "He's too weak to take blood."
"And he has no human servant," Belle Morte said, "no animal to call. He is without," and she paused, seemed to think upon her next word. Finally, she said, "resources."
Resources, that was a nice word for it. But whatever word you used, she was right. Asher had nothing to feed on but blood, and if he was too weak to feed on that… I couldn't finish the thought even in my head.
"Belle Morte could save him," Jean-Claude's voice was neutral, empty.
I looked up at him, then past him to her. "What do you mean?"
"She made him, and she is a sourdre de sang. She could simply give him back some of the energy that she stole from him."
"I stole nothing," Belle said, and her own neutral voice held a hint of anger. "You cannot steal what is yours by right, and Asher is mine, all of him, Jean-Claude, every piece of his skin, every drop of his blood. He lives only through my sufferance, and without that he dies."
Jean-Claude made a small gesture. "Perhaps stole is not the correct term, but you can restore some of his life energy. You could bring him back enough to be able to feed on blood."
"I could, but I will not." Her anger was like a scalding wind, biting along my skin where it touched.
"Why not?" I asked it, because no one else seemed willing to, and I had to know.
"I do not have to explain myself to you, Anita."
I still had the gun in my hand. Suddenly it was heavy, as if it had reminded me it was there, or maybe the shock of lifting it was enough for me to feel again. I stood up and aimed the gun at Musette's chest. "If Asher dies, so does Musette."
"You have not had much luck killing vampires with your little gun," Belle said, and she sounded confident. Of course it wasn't her body that I was about to riddle with bullets.
"I think the Mother's children are special cases. They probably can survive pretty much everything but fire. I don't think that's true of Musette." I had let out the breath in my body, so that I was as still as I could get. My free hand was resting at my lower back, half cradled on my buttocks. It was my favorite position for target shooting.
"Angelito will stop you," she said simply.
I looked back to find Angelito held on his knees by three werewolves, but hey… "If he makes a nuisance of himself he can die, too. He probably won't survive me killing Musette anyway."
Belle Morte's brown eyes widened just a bit. "You would not dare."
"Sure I would," and I smiled, but it didn't reach my eyes, because I had them on Musette's body. I was ignoring Belle's shape over Musette, concentrating on seeing that white dress with its dried blood. The more I concentrated, the more of Musette I could see, like a double image, Musette's chest in my physical eyes, and Belle's ghostly overlay in my head. It made me wonder how much of Belle everyone else had been seeing, or if I'd had a better show because of my necromancy. I'd ask someone later. Much later.
"Jean-Claude, you cannot allow this."
"Ma petite has her moments of rashness, but in this moment she has reminded me that the rules are not the same now. I am within my rights as sourdre de sang to punish one of your people for harming my second in command. It is perfectly within our laws."
"I did not know that Asher was the second in command to a sourdre de sang when I drank from him."
My arm was still steady, but it wouldn't last. You can't hold a one-armed shooting stance forever. Hell, you can't hold any shooting stance forever. "You know now," I said, "and he's not dead yet, so you're killing the second in command of another sourdre de sang with foreknowledge."
"We are within our rights to take Musette's life in payment for Asher's," Jean-Claude said. "You should be more careful, Belle. Sending people you value far away from you makes it so much harder to keep them safe."
I was fighting for my arm not to tremble. Eventually, I'd lose. "Let me make this easy for you, Belle, help Asher now, or I kill Musette."
The one thing that was the same in both the vision of my eyes and the vision of my head, was those honey-brown eyes. Those eyes looked at me, and I felt the draw in them. She wanted me to lower my gun, and my arm hurt, so why didn't I? My arm started to lower, and I caught myself a moment before Jean-Claude touched my shoulder.
I put the arm back where I'd had it. But just lowering and raising it had helped the lactic acid build up. I could hold the stance for much longer now.
"If you wish to play games with Musette's life, that is up to you," Jean-Claude said, and his voice danced over my skin, made my body shiver, made my hand convulse, and only practice kept my finger from squeezing the trigger. But I didn't tell him to stop, because Belle had used her mark on me to cloud my mind. It had been a long time since a vampire had gotten to me so casually.
Jean-Claude's sex ran over my skin while the fear ran like ice through the rest of me. Belle wasn't defeated, not even close. Arrogance would get more of us killed. So, no arrogance, just truth. "What you have to ask yourself, Belle," I said, in a voice that was very quiet because I was concentrating on my breathing, trying to be still, for when I fired, "is, is your love for Musette stronger than your hatred for Asher?"
"You do not hate lesser beings, Anita, you merely punish them." Her voice sounded so sure of itself.
Jean-Claude said one word, "Liar."
Those dark honey eyes flicked to him, and there was no love lost in that look. She hated Jean-Claude, too. She hated them both. They had told me why. They were the only two men who had ever left her bed voluntarily, as far as she saw it. They had deserted her, and no one leaves Belle Morte, because no one would want to. Strangely, their leaving had damaged her sense of self. But I didn't share this knowledge because hurting Belle Morte's pride wouldn't help us. To salvage her pride she'd let Asher and Musette die. I was almost sure of it. I swallowed the words, and fought to control my face, but I'd forgotten that she was a sourdre de sang, and she'd marked me once. It wasn't my face I had to worry about.
Her voice came in my head like a dream, riding on the scent of roses, "My pride is not so fragile a thing, Anita."
Jean-Claude's kiss on my cheek chased back the scent of roses, and that purring voice. "Ma petite, ma petite, are you well?"
I nodded. "Prove it," I said, "heal Asher."
Jean-Claude didn't ask to whom I was speaking. He'd heard through me, or he guessed, or he didn't bother to question, because we were running out of time.
"You will talk him to death," Valentina said.
Everyone but me looked at the child vampire. I was still fighting to keep a target on Musette's white-clad chest.
"If you do not give him the kiss of life soon, he will be beyond even your powers, Belle Morte," Valentina said.
Belle fought to keep her face calm, but the anger leaked through the room. Or maybe I was just more sensitive to it. "Have you changed sides, petite morte?"
"Non, but I do not wish to lose Musette by accident. If you choose Asher's death, that is one thing. To simply miss the chance to save him, another."
I wanted badly to turn and look at Valentina, but I kept my gaze on Musette, on Belle. Besides, Valentina's face would have been like all the old ones when they were hiding themselves, or risking themselves, blank, empty, a lovely mask.
Something passed between them. Something I could not read. Belle took a deep, impatient breath, smoothed her skirts, and began to walk forward. It wasn't quite the graceful glide that Musette's body normally had. I wondered if vampires had trouble gliding when they were nervous, because Belle was nervous. I could feel it.
I lowered the gun, as she moved, because if she was going to save Asher, Musette lived. That was the deal. Besides, my shoulder and hand were beginning to ache. If I'd known I was going to have to keep the stance so long, I'd have gone for a two-handed stance.
Belle Morte seemed to collect herself as she move
d across the room, so that by the time she reached Asher she was gliding, and Musette's white dress was completely lost to Belle's dark gold, at least to my eyes.
She knelt by Asher's body. I couldn't think of it as anything else but a body. I was already distancing myself from him. I realized with something like shock that I didn't believe she'd save him. He felt so dead, so very dead.
Jean-Claude's hands squeezed my shoulders, and I realized that he was shielding from me, hard. He didn't want to share his feelings right now, and I didn't blame him. They were too personal for sharing, too frightening.
Richard was gone, too. I actually had to glance at him to make sure he was still in the room, that's how tight he was shielding. I wasn't sure when he went away behind his shields, which seemed strange. I should have noticed. He caught my look, and he couldn't keep the compassion, or the pain, off his face. I don't think it was pain for Asher.
Jean-Claude's hands tensed and the movement brought my attention back to Belle. Her hair fell out around her like a black cloak, so that the gold dress showed only in hints through all that blackness.
I felt Jean-Claude gather himself, like it was a physical effort to gather his will, then he sighed, and he shook himself like a bird settling its feathers. He stepped out from behind me and offered me his arm, very formally. I hesitated for a heartbeat, then slid my arm through his. He was still shielding from me, still hiding his emotions, but I didn't need to be anything but his friend to know what he was thinking. It hurt his heart to see Asher reduced to this. It hurt me, and I didn't have centuries of history with the man.
He walked us forward, toward the kneeling vampire and what was left of the person that we both loved. I would never know if my love for Asher was because of Jean-Claude's feelings for him. It probably was, but I couldn't separate my feelings from Jean-Claude's. That should have panicked me, but it didn't. I was tired of being scared all the time. I was ready to try and be as brave with my heart as I usually was with the rest of me. Besides, I'd been careful with Richard, and in the end we'd broken each other's hearts. I glanced at him as I walked forward on Jean-Claude's arm. My heart still tugged at the sight of him. Earlier today I'd been ready for a reconciliation. I was always ready for a reconciliation with Richard, any time he gave an inch. The trouble was, he kept taking back that inch.
Anita Blake 11 - Cerulean Sins Page 42