16 Blood Noir ab-16

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Do you crave her now?

  I shook my head. No, but, I know if I ever saw her in person and she wanted me, I wouldnt be able to say no. Shes notshes Belle Morte. I shrugged. How do you explain someone who simply is sex? Sex and power were merged for her, and thanks to Jean-Claudes memories I was sort of pre-addicted. I wasnt even embarrassed about it, which wasnt like me. I got embarrassed about every damn thing.

  I put the trash can back in its place with all the little bits of debris back inside it. Jason said, Youve missed something.

  I looked at the floor. No, I said.

  He pointed at a spot on the carpet. Right there.

  Theres nothing there, Jason.

  He picked up something from the floor. The moment he held it, I could see it, but up to that moment I had not. He held his hand out with the charm on his palm. Can you see it now?

  I nodded, trying to swallow past the sudden choking of my pulse. I knew Marmee Noir had mind-fucked me, but it should have passed by now. This proved it hadnt passed. How royally screwed was I? But the fact that she didnt want me to see the charm meant she feared it. That was a good thing to know.

  I held out my hand and Jason gave me the charm. The moment it touched my skin, it was as if the world shifted, or at least the inside of my head did. A moment of nausea, dizziness, and I wrapped my hand tight around the charm. God help me, what was she trying to do to me?

  Again, Jason echoed me, almost. What does she want from you, Anita?

  She wants me as her human servant, I think.

  Maybe, he said, but I think its more than that.

  What could I do for her, Jason? Shes the most powerful vampire on the planet.

  Youre the first real necromancer in the last several hundred years, Anita. Whoever has you as their human servant gains a lot of power.

  You havent felt her yet, Jason. She is scary powerful. She doesnt need more.

  All vampires need more power, Anita, even I know that. Theyre always afraid that someone else with more will come into their territory and take it all away from them.

  The vampire council has declared it illegal for masters to fight in this country until the whole legal thing is more secure.

  Then shes breaking her own laws.

  I nodded. He was right. The vampire who had given them their laws was breaking them. Why? Then I made a mistake. I thought, What do you want from me?

  I smelled jasmine.

  Jason grabbed my arm. I smell perfume.

  The moment he touched me the scent of jasmine faded, like perfume when you come into a room, and the woman who wore it has just left. Some women are like that; just their scent can make you walk from room to room until you put a face and body with that perfume. I shook my head, and tried to shake the thought with it. That didnt sound like my thought.

  I looked at Jason, with his hand still on my arm. Who wore perfume that you liked so much that you followed her from room to room?

  I dont know what youre talking about, he said, and then a look came over his face. He seemed to be staring at something in the room, but his eyes said he was seeing a memory. That look of staring at far, far away things filled his blue gaze.

  There was a woman when I was in high school. She was the first crush I had who wore expensive perfume. It lingered on the air, delicate, just a hint, so you could follow her through the school.

  I touched his arm. I thought just now about that very thing. About how a womans perfume could lead you from room to room. It had to be some crush for me to get that image so clearly from you.

  He looked at me then, rather than the memory in his head. You know that night that my sister Bobbi swears she saw me having sex with a man?

  I remember the argument.

  I was with that crush. She was married, and my teacher. I promised her Id never tell, and I never have.

  How old were you?

  He smiled, somewhere between his grin and something wistful. Legal, but barely. She waited until I was legal.

  I didnt know what to say to that. When I was in high school it would never have occurred to me to approach a teacher. They simply did not exist for me as sexual objects. The taboo was too great. I was in college before I found a teacher who made me, even fleetingly, think of crossing that line.

  So you can prove it wasnt you that your sister saw, but not without ruining the life and reputation of this woman.

  He nodded.

  Ironic, I thought.

  Ironic is one word for it, he said.

  I stared at him. You do know that I didnt say ironic out loud, right?

  Jason looked startled. I heard it.

  I only thought it, Jason.

  We looked at each other. Do I apologize? he asked.

  I shook my head. No, lets just finish getting dressed and see if the hospital will let us see your dad.

  He stood, and we both kept holding on to each others arms as we stood, so it was anyones guess who helped who stand.

  I guess it is past visiting hours, but Anita, we need to go home. We need St. Louis, and Jean-Claude, while we do this new metaphysical stuff, but I cant go until we see my dad again.

  Agreed. I let go of him, and we stepped apart. I stood still, I think waiting to see if I smelled jasmine again.

  Okay? he asked.

  I nodded and reached up to the gold chain around my neck. I slid the charm onto the chain so that the cross and the charm both touched my skin. There, that was better. It was like I could breathe a little easier. I reached for the T-shirt Id put on the bed and slipped it on. I was in the process of putting it on when there was a knock at the door.

  We looked at each other. He shrugged. I picked my gun up off the bed and walked to the door. I looked through the peephole and found yet another pair of the suited guards with the addition of two of the hotel security guys in their blazers.

  Security, I said, and looked back at Jason.

  A mans voice called, Mr. Schuyler, theres been a problem.

  I opened the door. The suited guard was Rowe. Whats up, Rowe? I asked.

  He looked way too serious for comfort. The room has been compromised. We need to move you.

  Compromised how?

  The vampires who are looking for Keith Summerland have been given this room number. We need to make sure neither of you is here when the vampires arrive.

  I wanted to argue, but there was something about how serious he was, and how serious all the security had been, that made me decide to argue later. There was always time to argue later.

  Jason went for the suitcases. Let them in, Ill change in the bathroom.

  I stepped back to let Rowe and the rest into the room. Wheres Shadwell?

  Hes on a break. The two hotel guards stayed in the open doorway. I looked at them. They looked human. They had fed on someone to give color to the pale cheeks, but one look and I knew what they were. I started to raise my gun and yell, Vampires! Then one of them threw something into the room. Threw it so fast that the movement was seen, but not registered in my head, before the flash-bang grenade went off and the world went away. Oh, I was conscious, but I was also blind, and so disoriented that the next thing I felt was pain. I reached for what hurt and found a dart. A tranquilizer dart from the feel of it. I tried to bring my gun up to where theyd been. I tried to see them, but with the combination of the grenade and the drug, the world was full of swirls of color, and shapes that didnt hold still. I heard Rowe yelling. I fell to my knees. Someone took my gun and I couldnt stop them. I couldnt make my body move. I fell to the carpet and the mess of clothes and drying body fluids, and then the world went away, as if someone had turned off the lights. One moment I knew I was on the carpet in our room; the next, nothing.

  53

  T HERE WAS A voice in the darkness. I thought at first I was hearing the bad guys, and then I understood the voice, and knew that it was much worse than bad guys. Necromancer, the voice whispered.

  Fear stabbed through me in the dark, fear like fine champagne. I had a moment
of being able to feel my body. A flash of knowing I was lying on a floor, and then I was back in the dark.

  Necromancer.

  Fear, and I was thrown into my body again. A moment of lights, and sensation, then darkness.

  Necromancer.

  I think I opened my eyes, but it could have been a dream. The darkness kept eating the world.

  Necromancer, if you stay in the dark, you will die.

  The room was white, and I knew my hands were tied behind my back. Then the drugs sucked me into the dark again.

  Necromancer! She reached for me. It was a womans hand, small, delicate, and it was the paw of some great beast with claws, and fur, andThe claws struck; pain ripped through the darkness and made it run with blood. I woke, gasping for air, pulse, heart, everything racing.

  My chest hurt. I looked down and found the front of my T-shirt cut. Blood drops spattered the white tiles I was lying on. I worked to get a better look at the front of me, and finally realized the front of my shirt had been shredded by huge claws.

  I remembered her reaching for me in the dark, and I knew she had done this. Somehow Marmee Noir had done this. Mother of God. The last of the drugs washed away on a flood of pure terror.

  I fought not to panic. The fear had helped me wake up, helped get the drugs out of my head and body; now I had to make sure the fear itself didnt cripple me.

  Other than the claw marks, was I hurt? I had a headache, but that could have been the flash-bang as well as the drugs. What kind of vampires used modern grenades and drugs on their victims? The adrenaline was doing its job. I seemed to be thinking faster, everything crystal edged. Had Marmee Noir scared me on purpose to wake me up and get me going? I pushed the thought away for later. Stay alive, and worry about the rest later.

  I was lying on cool, white tile. Not horrible. But my hands were tied behind my back, which was horrible. Nothing good ever happens when the bad guys tie you up. I might have panicked about it, but one, it does no good to panic, and two, Marmee Noir wasnt in this white room. It was good. Where was I?

  The tiles I was on were a nondescript color somewhere between off-white and beige. I tried to see things without moving much. I had no way of knowing if they had a way to see me. I did not want them to realize I was awake, not yet. The more time I had to think before they came back, the better. People do not tie you up and leave you on cold floors if they plan on doing nice things to you. No, bad things were coming. Which made me wonder, where was Jason?

  The urge to roll over and see if he was in another part of this room was so strong that I tensed up, and now my pulse was higher. Shit. My hands clenched before I could stop them. So much for pretending to be asleep.

  Then, distant, like there were doors and rooms between us, I heard a mans voice, yelling, Wheres Lorna? I didnt know the voice. Then came a voice I did know. Jason was yelling, screaming actually, I dont know! Then he was just screaming.

  That did it. Fuck caution. I sat up and discovered that my body still ached some from the abuse Id given it in the hotel room. But it didnt hurt that much; I was healing, and if I didnt get us out of here, things would hurt a hell of a lot more.

  I was in a small bathroom with a stool and tub/shower combo behind me. There was a sink with cabinet and mirror to one side. I looked up near the ceiling for cameras. If they had cameras on me, I was sunk. I was no expert on surveillance, but I couldnt see anything that looked like a camera. Most people didnt put shit like that in bathrooms. If you were a good guy, it was illegal and an invasion of privacy. You could go to jail for it in a lot of states. Of course, these guys were already looking at kidnapping and assault. I wasnt sure theyd sweat a little sexual perversion charge.

  Jason screamed again. I crawled on my knees to the cabinet. It had to be a private residence; they wouldnt have let Jason scream like that in a hotel. Which meant that underneath the sink should be some very dangerous and potentially useful things. Please, dont let them be the kind of people who put everything under the kitchen sink. Or worse yet, dont let them have thought to remove all the fun stuff.

  I prayed as I turned around and opened the doors with my bound hands. When I had the one door opened, I turned around to see what I had to work with.

  There were two bottles that were caustic and had warnings about not getting them in your eyes, and poison if swallowed. The poison part wasnt helpful with vampires, but the eye damage was. It wouldnt damage them the way it would damage a human, but it would hurt, and maybe give me a few seconds to do something more permanent to them. Id had success with throwing shit in a vampires eyes before. If I could get my hands undone, that was. If I couldnt manage that, then it didnt matter how many goodies were under the sink; I was screwed.

  Jason screamed again, just one long ragged sound. It pushed my pulse into my throat and made my body jerk. The jerk made me think about what held my wrists. It was a flex-cuff. Thats basically a great big twist tie, sort of. There was a drawer to the side of the sink.

  I stood and turned my back to the drawer so I could open it. Please, let there be a nail file or something in here. Please.

  When I turned and looked, it was even better. There was a pair of small manicuring scissors. Someone up there liked me. Its harder than it sounds to use tiny scissors behind your own back to cut through a pair of flex-cuffs. Its doable, and it beats the hell out of trying to saw through them with a metal file, but its still a lesson in frustration. Of course, the frustration could have been because Jason kept screaming. Hed scream, Id jump, and Id have to readjust the scissors. I finally had to close my eyes, so that I could concentrate on just the scissors on the plastic, and I forced myself to stop jumping every time Jason made a bad noise. What the hell were they doing to him? I forced myself to not follow that line of thought. My imagination was way too vivid to be helpful. Id get my hands free, and then wed save Jason. Simple, easy, sure.

  The scissors bit through the last piece of the cuffs, and my hands were free. Id been concentrating so hard on it that for a second I didnt move. I let out the breath Id been holding and opened my eyes. Then I very carefully let my hands come forward. Sometimes when youre cutting through things behind your back, when you free yourself, you lose concentration for a moment and cut yourself after youre free. Yeah, they were just little scissors, but Id done it before with knives.

  I stood there for a second, free at last, and then Jason screamed again. I knelt by the chemicals under the sink. I had rubbing alcohol, toilet bowl cleaner, tile scrubber, and a refill for the liquid soap dispenser beside the faucet. I heard footsteps in what I assumed was a hallway. Someone was coming this way. Jason screamed again from a distance, so it wasnt him, which meant no one coming through the door was my friend.

  Id have liked to have time to plan, but time was over for planning. It was time to act. I grabbed the alcohol, uncapped it. Hands touched the door and used a key to unlock it. I raised the bottle back. If I missed the eyes, Id just irritate him. The door opened. I saw a face, and I tossed the alcohol into it.

  He yelled, What the hell! and then he just yelled. I hadnt missed. His hands were clutching his face. I stepped back enough to get room, and being small helped me get enough force to put my foot into the side of his knee and destroy the joint. Everyone has joints, even vampires.

  He screamed. I heard a second male voice down the hall say, Troy, what the hell are you doing down there?

  Troy was on the floor. I could see his gun at his waist and his extra magazine. I took both. I heard someone coming down the hallway. I had a second to choose who to shoot first. Troy was hurt, the other guy wasnt.

  I rolled my shoulder around the doorjamb with the gun in my hand and ready. I used the edge of the door to help steady me one-handed, because the magazine was in my other hand. The vampire was spattered with blood. It wasnt his. He looked surprised to see me.

  He actually let me shoot him in the chest three times, while he stared at me. It was like shooting humans. His knees hit the ground and I put another rou
nd in his head. Either I was getting better or hed never been that good. Being a vampire can only make you so much better; if you suck to begin with, youll still suck once youre undead.

  I heard Troy moving behind me, and I threw myself into the hallway, shooting into him as I put the far wall against my back. I put two in the center of him as he crouched in the doorway. Blood started out of his mouth, and I walked closer so the two I put just above his eyes would blow the back of his brains out his skull. At that range, it did exactly that. Once you see that much brain on the outside spattered around, a newly dead vampire is truly dead. Just seeing brains through the skull doesnt count. If the brain is still attached and whole you can still get vampires that rise up and try to kill you again. Also, be careful about destroying the higher brain and leaving the lower. You can end up with revenants then, and they are a bitch. Eating machines, like zombies, but not.

  I had to change magazines to shoot a bullet into the base of his skull. Like I said, the brain needs to be well and truly scrambled or the damn things can still get up. I didnt want anything alive left behind me. Normally, Id have made sure the heart was destroyed, too, but I wanted to save ammo in case I needed it for other bad guys. It was a gamble, but they were the newly dead, so I was pretty secure with the choice.

  I went to the guy in the hallway, and found a nice-sized hole in his chest. Id hit the heart, so that was good. I put the muzzle to the base of his skull and fired off one more round. That took care of the lower brain and the spine. If I found a big enough blade, or more ammo, Id come back and make absolutely sure they wouldnt walk again, but for now, I wanted to get to Jason.

  I found a second gun on this ones belt. There was even a spare magazine. They used the same kind of gun. Great, I had more ammo.

  I wanted to run to where I thought Jason was, but I forced myself to check the place first. There was a door at the end of the hallway that looked like it led out. There were two more doors on either side of the hallway just short of that door. Maybe I should have checked all the rooms first, made sure we were alone, but I didnt know how badly hurt Jason was. If he bled to death while I was playing supercop, it wouldnt matter that Id been thorough.