His hand convulsed in my hair, his body shuddering under the brush of the leopard. It closed his eyes, bowed his neck backward, as if it felt unbelievably good.
He opened his eyes and gazed down at me. His eyes were deep gold leopard eyes. “If you do that again, we’ll shoot Lisandro again.”
“We’ll all go deaf if you keep using the gun in this room,” I said, and my voice was amazingly matter-of-fact.
“Then we will use blades,” he said. He made a motion and I turned in time to see one of the silent Harlequin move in a blur of black. One minute standing still, the next a knife sticking into Lisandro’s upper thigh. I had been looking right at him, and hadn’t seen it all. God help me, they were fast.
Lisandro made a sharp muffled sound through his gag. His shoulders rose off the table as his body dealt with the pain of a huge-ass knife hilt-deep in his thigh.
“You said next time. I didn’t do it again.”
He motioned again and I turned in time to see the same Harlequin wrap his hand around the hilt. “Oh, shit,” I said. And he pulled the blade free in one quick pull. Blood welled out of the cut, staining his jeans farther up and on the opposite side from the knee injury. Lisandro looked at me, eyes wide enough to show too much white around the brown. The look was clear: Stop that.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, to that unsaid comment.
Harley motioned and one of the others went for the still-open door. It was like some kind of arcane sign language, or the small hand signals that special forces teams can use, but they weren’t hand signals that I’d ever seen.
The remaining two Harlequin stepped up so one of them could press hands down on Lisandro’s shoulders, and the other had his legs. My heart was beating too fast, too hard.
“Don’t hurt him anymore.”
Harley frowned down at me. He petted my hair again and ran his hand down the side of my face. “Why does it feel so good to touch you?”
“I swear to you that I don’t know, other than I’m the Nimir-ra for our local wereleopards.”
“You are human and vampire; you can’t be Nimir-ra.” But even as he said it, his hand cupped the side of my face. His hand was very warm against my skin.
“As far as we know, I’m the first human Nimir-ra in the history of the pard,” I said. I snuggled my cheek against the heat of his hand. He jerked back as if I’d bitten him.
“Stay with them,” he said, and turned and left the room.
The two remaining Harlequin exchanged the first look between them that I’d seen. There was someone in there. Someone that maybe didn’t know why they were suddenly alone with us, with me. “What are your names?” I asked.
They glanced at me and then back at each other.
“Why did the Mother of All Darkness forbid you from telling me your names?”
They stared straight ahead, holding Lisandro in place on the table. If I were really a shapeshifter powerful enough to just shift my hands I could have gotten out of the ropes, easily, which was why Lisandro was in chains and I was in ropes. I tensed my stomach muscles and sat up on the table. The Harlequin didn’t so much move as tense.
“Since you won’t give me your names, I’ll call you Thing One and Thing Two.”
They glanced at each other again. One of them had brown eyes, the other had blue. They were both shorter than Harley or the werewolf, but beyond that the masks and hoods and gloves made them all generic.
I began to try to get the ropes over my hips; once I got them that far, I could bring them over my legs, and then I could untie my legs. The chances of my loosening the ropes enough to do it at all were small, but in the few minutes I had, almost nil. Would they stop me? Would they talk to me? We had minutes of being down to just two of them, and then I figured Harley would come back. I needed options before that happened.
I wiggled toward the edge of the table. I didn’t know what I planned to do, but I knew I couldn’t lie there and let them bring more of my people in here to hurt.
Thing Two appeared in front of me; I knew it was him because he had blue eyes. Thing One had brown. Thing Two shook his head.
“Do you talk?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
The blue eyes just stared at me.
I got my legs over the side of the table and debated what he’d do if I tried to jump off the table. Would he catch me? Would he touch me? Touching me seemed to affect all of them. It was as if the ardeur and my beasts had combined to be something new, different. I didn’t understand all of it, but I was pretty sure that if I could have physical contact with one of them for long enough I could roll their minds like any vampire victim, or that was the plan. I’d had better plans, but we were about to run out of time, so any plan was better than none. Or that was what I told myself as I pushed off the table.
37
THING TWO CAUGHT me around the waist and arms. It put me up against him, and the moment my chest touched his, I knew it was a her. I’d known that some of them were women, but I’d expected to notice it before we were pressed breast to breast; so much for my powers of observation. My face was tucked into the bend of her neck, between the mask and the hood, but there was no skin to find. The mask was part of the hood. I was betting it was snapped in like the gloves. But I didn’t need skin to smell the lion inside her. She lifted me easily and sat my ass back on the table edge.
She shook her head at me, blue eyes very serious.
“Are you forbidden to talk because you’re both women?” I asked.
“They’re not both women.” It was the growling voice of the werewolf, back again. “They’re a mated pair of lions, or want to be, but their vampire masters see them as theirs. They will share them with other vampires, but not allow them to be with each other.”
The female Harlequin moved in front of him, blocking his path. She shook her head.
“Their masters cut their tongues out with silver. It’s something they can cut off us that won’t harm our fighting skills.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The tongues will grow back, eventually, and they are supposed to learn to obey their vampire masters. The Harlequin that stayed loyal to the Mother are very old-school, Anita Blake. Animals to call, no matter how skilled, are still animals, and they treat us like animals.”
The female looked back at the male. There was another shared look.
“If the Mother of All gains her body, then all the shapeshifters will go back to being animals,” the werewolf said.
“Is the other Harlequin, the one that carried in my friend, a lion, too?”
“No, she’s another leopard.”
The werewolf drew a blade and knelt by my feet. The woman touched his shoulder, but when he went to cut through the rope on my ankles, she didn’t stop him. I heard chains rattle and the other lion was unlocking the cuffs on Lisandro’s ankles. It was too good to be true, but for once I just let him slice through the ropes on my wrists. Too good or not, I’d take it.
He handed me my own guns. “I didn’t dare take more, and we’ve melted down your holy objects; they’re gone.”
I checked the Browning and the Smith & Wesson automatically to make sure they were loaded. They were. I tucked the S&W down the back of my jeans. “Don’t apologize, this is great.”
He handed Lisandro his main gun, too. He checked to make sure it was loaded just like I had. “Thank you,” Lisandro said.
“Thank me when you’re safe,” he said, and started for the door.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“She thinks you gain power over people with their names; it’s old magic.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude,” I said.
“Thaddeus,” he said. “My real name is Thaddeus.”
“No matter how this turns out, thank you, Thaddeus,” I said.
He nodded, and led the way to the door. The silent werelions fanned out to both sides. Lisandro touched my arm so I’d let him go ahead
of me. His thigh was completely healed already; let’s hear it for no silver, and let’s hope that our luck stays this good. Of course, no one’s luck stays this good.
38
ONCE WE STEPPED out into the corridor, I had my answer on whether we were underground: yes. I’d have said it was a basement but the single hallway was all stone, as if it had been hacked from the ground, or maybe begun life as caves like the Circus of the Damned underground. This underground wasn’t nearly as impressive. In fact the main hallway was narrow enough that we could only walk two abreast. There were doors on either side like the one we came out of, and a visible end to the hallway just down from our door. The other end vanished around a curve that hid anything more than twenty feet away. A dead-end corridor with a series of doors into dead-end rooms; I’d feel sooo much better when we got around that curve, and out of this nearly perfect ambush area.
“Where are our people?” I asked.
Thaddeus motioned up the hallway. “Last door on the left has your men in it.”
He started to lead us toward that door, but I glanced at the four other closed doors. “Are there more prisoners down here?” I asked.
“No, just our masters and their vampire henchmen.”
Lisandro and I exchanged a look. “We need out of this hallway,” he said.
I nodded, because I totally agreed. If it had been a normal vampire hunt we could have staked the vampires, or put silver bullets into their brains and hearts, but if the vampires died, then their animals to call might die, too. It would be really ungrateful of us to kill our rescuers, so we had to leave the vampires behind us, dead to the world for now. The back of my neck prickled with the thought of them behind the doors, waiting for night, and us having only one way out. I appreciated Thaddeus and the lions helping us, but we weren’t rescued yet.
Thaddeus led the way with the male lion beside him. Lisandro insisted on going next and putting me between him and the female lion. I didn’t waste time arguing. We just needed to get the others and get the fuck out of Dodge.
The door we wanted was nearly at the bend of the corridor, so the lion, whom I was still calling Thing One in my head, drew a gun and glanced around that blind curve. He didn’t startle or wave us off, so apparently no nasty surprises were up ahead. Good.
Thaddeus unbolted the door. It opened almost noiselessly. He said something harsh in a language I didn’t speak, and in English said, “They are not here.”
I tried to peer around the broad shoulders and cloak, but Lisandro was actually taller and looked over his head. “Shit,” he said.
I realized I’d never asked who they had. I understood in that moment that I’d been afraid to ask, because part of me didn’t want to know who they had as hostages. I was pretty sure it was Bernardo, because he’d had the coffee just like Lisandro and me, but Nicky and Olaf hadn’t. I hadn’t asked if they were captured, or dead. Having Olaf die in the line of duty would solve so many problems, but he was a good man in a fight and he was a fellow marshal. I couldn’t wish him dead. I admitted to myself that it was Nicky that bothered me most. Bernardo was a friend, but more a work friend. I’d be sorry, but my life would go on. Nicky dead would seriously change my day-to-day life. If he’d been my lion to call his death would have hurt me, and I’d have known, but Brides of vampires are often cannon fodder, the vampires that are left behind to delay the hunters while the masters get away. If you have the vampire ability to make brides, you can always make more. Most masters knew better than to fall in love with the cannon fodder.
“Who got captured with you?” I asked Lisandro.
“I came to with just Bernardo and a guy I didn’t recognize.”
“What about Nicky and Olaf?” I asked, and I forgot to use Olaf’s “marshal” name. In that moment, I didn’t try to correct it. I’d learned when accidentally giving away someone’s alias that just ignoring the mistake attracts less attention than repeating and correcting. Most people edit what they hear to match what they expect to hear anyway.
“I passed out when you did, Anita.”
“Shit,” I said. “Thaddeus.”
He turned and gave me those serious green eyes in their mask. “While I fetched weapons they moved your friends. I have failed you.”
“Who’s the man that Lisandro didn’t know, and what happened to the other two men with us?”
“The red tiger mongrel that you made your lover,” he said.
“Ethan?”
“I believe that is his name.”
“I’ve only slept with Ethan once.”
“You have a reputation for bonding very closely with your lovers after very little contact.”
“How did you get him out of the red tiger’s lair?”
“Our spy knew a way to get him to come to us.”
“Good ol’ George,” I said.
“That is one of his aliases.”
I wanted to argue, but wasn’t sure I could, so I pushed the thought away. I’d look at it later. I didn’t ask again about Nicky and Olaf either. If they were dead, there was nothing I could do, and there’d be plenty of time for mourning. Right now, I needed to get us out alive without being possessed by Marmee Noir; until those two goals were reached nothing else really mattered. I told myself that and almost believed it.
“Fine, where would they take them?” I asked.
Then a voice called from ahead, “Anita, we have your lovers; if you do not throw down your weapons and surrender we will begin cutting pieces off them.” It was Harley; great.
I didn’t answer him. I believed he’d do it, but I also believed he just wanted to hold us here in this corridor until nightfall. All he had to do was wait for darkness and the vampires would rise behind us, and Harley and the red tiger Harlequin I’d wounded—George, if that was his real name—and the female wereleopard who’d helped carry Lisandro would have more allies.
“Answer me, Anita, or do you need proof?”
“I heard you, Harley,” I yelled back.
“That is not my name.”
“Then give me a name to call you.”
“He is Marius,” Thaddeus said.
“Okay, Marius,” I yelled back, “you want us to surrender. We want our men safe. What happens next?”
“Wolf, you have given them my name, my real name. I curse you, wolf.”
“I was cursed long ago, Marius. You are cat and that was always her favorite animal. The wolves are worse than the meanest cur to her. I will not go back to it.”
“Traitor!” A woman’s voice yelled it, so she was the wereleopard that we’d met earlier.
“Yes,” Thaddeus said.
Marius gave a wordless scream, and cursed, and then there was a muffled scream from someone else. Shit. “Marius.” I called out his name, but there was nothing I could do to undo what had caused that scream. That bit of damage was done. Fuck.
There was a small sound, and Thing One made a sign with his free hand. Thaddeus said, “They’ve thrown down a finger.” He motioned and the werelions moved up and out in the large, nearly circular open area. The stairs lay on the far side of the space. The werelions moved quickly across it, guns out, alert, but there was nothing but the thing at the bottom of the stairs. One of them covered up the stairs while the other picked it up, and then they retraced their steps, watching behind them as if they expected the others to rush them. But they didn’t need to rush us, all they needed was to outwait us. They could just wait and cut pieces off . . .
The man held out his black-gloved hand and there was a pale little finger in it. It was Ethan’s; Bernardo’s skin tone was darker. If they hadn’t used silver, Ethan would grow another finger. It meant they weren’t trying to do permanent damage. That was almost interesting on its own.
“The next thing I cut off won’t be from your pet tiger. The next finger will be from your human lover and it won’t grow back!” Marius yelled.
I didn’t try to argue that Bernardo and I had never been lovers. I had a reputation for lik
ing men, a lot, and that meant they’d never believe that I’d passed Bernardo up. Besides, if they knew we weren’t lovers, they might hurt him more and faster. There was just no way to tell. I stared at the finger in the werelion’s hand. It felt like I should do something with it, but I couldn’t think what.
Lisandro spoke low. “Anita, we need a plan.”
I shook my head, staring at the still-bleeding finger.
Lisandro grabbed my arm and spun me around to look at him. “Anita, I’m the muscle, you’re the brains. Think of something!”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“The vampires will rise soon, and it will all be over,” Thaddeus said.
Then I had my idea; it was a wonderful, awful idea. “Show me Marius’s and George’s and the wereleopards’ masters.”
Thaddeus didn’t even argue. He just turned and started walking back the way we’d come. Marius, George, and the wereleopard had Ethan and Bernardo, but we had their vampire masters, who were still completely helpless until nightfall. They had hostages and now so did we.
39
THERE WERE TWO rooms full of vampires. Each held three master vampires in coffins with about a half-dozen lesser vamps curled around their coffins like sleeping puppies; okay, sleeping dead puppies, but still the visual was clear. The vampires in the coffins were important; the ones on the floor were not.
The two lions wanted to know why we didn’t just kill the others’ masters immediately. “Because if all three don’t die together instantaneously, the one left could kill our people before we could finish killing their master.”
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