"Did he talk to you about some of his . . . girlfriends?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And Peter asked my advice on a few things. He wanted to know that he wasn't a freak for enjoying what he enjoyed."
"What did you tell him?" Edward asked.
"That he's not a freak. He just has to make sure that it's all safe, sane, and consensual. He and I have talked a lot about consent."
"I tried to talk to him about sex," Edward said.
"I know, but he couldn't talk to you about some of it. You're his dad, and you're more vanilla than he is."
Somehow vanilla was not a word I would have used for Edward, ever, but then he and I didn't discuss his sex life. I just gave him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't pure vanilla.
"I don't understand some of the things that Peter . . . wants."
"He knows that, and he knows you tried to understand, but his kinks are not your kinks, and you sent him to a therapist who treated his interest in bondage and submission as a part of his brokenness."
"His therapist feels that Peter is acting out about his own abuse and anger from it in the bondage and rough sex."
"Some, but whether it's from the abuse or was inside him waiting to be part of his sexuality doesn't really matter."
"Of course it matters."
"No, Edward, it really doesn't. What matters is that Peter doesn't feel like a freak or a monster but understands that his sexuality is okay. I stressed that he has to negotiate any scene play, so that his partner knows exactly what's going to happen and agrees to it all. I also told him that just because he fantasizes about something doesn't mean he'll enjoy it in reality, and that some fantasies must always remain as just that, fantasies."
"Has he told you his fantasies?"
"Some."
"I won't ask you to tell me."
"Good, because I wouldn't betray his trust like that."
"Can I ask you something, with you promising not to tell Peter?"
"Depending on what it is. I can't promise blindly."
"I guess that's fair. I told Anita that I was worried Peter was going to be an abuser, because of what happened to him."
"He could be, but he doesn't want to be, and sometimes when things like this happen to you, just deciding not to become the monster is enough to avoid it."
"He's a predator like I'm a predator, and that's not just from what happened to him at fourteen," Edward said.
"No, it's not," Nathaniel said.
"I told Anita that I was afraid Peter would take it that extra step and be more of a predator than I am; do you understand?"
"You're worried that the fact that he likes it rough, even violent, in the bedroom means he's going to turn into a serial killer."
"I told you I didn't think that was true of Peter, when you asked me, Edward," I said.
"But he hasn't talked in detail to you like he has to Nathaniel."
"You don't just become a serial killer, Edward," Nathaniel said, "not without long-term and systematic abuse, which is not what happened to Peter."
"You can be born one," Edward said.
"Edward," I said, "Nathaniel's right. You don't just become a serial killer without more damage than Peter has had in his life."
Nathaniel said, "Was Peter a bed-wetter when he was younger?"
"No."
"Does he have a history of starting fires?"
"No."
"Torturing animals?"
"No," and that last no sounded more relaxed than the first two.
"Peter is missing the serial killer trifecta, so he's not a born serial anything. He saw a werewolf kill his father in front of him when he was eight, and he picked up the gun his father dropped and killed the beast, saving his mother and baby sister. That's traumatic, but it was also brave and heroic. Maybe it made him more prone to violence in other parts of his life, or maybe the violence was always in there; maybe that's what helped him be able to pick the gun up and use it to kill the monster that killed his father. Being good at violence isn't always a negative. You should know that better than most people."
"You're right. I should, but it's always different when it's your kid."
"I hope to find out how different someday," Nathaniel said, then turned to give me a look that was far too serious.
"Don't look at me. I'm not planning on breeding, thanks."
"Kids are great, Anita," Edward said.
"Don't you start."
"I can't imagine you pregnant and doing our job, but I can't imagine you never wanting kids either."
"I really thought you'd be on my side on this one, Edward."
"I'm not on anyone's side. I just want my best friend happy, whatever that means for her."
Nathaniel smiled at me.
I pointed a finger at him. "We are not having this talk again. Especially not while we're planning the big wedding to Jean-Claude and an only slightly smaller ceremony with you and Micah."
"I'm helping plan both of those, plus helping Donna with her and Edward's wedding, but I'm not complaining."
"Bully for you, but I mean it, Nathaniel. The baby talk is shelved until we've survived all the nuptial bliss."
"Fine. Babies are shelved until after all three of the weddings are over."
"That is not what I said."
"It sort of is," Edward said.
"Damn it, you are on his side."
"I'm not. I mean, if you got pregnant, who would come play cops and robbers with me?"
I rolled my eyes, which made Nathaniel smile, but it was lost on Edward. "Yeah, you'd lose me as a playmate."
"You and I play the best games together."
"No," Nathaniel said. "Anita and I play the best games together."
"And we're done," I said. "The two of you are not comparing notes on anything like that."
"Would we do that, Anita?" Edward said, his voice teasing.
"I'm not finding out, because this conversation is over."
Edward laughed, Nathaniel joined in, and after a minute of trying to pout at them both, I gave up and joined them. When the laughter stopped, Edward asked again for Damian to come to Ireland and help find the vampires that were plaguing Dublin. Nathaniel asked more questions then, because he'd want to give as much information as possible to the vampire when he finally woke for the day.
"He's your vampire servant. Just order him to come with you to Ireland," Edward said.
"You know I won't do that, Edward."
"You complicate your life, Anita."
"If I didn't complicate my life none of the men I love would be in it, and that includes Nathaniel."
Edward couldn't argue with that, so he didn't try. "If we have a vampire who knows the city, it could make all the difference, Anita."
"I know, Edward."
Nathaniel said, "What haven't you told us?"
"Anita has more details about the actual murders."
"What about your mysterious friend Brian, and where you met?"
"No."
"What about the person behind the new project who isn't Van Cleef, but is like Van Cleef? Who is he? How dangerous is he to Anita?"
"If I thought he was dangerous to her, I wouldn't ask her to come."
Nathaniel tried a few more questions. I knew better. Once Edward had decided the amount of information he would share, then he was done.
We left it like that, because being besties with Edward meant I had to be all right with the fact that I might never know everything about his past. I could live with that, and so could Edward. I suspected that he had some secrets that if he shared them with me, we might not be able to live with them, because someone would find us and make sure we didn't. Maybe it would just be jail time in a government facility, but I was betting that the mysterious Van Cleef was more a final-solution type of guy, and nothing says final like being dead.
20
I PICKED MY phone up and looked at Nathaniel across the small table. "I didn't know you'd been talking to Pe
ter in that much detail."
"Donna and Edward--Ted--suggested Peter call me for help planning the bachelor party. We talked about things for the party that helped him know I wasn't embarrassed by certain topics and he started talking to me."
"You never mentioned it to me."
"Peter spoke to me in confidence."
"I get that, but still it feels like I missed something important."
He smiled. "You didn't miss anything you'd want to know."
I puzzled through that for a second and then shrugged. "I don't understand what that means, Nathaniel."
"It means that he confided in me and he talked to me about things that would embarrass you coming from Peter. You've known him since he was thirteen or fourteen, so to you he's a little kid. What he needed help with was grown-up stuff that he couldn't have talked about with any woman, let alone you."
"Okay, what does that mean?"
The smile faded around the edges and he shook his head. "I am not going to talk to you about what Peter and I discussed. It's private and it would bother him a lot if I broke his confidence to you."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means the topic is closed, because I am not going to let you ask questions until you figure out things from my answers. We're done talking about Peter."
"So serious all of a sudden."
He raised both eyebrows and looked at me very steadily.
"What?" I asked.
He pushed his chair back, stood, and offered me his hand. "Let's go find Sin and the rest and find out if Pierette knows as much about Ireland as Damian does."
"You really don't want him to go with me."
"Damian feels he barely escaped She-Who-Made-Him once. Sending him back where she could physically touch him again seems like a bad idea."
"He didn't escape. She let him go, because she was done with him. If he'd escaped, I wouldn't take him back there."
"I still hope Pierette can give you intel about Ireland so you can leave Damian at home." He waggled his hand at me.
After a moment's hesitation I took his hand in mine. Yes, I did think about not taking it, but that would have been childish. I was trying to be better than that. We walked through the door together this time. The gym was still empty and seemed very quiet without all the hustle and bustle of other people.
"Edward may talk to Peter about what you said," I said.
"No, he won't," Nathaniel said.
"How do you know that he won't?"
"Because he's relieved that Peter has someone to talk to about this stuff."
"If he tells Donna, she'll pester Peter about it."
"If he tells her."
"You think he won't?"
"I think Edward will do what he thinks is best for Peter."
"And you think that doesn't include telling his mother that you're his confidant?"
"Don't you?" Nathaniel asked.
I thought about it for a minute and then nodded. "Donna wouldn't be able to leave it alone. It would bug her that her son is able to confide in you more than in her."
"Even though the topics he's needed help with would have been wildly inappropriate for a mother/son talk?" Nathaniel asked.
"You've talked to Donna enough on the phone and via Skype while you've been helping with the wedding; what do you think?"
It was his turn to think, and he finally said, "You're right. She would have to poke at it."
"So you're right. Edward won't mention it to her, because he'd know better than we do that she wouldn't be able to leave it alone."
We walked into the hallway outside the gym area, and it felt like a tunnel after the wide-open spaces of the gym. I heard Sin's voice, though I couldn't pick out the actual words. A woman's voice answered him, but it wasn't until they came into sight that I could see it was Sin and Pierette. Nicky and Magda were nowhere in sight. Pierette was talking earnestly to him. He nodded as if encouraging her to go on. All the anger seemed to have seeped away from her; what the hell had Sin said to Pierette to get her so eager to tell all?
She saw us first and almost startled, standing taller, as if she were coming to attention. "My queen," she said, and bowed.
Nathaniel and I exchanged a look. If I hadn't known she would hear me, I'd have suggested it was pod people, because Pierette's entire attitude had changed in just minutes. Sin could be charming, but he was a twenty-year-old man; he hadn't had enough life experience to be this charming. Hell, Jean-Claude couldn't have pulled this off without using vampire mind powers on her.
"Pierette," I said, and inclined my head to her, though honestly I never knew what to do when someone referred to me as their queen. I let them use the title because that had been the Mother of All Darkness's title, and it was very much a case of "The queen is dead. Long live the queen."
Sin glanced back at us with a smile. "Pierette has been telling me about all her travels around the world with her master, Pierrot."
"Are any of those adventures set in Ireland?" I asked.
"Yes, my queen," she said.
"Ireland was one of the places that Pierette and Pierrot policed for the old vampire council," Sin said.
"Police arrest people. They save lives. Did you arrest people, Pierette?"
"There was only one punishment for vampires who had overstepped themselves, my queen."
"And that was?" I asked.
"The same as it is now: death." I couldn't really argue with her reasoning. I was a U.S. Marshal, but really my job description hadn't changed. I was still a legal executioner with a badge.
"Did you ever kill anyone in Ireland?" I asked.
"No, M'Lady took care of such things herself."
"M'Lady? I've never heard her called that before." We were up even with them now, so I got the full weight of her large brown eyes.
"Even we of the Harlequin with the strength of the Mother of All Darkness behind us dared not speak her true names, for it called her attention to us, so we christened her M'Lady, for it was the name she forced her pets to call her."
"Pets. Do you mean her animals to call?" Sin asked.
She turned that delicate face with its large dark eyes up to his face. "No, my prince. Though she made some wereanimals into pets, most were vampires like the queen's servant, Damian."
"What do you mean, Damian was her pet? I don't understand what the word means in this context."
"They were her sexual partners, but to call them lovers suggested an emotion that M'Lady did not seem to exhibit. She was as likely to torture them as share pleasure with them. They were at the mercy of her whims and she was . . . very whimsical."
"I thought whimsical meant fun and lighthearted," I said.
"Then I have misspoken, because M'Lady was not prone to fun, and if she had a heart in the sense that you mean, there was nothing light about it. She forced them to call her M'Lady much as the way a slave in the bondage-and-submission community will call their dominant master, except that title is usually earned and freely given, and nothing was free of cost between M'Lady and her pets, or slaves."
"Calling someone master is a term of endearment and respect in the BDSM community," Nathaniel said.
"Then again, I have misspoken, because it was a demand, a title like queen, or king, with nothing endearing about it."
"Didn't it bother you to use the same name she forced her pets to use?" I asked.
"Somewhat, yes, but what else were we to call her?"
"Wicked Bitch of Ireland's been working for me."
Pierette looked shocked for a moment, and then she laughed, but it was laughter you make when someone surprises or shocks you, more than amuses you. "If you have the misfortune to see her, my queen, please do not call her that to her face. I do not want to lose another dark queen in less than two years."
"What if I told you that M'Lady is allowing vampires that aren't hers to terrorize a city in Ireland?"
"I would say that it isn't true. She holds absolute sway over the vampires in Ireland, because
they can only rise through her bite, her line. She is her own sourdre de sang, fountain of blood, just as Jean-Claude has become, as Belle Morte and the Dragon have been for centuries. Only her power has been great enough to overcome the reluctance of the land to give up its dead."
"What do you mean about the land?" I asked.
"The wild magic of the Fey is stronger in Ireland than anywhere else remaining in the world. Even if someone dies by vampire bite with the three bites and the right amount of blood taken in the last feeding, most bodies do not rise in Ireland. They are simply dead and begin to rot. Only someone who was their own bloodline could have any hope of creating vampires in Ireland."
"So, a vampire that was a fountain of blood would be able to raise vampires there, but no one else?" I asked.
"Even then it wouldn't be a given. We have seen M'Lady try to create vampires and the bodies remain inert. She was enraged by her failures, and they were not infrequent. The land's magic is too alive for any kind of death magic to work well there."
"Then why do the Irish not like necromancers?"
"True necromancers are so rare throughout history that I would not think they had a policy for or against," Pierette said.
"Another Marshal has been trying to get permission for me to come to Ireland and help him on a case, but they didn't want to let a necromancer into their country."
"That surprises me, my queen. They are one of the most welcoming countries in the world to all magics."
I shrugged. "All I can tell you is that they didn't want to let me in at first."
"He did say your reputation for violence was part of the reason," Nathaniel said.
I frowned at him. "Okay. Well, yeah."
"I can see them protesting that, but not your magic," she said.
"It's what I was told."
"Maybe it's that you're a true necromancer," Sin said.
"What do you mean?"
"You killed the Mother of All Darkness, Anita; that's like a step up from normal necromancy," Nathaniel said.
"There is no normal necromancy," Pierette said. "There have only been a handful of necromancers worthy of the name in the last thousand years, and we killed them before they could grow into their full powers."
"And yet everyone's afraid of us," I said.
"They're afraid of people like your coworkers who raise and control zombies. They have no idea what a true necromancer could do."
"There are videos all over the Internet showing the zombies in Boulder, Colorado, last year," Sin said.
Pierette nodded. "Some show Anita surrounded by her own army of zombies. Yes, that might give the Irish authorities pause."
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