Crimson Death

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "If we truly raise power for each other, if Nathaniel has finally figured out how to get our triumvirate to work, then he will have to come with us to Ireland."

  "Why do you wish him to come?" Jean-Claude asked.

  Damian looked at the floor; as his happiness receded, so did the easy confidence. He kept one hand in mine, but the other pulled at the towel, trying to raise it higher up his body. The bold vampire who hadn't seemed to care if the towel stayed, or fell, was gone. This was the Damian I knew: not shy, but not comfortable with being nude in front of other men, or certain people in general. He saw nudity the way I saw it, as a type of vulnerability.

  "I don't know," he said at last, but he stared at the floor as he said it. I don't think any of us believed him.

  Jean-Claude motioned to Nathaniel, and he came to us, laying his hand on Damian's bare shoulder. It wasn't a lover's touch, just a friend's hand on your shoulder when you are feeling sad. Damian flinched and started to pull away from that friendly touch, and then he stopped. He didn't just stop moving away; he stopped moving in that way that the older vampires could. His energy, the flow and hum of him, was almost not there at all. His hand wasn't warm and alive in mine anymore; it was like trying to hold hands with a mannequin, or some kind of lifelike doll, but it wasn't alive. Whatever I was touching wasn't alive. I'd always hated it when Jean-Claude did it. I didn't like it any better now.

  Nathaniel shook him by the shoulder. "Don't do this to us, Damian. Don't go away like this."

  Damian looked up then, his eyes almost flat without the shine of living eyes. He'd said that She-Who-Made-Him had killed him in battle that night so long ago. In that moment I understood what he meant.

  I tried to pull my hand out of his, but his fingers just stayed around mine; it was like holding a corpse's hand. "Either feel alive or let me go, Damian. I mean it."

  "I still have to do whatever you order me to do," he said. It was like magic--his hand just felt alive again.

  "Fine. Then why do you want Nathaniel to come with us to Ireland?" I asked.

  He shook his head.

  "Say his name, ma petite. You must be specific or he has room to wiggle."

  "Damian, tell me why you want Nathaniel to come with us to Ireland. Tell me the true reason you want him to come with us."

  He shook his head. "I don't . . ."

  "Damian," Nathaniel said, "why do you want me to come with you to Ireland?"

  The vampire sighed and again I was taken by the thick, beating pulse in the side of his neck. I wanted to lick the side of his neck and feel the beat of his life against my tongue.

  "Now, I have to obey both of you." He looked up at me and his green eyes were so alive and so angry. He turned the intensity of his gaze to Nathaniel. "I feel braver when you're with me. It takes everything for me to fight off the feeling of euphoria. I don't remember feeling this good, maybe ever." He put his hand up to cover Nathaniel's where he was still touching the vampire's shoulder. The towel began to slide back down to pool in his lap.

  "I wanted someone to desire me the way you and Anita seem to want Micah, and you made that wish come true. You wanted me to want you the way I want Anita, and I can't seem to stop you from getting your wish either." He turned and looked at me. "What did you wish for, Anita? What did you want from us? What did you want the three of us to be?"

  I thought about it for a minute. "I've thought life would be easier for a while if you were a little more bisexual."

  Damian laughed then, and it was part amusement and part something that wasn't light or funny at all. It wasn't exactly bitterness, but if irony had a sound, that was it. "I don't think I'm bisexual, but I may be Nathaniel-sexual." He looked up at Nathaniel.

  "You wanted to be desired. I wanted you happy and not sad about Cardinale. Did I do a bad thing to us?"

  "I do not know, but I know that with you and Anita beside me I am brave enough to go back and face her."

  "We are not going to face her, Damian. We don't have to face her."

  "Maybe not to save the humans that are being killed, but once we have stopped the plague of vampires in Dublin, I want the human authorities to help us free the rest of the people she is holding captive, Anita." He turned back to give me the full weight of that emerald gaze of his, but there was a purpose in it that I hadn't seen before.

  "Can we do that without messing things up for you with the European vampires?" I asked, looking at Jean-Claude.

  "One of the Harlequin told us that what's happening in Ireland may be because we killed Marmee Noir, and we aren't sending them back out to spy on all the other vampires, so we don't know what's happening," Nathaniel said.

  I asked Jean-Claude, "They said that some lesser vamps didn't wake up the night after we killed the Mother of All Darkness. Since no one here in St. Louis died, or for that matter no one I know of in this country, I didn't think about Europe. Did you know?"

  "That some lesser vampires would die and not reawaken at dusk if we killed her? That was possible."

  "You didn't tell me it was possible," I said, and felt that first flush of anger.

  "Ma petite, you know that when masters are injured, they reach out to their servants and the vampires that are blood-oathed to them for power to heal themselves and stay alive."

  "Yeah, so what?"

  "What did you think the Mother of All Vampires would do when she felt herself fading, dying? Did you not think that she would reach out to her children and use them in an attempt to save herself?"

  "I . . . No, I didn't," I said.

  "I kept nothing from you, ma petite. You simply failed to want to understand what might happen. You had the same knowledge of her and vampires as I did. If you did not know that slaying her would kill some of her lesser children, it is because you did not wish to know."

  "That's harsher than you usually talk to her," Nathaniel said.

  "Perhaps I am angry with myself tonight? Perhaps seeing Damian holding your hand shows me yet again the mistakes I made with Richard in my attempt not to force myself on him."

  Damian picked up Nathaniel's hand in his and brought our hands together in front of him so that he could lay a soft kiss on first my hand and then Nathaniel's. "No, Jean-Claude. Richard was brave when you met him. He knew who he was and what he wanted out of life. What bravery I had was used up centuries ago by her. I knew only I wished to be free of her, but beyond that I had lost everything I was, or wanted to be. I was directionless. Richard was never that, from what I know of him. Nathaniel has given me back my bearings. He has given me back a star to hang in the sky, a fixed mark that will guide me home." He kissed the back of Nathaniel's hand again. "He is my star."

  "And what is Anita to you, Damian?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "She is my master. She is wolf-kissed, beloved by the eagles."

  "Very poetic," he said.

  "It sounds pretty," I said, "but its meaning isn't."

  Damian looked up at me. "It is the highest compliment for a warrior among my people."

  "And an insult depending on how it was used."

  "How do you know that, ma petite?"

  "I'm not sure, but I know I'm right."

  "Is she right, Viking?" Jean-Claude asked.

  "We used to say of a great leader that the eagles must have cried out on the day he was born, for they knew he would feed them many corpses. The wolves must have howled with joy when you were born, because they knew you would feed them well."

  "So wolf-kissed and beloved by eagles is a way of saying that Anita is a great leader and kills a lot of people?" Nathaniel asked.

  "It is a great compliment," Damian said.

  I smiled, almost laughed. "I guess I do rack up the body count."

  "The vampires have given you two honor names, Anita. No other vampire hunter has ever been given two names by us."

  "I've been the Executioner for a long time."

  "But your other nickname among us is fresher, ma petite."

  "Yeah," I said.

/>   "War," he said.

  "And Edward is Death," Nathaniel said.

  "You are traveling to Ireland with two of the horsemen of the apocalypse," Jean-Claude said.

  "Kaazim talked about the fact that there should be a plural for apocalypse, because the Harlequin have stopped so many of them," I said.

  "To that, I cannot speak, but I know that you are sharing more memories with Damian, because you understood his compliments before he explained them."

  "We are a triumvirate," I said.

  "I think you are one, at long last in more than just name and metaphysics."

  "What if Nathaniel rolls us again?" I asked.

  "I think now that he knows he can, he will work harder not to bespell you. Won't you, mon minou?"

  "I didn't mean to do it this time."

  Damian said, "That's it. That's what you've done to me. You've bespelled me," and he wasn't looking at me or Jean-Claude when he said it.

  24

  NATHANIEL AND I were in our bedroom packing when Bobby Lee knocked at the door and asked to come in. He came to stand in the center of the room and was uneasy. That was the only word I had for it. It wasn't like him.

  I turned and looked at him. "What's wrong?"

  Nathaniel turned with the neatly folded clothes in his hands. I heard him sniff the air, and I was betting Bobby Lee smelled like anxiety. It had a scent, or so I was told by all my wereanimal friends.

  "I can't go with you to Ireland."

  "I'm sorry for that. Edward requested you specifically," I said.

  "None of the wererats can go with you."

  "Excuse me. Repeat that, because I could not have heard you right."

  Bobby Lee sighed, then said, "Rafael says that you had an agreement that if you tested positive for rat lycanthropy, he would be your beast half."

  "Yeah. So what?"

  "You just tested positive last week. You and he haven't had time to formalize it."

  "We'll worry about that when I come back from Ireland."

  Bobby Lee shook his head. He took off his wire-frame glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose like he was tired. His eyes without the glasses showed the tired more. "In an emergency you reach out to anyone close to you, Anita. You've tied more animals to call to you accidentally than on purpose, right?"

  "I guess."

  He put his glasses back on and looked at Nathaniel. "Help me out here."

  Nathaniel shook his head. "I'm going with Anita to Ireland. You've just told us that some of our best people can't come with us. Since you're potentially endangering both of us, why should I want to help you?"

  "There are good people for this job who aren't rats," Bobby Lee said.

  "Like who?" I asked.

  "Nicky for one."

  "Nicky was going with us anyway. Name someone else."

  "Wait," Nathaniel said. "Why can't the wererats go with us?"

  "Can we all agree that Anita has tied more of her animal halves to her through metaphysical emergencies than on purpose?" he asked.

  Nathaniel and I exchanged a look, and finally we both shrugged. "Sure, I concede that."

  "Okay, then, Rafael says that we can't travel with you just in case you accidentally turn to one of us. He is our king and it's either him as your rat, or no one."

  "I've been carrying hyena lycanthropy for months now and I haven't accidentally made one of them my beastie. I'm even taking Socrates with me and Narcissus is cool with it."

  "You've already made it clear to Narcissus that he has no chance of being your hyena half. You could do worse than Socrates."

  "I'll be sure and tell him you said that."

  "Anita, please, this is an order from my king. I can't disobey it, or him." He clenched his jaw and looked like he might even be grinding his teeth.

  "Fine. Besides Nicky, who else do you trust to replace you?"

  "Kaazim and Jake are going," he said.

  "That's a good start," I said.

  "You need guards who can double as food, and none of us qualifies since Rafael dictated that he's the only wererat you feed on."

  "I'm aware of that, which is why Fortune and Echo are going, along with Magda and her master, Giacomo."

  "And you're taking Damian and Nathaniel," he said.

  "Yes, but we're not going as just food," Nathaniel said.

  Bobby Lee looked surprised, before he could stop himself. He went back to a neutral expression, but the damage was done. "I know you're one of Anita's fiances."

  Nathaniel's energy whispered across my skin like a warm wind.

  Bobby Lee must have felt it, too, because he said, "I know you're one of Anita's fiances, and that makes you more than just food."

  The wind felt hotter, more summer than spring, as Nathaniel said, "I'm Anita's leopard to call, and part of her triumvirate of power."

  "I know that," Bobby Lee said.

  "Do you?" Nathaniel said, and his power didn't just bleed over onto me and whisper sweet nothings to my inner leopard. It spilled out into the room in a way that I'd never felt his power do before; it was closer to how Richard's energy worked when he was upset.

  Bobby Lee's hands clenched. I watched the tension in his shoulders and arms as he fought to relax.

  Nathaniel's power swirled through the room deeper, warmer, hot and aimed not at me but the wererat. He wasn't attacking him, but he was letting him know to be careful. It was a type of metaphysical posturing, and totally not how Nathaniel usually acted around anyone, let alone Bobby Lee.

  The wererat took a deep breath and let it out slow. He was still fighting the tension in his own body, because a display like what Nathaniel was doing could be a precursor to a fight. It was certainly a metaphysical slap in the face to a wereanimal as dominant as Bobby Lee.

  I said, "Nathaniel, I don't know what you're trying to prove, but . . ."

  "No, Anita, he doesn't get to dismiss me like that."

  "Be careful, Nathaniel. You don't want a new power level to make you forget," Bobby Lee said.

  "Forget what?" Nathaniel said, and his voice held a purring edge to it.

  "That I'm dominant to you, and I teach some of the fight classes you take."

  Nathaniel's power flexed; that was the only word I had for the sensation of the heat expanding and contracting as if the energy were trying to wrap around us.

  I looked at my calm boy, the one who never made trouble like this. "Don't do this," I said.

  "This is your last warning. I don't care if you are Anita's fiance."

  "I don't want to fight, Bobby Lee, but I'm beyond tired of everyone discounting me and Damian."

  "You don't want to fight? Ya coulda fooled me," Bobby Lee said.

  "I'm going to have to second that," I said.

  "I've tried just being nice, but that doesn't get you respected by people like him."

  "People like me? What's that supposed to mean?" Bobby Lee asked.

  "The big athletic guys who have been big and athletic for most of their lives. The ones who played sports. The natural athletes. Military. Police. All the guy-guys. I can't win points with any of you for cooking, cleaning, because that's wimmin's work."

  I was staring at Nathaniel as if I'd never seen him before, and I hadn't seen this side of him. I knew that guy-guys confused him and he'd never fit into their world, but this level of bitterness was a surprise to me.

  "You're a dancer. That's athletic," Bobby Lee said.

  "But it's not football, is it?" Nathaniel shook his head, his power so thick in the room now it was hard to breathe past it. It wasn't calling my inner beasts like most of the wereanimals did when they started doing shit like this; it was almost more like warm vampire power than wereanimal energy. It was too warm, too alive, to be vampire, but it just felt like power. The kind that vamps threw around to impress or attack each other, and to torment the lesser beings.

  "Back down, Nathaniel," I demanded.

  "Him first."

  "If you hadn't noticed, Bobby Lee is doing his b
est not to throw more energy onto this little fire. His control is admirable, which is more than I can say for yours."

  "You heard him, Anita. He doesn't count our triumvirate as important."

  "Until right now, only Anita had gained power, and she's gotten the respect that deserved."

  "And now?" Nathaniel asked, his voice purring along my skin as if his breath had touched me for real. It made me shiver and have to catch my breath. It was something Jean-Claude would do, but not Nathaniel.

  "What are you trying to prove, Nathaniel?" I asked, rubbing my hands along my arms.

  "Now you're proving that the only reason you've been nice up to now is that you didn't have enough power to be mean," Bobby Lee said.

  The power from Nathaniel faltered as if magic could trip over its own feet.

  The door opened without a knock. It was Damian. "What are you doing in here?"

  It was while Nathaniel and I looked at the door that Bobby Lee proved that he was as fast as Nicky had been in practice. He went from standing still to being up against Nathaniel with a naked blade against his neck.

  We all froze, because any movement could make things worse, so best to think carefully before you act. Honestly, I froze because it was just so damned unexpected that I didn't know what to do. Bobby Lee wasn't a bad guy. He wasn't even one of the guards who were a pain in my ass. Until this moment I'd have trusted him damn near implicitly.

  His voice came low and careful. "Power is like strength. It means nothing if you don't know what to do with it."

  "You've made your point, Bobby Lee," I said.

  Damian started walking farther into the room.

  "Have I made my point, Nathaniel?"

  Nathaniel spoke carefully with the blade against his neck. "Powers down."

  "You powered down because I startled you, not on purpose. It takes time to learn how to use magic, just like muscles." He started to ease the knife back from Nathaniel, then pushed it in tighter.

  "Bobby Lee," I said.

  "Tell your other man to back off."

  I looked at Damian, and he was behind the wererat with a blade in his hand. I'd never seen Damian carry a knife; a sword, but not a knife. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Defending us."

  "I'm not the enemy," Bobby Lee said.

  "You have a knife at my friend's neck."

  "I'm teaching a lesson."

  "What lesson?" Damian asked.