21

The tile felt so good against my cheek, so cool. Someone was moving around. I thought about opening my eyes, but it seemed like too much effort. Someone put a cool cloth against my neck. It made me shiver, and I opened my eyes. My vision took a second to focus, then I saw the knee beside my face was wearing hose, and a skirt.

I knew it wasn't one of the men, unless they had hobbies I didn't know about. "Anita, it's me, Tammy, how you feeling?"

I rolled my eyes, but some of my own hair was in the way, and I couldn't see up that far. I tried to say, help me sit up,but it didn't come out. I tried again, and she had to lean close to hear me. She pushed a piece of her straight brown hair behind her ear, as if that would help her hear better.

"Help me," I swallowed, "sit up."

She got an arm under my shoulders and lifted. Detective Tammy Reynolds was five ten, and she worked out at least enough to keep the other--read male--cops from giving her grief. She didn't have much trouble getting me up, my back against the bathtub.

Staying there was my job, and that was a little more trouble. I propped myself on one arm and leaned against the tub.

She picked the rag up from the edge of the sink where she'd laid it, and put it against my forehead. The rag was cold, and I jerked away from her. I felt cold, that was a new symptom. I thought of something.

"Have you been," I coughed to clear my throat, "putting cool rags on me?"

"Yes, it helps me when I'm sick."

"Cold rags don't seem to be helping me." I didn't tell her that it was probably one of the worst things she could have done for me. Ever since I had inherited Richard's beast, or whoever's beast, cold didn't seem to help me when I was sick. I healed like a lycanthrope now, and that meant that my temperature ran hot when I was sick, like my body was cooking itself. A well-meaning doctor had almost killed me with ice baths for what they thought was a dangerously high fever.

I started to shiver.

She got up, rinsing the washrag out, and spreading it out to dry on the edge of the sink. "I threw up in the yard," she said. She put her hands on the sink, head bowed.

I hugged myself, trying to stop the shivering, but it didn't really help. I was cold. I hadn't been cold earlier today. Was a new symptom good or bad?

"It's a bad scene," I said, "I'm sure you weren't the only cop who lost their breakfast."

Tammy looked at me through a trailing edge of her hair. She had to keep her hair above her collar, just like the male policemen, but she kept it as long as she could. "Maybe, but I'm the only one who passed out."

"Except for me," I said.

"Yeah, you and me, the only women at the scene." She sounded so tired.

Tammy and I weren't actually friends. She was a Follower of the Way, Christianity's version of witches. Most of the Followers of the Way were zealots, more Christian than the right-wingers, as if they had to prove they really were worthy of salvation. Tammy had mellowed since she'd been dating Larry Kirkland, my fellow animator. But this was the first time I'd realized how much of that bright and shiny exterior had been worn away. Police work will eat you up and spit you out.

As women we needed to be tougher just to be accepted. Today hadn't helped either of us.

"It's not your fault," I said. The shivering was beginning to get a little worse.

"No, it's my damn doctor's fault."

I looked up at her. "Excuse me?"

"He gives me a prescription for birth control pills then prescribes antibiotics, and doesn't warn me that while I'm taking the antibiotic, the pill won't work."

My eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, are you saying . . ."

"That I'm pregnant, yes."

I know the surprise showed on my face, I couldn't help it. "Does Larry know?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What . . ." I tried to think of something good to say, and gave up. "What are you going to do?"

"Get married, damn it."

Something must have showed on my face, because she knelt by me. "I love Larry, but I didn't plan on marrying now, and I certainly didn't plan on having a baby. Do you know how hard it is to get ahead in this job as a woman? Of course, you do. Sorry."

"No," I said, "it's not the same for me. Police work isn't my entire career." The shivering had started up again; no amount of astonishment could keep me warm.

She took her own jacket off, showing her gun in its front holster. She wrapped the jacket around me. I didn't argue, but clutched it closed with my hands.

"Is the shivering from the pregnancy?" she asked. "Someone said you said you were sick, are you?"

It took me a second or two, blinking at her sort of stupidly to understand what she'd said. "Did you just say 'pregnancy'?"

She made a face at me. "Anita, please, I haven't told anyone either, but they're going to guess. I threw up at the murder scene, I've never done that. I didn't pass out cold like you did, but I came close. Perry had to help me out into the yard so I could be sick. It won't take them long to figure it out."

"This is not the first scene I've thrown up at, not even the fourth," I said. "I haven't done it in a while, but I've certainly done it before. Surely they've told you the story about me throwing up on the body. Zerbrowski loves that one."

"Sure, but I thought he was exaggerating. You know how Zerbrowski is."

"He wasn't exaggerating."

"You can lie to me if you want to, but unless you're planning to abort, they'll all figure it out sooner or later."

"I am not pregnant," I said, though I had a little trouble saying it, because I was shivering so badly it was hard to talk. "I'm just sick."

"You're freezing, Anita, you don't have a fever."

How could I explain to her that I was having a bad reaction to a vampire bite and the fact that I shared Richard's beast. Odd metaphysics weren't easy to explain. Pregnancy was nice and simple, compared to that.

She grabbed my arms, a lot like Dolph had. "I am three months pregnant. How far along are you? Please tell me, tell me I haven't been a fool. Tell me I haven't ruined my life by not reading the fine print on a bottle of medicine."

I was shivering so hard, it was hard to talk, but I managed to get out, "I--am--not pregnant."

She stood and turned her back on me. "Damn you for not sharing."

I tried to say something, I wasn't even sure what, but she left, leaving the door open behind her. I wasn't sure being left alone was a good thing, the shivering was getting worse, like I was freezing to death from the inside. Larry Kirkland was off being trained to be a federal marshal. He didn't have four years as a vamp executioner yet, so he couldn't get grandfathered in. I wondered if the pregnancy was making it harder for him to be away from Tammy, or easier. Damn it, anyway.

Perry brought Jason up to me. He touched me. "God, you're cold." He picked me up in his arms like I weighed nothing. "I'm taking her home."

"We'll give you an escort through the press," Perry said.

Jason didn't argue. He carried me down the stairs. We waited for a few minutes, while Perry rounded up enough warm bodies to act as a sort of living gauntlet to try and keep the press at bay.

The door opened, the sunlight hit my eyes and the headache roared to life. I buried my face against Jason's chest. Jason seemed to know what was wrong, because he raised an edge of Tammy's jacket across my eyes.

"Are you ready?" Perry's voice.

"Let's do it," Jason said.

Normally, I'd have felt humiliated to be carried out of a murder scene like a wilting flower, but I was working too hard on keeping the shivering under control. It took all my concentration not to let my body shake itself apart. What the hell was wrong with me?

We were outside, and moving at a good pace. I could judge how close we were to the press by how loud the yelling was getting. "What's wrong with Ms. Blake?" "What happened to her?" "Who are you?" "Where are you taking her?" There were more questions, lots more. They all melded into a noise like the ocean against the shore. The crowd surged around us. There was a moment when I felt them closing like a fist around us, but Merlioni's voice rose to a shout, "Back up, back up now, or we'll clear this area."

Jason got me inside the Jeep, leaning his shoulder into me, so he could fasten the seat belt. The jacket was across my face now, and strangely it felt claustrophobic.

"Close your eyes," he said.

I was already doing what he'd asked, but I didn't say anything. The jacket moved away, and the sun was bright against my closed eyelids. I felt the sunglasses slip over my eyes, and I opened them cautiously. Better.

There was a line of detectives and uniforms in front of the Jeep, keeping the pack of reporters back, so we could make our getaway. Every camera they had was pointed our way. God knew what the captions would read once they were done with it.

Jason gunned the engine and backed up with a screech of tires. He was a ways down the street before I could chatter out, "you'll get a ticket."

"I've called Micah. He's waiting. You and Nathaniel can share the bathtub."

I managed to get out, "What?"

"I don't know exactly what's wrong, Anita, but you're acting like a shape-shifter that's been badly hurt. Like your body's trying to heal some deep wound. You need heat, and the touch of your group."

"I," teeth chattering so hard I couldn't finish, "haven't . . ." I stopped trying for a sentence and settled for, "Not hurt."

"I know that you're not hurt that badly. But even if it was the vampire bite, you'd be warm to the touch, hot, cooking to heal yourself. You shouldn't feel cold."

My ears started ringing. It sounded like someone was hitting a chime over and over. The ringing drowned out Jason's voice, the sound of the engine, and finally everything. I passed out for the second time in less than two hours. This was not turning out to be one of my better days.

22

I was floating in water, warm, warm water. Arms held me in place, a man's body brushed against mine in the water. I opened my eyes to the flickering light of candles. Was I back at the Circus of the Damned? Two things happened to let me know exactly where I was: pale tile gleamed on the edge of the bathtub, and the arms around my shoulders tightened, drew me closer. The moment the back of my body settled firmly against the front of his, I knew it was Micah.

I knew the curve of his shoulder, the way my body seemed to slide into every line and hollow of his body. His tanned arms were delicate for a man's, but as he snuggled me against him, muscles moved under his skin. I knew how much strength there was in his slender body. He was like me, a lot more than met the eye.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice so close to my ear that a whisper seemed loud.

My voice came distant and hollow the way I'd been feeling all day. "Better."

"At least you're warmer," he said. "Jason said you were sick, dizzy. Has that passed?"

I thought about it, trying to feel my body, and not just the comforting warmth and closeness. "Yeah, I do feel better. What the hell was wrong with me?"

He turned me in his arms, so that he held me across him, and we could look at each other. He smiled down at me. The tan that he'd come with had started to fade a little, but he was still dark, and that darkness framed his most startling feature. His eyes were kitty-cat eyes. I'd originally thought they were yellow green, but they were yellow, or green, or any combination of either, depending on his mood, the light, the color of shirt he wore.

His pupils had spread like black pools, and the thin line of color that chased round them was a pale true green. Human eyes weren't really green, not really. Grayish green, maybe, but a true clear green, rarely. But Micah's eyes were.

Those eyes sat in a face that was beautiful in the way a woman's face was beautiful. Delicate. There was a line to the jaw, a chin that was male, but gently so. His mouth was wide, with the bottom lip thicker than his upper, giving him a permanent pout.

I wanted to feel his lips on mine, feel the brush of his skin under my hands. He affected me as he'd affected me almost from the first moment I saw him--like he was a missing piece of myself that I had to bring as close to my body as I could, as if we'd meld together someday.

He didn't argue as I brought him down for the kiss. He didn't tell me that I was hurt and needed to rest. He just leaned in and pressed his mouth against mine.

Kissing him was like breathing, automatic, something your body did so that it wouldn't die. There was no thought to wanting to touch Micah, no waffling indecision like with every other man in my life. He was my Nimir-Raj, and from the moment we had been together it had been deeper than marriage, more permanent than anything words or paper could bind.

My arms slid over his back, his shoulders, the slick wetness of his skin, and our beasts rose. His energy was like a hot breath along my skin, shimmering everywhere we touched. My beast rose up through the depths of my body, and I felt Micah's beast echoing mine. They moved in our two separate bodies like two swimming shapes, up and up, each racing the other with only our skin to keep them apart. Then it was as if the skin was not enough to contain them, and our beasts swam through each of us. It bowed my back, brought Micah's voice in something near a scream. Our beasts writhed between our bodies, the energies intertwined more than our bodies ever could. They wove and danced like some invisible rope, knotting, tying, gliding in and out of us, until I raked my nails down Micah's body, and he set teeth into my shoulder.

I don't know if it was the pain, the pleasure, the beasts, or all of it together, but suddenly I could think again. Suddenly, I knew why I'd been sick all day.

I felt that long metaphysical cord that bound me to Jean-Claude, saw him in his bed at the Circus of the Damned with Asher still beside him. There was a shadow sitting on Jean-Claude's bare chest, a dark shape. The longer I looked at it, the more solid it became, until it turned a misshapen face to me, snarling, and showed me eyes burning with dark honey flame.

I looked at the hungry shadow of Belle Morte's power that had been trying to leech "life" from Jean-Claude all day. But the Master Vampire's fail-safe systems had kicked in--his human servant, and probably his animal to call. Richard had refused to help us directly, but he was probably paying the price for it today.

The thing hissed at me again, like some great demonic cat, and I decided to treat it like one. I threw my beast down the long line of metaphysical cord. What I hadn't planned for was that Micah's beast would follow mine, that when we attacked it would be together, ripping the thing to smoky tatters. It fled through the wall.

I wondered where it had gotten to, and the thought was enough. I saw it in the guest room we'd prepared for Musette. The shadow sat on her chest for a second, then seemed to melt into her body. There was a moment when that swimming thing moved underneath the vampire's dead skin, then all was quiet.

Angelito's voice, "Mistress are you there?"

Then I was back in the warm water, and Micah's arms. "What was that?" he asked, voice soft, strangled.

"The shadowy thing was a piece of Belle Morte's power that she gave to Musette."

"It was like it was trying to feed on Jean-Claude, but it couldn't."

"I'm his human servant, Micah. I think when Musette tried to steal Jean-Claude's strength, the attack deflected to me. She's been sucking on me all day."

"Did Jean-Claude do that on purpose?" he asked.

"No, he's truly dead to the world. It's just the way the system is set up. If she could have sucked Jean-Claude dry, then she could have taken the energy of all of his vamps, everyone that had a blood tie to him."

"Instead she's been feeding off of you."

"Yeah, and probably Richard. I bet he called in sick to school today."

Micah held me tight against him. "How do we keep it from happening again?"

I patted his arm. "You know that's one of the things I like most about you. Most people would spend time worrying about what could have happened, how bad it could have been, you go straight to the practical."

"We need to do something before it hops back through the wall."

"Is my cell phone in here anywhere?"

"In the pile with your clothes," he said.

"Can you reach it?"

He stretched out one long arm. His arms were longer than they looked. He used fingertips to move the phone close enough to pick up. He handed it to me without a single question. Micah didn't make me waste time explaining myself.

I called the Circus of the Damned, the special number that wasn't in the phone book. Ernie, who was Jean-Claude's human errand boy and sometimes appetizer, answered. I asked if Bobby Lee was still there. When I described him, Ernie said, "Yeah, can't get rid of him. Seems to think he's in charge."

Since I sort of thought he was in charge, too, that worked for me. Bobby Lee came on the line. "Anita, what's happening?"

"Ask Ernie to find you some crosses, and put them on the doors to the guest rooms."

"Can I ask why?"

"To keep the bad vampires from doing any more metaphysical tricks today."

"That explains absolutely nothing to me."

"Just do it."

"Don't you need to put crosses on the coffins to keep vampires from using their powers?"

"There's only one exit from each room, it's like a bigger coffin. Trust me, it'll work."

"You're the boss, at least until Rafael tells me otherwise." He asked Ernie for the crosses. I could hear Ernie's voice protesting in tone, though not the words.

Bobby Lee came back on line. "He's worried that the crosses being in plain sight on the doors will impede ourvampires when they wake."

"Maybe, but I'm more worried about what our guests are doing right now. When night falls, we'll worry about it. Until then just do it."

"Are you ever going to explain to me why I'm doing it?"

"You want to know, fine, the new vamps are using vampire wiles to suck energy from Jean-Claude, and through him, me. I have felt like shit all day."

"You know, I like you, Anita, you explain things when I ask. I almost never understand what the hell you're talking about, but you talk to me like I'm bright enough to understand it, and know enough about magic to follow all the big words."

"I'm hanging up now, Bobby Lee."

"Yes, ma'am."

I handed the phone to Micah so he could put it close to the pile of clothes, which I had no chance of reaching without dribbling water all over the place.

I leaned back against Micah, and he sank deeper into the water, so that even the tip of my chin was submerged. I wanted to sink in against his body, be held, and drowse. Now that the shadow was off of Jean-Claude, I was tired. It was almost as if now I had permission to sleep.

But there was one other crisis to talk about. "Jason told me that Nathaniel collapsed at work last night."

"He's tucked into his room, sandwiched between Zane and Cherry. He's fine." Micah kissed the side of my head.

"Is it true that he collapsed because the two of you can't keep feeding my ardeurtwice a day?"

Micah went very still around me, and his silence said it all.

"Did you know that the two of you couldn't sustain me?"

"You feed on Jean-Claude, too," he said.

"Fine, did you know that the three of you couldn't sustain me?"

"Jean-Claude keeps saying that your appetite should go down soon. The three of us could feed you if you only needed to be fed once a day. Twice a day is harder."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

He hugged me, and I let him, but I wasn't happy.

"Because I know how hard it is for you to take new people to your bed. I was hoping you wouldn't have to."

That reminded me. "I sort of did."

"Did what?" he asked.

"Took someone else to my bed." I felt like I should be squirming with embarrassment, but my ability to be embarrassed wasn't what it used to be.

"Who?" he asked, voice soft.

"Asher."

"You and Jean-Claude," he made it more statement than question.

"Yeah."

He cuddled me against him. "Why now?"

I told him my reasoning.

"You are going to make those vampires very unhappy tonight."

"I hope so." I turned in his arms enough to see his face. He looked peaceful enough by candlelight. "Does it bother you, about Asher?"

He seemed to think about it for a second or two. "Yes, and no."

"Explain the yes," I said.

"While you need the ardeurfed, there's plenty of your time to go around. I'm a little worried about what happens if you get a string of men now, with the ardeurrising, then the ardeurgoes away. You're going to have some unhappy people, if you get too many of them."

I frowned. "I hadn't thought about that. I mean I haven't had intercourse with anyone but you and Jean-Claude."

"I'll say what Jean-Claude would say if he were here: Ma petite,you are splitting hairs."

"Fine, fine, I don't plan on kicking Nathaniel out of my bed just because the ardeuris quiet."

"No, but will you be willing to touch him the way he's come to expect?"

I turned so I wouldn't have to meet those honest eyes of his. "I don't know, that's the truth, I don't know."

"And Asher?"

"One step at a time with him, okay."

"And Richard?"

I shook my head against Micah's chest. "That's moot. Richard can barely stand to be within twenty feet of me."

"Are you seriously saying that if he showed up today and asked to come back, you'd say no?"

It was my turn to go quiet in his arms. I thought about it, tried to think about it, clearly, level-headed. The trouble was that Richard was never a topic I was logical on.

"I don't know, but I'm leaning towards no."

"Really?"

"Micah, I still have feelings for Richard, but he dumped me. He dumped me because I'm more comfortable with the monsters than he is. He dumped me because I'm too bloodthirsty for him. He dumped me because I'm not the person he wants me to be. I will never be the person he wants me to be."

"Richard will never be the person he wants himself to be," Micah said, softly.

I sighed. It was true. Richard wanted, more than anything else, to be human. He didn't want to be a monster. He wanted to be a junior high science teacher, marry a nice girl, settle down, have 2.5 children, and maybe a dog. He was a science teacher, but the rest . . . Richard was like me, he would never have a normal life. I had accepted that, but he was still fighting. Fighting to be human, fighting to be ordinary, fighting not to love me. He'd succeeded on that last.

"If Richard comes back to me, it won't be for good. He'll come back because he can't help himself, but he hates himself too much to love anyone else."

"That's harsh," he said.

"But true," I said.

Micah didn't argue with me. He didn't when he knew he was wrong, or knew I was right. Richard would have argued. Richard always argued. Richard seemed to believe that if he pretended the world was a nicer place than it really was, that that would change the world. It didn't. The world was what it was. And no amount of anger, or hatred, or self-loathing, or stubborn blindness would change it.

Maybe Richard would learn to accept himself, but I was beginning to believe that he would learn that lesson without me in his life.

I hugged Micah's arms around me like a warm coat, but I was tired now, achingly tired. If Richard knocked on the door today, and asked to come back, what would I do? Truthfully, I didn't know. But one thing I knew, Richard wouldn't let me feed the ardeuroff of him. He thought it was monstrous. And he wouldn't share me physically with anyone but Jean-Claude. Even if he wanted to come back, unless he'd let me feed the ardeuroff of others, it wouldn't work. Pure practicality. The ardeurhad to be fed. Richard wouldn't feed it. Richard wouldn't let me feed it off of anyone but Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude alone couldn't sustain my appetite. Hell, Micah, Jean-Claude, and Nathaniel together weren't sustaining it. If Richard came back today, what would I do, offer him one-third of my bed, on the other side from Micah?

Richard had consented to dating me at the same time I dated Jean-Claude, but never to sharing a bed with him and me at the same time. Richard would try to go back to what we had. I couldn't do that.

What would I do if Richard knocked on the door right now? Offer to let him join us in the bathtub, watch his face show all the hurt and rage, watch him stomp out again. What would I do if Richard wanted to come back? The only thing I could do, say no. The question was, was I strong enough to say it? Probably not.