Anita Blake 14 - Danse macabre (45 page)

"God, help me," I said.

Jean-Claude came to stand next to the bed, to me. "What is wrong,
ma petite
?"

"Please tell me he'll get better than this," I said.

"Better than what,
ma petite
?"

"Look at him," I said.

Jean-Claude moved close enough that the sleeve of his robe touched my robed arm. He gazed down at Requiem with me.

Requiem's gaze flickered to him, then settled back on me, as if the other man didn't matter. But he'd noticed him, because he said, "Will you force me to share your favors with another, Anita? Or will I be as the heavens stretched between the heat of the sun and the cold kiss of the moon? Will you do to me as you did to Augustine?"

"Well, at least he's back to being wordy and poetic," I said. "It's a start."

"Did he offer himself to both you and Anita?" Elinore asked, still curled in her chair.

"I believe so," Jean-Claude said.

"Requiem does not embrace men," London said from the far corner. He'd moved to the darkest, most shadowy corner he could find, as he always did. It wasn't just his short dark curls and penchant for black clothing that got him the nickname "the Dark Knight."

"It was the one thing he fought against most strongly."

"Yes," Elinore said, "he was always most adamant that he did not do men."

"Belle punished him for his refusal to service men," Jean-Claude said. He stared down at Requiem with a solemn, lost look.

"Then he shouldn't be offering to do it for us," I said.

"No, he should not." Jean-Claude looked at me, and showed for an instant what he was feeling. I felt it like a stab through my heart. Anguish, anguish that he had brought Requiem here to keep him safe, and instead had enslaved him more thoroughly than Belle ever managed.

I felt the bed move a moment before a hand touched my back through the robe. I turned, but I knew whose hand was on me. Requiem had sat up, with all the damage to his chest and stomach, and he'd sat up so he could touch me. I searched his face for something familiar. I finally said, "Requiem, are you in there?"

He touched my face. "I am here," but he spoke the words with such emotion that they seemed to mean a great deal more than they should have.

I moved his hand away from my face, held it in mine, so maybe he would stop touching me. I looked at Jean-Claude. "This is awful. How do we fix this? Isn't there some faster way than finding his true love?"

Requiem's thumb began to make little circles on my hand, as if just being held wasn't enough.

"It's almost as if she's bespelled him," Elinore said, "as if she were the vampire and he the human."

"Fine, treat it like it's vampire mind tricks; how do I undo it?"

"A vampire's master can sometimes break such enchantments," Elinore said.

I looked at Jean-Claude. "Help him."

London stepped back to the edge of the light. "But it is not Anita's
ardeur
, but Jean-Claude's
ardeur
through her. He cannot fix his own
ardeur
, can he?"

"I do not know," Elinore said. She looked around the room and spoke toward the wall farthest from the door. "Wicked, Truth, you have been very silent through this discussion. Do you have any suggestions?"

The two brothers came forward into the stronger light near the bed. At first glance they didn't look that alike. They were both tall and broad-shouldered, but beyond that they were opposites. Wicked's hair was sleek and very blond, cut long so it framed a face that was all high, sculpted cheekbones, complete with a dimple in his chin deep enough that I could never decide if it looked adorable or painful. His eyes were a clear steady blue, and if I hadn't had Jean-Claude's and Requiem's eyes to compare him to, I'd have said his eyes were striking. He wore a modern tailored suit of tans and creams that made him look halfway between the college professor of your dreams and an executive gigolo. Then there was Truth.

Truth had obviously slept in his clothes. The clothes were made up of bits of leather, but not fashionable club wear, no, more like boiled leather worn smooth and soft with use and wear. His pants were tucked into boots so battered that Jean-Claude had offered to replace them, but Truth wouldn't give them up. He could have been dressed for any century from thirteenth to fifteenth. His straight brown hair was shoulder length, but stringy, as if it needed a good brushing. He didn't exactly have a beard, just stubble, as if he hadn't shaved for a while. But under all that disarray was the same bone structure, the same cleft chin, and the same blue eyes. Wicked's eyes always seemed to hold a cynical joy, but Truth's looked tired and wary, as if he was just waiting for us to disappoint him.

"What do you want from us?" Truth asked, and his voice was already defensive, as if he was ready for an argument.

Elinore uncurled from her chair and moved to stand on the other side of Jean-Claude, not quite to where London was standing, but so she could see the brothers more clearly. "You have been masterless for longer than any other master vampire. Surely, in all those centuries, some powerful vampire tried to capture the great warriors Wicked and Truth. Have you been bespelled as Requiem is?"

Wicked laughed. "Save the flattery, Elinore; we'll help if we can, if Anita tells us plainly what she wants from us." He turned those laughing eyes to me. Truth's somber eyes followed his brother's gaze.

I met their eyes. Wicked looked like it was all a big joke, which I'd finally realized was his blank face. Truth looked calmer, blanker, but he was ready to be disappointed in me. Certainty that I would not live up to his expectations was clear on his face.

"Isn't it Jean-Claude's order you need?" Elinore asked.

Truth shook his head. Wicked said, "No."

"No," Jean-Claude said.

"No," Wicked repeated, and he allowed himself a small, tasteful smirk of satisfaction.

"Who is your master?" Elinore asked.

"They are," and Truth motioned at both Jean-Claude and me.

"Then why is Jean-Claude's order not good enough?" she asked.

"He hasn't bespelled Requiem; she has," Truth said.

"You do not agree with London that it is Jean-Claude's
ardeur
flowing through Anita."

They both shook their heads, and the movement was so well-timed that you could suddenly see how identical they almost were.

Wicked spoke for them. "Anita's will, her intent, is what we need." He stared at me. "What is your will, Anita?"

"To have him free of me."

"Would you undo the blood oath and cast him back to Belle Morte?" Wicked asked.

Requiem clutched at my hand. "Please, mistress, not that."

I patted his shoulder. "No, Requiem, you're not going back to Belle. We would never let that happen." He calmed almost instantly, and he shouldn't have. That much panic shouldn't have just vanished. It was just another sign of how far gone he was.

"Be careful with your words," said Truth, "for they are dangerous things."

I thought before I spoke the next time. "I want him to have choices. I don't want all his free will sucked away like this."

"Why?" Wicked asked. "Why is bespelling him so terrible to you?"

I looked into Requiem's face where he sat beside me. He gave me a look of absolute adoration. My stomach clenched tight. The thought of anyone being bound to anyone else like that was wrong; that I'd done it by accident made me vaguely nauseous.

"I like Requiem. He's a good guy, especially for a vampire. I don't want him like this, some sort of slave, it's just creepy."

"Is he better off dead?" Wicked asked.

"No," I said, quickly, "no."

"Then what would you have us do?" Truth asked.

Requiem said, "Do I not please you?"

I grabbed his good shoulder and said, "I know you're in there, Requiem. Come back to us. Hear me, Requiem, hear my voice, and break free of this."

"I don't wish to be free," he said, simply.

I pulled away from him, and he tried to hold on. I actually slapped his hands away from me. He looked so hurt.

"Please, Anita, how have I displeased you so? I will do anything. Anything that you ask, if you will only feed the
ardeur
from me."

"Anything," I said.

"Anything, you have but to speak it, and I will do it."

"Break free of this," I said.

"I do not understand," he said, and he looked as puzzled as his words.

"That's what I want, Requiem. I want you to break free of what I've done to you." The moment I said it, I knew it was true, that was what I wanted. "You're a master vampire. You could be a Master of the City, if you were a little more ambitious. You can fight this." I searched his face, to see if he understood what I was saying. "Come back to yourself, or I won't feed the
ardeur
on you."

"Anita, I… I don't…"

"You said you'd do anything I asked. This is an anything, and it's what I want you to do."

"You may be asking something he cannot do," Wicked said.

"I've felt his own version of the
ardeur
. Or whatever you call the other gifts of Belle's line that aren't exactly
ardeur
. He is powerful." I looked into his face and tried to show him how much I knew he could do this. "I want to see Requiem staring at me out of these eyes, not some besotted fool. Be the strong man I know you can be. Fight free of this, enough to talk to me. I won't touch you, ever again, unless you can give consent." He looked so stricken, so wounded, that I went up on my knees and cradled his face between my hands. "You told me once that you considered your power rape, because it affected only the body and not the mind. Do you remember saying that, Requiem?"

He frowned, but finally whispered, "Yes."

"If I take you like this, it's rape, and I won't do it."

I watched the emotions struggle across his face. "Anita… I do not know how to break these soft chains. Once love was strong enough to break them, but without love, let me be covered in your silken chains. Tie me down, and let me drown in your sweet flesh." He moved in for a kiss as he said the last, and I had to pull back. I slid off the bed, away from him. I wanted to run screaming with frustration. I had not meant to do this. Fuck.

"If another master had bespelled Requiem, what would you do,
ma petite
?" Jean-Claude said.

I thought about it, frowning. "I would try to break the spell. I would use my necromancy and try to break the spell."

"
Exactement
."

"But, I did it. I can't break my own spell, can I?"

"Why can you not?"

I thought about it again. "Because… well."

"It is not your necromancy that has bespelled him,
ma petite
, but your power through the vampire marks, through me. Use your necromancy to free him, as you used your ties to the wolf to free you from Marmee Noir."

It made sense, but… "I don't know."

He spoke softly in my head. "You broke Willie McCoy free of the Traveller when he had possessed Willie's body. You used your necromancy to drive him out."

Willie was one of our least powerful vampires. He was manager at the Laughing Corpse, our comedy club. The Traveller was one of the vampire council. He had come to town in "person," except that he traveled by jumping from body to body. He could use any vampire body that wasn't strong enough to keep him out. He had possessed Willie, and tried to use him to hurt me. I had used my blood and my tie to Willie to find him in the dark where the Traveller had hidden him. Find him and bring him back to himself.

I thought carefully, because I was still not that good at the mind-to-mind thing, "I'd accidentally raised Willie from his coffin during the day once. I already had a tie to him that I don't have to Requiem."

He whispered through my mind, "Through the
ardeur
you have a bond to him that you did not have with Willie."

"How can I use necromancy to break him free of the
ardeur
, if I'm counting on the
ardeur
to be his bond to me. That doesn't make any sense."

"Perhaps the logic is a bit circular, but what do you have to lose,
ma petite
?" He spoke aloud, finally. "Look at him."

I pressed as much of me against as much of Jean-Claude as I could, then turned and looked at Requiem. He watched us like a man who was dying of thirst, and was only inches away from a cool, soothing pool, but there was a glass wall between him and it. I finally realized something. "It's not just the
ardeur
he's craving. It's the blood. He's hurt and he needs blood."

Jean-Claude ran his hands up and down my back in soothing motions. "
Oui
, but the
ardeur
overrides the other thirst."

"I thought that wasn't possible," I said.

"I have seen it with Belle. I have seen her give
ardeur
to vampires while they neglected their blood hunger, to the point where, one night, they did not rise from their coffins."

"She did it on purpose," I said.

"She wished to see if the
ardeur
alone was enough to sustain other vampires. She had hoped to travel with us across Europe, but the marks of blood taking give us away. The
ardeur
leaves no trace."

I stared at Requiem. "Nothing physical."

"
Oui
, there are signs, but nothing the authorities would have recognized. Nothing that would have given away her plan."

"But it didn't work," I said.

"She could share her
ardeur
with others, so they could feed upon it. She could sustain herself with it for long periods, as can I, but unless the
ardeur
is truly your gift to own, then it does not work."

"The Traveller…" He stopped me with a hand on my mouth.

He spoke in my head, again, "Quietly,
ma petite
."

I thought, "You said, no mind-to-mind, that some of the other vamp masters might overhear us."

"They are still dead to the world, but the people in this room can hear us."

"You don't trust them?"

"I would not like to have it well known that you were able to force a member of the council to do anything."