Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (34 page)

I understood the reasoning. If it hadn’t been me that would have to die, I couldn’t even argue with it. “Understood, but what does she gain from the tigers coming to me?”

“Jean-Claude isn’t certain, but Elinore thinks that the Mother is gathering her forces. The vampire council has finally found something that can unite them. They’re terrified of what will happen if she wakes from her ‘sleep’ completely. They are very close to voting to make sure she never wakes.”

I whispered, “You mean the council is going to kill Marmee Noir?”

“The last intelligence Jean-Claude got is that there is a vote before the council.”

“Shit, Richard, shit, I mean, the—” I almost said
the Harlequin
out loud. I stopped myself because to say their name aloud was to risk death. They’d hunt you down and kill you just for saying their name. The only exception to that rule was if they contacted you first. Then, since they were the spies, assassins, jury, and executioner of the vampire world, well, you were in deep shit. We’d had a visit just in December. Though they’d been sent to police Malcolm and his vampire church. They’d broken their own rules to give us a very solid scare. We’d lost good men in the fight. Hell, we’d nearly lost Jean-Claude, Richard, and me. It had been a very, very near thing. Once the Harlequin had been Marmee Noir’s right hand, but the ones we’d talked to seemed as frightened of her as the rest of the vampires. They’d given me something to keep her away. What was it?

I looked at Richard, searched his face. “They gave me something to keep her from manifesting around me. I know they gave me something, but I can’t remember what it was.” The first cold trickle of fear wormed its way through my veins. Most of the time with memory magic, the more you talked about it, the more you remembered. Not always, but for me, yes. Now this bit of knowledge was gone. She’d wiped it away. Wiped it away without ever being near me.

“It was a charm.” He made a circle with his thumb and finger. “About this big.”

“Did it have a many-headed animal on it?”

“Yes,” and he smiled. “See, you do remember.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t, but I saw the mark on Crispin’s arm where it branded him. He said I jerked off my own cross and threw it away. He also said I did the same to my charm. I didn’t file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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remember the charm. I didn’t remember it when I saw the shape of it burned into his arm. I still don’t, Richard. I just remember the shape in his arm, that’s it.”

He looked way too serious again. “You need to get in the shower, but there’s more news you can’t share with the weretigers.”

“Just tell me.”

“Marmee Noir damaged your connection to Jean-Claude.”

“Damaged it how?”

“We’re not sure, but she cut his ability to sense you. Cut it so hard that he thought you were dead, but he wasn’t hurt, and I wasn’t hurt. That was the only way we knew that it wasn’t injury or death. It’s like she just put a wall between you and him.”

I swallowed hard again. “Did she mark me? Did she give me her vampire marks in place of his?”

“She would have to drink your blood, and you hers, to do all four marks.”

“It’s the Mother of All Vampires, Richard. She was the first vampire. She can do all sorts of things that the rest can’t.” I hugged myself tight, and didn’t know what to do.

“We don’t think she did that. We think that even she needs to exchange real blood with you for the third and fourth marks.”

“But not for the first two,” I said, and stared up at him.

His eyes were so sad. “No, not for the first two.”

“So you’re saying that she has given me her version of the first two marks.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Doesn’t Jean-Claude know?”

“She’s been asleep for a thousand years, Anita. He wasn’t alive the last time she was mobile. We can’t talk to most of the vampires who remember her awake without giving away what’s happening. We can’t risk them knowing.”

“You risked a lot coming here, Richard. You could get outed with this much media.”

“It had to be an animal she can’t control. For whatever reason, she only does felines. Wolf is the only animal you have inside you that isn’t a cat.” He said the next in a rush. “Jean-Claude thinks it might be a good idea if you carried some other noncat lycanthropy strains. He thinks that might make it harder for her to control you.”

“He thinks I should let some other shapeshifters cut me up?”

“If it would keep her out of your head and body, would it be so bad?”

I thought about that, then had to shake my head. “No, no, it’s not worse than her.”

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“Jean-Claude is talking to the wererats and werehyenas about the possibility.”

“I’d rather not get cut up again until I heal.”

“We need you safe from her, Anita.”

He was right. He was so right. “Okay, I’ll think about it, but right now find the charm, and I need a new chain for my cross.”

He reached behind his neck and lifted out a gold chain. He lifted a small gold cross out of his shirt. I’d bought it for him for one of our first Christmases as a couple. The cross was a little oddly shaped, from where it had once melted into my hand. Marmee Noir had been to blame for that, too. I would bear the scar in the palm of my hand for the rest of my life.

“Lift your hair,” he said, softly. I did, but had to wince; something hurt across my shoulders. He fastened it around my neck.

He touched it where it lay against the bare triangle of my skin in the borrowed suit jacket.

“There, you’re safe.”

I looked at him. “You might want to find the charm, too.”

“I’ll do that.”

He helped me, carefully, to my feet. “We want to fly you home, but the other tiger queens can’t seem to agree whether your fleeing and not being here when the tigers arrive is a greater insult to them. You made the call; you need to be where they can find you.”

“Find me, what does that mean?”

“It means what it means, Anita.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, but that was a mistake because even standing this close to Richard I couldn’t smell his skin. All I could smell was strangers, and mixed in with that was Jason. I knew the scent of his skin, but it wasn’t enough. I smelled tigers. I licked dry lips, eyes still closed. “Find the charm, Richard, please. I need to get clean now.”

He kissed my hand again, and let me go. I opened my eyes to him walking to the door, then out. Something about watching him leave made the tears start again, but at least they were quieter. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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46

I’D FORGOTTEN HOW
much it hurt to have a shower with fresh claw marks. Or maybe I’d just never had this many of them all at the same time. I’d gotten cut up when someone was trying to kill me, but I’d never had this many shallow ones done in the heat of the moment. They weren’t deep enough to kill or meant to maim, but they fucking hurt when the water hit them. I tried to see in the mirror what my back looked like, but it kept fogging up. What I could see was an impressive amount of damage, even for me. My back almost looked like someone had taken a whip to it. I had more marks on my arms, and a puncture wound on my ass. A memory came with that one. Crispin inside me in tiger form, his hands lifting my ass off the bed for a deeper angle. His claws sliding into my flesh at the moment of his release, and mine.

The memory jerked things low in my body, and made me stumble against the wall. God, what was wrong with me? The only one who could usually make sexual memories this potent was Asher. One of his gifts was that he could make you have total recall of orgasm with him. Think too hard and it was dangerous to drive. But it wasn’t supposed to work that way with anyone else. There were more marks on my hips, the inside of my thighs. It was like I ignored them the best I could until the water hit them. Then they hurt and I couldn’t pretend anymore. I was marked up enough that I could have gone into any hospital or police station in the country and they would have believed rape.

Trouble was that rape like this by lycanthropes was a potential killing offense. I didn’t want anyone dead; I just wanted a morning-after pill as quick as I could get one. I’d already taken the pill I missed. It was what they recommended if you missed one. If I wasn’t pregnant, then I was safe again, at least from babies.

I knew the shampoo running down my body was going to hurt worse, and don’t even talk about soap, but I had to get the smell of them off my skin. I had to not smell like strange men and sex. Even if it hurt, I needed it off me.

I ended up sitting in the bottom of the tub with the shower still running. I was clean, or as clean as I was going to get. I knew that my skin smelled like soap and me again, but I kept thinking I smelled them on my skin. I was pretty sure it was imaginary, but I still ended up sitting in the water, waiting to feel clean and safe and knowing I wasn’t going to. I didn’t blame the men, exactly; I blamed the Mother of All Darkness. She’d raped us all. It was even a killable offense in this country to use vampire mind powers to force sex. Magical rape could get a human witch or wizard in jail, and potentially on death row.

There was a soft knock on the door. I didn’t say anything. The knock came again, with a voice.

“Anita, it’s Jason, are you all right?”

I said the only thing I could think to say. “No.”

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“Can I come in?”

I thought about that, too. I thought about Jason. He was my friend. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He hadn’t meant to maybe get me pregnant. I started to cry again, softly; he probably wouldn’t even be able to tell through the water from the shower.

“It’s okay, Anita, I understand you don’t want to see me right now.”

“No,” I said, “no, it’s okay. Come in.”

I could almost feel him hesitate on the other side of the door, and then I heard the door click open. I couldn’t see it through the shower’s frosted door. I heard him walk, and then the door moved, but not to open. He must have sat down on the floor beside the shower, his body bumping part of the door.

“Hey, Anita,” he said.

“Hey,” I said, back.

“Is it okay if I open the door a little?”

I thought about that, too. Finally, I said, “Yes.”

He opened the back edge of the door, away from the water. I moved my head so I could see him. I was hugging my knees to my chest, my cheek resting on my knees. He’d put on one of the robes. I looked into his blue eyes; his silky yellow hair stood out around his head in an odd way. I’d seen his version of bedhead, and his hair was too straight to stand up like that.

“What’s wrong with your hair?” I asked.

He almost smiled, then sort of grimaced, then said, “There was something on my pillow, and then I ran my hand through my hair.”

“Something
what
on your pillow?”

He gave me a long look.

“Oh,” I said, and looked away again. I no longer wanted to meet his eyes. “Was it yours?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

I huddled around myself in the hot water. If we’d been home I’d have used up all the hot water by now, but the hotel had more.

“You need to clean up,” I said.

“Yeah, but it can wait.”

“Did the other man wake up yet?”

“Yes,” he said.

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“Who is he?”

“He’s a reporter.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t worry, he’s deep in the closet and doesn’t want to be outed. This is one story he can’t afford to report.”

“Name? His, I mean.”

“Alex Pinn.”

“Short for Alexander?”

Jason made a movement as if he wanted to ask something, but just said, “According to his driver’s license, yeah.”

“You wondered why I cared what the name was short for, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Just seems like I should at least know a man’s full name if I just spent the last two days fucking his brains out.”

“Anita…”

“Don’t try to make me feel better about it, Jason.”

“That’s why I came in here.”

I turned so I could see him again. “I missed a pill while we were trapped in here.
The
pill.”

He did a long blink, but his face remained neutral. His reaction told me it wasn’t a surprise. “We couldn’t help overhearing some of what you said to Richard before the water turned on. You were sort of yelling.”

“So the tigers know, too.”

He nodded.

I closed my eyes. “How did they take it?”

“Crispin was thrilled.”

That made me open my eyes. “What?”

“Apparently, it’s the duty of every good little weretiger to make more little weretigers. Every woman is expected to have at least one child, and two is preferable.”

“So he’s happy about this.”

“He says it would bring great honor to his clan if you were his wife and bore a white tiger child.”

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I sat up a little. “Did you say
wife
?”

“Yep,” Jason said.

I frowned at him. “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but Crispin didn’t strike me as the type to marry a girl just because he knocked her up.”

“If you’re with child, he’s honor-bound to marry you and bring you and the child into his clan.”

I stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Jason said.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s about what Richard said, though he used lots more words.”

“What did this Alex Pinn say?”

“Apparently, he’s spent most of his adult life trying to avoid being a member of the red tiger clan. He broke with them years ago, but if he got you pregnant he’s willing to give you the chance to be taken back to his clan and introduced to them. He says if the child is truly his, it will need the other weretigers around it as it grows to make sure it gets all the training it needs.”

“Training?”

“You know how none of the other wereanimals can carry a baby to full term because of the violence of the change?”

“Yeah.”

“Apparently, the tigers do it routinely. They’ve just never shared that bit of knowledge with the rest of us. We all assumed they were keeping their women free of the lycanthropy until after they bred a couple of times, then bringing them into full weretiger. But that’s not it. Apparently, they do what Crispin did for you. They put a male, or several males, with a female so she won’t shift until the baby is born.”

“But the baby will still be human, right?”

“If it’s one of their children it will show signs of their clan at birth. Eye color, hair color that matches their tiger shape. They don’t usually shift until puberty, but there have been cases where they shifted as early as nine. That’s why Alex feels that the baby would need the clan for the first few years. Also, the baby would be with other children just like he, or she, is.”

“If it’s so great, then why did he leave his clan?”

“It’s a little, no, a lot restrictive. It’s almost like a religious cult. They homeschool the kids. They marry within the clan. It’s only been in the last few years that they’ve been allowed to marry outsiders to bring in fresh blood. Modern genetics has let them realize that a pure clan is a sickly clan.”

“Jesus, Jason.”

He nodded. “I know.” He started to say more, then stopped. He looked away from me. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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“What, what is it?”

“There is a way to avoid the whole tiger clan mess.”

“Yeah, a morning-after pill.”

He gave a quick flash of smile. “Yeah, Richard mentioned you were planning that. The reporter, Pinn, is fine with that. It’s your body. But Crispin says no. He hasn’t bred before, so if it’s his child, then according to clan rules you can’t get rid of it.”

“What do you mean,
can’t
?”

“Apparently, the white tiger clan, and Max the Master of the City of Las Vegas, would take a very dim view of you destroying a potential weretiger of their bloodline.”

“They don’t have a choice. It’s
my
choice.”

“Yes, it is, but Max is pretty freaked, Anita. He made some vague talk about going to war with Jean-Claude.”

“It’s just talk, Jason. The vampire council declared that no Master of the City could battle another because it might fuck up the whole vampires-being-legal thing. Besides, you only fight about territories that border your own. It’s about expanding so your lands touch. Vegas is too far away from St. Louis.”

“Normally, you’d be right, but apparently, Max isn’t doing the challenge by vampire law. He’s called up some obscure weretiger law. Apparently, they think they’re within their rights to block you from doing anything to a potential baby, and you need to be with the clan during the pregnancy so you don’t lose the baby.”

I moved back out of the water so I could see his face more clearly. “This isn’t about weretigers, is it?”

“My opinion?” Jason asked.

“Please.”

“I think Max knows that Jean-Claude hasn’t given you the fourth mark. Which means, Anita, that if he’s powerful enough to break the marks that Jean-Claude has on you, and he gets to the fourth mark first, he thinks he can keep you as his human servant. You’re the first true necromancer in centuries. Any vampire who can truly control you will be unstoppable.” Jason shrugged. “That’s my theory.”

“How did he know I don’t have the fourth mark?”

“There are enough people who know, Anita. It’s hard to keep a secret once enough people know.”

He was right. Damn it, but he was. “Shit, Jason, would Max really start a war with Jean-Claude over this?”

“I think he might.”

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“Just because I want to make sure I’m not pregnant.”

“Apparently so. Frankly, I think it’s an excuse to make a play for your power, but I could be wrong. He’s married to the queen tiger of Vegas. She might be pressing him. She might truly be more interested in the child than in you.”

“Don’t call it a child. I may not be pregnant at all.”

“Sorry,” he said.

I couldn’t think of it as a child, because if I did, I’d start second-guessing myself. I couldn’t afford to hesitate right now. I needed a doctor and a prescription today.