Anita Blake - The Harlequin Part 34

"They don't want to say, but it's probably one of the cat-based lycanthropies, and it won't be tiger." "Let's hope not," I said. "They make vaccines in big batches. Are they positive what kind of kitty they've got in the shot?"

Graham looked at me as if that hadn't occurred to him. "You aren't saying that they'd give him tiger twice? I mean, that wouldn't work at all. That would guarantee that he'd be tiger."

"Yeah. Has anyone asked them what flavor of kitty it is?" The look on Graham's face said no one had asked in his hearing. I looked at Requiem. "I have been in attendance upon your bedside. I have not seen the boy."

"Graham, go ask, and make sure Ted knows I wanted to know."

Graham actually didn't argue. He just nodded and went for the door. Good. Because I knew where I was now. I was in the bas.e.m.e.nt of what used to be a hospital, but the lower levels had been turned into a place where you kept suspected vampire corpses if you didn't think you'd get to them before nightfall, and where you held lycanthrope victims, or injured shapeshifters themselves until they were well enough to leave. Or you could force them into one of the government prisons-oh, "safe houses." The ACLU was about to be heard by the Supreme Court on just how many const.i.tutional rights the "safe houses" violated. Being admitted was voluntary-if you were eighteen or over, anyway. They told shapeshifters that they'd let them out once they learned to control their beast, but somehow people went in and never came out. Most hospitals had an isolation ward for shapeshifters and vampires who got injured, but this was the place they sent you if they were truly worried. How the h.e.l.l did we end up here?

"Requiem," I said. He came to the side of the bed, his hooded cloak back to being tight around him. Only a pale glimpse of face was visible. "Yes, my evening star?"

"Why does that sound more and more sarcastic when you say it?"

He blinked so that those vivid blue eyes were shielded for a moment. "I will endeavor to say it as I mean it, my evening star." This time it was soft, and romantic. I didn't like that either. But I didn't say so out loud. I'd complain later when I figured out how to get any use out of it.

"I asked you once where Jean-Claude is; now I'll ask again. Where is he and what's he doing?"

"Can you not sense him?"

I thought about it and shook my head. "No, I can't." A spurt of fear ran through me like fine champagne. It must have shown on my face because Requiem touched my arm. "He is well, but he is shielding mightily to keep the Harlequin from reading him, or you, or the wolf king."

"So there were more than just the two of them in town," I said.

"Why would you a.s.sume only two?"

"It's all I saw," I said.

"Saw how?"

Again, I didn't like the question and how he asked it. "Does it matter?" "Perhaps not, but yes, Jean-Claude has detected more than two in your fair city." "I'm impressed that Jean-Claude can keep them out of us all," I said. Requiem's hand tightened on my arm. "As are we all." He took his hand back, and it vanished under the black cloak again. "Tell me what I've missed of the vampire end of things. Wait, how long have I been out?" "It is only the night of the day you were injured. You have been out, as you put it, for only a few hours."

"A few hours, not days?" I asked.

"No."

I touched my stomach, and it didn't hurt the way it should have. I started to raise the hospital gown I was wearing. I hesitated, glancing at the man. He was my lover, but . . . there was always something about Requiem that made me less than perfectly comfortable around him. Micah, Nathaniel, Jean-Claude, Asher, even Jason, I would have simply looked at the wound. Richard, maybe I wouldn't have. But Requiem made me hesitate for different reasons.

"Look at your wound, Anita. I will not ravish you from the sight of your nakedness." He sounded like I'd insulted him. Since he was an old vampire, that I could hear that much emotion in his voice meant one of two things: either he allowed me to hear the emotion, or he was so upset he couldn't control himself.

I compromised. I raised the gown and kept the sheet over my lower extremities.

"I am not an animal, Anita; I can bear your nakedness without being affected." The anger and disdain were so thick in his voice that I knew it was lack of control.

"I never doubt your control, Requiem, but there's no way to be nude in front of you and have it be casual. I need to just look at my body and see what's wrong and right with the wound. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, or a romantic deal out of it."

"Would it not be a big deal if Jean-Claude were here in my stead?"

"Jean-Claude would concentrate on business and worry about the romance later." "Is he that cold?" "He's that practical," I said. "I like that in a man." "I know you do not like me, my evening star." Again the emotion was thick on the ground.

I did the only thing I could: I ignored him. Once I saw my stomach it wasn't that hard to ignore him. I had pinkish scars where she'd clawed me open. It was weeks' worth of healing. I ran my hands over the skin, and it felt smoother, almost as if the shininess of it could be a texture. "How many hours?" I asked.

"It is now nine o'clock in the evening."

"Ten hours." I said it soft, like I didn't believe it.

"About that, yes."

"All this healing in ten hours?"

"It would seem so," he said. There was still a thread of anger to his voice, but it was less.

"How?"

"Should I quote to you, 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Or should I simply say I do not know?"

"The 'I don't know' would be fine, but at least I know you're quoting from Hamlet. Now tell me, what's been happening while I slept?"

He glided to the bedside, a slight smile curving his lips. "Your friends slew a member of the Harlequin while she slept. Though the tall one, Olaf, or Otto, complained that she was dead when they arrived. He wanted her to be squirming when they cut her up."

I shivered and put my gown back in place. I tried to ignore the whole creepy Olaf thing and concentrate on business. "There should have been two members dead."

"You admit it," he said. "You admit that you sent them to slay members of the Harlequin."

"Admit it, h.e.l.l, yes."

"Jean-Claude is locked in arguments with the council, even now, on whether the Harlequin are within their rights to slay us all for what you have done."

"If they don't give a black mask first, but they kill, not in self-defense, then it's a death sentence for them."

"Who told you that?"

I debated on whether to admit it, but finally shrugged and said, "Belle Morte." "When has our beautiful death spoken to you?" "She came to me in a vision." "When?" "When the three of us were dying. She helped feed me enough energy to come back and keep us all alive."

"Why would she help Jean-Claude?"

If it had been Jean-Claude, I'd have told the truth, all of it, but it wasn't. Requiem was, well, being his usual weird self. I wasn't certain that Belle would want her reasoning blabbed around. "Why does Belle do anything?"

"You are lying. She told you her reason." Great, he knew I was lying. "The shapeshifters say that I don't smell like I'm lying anymore; my respiration rate doesn't even change." "I am not smelling or listening to your body, Anita. I simply feel the lie. Why do you not tell me the truth?"

"I'll tell Jean-Claude, and if he says it's okay to tell everyone, then I will."

"So you will keep secrets from me."

"You know, Requiem, we have a lot of bad s.h.i.t happening, and you seem more interested in your own hurt feelings than in the life-and death stuff."

He nodded. "I feel raw tonight, undone. I have felt that way since earlier in Jean-Claude's office." "We were being messed with then," I said. "But there is no holy object that I can wear, my evening star, no refuge that I can take from what the Harlequin have done to me." "Are they messing with you now?" "No, but they showed me certain truths about myself, and I cannot seem to unknow what I have learned."

"You don't sound like yourself, Requiem."

"Do I not?" he said, and again there was too much emotion in his voice. I wanted Graham back here, or someone back here. Requiem thought they weren't messing with his head, but I was betting the Harlequin were playing Scrabble with his thoughts right now.

He undid his cloak and flung it backward onto the floor. I'd seen him do a similar gesture on stage at Guilty Pleasures near the end of his strip act. He was fully clothed in elegant gray dress slacks and a shirt that was a clear cornflower blue that turned his eyes as blue as blue could be. I'd looked into a lot of blue eyes, but none quite the color of his. It was a startling blue, a color that had made Belle Morte try to collect him and add him to her collection of blue-eyed lovers. He flung his long straight black hair behind his shoulders.

"I would not have left your side for any business, my star. If you would but love me as I love you, nothing would be more important to me than you."

I called, "Graham!" It wasn't a yell but it was close to one. Was I afraid? A little. Maybe I could use necromancy to knock the Harlequin out of Requiem, but last time I tried I nearly got myself killed. I'd like to heal from one attack before I got hurt again-selfish, but there you go.

The door opened, but it wasn't Graham. It wasn't even Edward. It was Dolph, Lieutenant Rudolph Storr, head of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, and paranoid hater of all things monster. s.h.i.t.

CHAPTER 35

REQUIEM DIDN'T EVEN turn around. He just said, "Leave us." But he said it in that "voice," that power-ridden voice that some vamps have. That voice that was supposed to bespell and bemuse.

I saw the flare of Dolph's cross around his neck. It made a halo around Requiem's body. I could see Dolph over Requiem's head, be cause he had eight inches on the six-foot-tall vampire. I didn't like the look on Dolph's face.

"He's my friend, Dolph, but the bad guys have him bespelled." My voice held more fear now than it had when I'd called for Graham. The look on Dolph's face made me afraid.

"One vampire can't bespell another," Dolph said. I saw his arms move, and knew before he moved around the vampire's body that he'd drawn his gun. He moved so that if he had to shoot, he wouldn't risk me. His cross stayed at a steady white light, not too bright-after all, the vampire who was being bad wasn't actually in the room.

"These vampires can, I swear to you, Dolph. Requiem is being con trolled by one of the bad guys." "Is that what is happening to me?" Requiem asked, and he looked confused.

"He's a vampire, Anita; he is a bad guy."

"They're brainwashing you, Requiem," I said, and reached out to him.

"Don't touch him," Dolph said, his gun up and pointed.

Requiem's hand closed over mine; his skin was cool to the touch, as if he hadn't fed. But he had fed; I'd felt his power. "If you shoot him now, like this, it's murder, Dolph. He hasn't done anything wrong." I drew a breath of my own power, my necromancy, and tried to "look" at Requiem, gently. If I had a repeat of being thrown across the room by metaphysics, I was afraid Dolph would blame Requiem and shoot him.

"You're the one who taught me that if my cross glows, they're f.u.c.king with me." "They are f.u.c.king with you, and with Requiem. They're messing with you both."

"I'm still wearing a cross, Anita; my mind is my own. You taught me that, too. Or did you forget everything about monster hunting when you started f.u.c.king them?"

I was too scared to be insulted. "Listen to yourself, Dolph, please. They are messing with your thoughts." I traced my power over Requiem, as delicate a brush of power as I'd ever attempted. I felt the power, and I knew the taste of it. It was Mercia. If we all survived, I'd ask Edward how he managed to miss her. But it was like chasing a ghost; her power withdrew before me. She just gave him up and left. Maybe she didn't want to risk another metaphysical knockout.

Requiem swayed, grabbing the rail, and my hand, to keep from falling.

"Get away from her, now," Dolph said.

"The bad vamp is gone, Dolph," I said.

Requiem said, "Give me but a moment and I will do as you ask, officer. I am unwell." He kept his face averted from the cross that was still glowing soft and steady. It wasn't glowing because of Requiem. Edward came slowly through the door. Olaf loomed behind him. "Hey, Lieutenant, what's going on?"

"This vamp is trying to mind-f.u.c.k me." Dolph's voice was low and even, with a thread of anger to it like a fuse waiting to be lit. He was holding a two-handed shooting stance; the gun looked strangely small in his hands.

"Anita," Edward called.

"Requiem is fine now. The bad vamps were messing with him, but it's over."

"Lieutenant Storr, we don't have a warrant of execution on this vampire. Kill him now, and it's murder." Edward's voice was his good-ol'-boy best, apologetic, somehow implying by tone that he thought it was a shame, too, that they couldn't just kill all the vampires, but shucks, it just didn't work that way.

Edward and Olaf eased into the room. Edward hadn't gone for a weapon. There was already one too many guns in this room. I had an idea.

"Dolph, this vampire messed with me while I wore a cross. She makes your feelings stronger. You hate vampires, and she's feeding that feeling. Requiem is jealous of Jean-Claude, and she was feeding that."

"There's nothing wrong with me," Dolph said.

"You're about to shoot an unarmed civilian," Edward said, in his good-ol'-boy voice. "Is that a good thing, Lieutenant, or a bad thing?" Dolph frowned, and the tip of the gun wavered. "He's not a civilian." "Well, now," Edward said, "I agree with you, but legally he's a citizen with rights. You kill him, and you're up on charges. If you're going to go down for killing one of them, why not make it one that's actually breaking the law? Lose your badge saving some innocent human from a bloodsucker about to munch on 'em. That'd be satisfyin'." Ed ward's down-home accent was growing thicker as he talked. He was also easing deeper into the room. He waved Olaf to stay near the door, then crept closer to Dolph.

Dolph didn't seem to notice. He just stood there, frowning, as if he were listening to things I couldn't hear. His cross kept up a steady white light. He shook his head as if trying to chase off some buzzing thing. His gun pointed at the floor, and he looked up. The cross faded, but it had never had the light it should have for such an attack. It was almost as if whatever Mercia's powers were, they somehow didn't set off holy objects as much as they should have. Dolph looked first at Ed ward. "I'm okay now, Marshal Forrester."

Edward, with Ted's smiling face, said, "If you don't mind, Lieu tenant, I'd feel better if you came out of the room."

Dolph nodded, then put the safety on his gun and handed it b.u.t.t first to Edward. Edward let his face show surprise. I didn't try to hide the shock I felt. No cop gives up his gun voluntarily, least of all Dolph. Edward took the gun. "You still not feelin' okay, Lieutenant Storr?"

"I'm okay at the moment, but if this vampire can get past my cross once, it can do it again. I almost shot him." He jerked a thumb in Requiem's direction. "I want to talk to Marshal Blake alone."

Edward gave him all the doubt on his face, and said, "I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Lieutenant."

Dolph looked at me. "We need to talk."

"Not alone," Requiem said.

Dolph didn't even look at him, but kept those dark, angry eyes on me. "Anita."

"Dolph, this bad vamp wants me dead. Even unarmed you outmuscle me. I'd rather we had company for the talk."

He pointed a finger at Requiem. "Not him."

"Fine, but someone."

He looked at Edward. "You seem to feel like I do about them."

"They're not my favorite thing," Edward said, and the good ol boy was starting to fray around the edges. "Fine, you stay." He looked at Olaf and the people in the hallway beyond. "Just the marshals." Edward said something low to Olaf, who nodded. He started to close the door.

Dolph said, "No, the vampire leaves, too."

"His name's Requiem," I said.

Requiem squeezed my hand and gave me one of his rare smiles. "I take no offense, my evening star; he hates what I am, many people do." He raised my hand and gave it a kiss, then picked up his cloak from the floor and moved toward the door.