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26
EVERYONE AGREED TO the test. Everyone seemed happier about it than I did. Okay, everyone but Remus and some of his guards. I think that was because he was pretty sure it was going to go horribly wrong and he and his people would have to pick up the pieces. I agreed with Remus.
Part of me hopes that someday I get over being so damned uncomfortable about group scenes like this; part of me hopes I don't. It's sort of the same part of me that mourns that I can kill without feeling bad about it, most of the time. Yeah, that same part thinks that doing metaphysical sex in front of a bunch of men, for any reason, is just another step down the slippery slope to damnation. But if the alternative is having the ardeur go off like a metaphysical bomb during the party tonight, well, what we were about to do was the lesser evil. Still it might be nice, once in a while, not to have to choose between evils. Just once, couldn't I choose the lesser good?
Requiem lay back against the fresh sheets, his hair spilling out around his upper body like a dark halo. His day job, or would that be night job, was stripping at Guilty Pleasures. The body showed that, but all I could see was the wounds. Meng Die had come very, very close to putting out his light forever. I traced fingertips across the sternum cut. His breath came out in a shuddering sigh. I couldn't tell if it had hurt, or felt good.
Normally I could read Requiem, but today there was nothing in his face that helped me. He gazed up at me as if I were the most wondrous thing he'd ever seen. It was a step above, or below, love. Worship was the only word I had for it. It hurt my heart to see that look on his face. There was no Requiem left in that look.
Requiem of the somber, pretty speeches. He'd earned his name because he was poetic but damned depressing. But there was no force of personality to him now, nothing but this overwhelming need.
"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."
