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48
They spread a tablecloth across me and another under my arm. Apparently, Requiem had "charmed" them out of the restaurant staff. He'd kept his eyes averted from me, as if he feared the cross would flare to life.
Lillian had Micah and Nathaniel distract me, though the drugs did a lot of the distracting for them. I was afraid it would hurt, but it was like the fear couldn't hold on to me, or I couldn't hold on to it. Jason pressed down on my arm. I started to protest. Nathaniel kissed me, hard. The kiss swallowed my small noises.
There was a sharp, abrupt tug on my hand. I cried out, and Nathaniel ate the sound as he did sometimes during sex. A scream lost in a kiss.
I could feel them doing something to my hand. Wrapping it in something. Nathaniel drew back from the kiss, his mouth smeared with my lipstick. He put a finger over my lips, and I fought to make only small whimpering sounds. It wasn't so much that it hurt, it was almost as if my body knew it was hurt, and wanted to react to it. But every time I tried to concentrate on the pain, it just slipped away. Maybe it seemed weird to try to concentrate on it. I guess I was trying to fight the drugs, stupid of me. But I couldn't just slip away. I couldn't not fight, even when it wasn't good for me.
Nathaniel smiled down at me, as if he knew what I was doing. He probably did. He moved his finger back from my mouth. I nodded at him to let him know I understood. We were trying not to attract attention. Sure.
I looked down and found that my hand was wrapped in gauze, like a pristine version of the mummy's hand. I got a flash of fresh blood on the tablecloths before they were bundled up. I tried to care about how we'd explain the fresh blood, but I couldn't finish caring, before it floated away. It should have felt good, to be so relaxed, but I knew that this was a night when Jean-Claude needed me, everyone needed me. The Mother of All Darkness was still out there. What would they do if she came back and I wasn't there? Fear tried to swell again, and it didn't last. I couldn't hold on to any one thought, or emotion. It was like trying to row a boat in the fog. You knew what direction you wanted to go. You'd get a glimpse of the shore, and row your hardest, then the fog slipped back over you, and when it cleared again, the shore was somewhere else. As much as the pain would have distracted me, I'd have been more functional with that than the drugs. But the burn had hurt so much, so very much. I'd wanted it to stop.
Someone picked me up, and it woke me. Though I wasn't sure I'd exactly been asleep, passed out maybe. Nathaniel was carrying me. The sleeves of his white shirt showed, and I was covered by a black tux jacket. His, probably. I was vaguely proud of myself for figuring it out.
I looked around for Micah and it was as if Nathaniel understood. "Micah is going to sit with Asher, so that neither box will be empty." He started down the steps with me in his arms.
Requiem appeared over his shoulder, following us. Lisandro was beside him. I looked down the stairs, and caught a glimpse of Doc Lillian, before the dizziness became too much. What the hell had she given me?
I lost some more time, because the next thing I knew we were all the way down and stepping out under the covered awning outside the Fox club's private entrance. I got a glimpse of Wicked standing beside the valet attendant. The attendant's face was blank and peaceful. Vampire mind tricks to make sure no one remembered us. One-on-one mind tricks were illegal, technically, partially because of shit like this. That a vampire could persuade a person that the bad things hadn't happened. It made witness testimony a bitch.
Fredo was holding the door to the limo as if he were a real chauffeur and not a walking weapons store. Nathaniel crawled inside with me in his arms. He laid me gently on the backseat, and lifted the tux jacket off me. Doc Lillian knelt beside me. She touched my face, and tried to get me to follow her fingers. I don't think I did really well at it.
She smiled at me. "I dosed you like you were one of us, and you're not. Whatever you are becoming, it's not lycanthrope."
I frowned at her. "What?"
"The morphine should have worked out of your system by now, and it hasn't. It won't be four to ten hours like a human, but two, at least two." She shook her head. "Sometimes we all forget that you are still mostly human."
"Morphine," I said.
She nodded. "Yes, Anita, morphine. If the master that tried to take us all renews his attack, without you, I don't think Jean-Claude can take him."
Did she think that all that happened had been Merlin's doing? Did she not know about the Mother of All Darkness? It seemed like I should explain it to her, but I couldn't hold all my thoughts in a row long enough to do it.
"We need you back with us now."
I nodded, then closed my eyes, because it made the inside of my head fuzzier for a moment. "Agreed," I whispered, "how?" I opened my eyes, and fought to focus on that lovely face, the gray eyes that looked blue tonight with the dress and the eye shadow.
"Call the munin, Anita. It will clear your mind, and heal much of this damage."
I frowned at her. I must have heard her wrong. "Call munin, now?"
She nodded. "Raina could heal this."
I closed my eyes and fought, fought hard to gather my thoughts and explain why this was such a bad idea. Munin were the ancestral spirits of the wolf pack. But they could be a lot more "lively" than just normal ancestor worship. Especially if you had psychic ability, or, most yummy, talent with the dead, the munin could be much, much more lively. Raina was the old lupa of the pack. I'd killed her because she was trying to kill me. The munin could "possess" people who had the talent for it. I'd become her favorite ride. I'd spent a long, long weekend in Tennessee with my spiritual teacher, Marianne, learning how to control the munin in general, and Raina in specific. Micah and Nathaniel had gone with me to "help" me deal with it. I'd asked Richard first, wolf business and all, but he had flatly refused. Raina was dead. He wanted nothing more to do with her. Neither did I, but I didn't have a choice.
She'd been a sexual sadist, but she could also heal with sex. It didn't have to be full-blown sex, she just liked it that way. I'd tapped into her power a few times to save lives, but the cost had been high. Her memories alone were worth avoiding. The ardeur wasn't normally a thing of healing, and Jean-Claude had speculated that the fact that I could heal with sex and metaphysics might be more because of Raina's munin than vampire powers. It was almost as if the more often I was used by, or borrowed magic from, someone else, the more likely it became that their magic would become part of my arsenal. Raina had played with me enough that it had somehow effected the ardeur, or that was the theory. Why not use the ardeur to heal the hand? Healing with the ardeur was catch-as-catch-can; sometimes it worked without your wanting it to work, and sometimes it didn't work at all. I did my best to explain it out loud. "Not sure I can control her, like this. Bad, if she's in charge."
"You are badly hurt, Anita. If you were truly vampire, then you'd need more blood. A lot more than normal. Jean-Claude thinks that the ardeur will rise and try to feed that need."
I frowned harder at her. "I don't..."
"You promised to do whatever I asked, if I gave you the morphine. You gave your word."
I swallowed, licked my lips, and thought about calling her a bitch, but since she was the only doctor we had, and I was hurt, it seemed unwise to piss her off. I could control Raina's munin now, if I hadn't been on drugs. I said, "No."
"Then you will miss the ballet, and the party, and you will not be there to help Jean-Claude against the other masters. Richard will not be there because he is hiding. If you think it is a good idea to strip the master of this city of both of his thirds on this night, then refuse."
Hell with it. I said, "Bitch."
She smiled, and patted my cheek. "Once you are healed, your beasts may rise, so I will leave you with people who can take your beast, if they must."
"I don't understand."
"But I think we should start with someone that Raina never touched. I knew her, you see; she always loved new conquests."
I shook my head, gently. "Don't understand."
Nathaniel appeared beside her. He was not new to Raina; she'd had him every way a woman could have a man, and some that stretched the imagination to the screaming point. He was nude, except for the amethyst and diamond collar. It had been a gift from Jean-Claude and me, though frankly, more Jean-Claude's idea than mine. It would simply never have occurred to me.
"You're not wearing any clothes."
He smiled. "We're going to try to go back inside afterward."
"Afterward what?"
He glanced at Lillian. "How much is she following all this?"
"I'm not certain."
A voice from behind us. "I don't do rape."
Jason's voice then. "None of us do."
Lillian leaned over me. "Anita, Anita, you must give permission for this."
"For what, exactly?" There, that was a clear question.
"Raise Raina's munin, heal yourself, and heal Requiem."
"Requiem?"
"Raina will like that he's someone new, and that he's badly injured."
I stared into Lillian's face. "You really did know her."
She nodded. "Better than I wanted to. I would not ask this, if I thought we would survive this night without you. Raphael felt one of the masters in the ballet. One of them can call rats, Anita. Do you understand what that means to our people?"
"Yes," I said, "if they take Raphael, then they own you all."
"Exactly."
"And we invited them here," I whispered.
Requiem's bare shoulder appeared around Lillian. "Merlin, their dance master, rolled the human audience to make his dancers appear and vanish, but he did not try to roll the other masters. Until tonight."
I wasn't so sure of that. I'd felt Merlin's mind. If he'd rolled them, then let them go, they might never have figured it out. I tried to explain it. "His mind, powerful enough. He could let them go. They might never know."
"You mean that he rolled them, and was so powerful that they don't remember it?"
"Yes."
I watched fear march over his face, swallowed by that perfect blankness that the old ones have. "Perhaps, but I do not believe that Marmee Noir appeared in the other cities."
"Who is Marmee Noir?" Lillian asked.
"Our dark mother, the first of us. It was her power added to Merlin's that did what was done tonight. It was her power that made Richard's cross melt into Anita's hand."
"Is she here, with the troupe?"
"No," I said, "she lies in the room with windows." That probably made no sense to any of them, but they let it go. They took my drugged assurance that the nightmare of all vampires wasn't physically in St. Louis. Drugged out of my ability to concentrate and they took my word about it. They shouldn't have done that. But more than Mommie Dearest, there was Auggie and Samuel, and hell, Samuel's wife, Thea. If these were the masters Jean-Claude trusted, then what would the other masters do to us? Jean-Claude didn't need to be alone tonight. Something bad would happen.
"Get out, doc."
"What?"
"Don't want you here when the wicked bitch comes."
"I'll get out, and the only ones in the car will be people you've fed on before, Anita." She glanced behind her. "With one exception."
"Exception?"
"Go, Lillian," Jason said. "Jean-Claude's nervous. Something else has happened. Not as bad, but something."
Lillian moved out of sight, and Jason knelt beside me. He was as nude as Nathaniel. He was wearing the cuff bracelet that Jean-Claude had had commissioned for him. Wolves running over a gold and platinum landscape. The wolves looked so real you expected them to move. I stared at the bracelet. "Pretty," I said.
He grinned. "And the bracelet's nice, too." He looked down at me, and his face was so serious. I couldn't feel what Jean-Claude was feeling; the morphine and my own earlier panic had shut the marks down. I didn't like how serious Jason looked. What was happening to my sweeties while I was arguing?
"Let's get you out of the clothes. You've got to have something to wear back inside."
A moment ago, I might have argued, but Jason was scared, and I couldn't feel Jean-Claude. I was too befuddled to risk opening the marks. Afraid I'd screw up Jean-Claude's concentration as badly as mine was, and that would be a disaster. Bad things were happening, and it was our fault. The vampires had invited bad things to the city, and now everyone was in danger. "Help me out of the corset."
"Thought you'd never ask," Jason said, and he leered at me, the way he usually did, but I could see his eyes, and his eyes weren't having any fun at all. Bad things, bad things, what was happening inside? I thought, Hold on, Jean-Claude. I felt him like a distant caress of wind against the door I'd used to shut us down. That breath of power smelled sweetly of his cologne. His words seemed to fill the car. "Feed before you come back to me, ma petite. Do not loose the ardeur on the crowd." Then he was gone, shut down and tight, shielding his ass off. But he'd raised a good point. It was perfectly me to raise munin, heal, and not feed the ardeur, if I could stave it off. That brief message let me know that he wanted me back fed, and ready to fight, not hungry and dangerous to the crowd. Jason helped me sit up, and Nathaniel started unlacing my corset back. Was it too small-town Midwestern of me to think it was weird that my main squeeze was encouraging me to have sex with a limo full of men before I came back inside to him? We had the mother of all vampires lurking around. A master vamp powerful enough to roll every master in town. And mustn't forget the blond dancer, Adonis, who had almost rolled me with his gaze. Powerful, dangerous shit going on, and the thing that made me squirm inside was the sex? It was one of those evenings when I'd really get to decide if it was a fate worse than death.
The corset loosened enough to spill my breasts into the open air. "Requiem," Jason said, "get over here."
The vampire came, and he used his hands to hide his nakedness. He seemed embarrassed. I was uncomfortable with it, too, but the morphine took the edge off the embarrassment, like it took the edge off everything.
They lifted the corset over my head, and other hands went to the top of my skirt. Nathaniel took the clothes away as they came off. They took everything but the diamond necklace. Apparently the jewelry was a theme tonight. There was plastic over the far seat, and he was putting the clothes under it. How messy was everyone expecting to be?
I caught movement in the far back of the limo. It was Noel. "No," I said, "get him out."
"Justin didn't get here, Anita," Jason said, "he's the only lion we got except for Auggie's bodyguard. If your lion rises, we need somewhere for it to go."
"He's a baby."
Jason nodded. "Raina loved virgins."
I shook my head too hard, made myself dizzy. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. "He waits outside the car. If my lion rises, then I'll bring his beast, but we are not feeding him to Raina." I opened my eyes, and the world had stopped wavering. Good.
Jason touched Requiem's shoulder, drew my attention back to him. "I don't think we'll have to, Anita. Look at Requiem through her eyes. Look at those wounds, Anita. He's fresh meat and he's wounded. She'll like that."
I looked at the knife wounds on his chest and side. His arms were cut up. "Silver blades," I said.
Requiem nodded. "Meng Die meant my death."
"A little power and she changes her mind."
"It is not a little power, Anita," Jason said.
I looked back at Requiem. "Do you know what Raina will do?"
Nathaniel knelt by us. "I told him what she liked to do during sex."
I fought to focus on Requiem's still face. "Is it"--I searched for the word I wanted--"all right?"
"I have been at the court of Belle Morte, Anita, this will be as nothing." He found a smile for me. "Heal me so that we may both serve our master well this night."
I nodded. "Okay." I looked behind them all, at Noel. He was pressed in the far back of the limo, as far from the action as he could get. "Out, now."
"Wait outside with Fredo," Jason said.
"I was told to stay close," Noel said. His eyes were big, his mouth a little parted. I realized I was naked in front of him. I'd known that, but the drugs or the emergency, or my collapsing morals, had made me not think about it. The look on his face wasn't lust. It was fear.
"Outside the car is close enough," Jason said.
Still, he hesitated.
"Get out of the car, Noel," Nathaniel said. He sounded angry.
Noel got out of the car. When the door closed behind him, Nathaniel said, "How could Joseph have sent him for this job?"
"Joseph didn't understand," Jason said.
"Didn't want to understand," Nathaniel said. His eyes had gone almost purple with anger.
"Protect the innocent," I said.
He gave me those angry eyes, then made a smile for me, and nodded. "You can control Raina. I know you can."
"The drugs..."
"Will make it harder, but you can do this. I was there when you learned how to do this, Anita. Drugs or no drugs, your will is stronger than hers."
I stared into his face, studied that anger, that surety. I got that glimpse that I had sometimes, of what he might be in ten years. He was going to be something special at thirty, and I planned on being there to see it. I planned on us all being there to see it. Which meant we had to get through tonight. Whatever it took.
Jason laid me back on the seat. Nathaniel gave me a quick kiss, then he moved away, too. Requiem sat on the end of the seat, like he was on an uncomfortable first date.
I held out my hand to him. "Help me."
He took my hand, and knelt beside the seat, still covering as much of his nakedness as he could. "How can I help you?"
"Use your power on me."
His eyes filled with rich blue fire, and my body jolted with it. It hurt my sore hand, but the mixture of pain and pleasure and confusion would appeal to her. I'd learned to control Raina, which meant she had to be coaxed inside me now. It was sort of like leaving a perfectly good house when you know a tiger is just outside, and oh, by the way, let's strap a raw steak around your neck. This was all such a bad idea. Problem was, I didn't have a better one.
