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"Narcissus, I don't know the name. Well, I know the Greek mythology stuff, but I don't recognize it as local."
"I would not expect you to. He does not often leave his club. But I will call him, and he will patrol your cats for you. He will not rescue them, but he will make sure no further damage is done."
"You trust Narcissus to do this?"
"Oui."
Jean-Claude had his faults, but if he trusted someone, he was usually right. "Okay. And thank you."
"You are most welcome." He drew a breath, then said quietly, "Would you have called if you had not needed my help? Would you ever have called?"
I'd been dreading this question from either Jean-Claude or Richard. But I finally had an answer "I'll answer your question as best I can, but call it a hunch, it may be a long conversation. I need to know my people are safe before we start dissecting our relationship."
"Relationship? Is that what we have?" His voice was very dry.
"Jean-Claude."
"No, no, ma petite, I will call Narcissus now and save your cats but only if you promise that when I call back we will finish this conversation."
"Promise."
"Your word," he said.
"Yes."
"Very well, ma petite, until we speak again." He hung up.
I hung up the phone and stood there. Was it cowardly to want to call someone else, anyone else, so the phone would be busy and we wouldn't have to have our little talk? Yeah, it was cowardly, but tempting. I hated talking about my personal life, especially to the people most intimately involved in it. I had just about enough time to change out of the skirt outfit when the phone rang. I jumped and answered it with my pulse in my throat. I was really dreading this conversation.
"Hello," I said.
"Narcissus will see to your cats' safety. Now, where were we?" He was silent for a heartbeat. "Oh, yes, would you ever have called if you had not needed my help?"
"The woman I'm studying with ..."
"Marianne," he said.
"Yes, Marianne. Anyway, she says that I can't keep blocking the holes in my aura. That the only way to be safe from preternatural creepy-crawlies is to fill the holes with what they were meant to hold."
Silence on the other end of the phone. Silence for so long that I said, "Jean-Claude, you still there?"
"I am here."
"You don't sound happy about this."
"Do you know what you are saying, Anita?" It was always a bad sign when he used my real name.
"I think so."
"I want this very clear between us, ma petite. I do not want you coming back to me later, crying that you did not understand how tightly this would bind us. If you allow Richard and me to truly fill the marks upon your ... body, we will share our auras. Our energy. Our magic."
"We're already doing that, Jean-Claude."
"In part, ma petite, but those are side effects of the marks. This will be a willing, knowledgeable joining. Once done, I do not think it can be undone without great damage to all of us."
It was my turn to sigh. "How many vampire challenges to your authority have there been while I've been off meditating?"
"A few," he said, voice cautious.
"More than a few I'd bet, because they sensed that your defenses are not complete. You had trouble backing them down without killing them, didn't you?"
"Let us say that I am glad that there were no serious challengers over the last year."
"You'd have lost without Richard and me to back you up, and you couldn't shield yourself without us there to touch. That worked when I was in town with you. Touching, being with each other helped us plug in to each other's power. It offset the problem."
"Oui," he said, softly.
"I didn't know, Jean-Claude. I'm not sure it would have made a difference, but I didn't know. God, Richard must be desperate--he doesn't kill like we do. His bluff is all that keeps the werewolves from tearing each other apart, and with two gaping holes in his most intimate defenses ..." I let my voice trail off, but I still remembered the cold horror I'd felt when I realized how much I'd endangered all of us.
"Richard has had difficulties, ma petite. But we each have only one chink in our armor, the one that only you can heal. He was driven to merge his energies with mine. As you say, his bluff is very important to him."
"I didn't know, and I'm sorry for that. All I've been thinking about was how scared I was of being overwhelmed by the two of you. Marianne told me the truth when she thought I was ready to hear it."
"And are you done being frightened of us, ma petite?" His voice was careful when he asked, as if he were carrying a very full cup of very hot liquid up a long and narrow staircase.
I shook my head, realized he couldn't see it, and said, "I'm not brave. I'm pretty much terrified. Terrified that if I do this, there is no going back, that maybe I'm fooling myself about a choice. Maybe there is no choice and hasn't been for a long time. But however we end up arranging the bedrooms, I can't let us all go around with gaping metaphysical wounds. Too many things will sense the weakness and exploit it."
"Like the creature you met in New Mexico," he said, voice still as cautious as I'd ever heard it.
"Yeah," I said.
"Are you saying that tonight you will agree to letting us merge the marks, that we will at last close these, as you so colorfully put it, wounds?"
"If it doesn't endanger my leopards, yeah. We need to do it as soon as possible. I'd hate to make the big decision and then have one of us get killed before we could batten down the hatches."
I heard him sigh, as if some great tension had left him. "You do not know how long I have waited for you to understand all this."
"You could have told me."
"You would not have believed me. You would have thought it was another trick to bind you closer to me."
"You're right, I wouldn't have believed you."
"Will Richard be meeting us at the club, as well?"
I was quiet for a heartbeat. "No, I'm not going to call him."
"Why ever not? It is a shapeshifter difficulty more than a vampire one."
"You know why not."
"You fear he will be too squeamish to allow you to do what needs doing to save your leopards."
"Yeah."
"Perhaps," Jean-Claude said.
"You aren't going to tell me to call him?"
"Why would I ask you to invite my chief rival for your affections to this little tete-a-tete? That would be foolish. I am many things, but foolish is not one of them."
That was certainly true. "Okay, give me directions, and I'll meet you and your people at the club."
"First, ma petite, what are you wearing?"
"Excuse me?"
"Clothes, ma petite, what clothes are you wearing?"
"Is this a joke? Because I don't have time ..."
"It is not an idle question, ma petite. The sooner you answer, the sooner we can all leave."
I wanted to argue, but if Jean-Claude said he had a point he probably did. I told him what I was wearing.
"You surprise me, ma petite. With a little effort it should do nicely."
"What effort?"
"I suggest you add boots to your ensemble. The ones I purchased for you would do very well."
"I am not wearing five-inch spikes anywhere, Jean-Claude. I'd break an ankle."
"I planned on you wearing those boots just for me, ma petite. I was thinking of the other boots with the milder heels that I bought when you were so very angry about the others."
Oh. "Why do I have to change shoes?"
"Because, delicate flower that you are, you have the eyes of a policeman, and so it would be better if you wore leather boots instead of high heels. It would be better if you remember that you are trying to move through the club as quickly and smoothly as possible. No one will help you find your leopards if they think you are an outsider, especially a policeman."
"Nobody ever mistakes me for a cop."
"No, but they begin to mistake you for something that smells of guns and death. Look harmless tonight, ma petite, until it is time to be dangerous."
"I thought this friend of yours, this Narcissus, would just escort us in."
"He is not my friend, and I told you the club is neutral ground. Narcissus will see that no great harm comes to your cats, but that is all. He will not let you come barging in to his world like the proverbial bull in the china shop. That, he will not allow, nor will he allow us to bring in a small army of our own. He is the leader of the werehyenas, and they are the only army allowed inside the club. There is no Ulfric, or Master of the City, within its walls. You have only the dominance you bring with you and your body to see you through."
