'How big?'

'Eyewitnesses are reporting anywhere from five to twenty, so probably somewhere in between.'

My phone rang and I knew the ring tone. I picked it up. 'Jean-Claude,' I said.

'Ma petite, what have you done?'

'My job.'

'I would stand by your side, you know that.'

'Claudia and I talked about it, but we learned from some of the older guards that if you are in person here, then the Lover of Death could make a direct challenge to you to try to take over as king of all the vampires here. It's too great a risk, and you know that.'

'I would be more power at your back.'

'Yes, but if I get hurt you have the ability to feed me energy and keep me alive. If we're both hurt, then we're screwed.'

He laughed, that wonderful touchable sound that seemed to glide down my skin as if he'd touched me with his hand. It made me shiver.

'Ma petite, you say the sweetest things.'

'You still know I'm right.'

'I would love to say I do not and fly to your side.'

'I love you,' I said.

'Je t'aime, ma petite.'

'Kiss Asher for me when he shows up tonight.'

'He will not be coming tonight. They have closed all the airports and roads into the city. The National Guard is being mobilized.'

'One little zombie apocalypse and they call out the big guns,' I said.

'You are the big gun, ma petite.'

'You can't see me smiling, but I am.'

'I can feel you smiling,' he said.

There was a prickly rush of cold that wasn't the night air. 'I sense vampire, gotta go. Je t'aime, mon fiance.'

'That is the first time you have called me so; I love you, ma petite.'

I made the sign we'd agreed upon when I sensed vampire and hoped that the snipers remembered that just because I sensed vampire didn't mean it was bad guys. I reached out toward that sense of power and found Wicked Truth. I concentrated and could feel the air against their bodies as they literally flew toward me; they were just above us. If they hadn't been blood-oathed to Jean-Claude, and my lovers, I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint them so accurately, but they were mine. What was mine I could sense.

It made me try to sense Jane. She was blood-oathed to Jean-Claude, too, and I got a flash of vampire. I'd have known she was close and a vampire, but other than that I'd have been blind. So it wasn't just the connection to Jean-Claude. Was it being my lovers, or that I fed the ardeur on them, that made me be able to know so much about the Wicked Truth? Later, when we got through all this, I'd experiment and see what made the difference between the vampires I could track and the ones I couldn't.

The SWAT officers all tensed and at least touched their guns as the vampires landed. Edward took it in stride; he'd seen the show before. Truth touched ground a few seconds before Wicked, so that they were both crouched on the ground letting the momentum of landing sink into the earth itself, and then stood together, tall and handsome, their faces as close to identical as any brothers I'd ever seen. Only the hair was different, one slightly wavy and brown, the other straight, thick, and blond, plus one had slightly bluer eyes, the other a bit more gray, and choice of clothing. Wicked wore a pale designer trench coat that flared around an equally beautiful tailored suit, and Truth was back in his newly repaired knee-high leather boots; they looked like something that should have been worn to a Renaissance fair, but they were the real deal, not a modern imitation. We'd finally convinced him that modern jeans were a good thing, and a black pair was tucked into the boots. Under his black leather jacket I caught glimpses of one of his new black T-shirts, the one that read, Don't Worry I'm Right Behind You, using you as a meat shield, the second phrase in much smaller type. They walked toward me smiling. Wicked's smile seem to promise naughty mischief; Truth's was open and just happy to see me.

I met them partway, and normally I didn't greet them with a hug let alone more, but I was about to ask them to risk their lives, not as my bodyguards, but as my familiars, like a witch might use a cat. So I went to them and held a hand out to each of them. They exchanged a quick glance between them, all the surprise they showed, and then took my hands. I put an arm around each of their waists, sliding my arms under the trench coat and the leather jacket, sliding my hands over the texture difference between Truth's cotton T-shirt and Wicked's silk dress shirt, until I tucked myself in close between them. They gazed down at me with those mirror faces, the deep dimples in their chins like an extra grace to those handsome faces. Their arms slid around me, one across my shoulders, the other lower.

'I'm not complaining,' Wicked said, 'but why the effusive greeting for us?'

'I'm asking a lot of you tonight.'

'We're your bodyguards, Anita; if you need our lives, they are yours,' Truth said.

I hugged him a little tighter. 'I don't want your life, Truth.'

'Whatever you want, it is yours,' he said.

'Whatever our lady requires,' Wicked said.

'And that's why you got hugs,' I said.

Jane landed in a fall of black hooded cloak. It would match her outfit, so that she looked like a movie ninja until she pushed back the hood to reveal the very blond hair and the large blue eyes. I'd seen men react to the delicate beauty of her, until they got a taste of her coldness. She was about my size, delicate but curvy, because she'd been recruited from a time when to be too thin meant you were poor or ill. She was as silent and self-contained as any of the Harlequin vampires, as cool and controlled as Goran and his master were hotheaded and uncontrolled.

She stood and came toward us, moving in a glide that caused the black cloak to billow and wave around her almost as if it were alive on its own. I wasn't sure how she did it, but she wasn't the only one of the Harlequin who could make the cloaks distractingly dramatic. As Seamus was Water, because of his grace, she was Ice, because she let nothing ruffle her, and she was as inexorable as a glacier, and as patient. There was something a little scary about Jane. She'd never done anything to me, or said an unkind word, but she was unnerving somehow.

I untangled myself from Wicked Truth and turned to face her. Did I apologize for taking her animal to call into harm's way? 'I'm sorry that Seamus has been compromised.'

'He was doing his job,' she said.

Okay, so much for pleasantries. 'Can you sense Seamus?'

'Yes,' she said.

'Is he still bound to you?' I asked.

'Yes and no.'

'Explain.'

'The Lover of Death has not broken our tie completely. It is almost as if we are sharing Seamus, which is not possible.'

'If Seamus comes, we will give you a chance to win him back to you completely, but if he tries to fight us ... we can't let that happen, Jane.'

'He is too dangerous, I understand,' she said.

'Do you understand the consequences?'

'If he dies, I may die. It is almost a certainty now that our Dark Mother is dead and no longer sharing her power with us. We, her guards, are much diminished.' Her voice never changed inflection. She might have been talking about what we'd do tomorrow if it didn't rain.

'I'm sorry for that, but I can't be sorry for why it happened.'

'Understood,' she said.