She shook her head and a piece of her hair fell down the side of her face. She grabbed at it and started to cry. 'God, maybe I should make you kill me. It's got to be better than being like this.'

'You should be able to make yourself human looking, at least at night,' I said.

She looked at me, the lock of her hair still in her hand. 'What did you say?'

I repeated it.

'If I were able to do that he would have told me. He would have rewarded me. I've done everything he asked.'

'Who would have rewarded you?' I asked again.

She looked up at something I couldn't see and said, 'No, please don't.' She looked at me and said, 'It's not me, don't kill me. He controls me and I can't refuse him.'

'What can't you refuse him?' I asked.

'Anything.' Her voice had gone distant, as if she were listening to something we couldn't hear. I felt the energy flare through her like a cold wind. Her face turned to us, and it was a different person in there looking out of her face. I knew only one vampire that could possess other vampires this completely.

'Traveller,' I whispered.

'No, guess again,' and it was the same voice, her voice, but the tone was so alien that I wanted to say male, though I wasn't sure why.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'Guess,' he said, and managed to make that one word hiss, and then my cross flared to life again, and so did every other holy object around us.

'Don't do it, we'll kill her!'

'I'll make more,' the voice said.

'More vampires?' I asked.

'More everything,' and it was an evil whine that didn't match the ruin of the woman he was using.

'Do not look her in the eyes!' I yelled.

'Someone always looks,' said the voice.

I held my cross out in front of me on the end of its chain. 'Leave her.'

'Are you trying to save her?' The voice sounded amused.

'She's got rights, and you possessing her counts as kidnapping and physical invasion.'

'She's mine, mine!'

'No, she's not,' I said, and started forward with the light of my cross held in front of me. Nicky was at my side, gun at the ready, just in case. The beasts growled and chattered at our sides.

'She's mine!' The voice screamed it at us.

'No, she is not!' I yelled back at him.

'Whose then? Who does she belong to, if not I who made her?'

'She belongs to herself,' I said.

The vampire had closed its eyes against the holy light. 'All vampires belong to someone, Anita Blake. If she's not mine, then whose?'

'Mine,' I said, and shoved the cross into her arm.

The vampire screamed, and then I saw it look at me through the white-hot glow, such hatred on its face, and then it was gone. I felt it go, felt it leave her, as she screamed high and hopeless.

I drew the cross back and she collapsed against the tree and slumped to the ground. No one tried to catch her, not even me. She blinked up at us as the holy objects faded like dying stars. She started to cry. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'

'I know,' I said.

'You chased him away. You chased him away, thank you, thank you, thank you.'

Did she think he was gone forever? That one holy-item burn had chased the monster out of her for good? The relief on her face said that was exactly what she believed. I didn't tell her different, because we needed to interrogate her and if she thought I'd rescued her she'd probably tell me anything I wanted to know. Besides, you shouldn't crush someone's hope if you haven't got anything to put in its place.

One of the other police had a set of the new cuffs, too. She let me put the cuffs on her with no protests. She just kept saying, 'Thank you, and I'm sorry, so sorry.'

Ares collapsed to the ground, still in hyena form, but his legs had gone out from under him. I shoved the vampire at the cop with the cuffs and said, 'Do not look her in the eyes.'

Nicky and Nathaniel, still in leopard form, were crouching by Ares. I went to them. 'What's wrong with him?'

Nicky raised his hand up to the flashlights. His hand was covered in blood that had strands of yellow in it. The smell hit me next. I'd smelled it at the hospital. Shit. I dropped to my knees beside the hyena. 'No,' I said, 'damn it, no!'

The hyena shivered, convulsed, and then the fur melted away, as if his human body were something trapped in ice, revealed by the energy that spilled off him as his body shifted back. He should have been trapped in hyena form for at least four hours, maybe ten. You only changed back early if you were powerful enough to will it, or too hurt to hold form, or dead.

I searched his neck for a pulse, holding my own breath, as I waited to feel it against my fingers. There, there it was, he was alive. I yelled, 'Man down! Medic!'

CHAPTER 31

Nicky had put pressure on the wound with his bare hands while we waited for Bush to bring the officer paramedic who was still back at the clearing. I'd shoved plastic gloves at Nicky.

'I can't catch anything from him, Anita.'

'Ares caught it,' I said.

He'd frowned at me, but he hadn't argued after that, just taken the gloves and held his now-gloved hands to the wound.

Nathaniel, still in leopard form, sniffed at the wound and hissed. I started taking off my vest.

Becker asked, 'What are you doing, Marshal?'