I swallowed and realized my throat was raw from screaming. "Better," I whispered.

The image of Belle and Padma blurred, as if I were staring at it through a pane of frosted gla.s.s. The big bad vampires were growing dim again. Belle's voice came. "Together, Padma."

And the lioness inside me was suddenly flinging herself against my body as if she were trying to use her shoulder to smash through a door, but the door was me. The impact made my body rise on the bed as if I'd honestly been smashed into. Hands were everywhere holding me down, trying to soothe, but there was no lion, and with both Padma and Belle's energy I needed a match to their power.

I heard Nicky's voice before I saw him. "Anita, I'm here, I'm here!" He was stripping out of his clothes as he came, handing his guns to Domino, who was right behind him. Crispin rolled off me so Nicky could press his naked upper body against mine. His blond hair was cut longer on top so that a long fall of it hid most of the right side of his face like some anime character's haircut. It was only as he lay above me so the hair fell forward that I could see the scars where his eye had once been. It was just a slick rush of scars. His one brown eye stared down at me.

"Give me your beast, Anita," he said. He kissed me as if he'd crawl inside my mouth, and I kissed him back and stopped trying to control my lioness. I released my control and let all that heat, all that power, go into Nicky. I'd learned how to be gentler when I brought their beasts, but there was no time for gentle, there was just Padma's lion and mine thrusting upward, spilling into Nicky's mouth, clawing out of my body and into his. There was no sense of Belle's lioness. There was a moment when the pain ate the world in black-edged fog, and I could feel huge claws piercing my stomach and into Nicky's like some macabre conjoined twin, and then Nicky's body exploded, one second human, the next a lionman above me. That thick, warm liquid that always happened when they shifted to animal form was everywhere. I blinked it out of my eyelashes, but I was still too hurt to wipe it away.

Nathaniel's hand cleaned the worst of it off my face, as Nicky's strangely dry body collapsed on top of me in a spill of thick golden fur. The animal form rose out of all the mess and liquid, but the fur was never wet. His mane was coa.r.s.er fur tickling along my face in a pale brown-and-gold ruff.

His voice came breathless with the pain of such a violent change, but he gasped it out. "See . . . you should . . . keep me beside . . . you always." He managed to raise his head enough that I could see his face, a strange mixture of lion and human, but the eyes were a deep rich gold with an edge of orange around the pupil.

"I need my lion," I said, and my own voice was breathy and pain-filled as if I'd run a very long way and it had all hurt.

"You need . . . me," he said, and that was the worst thing about what I'd done to Nicky; he would have stayed glued to my side if I'd allowed it. He seemed to have almost no will of his own. That was why he was called my Bride, like those pitiful women in the Dracula movies, the Brides of Dracula. The movies showed them as baby vampires, and some vampires could do that to other vampires, but my ability went past species barriers. Theoretically, anyone I could attract could be made into a Bride. Nicky had been a sociopathic a.s.sa.s.sin, and now he did what I told him.

I said the only thing I could think to say. "Thank you, Nicky."

He smiled, and it was his human smile caught in the half-man face. A shining smile, excited that he'd pleased me.

"I tasted the white tiger when he touched you," Padma said, "so I will not try white, but there are other colors of tiger, Anita."

"Gideon is a standard-issue weretiger," I said, and my voice was steady. Good, I was tired of sounding afraid.

"True enough, but then I didn't have a lion when I helped her call your lion, did I?"

I lay there on the ruined silk sheets with the clear, thick liquid over us like someone had smeared the bed with thin Karo syrup, and tried to think past the fading pain.

"She is my human servant," Jean-Claude said. "It is against all our laws to try to steal her away from me. We are not allowed to break the link between vampire and servants, or animals to call."

"Just as we are supposed to kill all baby necromancers," Belle said, "because if we do not, they become something that can control us. You should have told us the moment she created a vampire servant, Jean-Claude. You should have told us when she gained the ability to call all manner of beasts."

"Did you think you could hide her growing powers forever?" Padma asked.

"She is my human servant. You all agreed not to kill her just because she was a necromancer," Jean-Claude said.

"She killed the Father of the Day, Jean-Claude," Belle said. "Did you think we would not feel both his regaining his power and then his death?"

"If she can kill one of the greatest of us, then we must either tame her and you, or destroy you all," Padma said.

"Where is the rest of the council? Why are you hidden away for this attack?" Jean-Claude said. "They don't know you are doing this, do they?"

The two vampires lied well, but Jean-Claude said, "You would not be deep into the catacombs doing this if you weren't hiding. You are trying to destroy my human servant and attacking another master, and both are crimes among us. Even the council is not above the law."

"She has the powers of two bloodlines, Jean-Claude; don't you see that we must tame her?" Padma said.

"She carries the power of Belle's line," Jean-Claude said.

"She calls beasts like she is one of mine, Jean-Claude. Don't you understand yet how dangerous she is to us all? She gains power from every vampire that attacks her. She touched me once, used her ties to wolf once against me, felt me call beast once, and now she is able to call beasts as I do."

"I was attacked by a panwere," I said.

"And why was he attracted to your city, Anita? Why did he attack your people? He was drawn to you, necromancer."

Funny, it had never occurred to me that my ability to call animals came from the Master of Beasts. I'd blamed it all on Chimera, a panwere who cut me up and gave me the same kind of lycanthropy he'd had, one that adapted to any beast that bled me.

"You're giving me too much credit," I said.

"The Mother of All Darkness wanted Anita, wanted to possess her body," Jean-Claude said. "You ate some of her power, and now you are obsessed with Anita, too. The Mother would defy the council, but the two of you would never do anything so rash. What you are doing could turn the rest of the council against you and your people. It would be civil war among the vampires. Why would you risk all that when we are in America? We are not trying to take anything from you. Why would you risk so much when we are no threat to Europe?"

"The American vampires pet.i.tioned the council for permission to kill you, Jean-Claude," Belle said.

Padma said, "They do not need to know that."

"If the council had agreed to our destruction, you would not be doing this behind the other council members' backs," Jean-Claude said.

"Why do they want us dead?" I asked.

"They fear you," Belle said.

"Belle Morte, do not answer their questions."

Something pa.s.sed over her face, some thought, some idea.

It was Jean-Claude who put the pieces together. "Who among the council voted in our favor?"

Belle simply answered, "The Dragon, the Traveller, and me." She put her hands over her mouth.

I felt Jean-Claude settling in against the bed, felt some tension in him ease. "Padma wishes us dead, but you want to save us, don't you?"

She just stared at him with her hands across her lovely mouth. I realized she was fighting not to answer his questions. What was going on?

Asher stirred and said, "Do you miss Jean-Claude and me, Belle Morte?"

She couldn't leave that alone. "If I had missed you, Asher, I could have had you again any time in the last century. I do not bed the ugly."

Jean-Claude and I moved toward Asher as a unit, and I realized that it was Jean-Claude's thought first, but it didn't matter; I agreed with it. We wrapped ourselves around Asher, his body slick with the thick lubricant that Nicky had gotten on us all. We held him and stared up at the vision of Belle Morte.

"Do you miss being with both of us together?" Jean-Claude asked.

She struggled not to answer. It showed on her face, but in the end she said, "Yes." Then she was angry, so angry, her rage filled her eyes with brown fire, and she threw power into me again. "If I cannot tame you, I will destroy you."

The claws struck, raising fresh welts on my stomach, but then Jean-Claude was there, his power, no, our power, spilling over all of us. He drew the power of both triumvirates to him and used it to shield us.

"Thank you, Padma, for showing us how to control the triumvirates better."

"I did not show you."

"Anita is my human servant. I have been able to gain vampire powers simply by having them used against us. Until now the power did not stay with me, but I think this time it will. I think you have shown me how to do what I've been wanting to do, to bind multiple triumvirates into one thing, one power. Thank you."

Belle Morte screamed, "No!" "No!" She thrust that power and there was no l.u.s.t to it; it was all about anger, rage, and underneath that was pain. I, we, tasted her regret like something bitter and sweet on our tongues. I reached out to all that anger without thinking about it. It was like seeing something shiny and just reaching for it. I felt Jean-Claude at my back, but it was Damian's hard-won control that steadied us. I reached out and si-phoned off Belle's rage, because I could eat anger. That was my ability, not Jean-Claude's and not one of Belle's, either. She thrust that power and there was no l.u.s.t to it; it was all about anger, rage, and underneath that was pain. I, we, tasted her regret like something bitter and sweet on our tongues. I reached out to all that anger without thinking about it. It was like seeing something shiny and just reaching for it. I felt Jean-Claude at my back, but it was Damian's hard-won control that steadied us. I reached out and si-phoned off Belle's rage, because I could eat anger. That was my ability, not Jean-Claude's and not one of Belle's, either.

I felt Nathaniel so calm, Damian cold and controlled, and Richard more fearful but determined not to be the weak link, and beyond that was Jean-Claude more certain, more sure, more master than ever before. He let me reach out to all that angry power and eat it. I drew off that anger and we all fed on it, because Jean-Claude understood how to share the energy between all of us. In that moment I realized that it wasn't my triumvirate and his, but ours, and he knew how to drive the metaphysical car better than I did. I was okay with riding shotgun on this one, as long as I got to shoot Belle Morte.

Her rage wakened my own, that deep pool of anger that I'd carried for so many years. It liked Belle's anger, liked the taste of it, and we drank it, her, down.

She fell to the floor. "No," she said, "this cannot be."

"The piece of the Mother you took into yourself wants Anita," Jean-Claude said, "and that piece is controlling you both. She is not dead, she lives in you. Did the rest of the council take her power into themselves?"

"Yes," Belle said, before she could stop herself.

"Then you are all poisoned with her evil." I felt his fear then, and we all shared it.

"You should have let her die," I said.

"She offered her power to us like a dark wind," Padma said, and he looked lost.

"Oh my G.o.d," I said, "she really has possessed you."

Then both the vampires stared at me. "But it's you she wants, necromancer." They spoke in unison. The smell of jasmine was everywhere, and the scent of a rain that had fallen on earth thousands of years ago. It was the scent of the Mother of All Darkness. Marmee Noir wasn't dead; she was in all of them.

They stared at me and said in that echo, "The Lover of Death would feed on your fear, necromancer. But these two bodies cannot, more's the pity. We would enjoy the taste of how much you fear us."

"Do you control Padma and Belle more completely than the rest?"

They both answered, "They are the youngest on the council, the farthest away from me in time."

"They aren't as powerful as the others," Jean-Claude said.

"He hates you for destroying his son; it opened him to me. She wants you; her anger and regret opened her to me. The Lover of Death feels nothing for you, except that your death would be wise. But he hungers for slaughter and deaths to feed upon, and this new, more modern council controls him. I've promised him death, death as he hasn't seen it in centuries if he will be my horse to ride. The Dragon feels nothing for you, except curiosity. The Traveller knows what is happening, and he hides from me. He has one body and if it is destroyed he is no more, but my soul fills many bodies now. You would have to kill all of them to destroy me."

"A separable soul," Jean-Claude said.

"Yes," she said, "and even the death of all the council will not find all of me." They looked at me, and said, "Thank you for killing the Father of the Day; he was the only one who could have challenged me."

"I didn't do it to help you," I said.

"But it did help me, Anita, so much more than you will ever know."

"You ate his power when he died," I said.

The two vampires nodded.

"Belle Morte," Jean-Claude said, "you must fight her."

"She cannot," the vampires said together.

I felt Jean-Claude open the ardeur ardeur and thrust it into Belle Morte. Belle's head went back, her spine bowing, and when she looked up her eyes were their human brown. "She doesn't understand the and thrust it into Belle Morte. Belle's head went back, her spine bowing, and when she looked up her eyes were their human brown. "She doesn't understand the ardeur ardeur, but she understands l.u.s.t, Jean-Claude."

Then Belle's eyes were drowned in power darker than her own, her eyes like a sea of night sky, and I'd seen those eyes before, and not from the Mother. Belle and Padma spoke in unison. "l.u.s.t we know of old, Anita. Remember what we did in your Las Vegas with the weretigers? I can raise the ardeur ardeur and drown you all in it for hours until the sun does rise and my power grows by every tick of your clocks." and drown you all in it for hours until the sun does rise and my power grows by every tick of your clocks."

Richard's fingers dug into my shoulder, and I realized that as each man had come into the room he'd been pushed farther away from me, no, not pushed, had moved farther away from me. He understood it was a choice now, because I felt him understand that as his thoughts touched me. Fear ran through Jean-Claude like cold water, and I was feeling almost nothing yet, shoving my emotions away as I did in a crisis. Only Richard, of the three of us, was calm, no, Micah, I could feel him, calm, too, and Nathaniel beyond him. Micah was calm because he was almost always that way, and we got a glimpse of the years and the work that had gone into that calm. He was like a deep, still pool where all the trouble could go. Nathaniel was calm because he honestly believed that I would not fail him, that I would find a way. His unshakable faith had saved us before, but as always it frightened me, too, my fear that I would fail him, and his deep, abiding belief that I wouldn't. And then there was Richard, calm at last, and his was like Micah's, a calm built of work, therapy, effort; he'd built his calm the way he built his muscles, one weight at a time.

I felt Richard's version of the ardeur ardeur for only the second time ever. It was about possession, but not demonic, just about till death do us part, belonging to you and no other. Once upon a time that had been my heart's desire, but by the time the for only the second time ever. It was about possession, but not demonic, just about till death do us part, belonging to you and no other. Once upon a time that had been my heart's desire, but by the time the ardeur ardeur had risen in me, I needed more help in my life than any one person could give, so the had risen in me, I needed more help in my life than any one person could give, so the ardeur ardeur had given me Micah, and Nathaniel, and finally made me someone who could be with Jean-Claude. had given me Micah, and Nathaniel, and finally made me someone who could be with Jean-Claude.

I reached out to Jason, because I knew he was still in the room somewhere even though my vision was drowning in the sight of Belle and Padma in that dark room so far away. Jason's hand met mine, as if he'd sensed what I needed. The last time I'd faced Richard's rice-and-roses ardeur ardeur, it had been Jason's fear of being consumed by a single person that had helped me fight it off. I had a moment to doubt, to wonder if J.J. had made him change his mind, but she hadn't. One of the reasons he and J.J. were working better for each other than anyone else ever had was that they didn't want monogamy, but they did want to belong to each other, to be special, just not in that burn-your-bridges kind of way.

But Richard didn't throw his wedding-veil ardeur ardeur into me; he aimed it at that distant room. He aimed it at Belle Morte. In all the centuries of the into me; he aimed it at that distant room. He aimed it at Belle Morte. In all the centuries of the ardeur ardeur, some had tried to trap Belle in love. Augustine of Chicago had done that, and Jean-Claude and Asher had been her obsessions, but no one had offered this, only Richard. Only he could have turned something that was meant to feed on l.u.s.t and make it about fiftieth wedding anniversaries and make it sound like a good idea.

He lay on the bed, curling himself around Jean-Claude, Asher, and me, and sent the thought out that you could have this forever, and with the offer to Belle it meant forever. It was that kind of love, and Belle didn't understand it, and if she had no clue, Marmee Noir was lost.

Belle looked at us with her own brown eyes. "Richard," she said, and she'd never said his name with that kind of heat behind it. He stared up at her through that long line of vision and let her see him lying there nude. It was no small promise, what he offered. "Belle," he whispered back. She smiled at him, but spoke to Jean-Claude. "I keep calling you foolish, but you find strength where I have only found weakness. Any power the Mother possesses is hers to command. She feeds on negative emotions, follows them into your mind and heart."

Padma was behind her with a sword in his hands. His eyes were black fire, not his color, not his eyes. I cried out, reached toward them. I wasn't sure if I screamed or if it was Jean-Claude. We cried, "Behind you, Belle!"

We felt her ardeur ardeur drown Padma. He fell to his knees, overwhelmed by too much desire. I watched Gideon and Thomas hesitate. They hated Padma and they understood now that having him dead might be better. But when he ordered them to help him, they had no choice. Belle picked up her skirts and ran. They let her run, and I knew Padma would make them pay for it later. She said, "Save yourself if you can, Jean-Claude. Contact the Traveller if you can find him. Maybe he can help you. Run if you can. Hide if you can. We are not descended from the Darkness, remember that." Then it was as if someone had turned off the picture. We were all suddenly lying on the bed with just ourselves and no sense of Belle, or Padma, or Mommie Dearest. The world didn't smell like flowers anymore. drown Padma. He fell to his knees, overwhelmed by too much desire. I watched Gideon and Thomas hesitate. They hated Padma and they understood now that having him dead might be better. But when he ordered them to help him, they had no choice. Belle picked up her skirts and ran. They let her run, and I knew Padma would make them pay for it later. She said, "Save yourself if you can, Jean-Claude. Contact the Traveller if you can find him. Maybe he can help you. Run if you can. Hide if you can. We are not descended from the Darkness, remember that." Then it was as if someone had turned off the picture. We were all suddenly lying on the bed with just ourselves and no sense of Belle, or Padma, or Mommie Dearest. The world didn't smell like flowers anymore.

We all just lay there in a silence so thick I could hear the blood in my own head. Into the silence, I heard myself say, "Motherf.u.c.ker."

"Exactement, ma pet.i.te, exactement," Jean-Claude said. Jean-Claude said.

CHAPTER 13

IF I HAD ever wanted to give in to hysterics, it was then. How do you fight something with no body to kill? How do you fight something that can possess the most powerful vampires in the world and use them like puppets? How the f.u.c.k does anyone fight something like that?

I think we were all lying there thinking about the same thing when someone's cell phone rang. It was playing the theme to the old Mike Hammer show. Nathaniel spilled off the bed and started rummaging in the clothes on the floor. "It's the ring tone for Max, the Master of Las Vegas," he said.

"On your phone?" I asked.

"On yours," he said, and raised my phone from the mess of clothes. He opened it and said, "This is Anita's phone, Max, just hang a minute." He handed it toward me. I mouthed, "The theme to Mike Hammer?" He wiggled the phone at me and frowned. I took the phone, but we were so going to have to talk about what new ring tones he'd put on my phone. I'd just gotten "Wild Boys" off it as my main ring tone and put it to a default peal of church bells.

"Max?" I said, and made it more question than statement. Nicky was still mostly on top of me, not recovered from my forcing his beast. Violent change hurt. I took the phone as I lay wedged between Jean-Claude and Asher.

"Anita, what the f.u.c.k are you guys doing tonight?" His voice was an unhappy ba.s.s growl. He was a big man to go with the voice, almost totally bald in that I've-lost-my-hair kind of way, not a fashion-statement way. He was built big and solid like an old-time linebacker. If you didn't know what you were looking at you might say fat, but it wasn't; the muscle just hid itself, but it was there.

"Well, h.e.l.lo to you, too, Max," I said, and my voice was unhappy, ready to be grumpy right back to him. It made me feel a little better that I could be grumpy about a rude tone of voice. If I could still be p.i.s.sy about small things, then maybe the world hadn't ended because the Mother of All Darkness was still "alive."

"Bibi woke up screaming about the dark trying to eat her. She made me call you, Anita, said you and Jean-Claude would know what was happening to her. Do you-know, I mean?" His voice was uncertain now. He'd started life as a mob boss and never lost the job even after death; in fact, he was one of the reasons that Vegas was still an old-fashioned mob town in spite of new blood from Ukraine and other places east. But he loved his wife and he was worried about his little tiger queen.