"Yeah, though an amazing number of our people don't seem to."

"We need to stay secret, Anita."

Jake was the wolf to call of one of the Harlequin. They were the closest thing to police that the vampire world had. They were supposed to be some of the finest warriors to ever live, or unlive.

"If you'd come to kill us you wouldn't be calling, so why are you calling?" Jesus, didn't I have enough disasters on my plate without the Harlequin? Some days it doesn't rain, it f.u.c.king drowns you.

"Your Nimir-Raj put out the word that he's wanting clanless weretigers. He wants to honor all the weretigers and not just the clans."

"Micah's very fair-minded."

"He is," Jake said.

"You just want to bring us some tigers," I said.

"I'd also want to come back to work as security for you."

"Why?" I asked.

"Are you saying you can't use another guard?"

"No, extra manpower is going to come in handy."

"I want the kittens safe, Anita, and things are getting very dangerous out here."

"Kittens?" I made it a question.

"The weretigers, someone's hunting and killing them. It started in Europe, but I'm afraid it will spread to here."

"Funny coincidence that we're calling for weretigers and someone else is killing them."

"Do you really believe in coincidence?" he asked.

"No. How soon can you get here?"

"I'm in your parking lot in a van being watched by your guards. If you'll ask them to allow us inside, I would beg an audience with you alone before you meet my tigers."

"Just me?"

"I think at first, yes."

"Jean-Claude won't let me see you alone."

"Fine, choose the guard you would most want to stake your life on, but the fewer who know the truth the better."

"What truth?" I asked.

"Please, Anita, let us inside where it will be safer, and I will tell you everything."

I wasn't sure I believed that last part, but there was nothing I could do for the cops in Atlanta. h.e.l.l, I couldn't even leave the Circus until we had a plan for the hit men who had almost killed Richard. I wasn't sure that he and Jean-Claude would be as good at healing me, and there was always the chance that I'd take Nathaniel and Damian to their graves. It wasn't just my life anymore, in a very real way.

"Fine, I'll tell the guards to let you in, but you don't get into the underground with your tigers until I know what's going on."

"If you insist, but if not the underground, then where do you wish to meet?"

"Do you know where Asher's office is in the Circus?"

"Of course, I did work security here once."

"I'll see you there," I said. I got off the phone and started trying to find a number for one of the wererats who wasn't wounded and could plausibly be in charge. I guess we were down to Bobby Lee, who was finally back from parts unknown after a lengthy job out of town. I didn't know details, and with some of the business that the wererats did around the world I probably didn't want to know. Plausible deniability is good when you play with criminals but carry a badge.

"Anita," Damian said, "it isn't safe to meet Jake like this."

"He saved my life."

"He's also an a.s.sa.s.sin."

"Who is this guy?" Nicky asked.

"Jake is what he calls himself."

"But who is he?"

"Since you get to sit in on the conversation, you'll find out. Just stand in the corner and look intimidating unless he does something bad."

"Then what?" he asked.

"If he tries to hurt me, then kill him."

He widened his one good eye. "You're usually all about taking 'em in alive."

"Not this one. If he's on our side we are going to be very happy, but if he's not, then he's too dangerous for anything but killing."

"He must have hurt you bad last time he was in town."

"Actually he saved my life and gave me this." I touched the charm again.

"But you'll let me just kill him if he tries anything."

I nodded.

"I'm missing part of the story, aren't I?"

"Yep, and you can't repeat anything you hear in the room unless he kills me, in which case, tell everyone."

"If he's this dangerous, why meet with him at all?" Nicky asked.

"Because if he really wants to be on our side, maybe he isn't the only one."

"Anita, don't do this," Damian said.

"If he meant us harm he wouldn't have called," I said.

"Unless the council ordered him to lure you into a false sense of security."

He had a point, but . . . "They weren't too happy with Mommie Darkest last time Jake was in town. I'm thinking that everything that's happened won't have improved that."

"You're honestly thinking that they might join with us?" Damian asked.

"It's a thought."

"Who are they they?" Nicky asked.

I dialed Bobby Lee as I said, "You'll find out." Bobby Lee wasn't thrilled that I wanted to meet Jake with just Nicky as backup. He'd been out of town the last time Jake was here, but I was the boss, or the Black Queen, since we were back to using code names even on the phone. I pointed out, "You know, me being the Black Queen isn't hard to figure out."

"Then come up with a better code name." And that was the theme of the day. Me b.i.t.c.hing and the people I was complaining to throwing it back in my face and saying, If you can do better, then do it If you can do better, then do it. I'd try.

CHAPTER 32

I WOULDN'T LET Damian come with me. I didn't really think Jake would try to hurt me, but just in case I wouldn't put both Damian and me within reach of one of the finest close-in a.s.sa.s.sins in the world. Nathaniel might survive my death, but there was no way he'd survive both Damian and me dying. I'd almost lost Nathaniel just hours ago. I wouldn't risk it. Jean-Claude wasn't coming for the same reason. I knew that the guards had picked up Richard still in wolf form. Some of them were waiting for a tow truck and doing their best to keep it from being reported to the police. It would be hard to explain all the blood on the front seats without Richard being hurt. Again, playing Clark Kent was a problem for our furry Superman.

But right that moment I was more concerned with the werewolf sitting across the desk from me than the one down in the underground. Asher's office was at the top of the seats in the one permanent circus tent inside the Circus of the d.a.m.ned. The office was set up almost like a press box for a ball game, but there were drapes over all the gla.s.s windows and the door in the back wall led into a bedroom. The outer office was still very plain: a desk and chair, two client chairs, and a small loveseat against one wall. The drapes at the back of the desk hid the door to the back room. It looked the same as when I'd first entered it years ago, when it was Jean-Claude's office. Asher had added nothing of himself to it. That seemed sad.

Nicky leaned against the wall, closer to me than to Jake, so that the other man would have to get past him to reach me. Jake looked like I remembered him: short dark hair, medium complexion, and brown eyes, attractive in a manly-man kind of way, but even there he was almost too ordinary. He was nondescript. He was even an average height. He would blend in, and since the Harlequin were supposed to be spies that was probably right for the job. The weretigers who had come with him were the opposite: eye-catching blonds, tall, and beautiful, or handsome, and somehow unworldly, as if they'd only recently been let out of their cages.

Jake slumped down in one of the client chairs, looking at everything and nothing with his brown eyes. "Are you sure about talking in front of him?" he asked.

"Nicky's okay," I said. I didn't feel the need to explain that he was my Bride and couldn't repeat anything we said unless I told him he could.

Jake shrugged. "I have to trust your judgment since I trust you with the pretty kittens."

"You're a werewolf. How did you end up with so many weretigers?"

"I've known these kittens their whole lives. I think they'd be safer here with you."

"I don't know, Jake, you may be bringing your lambs to the slaughter." I told him about the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on Richard.

"Amateurs," he said.

"I agree, but they almost killed him. If they'd hit his heart with that second bullet, I don't think we could have saved him."

"I think Jean-Claude could have kept the rest of you alive, but you would have been down a wolf."

I frowned at him. "You say that like it's no big deal."

"I don't mean it that way, Anita." He rubbed his eyes as if he were tired, and I realized that there were lines around his eyes that I didn't remember from last time.

"Why are you here, Jake? Why did you bring me weretigers? The truth."

"I do think they're safer here with you, but ask me why I think they're safer."

"Pretend I asked, now answer the question."

He smiled. "Direct. I like that after dealing with all the old vampires. They're almost never direct."

"Then be direct back, Jake," I said.

"They aren't survivors of an attack, Anita. They're pureblood tigers."

"You said they were clanless. The purebloods all have clans."

"One color doesn't have a clan."

I frowned. "We only have one blue tiger, so Cynric doesn't have his own clan, but other than that they all have clans."

He shook his head. "Yellow doesn't."

"Because the last yellow tiger died here in St. Louis after she killed one of our people and did her best to kill more."

"Including you," he said.

I nodded. "Including me."

"She belonged to one of the Harlequin," he said quietly.

I blinked. "Last I checked it was against the rules to say that word out loud unless we were contacted by them first. In fact, saying it out of school is a death sentence."

"But you know that I am the animal to call of one of the Harlequin."

I nodded. "Most people don't remember that you revealed that. Even some of the powerful shapeshifter guards act like ordinary humans, as if you mind-f.u.c.ked them and made them forget."

"My master thought it would be better that way."

"Are you contacting us officially?"

"Yes, and no. I am here as an agent of some of the Harlequin, but I am not sanctioned by the council to be in St. Louis."

"I'm listening."

He gave a small smile. "Almost anyone else would ask questions, at least be astonished, that I'm telling you that the Vampire Council's own spies, police, and executioners have broken with them."