"Because once you have all the colors under your control, you will gain an astronomical amount of power and so will the tigers."

"Bibiana said that, too."

"Once you have a gold tiger to call your own, the others will not be able to resist you."

"Then why didn't the gold tiger who tried to kill me and her master rule the tigers?"

"Because she was just gold."

"I thought gold automatically gave you all the other colors."

"No, if it's a one-off, it's just like all the other tigers."

"How are you so sure that giving me a gold tiger will give me all the tigers then?"

"Because you already have a white and black."

"I'm not sure whether they're my tigers to call, or closer to what Nicky is," I said.

"Doesn't matter, you have power over them and the blue."

"Cynric was sixteen and I was his first s.e.x. Any sixteen-year-old boy would have bonded with me."

Jake laughed. "I think you underestimate yourself, but it's a good point. What I mean is that you call to all the colors you've met, including the red.

You were little queen enough to put out a countrywide call to all unmated males. You d.a.m.n near caused a riot with our gold males. They were ready to get on a bus, or a plane, whatever it took, and come to you. We had a h.e.l.l of time stopping them. Soledad's mistress couldn't call all the males, and neither could Soledad."

I thought about it, then said, "We help you with the tigers, and you help us with the a.s.sa.s.sins."

"Rafael's rats are on it now. If your Ulfric didn't insist on playing human, he'd have had guards with him."

"He likes being a normal person, but I think he'll be willing to have guards until this is fixed."

"It may not be fixed by autumn, Anita."

"Jake, if people keep trying to kill us for another two, three months solid, the problem will be fixed, because eventually one of us will be dead."

"You're really calm when you say that. Most people would be afraid."

I shrugged. "I'll be afraid when I have to be."

"So, you and Jean-Claude and whoever else you wish to include will take the gold tigers?"

"If we're fighting the council and the Mother of All Darkness, we need all the power we can get."

"I remember you as arguing more the last time I was in town."

I shrugged again. "Maybe even I get tired of arguing."

"Or maybe circ.u.mstances have worn you down," he said.

It was my turn to give a little smile. "That, too. If you were going to offer the tigers to Jean-Claude, too, why not include him in the talk?"

"He's your master, Anita; if you wanted to include him you would. If you want to share information with him, you simply think it and let him hear your thoughts. This way he was able to talk to more of the American Masters of the City while I told you all this."

"Labor division at its best," I said. I stood up. He stood up. "Introduce me to your tigers, Jake."

"They aren't mine," he said.

"You've known them since they were born. Don't you feel anything for them?"

"I've watched them grow up; of course I do."

"Then how can you just offer them to us like they're not really people with their own free will?"

"They were raised for this moment, Anita."

"You make them sound like farm animals."

"I don't mean to, but we didn't keep them hidden and protected for thousands of years out of the goodness of our hearts, Anita. We did it because we needed them. We needed them so we could give them to you, and you could make them food."

"My animals to call aren't food," I said.

"Pretty to think so, but food is just energy that you eat, and they are energy that feeds your and Jean-Claude's power base."

"You do think of them like livestock," I said.

"We have married them, bred them, and watched over them like our special little flock of sheep for over a thousand years, Anita. When the new Master of Tigers emerged, there was no guarantee that he, or she, would be a kind master. We had to stay detached because when the moment came to give them to someone, we had to be willing to do that. If I loved them the way you love children, I might not have been able to do that. Do you understand that?"

"I understand that the big bad wolf has been watching the flock, when they thought you were the sheepdog."

"You're right. They call me Uncle Jake."

"And if I'd been an honorable but cruel person, you'd have still offered them up like lambs to slaughter."

He looked at me. Brown is supposed to be a warm color of eye, but in that moment there was nothing warm in his gaze. It was as cold and pitiless a look as any I'd ever seen, and I'd seen some good ones. "Yes," he said, "I would have."

"Evil old Uncle Jake," I said.

He nodded. "Yes."

"I couldn't be evil Aunt Anita," I said.

"Even to keep the Mother of All Darkness from spreading across the entire world like an evil, death-spreading plague?"

I wanted to look away then, but I forced myself to keep meeting his eyes. I finally said the only truth I had. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do," he said. "You just don't like that your answer would be the same as mine."

"If we do evil in the name of good, it's still evil, Jake."

"Lucky for me, you are a good person at heart, Anita Blake. You will do your best not to hurt them, so I can do my duty and not be evil this time. But I never lie to myself. I know the only thing that keeps giving those kids to you from being evil is your own innate goodness. But if you were the most evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the planet and it would save the rest of us, I would give you all my golden kittens, and that is evil." He offered me his hand. I took it, expecting him to shake it, but he raised it to his mouth and laid a brief kiss on my knuckles. "Thank you for letting me do my duty, and not be the motherf.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d I feared I'd have to be."

He rose and turned away, but not before I saw the shine of tears in his eyes. He said he never lied to himself, but he did. He said he didn't love them like children, and I knew in that moment that he did.

CHAPTER 33

WE WERE OUT the door and going down the steps when my phone rang again, that peal of church bells. I said a little prayer and picked up. "Blake, here."

"Check your email, Marshal." It was Clayton.

"What did you send me?"

"A video. I do love these new gadgets, don't you?" He hung up.

I sighed. "Go talk to your tigers. I've got to see what the bad guy sent me."

"What bad guy?" Jake asked.

I shook my head and handed the phone to Nicky. "Help me play the video he sent me."

"You know we do have spies in almost every major city, Anita. We have us in every major city."

I turned and looked at him. "What are you offering?"

He glanced back at his tigers with their circle of our guards around them. "Tell me what's happening, and I'll tell you if we have anyone or anything that can help."

"I've got it open, Anita," Nicky cut in.

"Hold that thought," I said to Jake, and turned to Nicky. He handed me the phone but stayed close so he could look over my shoulder. I didn't complain. If I needed to pause it or run it back, I'd need his help anyway. I really had to learn to work this d.a.m.n thing.

The screen was surprisingly clear, like a little TV. There was a figure in white crime scene scrubs top to bottom, even with a hood on, and a face mask. She was crawling on the ground in front of the camera. I knew it was a she, because she was crying out, "No, please, no!"

A decayed hand with bones showing through the putrid flesh reached past the camera. She screamed, scrambling faster on her arms and one good leg. The other leg was covered in blood, the coverall torn so we could see the spurt of blood timed to the beat of her heart in the back of her knee. Something had attacked her down in the crypt. The other vampires were alive and still crazed, and once daylight stopped they'd come out. Only their master could brave the daylight.

He grabbed her by her wounded leg and dragged her back to him, while she screamed. He sat on her waist, pinning her to the ground. She just screamed, one long ragged scream after another as he jerked her hood down, spilling long brown hair, and tore her mask off with his rotting hand so her face was bare to the camera. He wanted me to see how afraid she was.

I was whispering something under my breath over and over as he reached for her throat. He gripped the front of her throat and squeezed until her face turned dark, purplish with lack of air, and then he let her go. He let her breathe, and then he reached for her throat again.

"Don't," I whispered.

"He killed her before he sent this, Anita. It's not happening now. You can't save her," Nicky said.

"How do you know?"

"He'd need both hands to send the video," he said.

It was such a practical reason for the woman to be dead that it calmed me a little. It helped me watch, but he didn't strangle her this time; he dug his thick, decaying fingers into the front of her throat and tore it out like you'd rip open a ripe piece of fruit. Blood gushed up and out. Her eyes rolled, and she made sounds, horrible, wet, choking sounds.

The camera stayed on her until her eyes glazed and the only movement was involuntary twitches. She was dead; she just hadn't stopped moving yet.

He put the camera on his face so I could see the Halloween mask that was all he could have for a face in the daylight. Even the rotting vampires that could brave the light couldn't pa.s.s for human in the day, but it didn't matter now, because Clayton wasn't trying to pa.s.s anymore. The face that stared back at me was a monster and happy with it.

"Come and get me, Anita Blake. Come and get me, because I and my vampires will kill as many as we can for as long as we can." His cheek was collapsed on one side, and I could see his tongue working in his mouth. It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. With everything he'd done, that sickened me. You never know what will push you over the edge until you see it.

A gunshot exploded over the speakers and his body jerked. He moved the phone so I saw the second shot go through his chest. "Oh, look, more police to kill." He turned and the camera swung so that I saw the uniformed officer shooting into him as the vampire strode toward him, no hesitating, as if the bullets meant nothing. A shotgun roared off camera, and the vampire's body rocked and turned to an older uniform aiming at him over the hood of their car. The vampire laughed at them both and said, "Bullets can't hurt me while I'm like this." He laughed again, and the screen went dead as more gunshots sounded.

I stared at the screen. "f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k!"

Jake came back to me. "What has happened now?"

I dialed Finnegan's phone number, wondering if he was alive to pick up. It went to voice mail and my stomach fell into my feet. When the phone rang I made a little squeak. f.u.c.k. "Blake," I said.

"Returning your call." It was Finnegan.

"Is the vampire still at the cemetery?" I asked.

"No. He broke through the officers and he's gone. He's a rotting corpse and he just disappeared. How can we not find him?" He was almost yelling.

"He sent me a video," I said.

"What?"

"I think he used Morgan's phone to send me a video."

"Send it to me."

"You don't want to see it."

"Send it."

"It's him killing one of your techs and about to kill some uniforms. While he's in rotted corpse form he's almost invincible to bullets. Once he looks solid, human, then bullets will work again."

"Why?" Finnegan asked.

"I don't know. I just know that's how this kind of vampire works."

"How do we find him, Blake? And what the f.u.c.k do we do when we find him?"

"Burn him. Flamethrowers."