"That is so not my superhero alter ego."

"You and Ted are both more Batman than Superman," Nicky said.

"Agreed." And then Edward and Nolan were with us, and since it was just my people we didn't have to pretend we were mild-mannered anything; we could just be what we were, which was the good guys who worked like bad guys, because to catch the villains sometimes squeaky-clean doesn't do it. Sometimes to clean up the dirt, you have to get dirty yourself. If I'd shot when I first wanted to, I wouldn't be hurt. If I'd shot then, I know that Edward and my people would have joined me. There might have been only two casualties today, Logan and the vampire. I'd have been good with that. I was pretty sure the families of the injured and fallen officers would have been good with that, too.

69.

FOUR HOURS LATER my arm was wrapped in bandages, and they'd even insisted on putting it in a sling. Since it was my right arm, I'd had to have Edward help me adjust where all my weapons were so I could get to them with my left arm. This was why I practiced off-hand weapons practice, from guns to blades and hand-to-hand. I couldn't remember the last time I'd hurt my right arm this badly, maybe never. If it had been a wound caused by almost anything else, I'd have already been healed, or at least starting to heal without a trip to the emergency room, but a wound caused by something preternatural or magical healed slower. Now that the piece of vampire was out of my flesh I would start to heal faster than human-normal, but because of what made the injury I probably wouldn't heal like I normally did. In fact, what I really needed was to find someplace private and use some of my metaphysical healing abilities, but since almost all of them either were sex based or looked like they were sex based, it didn't seem like the thing to do when I was surrounded by the Irish police and medical personnel. Saying, "Excuse me while I take my lover off for a quickie. No really, it'll help me heal"? Nope, just nope.

Besides, the local painkillers they'd given me had stopped working before the doctor finished sewing up the wound. Only pride had kept me from throwing up, and if it hadn't been Edward holding my hand my pride might have lost. One of the reasons he had been holding my hand was his insistence that I'd be tougher with him than with one of my lovers. He'd been right, and it had freed Nicky up to get a ride back to Nolan's headquarters, where he could change into his lion form and heal the damage to his hearing that he'd taken for me. I was still determined to keep Domino off the menu for me, so that had left me with Damian for sexual healing, but I was still surrounded by police and doctors. Besides, my stomach hadn't settled completely, so sex didn't seem like the best idea. Nausea was one of the few things that ruined even my mood for sexy naked time. Nathaniel, Dev, and the rest of our party hadn't gotten back to us until all the cursing at Edward and the hazmat-suited doctor and nurses was over. Yes, the doctor and nurses who actually helped treat me had taken one look at my medical alert card and treated me like a contagious plague victim. It had been like being sewn up by an astronaut, or abducted by bulky aliens.

Now I was standing in a large, long room that had its lights so dim it was almost dark, but when they raised the light levels, the unconscious vampires had squirmed, or even cried out, though the monitors hadn't registered any more brain activity, as if whatever made them react to the brightness wasn't them. Did the Wicked Bitch of Ireland dislike light? She could walk out into full sunlight, so why did the hospital's indoor lighting bother her puppets?

Nathaniel squeezed my other hand; normally I wouldn't have let him hold my only working hand in a room full of potentially hostile vampires, but he had bandages on both his wrists where he'd voluntarily helped feed some of the undead in this room. We'd already had our fight that had been all about my fear for his safety and nothing to do with logic, or the fact that I was hurt far worse than he had been. I wanted to feel the solid reality of his hand in mine more than I wanted to keep my hand free for weapons; besides, all the vamps in this room had calmed after they'd taken blood. They'd calmed enough that Fortune and Flannery had been able to reason with them. Some of them had been burned in the sunlight, but none as badly as the one that had left his bone in my arm, because Fortune had grabbed a heavy tablecloth and put out the fire on the first one that staggered out into the light near their sightseeing. She'd let that one feed on her own wrist, and it had come back to itself. Maybe it wasn't the exact person it had been before someone made it into a vampire, but it was still a reasoning, thinking person once it fed. Most of the vampires that they'd either saved from the sun or found before they staggered out into it had been reasonable after they took blood, but not all of them. Griffin was in surgery now because one of the vampires had damn near torn through his wrist. The vampire had taken Griffin's blood and still tried to kill him, and when the others had gotten him to safety the vampire had attacked them, too. It just wanted to hurt people like the one at the police station had. They had had to kill three vampires but had managed to save dozens.

Some of them were lying in the beds now with IVs sending fluids to their burned, or just undead, flesh. Others in the room had called ambulances when they "woke" to themselves and found that they'd tried to rip out a friend's or family member's throat. Others had turned themselves in to the police after waking up covered in blood, with no memory of what was happening. If other of the new Irish undead had hidden after their first murder of the day, then we'd find them later by the bodies they left behind. They'd given drugs to the vampires to put them out of their pain, and some just a sedative in case the craving for blood returned. Most of them had volunteered for anything that would keep others safe.

Nathaniel's bandaged wrists had been the hospital's insistence. He hadn't thought either vampire bite needed the attention. To me later he'd whispered, "I get more hurt at home from sex with Asher than this." Wisely, he hadn't tried explaining that to the doctors.

Devereux and Damian stood behind us. Fortune and Jake were off with Nolan's people to try to answer more questions about vampires and how to take care of them. Edward and Nolan himself were off trying to get their/our group more powers of authority. There was some talk that killing the two vampires we had was going to get us kicked out of Ireland, but there were too many dead people and too many vampires waiting for nightfall for most of those in power to want to lose their experts on the undead. They'd keep us around until the crisis was over, but after that I wasn't sure. I'd hoped to sightsee around Ireland for a few days when it was all done, but I was beginning to wonder if they were just going to escort us to the airplane and tell us, Don't ever come back. Yeah, they were scared and they had a right to be scared, but fear makes people look for someone to blame. I was a necromancer and sleeping with the monsters; it made me an easy target for hatemongers.

The room was very quiet with just the rush and whir of the machinery and monitors to break the silence. That, combined with the dimness, made it all unreal, or like a scene from a bad dream. They'd isolated all the vampires in their own area; even the burn victims weren't being taken to the burn unit. The doctors had cut away the tissue that had to be excised, but they would heal even less than a human patient would. Fire was one of the few things that the supernatural could not heal from. I knew that burns from holy water scarred over eventually, but I didn't even know if burns from actual fire would do that much. Would the open skin, so raw and painful, be where they were trapped for all eternity? God, I hoped not.

"There are other rooms full of vampires; how did just your group give enough blood for all of them?" I asked. It was something I hadn't thought to ask before. My stomach was settling down and the pain in my arm was just a dull ache, so I was thinking better.

"People started coming up to us and offering themselves for feedings," Dev said.

I looked back at him. "You're joking."

"He's not joking," Nathaniel said. "At first we thought the Irish were some of the bravest people on the planet, and some ordinary citizens did help us put out the flames, and even donated a wrist or two."

"We stopped letting civilians help once Griffin got hurt," Dev said.

"You said at first. What did you mean?"

"I guess technically they're Irish, too, like the original Irish, but they were Flannery's friends."

"You mean Fey?"

He nodded and squeezed my hand a little tighter. "What's wrong?"

"Some of them were too beautiful to be real, like they'd walked out of a wet dream," Dev said.

"Others looked ordinary," Nathaniel said, "but there was always something about them that wasn't quite . . . human normal."

"Auntie Nim came and offered her own blood," said Dev.

"Really?" I said.

"Her and her people," Nathaniel said.

"They made you nervous," I said, shaking Nathaniel's hand.

He nodded without looking at me.

"What's wrong?"

"They liked us, me because I had blond hair and him because his was dark red. When I said, 'Where are all the Irish redheads you see in movies?' they said, 'In fairyland, because we stole them away.'"

"Nathaniel, are you worried they'll steal you away?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Anita. It's the first magic that's really . . . unnerved me, I guess."

"They kept asking him if he was one of theirs, like his ancestors had gone to America or something," Dev said.

"They said that only one of them would have flower-colored eyes."

"You're wondering if they're right," I said.

He looked at me with those lilac-colored eyes. "I don't know anything about my family really, Anita; for all I know, one of my ancestors could be from here."

"Why does that bother you? Most people would love to have some fairy blood in them, or royalty."

"I don't know, but it's like I can feel something inside me that isn't my leopard now. It's like something's awake that I didn't even know was asleep."

"Flannery says that his magic only works really well here; if you have blood ties to Ireland maybe that's true for you, too," I said.

He looked at me, startled. "You mean I could be a . . . what, a Fairy Doctor?"

"Maybe," I said.

"They liked Nathaniel," Dev said. "They kept touching his hair, his arm, the way people do when they're flirting."

"You like flirting," I said.

"Normally, but this felt more . . . It wasn't flirting, Anita, not the way we think of it, but we couldn't have saved nearly the vampires we did if they hadn't come to help."

"One of them called it a debt of honor," Dev said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

Damian moved up closer behind us, hugging us both lightly around the shoulders. "It means that something about what's happened makes them feel they owe the help to the city, or to Flannery, or to the victims themselves."

"Why would they feel that?" I asked.

"I don't know. The few that I met over the centuries were very mysterious and kept their secrets better than most vampires."

"Why did She-Who-Made-You do this? What did it gain her?" Nathaniel asked, in a whisper. It was that kind of room; you just couldn't raise your voice.

"She's a night hag; they feed on terror the way that Jean-Claude feeds on lust. She has feasted on the fear of her victims and the entire city's panic," Damian said.

"I knew some master vamps could feed on fear, but let me just say, I'm happy to be on Jean-Claude's team. I'd rather be with a vampire that feeds on blood and lust than terror, or anger, or violence and death like some of the other bloodlines," Dev said. He was standing a little to one side, behind Nathaniel. Everyone else who wasn't either talking to the Irish about helping vampires, killing vampires, or our political future here, or healing themselves, was outside in the corridor waiting to come rushing in if we yelled for reinforcements.

Nathaniel leaned back and offered a kiss, which Dev happily took, though he was careful not to touch Damian's hand where it curled around Nathaniel's shoulder. Honestly, I'd expected Damian to move out of the way; the fact that he didn't was interesting, but not as interesting as the problem in front of us, which was the Irish vampires.

"What can we do to help them and stop her?" I said.

"Let us go somewhere else for this discussion. They seem unconscious, but they're still her vampires," Damian said.

"You think she could use them to eavesdrop," I said.

"I do," he said, and turned for the door behind us, turning us because he still had his hands on our shoulders. We didn't argue with the movement. I think we were all ready to get out of this room, but as Damian herded us toward the door he stumbled. Dev caught his arm and we turned to help. It was hard to tell in the dim light with someone as pale as Damian, but he looked especially pale. My stomach cramped suddenly so hard it almost doubled me over. Nathaniel's breath was coming too fast as he said, "What was that?"

"Shit, he hasn't fed."

"How have you not fed and not tried to tear anyone up?" Dev asked.

"Centuries of practice," our vampire said.

"Could you teach them that kind of control?" Dev asked.

"In time, some of them, but not everyone wants to control their lust for blood, or is capable of doing so. There was one of her other vampires that specialized in the most violent feedings I've ever seen. He literally tore his food apart, limb from limb. He didn't want to control the violence inside him. He wanted to let it out every night if she would allow it." He swayed in place. Dev tightened his grip on his arm. I tightened mine on the other. Nathaniel squeezed his hand tighter.

"We need to get him somewhere and get him some food," Nathaniel said.

None of us argued. We just moved toward the door, getting in each other's way as we tried to open the door and move ourselves through it. Dev finally let go so he could open the door and usher us through, which saved us from having a Three Stooges moment in the doorway. Damian leaned against the wall in the hallway and started to slide to the floor. Nathaniel and I caught him and other hands came to keep him upright, but we needed a room and privacy with our shared vampire-now.

70.

NATHANIEL FELL TO his knees beside Damian and a wave of dizziness took my vision in a stomach-turning swirl. I caught myself on my one good arm and felt other hands on us. I had a moment of not being able to tell if I was watching Domino holding Nathaniel, or if I could feel him cradling me. Was I leaning against the wall with Kaazim holding me in place, or was I kneeling with Dev's hands on my shoulders? I forced myself back into my body and my mind, but it meant that I had to shield hard from everyone.

Nathaniel gasped, "Anita, you can't take that much from us."

Damian's eyes rolled back into his head and he went completely limp. Kaazim said, "My Queen, you must not cut them off, or one could die."

I wasted breath cursing, but I lowered my shields. The wave of dizziness and nausea made me collapse, and only Dev's arm kept me from hitting the floor; unfortunately he was on the side of the injured arm. The pain of it being pressed between his body and mine brought me out of the faint but didn't do anything for my stomach. I fought to breathe and not throw up as I tried to even out the power between the three of us. Damian had hidden how much energy he'd been using up, but now he couldn't hide it any longer. He should not have been able to die from not eating. Vampires couldn't starve to death; they could rot, or go mad from it, but they couldn't fade like this, like a person who was slipping away for real.

I was looking up into Dev's face, and his eyes looked almost entirely pale blue; the brown was lost in them from this angle, or in this light. Pride was standing over his shoulder, looking down at me with a worried expression on his face. I smelled heat, hot, as if temperature could have a scent. Heat and dirt, as if ground could be pounded by the sun until it changed the smell of it, the feel of it beneath our feet, and beneath the delicate paws . . . I smelled spices, exotic, unnameable, or unnameable by me. I saw a fox, a wolf, no, no, a jackal. She was delicate and dainty, a beautiful golden-eyed lover both in this form and the other. I had a glimpse of a dark-skinned woman with pale brown eyes, smiling, welcoming . . . and then she was gone.

"No," a voice said. "No, I will not remember things that have been lost for so long. It is torment and you are not queen enough to force that upon me yet. I pray to my old gods that you never grow to such power, or such evil."

I realized it was Kaazim, and when I moved my head enough to look he was holding his wrist, putting pressure on it. Damian was sitting against the wall unaided and looking alive again, so to speak. He smiled and licked a minute drop of blood from the edge of his mouth, content as the cat that had eaten the delicious canary.

"Kaazim, your blood is yummy," Nathaniel said, and it made me turn my head enough to see him cradled in Domino's arms more on his side than I was, because he didn't have an injured arm to work around. Ethan was standing over them both, uncertain who to help, or how. I couldn't blame him on that one; I wasn't sure what was happening either.

"That should not have happened," Kaazim said, his voice shaking a little around the edges.

"No," I managed to say, "it shouldn't. You're not one of my animals to call, or Jean-Claude's. Your memories shouldn't come across like that."

He cradled his arm as if it were more hurt than just a simple wrist feeding. I wondered for a second if Damian had bitten him more than he needed to just to take blood, but discarded the idea. I'd have felt it if Damian were losing that kind of control. No, Kaazim wasn't cradling a physical wound, or not one that we'd given him. It was almost as if it were a remembered injury to match the memory we'd seen.

"Only my master should be able to draw such things from me, and she would not need to, for she was there." His voice was grim, and matched the bleakness of the look in his dark brown eyes.

"I am sorry, Kaazim. I did not mean to make you sad," Nathaniel said.

The werejackal looked at him, but his eyes didn't soften. He looked at Nathaniel as if he hated him. "You did not, but the vampire did."

Damian's voice came thick and slow like he'd been woken from a wonderful nap that might have included a sweet dream or two. "I did not mean to make you sad either, Kaazim."

"I do not believe you."

"I remember what it was like to lose everything to a vampire, Kaazim. I would not willingly draw such a memory from your mind to mine."

"It did not seem to make you or Nathaniel sad."

"The energy was amazing, like being drunk on strong spirits, but your downer was not lost in our high. I promise you that." Damian reached out and touched the other man's shoulder, but he jerked back and got to his feet in one smooth motion that ended in the slightest of sways.

"Are you all right, Kaazim?" I asked.

Nathaniel moved out of Domino's arms and motioned him toward the other man, but Ethan had gotten to him first. Kaazim stood very straight and firm, but he was leaning just a bit against the wall. Ethan reached out toward his arm, but stopped when Kaazim glared at him. "May I take your arm, just to steady you?"

"I would like to tell you no, but it is as if the vampire took more than just the small amount of blood. I should not feel like this unless I have fed several vampires in a very short space of time."

Ethan reached out slowly and took the other man's elbow; when he didn't protest he took a more solid grip. "I have you," he said.

"It is not you having me that I fear," he said, and looked not at Damian, but at me.

"Why do I get that look? I didn't do anything to you."

"Damian is your creature, Anita. What he does is your doing."

"You know that's not as true as what the council and Mommy Noir convinced people of, right?"