Skin Trade

He raised his hands and spoke words that I did not understand, but the hairs on my arms rose anyway, as if a part of my brain that I couldn’t understand anymore knew exactly what the words meant.

He touched a ring on his finger.

“You speak the words, but the ring is what makes it happen. You are not strong enough yet to command them without it,” she said.

“Not yet, but thanks to your plans, I will be soon.” He spoke the strange words again, and my body shivered with it.

“They are almost here.”

For a minute I thought she meant the ji

She shrieked, “Necromancer, do not trust him!” Then she was gone, but it wasn’t the blades here. I felt an explosion rock in the pit of me, as if my body were the room where it had gone off. I fell to my knees with the sharp, burning pain of it.

“They’ve used modern explosives. She is dead,” and he was triumphant. The wind of blades died down, as if it had never been, but I had another image of a second large figure behind him. There were two of them. Were they genies? If so, it was nothing like the cartoons except that the ring on his finger helped him control them. That was straight out of the old children’s stories.

He turned to me, smiling, but it wasn’t a good smile. It was the kind of smile that snakes would give if they could, just before they eat the mouse.

I decided I had nothing to lose by asking questions. “The ji

“Yes; my daytime servant shares some of my ability through the vampire marks.”

“He just takes the ring,” I said.

“No, the ring never leaves me.”

“If you didn’t have the ring, would they turn on you?”

“They are slaves. Slaves always resent the chains.”

“I’m going to break the dream now, and wake up,” I said, and tried for my voice to sound as sure as I felt.

He laughed, and it was a good laugh, but compared to Jean-Claude’s it wasn’t ordinary. Again it was as if he read my mind, because he said, “Belle Morte’s line has powers that neither she, nor I, possessed. Belle was something new. All the others descend from us, but her and the Dragon. She was never human to begin with, so she was always different from us.”

“So you don’t share Belle’s line of power,” I said.

“I am oversharing, but it has been so long since I’ve had anyone to tell the truth to.”

“It gets lonely,” I said.

“It can, but I have my servants returning to me, and my magic.”

“Bully for you. Now can I go, please?” I hated to add the please, but if it would get me the hell out of here, I’d say worse.

“The Dark Mother was always a good strategist. It’s why she defeated me. It’s a good plan.”

“What plan?” I asked.

“Your feeding on all the colors of the tigers, and a vampire siphoning off the energy. It would have been enough power to save her, and it will still be enough to return me to my former glory.”

“You’re short two colors of tigers in Max’s clan. You need yellow and red,” I said.

“You saw the signs, Anita; there is a red tiger performing in Vegas. He was loaned to Max’s clan for this year.”

“But Max doesn’t own him.”

“I’m not calling only the tigers that belong to Max, Anita. I had many names, but one was Father of Tigers. I will call them to your room, and you, and they, will do what I want.”

“You’re still short a yellow one,” I said, past the pulse that was trying to crawl up my throat.

“Don’t you understand, Anita? You are the yellow tiger. It was a yellow tiger that struck you.”

“But that makes me just a survivor, not pureblood. I’d shapeshift to a normal tiger.”

“No, Anita, you wouldn’t. How do you think the clans began? Do you actually believe the stories of tigers mating with humans and having offspring? No, fairy tales. They were all survivors of different strains of tiger. They have convinced themselves they are better because they breed true, but they have forgotten their own truth. They were once as you are, nothing more. They smell the gold tiger on you, Anita. The gold clan ruled them all, once, and they still respond to the power. If you were not true golden tiger, then they would not react to you, as they do.”

“No,” I said.

“I don’t need you with child; in fact, that would complicate things, so we will make it quicker. I just need you to feed on them and to bring all the lines into their powers. For that we need a full feeding of Belle Morte’s powers.”

“Aren’t you going to give me a chance to cooperate with you?” I asked.

“Why would I do that? I see my death in your mind, Anita. Lucky for you, I need you alive. Now, feed me the power that was once mine before the Darkness stripped me bare.”

I screamed at him, “No!” Then there was nothing but the dark, and this time there was no voice in the blackness; there was nothing.

69

I WOKE UP in the dimness of a bed, sandwiched between warm bodies. I thought I was home, between Nathaniel and Micah. I sighed, content, and cuddled tighter in against Micah, pulling Nathaniel tighter against my front. It was how we usually slept, but the man behind me was too tall for Micah and just felt wrong. The man in my arms was too short, and didn’t have the muscles or shape of Nathaniel.

My eyes suddenly opened wide, my body tensed. I couldn’t see who was behind me, but the man in front had short, dark hair. He had his face buried into the pillow so I couldn’t see his face. I held my breath and started moving my arm slowly away from his waist. I’d still have to move the arm at my waist from the other man, but one problem at a time.

“He won’t wake,” a voice said.

I jumped, and looked around the room. I saw a third man on the far side of the bed, one arm dangling. That one I knew was Crispin, nude sleeping on his stomach above the covers.

“You’ll have to rise up to see me,” Victor said again.

I started easing up, holding the second man’s arm by the wrist so I wouldn’t disturb him.

“Honestly, Anita, they won’t wake. Everyone on the bed will have to sleep off the change. That won’t happen for hours.”

I could see him now, in the big chair in the corner. He’d put on one of the bathrobes that came with the room. His short white hair was tousled, as if he’d been ru

Then I had an image, not of sight, but touch. I remembered ru

“Oh, shit,” I said.

He nodded. “That would about cover it.”

I was sitting up now, my back to the leather headboard. I could see the man on the other side now. He had long, dark hair that spilled over his face and went past his shoulders. He was muscled, and tall, and I didn’t know him.

“Who are they?”

“You should recognize one of them.”

I kept my voice low, as if they were just asleep. “I don’t know the one at my back.”

“You’ve probably seen him on the billboard outside the Taj. He’s our guest star for the next month, and then he is to go home. Your Requiem is taking his place for a month.”

I pictured the flashing image of the smiling redhead with the words, “Come watch the beefcake turn into kitty-cats,” and the sign morphed from human to a red tiger.

“Oh, no,” I said.

There was a noise from nearer the door. I couldn’t see anything, but I remembered in North Carolina that there’d been one tiger on the floor. A man sat up, with a groan. He had straight black hair that fell around his shoulders, and a face that had uptilted eyes, like Bibiana’s, but his skin wasn’t pale. He was ta