Danse Macabre

Adonis was vanquished, not killed, and that left Merlin on stage alone with his dead love. He leaned over her, held her in his arms, and rocked her. My throat was tight, damn him. He wept and I fought not to weep with him. Jean-Claude did some of this with the audience at the clubs, but he wasn't this good. No one I'd ever met was this good at projecting emotions.

A mob entered from stage right. They had crossbows and torches. They shot the weeping vampire. The crossbow bolt appeared in his chest like magic. Even knowing it was stage trickery it looked real. He collapsed on top of his dead love, and the lights circled round the two dead lovers. He died curled around her, as if, even in death, he would protect her.

The mob came, and the weeping man who had shot the vampire picked up the dead girl. He cradled her in his arms, and a woman from the crowd joined him in weeping. Parents, I thought. They cradled her, much as the dead vampire had. They carried her offstage, weeping, and left the vampire dead.

The stage was empty for a moment, then the vampires returned. They crept out on the stage, cautious, afraid. They seemed bewildered by the dead vampire. It was Adonis who knelt by him, touched his face, and wept. He picked the fallen man up in his arms, cradling him. Then he rose skyward, and the vampires flew away with their fallen leader. They flew away weep­ing to the sounds of music that sounded like the violins were weeping with them.

The curtain went down and there was a moment of utter silence. Then the audience went wild, clapping, making noises of all kinds. The audience came to its feet and die curtain reopened. The humans came out first, die chorus, but the audience stayed on dieir feet through it all. When Adonis took the stage, they clapped louder. When the girl and Merlin came down to bow, well, the crowd actually screamed. You don't hear screaming much at the ballet, but you heard it now.

Roses were delivered to the girl, and to Merlin. More than one bouquet of them, in different colors. They bowed, and bowed again, and finally die audience began to quiet. Only dien did the curtain close, and the dancers ex­ited to die soft sound of applause and the excited babble of the audience, al­ready asking themselves, "Did you see what I saw? Was it real?"

We'd survived die ballet. Now all we had to survive was the cast party af­terward. The night was young. Damn it.

53

I WAS IN Jean-Claude's office at Danse Macabre. It was black-and-white elegant, with framed kimonos and fans on the walls as the only color. I sat behind his elegant black desk, with a drawer open. I had an extra gun in that drawer. I'd loaded it with silver shot while we waited. Asher sat beside me, in a chair pulled up so he could be close enough to touch me. He was the reason the drawer was open and the gun was loaded, but not sitting in plain sight on the desk, or in my hand already. He thought it might make the dis­cussion get off on a hostile foot. Damian stood on my other side, hand on my shoulder. His touching me, sharing his calmness, was probably why Asher had won his argument about the gun. The other reason he'd won the fight about the gun was leaning up against the door: Claudia, Truth, and Lisandro, looking very bodyguardy against the wall. Where was Jean-Claude? He was out being the media darling. Elinore, as manager here, was also playing to the media. For public events like this, she made a much bet­ter hostess. Besides, I was handling other business. The kind the human media didn't get to know about.

Merlin was sitting in a chair facing us. Adonis and the dark-haired woman from the chorus were sitting on the couch against the wall. Her name was Elisabetta, and her vaguely Eastern European accent was thick enough to walk on. Merlin's and Adonis's accents seemed to flow with their moods, but were mostly absent.

Merlin was answering my questions in that elegant from-anywhere-and-everywhere voice: "I wanted the show to be magical for the entire audience, not just the humans."

"So you tried to roll everyone's mind, including the master vampires and lycanthropes, because you didn't want them to miss the show?" I didn't fight to keep the sarcsasm out of my voice. I'd have lost the fight, so why try?

"Yes," he said, simply, as if, of course.

Damian's hand squeezed a little tighter on my bare shoulder, his fingers caressing the edge of the collarbone scars.

"I find that a little hard to believe," I said. There, that was calm. I hadn't called him a lying bastard.

"Why else would I have done it?" he asked. His face was very calm. I knew his eyes were dark, pure brown, but other than color I couldn't describe them much, because I wasn't making eye contact. This vampire had damn near rolled us all with no gaze. I wasn't chancing it. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was not European. No, something darker, farther east, as in Middle East. There was something very Egyptian about him, or maybe Babylonian, because he was old. Old enough that he made my bones ache with his age. Not power, just age. I was a necromancer, and I could taste the power and age of most vampires. It was a natural ability that had gotten bet­ter as my power had grown. Now that ability made my bones thrum with the weight of ages that sat smiling in front of me.

"Using power that way on a Master of the City is a direct challenge to his or her authority. You know that."

"Not if you don't get caught at it," Adonis said from the couch.

I glanced at him, avoiding his eyes. That made him laugh. He liked that he could roll me with his gaze. All right, that we both thought he could.

Asher spoke then. "Are you implying that Merlin rolled the minds of all the masters in all the cities that you performed in, and they did not know it?" His voice was empty, pleasant, even happy. It was a lie. He wanted Adonis to chat himself into a corner.

Merlin raised a darkly pale hand. That one gesture stopped Adonis with his mouth parted. "No," Merlin said, "no. We have answered the question of Jean-Claude's servant. When she speaks it is with his voice. But why are you here, Asher? Why do you sit so close and join these talks?"

"I am Jean-Claude's temoin."

"How have you earned this place of trust and power, Asher? It is not through strength. There are at least four vampires here, perhaps more, who are more powerful than you. And you were never known for your skill in battle. So why do you sit at his right hand, and now at hers?"

"I can tell you why he's here tonight, sitting beside me," I said.

Merlin gave me a quizzical look. It was so hard not to look him in the eye when he moved. I'd lost the knack of not making eye contact with vampires. "Do enlighten me, Miss Blake."

I reached in the drawer and wrapped my hand around the gun. I felt bet­ter holding it. The moment the gun flashed to the room, the tension level rose. I felt rather than saw Adonis and Elisabetta begin to move forward on the couch.

Claudia said, "Don't."

Merlin said, "Do not react. That is what she wants."

It was probably their master's voice, not Claudia's warning, that kept them on the couch. Or hell, maybe she'd been speaking to me.

I put the gun on the desk with my hand sort of caressing it. Not exactly holding it, but touching it. "I wanted to have the gun naked on the desk when you came through the door. Asher talked me out of it."

"So he is here to see you do not do anything foolish."

"He is here because I trust him, and I don't trust you."

"You are not a fool. I would not expect you to trust me."

"And what would you do with your little gun?" Adonis asked.

"Shooting you and Merlin here seems like a possibility."

"On what grounds?" Merlin asked. "What laws have we broken? We are allowed mass hypnosis for theatrical purposes."