Danse Macabre

"If Belle Morte did not wake the servants of our good mother, then who did?" Merlin asked.

I had a moment of insight. I don't get them often. I debated on whether to act on it, or ask Asher's opinion first. Then I thought, to hell with it. I was tired. I'd fed, but the healing had taken more than the feeding had given back. I was too tired for games.

"Do you want her to wake up, Merlin? Or do you fear her waking up?"

He sank back into that stillness again. "I do not know how to answer that question."

"Yeah, you do."

"Then I will not answer it."

"Are you a flunky of the vampire council, is that it?"

"Merlin has been outside the circle of i

I nodded. "Yeah, you guys filled me in on the limo ride here. He grew so powerful that he was given a choice of giving up his territory, or being killed. He gave it all up, and vanished into the mists of time. Jean-Claude thought there might be a place for him here on American soil." In my head, I thought, and the next time that Jean-Claude offers refuge to someone this fucking powerful, he better run it by me first. I'd made that clear in the limo. He hadn't even argued with me.

"If you're not working for the council, then who are you working for?" I asked.

"If I said myself, would you believe me?"

"Maybe, maybe not, don't know, try me." My hand was on the gun again.

"Why touch your gun?"

"Because, I think if you don't want to answer the question that you may try vampire powers again. It just depends on what you're more afraid of."

"I am not afraid of your little gun," he said.

"Probably not, but you are afraid of Mommie Dearest, aren't you?"

He actually licked his lips. The gesture gave me hope that his facade was cracking, and it made me give his eyes a full glance. Which was what it was supposed to do. He tried to roll me in that moment of eye contact, and he might have done it, except that Asher and Damian touched my bare skin at the same time. It was enough to distract me, make me look away.

"There must be more to the two of you than I have been told," Merlin said, and his voice was back to emptiness again.

"He is her vampire servant," Adonis said, "it isn't rumor." His voice wasn't empty, more hollow with an edge of anger.

"But that is not what saved her," Merlin said. He looked to Asher, and I saw what I had rarely seen, one vampire look away from the gaze of another. Most vamps' power, like my own necromancy, protected them against vam­pire gaze. They couldn't roll each other—but Merlin could, or Asher feared he could. Scary bastard.

"You were the weakest of Belle Morte's master vampires. That vampire would not have helped save anyone from my gaze."

"I have never met you before," Asher said, his hand still on my arm, and his gaze averted from the other vampire.

"I have been closer to you than you know, Asher."

I did not like the direction this talk was taking. "Look, we brought you back here to get answers, not the other way around."

"And what answers do you think that I want from you?"

"You wanted to know how powerful we were. I don't know why, but you did. You wanted to test us. Why?"

"Perhaps I have sought long and hard for another master I could call my own. Someone who was powerful enough to make me feel that he was wor­thy to follow."

"You're Merlin, not Lancelot," I said.

"Lancelot was fiction, as is most of what you know today about me, and the ones I served."

I blinked in his direction. "Are you saying you're the Merlin, as in King Arthur and die Round Table?"

"Are you saying I am not?"

I started to argue with him, but decided not to. It was no skin off my back if he wanted to pretend to be the real Merlin. I wouldn't even point out that Merlin, himself, was a late addition to the legend of Arthur. It was his delu­sion. Obsidian Butterfly thought she was an Aztec goddess. She'd been pow­erful enough tliat I hadn't burst her bubble either.

"Another night, maybe, but tonight I want to get some straight answers out of you. You're talking rings around me, and I'm tired of it."

His power breatlied through my mind. I was suddenly pointing a gun at his chest. "Don't try it."

"You would slay me simply for using my power."

"I would shoot you in the chest for trying to roll my mind. One-on-one mind control is illegal, especially for nefarious purposes."

"I do not plan to take your blood, or feed upon you in any other way."

The gun was still nice and steady at his chest. "The law doesn't state you have to do mind control for feeding, just that you infringe on the free will of mother. It's grounds for an order of execution."

"It takes time to get an order of execution, Ms. Blake. You ca

I shook my head. I was being silly, wasn't I? Asher's hand found my leg. When I'd pointed the gun, his hand had had to move. His hand went up inder my skirt, until he traced the edge of die hose, and found skin. It wasn't ibout sex, it was about helping keep me clearheaded. It was die first time a nan touching my thigh had cleared my head.

I straightened my arm a little, and made it a double-handed grip. Damian's hand on my shoulder dug in, as if he was afraid of what I was about :o do.

"You try to mind-fuck me again and I'll take my chances with the courts."

There were other guns out in the room, all of them in the hands of our guys, and girl. Claudia said, "If you leave the couch, you bleed."

Adonis and Elisabetta settled back against the cushions again. I didn't spare a glance to see if they were happy about it. Claudia and the others had them; I had my hands fall with the vampire in front of me.

"I will not use my power on you again, Ms. Blake. I think you are a little too dangerous to tease."

"Good of you notice," I said, voice quiet, fighting to keep my arms steady.

"Your word that you will not try to use your powers on any of us here tonight," Asher said, his hand very still on my thigh.

"I give you my word that I will not use my powers on any of you tonight."

"Broaden," I said.

"What?" Asher asked.

"His word that he doesn't use his powers on us while he's in town. I want his word that he'll be a good boy until he leaves our territory."

"You heard the lady," Asher said, and he didn't try to keep the humor out of his voice. I was glad I was amusing someone.

He gave his word, exactly as I asked him to. He was an ancient vampire. If you could ever get one of the bastards to give their word of honor, then you had them. They wouldn't break it. Weird, but true.

I lowered my gun, and Claudia and the others did the same. We didn't put the guns up, though. We had Merlin's word, not Adonis's, or Elisabetta's. I guess I should have thrown that in, but I hadn't thought about it at the time.

"You know that I am one of the few vampires she created personally. You have seen the memory of my death."

I nodded.

"I had heard rumors that she was stirring. More rumors that she has vis­ited you in dream, or vision. I am forbidden to approach the council for any reason on pain of death. To have the rumors confirmed, or denied, I had no choice but to come here, to you and Jean-Claude."

"Why the power trip at the ballet?" I said.

"I wanted to see if I could find something in Jean-Claude that would in­terest her."

"And?" I said.

"I found you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you are a necromancer, as of old."

"And that means, what?"

"You have powers that I have not seen in many long centuries."

"You haven't seen my powers used yet."

"You have a vampire servant. You have an animal to call. You gain powers as if you were a master vampire. You feed upon sex as Jean-Claude does, as Belle Morte does. It is not an option for you, or an added power from Jean-Claude. You must feed as if you were in truth a vampire. Not upon blood, true, but upon lust."