The Harlequin

Haven came to my other side in a blur of movement. "Finally, something to shoot."

"Not yet," I said. "He's not here yet."

"Who isn't here?" Remus asked.

Edward and Olaf's guns fired, and darkness swallowed the world, black, moonless night. "Shit," Haven breathed.

They both moved in closer to me. I put my free hand on Remus's shoulder so I'd know where he was. I moved my leg to brush against Haven's, but his free hand found my back. At least we wouldn't shoot each other. We stood, pressed close in the utter dark, guns out, but nothing to see. How do you shoot if you can't see what you're shooting at?

Edward yelled, "Anita, can you hear me? We've got blood on the wall, but we can't see what we hit."

I yelled back, "I hear you."

"We're coming," he said.

I don't know what I would have yelled back, Come, Don't come, because Remus said, "Wolf."

Haven said, "Close."

There was a wet, thick sound, almost soft, like a knife being pulled out of flesh. If I hadn't been straining my ears like a son of a bitch, I might not have heard. But it would have been okay, because Remus and Haven turned like one person, and moved me with them, almost like you move a partner on the dance floor. We fired into that sound, that smell of bitter wolf. We fired until it hit us back.

"Claws," Haven yelled.

Remus was suddenly standing in front of me, enfolding me with his body. I felt him jerk, hard. I yelled, "Haven!"

"Anita," he yelled, and he was still on my right. I put my gun around Remus's body and fired into the body on the other side of Remus. I fired until my gun clicked empty. But Haven was there now, his gun shooting into what was on the other side of Remus. Remus's body jerked, and for a moment I thought Haven had shot Remus by accident, then I heard a sound, a ripping, meaty, wet, horrible sound. Bones cracked, and Remus screamed. Liquid ran hot across my skin. I screamed. Claws grabbed at my shirt. I drew a knife, because it was all I had left. A claw cut across my breast. I cut the claw back. Remus's arms had tightened around me, pressing me into the claws. I couldn't see what was happening, and what I was feeling made no sense. Where the hell was the claw coming from?

Haven wasn't touching me anymore. I heard fighting. "Get away, Anita, get away from him," Haven said.

"Get away from who?" I asked. I stabbed the claw that wasn't Remus. I cut it up, but it cut me up, too. I screamed more in frustration than anything. Remus whispered, "I'm sorry." His arms slid away from me and his knees buckled, but he didn't fall. I grabbed him, trying to support him, and that was when I realized where the clawed hand was coming from. I had to be wrong. I screamed, "Remus!"

There was movement, sound, fighting. I heard a sound I didn't recognize, grunts of effort. What the hell was happening? Remus suddenly fell forward. I tried to catch him, but it was too sudden and he outweighed me by a hundred pounds. I fell to the ground with him on top of me. He wasn't moving. The darkness vanished. I could see again.

There was a severed arm sticking out of Remus's back. I screamed. I couldn't help it. More guards were there, picking him up, getting him off me. They couldn't roll him onto his back, because the arm had pierced his chest. The hand looked human now, but my chest and Remus's said it hadn't been human when it went through. His eyes were closed, and he was so still, terribly still.

"Get that thing out of him," Claudia said.

Fredo was suddenly at her side with a knife the size of a small sword. He raised it up, and I looked away before he brought it down. I saw Wicked and Truth, with bare swords pointed at the throat and chest of a fallen Harlequin that I had never seen before. He was dressed all in black, even his mask. He was missing an arm. Edward and Olaf and more of the guards had Columbine and Giova

They had the arm out now, in two pieces, but there was a hole in his chest that I could see through like some sort of cartoon ca

Claudia looked at me, tears drifting silently down her face. "Bastard had silver bracers on his forearms. Silver, fucking razor wire as fucking jewelry."

"This one is healing," Wicked called. "How do we stop him from doing that?"

"Is Remus…" I couldn't say it.

"Dead," Claudia said, in a voice that was hard and cold and didn't match the tears.

"Yeah," I said.

She just nodded.

"He died saving me," I said.

"He died doing his job," she said.

I watched her tears and wondered if he had been more than just a friend to her. I hoped not. In that moment, I hoped not. I got to my feet and fell back down. Richard was beside me, holding me. "You're hurt."

"Remus is dead," I said, and pushed him away.

"Anita, please."

I shook my head. "Either help me walk over to Wicked and Truth, or go somewhere else."

"Can I at least see how badly you're hurt first?"

"No!"

"Do you want Remus to have died for nothing, is that what you want?"

Micah was on my other side. "Let us see, Anita, then we'll take you to Wicked and Truth."

Nathaniel was there, too. "Please, Anita."

I nodded and let them wipe away some of the blood with a cloth that someone gave them. The scratches weren't that deep, deep enough that if I'd been a little more human I might have needed stitches, and seeing that they were across the mound of one breast I should have been more worried about that whole cosmetic thing, but strangely, I wasn't.

"Take me to them," I said.

Richard took one arm and Nathaniel the other. They lifted me to my feet and helped me walk where I wanted to go. Micah followed us, carrying bandages. Maybe I'd even let him use them on me eventually. Remus was dead, and I wanted to know why. Or maybe, how? The thing that had come out of the darkness had been a vampire that smelled like a wolf and had claws like a powerful shapeshifter. Impossible. But Remus was dead, so it had to be possible.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Harlequin."

"One of, or the?" I asked. My voice sounded strangely distant inside my own head, as if the distance was greater than it should have been.

"I am Pantalone, once Pantaleon. I was one of the first children of the dark."

"You didn't send us a black mask, Pantalone, but you tried to kill us. That's against council law. Hell, that's against the Mother of All Darkness's law."

"You know nothing of our mother, human. You are not vampire, or succubus. You are a necromancer, and our laws say you can be killed on sight."

I smelled jasmine. Nathaniel said, "Flowers."

Richard said, "What is that?"

I felt the rain on the edge of a wind that hadn't existed for a million years. I tasted jasmine on my tongue, sweet and cloying. I wasn't afraid this time. I welcomed it. Because I knew I wasn't the one she was pissed at. Though pissed was too strong for the feeling I got as she breathed closer. Pissed was too human an emotion, and as she'd said herself, she'd lost the knack of being human.

"Marmee Noir," Nathaniel answered Richard. I'd forgotten he'd asked a question.

"Anita," Richard said, "fight it, fight her."

"If you aren't going to help me do this, then get away from me."

"Do what, let the Mother of All Vampires possess you?"

I screamed at him, "Get away from me, Richard, now!" A cut opened on his arm like a red mouth. It wasn't Marmee Noir; I'd done that a couple of times before under stress. I couldn't do it dependably, but… "That's not her, that's me. Help me, or get away." I fought to keep my voice even, because my emotions were dangerous, apparently.