The Harlequin

They were relieved to be outside the circle of the other men. Richard's fear flared. He wasn't just afraid of Columbine and her servant. He was afraid of Jean-Claude and me, and Asher. It was one of those too-close glimpses that we sometimes got into each other's minds. It was Damian who cut off the sensation, Damian who blocked the fear with his own iron self-control. He'd had centuries of learning to control fear when he was the plaything of a master vampire who could raise fear in another and feed on it, as Columbine fed on doubt.

"We must win the crowd, mes amis."

"Like when the Earthmover came to town?" I asked.

He nodded, arms tightening around me. I knew why the hug. The Earthmover had won. Only his trying to make me his human servant, trying to make me kill Jean-Claude for him, had given me the chance to kill him instead. I pressed my face against the stiffness of Jean-Claude's lacy shirt. I'd almost broken him of the old-fashioned lace, but tonight he'd dressed as I first found him, all frothy white lace and black velvet jacket; only the leather pants showed he knew what century he was in. I pressed my free hand against his side, underneath the jacket, held the line of his body and was afraid.

"I don't know who the Earthmover was," Nathaniel said, "but just tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

"If more of us were submissive, things would go so much faster," Asher said.

It made me smile, though the smile was lost against Jean-Claude's shirt.

"You aren't one of us," Richard said, and his voice was hostile.

"We must unite, Richard, or we will lose this night," Jean-Claude said.

"He is not your animal to call, or your servant. I don't have to play nice with him."

Asher started to move away, but Nathaniel tightened his arm, held him in place. "Don't go."

"Let me go, boy. The wolf is right, I am no one's darling." His voice held sadness, like the taste of rain on your tongue, lifetimes of sorrow in that one tone.

"Our certainty does not travel outside our triumvirates," Jean-Claude said. "Even our wolf is drowning. How can we save all the others if we ca

"Fight, damn you!" Claudia came up to the edge of the stage. Tears stained her face. Her emotions were so raw, it looked like physical pain. "Fight for us! Don't just roll over and give that bitch your throat."

Malcolm came to stand on the other side of Richard. "Fight for us, Jean-Claude. Fight for us, Anita." He looked directly at Richard. Richard suddenly looked wrong in the leather mask. He didn't look cool in the leather outfit, he looked like he was doing exactly what he was doing. He was hiding. The rest of us stood there in plain view. Only the bad guys, and Richard, were hiding who and what they were from the world. Malcolm gripped his shoulder. "Fight for us, Ulfric. Do not let your fears and doubts destroy us all."

"I thought you, of all people, would understand why I don't want to be touching them when they raise the only power we have to fight these things."

"I felt what Anita and her triumvirate raised earlier. It was friendship, love as pure as any I've known. I begin to believe the ardeur is a jewel with many facets, but it needs light to shine, Ulfric."

"What the hell does that mean?" Richard asked, and his voice was angry and frustrated. He shoved Malcolm's hand away and looked at Damian. "You're keeping the worst of it out, aren't you?"

Damian just looked at him.

"To reap the benefits, I have to take the bad with the good. I can't do it. I can't." He looked at me. "I'm sorry, but I can't go where this is heading."

"What do you think we're going to do, Richard?" I asked.

"What you always do, fuck everything."

"It was not sex she offered to my congregation, only friendship."

"But it won't stay that way, it never does," Richard said. He looked at Malcolm and said, "You're asking me to do something that you would never do yourself."

Malcolm nodded. "You're right"—he nodded again—"you are absolutely right. I have stood on my moral high ground and been so certain. So certain that I was right, that Jean-Claude was not only wrong, but evil. I have said such hateful things to Anita, called her whore and witch. I have called all Jean-Claude's people that and worse to my congregation, but all my righteousness could not protect them."

Richard nodded. "I know. Anita saved my mother and brother, saved their lives, but she did terrible things to get there in time. Things I still think are immoral, wrong, and I have to live every day with the knowledge that if I had been there I would have stopped Anita from torturing that man. I wouldn't have let her dehumanize him, or herself. I would have stood on my moral high ground and my mother and my brother, Daniel, would both be dead." Tears shimmered, edged by the leather. "I used to be so sure of so much. Raina didn't shake my faith. She made me more certain. Only Anita, only Jean-Claude, only they have made me doubt everything."

I drew a little away from Jean-Claude, still touching, because I was afraid to stop touching him. If the doubts were this bad touching, I couldn't imagine what they'd be like if we weren't touching. We'd just die. "My cross still works for me, Richard. It still burns with holy light. God hasn't forsaken me."

"But he should have," Richard said. "He should have, don't you see? If what I believe is right, if what you say you believe is right, then your cross should not burn. You have broken so many commandments. You've murdered, tortured, fucked, but your cross still works. I don't understand that."

"You're saying I'm evil, so God should have turned his back on me?"

Even with most of his face hidden, I saw his face convulse with emotion, tears finally falling. He nodded. "Yes, that's what I mean."

I just looked at him, and knew that it was partly vampire powers messing with his head, but that perhaps Columbine's powers only brought out what was already inside you. Some part of Richard believed what he was saying.

"Ma petite …"

"No," I said, "no, it's okay." My chest felt like a piece of it had been carved out, not bloody and warm, but cold and icy. As if the piece had been missing a long time, but I hadn't wanted to see it, feel it, know it. "Maybe God isn't the sex police, Richard. Sometimes I think Christians get all hung up on the sex thing because it's easier to worry about sex than to ask yourself, Am I a good person? If as long as you don't have sex with a lot of people you're a good person, that's easy. It's easy to avoid that. It's easy to think, I'm not fucking anyone, so I'm good. It makes it easy to be cruel, because as long as you're not fucking around, nothing you do can be that bad. Is that really all you think of God? Is he just the sex police for you and Malcolm? Or is it that sex is easy to worry about, easy to avoid, and the whole love-your-neighbor-as-you-love-yourself thing that's hard? Some days it's so hard, I feel like trying to take care of everyone in my life will break me apart. But I do my best. I do my best for everyone in my life every damn day. Can you say that, Richard? Do you do your best for everyone in your life every damn day?"

"Do you include yourself and Jean-Claude on that list?" he asked, his voice so quiet, so full of emotion that it was strangely empty.

"Do you not include us?" I asked. I could feel the tears pushing in my throat, at the back of my eyes like heat. I would not cry for him.

Those true brown eyes stared at me. I watched the pain in them, but finally, he said, "No, I don't."

I nodded, a little too fast, a little too rapidly. I fought to swallow past the tears. I thought I'd choke on them. I cleared my throat twice, so sharp it hurt. I wanted to accuse him, say, "Then what were you doing in my bed today? Why did you sleep with Micah, Nathaniel, and me? Why did you have sex with me today? If I'm not a person in your life, then…" I swallowed the words, because they didn't matter. He'd have had some answer for everything I said, or he'd have felt bad about it. Either way, I didn't want to hear it, or see it. I didn't need to hear more explanations from him. I didn't need to see him agonize over his moral quandaries anymore. I was done.