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He was quiet for a second. I heard him breathing, which isn’t a vampire thing. He was human, somehow; he was her human servant. He had more powers than most human servants, but then so did I.

“I hear truth in your words. But I heard truth in Malcolm’s speech to my mistress only moments ago. She forced him to tell truthfully if Jean-Claude had a claim to his congregation. He said Jean-Claude did not.”

“You underestimated Malcolm’s powers, Giovanni. He got a message to us, and you have a church full of legal American citizens with rights. You have a church full of vampires who belong to the Master of the City of St. Louis, and they have rights under vampire law, too. You’ve been very careful that my status as a police officer isn’t invoked here. I’ll hold you to vampire law just as tight as human law. You break either of them, and I will rain all over your parade.”

“But as the laws constrain us, they also constrain you, Anita Blake.”

“Yeah, yeah, you and the horse you rode in on.”

“I don’t understand. We have no horses.”

“Sorry, it’s slang. I mean that I understand what you said, and I’m not impressed.”

“Malcolm used your young vampire here to somehow give you this message, didn’t he?”

“I don’t have to give you information, not by either set of laws.”

“True,” he said, “but if my mistress blood-oaths enough of these vampires, then she will have enough power to defeat Jean-Claude.”

“You’re Harlequin. You can’t kill anyone without giving them a black mask first.”

“We are not attacking as Harlequin. My mistress has grown weary of being a tool for the council. She wishes to have her own lands in this new country of yours. Jean-Claude was harder to destroy with vampire powers than she anticipated.”

“You’re supposed to give a formal challenge before you start battling to take over.”

“Did Jean-Claude give a formal challenge to Nikolaos, the old Master of the City, before you slew her for him?”

I took a breath, then didn’t try to say anything. Truthfully, I hadn’t realized that killing Nikolaos would make him master. I’d just been trying to stay alive and keep her from killing other people. But it had opened the way for Jean-Claude to own the city. Saying it had been an accident would make us sound weak. So I shut my mouth and tried to think.

Micah was on his own cell phone. I heard him say, “Jean-Claude.” Had Micah heard enough to tell Jean-Claude what he needed to know?

“I’ll take that as a no,” Giovanni said.

“I thought the Harlequin couldn’t have a territory of their own. They’re supposed to be neutral.”

“We grow weary of this wandering life. We wish for a home.”

“You could petition Jean-Claude to join his kiss.”

“My mistress wishes to rule, not to serve.”

I started walking toward the exit. Whatever we were going to do, we needed to be at that church. We needed to stop whatever they had planned. Somehow I didn’t think they were done with their bid for power in St. Louis.

“The council has forbidden war between master vamps in America right now.”

“Only if the fight cannot be kept secret. My master is confident this will be settled tonight, quietly.”

“Overconfidence, Giovanni, it’ll get you killed.”

Nathaniel was alone at the end of the hallway. I didn’t know where Zerbrowski had run off to, but it was just as well. I wasn’t sure what my face looked like, but I knew I didn’t look happy. I didn’t want to lie to him, and so far this was a party for monsters, not cops.

“We will try our powers against each vampire here in turn. Those that cannot withstand us will be blood-oathed to Columbine.”

“You can’t blood-oath someone else’s vamps, it’s against the rules.”

“Think of it as the beginning of the duel between your master and mine.” The phone went dead.

“Shit,” I said.

Micah handed me his phone. “It’s Jean-Claude. I’ve told him it’s the Harlequin, and it’s the church.”

I took the phone and started talking. Jean-Claude listened and asked a few questions here and there. Maybe he felt my urgency over the phone, or maybe he’d spent too many