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I nodded. The crowd was still crying for help, for it to stop. If they’d set up similar rules to the last challenger Jean-Claude had had, then it was winning over the crowd that would decide it. An actual member of the vampire council had come to town. He was the Earthmover, he could cause earthquakes with his power. To save the city and keep the destruction to a minimum, Jean-Claude had gotten him to agree that they would fight with less destructive powers, and one of the tests would be which one could sway the audience at the Circus of the Damned. If victory was in getting this crowd on our side, we were about to lose.

I tried to feel Jean-Claude through his own marks, but he kept me out. I got one hard glimpse of him drowning in doubt. But they weren’t his doubts, they were Richard’s. Poor Richard, he’d come to support Jean-Claude, but he was so full of self-doubt that he was hurting him, hurting them both. Jean-Claude shielded so I wouldn’t feel it. That left him and Richard trapped in Richard’s version of hell.

I got to my feet, still holding on to Nathaniel and Damian. Micah stood with us, but let his hands fall away. I told him, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, now go. Go to Jean-Claude.”

We started hurrying toward the stage. Jean-Claude needed to touch someone who had no doubts about him, or themselves. With Nathaniel’s hand in mine, I had enough certainty to share.

44

WE HIT THE stage at a run, and I fell into Jean-Claude’s arms. I fell into his arms with Nathaniel in my right hand, and Damian in my left. Jean-Claude staggered under the combined weight, or the momentum. Asher helped steady him, hands on his back to help him stay upright. Richard was on all fours, head down. He never looked up as we stumbled into Jean-Claude’s arms, and Asher held us all for a moment.

Jean-Claude wrapped his arms around me. I felt Asher’s strength at his back, at our backs, helping us, steadying us. I looked up into Jean-Claude’s face, into those midnight blue eyes. Nathaniel wrapped his arms around Jean-Claude, me, and Asher. I think Asher would have moved back, but there was no time. Damian kept my hand but knelt by Richard. He touched the fallen man’s shoulder. Nathaniel and I gave Jean-Claude certainty, a rock to build upon. Damian shared his coldness with Richard, his utter control. I felt both emotions in a rush of power that danced through my body, and into Jean-Claude’s, and Asher’s behind him.

Richard cried out, his head coming up, his hand grabbing Damian’s arm like a drowning man taking the last help offered.

I felt Damian’s coldness rush over Richard’s panic and turn to a wall of ice. He gave Richard defenses to hide behind. He pulled Richard to his feet, and they stood there, hands on each other’s arms, like a version of the guy-greeting that friends use sometimes when a handshake won’t do but they’re too manly to hug. Damian kept my hand in his, but he and Richard were outside the circle of everyone else’s arms.

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