Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [1082]
“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 cannot even save ourselves?” His voice was an echo of Asher’s, full of sorrow, so that my throat closed with it, and I thought I’d choke on unshed tears.
“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.