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“No, not all,” I said. “Just you.”

“I am not conquered, not yet.” The lights seemed to dim, as if something breathed in the light, ate it. Twilight filled the church, a soft edge of darkness, spread out from the Harlequin on the stage.

“What is that?” Micah asked. He was beside the stage now.

Jean-Claude, Asher, and Damian said, “The Mother of All Darkness.”

Nathaniel and I said, “Marmee Noir.”

That which we call the Mother of All Vampires, by any other name would be fucking dangerous.

46

THE VAMPIRES IN the audience made a panicked run for the far doors. It was as if even Malcolm’s tame vamps understood what was coming. Their screams let me know that the doors wouldn’t open. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; the Queen of All Darkness was coming to eat us. What was holding shut one door to everything she could do?

Micah leapt upon the stage like grace over muscles, proving that he didn’t have to be in leopard form to be inhumanly graceful. He touched my arm, and the emotion we’d raised to save ourselves leapt to him. He was no one’s servant, no one’s master, but the love spread to him in a warm rush.

Jean-Claude looked at us with tears still painting faint pinkish streaks on his face. “You love him.”

Even with all the good feelings, I frowned at him. “Yes, I do.”

Jean-Claude shook his head. “I mean, ma petite, that your love for him…” He waved a hand and let me see inside his head, so much quicker. Because I loved Micah, Jean-Claude could feed off the energy of that love. It was as if his powers through Belle Morte’s line had found a new way to think. She and her vampires were all about lust, love, but no one had ever been able to use love like fuel, the way the ardeur could use lust. It was like an intuitive leap in math, or science. You start with this bit of reality and suddenly you understand how to make a leap to a larger reality. Love, love was power in more than just a metaphorical way.

“Love won’t conquer her.” It was Richard from behind us. He’d come back to the stage.

I looked at him and wasn’t sure I wanted him to touch me in that moment. Would the love spread to him, or would it not? Had he finally hurt me enough that he’d killed my feelings for him? If he had, then he would be no help here. He’d hurt me, hurt this soft new magic.

“You’ll need a wolf, like last time,” he said.

He was right, but…He held out his hand.

The dimness breathed around us, as if the room had taken a breath. He reached for me, grabbed my hand. His hand was warm in mine. It was still Richard, every gorgeous inch of him, but the power did not travel from my skin to his. He stood there holding my hand, and his touch did not move me. I’d never had him touch me where it didn’t move me. The other men, even Damian was like a press of tenderness at my back, but Richard was cold to my heart.

“Anita…” He whispered it.

What could I say? “You said we were nothing to you. You said you didn’t want the ardeur.”

“This isn’t the ardeur,” he said.

I nodded. “Yes, it is, Richard. You never understood that for me the ardeur wasn’t just about sex. This is the ardeur.”

“I can smell the edge of it, it’s as if love had a scent.”

“It’s the ardeur, Richard, what it’s become.”

“If I’d stayed by your side, you’d be spilling love all over me?” He made it a question.

“I don’t know.”

“Ma petite, could we discuss this later?”

We looked at him, still hand-in-hand. “Sorry,” I said.

Richard scented the air, and for a moment I thought he really was trying to scent what love smelled like. “It doesn’t smell like her.”

I scented the air, too. “No, she smells like jasmine and rain, and night. There’s no scent to this.” The darkness wasn’t growing…darker. It should have been. It was twilight, and power breathed through the room, but it wasn’t quite enough power, not for her.

I turned back to Columbine and her servant. “Belle Morte said that the Harlequin are the servants of the Dark Mother. Did she mean that literally?”

“All of us bear a piece of the orignal darkness