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“One of, or the?” I asked. My voice sounded strangely distant inside my own head, as if the distance was greater than it should have been.

“I am Pantalone, once Pantaleon. I was one of the first children of the dark.”

“You didn’t send us a black mask, Pantalone, but you tried to kill us. That’s against council law. Hell, that’s against the Mother of All Darkness’s law.”

“You know nothing of our mother, human. You are not vampire, or succubus. You are a necromancer, and our laws say you can be killed on sight.”

I smelled jasmine. Nathaniel said, “Flowers.”

Richard said, “What is that?”

I felt the rain on the edge of a wind that hadn’t existed for a million years. I tasted jasmine on my tongue, sweet and cloying. I wasn’t afraid this time. I welcomed it. Because I knew I wasn’t the one she was pissed at. Though pissed was too strong for the feeling I got as she breathed closer. Pissed was too human an emotion, and as she’d said herself, she’d lost the knack of being human.

“Marmee Noir,” Nathaniel answered Richard. I’d forgotten he’d asked a question.

“Anita,” Richard said, “fight it, fight her.”

“If you aren’t going to help me do this, then get away from me.”

“Do what, let the Mother of All Vampires possess you?”

I screamed at him, “Get away from me, Richard, now!” A cut opened on his arm like a red mouth. It wasn’t Marmee Noir; I’d done that a couple of times before under stress. I couldn’t do it dependably, but…“That’s not her, that’s me. Help me, or get away.” I fought to keep my voice even, because my emotions were dangerous, apparently.

“Don’t let her inside you.”

“Micah, take my arm.”

“Don’t let her do this,” Richard said to him.

“We are still in danger here, Richard,” Micah said. “Don’t you get that? We have to finish what we started.”

“You mean kill them?”

“Yes,” I said, “yes, kill them. Kill them all!” Another cut opened on Richard’s arm. He let me go, as if I were something hot that had burned him. Micah slid furred arms around me. He and Nathaniel led me forward, so I could do what needed to be done. No, truth, what I was going to do. Not need, want. I wanted him dead. He’d killed Remus, and Remus had died because the vampire on the ground had meant to kill me. Remus had given his life to save mine. I’d pay my debt, now, tonight, in the blood and pain of his killer. It sounded like such a good idea.

The smell of jasmine was everywhere. I could taste rain on my tongue. The wind was cool and fresh against my face, and the wind was coming from me.

47

“TAKE OFF HIS mask,” I said, but the voice held an echo of a different voice.

“If you see my face I will be forced to kill you all,” he said.

I laughed, and the laughter made the wind play around the room, patting with cool, damp hands at people’s hair, their skin. “You are going to die tonight, Pantalone. Your mask can come off now, or after your corpse lies stretched at my feet. I prefer now, but I guess it really doesn’t matter.” The wind eased back. I was drowning in the scent of rain and jasmine.

He struck at me with his own power. It was like some spirit wolf, a great dark beast that rose from him and came at me, huge jaws agape. Micah and Nathaniel pulled me backward, but though it looked like a shadow, it hit me and pulled us all to the floor. People were running from everywhere, but Marmee was already there. The shadow wolf spilled into me; she absorbed it like something melting into the snow. With the touch of his power came a memory.

A snowstorm, so cold, the wind howling, so that he thought he heard voices on the wind. He’d found a cave, buried in the snow. Shelter, he thought. Then he’d heard the growl, low and too close. Something else had taken shelter from the storm. Then a woman had stepped into the light of his fire. A woman with a spill of dark hair and eyes that glittered in the firelight. He had smelled death on her and tried to fight. I felt his body run hot and spill bone and muscle and flesh from human to wolf. But a wolf like none that still walked today. She had turned into a huge striped cat,