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He smiled up at me, and it was beatific, as if he saw something wondrous. Since he was looking at me, I knew it wasn’t wondrous, because it was me. I was a lot of things, but wondrous wasn’t one of them. Movement made me look up away from Avery’s face. There were other vampires out of their seats. Some were standing in the pews looking confused, as if they weren’t sure why they were standing up. A handful of them were already in the main aisle, but they’d stopped, as if they’d known where they were going, but now they weren’t sure. But there were others, a dozen or so, that were in the main aisle who didn’t look confused. They looked at me the way that Avery looked at me, as if I was the answer to a prayer. It made me nervous to see that look on anyone’s face, but this many, all vampires, all strangers . . . Nervous didn’t describe how it felt. Scared maybe, yeah, scared about covered it.

“You have bespelled them,” Malcolm said. He sounded angry.

“Like you do humans?” I said.

“I do not use my powers on humans.”

“Are you saying you don’t use any power to make yourself prettier to the humans, or even the lesser vampires?”

He blinked the blue eyes at me, set into a face that was a good face, but it wasn’t the face that he’d shown me the first few times I’d met him. “That would be vanity,” he said, at last, in a very quiet voice.

He hadn’t denied it, but I let it go. My main concern about the “vanity” was if he was using vamp powers to look better, what else was he using them for? But that was a problem for another night.

Avery laid his cheek against my hand, not rubbing like the wereleopards did, but reminding me he was still there. I looked down at him, then up at the other vampires waiting in the aisle. It was almost a line, as if once I finished with Avery, it would be someone else’s turn. I hadn’t done this on purpose, and I didn’t know how to undo it.

I thought, Jean-Claude. His whisper ran through me, shivered along my skin, and that shiver ran through my hand and into the vampire at my feet. It made Avery close his eyes and almost sway.

I whispered, “That didn’t help, Jean-Claude. I want to stop this, not make it worse.”

“I have no talent for reading another’s thoughts and feelings, ma petite, not to this degree. It is not my power that you are borrowing.”

“Then whose?”

“My surmise is Malcolm. For he used it on you first.”

“And just like that, it’s mine for keeps?”

“Perhaps not for keeps, as you say, but for now. Use it quickly, ma petite, for it may fade.”

“What about the attraction thing?”

“Gain your information from this one, then I will help you tame that particular power. For now, I will withdraw, so I do not make it worse.” And he was as good as his word, he was just gone. Once his leaving would have cured the attraction problem, but not now. Now, I was still left with Avery at my feet and the others still staring at me, still waiting, still wanting. Wanting what? What in the name of God was I supposed to do with them? I took a deep breath and let it out slow. One problem at a time. One disaster at a time, or you get overwhelmed.

I looked down into Avery’s pale brown eyes, and thought, What happened in your apartment last night? I got a glimpse of a woman, the dead woman, but alive this time. I got a glimpse of another woman, but I couldn’t see her clearly. As if part of the image was misty.

Avery pressed his face against my hand, and the mist lifted a little, but I still couldn’t see the other woman. I was borrowing Malcolm’s power, but most of what was in me, was a much more intimate kind of magic. I put my other hand up and cradled Avery’s face between my hands, and the mist thinned even more, but it was like watching a movie where part of the screen was scratched. I was so busy trying to see the other part of the “screen” that I wasn’t really watching the rest. Avery and the very alive woman were getting up close and very personal. Either my ability to be embarrassed was lessening,