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Claudia’s voice came, “It’s the Master of Cape Cod and his oldest son.”

Jean-Claude and I exchanged glances. Richard just frowned. “Why is he back?” Richard asked.

“We can but ask,” Jean-Claude said, his voice back to almost its normal silky emptiness. The voice he used when he was hiding things, but trying not to seem like it. Samuel would know what a totally empty voice meant. Hiding, or fear, weakness. So Jean-Claude compromised with his voice, hiding from Richard and maybe from me, and not seeming to hide from Samuel. We were so not going to make it through this weekend without another disaster. The combination of metaphysics and politics was just too hard.

“We’ll be right out,” I yelled at the door. We all got up off the floor. Richard reached for his shirt and slipped it over his head. Jean-Claude and I had robes hanging on the back of the door. Jean-Claude’s was one I’d seen and enjoyed before: heavy black brocade with black fur at the collar and lapel so that it framed a triangle of his pale chest. There was more fur at the wide cuffs, and I’d felt that fur rub down my body before. Just seeing him in the robe made me shiver.

He gave me a smile that said he’d noticed. Richard either didn’t understand or ignored it.

My robe was black silk, no embroidery, no fur, just plain unrelieved black.

We had to walk in front of the mirror to get to the door, and Richard stopped us with a hand on either of our shoulders. He turned us toward our reflections, so that he stood between us. We were all black cloth and white skin, sharp contrasts. Then there he stood, in his bright red shirt, blue jeans, his hair all brown and gold. His tan, darker in contrast with how pale we were. “Which of these things does not belong?” he asked in a low voice. There was that shadow in his eyes again.

I slid my arm around his waist, hugged him, but even to me it looked like something carved of bone and darkness clinging to all that life.

“Jean-Claude, Anita, you coming?” Claudia asked, voice a little hesitant, which you didn’t hear much from her.

“We’re coming,” I called.

“If I could set you free, mon ami, I would.”

Richard hugged me so tight it almost hurt, then he relaxed against me, and looked at Jean-Claude. “If you had that kind of magic wand I’d let you use it, but you don’t.” He turned, keeping one arm around my shoulders, and reaching the other until he touched Jean-Claude’s shoulder. He did that guy grip on the shoulder that some macho guys do instead of hugging another guy. “Some nights I hate you, Jean-Claude, but if I’d been with Anita tonight, touching her, Augustine wouldn’t have been able to roll her. If I’d been where I should have been, none of the crap that I hated tonight would have happened. I know that. I felt it, while it was happening. I was miles away, and I felt the fight, but I didn’t reach out and help. It was vampire politics, and that’s not my problem.” He shook his head hard enough to send his hair flying around his face. “No more lying to myself. I am your animal to call, and I hate it, and sometimes I hate you, and sometimes I hate Anita, and most of the time I hate myself. No more lies, and no more crippling us.”

Jean-Claude’s face was as careful as I’d ever seen it. “And what do these so-wise statements mean, mon ami?”

“It means when you meet with Samuel I’ll be at your side, where I should have been earlier tonight.” He hugged me tight with one arm, and squeezed Jean-Claude’s shoulder again. “I wasn’t even willing to offer up energy to help Anita. She had Micah and Nathaniel with her; I thought she didn’t need another animal to call. But she did, you did. If you and Anita hadn’t pulled a metaphysical miracle out of thin air, the Master of Chicago would have defeated you. Maybe he couldn’t take your territory, but if one master defeats you, then it’s like blood in the water; the sharks come and feed. If we’d proved weak, then not tonight, but some night soon, someone would come and kill us all.