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I frowned harder at her. “I don’t…”

“You promised to do whatever I asked, if I gave you the morphine. You gave your word.”

I swallowed, licked my lips, and thought about calling her a bitch, but since she was the only doctor we had, and I was hurt, it seemed unwise to piss her off. I could control Raina’s munin now, if I hadn’t been on drugs. I said, “No.”

“Then you will miss the ballet, and the party, and you will not be there to help Jean-Claude against the other masters. Richard will not be there because he is hiding. If you think it is a good idea to strip the master of this city of both of his thirds on this night, then refuse.”

Hell with it. I said, “Bitch.”

She smiled, and patted my cheek. “Once you are healed, your beasts may rise, so I will leave you with people who can take your beast, if they must.”

“I don’t understand.”

“But I think we should start with someone that Raina never touched. I knew her, you see; she always loved new conquests.”

I shook my head, gently. “Don’t understand.”

Nathaniel appeared beside her. He was not new to Raina; she’d had him every way a woman could have a man, and some that stretched the imagination to the screaming point. He was nude, except for the amethyst and diamond collar. It had been a gift from Jean-Claude and me, though frankly, more Jean-Claude’s idea than mine. It would simply never have occurred to me.

“You’re not wearing any clothes.”

He smiled. “We’re going to try to go back inside afterward.”

“Afterward what?”

He glanced at Lillian. “How much is she following all this?”

“I’m not certain.”

A voice from behind us. “I don’t do rape.”

Jason’s voice then. “None of us do.”

Lillian leaned over me. “Anita, Anita, you must give permission for this.”

“For what, exactly?” There, that was a clear question.

“Raise Raina’s munin, heal yourself, and heal Requiem.”

“Requiem?”

“Raina will like that he’s someone new, and that he’s badly injured.”

I stared into Lillian’s face. “You really did know her.”

She nodded. “Better than I wanted to. I would not ask this, if I thought we would survive this night without you. Raphael felt one of the masters in the ballet. One of them can call rats, Anita. Do you understand what that means to our people?”

“Yes,” I said, “if they take Raphael, then they own you all.”

“Exactly.”

“And we invited them here,” I whispered.

Requiem’s bare shoulder appeared around Lillian. “Merlin, their dance master, rolled the human audience to make his dancers appear and vanish, but he did not try to roll the other masters. Until tonight.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. I’d felt Merlin’s mind. If he’d rolled them, then let them go, they might never have figured it out. I tried to explain it. “His mind, powerful enough. He could let them go. They might never know.”

“You mean that he rolled them, and was so powerful that they don’t remember it?”

“Yes.”

I watched fear march over his face, swallowed by that perfect blankness that the old ones have. “Perhaps, but I do not believe that Marmee Noir appeared in the other cities.”

“Who is Marmee Noir?” Lillian asked.

“Our dark mother, the first of us. It was her power added to Merlin’s that did what was done tonight. It was her power that made Richard’s cross melt into Anita’s hand.”

“Is she here, with the troupe?”

“No,” I said, “she lies in the room with windows.” That probably made no sense to any of them, but they let it go. They took my drugged assurance that the nightmare of all vampires wasn’t physically in St. Louis. Drugged out of my ability to concentrate and they took my word about it. They shouldn’t have done that. But more than Mommie Dearest, there was Auggie and Samuel, and hell, Samuel’s wife, Thea. If these were the masters Jean-Claude trusted, then what would the other masters do to us? Jean-Claude didn’t need to be alone tonight. Something bad would happen.

“Get out, doc.”

“What?”

“Don’t want you here when the wicked bitch comes.”

“I’ll get out, and the only ones in the