• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“The ardeur is not so easily caught, ma petite. The few touches that Graham has had are not enough to addict him.”

“I saw it!” I was pacing the room now.

“I think you need a cross, ma petite.”

“What?” I asked.

He went to the door, opened it. “Could you please get one of the extra crosses out of the bedside table?”

I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. The red shirt seemed to blaze against my pale skin and dark hair. The scarlet seemed to be some sort of accusation like a scarlet woman, the scarlet letter. The last thought stopped me, as if the hysteria had hit a stumbling block. I could think for a second. Scarlet woman, the Scarlet Letter; this wasn’t me thinking. Shit. I was being messed with.

My gun and holster were still beside the sink; I hadn’t had time to put it on before Jean-Claude came. I put my hand on the butt of the gun and squeezed. That was me; I was me. The gun wasn’t a magical talisman, but sometimes all you need to get someone out of your head is to remind yourself who you are—who you really are, not who they think you are, or who they think you think you are, but you, the real you. The gun in my hand was me.

“Ma petite, I would prefer you step away from the gun until you are wearing a cross.”

I nodded. “I’m being messed with, aren’t I?”

“I believe so.”

“It’s daylight, early daylight. If the vampires that are messing with us are in town, they shouldn’t be able to do this.”

“They are the Harlequin, ma petite; now you begin to see what that means.”

I nodded again, clutching at the gun as I’d cluthced at Jean-Claude earlier.

“Ma petite, if you would step away from the gun?”

“The gun is helping, Jean-Claude. It’s reminding me that all the hysterics isn’t me.”

“Humor me, ma petite.”

I looked at him. His face was still that beautiful blankness, but there was a tension to his shoulders, the way he held his body. Clay was behind him in the doorway, and he wasn’t even trying to hide that he was worried. “I’ve got the cross,” he said.

I nodded again. “Give it to me.”

He glanced at Jean-Claude, who nodded. Clay walked forward with his hand in a fist. “You may want to step outside, Jean-Claude,” he said.

“I cannot leave you alone with her.”

“Won’t the cross react to you?”

“Non, for I am doing nothing to her.”

I held my left hand out toward Clay. “Just give me the cross.”

“By the chain,” Jean-Claude said.

“Good thinking,” I said. “I don’t need another cross-shaped burn scar.”

Clay held his fist out to me, then opened it so that the cross dangled from a thin gold chain. If a vampire had been in the room causing trouble, that would have been enough to make the cross glow. Hell, even in Clay’s hand, it might have glowed. The cross just hung there. Were we wrong? Was I wrong?

“Touch only the chain, ma petite. Caution is better.”

If he hadn’t repeated that, I might have just grabbed the cross, but at the last second I touched the chain. Clay let it go, and it swung, delicate and golden, in my hand. For a heartbeat, I thought we’d been wrong. Then the cross burst into a brilliant yellow glow. I had to turn my eyes away from it. I had a thought of what it might be doing to Jean-Claude, but I could see nothing past the golden light. I called to him. “Jean-Claude!”

A male voice that I wasn’t sure of said, “He’s out of the room. He’s safe.”

I yelled, “Clay, Claudia!” I wanted a voice I knew out of the brilliant yellow light.

Claudia’s voice, a little farther away. “Clay got Jean-Claude out.”

With that worry out of the way, I could concentrate on the other problem. If the vampire that had been messing with me was in the room, then the cross would have driven him away. Hell, when Marmee Noir messed with me, a cross like this had driven her away. So why wasn’t this working on the Harlequin?

The chain grew warm in my hand. If this kept up it would get hot. Shit. If I threw the cross down, it would stop glowing, but would the vampire attack again? Would he enter my mind