Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [991]
“Anita.” Richard said my name again, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure I was in there.
I turned, one hand coming up to my hair, flinging it back from my face. It was Raina’s gesture, and I watched that one movement make not only Richard, but Sylvie and Jamil behind her, nervous. No, frightened.
I could smell their fear. Raina’s laugh bubbled out of my mouth, because she liked it. I didn’t. I never liked it when my friends were afraid of me. My enemies, fine, but not my friends.
“I’m here, Richard, I’m here.”
He stared at me. “The last time I saw you call Raina’s munin you weren’t able to think like yourself with her inside you.”
“I really didn’t leave you for all these months just because I was afraid of how close we all were. I left to get my shit together, and part of that was learning how to control the munin.”
Raina said, “Control me? You wish.” She hadn’t said it aloud, only in my head. It had taken me a long time to realize that some things were said out loud and some things weren’t. It was confusing, but you got used to it.
I said aloud what I’d seen in vision. “I saw Gregory in a hole, naked, tied up, lying on a bed of bones. Where is it?”
Raina showed me in images. It was like a fast-forward picture show, but the images came with emotions, smashing into me, one after the other. I saw a metal cap that screwed down with a tiny airway on top that let in enough light for you to see, if the sun was high enough. There was a rope ladder that spilled down into the dark and was taken up when it wasn’t needed. I was Raina kneeling on a bed of bones, a human skull next to my knee. I had a syringe and injected its contents into a dark-haired man that was chained like I’d seen Gregory chained, ankles to wrists. He was gagged and blindfolded. When the needle went in, he whimpered and started to cry. The drugs were to keep him from changing.
I turned him over on his side and saw that a bone fragment had cut into his naked groin. I bent towards the smell of fresh blood, fresh meat, and the absolutely intoxicating stink of fear that came off the man. Not man, lukoi. I clawed my way up from my memory before Raina pressed our lips over him. I shoved it away from me, but I could still smell the fear, the drugs sweated out on his skin, the smell of soap from where Raina had cleaned him up, daily, before the abuse began. I knew his name had been Todd, and he’d talked to a reporter about the lukoi, helped them set up a blind with a camera on a full moon, for money. Maybe he had deserved to die, but not like that. No one deserved to die like that.
I came to myself lying on the ground in front of the throne, tears drying on my face. Jamil and Shang-Da were standing between me and the crowd that had moved to help me. Claudia and Igor were facing off with them, and Rafael had Micah by the arm, trying to convince him not to fight his way to me. Merle and Noah were moving up to join Claudia and Igor. This was all about to go to hell.
I propped myself up on my arms, and that small movement froze everyone in place. My voice came out hoarse, but mine. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
I’m not sure they believed me, but the tension level started to drop almost immediately. Good, I had enough problems tonight without a free-for-all breaking out.
I looked up at Richard, and all I could feel was anger. “Is that how you’re going to kill Gregory, just leave him down in the oubliette until he rots?” My voice came out soft, because if I lost control of it, I wasn’t sure how much other control I’d lose. I knew Raina. She wasn’t gone. She’d want her “reward” first. She’d done her job. I knew where Gregory was. I even knew how to get there. She’d earned her prize. I didn’t dare lose control of myself with her waiting like a shark just under the water.
“I told them to put Gregory some place far away from me. I didn’t tell them to put him there.”
I got