Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [107]
“She rolled you two days ago. She’s the reason the ardeur went crazy.”
I tried to think back. What was the last thing I remembered clearly? But it was like the harder I thought at it, the more my mind kept sliding away, as if the surface of the thoughts were slippery and I couldn’t hold on. I shook my head. “I’m a necromancer; vampires can’t just mind-fuck me. Especially not from thousands of miles away. She’s in freaking Europe. She couldn’t have rolled me this completely from there.”
He shrugged those wide shoulders. “Then why can’t you remember what happened? What caused the ardeur to rise out of control worse than it’s ever been before?”
“I don’t know, but…” I swallowed hard enough that it sort of hurt. The water was too hot now, steam rising from it. I added more cold and tried to think about what he’d said.
“The tiger inside me went crazy first. It did things that none of my other beasts have ever done.”
“Like what?” he asked.
I told him the quickest version I could think of. When I was done, he looked way too grim for comfort. “What is it, Richard? Why that look? What the hell is wrong with me?”
“We’re not a hundred percent certain, but you put out a call to all the weretigers in this country. Maximillian, the master of Vegas, called Jean-Claude with all sorts of threats. Said you’d stolen or were trying to steal away one of his weretigers. He didn’t mind you sleeping with him, but you weren’t allowed to call him as a mate.”
“What does this ‘call’ mean? Crispin talked about it, too. Like it should be in capital letters or something.”
“Christine was the only weretiger we had to talk to, but she’s not a natural-born. She survived an attack, so she’s not an expert, but the ‘call’ is a way for the dominant tigresses to get lovers, and eventually a mate. Only the very dominant can do it, and if Max’s fit was accurate, your call blanketed the country, or damn near. Max thought it was just his clan because you had his tiger, but when his wife contacted the other clans, just to see…they were all hit by this ‘call.’”
“What does that mean, hit?” I asked. The water was the right temperature now. I badly wanted to get clean, but I wanted the information, too.
“Apparently, the unattached males all felt your call. Only the strongest dominant queens were able to keep their males from getting on the nearest plane, train, or bus to answer that call.”
I stared at him. “What?”
He spread his hands and knelt beside me. “It wasn’t you, Anita. You’re good, but you’re not this good.”
“You’re saying that Marmee Noir used me to call the tigers here.”
“Yes.”
“Why? What does she gain from it?”
“First, Jean-Claude wants neither you nor Jason to tell anyone that it was Marmee Noir that did this. He’s afraid that if the other vampires know she can use you like this, they may kill you to keep her from gaining more power.”
I understood the reasoning. If it hadn’t been me that would have to die, I couldn’t even argue with it. “Understood, but what does she gain from the tigers coming to me?”
“Jean-Claude isn’t certain, but Elinore thinks that the Mother is gathering her forces. The vampire council has finally found something that can unite them. They’re terrified of what will happen if she wakes from her ‘sleep’ completely. They are very close to voting to make sure she never wakes.”
I whispered, “You mean the council is going to kill Marmee Noir?”
“The last intelligence Jean-Claude got is that there is a vote before the council.”
“Shit, Richard, shit, I mean, the—” I almost said the Harlequin out loud. I stopped myself because to say their name aloud was to risk death. They’d hunt you down and kill you just for saying their name. The only exception to that rule was if they contacted you first. Then, since they were the spies, assassins, jury, and executioner of the vampire world, well, you were in deep shit.
We’d had a visit just in December. Though they’d been sent to police Malcolm and his vampire church. They’d broken their own rules to give us a very solid scare. We’d lost good men in the fight. Hell, we’d nearly