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Once the Harlequin had been Marmee Noir’s right hand, but the ones we’d talked to seemed as frightened of her as the rest of the vampires. They’d given me something to keep her away. What was it?

I looked at Richard, searched his face. “They gave me something to keep her from manifesting around me. I know they gave me something, but I can’t remember what it was.” The first cold trickle of fear wormed its way through my veins. Most of the time with memory magic, the more you talked about it, the more you remembered. Not always, but for me, yes. Now this bit of knowledge was gone. She’d wiped it away. Wiped it away without ever being near me.

“It was a charm.” He made a circle with his thumb and finger. “About this big.”

“Did it have a many-headed animal on it?”

“Yes,” and he smiled. “See, you do remember.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t, but I saw the mark on Crispin’s arm where it branded him. He said I jerked off my own cross and threw it away. He also said I did the same to my charm. I didn’t remember the charm. I didn’t remember it when I saw the shape of it burned into his arm. I still don’t, Richard. I just remember the shape in his arm, that’s it.”

He looked way too serious again. “You need to get in the shower, but there’s more news you can’t share with the weretigers.”

“Just tell me.”

“Marmee Noir damaged your connection to Jean-Claude.”

“Damaged it how?”

“We’re not sure, but she cut his ability to sense you. Cut it so hard that he thought you were dead, but he wasn’t hurt, and I wasn’t hurt. That was the only way we knew that it wasn’t injury or death. It’s like she just put a wall between you and him.”

I swallowed hard again. “Did she mark me? Did she give me her vampire marks in place of his?”

“She would have to drink your blood, and you hers, to do all four marks.”

“It’s the Mother of All Vampires, Richard. She was the first vampire. She can do all sorts of things that the rest can’t.” I hugged myself tight, and didn’t know what to do.

“We don’t think she did that. We think that even she needs to exchange real blood with you for the third and fourth marks.”

“But not for the first two,” I said, and stared up at him.

His eyes were so sad. “No, not for the first two.”

“So you’re saying that she has given me her version of the first two marks.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Doesn’t Jean-Claude know?”

“She’s been asleep for a thousand years, Anita. He wasn’t alive the last time she was mobile. We can’t talk to most of the vampires who remember her awake without giving away what’s happening. We can’t risk them knowing.”

“You risked a lot coming here, Richard. You could get outed with this much media.”

“It had to be an animal she can’t control. For whatever reason, she only does felines. Wolf is the only animal you have inside you that isn’t a cat.” He said the next in a rush. “Jean-Claude thinks it might be a good idea if you carried some other noncat lycanthropy strains. He thinks that might make it harder for her to control you.”

“He thinks I should let some other shapeshifters cut me up?”

“If it would keep her out of your head and body, would it be so bad?”

I thought about that, then had to shake my head. “No, no, it’s not worse than her.”

“Jean-Claude is talking to the wererats and werehyenas about the possibility.”

“I’d rather not get cut up again until I heal.”

“We need you safe from her, Anita.”

He was right. He was so right. “Okay, I’ll think about it, but right now find the charm, and I need a new chain for my cross.”

He reached behind his neck and lifted out a gold chain. He lifted a small gold cross out of his shirt. I’d bought it for him for one of our first Christmases as a couple. The cross was a little oddly shaped, from where it had once melted into my hand. Marmee Noir had been to blame for that, too. I would bear the scar in the palm of my hand for the rest of my life.

“Lift your hair,” he said, softly. I did, but had to wince; something hurt across my shoulders. He fastened it around my neck.

He touched it