Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [135]
That I had known, because it was how Richard ended up with Jean-Claude, though he had refused him blood. You can give a vampire a werewolf, but you can’t make the werewolf cooperative. “I knew that part,” I said.
“I think part of the appeal to being Jean-Claude’s pomme de sang was that it would bother my dad so much.” He smiled, quick and so him. “Besides, Jean-Claude is sooo hot.”
I frowned at him. “You are not as bisexual as you pretend to be.”
He grinned at me. “And how do you know?”
I frowned harder. “I think Jean-Claude is an exception to your rule, just like Belle Morte is…” And then I stopped. I hadn’t meant to say that.
Jason gave me a look. “Are you telling me that you did Belle Morte?”
I started concentrating on picking up the trash that we’d knocked onto the floor when the trash can fell over. “It was a vision. She shared enough energy with me to keep Jean-Claude and Richard from dying when the”—and I had to stop myself from saying Harlequin, and finished with—“the scary guys with no name came to town.”
Jason knelt with me and helped me pick things up and drop them in the small container. The bedside trash cans are always too small in hotels.
“But, that you mentioned it out loud means something.”
I shook my head. “I know that Jean-Claude loves her still. I know that to once love Belle Morte is to always love her. It’s like an addiction; you can stop taking your drug of choice, but you’ll always crave it.”
“Do you crave her now?”
I shook my head. “No, but, I know if I ever saw her in person and she wanted me, I wouldn’t be able to say no. She’s not…she’s Belle Morte.” I shrugged. How do you explain someone who simply is sex? Sex and power were merged for her, and thanks to Jean-Claude’s memories I was sort of pre-addicted. I wasn’t even embarrassed about it, which wasn’t like me. I got embarrassed about every damn thing.
I put the trash can back in its place with all the little bits of debris back inside it. Jason said, “You’ve missed something.”
I looked at the floor. “No,” I said.
He pointed at a spot on the carpet. “Right there.”
“There’s nothing there, Jason.”
He picked up something from the floor. The moment he held it, I could see it, but up to that moment I had not. He held his hand out with the charm on his palm. “Can you see it now?”
I nodded, trying to swallow past the sudden choking of my pulse. I knew Marmee Noir had mind-fucked me, but it should have passed by now. This proved it hadn’t passed. How royally screwed was I? But the fact that she didn’t want me to see the charm meant she feared it. That was a good thing to know.
I held out my hand and Jason gave me the charm. The moment it touched my skin, it was as if the world shifted, or at least the inside of my head did. A moment of nausea, dizziness, and I wrapped my hand tight around the charm. God help me, what was she trying to do to me?
Again, Jason echoed me, almost. “What does she want from you, Anita?”
“She wants me as her human servant, I think.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I think it’s more than that.”
“What could I do for her, Jason? She’s the most powerful vampire on the planet.”
“You’re the first real necromancer in the last several hundred years, Anita. Whoever has you as their human servant gains a lot of power.”
“You haven’t felt her yet, Jason. She is scary powerful. She doesn’t need more.”
“All vampires need more power, Anita, even I know that. They’re always afraid that someone else with more will come into their territory and take it all away from them.”
“The vampire council has declared it illegal for masters to fight in this country until the whole legal thing is more secure.”
“Then she’s breaking her own laws.”
I nodded. He was right. The vampire who had given them their laws was breaking them. Why? Then I made a mistake. I