Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [308]
See, that’s the problem with vampires, you let them into your head an inch, and they take a metaphysical mile. I didn’t like that he could read me like that, especially not with my shields up. Of course, I wasn’t sure how far up my shields were. Had I dropped them to taste the vampires? I thought about my shields, and yeah, they’d dropped, or had been breached under a wave of smells and tastes and blood flowing in sluggish veins. I started to raise the shields back up, but I had something to do first.
I looked at Malcolm. “I’m going to touch Avery. I’m going to look inside him and see what I can see. I am not going to hurt him, not on purpose. I want the truth, Malcolm, that’s all. Give me your word that if he’s guilty, you’ll let me take him.”
“How will I know what you discover from him?”
I smiled, and again it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “When I tell you to, if I tell you to, touch me, and you’ll know what I know.”
He looked at me, and I looked at him. We had one of those moments of unspoken questions. I knew that he’d tried to get information about a vampire murder when he shook my hand. There were states where that alone would get him put on a short list, a list of vampires that were getting dangerous. I knew what he’d done, and I had a warrant that allowed me enough leeway that I could pretend he was trying to hide his own involvement with the killings. I mean, there’d never be a trial. I would never have to prove my suspicions in court.
Malcolm took a breath deep enough to make his shoulders rock up and down. He nodded, once, short, curt, and almost awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he was going to do it anyway. “You may touch Avery, if he wishes you to touch him. You may use your marks with Jean-Claude to try and find the truth.”
I didn’t correct him that it was my own necromancy more than Jean-Claude’s powers that I was about to use. Everyone needed a few illusions, even master vampires.
I turned to Avery. “Do you agree to what I’m about to do?”
He frowned and looked puzzled. I was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t as bright as he looked, and wouldn’t that be a shame. “What do you want to do?”
“Touch you,” I said.
His lips curved upward, the barest of smiles, but it filled his eyes with more laughter than showed on his lips. “Yes,” he said, “yes, please.”
I held my hands out to him and smiled. “Come to me, Avery.” And just like that, he took those few steps forward. He went to his knees in front of me without being asked. He raised his face up to me, and there were two things in his face, eagerness, and a complete and utter trust. It wasn’t him who wasn’t bright, it was me. I’d rolled him. I’d rolled him the way a master vampire could roll a mortal. In that moment before I touched him, I wondered, if I’d drawn a gun and put it to his head would he have flinched or stared at me with those trusting eyes, while I pulled the trigger?
66
HIS SKIN WAS soft, even the beard stubble was softer than it looked, so black against this white skin. Just by touching the beard, I knew his hair would be soft, that nothing on his body would be harsh or wiry. He was . . . soft.
He smiled up at me, and it was beatific, as if he saw something wondrous. Since he was looking at me, I knew it wasn’t wondrous, because it was me. I was a lot of things, but wondrous wasn’t one of them. Movement made me look up away from Avery’s face. There were other vampires out of their seats. Some were standing in the pews looking confused, as if they weren’t sure why they were standing up. A handful of them were already in the main aisle, but they’d stopped, as if they’d known where they were going, but now they weren’t sure. But there were others, a dozen or so, that were in the main aisle who didn’t look confused. They looked at me the way that Avery looked at me, as if I was the answer to a prayer. It made me nervous to see that look on anyone’s face, but this many, all vampires, all strangers . . . Nervous didn’t describe