Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [88]
“I’ll try to order him around later and let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“But there is also that immortality thing, not aging, neither Richard nor I were sure we wanted to give up being mortal.”
“And if you have bound yourself to Damian with the fourth mark, might it already be a moot point, ma petite.”
I stood there in my kitchen and was suddenly scared. “Shit,” I whispered.
“Oui, if you have truly completed all the marks, then your mortality may be a thing of the past. If that were true, then taking the fourth mark with me would lose you nothing.”
“And gain you the ability to walk in the day,” I said, and my voice wasn’t friendly when I said it, because I’d heard the tiniest bit of eagerness when he talked about walking in the daylight. I couldn’t blame him, but Jean-Claude had been working on his power base for too long not to see the advantages of things. I couldn’t blame him, but part of me wanted to. Part of me still wondered if I was more important to him for the power or love. Most of me knew that I would never know for certain, and truthfully, probably neither would Jean-Claude. Love was not the nice, neat, linear thing I’d wanted it to be. It was not just one thing, but many things. I could admit that one of the reasons I loved him was that he was hard to kill. His chances of up and dying on me were smaller than if he’d been human. A large part of me really liked that. I’d seen enough of what death could do, and at too young an age, not to appreciate it.
“Perhaps, or perhaps not, ma petite, this is more art than science, or so it would seem.” His voice held a thread of anger in it.
“What are you pissy about? I’m not the one trying to pick a language you can’t understand so I can hide things from you.”
“And I am not the one, ma petite, that has fucked another vampire, a lesser vampire, one of my own underlings.”
Put that way, it did sound like he had grounds to be pissed. “Am I supposed to apologize?”
“Non, but I do not have to like it. He has come to your body, and now he is free of the tyranny of the dark. One I could forgive, but not both. Both is a bitter thing, ma petite.”
“I am sorry,” I said, “I didn’t plan any of this.”
“Of that I am certain. I am even certain that Damian planned none of it. Only you, ma petite, could keep having such accidental sex.”
Accidental sex. He made it sound like I fell down, and there just happened to be an erection in the way. I kept that observation to myself. See, I am getting smarter. Out loud I said, “Accidental sex. That’s one way of putting it. Am I ever going to inherit a vampire power that doesn’t have sex involved somewhere in it?”
“I would never say for certain with you, ma petite, your necromancy makes you too much the wild card, but it is doubtful. So far you have inherited my powers, or Belle’s, or some version thereof. To my knowledge Belle’s powers revolve around sex, as do mine.”
“Great, can you at least give me a list, so I’ll have some idea what to expect?”
“I could, if you truly desire one.”
I sighed. “No, just tell me in person when we see you tonight.”
“Tonight? I was hoping that you might come earlier.”
“We can’t transport Damian in full daylight, his body might be fine, but I don’t think his sanity would be. Besides, I’ve got to work this afternoon.”
“Always the work, no matter what else is happening around you.”
“Look, Jean-Claude, you’ve never seen what happens around me when I’ve gone too long between zombie raisings. Let’s just say that I don’t want a line of roadkill trailing after me, or worse yet, some ‘accidental’ zombie come shambling into my room.”
“Are you saying that unused, your power raises the dead even if you do not wish to?”
“Yeah, I thought I’d told you that.”
“You have told me of raising the dead by accident when you were a child. I assumed that was merely from lack of training and disipline.”
“No,” I said, “it took me years to admit it, but no. If I don’t raise the dead on purpose, then it happens accidentally, or I start getting followed around by ghosts, or the spirits of the newly dead.