Incubus Dreams

64



The parking lot was full, and I mean full. So full that Zerbrowski parked in front of the church in the fire only zone. We had Marconi and Smith in a car behind us, along with two marked cars. Apparently, Zerbrowski had been planning our strategy while I was trying to fix things with Arnet. Apparently, Abrahams or Arnet had been left in charge of the murder scene. I was betting on Abrahams. I wouldn't have left Arnet in charge of a little league team tonight. Of course, I might have been a little prejudiced right that moment.



He had two uniforms station themselves at the doors, and he told them to get their holy items out. "Nobody leaves, unless you clear it with me, is that clear?" It was clear. I suggested that there was another door at the parish hall entrance, and since we had enough manpower to cover it, Zerbrowski just nodded and said, "Do it." It was like he was channeling Dolph, but it worked. Everyone just did what he said.



Marconi shook his head and said what I'd been thinking. "Commanding presence tonight, Zerbrowski."



"You're just jealous that he's better at channeling Dolph than you are," I said.



Marconi smiled at me and gave a nod. But his hand was at his belt, and he was moving his gun a little more forward. Sometimes the more jokes you do, the more nervous you are.



Smith was new enough that his eyes were all sparkly, and he was almost vibrating with eagerness, like a dog straining at a leash. He hadn't been a detective for a month yet, and that can make you eager to prove yourself. I hoped not too eager, since I'd recommended him.



Zerbrowski noticed and gave me a nod, like he'd keep an eye on him. He asked my advice about only one thing. "Do we go in bold, or quiet?"



I thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "They know we're here, Zerbrowski, at least the ones near the back."



"They can hear us?"



I nodded. "But let's ask an usher near the back to get Malcolm's attention. Being polite doesn't cost a thing."



He nodded, then went to the big, polished, wood doors. Before he could push them open, a man opened them from inside. He was young with short brown hair and glasses. I'd seen him before on another case. His name began with a B, like Brandon, or Brian, or Bruce, or something. Bruce, I thought. He eased the door shut behind him, before we had more than a glimpse of people turning to stare. His brown eyes were still lovely behind his glasses, and there was still healing bite marks on his neck. It was as if no time had passed, but it was nice to know that he was still among the living.



"You are interrupting our worship service?" His voice was soft, measured.



"You're Bruce, right?"



His eyes widened just a little. "I'm surprised you remembered me, Ms. Blake."



"Marshal Blake, actually," I smiled when I said it.



His eyes did that little widening act again. "Do I say congratulations?"



"Is he stalling?" Zerbrowski asked.



"Not in the way you mean," I said. "He doesn't want us to interrupt the services, but I don't think he'd deliberately hide a murderer."



That got me another eye widening. "Murderer? What are you talking about, Ms. Marshal Blake? We of the church do not advocate violence in any aspect of our lives."



"There's a dead woman in the home of one of your members who would argue that, if she could," Zerbrowski said.



A pained expression crossed Bruce's face. "Are you certain that it is the home of one of our members?"



We both nodded.



Bruce looked down at the ground, then nodded, as if he'd decided something. "If you will remain near the back of the church, I will tell Malcolm what has happened."



Zerbrowski looked at me as if to ask if that was okay. I shrugged and nodded. "Sure."



Bruce smiled, obviously relieved. "Good, good, please keep your voices low. This is a church, and we are having services." He led the way through those highly polished doors. The uniforms stayed outside, but Marconi and Smith followed us in.



There was no vestibule inside the doors. The doors led directly into the nave, so we were just suddenly facing pews packed full of congregation members. The vamps close to the doors were already glancing our way.



Bruce motioned for us to stay where we were, then walked wide around the pews up the side underneath the red and blue abstract stained glass windows. Where there should have been saints or the stations of the cross, or at a least a cross or two, there was nothing but the bare white walls. I think that was why the church always looked unfinished to me, naked like the walls needed clothes.



It's never comfortable for me to be standing in front of a group of people unexpectedly. To be on display, especially when it's a potentially hostile group. Zerbrowski had his smile in place, the good-to-meet-you smile. The one that I'd finally realized was his version of a blank face. Marconi looked bored. A lot of cops perfect that I've-seen-worse boredom after a few years on the force. Smith's face was all shiny with excitement like a kid on Christmas morning. He was looking around at everything and totally not bothered by the staring crowd. I guess most cops don't get to see inside the Church of Eternal Life much, or see hundreds of vampires in one place at one time. Hell, even I didn't usually see that many at one time in one place.



The first few pews had had their look-see at us, but the glances spread upward from there. Quick glances with whispers, so it was like a wind moved through the room. A wind that turned faces toward us, widened eyes, sent more furious whispers spreading through the room, until it crashed against the pulpit and the strangely empty altar area at the front of the church.



Malcolm was standing at the white altar, but had already stepped out from behind it and moved to one side so he could meet Bruce, as the young man came up to one side of the raised area. Even the steps leading up to it were white. The only color was a strip of blue cloth that hung in the back of the sanctuary. A brilliant royal blue that moved slightly in the central air, as if the cloth didn't sit flat to the wall. I wondered what was behind the cloth. It was the only thing that was different since I'd last been inside the building, some three years ago. About two years ago, the building had been fire-bombed by right-wing extremists. The attack hadn't stopped the church. The attack had gotten the Church of Eternal Life some of its best national and international coverage ever, and donations had flooded in from people that were not so much for vampires as against violence. I'd seen what had been left when the fire department had gotten through with the building. Standing here now, I would never have known there had ever been even a small fire in this white, white space, let alone a bomb.



Malcolm spoke with Bruce at the side of the altar area. I wasn't at all surprised when he came down the wide main aisle between the pews. Bruce trailed after him. The first thing you notice about Malcolm is that his short blond curls are the bright yellow of goldfinch feathers. Three hundred plus years in the dark will do that to bright blond hair. The next thing is, he's tall, and almost painfully thin, so that he looks even taller than he truly is. He was wearing a black suit tonight, modest cut, but thanks to Jean-Claude's fashion sense, I knew that that simple-seeming suit was tailored to that lean body, and probably cost more than most people make in a month. The shirt was a blue that helped point out that his eyes were the blue of a robin's eggs. His tie was narrow and black with a silver tie bar, unadorned. Up close once you can look past the hair and the eyes, Malcolm has a very angular face, almost a homely face, as if the angles needed smoothing out to make them work together.



The first time I'd ever set eyes on Malcolm I'd thought him beautiful, but with even one vampire mark on me, I'd known differently. He prided himself on not using his vampire powers on us mere mortals, but he wasted enough to make himself seem handsome. That bit of mind-fucking he allowed himself. Vanity, all is vanity.



I'd also thought him one of the most powerful vampires in St. Louis once; now as he moved toward me, he seemed somehow diminished. Or maybe I was just shielding too well now for his power to creep over me. Maybe.



He held out one of his big hands, which always seemed like they should belong on a beefier body. He held it out sort of in between Zerbrowski and me, as if he wasn't sure who was in charge and didn't want to offend anyone. The last time I'd seen Malcolm he hadn't offered to shake hands. He'd known I wouldn't take it.



Tonight, I took his hand, because Zerbrowski was only human, and whatever I was, only human didn't cover it.



Malcolm hesitated in the middle of the handshake, as if I'd surprised him, but he recovered, smiling, his blue eyes glowing with pleasure at the opportunity to help the police. It was a lie. He didn't want us here. He certainly didn't want a murder involving his church. I felt nothing as our hands touched, except that he was cool, so he hadn't fed recently. Other than that, I felt nothing, because I was shielding. I'd gotten really good at shielding lately. I realized that I'd been shielding almost as hard as I could since Jean-Claude, Richard, and I had bound ourselves together in that bed. It wasn't just guilt that had made me afraid. So Malcolm's hand was just a hand, cooler than human normal, but just a hand. Good.



I think we would have been fine if Malcolm hadn't tried a little vampire power on me. Maybe I was shielding too much, hiding too much of what I was, or maybe he was simply that arrogant. Whatever, he pulsed a little power down his hand into mine.



I was dizzy for a second, and he got an image of the dead girl in the apartment before I pushed back. I was still a little fuzzy on the whole psychic thing. I tend to overcompensate when I feel attacked. Yeah, I know, of course I overcompensated. It was so terribly me.



Malcolm stumbled back, and only my grip on his hand kept him on his feet. His eyes were wide, his mouth open in a little O of surprise. If he had just been some powerful vamp that tried to mind-fuck me, then I'd have taught him his lesson, and we'd have gone on about our investigation, but he was their master. I learned something in those few seconds, something I hadn't guessed. Every human in the church had a mentor, and I'd assumed their vampire mentors were the ones that would bring them over when the time came. I knew the mentors took blood from their human trainees, but when push came to shove, Malcolm did those last three bites. Malcolm had brought over most of those hundreds, personally. Which meant when I shoved my power into him, it went through him like some huge sword. Through him and into the rest.



It was as if I could suddenly touch them, as if my hand shot through Malcolm's palm, through him, and into their bodies. I felt their pulses, some hearts, some wrists, some necks. I felt the pulse of all those vampires, felt it sluggish and oh, so slow. So long, so long since some of them had fed as they were meant to feed. He didn't let them hunt. He didn't even let them go to the clubs and take willing food there. I saw an endless stream of church members garbed in white, like virgin sacrifices, offering their necks. Only taking a little blood, just enough blood, never enough to be satisfied, just enough not to die.



I saw the thick viscous punch in the parish hall, and I knew that it contained just a little blood from at least three different vamps. Malcolm made sure of that. He didn't want to accidentally blood oath them to someone else. But he never used his own blood, for fear of what it would mean.



Malcolm jerked away from me, but it was too late. I didn't need him anymore.



I looked past him at a girl with long dark hair and glasses. It was the first vampire I'd ever seen with glasses. She grabbed her chest, and I knew why. Her heart was beating. But I saw other things. I saw that once she'd been human here, and she'd knelt and given herself over, but it was a thing of chaste hands on her covered shoulders. No one had ever held her close, gripped her against their bodies, fed so powerfully that her body bucked against them, and sex was a pale thing compared to it.



"Stop it," Malcolm said, "stop it, let them go!"



I turned slowly to look at him, and whatever he saw in my face made him take a step back. "You gave them to me," I said, and my voice had a slow, honeyed feel to it. Power, such power. I'd learned only last night that vampires could act as a sort of witch's familiar to me, I'd thought it needed to be a vampire that I had some connection with, but I was wrong. I could feed on them all, use them like some kind of giant undead battery.



Zerbrowski came up close to me, though even he shivered when he was close enough to whisper, "Anita, what's happening?"



"He tried to use vampire powers to find out what I knew," I said in that same slow, luxurious voice. It was as if my voice was something you could hold in your mouth and suck, like candy. Jean-Claude's trick, and the thought was enough. He was suddenly aware of me, and what was happening. But most of what was happening, he needed to know. He was the Master of the City, not Malcolm. He had tolerated the treaty that the old master had made before her death, but now... well, we'd see. But that was for another night. This night was about murder.



"Are you hurt?" Zerbrowski asked. He sounded like he didn't think so, but knew something was wrong.



"No," I said, "no, I'm not hurt." I thought, if I can feel some of their emotions, if I can look into their faces and see memories, what else can I do?



I thought, Avery, Avery, where are you? I felt an answer, like a small play of wind against my face. I turned toward that wind, and the left-hand side of pews. "Avery, Avery, Avery." I spoke his name, each time a little louder, not yelling, but with force in it.



A vampire stood up in the middle of a row. He was average height, with short brown hair, and a face that was handsome in a soft, unfinished way, as if he'd been barely legal when they killed him.



I held out my hand to him. "Avery, come to me, come to me, Avery, come to me."



He started to push his way through the crowd of other people. A hand grabbed his wrist, a human woman shaking her head, saying, "Don't go."



He jerked away from her, and I heard his voice as if he'd been standing next to me. "I have to go, she's calling me." And he turned eyes to me that were lost in vampire light, burning like brown glass in the sun, but the look on his face was one I'd only seen on humans. Humans that were bespelled by vampires. Humans that couldn't say, no.



Malcolm's rich voice filled the room. "Children, stop him, stop him from answering her call. She's is the Master of the City's whore. She will corrupt our Avery."



I have to say the whore comment pissed me off. I turned to Malcolm, and I let my anger fill my voice. "I'll corrupt them? My God, you've ruined them all. You stole their mortal lives, for what, Malcolm? For what?" I yelled the last, and the words held heat like the wind from some great fire.



All those little vampires that were still held on the lines of my power cried out. I'd hurt them, and I hadn't meant to. I tried to make it up to them, and the problem was that the anger was mine, but I wasn't very good at comforting people. But Jean-Claude was, in a way. It was that old, old problem of his and his line of vampires. If the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails. If the only tools you have are seduction and terror, and you're trying to be nice... well, there you go.



65



I could taste their pulses on my tongue. Not just one, but hundreds, as if I'd suddenly had a truckload of candy shoved in my mouth. Candy that was hard and sweet and melted slow across my tongue, but it wasn't just cherry, or grape, or root beer. It was like a thousand different flavors filled my mouth, so that instead of being delicious, it was overwhelming.



I couldn't pick one flavor, one pulse to follow. I literally couldn't pick just one, because I couldn't sort them out. I was choking on too many choices. Until I could choose one thread to follow, I couldn't swallow any of them. I collapsed to my knees, drowning in a thousand different scents, different skins. I could smell their skin, that wonderful smell at the side of the neck where the skin smells sweetest when you're in love. But it was a different scent for each neck: aftershave, perfume, cologne, soap, sweat. It was as if I'd walked up to each of them and put my face just above their skin--close enough to kiss--and breathed in the scent of them.



Zerbrowski was beside me, his gun out, but not pointed at anyone, sort of ceilingward. "Anita, what's wrong? Did he hurt you?"



Who, I thought? Who was he? There were so many "hes." Which one did he mean?



I tried to swallow past all those pulses in my mouth, but I couldn't. I couldn't get this bite down. It was too much.



Jean-Claude's voice was in my head. "Ma petite, you must choose."



I managed to think, "Can't."



"Who did you go there to find?" he asked.



Who did I go there to find? That was a good question. Who? It all went back to who.



Zerbrowski grabbed my arm, hard. "Anita! I need you here. What's happening?"



He needed me. I saw Smith and Marconi both with weapons drawn. They needed me, because they couldn't feel it. I had to function, to think, to speak, or things were going to get out of hand. I was a federal marshal tonight, I had to remember that. I remembered something else, something that had been washed away in all that scent.



Avery, I needed Avery. I thought the name, and just like that, it was his pulse on my tongue. His skin smelled like cologne, something expensive so that it was powdery and sweet, almost like good perfume, but underneath that was sweat. He hadn't showered tonight. The thought made me wonder what else besides sweat he hadn't washed away. It was as if I was close to him again, as if my face passed down his body just above his skin. My breath was warm against his skin and helped blow the scents back from his skin to my nose, my mouth. I didn't simply smell the scents down his body, I tasted them. A faint taste, as if smell was the more important, but smell and taste were aligned differently than ever before. More intimately, somehow. That part wasn't Jean-Claude's power, but Richard's and I fought not to think of him, not to open the links between us farther than they were already. I did not want Richard in my head right now.



Jean-Claude let me know without words, or if with words, it was too quick to register, like a kind of telepathic shorthand, that he would guard me from Richard. He would not let me drown in still more sensation. But it was thanks to closer ties with Richard that I could smell and taste my way down Avery's body and enjoy it, or rather not be disgusted by it. Wolves, like dogs, do not think of scent and taste as a human does. They like it when we smell like live things. Avery had had sex and hadn't cleaned up afterward. I wasn't disturbed by that, more curious, because, thanks to Jean-Claude's marks and my own power, I knew Avery was as neat and meticulous in his person as he was in his housekeeping.



Zerbrowski squeezed my arm hard enough to bruise. "Anita, damn it, we can't shoot him. The warrant doesn't have our name on it. We're not executioners. Anita, wake up!"



I blinked at him and saw Avery standing just on the other side of him. Marconi had stepped up and had his gun pressed against Avery's chest. Avery wasn't doing anything threatening, just standing and trying to walk forward against the press of the gun. He was trying to come to me. His face wasn't empty like a zombie's, in fact he was smiling, and so very present in his skin, but I'd called him, and even a gun barrel against his heart hadn't stopped that order.



"Stop," I said.



Avery stopped trying to move forward and just stood there, waiting. He stared down at me with a look that only your best boyfriend should have given you, but I didn't mind. I wanted to pull his shirt out of his pants and rub his skin along mine. It was sexual, true, but it was also that urge that makes dogs roll in smelly stuff. It just smelled so good, and I could carry the scent with me and explore it at my leisure. I knew in that moment that wolves and dogs collect scents the way people collect rocks or houseplants--just because they like them, and they think they're pretty. Some smells just make you happy like a favorite color; the fact that sweat and stale sex was "pretty" to that part of me that was Richard was a puzzle for another day. Now, I just tried not to question it too closely and not to do physically what I'd already done metaphysically.



"I'm alright, Zerbrowski." But my voice was distant and lazy with power. That I couldn't help, but when he pulled me to my feet, I was able to stand. Yea for me. I took a step forward and said, "It's okay, Marconi, I told him to come to me."



Marconi had a funny look on his face. "Not out loud you didn't."



I shrugged. "Sorry about that." But I wasn't looking at Marconi, I was looking at Avery. I was looking at him like you'd gaze on a lover, but it was all tied up with food, and smell, and things that were so nonhuman that I was having trouble processing them. I wanted to scent mark him. He was mine. I wanted to wrap his scent on my body and think about those smells and what they meant. It was as if scent was like a photograph of a murder scene. I could carry it around and "look" at it over and over again, think about it. The sense of smell had jumped from somewhere near the bottom of my sensory list to just behind visual, and the only thing that kept it lower than sight was that I was too much a primate to trust my nose that much.



"Put up your guns," Zerbrowski said, "welcome to the wide world of weird vampire shit." He didn't sound happy, but I didn't look to see what face went with the tone, because that would have meant looking away from Avery, and I didn't want to do that.



He was a little clean-cut for my taste. His hair was a soft, medium brown, cut short the way a father or grandfather would cut it. The male hairstyle that has never really gone out of style for fifty years. His eyes matched his hair--a soft brown. His eyebrows were darker than his hair and arched in that way that men's eyebrows will, perfectly, while most women have to pluck for that line above the eye. He didn't have enough eyelashes, but they seemed thicker than they were because they were dark. His face was a soft oval, only the dark scattering of beard stubble saving him from looking even younger than he was. He was almost six feet, but seemed shorter, though I wasn't sure why. Everything about him said that here was someone who'd never had anything too bad happen to him. It wasn't just his face and coloring that was soft and undramatic; it was him. He had that flavor in my head of someone who'd never really been tested. How did you get to be a vampire and not lose that soft edge?



I got sadness from him, but he didn't feel like someone who had just killed a woman, on purpose, or by accident. Was I wrong? Or had he not been the only vampire in that spotless apartment?



Avery stood in front of me with a look that was sad, so sad. Did he know? Had he done it?



There was a knock on the church doors. The sound startled all of us, I think. You just didn't knock on the doors of a church. You came in, or you didn't, but you didn't knock. A voice called, "Sergeant Zerbrowski?"



Zerbrowski went to the door and peeked out. When he came back through the door, he had a piece of paper in his hand. It was thicker than it used to be, but most of the additions were things that would keep me out of jail and wouldn't do a damn thing for Avery's health.



Zerbrowski came toward me holding out the paper. I opened it up and read it, though I already knew what it was. It was my warrant of execution. The days when any vampire hunter would kill someone without seeing the warrant first were past, but I'd gotten cautious sooner than some. I'd also never been successfully sued. One of our fellow hunters was still in prison for doing his job before the paperwork came through. Everyone who worked with me knew that without this little piece of paper, there was no vampire hunt. With it, I had almost carte blanche.



I scanned it. It was pretty standard. I could legally hunt down and execute the vampire, or vampires, responsible for--I read the names of the victims. It helped me focus. Helped me remember why I was doing this kind of work--and any other murder victims that might follow. I was empowered to use any force necessary to find and stop the murderers of these people. I was further empowered to do anything within my abilities to execute this warrant with all due haste. The bearer of this warrant is allowed to enter any and all buildings in pursuit of the suspects. Any person, or persons, human or otherwise that stand in the way of the lawful execution of my duty, forfeit their rights under the Constitution of these United States and the State of Missouri. There was other legalese, but what it all boiled down to was that I could have turned back to Avery, put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and not only would the police not stop me, but legally, they had to help me carry out my duty.



The entire idea of warrants of execution was drafted when vampires had first gotten legal rights, and you couldn't kill them on sight just for being vampires. The warrant had seemed like a step up once, now I looked at it, and thought, Huh. What if Avery hadn't done it? What if he was innocent?



I looked at Zerbrowski, and he knew me well enough to frown. "I don't the like that look. It always means you're about to complicate my job."



I smiled at him and nodded. "Sorry, but I'd like to make sure that I'm serving the warrant on the right vampires."



Malcolm came forward. "I would like to see that warrant, if it concerns my church and my followers."



I fished it out, flung it open, but held on to it.



His eyes flicked down the page, and he shook his head. "And you call us monsters."



"Don't take it personally, Malcolm, some of my best friends are monsters." I folded the warrant up and tucked it away.



"How can you make jokes, when you have come here to kill one of us?"



The congregation stirred and started to stand. There were hundreds of them and only a handful of us. This could get out of hand, and I didn't want that. Legally, if anyone interfered, then I could kill them, too. The last thing I wanted on my hands was a church full of martyrs.



It was as if Malcolm read my mind, or I read his, because he moved toward the door. Marconi stopped him with a hand up, not quite touching.



"We don't want any trouble," Zerbrowski said, "and you don't either, Malcolm."



"Am I supposed to simply let you escort one of my congregation out of here, knowing that you could make him kneel in the parking lot and execute him? What kind of person would I be to simply stand by and let that happen?"



Shit, I thought.



"Who are you here for?" Avery said, and his voice was like the rest of him--soft, uncertain. Was it an act?



"You for starters," I said.



His brown eyes went wide. "Why?"



"If you try to take him, we will stand in front of the door. You will have to climb over our bodies to take him with you."



I glanced at Malcolm, and I knew that he didn't mean it. He was gambling. Gambling that we wouldn't be willing to climb over the bodies of church members to execute this warrant here and now. Gambling that we'd go away and get Avery some other time. Usually I like having the warrant fast, but tonight it would have worked better to get it later, and not in front of the undead Billy Graham and his flock.



Zerbrowski looked at me. "You're the vampire hunter, Anita, it has to be your call."



"Thanks," I said, but I had an idea. I could still taste Avery. He hit my radar as innocent, could I find out? Malcolm had tried to pull specific knowledge from me, and I'd turned it back on him. I'd gained knowledge from his vampires. I'd gotten very specific images about how they fed, and lived. Could I concentrate and get something even more specific? It felt like I could. It felt like, if I touched Avery, I could know anything in his head, his body, his soul. That if I touched him, he'd be mine, mine in a way that until tonight I hadn't wanted. Suddenly it wasn't such a bad thought.



I leaned into Zerbrowski and whispered, "I can feel him in my head. I think I can find out what he saw last night."



"How?"



I shrugged. "Weird necromancy stuff, metaphysics, magic, whatever you want to call it."



"The warrant does not allow you to use magic on my people."



I looked at Malcolm; it was beginning not to be a friendly look. "I am allowed to use whatever force or abilities I deem necessary. So, yeah, I can do magic, if it gets the job done."



"I will not allow you to bespell him."



"Has it occurred to you that I don't want to kill him if he didn't do it? If I take his heart and his head, then we find out he's innocent tomorrow, what am I supposed to do, say, 'Sorry, oops'?" I was getting angry again. I took a deep breath and counted slowly to five. I didn't have the patience for ten. "I don't want to kill him, Malcolm." That last wasn't angry, that last sounded almost like a plea.



Malcolm looked at me, and it was a look I hadn't seen before. He was trying to decide if I was lying. "I feel your regret, Anita. You grow tired of the killing, just as I did."



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 how it felt. Scared maybe, yeah, scared about covered it.



"You have bespelled them," Malcolm said. He sounded angry.



"Like you do humans?" I said.



"I do not use my powers on humans."



"Are you saying you don't use any power to make yourself prettier to the humans, or even the lesser vampires?"



He blinked the blue eyes at me, set into a face that was a good face, but it wasn't the face that he'd shown me the first few times I'd met him. "That would be vanity," he said, at last, in a very quiet voice.



He hadn't denied it, but I let it go. My main concern about the "vanity" was if he was using vamp powers to look better, what else was he using them for? But that was a problem for another night.



Avery laid his cheek against my hand, not rubbing like the wereleopards did, but reminding me he was still there. I looked down at him, then up at the other vampires waiting in the aisle. It was almost a line, as if once I finished with Avery, it would be someone else's turn. I hadn't done this on purpose, and I didn't know how to undo it.



I thought, Jean-Claude. His whisper ran through me, shivered along my skin, and that shiver ran through my hand and into the vampire at my feet. It made Avery close his eyes and almost sway.



I whispered, "That didn't help, Jean-Claude. I want to stop this, not make it worse."



"I have no talent for reading another's thoughts and feelings, ma petite, not to this degree. It is not my power that you are borrowing."



"Then whose?"



"My surmise is Malcolm. For he used it on you first."



"And just like that, it's mine for keeps?"



"Perhaps not for keeps, as you say, but for now. Use it quickly, ma petite, for it may fade."



"What about the attraction thing?"



"Gain your information from this one, then I will help you tame that particular power. For now, I will withdraw, so I do not make it worse." And he was as good as his word, he was just gone. Once his leaving would have cured the attraction problem, but not now. Now, I was still left with Avery at my feet and the others still staring at me, still waiting, still wanting. Wanting what? What in the name of God was I supposed to do with them? I took a deep breath and let it out slow. One problem at a time. One disaster at a time, or you get overwhelmed.



I looked down into Avery's pale brown eyes, and thought, What happened in your apartment last night? I got a glimpse of a woman, the dead woman, but alive this time. I got a glimpse of another woman, but I couldn't see her clearly. As if part of the image was misty.



Avery pressed his face against my hand, and the mist lifted a little, but I still couldn't see the other woman. I was borrowing Malcolm's power, but most of what was in me, was a much more intimate kind of magic. I put my other hand up and cradled Avery's face between my hands, and the mist thinned even more, but it was like watching a movie where part of the screen was scratched. I was so busy trying to see the other part of the "screen" that I wasn't really watching the rest. Avery and the very alive woman were getting up close and very personal. Either my ability to be embarrassed was lessening, or when I'm working, I'm working. I was working.



I knew vamps could make people forget hours, or even days, but I'd never known anyone that could make just their part of a memory fuzzy. That was a level of control on their power that was new to me. Scary new.



Touching his face more had helped, because, like it or hate it, Jean-Claude's power and mine grew with physicality. I leaned over Avery's face, leaned into him with my hands framing him. He didn't close his eyes as I came in to kiss him, but I closed mine. I always closed mine. My lips touched his, and the woman on the other side of the bed had brown hair. The kiss grew into a press of mouths, and the woman's hair was soft brown waves that filled Avery's hand, softer even than it looked. Her face turned to his eyes, and that mist settled over his vision again. I couldn't see her face. Fine, I thought, Her name, Avery, give me her name, but there was a roaring silence in his head, as if there, too, whatever she'd done to him kept her safe, or at least anonymous.



The memory wasn't like a camera view, it was from Avery's eyes. I had a glimpse down his body, that he was nude, that both women were nude, but still her face... I couldn't see her face.



I slid to my knees, still kissing him. His hands wrapped around my body, and when he pressed us together, I let myself melt into the feel of his arms, his body. I gave myself to the kiss, the embrace, and it was like a stroke of lightning cut through the memory. The colors were brighter, I knew what Sally Cook's mouth tasted like. I could smell perfume, one that was sharper, more alcohol content, and the other that powdery musk of something expensive. The vampire's face was like crystal in my head, in his head. Her name was Nellie, and she was a master vampire, and she had met him at the strip clubs, not at the church. She'd brought the stripper, who Avery knew as Morgana.



It was like I suddenly had access to everything that Nellie had said to him, as if I'd unlocked a computer file, and suddenly the information poured in. She'd talked about her master, whom Avery had never met. Her master, who was a real master vampire, not like Malcolm. Someone who knew how to hunt, how to feed, how to be a true predator. Avery had tried to distance himself from her, but she'd pursued him hard. The thought led to a memory of Nellie and another woman vampire. The second vampire looked enough like Nellie to be her sister, almost twin. Her name was Nadine, and she was much younger, much weaker. But they looked alike, and the moment I saw that, I realized that they looked like Avery. They all had the same soft, brown hair, the same soft, oval faces, pale brown eyes. They could have been siblings. Nadine and Nellie had fought after they had had sex with him. Nadine didn't want to share Nellie on a regular basis.



Avery had used that as an excuse to distance himself again, but then Nellie showed up that night at the club, and she had Morgana in tow, and they offered, and he didn't say no. I tasted his guilt. It was real enough. He'd broken so many rules of the church. The club, the stripper, and Nellie was dangerous, he knew that, just not how dangerous.



He'd fed on the woman, fed at her neck, then had sex with Nellie. He thought the evening was over, but Nellie started to go down on the other woman. She wanted him to feed from her thigh. Feed in that most intimate of places, but something about it panicked him. Maybe it was the look in the other vampire's eyes. Soft brown in color, but what we both saw in those eyes was hard, and he knew that if he didn't get up and go, that she would talk him into anything, everything.



He grabbed his clothes, fled the bedroom, dressed in the living room, and left Morgana alive and happy in bed with Nellie. He went to the church and took one of the coffins they had in the basement for emergencies. He'd been working up to telling Malcolm about Nellie and her scary offer, about a master vampire who knew how to hunt. A master who was actively recruiting church members for his scary little group. But Avery had been waiting until after church services. Then I had come, and plans changed.



I broke the kiss, the way you'd break the surface of a pool, fast and hard, when you've been too long under water and you need to breathe. It brought me gasping away from his mouth, and left me inches from his face, so that we were left staring into each other's wide eyes. If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have tried to get the next question answered the same way I'd asked the rest, by touch and vampire trickery, or would that be necromancer trickery? Whatever, staring at his face from inches away, and seeing something close to devotion on a stranger's face, threw me. Jean-Claude might have been used to it, but I wasn't, and so I did what I always do when I'm scared by some new bit of metaphysics. I resorted to something human and ordinary. I spoke, out loud.



"Is there anyone in the church tonight that joined Nellie and her master?"



"Yes," he said, in a voice that was still whispery from the kiss, "Jonah, Nellie said, Jonah had met her master and liked him. She offered a three-way with Jonah and me and her. I said no." I was still hooked up enough to know that he said that last defensively. The idea being, of course, he wouldn't go to bed with another man, not even with a woman in the same bed at the same time. If he thought that was going to win points with me, he was wrong. I liked men who were secure enough in their manhood to share me with another man, in fact, lately, it was damn near a prerequisite for dating me.



Avery was frowning at me, as if he'd gotten some of what I was thinking. But I didn't have time to worry about it, because Zerbrowski was yelling, "He's running for it!"



I was on my feet in time to see one of the vampires bounding over the backs of the pews. His feet barely touching the wood, using it to bounce himself farther away. Almost levitation, but not quite. He didn't know how to fly yet. I like the young ones, they're easier to catch.



He couldn't fly, so he wouldn't try for the tall windows. I didn't chase him. I ran to the aisle against the far wall. There was a door that led into their parish hall. He couldn't fly. He needed a door.



I had my gun out. I hit the safety with my thumb and chambered a round as I ran. The vampire leapt off the back of the last pew and landed light as air on the floor. He took one step toward the far door, and I yelled, "Stop, or I shoot." I had the gun aimed at him two-handed. It's hard to walk forward and keep a bead on someone, but I was farther away than I wanted to be in a crowded church. Yeah, the innocent people were nicely to one side, but bullets are determined little things, once you pull the trigger they will hit something. I wanted to be close enough to be secure enough to pull that trigger, and not endanger anyone else. Of course, once the guns came out, people panicked. Usually they panic sooner, but for some strange reason I was in the far aisle and had a clean shot, before the crowd started screaming and scattering. Some of them scattered the wrong damn way. I suddenly had civilians screaming and hesitating between me and the vampire I was chasing.



I yelled, "Get down, damn it, get down! Catch him, damn it!" He made the door, because I couldn't risk the shot.



But there were two vampires just behind him. They were two of the ones that had been in the aisle. Had I done that when I said, catch him? Were they being good citizens, or was it my fault? Shit.



I started through the screaming crowd with Zerbrowski at my back, and Marconi and Smith just behind. My gun was pointed at the ceiling, as I tried to get through them. They screamed at the guns, they screamed at me. They screamed because they could.



I heard Zerbrowski behind me giving the uniforms at the back door a heads-up and a description of our bad vamp. We'd almost waded through the panicked civilians. I heard different yelling over the high-pitched screams. Men yelling, but not screaming. I brought my gun up as I cleared the side of the door, with as little of my body showing as possible. No, I did not stand in the fucking middle of the doorway and make myself a perfect target. That kind of shit is great for movies, but in real life, take cover, worry about looking like a hero later, after you've survived.



There was a fight at the end of the hallway. Our civvies, one dark and one blond, had caught up with the bad guy. They seemed to be winning. They had him on the ground, though the dark-haired civvie was on the ground, too. I cleared the door, gun in a two-handed grip, with Zerbrowski right behind me. He yelled, "Police, everybody freeze!"



The civilians hesitated in the fight, because they were upstanding citizens. Upstanding citizens tend to listen to the cops. It wasn't much of a hesitation, they just stopped fighting as hard, and they glanced at us. That was it, then they turned right back to the bad guy, but he was a bad guy, and he hadn't looked at us, or hesitated in the fight. After all, he had nothing to lose. I already had a warrant that let us kill his ass.



The two vampires had him down, but when they hesitated, one of them must have loosened their grip, just a fraction. I saw something silver glint in the bad guy's hand. I yelled, "Knife!" but it was too late. The blade hit the dark one in the chest. Something about that blow seemed to stagger the blond, because he went to his knees beside his friend. Maybe he thought we had the bad guy covered. He knelt and reached for his fallen friend, and if the bad guy had done the usual and stood up and run through the door, we'd have had clean shots at him. But he didn't, he pushed the door wide with his hand, and half-crawled, half-rolled through the door. The two civilians were blocking our shots completely.



I yelled, "Fuck!" and started to run.