Anita Blake 15 - The Harlequin (67 page)

I sat back up with Micah and Nathaniel's help. "Your actions could get the entire Harlequin disbanded; don't you care?"

"Kill me, if you can, but I will not answer questions from you."

The darkness inside me thought otherwise. "Fredo," I called.

The slender knife-wielding man was just beside me. "Can you get enough help and enough knives to pin him to the floor?"

"We can pin him, but unless we're leaning on the knives, they won't hold him."

"Then pin him with your bodies, I don't care how. I need to touch him."

"Why?"

"Does it matter?"

"Tonight, yes," he said.

I looked up into his dark eyes. I saw pain there. I answered that pain. "The darkness can make him talk, and then I'm going to kill him."

Fredo nodded. "Good plan." He went around getting volunteers to hold the vampire down. There were a lot of volunteers.

Jean-Claude came to me while they were wrestling him into place. "I feel her all around you,
ma petite
."

"Yeah," I said, but I wasn't looking at him. I was watching them pin the big vampire.

"Look at me." He touched my chin and turned me so that I would look at him. I didn't fight him, but I didn't seem to care whether I looked at him or not. "There is a light in your eyes that I do not know."

I half-saw, out of the corner of my eye, a dark figure form. She formed of the dark, and she looked vaguely like she had in my dream, all-black cloak, a small female figure. But this was no dream.

Screams again from the vampires. The ones with Asher, standing guard over Columbine and Giovanni, held their ground, but no one was happy.

Pantalone himself screamed, like a girl. It made it harder for the guards to wrestle him into submission. Oh, well.

The figure spoke, and the smell of jasmine and rain was in her voice, or on the wind, or the wind was her voice. I wasn't sure which. "Did you think my laws were superstitions, Jean-Claude? You were supposed to kill her when you knew what she was. Now it is too late."

"Too late for what?" he said, and he wrapped his arm around me, drew me in against his body, and we both looked up as my nightmare damn near materialized in front of us.

"She's a necromancer, Jean-Claude, she controls the dead, all the dead. Don't you understand yet? Some of the Harlequin think I woke because I want to steal her body, ride her as the Traveller rides other vampires. I had that gift once, to travel from body to body, but that is not why I woke."

"Why did you wake?" he whispered.

"She attracts the dead, Jean-Claude, all the dead. She called me from my sleep. Her power called to me like the first ray of sunlight after a thousand years of night. Her warmth and life called to my death. Even I cannot resist her. Do you understand now?"

"You are so not under my power," I said.

She gave a low, dry chuckle. "Legend says that necromancers can control the dead, and that is true, but what legend does not say is that the dead give necromancers no peace. We pester the poor things, because they draw us like moths to the flame, except with vampires and necromancers it is a question who is flame and who is moth. Beware, Jean-Claude, that she does not burn you up. Beware, necromancer, that the vampires do not put you in your grave."

"Your law," Pantalone yelled, "your law says she must be put to death."

The dark figure turned toward the struggling pile of people. "Do not dare speak to me of my laws, Pantalone. I made you. I gave you a piece of myself, that is what made you one of the Harlequin. I have been listening to vampires that dwell closer to my physical form. You have been assassinating vampires for council members. You are neutral. You take no sides. That is what makes the Harlequin!" Her voice rose as she spoke until the wind held not just rain but the promise of storm. "I will take back what I gave you. What you used to make these pale imitations of my Columbine and her Giovanni. These are not my Harlequin."

"Columbine died. I had to make a replacement, and you were not here to guide me."

"Then the mask should have been retired, and the name with it. That was my will, and our way, once." She began to walk toward them. I could almost see her foot, dainty in a slipper edged with white pearls.

Jean-Claude called, "Do not look upon her face. For fear of sanity and life do not meet her eyes, any of you."

"I am not the Traveller, to need to steal bodies to walk. I did need flesh once, but I am the darkness made flesh, Pantalone. I am she who made you, made you all! Killing the necromancer will not put me back to sleep again. It is too late for that."

It was Jake who knelt beside me, and Jean-Claude. Jake whispered, "She's using your energy to manifest, Anita. You have to shut her down before she's solid here. You do not want her in America in flesh and bone."

I looked at him, and I knew. "You're one of them."

Jake nodded.

"You saved
ma petite
, when you could have let her die in the bathroom at the Circus," Jean-Claude said.

"The Mother was always going to wake again, nothing would prevent that. Some of us believe that Anita is our only hope of controlling her. Prove my master right by shutting down the power you're feeding her."

"I don't know…"

"She's feeding on your anger, your rage."

"I don't know how to stop that."

"If she feeds on Pantalone, one of the oldest of us, she may have enough power to be permanent flesh."

The black-cloaked figure was standing at his feet. The guards were looking at me. I said the only thing I could think of: "Get away from him."

Some of the guards hesitated, but most of them glanced toward the dark figure and moved a discreet distance.

"Anita," Jake said, "help us."

I turned to Jean-Claude and said, "Help me think of something besides my anger."

The black figure was spreading into what looked like a piece of the night sky, like some beautiful and frightening cloak of stars and darkness. Pantalone shrieked, as if whatever he saw in that piece of darkness was something terrible to behold.

"Hurry," I said.

Jean-Claude raised the
ardeur
, in a breath, in the feel of his mouth on mine. He raised the
ardeur
and stripped away my sorrow in a rush of skin and hands. I hadn't fed the
ardeur
in over twelve hours. I was suddenly starving.

Marmee Noir screamed, "No!" Her rage cut through me, and a sharp pain laced my back. I felt blood a second later. The
ardeur
was gone in a rush of fear and pain. I turned, and Jean-Claude caught my face, forced my eyes against his velvet jacket. "She is fading,
ma petite
."

Her voice came in a rush of rain and wind. "I know who your master is, wolf. You have betrayed me, and I will not forget it."

When I could no longer smell jasmine or feel rain against my skin like some invisible presence, I asked Jake, "How do I keep her from popping in to see me?"

"There's a charm for that."

I gave him a look.

"People used to think she was a demon, but whatever they thought she was, one human witch made a charm a very long time ago, and it works."

"Is it a holy symbol?" I asked.

He smiled. "No, it's magic, not faith."

"Isn't all magic faith?" I asked.

"No, sometimes it's just magic."

The concept was too hard for me. "You got one of those charms on you?"

"Always, but I'll get one for you. We should be safe for the rest of tonight."

"I hope those aren't famous last words," I said.

"What do we do with them, Anita?" Truth asked.

I looked at Jake. "He broke your laws more than mine."

"Kill him under your laws, we won't argue. We suspected one of us was being paid as an assassin, but we didn't know who. Then Pantalone volunteered to come check out Malcolm's church. It was just a visit, and a report back to the council. He usually only takes killing jobs, so we were suspicious. If Columbine had won Jean-Claude's lands, it would have been Pantalone who ruled here. We are allowed to leave the service of the Mother now, because she sleeps. Once she wakes, all that are in her service will be trapped there."

"So you came to spy," I said.

"And to help keep you alive."

"Thanks for that." I glanced back toward Remus's body. "I wish everybody were still alive."

"I'm sorry about that, truly. He was a good man."

I turned back to Wicked and Truth. "Did you guys wade into the dark and cut off his hand without being able to see anything?"

"Yes," Wicked said.

"Of course," Truth said.

"Then take his head."

Pantalone, with a missing arm, stabbed, shot, moved in a black blur. Truth was his own dark blur, his sword so fast it looked like lightning. He took him through the heart again, except spitting him this time the way Pantalone had spitted Remus. Wicked's blade glittered outward and the head went spinning. It wasn't just impressive. It was lovely in a macabre sort of way.

"Someone put the head in a sack. We'll burn it later, separate from the body."

"We should take the heart, too," Olaf said.

I nodded. "You're right. We'll do that after we take care of the other two."

"You killed our master," Columbine said.

"I would ask, does that frighten you, but I can taste your fear in your words. It tastes good. I'm going to ask you some questions. If you answer me truthfully, then you die quick, fairly painless. You fuck with me, lie to me, try not to answer the questions and I'll make your death something to write home about. I'll give you to Olaf. He's the big guy."

Olaf glanced back at me, gun still trained on them. "Do you mean it?"

"Right this minute, yes. She's a petite dark-haired woman, she even fits your victim profile. If she doesn't answer my questions, never say I didn't give you a good present."

"No," Columbine said, "please."

"You tried to kill me and the people I love. Your master killed my friend.
Please
isn't going to have much effect on me right now, not from you."

"Please," Richard said, "don't do this."

I shook my head. "Go home, Richard."

"Isn't there any other man in your bed who agrees with me, that there are some things you don't do, for any reason?"

Jean-Claude stood and went to Richard. He began to try to soothe him. It reminded me of when you gamed and you had to send the Paladin around the hill so you could loot the dead.

Nathaniel and Micah came to my sides. "You want to get closer to her?" Micah asked.

I nodded. "You don't think I'm a bastard for offering her to Olaf?"

"They've nearly killed you three times, Anita. You're my Nimir-Ra; I'll carve out her heart and serve it to you on a platter." The threat seemed more real with him in his kitty-cat form.

"I'm your submissive, I don't argue," Nathaniel said.

"Submissive when it suits you, lately."

He smiled at me. "I won't carve her up, but I might watch Olaf do it. She almost killed you, and Jean-Claude, and Richard."

I nodded. "And Peter."

"And Cisco," Nathaniel said.

I nodded, and started to turn back to look at Remus. Micah kept me moving forward. "Let's go ask your questions."

We went to ask my questions. Olaf was whispering to her as we came up, what he'd do to her, what he wanted to do to her. "Please, don't answer the questions. Vampires die so much slower than humans."

Guess what, she answered every question first time out. She and Nivia had killed the humans and tried to frame the church members. It had been to get leverage to try to force Malcolm to simply give the Church to them. Then I'd gone and spoiled it by killing Nivia. I didn't tell her that I wasn't even certain why Nivia had died, or what I'd done to cause it. Maybe Jean-Claude could help me figure it out later. Columbine was going to be the beard, the stalking horse, for Pantalone. Once he ruled here, even the Mother of All Darkness couldn't force him to abandon his territory. All of them, Pantalone, Nivia, Soledad, and Giovanni had all taken assassination jobs. The only question she hesitated on, even for a second, was, "Which council members did you work for?"

"They'll kill me."

"You don't have to be afraid of them anymore, Columbine."

"You'll protect me?"

"In a way. You don't have to be afraid of the council killing you later, because we're going to kill you tonight, remember? All we're negotiating on is whether you die easy, or hard. Your choice."

She shook her head.

"Olaf."

"Yes."

"We have to cut her heart out anyway. Want to do it first?"

He stared at me as if wondering if I was kidding. I remembered Remus's body in my arms. I knew now that I'd felt his body jerk as Pantalone had forced his arm through his chest, through his heart, dug his way through, and killed him. I could still hear his last whispered "I'm sorry." Not "help me," or "God, it hurts," but "I'm sorry."

"Do it," I said.

They held her down, and they held Giovanni down, and Olaf ripped her costume open, bared her breasts to the room, and began very slowly to carve out her heart. He didn't get very far before she gave up the names. Master of Beasts and the Lover of Death.

Olaf didn't stop when she gave up the names. He'd gone to his happy place. It was like trying to argue with an autistic child; he just didn't hear us.

Columbine screamed, "I answered your questions. In the name of the dark, kill me."

I told Wicked to behead her. He did, one clean blow that scarred the wood underneath her. I could never get a head to come off in one blow. Olaf looked up as the blood poured out of the neck in a crimson fountain. "I wasn't finished."

"She gave the information up a while ago. I promised her a quick death if she told me what I needed to know."

He gave me a look that wasn't friendly at all.

"You can still cut out her heart," I said.

"It's not the same," he said, and the look on his face was nothing I understood, or wanted to understand.

I started to apologize for not letting him cut out her heart while she was still alive, then I caught myself. Fuck, the shock was beginning to leave and I was wondering what the hell I'd been thinking. Legally, everything we were doing was A-okay. I had a warrant of execution, it covered a multitude of sins.