"If he would only cooperate, it could be a happy foursome," Asher said.
Richard, startled beside me, stiffened. It was my turn to touch his arm and keep him from saying what he was thinking.
"I have been told many things," Colin said. "My people have watched you from afar. We believe you are enamored of the girl and of Jean-Claude. We are aware of your history together. We even believe that a lover of men like yourself would do their Ulfric if he would let you. What we do not believe is that you are bedding any of them. We believe that this is a pathetic story to save yourself."
I started walking to Asher. The plan was that we would put on a mild show of petting. I'd warned him it better be mild, but I never got the chance.
There was movement in the dark. Dozens of vampires appeared out of the darkness, encircling the clearing. Colin had been distracting us while the vampires moved up to flank us, and neither Asher nor I, nor any of the wereanimals had sensed them.
"Let us have Asher and the rest of you may go free."
"You are breaking the truce now," Asher said. He sounded calm, empty, as if Colin hadn't just demanded his death.
Verne strode forward. "This is our lupanar. We can close it to all strangers."
"Not without your vargamor. You left her safe at home just in case things went wrong. So protective of your human pet. I counted on it." He raised an arm as if summoning his people. "No one you have with you is witch enough to invoke the circle."
"If you kill Asher it will break truce."
"I will not harm Jean-Claude's triumvirate. I merely remove a rival."
The vampires moved up through the trees. They didn't hurry. They moved like solid shadows, slow, as if they had all night to tighten the circle and take us. "Asher?" I asked without taking my gaze from those slowly menacing figures.
"Oui."
"Does this break truce?"
"Oui."
"Great," I said.
I felt him move towards me, but I had eyes only for the outer dark and that ever-shrinking circle. I picked one vampire out. Male, slender, youngish in appearance. He wore no shirt. His chest was a pale, almost glowing whiteness in the darkness.
"What is it, ma cherie?" Asher was standing very close to me now. I moved him to one side with my left arm and brought the mini-Uzi out with my right, swinging it around my body, shooting before I'd actually pointed so the bullets cut across the vampire's legs, making him jerk. I grabbed it with both hands and fought the gun to spray it back and fourth across his body. I was screaming as I did it, wordless, not to sound menacing. You couldn't hear the screams over the machine gun. I screamed because I couldn't help myself, because the tension, the horror, something came up my hand from the gun and out my mouth.
The blood that sprayed from his body was black from distance and night. It looked like his body was torn in half by some giant hand. His upper body fell slowly to one side. His lower body collapsed to its knees.
The circle of vampires had frozen or had dived for cover. The silence was thunderous. My own labored breathing seemed painfully loud. My voice came breathy, but clear, a shout, "Nobody move, nobody fucking move!"
No one moved.
Asher's voice broke the stillness. "We can all walk away from here tonight, Colin."
"Impressively violent," Colin said, "but I think you are mistaken. Poor Archie will not be walking anywhere."
"My apologies to Archie," I said.
"I must have payment for him, Miss Blake."
"You can bill me."
"Oh, I intend to, Miss Blake. I intend to take it out of your hide."
"How many of your people do you want me to kill tonight, Colin? I've got lots more bullets."
"You cannot kill them all, Miss Blake."
"Yeah, but I can kill about a half dozen and wound twice that many. I don't see them lining up for it, Colin."
I badly wanted to see his face, but I kept my attention on the vamps in the trees. They hadn't moved. The vampires already inside the lupanar were someone else's problem. My job was keeping the others at a distance. I think Asher knew the division of labor. I just hoped Richard did.
"I don't know how Jean-Claude runs his territory, but I know how I run mine. What you fail to appreciate, Miss Blake, is that nothing you can do to them will make them fear you more than they already fear me."
"Death is the ultimate threat, Colin, and I don't bluff."
"Neither do I."
I felt something move out through the trees. Power moving from Colin to those waiting figures. I started to turn the gun from the darkness to Colin, but Asher touched my arm. "He is mine. Watch the others."
I slid the gun a fraction back to the still forms. "You get the Master of the City and I get all the rest. Sounds fair."
Richard moved up beside me. "You don't get all of them," he said.
I wanted to ask if he would kill them. If he would use that preternatural strength to snap spines and tear their bodies apart with his bare hands as I had done with the machine gun. But I didn't ask. How good Richard's threat was was between him and his conscience. The only thing that bothered me about Richard's conscience was that I couldn't count on him for a single kill tonight. He'd hurt people and toss them around, but if he wouldn't kill, that meant that he couldn't account for any of them. There were over a hundred bad guys, vampires, and only eight of us. Sixteen if I could count Verne, but I didn't know if I could count on him and his people. It would have been nice to be able to trust Richard at my back, but I didn't.
The vampires out in the dark began to rot. Not all of them, but damn near half. I'd never seen so many. For a vampire to rot, it means that the vamp that made them was the same kind of creature. Which meant that Barnaby had made half of Colin's people. No Master of the City would allow any subordinate to have such power. But the proof was staring me in the face with eye sockets gone to black dripping ruin.
"You have been very bold, Colin, to share your power with your second to this degree," Asher said.
"Barnaby is my right hand, my second eye. Together we are a stronger master than either of us would be apart."
"As are Jean-Claude and I," Asher said.
"But Barnaby is a corruptor. He brings that to the dance," Colin said. "What do you bring to Jean-Claude's dance, Asher?" Fear breathed through the lupanar. I shivered as it prickled down my skin, tightened my chest, and tried to stop my breath in my throat.
"Night hag," Damian spoke, his voice a hiss. He spit on the ground in the general direction of Colin, but he didn't walk any closer.
"I smell your fear, Damian. I can taste it like rich, nutty ale on the back of my tongue," Colin said. "Your master must have been a fine piece of work."
Damian moved back a step, then stopped. "You ask why Asher is content to remain with Jean-Claude when he could go elsewhere and be his own master. Maybe he is tired as I am tired of the struggle. The in-fighting. The fucking politics. Jean-Claude ransomed me from my master. I am not a master vampire, nor will I ever be. I have no special powers. Yet, Jean-Claude bargained for me. I serve him not out of fear but out of gratitude."
"You make Jean-Claude sound weak. The Council does not fear weaklings, yet they fear him," Colin said.
"Compassion is not weakness," Richard said. "Only those without compassion think otherwise."
I glanced at him, but he was looking at the vampires, not me. The fact that I felt it was a personal remark to me was just me being overly sensitive.