The living room was a bare stone room once again. Jean-Claude's efforts at redecorating lay in piles of black and white cloth and broken wood. The only thing untouched was the portrait above the false fireplace. Jean-Claude, Julianna, and an unscarred Asher gazed down at the ruins. I expected an unpleasant surprise to be waiting for us. There was only Willie McCoy standing in front of the cold fireplace. He had his back to us, hands clasped behind him. His pea-green suit clashed with his slicked-back black hair. One sleeve was torn and bloodstained. He turned towards us. Blood seeped from a gash on his forehead. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief covered in dancing skeletons. It was silk and had been a gift from his girlfriend, a century-old vamp who had recently joined us. Hannah was as tall, leggy, and lovely as Willie was short, badly dressed, and well ... Willie.
He smiled at us. "So good of you to join us."
"Can the sarcasm," I said. "Where is everybody?" I started walking towards him, but Jean-Claude stopped me with a hand on my arm.
Willie's smile was almost gentle. He stared at Jean-Claude with a look of expectancy. It was an expression I'd never seen on Willie's face.
I glanced at Jean-Claude's perfect mask of a face, closed and careful. No -- fearful.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Ma petite, may I introduce the Traveler."
I frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"
Willie laughed, and it was the same irritating bray he'd always had, but it ended in a low, chuckling growl that raised the hairs at the base of my neck. I looked at him and knew the shock showed on my face.
I had to swallow before I could talk, even then I didn't know what to say. "Willie?"
"He can no longer answer your call, ma petite."
Willie stood there staring at me. He had been an awkward person alive. Dead, he hadn't been much better. He hadn't been dead long enough to master that otherworldly movement that the others had. He walked towards us in a wave of his own liquid grace. It wasn't Willie.
"Shit," I said softly. "Is it permanent?"
The stranger in Willie's body laughed again. "I am merely borrowing his body. I borrow a great many bodies, don't I, Jean-Claude?"
I felt Jean-Claude draw me backwards. He didn't want to get closer. I didn't argue. We backed up. It was odd being backed up by Willie. Normally, he was one of the least scary vamps I knew. Now, tension sang down Jean-Claude's hand. I could taste his heart beating in my own head. He was afraid, and that made me afraid.
The Traveler stopped, hands on hips, laughing. "Afraid I will use you as my horse, Jean-Claude? If you are truly strong enough to have slain the Earthmover, then you should be strong enough to withstand me."
"I am cautious by nature, Traveler. Time has not lessened the habit."
"You always did have a smooth tongue in your head and so many other places."
I frowned at the double-entendre, not sure I caught the meaning, not sure I wanted to. "Let Willie go."
"He is not being harmed," the vampire said.
"He is still inside the body," Jean-Claude said. "He still feels, still sees. You have only pushed him aside, Traveler, not replaced him."
I glanced at Jean-Claude. His face showed nothing. "You say that like you know from personal experience."
"Jean-Claude was one of my favorite bodies, once upon a time. Balthasar and I enjoyed him very much."
Balthasar walked out of the far hallway as if he'd been waiting for his cue. Maybe he had. He was smiling, but it was more a baring of teeth than pleasure. He strode into the room looking elegant and roguish in his white suit. He stood behind Willie, hands on the shorter man's thin shoulders. Willie, the Traveler, leaned back against Balthasar's chest. The bigger man wrapped his arms around him. They were a couple.
"Will he know what they're doing with his body?" I asked.
"Yes," Jean-Claude said.
"Willie doesn't like men."
"No," Jean-Claude said.
I swallowed and tried to think reasonably, and just couldn't. Vampires could not take over another vampire's body. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't. But I looked at Willie's familiar face with a stranger's thoughts flowing through his brown eyes and knew it was true.
Those brown eyes smiled into mine. I dropped my gaze. If the Traveler could do me through Liv's eyes when he wasn't inside her, then he'd suck me down now for sure. It had been a long time since I had had to practice the trick of staring at a face without meeting the eyes. It was like tag with the vamp trying to capture my gaze, and me avoiding it. It was irritating, and scary.
Jean-Claude had said that violence wouldn't save us tonight. He wasn't kidding. If a vamp had been holding Willie against his will, forcing him sexually, I'd have shot him. But it was Willie's body, and he'd get it back. Shooting it full of holes was a bad idea. What I needed was a good idea.
"Does the Traveler like women?" I asked.
"Are you offering yourself in his place?" the vampire asked.
"No, just wondering how you'd like it if the tables were turned."
"No one else has my ability to share a body," the Traveler said.
"Would you like it if someone forced you to have sex with a woman?"
Willie's face cocked to one side, and the expression was alien to him. The sense of otherness was strong enough to make my skin crawl. "I have never felt the draw of a woman's body."
"You'd find it distasteful," I said.
Willie, the Traveler, nodded. "Yes."
"Then let Willie go. Pick someone who wouldn't mind so much."
The Traveler snuggled into Balthasar's arms and laughed at me. "Are you appealing to my sense of mercy?"
I shrugged. "I can't shoot you. You're council. I was hoping that would mean you had more rules than the rest of them. Guess I was wrong."
He looked at Jean-Claude. "Does your human servant do all your talking now?"
"She does well enough," Jean-Claude said.
"If she seeks to appeal to my sense of fair play, then you have told her nothing about your time with us at court."
Jean-Claude kept my left hand clasped loosely in his, but he stepped away from me. I felt him draw himself straighter as if he'd been hunched just a little, huddled around his panic. I knew he was still afraid, but he had rallied. Brave Jean-Claude. I wasn't that afraid yet. But then, I didn't know any better.
"I do not dwell upon the past," Jean-Claude said.
"He is ashamed of us," Balthasar said, rubbing his face against Willie's. He planted a soft kiss against Willie's temple.
"No," the Traveler said. "He fears us."
"What do you want of me, Traveler? Why has the council invaded my lands and taken my people hostage?"
Willie's body pushed away from Balthasar to stand just in front of the taller man. Willie normally looked smaller than he was, sort of hunched and rabbity, but now he looked slim and certain of himself. The Traveler had given Willie the grace and assurance he never had on his own.
"You slew the Earthmover but did not come to take his council seat. There is no other way to rise to the council except through the death of another. We have a vacancy that only you can fill, Jean-Claude."
"I do not want it, nor am I powerful enough to keep it."
"If not powerful enough, then how did you slay Oliver? He was a frightening force of nature." The Traveler walked towards us with Balthasar in his wake. "How did you slay him?"
Jean-Claude didn't back up this time. His hand tightened on mine, but he stood his ground. "He agreed not to call the earth against me."
The vampire and his servant circled us like sharks. One circling left, the other right, so it was hard to keep an eye on both of them.
"Why would he limit his powers?"