The Traveler tried to help me tie the bandage. I pulled away from him.
"I offer you aid, not harm."
"No thanks."
He smiled, and again it was not Willie's thoughts that slid over his face. "It upsets you so much that I inhabit this body. Why?"
"He's my friend," I said.
"Friendship. You claim friendship with this vampire. He is nothing. A power not to be reckoned with."
"He's not my friend because he's powerful or not powerful. He's just my friend."
"It has been a very long time since someone has invoked friendship in my presence. They will beg for mercy, but never on the grounds of friendship."
Jean-Claude stood. "No one else would have thought of it."
"No one else would have been so naive," the Traveler said.
"It is a form of naiveté," Jean-Claude said. "That is true, but how long has it been, Traveler, since someone, anyone, had the courage to be naive before the council? They come before you asking for power, safety, vengeance, but not friendship, not loyalty. No, that they will not ask of the council."
Willie's head did that little turn to one side again, as if the Traveler were thinking. "Does she offer me friendship or ask it of me?"
I started to answer, but Jean-Claude beat me to it. "Can you offer true friendship without asking for it in return?"
I opened my mouth to say that I'd sooner be friends with a hungry crocodile, but Jean-Claude touched my arm gently. It was enough. We were winning. Don't blow it.
"Friendship," the Traveler said. "Now that is indeed something I have not been offered since I took my seat upon the council."
I spoke then, without thinking first. "That must be very lonely."
He laughed, and it was that same eerie mixture of Willie's loud bray and a slithering chuckle. "She is like a wind through a window long closed, Jean-Claude. A mixture of cynicism, naiveté, and power." He touched my face, and I let him. He cupped the side of my face in his hand in an almost familiar gesture. "She does have a certain ... charm."
His hand trailed down my face, fingertips lingering against my cheek. He dropped his hand suddenly, fingers rubbing against each other as if he were trying to feel some invisible something. He shook his head. "I and this body will await you in the torture room." He answered me before I could even say no. "I do not plan to harm this body, Anita, but I do need it to walk about. I will leave this host if there is one that you would prefer I take."
He turned and stared at the rest of the group. His gaze came to rest at last on Damian. "I could take this one. Balthasar would enjoy that, I think."
I shook my head. "No."
"Is this one also your friend?"
I glanced at Damian. "Not my friend, no, but he's still mine."
The Traveler turned his head to one side, staring at me. "He belongs to you, how? Is he your lover?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Brother? Cousin? Ancestor?"
"No," I said.
"Then how is he ... yours?"
I didn't know how to explain it. "I won't give Damian to you to save Willie. You said it yourself. You're not hurting him."
"And if I was? Would you trade Damian's safety for your friend?"
I shook my head. "I'm not going to debate this with you."
"I am merely trying to discern how important your friends are to you, Anita."
I shook my head again. I didn't like where this conversation was going. If I said the wrong thing, the Traveler was going to start cutting Willie up. I could see it coming. It was a trap, and everything I thought to say led right into it.
Jean-Claude interrupted, "Ma petite values her friends."
The Traveler held up a hand. "No, she must answer this one herself. It is her loyalty that I wish to understand, not yours." He stared at me from less than a foot away, uncomfortably close. "How important are your friends to you, Anita? Answer the question."
I thought of one answer that might not lead where the Traveler wanted to go. "Important enough to kill for," I said.
His eyes flew wide. His mouth opened in amazement. "Are you threatening me?"
I shrugged. "You asked a question. I answered it."
He threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, what a man you would have made."
I'd spent enough time around macho guys to know it was a compliment, a sincerely meant one. They never understood the implied insult. And as long as we weren't cutting up people I cared for, I wasn't going to point it out. "Thanks," I said.
His face blanked instantly, the humor gone like a bad memory. Only his eyes, Willie's eyes, were still alive, glittering with a force that crept along my skin like a chill wind. He offered me his arm like Jean-Claude had done earlier.
I glanced at Jean-Claude. He gave the barest of nods. I placed my still bleeding hand on the Traveler's wrist. His pulse beat hard and fast against my hand. It felt like the small wound had a second heartbeat, pounding in rhythm to his pulse. The blood flowed faster out of the cut, called by his power. It dripped in a tickling line down my arm to the elbow to fall inside the arm of the coat, soaking into the dark cloth. Blood spread over his wrist in crimson rivulets. My blood.
My own heart sped up, feeding the fear, driving the blood faster. I knew in that moment that he could stand there and bleed me to death out of that small wound. That he could waste all the blood in me, all the power in me, to make a point.
My heart was thudding in my ears. I knew I should move my hand, but I just never seemed to get around to moving it, as if something was interfering with the screaming in my head, before it could reach my hand.
Jean-Claude reached out to me, but the Traveler spoke before he could touch us. "No, Jean-Claude. I acknowledge her as a power to be reckoned with if she can break this hold on her own."
My voice was breathy, rushed, as if I'd been running, but I could talk, think, I just couldn't move my hand. "What do I get out it?"
He laughed, pleased with himself. I think I'd finally asked a question he was comfortable with. "What do you want?"
I thought about that as the pulse in my hand beat fast and faster. Blood was beginning to soak the Traveler's sleeve, Willie's sleeve. I wanted Willie back. "Safe passage for me and all my people and friends."
He threw his head back and roared with laughter. The laughter stopped in mid-motion like a badly made film. He turned glittering eyes to me. "Break this hold, Anita, and I will grant you what you ask, but if you fail to break it, what do I gain?"
It was a trap, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to get out of it. If he kept bleeding me I'd pass out from blood loss, and it would all be over.
"Blood," I said.
He smiled. "I have that now."
"A willing drink from me. You don't have that."
"Tempting but not enough."
Grey spots were spreading across my vision. I was sweating and vaguely nauseous. It took a long time to pass out from blood loss, but he was speeding it up. I couldn't think what to offer him. I was having trouble thinking at all. "What do you want?"
Jean-Claude let out a sigh, as if I'd said the wrong thing.
"The truth."
I collapsed slowly to my knees, and only his hand on my elbow kept me upright. My vision was going in large grey-white splotches. I was dizzy, and it was only going to get worse.
"What truth?"
"Who really killed the Earthmover? Tell me that and you are free."
I swallowed hard, and whispered, "Fuck you." I slid to the ground still holding onto him, still bleeding. He bent over me, but through my ruined vision it was just Willie. Willie's sharp-angled face. Willie with his loud suits and worse ties. Willie who loved Hannah with a gentle devotion that made my throat tight. I reached out and touched that face, ran my tingling fingertips through his slicked-back hair, cradled his jaw in my hand, and whispered, "Willie, come to me."