Shang-Da and Jamil stayed at Richard's back, and they showed claws where fingernails should have been, the half-change of the very alpha. For the rest, I felt them slip their skin, felt the rush of energy like small tugging explosions in my gut.
I could feel now that Jean-Claude had shut his end of our triumvirate down as tight as he could. I could look at him, but for once I couldn't feel him at all. He'd expected to die, and he hadn't wanted to take us with him.
I found one of the guns that the wererats had discarded and felt instantly better. The weight of it in my hand was a very good thing.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only human servant that had found a gun. Angelito fired at a werehyena, sending him spinning round, falling into the mass of biting rats. He screamed and writhed, trying to beat them off him.
I shot into the rats close to him, but there were too many. It was like trying to shoot water, you moved it, but didn't hurt it.
I knew one way to stop the rats. I sighted down the barrel at Musette/Belle's head. If I killed her, the rats would go back to wherever they came from.
I let out my breath, stilled myself for a shot that was far too close to Jean-Claude for my comfort. A rat jumped on my hand, dug its teeth into me. The wave of them began to jump on my dress, their claws catching in the heavy fabric. I screamed, and suddenly Micah was there, half-crouched, hissing at the rats. Those on the floor scattered, squealing in terror. The ones already on my body seemed immune to the fear. He helped me pick them off and threw them into the scurrying mass. The rats poured over their injured comrades and ate them, too.
The rats seemed more afraid of the wereleopards than of the wolves, and the wereleopards began to spread out from the wall, hissing, sending the small rodents back, gaining an ever-widening space.
The two vampires that I thought I'd killed had grown claws and fangs that no vampire ever had. They were wading through the werewolves in a spray of blood and white bone.
One great hand was raised at Shang-Da's back, and without thinking I fired, able to aim because I stood in the circle the leopards had made. The vampire's head exploded again. I knew now that if we wanted him to stay dead, we needed to take his heart and burn it all. Scattering the ashes over different bodies of running water wouldn't have hurt either.
Shang-Da had time for the barest of glances my way, then the other vampire launched himself and sent all three of them to the floor for the rats to engulf.
Belle's voice rose over the noise like a storm, a thunderclap that froze all of us in mid-action. Even the furred sea of rats froze. "Enough!"
She stepped back from Jean-Claude, and he began to laugh. It wasn't his magical laugh that slithered across the skin and made you think of sex, it was just laughter, pure unadulterated joy.
"We will fight no more," Belle said, and though her voice was still deep, it had lost its sexy purr. She sounded not angry, but put out, as if she'd gotten badly surprised.
The rats pulled back like a furry ocean draining away. They squeaked and squealed, but they left. Most of the werewolves were covered in tiny crimson bite marks. The remains of the fallen werehyena looked like it had been mauled by something much bigger.
Jean-Claude found his voice, and it was as joyous as his laughter had been. "You cannot feed from me. You cannot take back what you gave me, because I am no longer of your line. I am sourdre de sang of my own line now."
Belle stared at him, her face that blank emptiness that I knew so well. She was hiding how she really felt. "I know what it means, Jean-Claude."
"You can no longer treat me as a lesser member of your line, Belle. There are different niceties to be observed between two sourdres de sang."
She smoothed her hands down her full skirt, and I knew that gesture, it was one of Jean-Claude's. Nervous, Belle Morte was nervous. "I was within my rights to do as I have done, for I did not know, nor did you."
"True enough, but now that we do know, you must take all your people and go. Leave our lands tonight, for if you are found in our territory come tomorrow night, your lives will be forfeit."
"You would not truly kill my Musette?" But her voice held the lightest thread of uncertainty.
"To be able to kill Musette, legally, with no political repercussions." He made a small tut-tut sound. "That has been the fondest wish of many a Master Vampire, and I will do it, Belle. You can taste the truth of my words."
She stiffened, just a little. "I will retain control of Musette until we are out of your lands. She has an unfortunate temper at times."
"It would be a bad thing if she lost her temper here in St. Louis," Jean-Claude said, and his voice was empty, the joy seeping away.
Cherry appeared at my elbow. "Sorry to interrupt, I'm not an expert on vampires, but I think Asher's dying."
49
Asher lay against the far wall. He was a skeleton with dried parchment skin. He lay on a bed of golden Christmas tree tinsel, the glorious remnant of his hair. His clothes had collapsed around his sunken body, like a deflated balloon. His eyes were closed, and only the roundness of his eyes underneath that thin skin was flesh and solid. Everything else seemed to have withered away.
I fell to my knees beside him, because suddenly I couldn't stand.
"He's not dead," Valentina's child voice came, but she stayed out of reach. She offered comfort, but she wasn't stupid.
I looked down at what was left of all that beauty and didn't believe her.
"See with something other than your eyes, ma petite," Jean-Claude said. He didn't kneel, but stayed standing, facing Belle Morte, almost as if he didn't dare turn his back on her.
I did what Jean-Claude told me to do; I looked with power instead of my physical eyes. I could feel a spark inside Asher, some small part of him still burned. He wasn't dead, but he might as well have been. I looked up at Jean-Claude. "He's too weak to take blood."
"And he has no human servant," Belle Morte said, "no animal to call. He is without," and she paused, seemed to think upon her next word. Finally, she said, "resources."
Resources, that was a nice word for it. But whatever word you used, she was right. Asher had nothing to feed on but blood, and if he was too weak to feed on that... I couldn't finish the thought even in my head.
"Belle Morte could save him," Jean-Claude's voice was neutral, empty.
I looked up at him, then past him to her. "What do you mean?"
"She made him, and she is a sourdre de sang. She could simply give him back some of the energy that she stole from him."
"I stole nothing," Belle said, and her own neutral voice held a hint of anger. "You cannot steal what is yours by right, and Asher is mine, all of him, Jean-Claude, every piece of his skin, every drop of his blood. He lives only through my sufferance, and without that he dies."
Jean-Claude made a small gesture. "Perhaps stole is not the correct term, but you can restore some of his life energy. You could bring him back enough to be able to feed on blood."
"I could, but I will not." Her anger was like a scalding wind, biting along my skin where it touched.
"Why not?" I asked it, because no one else seemed willing to, and I had to know.
"I do not have to explain myself to you, Anita."
I still had the gun in my hand. Suddenly it was heavy, as if it had reminded me it was there, or maybe the shock of lifting it was enough for me to feel again. I stood up and aimed the gun at Musette's chest. "If Asher dies, so does Musette."
"You have not had much luck killing vampires with your little gun," Belle said, and she sounded confident. Of course it wasn't her body that I was about to riddle with bullets.