I turned and glanced at Jean-Claude. «I'm a little busy here,» I said, and couldn't keep the impatience out of my voice.
«I would be more specific with your calls, if I were you. You told only Requiem to stop. The others are still compelled.» He motioned at the other vampires. London had a death grip on the bedpost. He looked panicked. Wicked and Truth were fighting at the edge of the bed. Truth wanted to get on, and Wicked was holding his brother back. Truth looked scared, and Wicked looked angry.
I found Elinore standing by her chair, holding on to it, as if only the chair's weight kept her from coming to me.
I felt myself go pale. «I didn't mean…»
«Your necromancy has gained in power, ma petite, as have your beasts. Be more specific on your orders; use his name.»
I looked at Elinore. «If I called you, would you have to come to me?»
She swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. «I would fight, but the compulsion would be strong. I am not yet a Master of the City. As you must be of a certain level of power to rule a city, so the ruling of it, and the oaths that are taken, the magic that binds, gains a vampire more power. I do not have those ties, yet, so I… I am not Augustine, or Samuel. I think if you forced the issue it would be difficult.»
It was my turn to swallow.
«We are all blood-oathed to Jean-Claude,» London said, through gritted teeth. «I think her call is stronger for her ties to him.»
Truth broke from his brother, and went to the chair by the fireplace. He strode to it, and hid his face in his hands. Wicked turned back to me. «He wanted to go to you. We are both blood-oathed to Jean-Claude. Why was my brother more drawn to your call?»
«He fed on ma petite, when he oathed to us,» Jean-Claude said. «You took my blood.»
«I told you when you brought him over that I had to be brought over in exactly the same way. You assured me that it wouldn't matter.» He gestured angrily toward his brother. «This matters.»
Requiem wrapped his arms around me, and laid a kiss upon my neck. He was bending his stomach to do it. Didn't it hurt?
I said the only thing I could think of. «I didn't know.»
«We must always be bound the same,» Wicked said, «we must always be the same. It is our strength. It is who we are. Whatever you have done to him, you must do to me, or undo to him.»
I nodded. «I'll try.»
«I'm beginning to understand why we used to kill necromancers on sight,» London said.
«Is that a threat?» Jean-Claude said, voice mild.
«No, no, master.»
But I understood what London meant. Requiem licked along my neck, and that one touch made me shiver, just a little. «Requiem, stop touching me.»
He froze against me, but he was still touching me. He simply stopped kissing and licking me. I guess I'd have to be careful how I worded things. I had to find Requiem. Not just a vampire, or the dead. I needed him, his individual self. I'd done something similar once in the Church of Eternal Life, when the police and I were searching for a vampire murder suspect. I'd sought the flavor of one person, and that had been someone I hadn't known. I knew Requiem. I was holding him.
I wrapped my arms around him, moved all that thick hair to one side, so I could bury my face in the bend of his neck. I breathed in the scent of his skin. He didn't smell warm. I could smell his cologne, the soap he used, his shampoo, but underneath all of it was the faint smell of death. Not of corpses and rot, because vampires did not do that, but the scent of long-closed rooms, vaguely like the smell of snakes. Musty, not warm, nothing that you could cuddle. Yet his arms were strong, the edges of his wounds on the one arm catching in the silk of my robe. He was real, but he wasn't exactly alive.
I held him close, and pushed my necromancy into the body I held. Pushed it carefully, just into this one body, nowhere else. I searched not for this befuddled stranger but for that spark that was truly Requiem. I found him, in the dark, inside himself. He wasn't afraid, but softly confused, lost. I called to him. I felt him look up, hear me, but he could not come. I could see his prison, touch the door, gaze at him through the bars, but I did not have the key. Then I realized what we needed. Blood. No matter what type of undead you're dealing with, blood is usually the key.
I rose up from his neck, and swept my own hair to the side. «Feed, Requiem, feed from me.»
He showed me a face with eyes wide with shock, as if he couldn't believe I would let him do it, but he didn't ask me to repeat the order. His hand wrapped in my hair, his other hand at my back. He pressed me tight against him, holding my neck to the side, and he brought me down to him, for he was sitting and I kneeling. He brought my neck down to his mouth, the way you would do for a kiss. He could not roll me with his eyes, and he didn't try. There would be nothing to change the pain to pleasure. I felt him tense, and I tried to relaxed, but you never relax. You tense up, just a bit, and it hurts more.
He bit me, fangs sinking in, pain sharp enough to make me push at his shoulders, as I tried to get away. I just couldn't take that much pain out of the box without pushing against it. I felt him begin to drink me down, his throat convulsing, swallowing. Something that could be so erotic, and it just fucking hurt like this.
But it was just like beheading a chicken to raise a zombie, or spreading blood on a vampire's lips to heal him. It was blood with a purpose, and I sent my magic down with that blood. I used it, to call Requiem. Used it to find him in the dark, and set him free.
He drew back from my throat, gasping, as if he'd been running. There was blood on his lower lip as he stared up at me. One moment he still looked dazed, the next he spilled into his eyes. They flared with blue fire, with that hint of turquoise in the center. His power danced over my skin like a cold, prickling breeze.
«I am here, Anita. You have cleared my mind. What would you have of me?»
I moved back from his arms, touching my neck, and came away with blood. Remus was already sending the young guard Cisco to the bathroom for gauze and tape.
«I wanted you free, and yourself. We've got that.»
He shook his head, and winced, as if only now did the bruises hurt. He leaned back against the mounded pillows, favoring his stomach and chest, holding his injured arm carefully. «It was like being on drugs; nothing hurt that badly, when you touched me. I am free, but everything hurts.»
«Isn't that always the way,» I said, but I smiled. He was himself again.
I looked around at the other vampires. I looked at Elinore still gripping the back of her chair. I felt her. Felt her as if she were a flavor of ice cream that I could have put in a cone and licked. Mostly vanilla, but with chocolate chips. I looked at London. Not vanilla, definitely something darker, chunkier, full of hard crunchy bits. Wicked filled my mind like icing, chocolate icing to spread on skin and lick clean. I shook my head at the imagery, and looked for Truth, still huddling by the fireplace. Something fresh and clean, strawberries, maybe, strawberry ice cream to melt down the skin, and be licked away, so you could suck the cold around the nipples…
«Anita» — and it was Jean-Claude's voice — «Anita, you must stop this.»
He never called me Anita. It made me look at him. «Why can't I taste you?» I asked.
«Because I am your master, and not a toy for your power.»
The look on his face frightened me, because he was frightened. I licked dry lips, and said, «I guess this answers the question. I don't touch anyone else's vampires.»
«No,» he said, «no.» He was at the edge of the bed. «Now shut it down.»
It took me a second to realize what he meant. My necromancy, I needed to turn it off again. I closed my eyes, and drew it back in. I drew in tight and tighter, closed and squeezed that metaphysical fist tight and hard. But it was like the hand wasn't big enough to hold it all now. I could squeeze it down, but it leaked through as if the fingers were trying to hold sand. No, not true. I didn't want to stop. It felt so good to wander through the vampires, better than playing with zombies. The moment I realized I was the one letting the fist leak, I was able to shut it down. It almost hurt, but I did it. I could do it. But I wondered if there would come a day when there was so much power that I wouldn't be able to shut it down completely? I needed to talk to my magical mentor, Marianne, about that, sooner rather than later.
I opened my eyes and said, «How's that?»
«Good,» he said, but his voice was not happy.
«That was frightening,» Elinore said. «I felt your power, as if you were licking along my skin, my…«She shivered, not in a happy way.
«Sorry,» I said.