"Like the creature you met in New Mexico," he said, voice still as cautious as I'd ever heard it.
"Yeah," I said.
"Are you saying that tonight you will agree to letting us merge the marks, that we will at last close these, as you so colorfully put it, wounds?"
"If it doesn't endanger my leopards, yeah. We need to do it as soon as possible. I'd hate to make the big decision and then have one of us get killed before we could batten down the hatches."
I heard him sigh, as if some great tension had left him. "You do not know how long I have waited for you to understand all this."
"You could have told me."
"You would not have believed me. You would have thought it was another trick to bind you closer to me."
"You're right, I wouldn't have believed you."
"Will Richard be meeting us at the club, as well?"
I was quiet for a heartbeat. "No, I'm not going to call him."
"Why ever not? It is a shapeshifter difficulty more than a vampire one."
"You know why not."
"You fear he will be too squeamish to allow you to do what needs doing to save your leopards."
"Yeah."
"Perhaps," Jean-Claude said.
"You aren't going to tell me to call him?"
"Why would I ask you to invite my chief rival for your affections to this little tete-a-tete? That would be foolish. I am many things, but foolish is not one of them."
That was certainly true. "Okay, give me directions, and I'll meet you and your people at the club."
"First, ma petite, what are you wearing?"
"Excuse me?"
"Clothes, ma petite, what clothes are you wearing?"
"Is this a joke? Because I don't have time ..."
"It is not an idle question, ma petite. The sooner you answer, the sooner we can all leave."
I wanted to argue, but if Jean-Claude said he had a point he probably did. I told him what I was wearing.
"You surprise me, ma petite. With a little effort it should do nicely."
"What effort?"
"I suggest you add boots to your ensemble. The ones I purchased for you would do very well."
"I am not wearing five-inch spikes anywhere, Jean-Claude. I'd break an ankle."
"I planned on you wearing those boots just for me, ma petite. I was thinking of the other boots with the milder heels that I bought when you were so very angry about the others."
Oh. "Why do I have to change shoes?"
"Because, delicate flower that you are, you have the eyes of a policeman, and so it would be better if you wore leather boots instead of high heels. It would be better if you remember that you are trying to move through the club as quickly and smoothly as possible. No one will help you find your leopards if they think you are an outsider, especially a policeman."
"Nobody ever mistakes me for a cop."
"No, but they begin to mistake you for something that smells of guns and death. Look harmless tonight, ma petite, until it is time to be dangerous."
"I thought this friend of yours, this Narcissus, would just escort us in."
"He is not my friend, and I told you the club is neutral ground. Narcissus will see that no great harm comes to your cats, but that is all. He will not let you come barging in to his world like the proverbial bull in the china shop. That, he will not allow, nor will he allow us to bring in a small army of our own. He is the leader of the werehyenas, and they are the only army allowed inside the club. There is no Ulfric, or Master of the City, within its walls. You have only the dominance you bring with you and your body to see you through."
"I'll have a gun," I said.
"But a gun will not get you into the upper rooms."
"What will?"
"Trust me, I will find a way."
I didn't like the sound of that at all. "Why is it that most of the time whenever I ask you for help, it's never a case where we can just run in and start shooting?"
"And why is it, ma petite, that when you do not invite me that it is almost always a case where you run in and shoot everything that moves?"
"Point taken," I said.
"What are your priorities for the night?" he asked.
I knew what he meant. "I want the wereleopards safe."
"And if they have been harmed?"
"I want vengeance."
"More than their safety?"
"No, safety first, vengeance is a luxury."
"Good. And if one, or more, is dead?"
"I don't want any of us going to jail, but eventually if not tonight, another night, they die." I listened to myself say it, and knew that I meant it.
"There is no mercy in you, ma petite."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"No, it is merely an observation."
I stood there, holding the phone, waiting to be shocked at what I was proposing. But I wasn't. I said, "I don't want to kill anyone if I don't have to."
"That is not true, ma petite."
"Fine, if they've killed my people, I want them dead. But I decided in New Mexico that I didn't want to be a sociopath, so I'm trying to act as if I'm not. So let's try to keep the body count low tonight, okay?"
"As you wish," he said. Then he added, "Do you really think that you can change the nature of what you are merely by wishing it?"
"Are you asking if I can stop being a sociopath, since I already am one?"
A moment of silence, then, "I think that is what I'm asking."
"I don't know, but if I don't pull myself back from the brink soon, Jean-Claude, there won't be any going back."
"I hear fear in your voice, ma petite."
"Yeah, you do."
"What do you fear?"
"I fear that by giving in to you and Richard that I'll lose myself. I fear that by not giving in to you and Richard I'll lose one of you. I fear that I'll get us killed because I'm thinking too much. I fear that I'm already a sociopath and there is no going back. Ronnie said that one of the reasons that I can't give you up and just settle down with Richard is that I can't give up a boyfriend who's colder than I am."
"I am sorry, ma petite." I wasn't sure exactly what he was apologizing for, but I accepted it anyway.
"Me, too. Give me directions to the club, I'll meet you there."
He gave me directions, and I read them back to him. We hung up. Neither of us said good-bye. Once upon a time we'd have ended the conversation with je t'aime, I love you. Once upon a time.
4
THE CLUB WAS over the river on the Illinois side, along with most of the other questionable clubs. Vampire-run businesses got a grandfather clause to operate in St. Louis proper, but the rest of the human-run clubs--and lycanthropes still counted legally as human--had to go into Illinois to avoid pesky zoning problems. Some of the zoning problems weren't even on the books, weren't even laws at all. But it was strange how many problems the bureaucrats could find when they didn't want a club in their fair city. If the vampires weren't such a big draw for tourists, the bureaucrats'd have probably found a way to get rid of them, too.
I finally found parking about two blocks from the club. It meant a walk to the club in an area of town that most women wouldn't want to be alone in after dark. Of course, most women wouldn't be armed. A gun doesn't cure all ills, but it's a start. I also had a knife sheath around each calf, very high up, so that the hilts came up on the side of my knees. I wasn't really comfortable that way, but I couldn't think of any other place to put knives so I could get to them easily. There was a very good chance I'd have bruises on my knees after tonight. Oh, well. I also had a black belt in Judo, and was making progress in Kenpo, a type of karate, one with fewer power moves and more moves using balance. I was as prepared as I could get for the wilds of the big city.