Crimson Death (30 page)

“I don't know,” Nathaniel said.

“You have some of the same issues with men that I had with other women,” I said.

“But you've got three, or is it four, female lovers now?” Damian asked.

“It was four before I decided Jade had more issues than I could deal with in bed with another woman, so three.”

“How did you . . . How are you okay with it now?”

“I was bound metaphysically to Jade without meaning to be, and you're always attracted to your animals to call. If she and I had matched up better in the bedroom she might have been my only-ever girlfriend, but she likes almost the opposite of what I enjoy for sex. But it finally made me realize what a good sport all the men have been with the other men. Nathaniel is the only truly bisexual boyfriend I have. Even Jean-Claude is more into women than men.”

“Most people wouldn't think that about him,” Damian said.

“I'm in his head. I know what he's attracted to most. He likes men—don't get me wrong—but not to the degree he's demonstrated to keep me happy. It just seemed fair to try to bring in women who would be more into all my lovers and not just me.”

“You have that with Dev, too,” Damian said.

Nathaniel grinned. “He's as bi as I am.”

“But a lot more vanilla,” I said.

“Rocky road, maybe.”

I nodded. “I'll give you that.”

“It's like I'm horrified by what we did, but not. It's almost as if I think I should be upset, but I'm not as upset as I . . . Why aren't I more upset?”

“I think Nathaniel was driving our little threesome and he has no conflicts about what happened.”

“He's shared that with us?” Damian asked.

“Maybe.”

“I remember both your eyes glowing.”

“I remember your eyes like green fire.”

“I wanted to be desired the way that you and Nathaniel want each other. I remember thinking that.”

“I heard you think it, and I gave you what you were wishing for,” Nathaniel said.

“Our flavor of Jean-Claude's bloodline gives a person their heart's desire,” I said.

“I wanted to be desired the way the two of you are about each other, so the two of you desired me together.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Yes,” Nathaniel said.

“Now what?” Damian asked.

“If you aren't mad at me, I'd really like a hug,” Nathaniel said.

Damian smiled. “I'm not mad. Part of me thinks I should be, but most of me is just happy for anyone to want me. I think that was the hardest part of being gone from She-Who-Made-Me. She was a sadistic bitch and she tortured me, but she wanted me the way a woman wants a man. She made me feel desired more than anyone ever had before in a sick, twisted, and totally serial killer way, but she told me I was her favorite toy and I believed her. I think she only let me go to Jean-Claude because she was finally growing bored with me. I think she was worried she would finally destroy me and . . . part of her didn't want to do that.”

“Are you saying she let Jean-Claude bargain you away from her because she cared for you and was worried she'd finally hurt you permanently?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, and it was almost a whisper. “I was so glad to be free of her, but I've never had anyone desire me so much. That sounds so sick, doesn't it?”

“It sounds a little like Stockholm syndrome,” I said.

“I understand,” Nathaniel said. “When I was on the streets and selling myself, I thought being desired was the same thing as love. I know that's not true now, but if someone doesn't desire me, then I don't feel loved.”

Damian nodded. “Yes, yes. Cardinale loved me, but after a few months, she didn't desire me in bed anymore, or if she did it was full
of questions about who I was fantasizing about. Was I thinking about that one customer I'd danced with, or the one I'd taken blood from? It felt like she didn't want me so much as she didn't want anyone else to have me. But even her level of obsession with me wasn't close to the obsession of She-Who-Made-Me when she was with me.”

“Everyone wants to be wanted,” Nathaniel said.

“Just not always in the same way,” I said.

“I just want to be desired without being tortured at the same time.”

His hand was still clutching the towel around his waist, but the towel had slid down one side to expose more of his hip than he probably wanted.

“Would it help for me to say that part of me wishes you'd drop the towel?”

“You want to see me naked?” he said, smiling and trying to make a joke of it.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” Nathaniel echoed.

Damian looked from one to the other of us.

“You really do need to start being more specific about which of us you're talking to,” I said.

Damian laughed. “I guess I do. I'm not sure how I feel about all this, but with everything I've just remembered, what the hell?” He let the towel fall to the floor and stood there pale and perfect with the only splashes of color against the pure white of his skin being the searing crimson of his hair and the grass green of his eyes. He lowered his gaze as if he couldn't look at us while he stood there nude.

“God, you're beautiful,” I said.

He looked up then and smiled. “You've never told me that before.”

“If I haven't, then I'm a fool.”

Damian looked at the other man in the room and said, “What do you have to say for yourself, Nathaniel?”

He gave a nervous laugh and said, “I think what I want to say wouldn't make you happy with me, and this is going way better than I thought it would, so let me admire the view and not say much.”

“Say what you're thinking.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “No.”

“Please.”

He sighed and glanced at me. “Is this a trap, like a girl trap, but a guy version?”

“I don't know.”

He looked back at Damian. “Okay, but if this gets me in trouble I won't be this honest again.”

“I understand,” Damian said.

Nathaniel sighed, and said, “I want to offer you the other side of my neck so we can go down on you again until you tell us to stop, or you come, and you don't want to go that way. You want to fuck us.”

“I did say that, didn't I?”

Nathaniel nodded.

“You'd just finished licking my dick, both of you. One of you on either side like it was a Popsicle you were sharing.” His eyes fluttered shut and he shivered hard enough for certain parts of his anatomy to shake and distract the hell out of both of us.

“Wow,” I said, “I don't know what's changed, but da-amn.”

“What she said,” Nathaniel said.

Damian smiled. “I don't know what's changed either, but I like that you're looking at me like I'm one of the best things you've ever seen. I've seen you look at each other and Micah that way, but never me.” He started walking toward us all nude and tempting.

“I hate to ruin the mood—God knows I do—but I have to get ready for a plane ride to Ireland. Edward needs my help.”

The happiness was suddenly gone from Damian's face. He was as unreadable and distant as if he'd been turned into a marble statue, white and perfect, but not very alive. “What's happened now?”

Nathaniel sighed. “I know you have to tell him, but I'm allowed to be disappointed.”

“Hell, I'm disappointed, but I need to get over there ASAP.”

“Tell me,” Damian said.

“Put your towel back on and I'll be able to concentrate enough to tell you,” I said.

That made him smile again. “I like that I can distract you.”

“Towel back on so we can talk about vampires in Dublin.”

He went back for his towel and bent down to pick it up. Nathaniel
and I both turned our heads as he moved so our view was as good as possible. When we caught each other doing it, we giggled like we were thirteen and had been caught looking at nude photos online.

“What's so funny?” Damian asked.

“Just admiring the view,” I said.

“What she said,” Nathaniel said again.

Damian smiled. “I love that you both want me, and I think that means that whatever Nathaniel did to us all is still working. Even the thought that my old mistress is doing awful things back in Ireland doesn't change that I'm happy you both want me.” He frowned.

“If you're happy, you're supposed to smile,” I said.

“Does it make any sense to say that I'm not sure I'm supposed to be happy about this?”

“Oh yeah, I totally get that,” I said.

“Then can you explain it to me?”

I laughed. “Sorry, Damian, but it doesn't make sense to me when I do it either. If something makes you happy you should just enjoy it and embrace it, but I've got a whole list of things that make me happy and I fought like hell not to enjoy them, not to want them, not to do them, because they didn't match who I thought I was, or who I thought I should be.”

“Are you saying, I think I shouldn't enjoy the two of you looking at me like that, but I do, so I'm trying to make myself miserable about it, even though it actually makes me happy?”

“That is exactly what I'm saying.”

“Fuck that. Just tell me what she's done, Anita. That should be awful enough to help us appreciate whatever happiness we can find.”

I couldn't argue with him. I didn't even want to. We sat down on the edge of the bed, because there weren't enough chairs, and I told him what was happening in Dublin. He was right. It was awful, but it didn't make us want to stop enjoying the happiness we'd just found together. It just made us sad, and then I asked him to come to Ireland with us, and that made him scared. Nathaniel didn't want him to go either. I suggested that Pierette and Pierrot could act as our guides to the local vampires, and Damian liked that even less. He hated them both for having watched him and other vampires being tortured over
the centuries but never lifting a hand to help any of them. He hated them enough to be willing to go back to Ireland and help me solve the mystery. They say love is a powerful motivator, and it is, but sometimes hatred gets the job done, too. Love or hate, I'd take the help.

D
AMIAN PUT HIS
towel back on so Nathaniel and I could focus. I called Jean-Claude to ask if I could use his private jet to fly to Ireland or if we'd have to find a commercial flight. Micah and Rafael were going to be at least a few more days on the West Coast, so, yes, the jet was free to take us to Ireland. I did a group text to Bobby Lee, Claudia, and Fredo about a need for guards who could work with the police in Ireland. Which was a polite way of saying,
Avoid anyone with a criminal background
. We had a few who had started life as muscle for gangsters or had juvenile records with gangs. I didn't want that to make things in Ireland more complicated. We needed simpler, not harder. What I didn't realize was that harder was still in the bedroom with me, and I didn't mean that in any fun, literal way.

“I should go with you,” Nathaniel said.

Damian smiled. “I'd like that.”

I looked from one to the other of them as they sat beside me on the bed and said, “No.”

They both looked at me and said in unison, “Why not?” Since I was sitting in the middle it was like stereo.

“There's no reason for Nathaniel to go with us,” I said.

“I'm part of your triumvirate,” he said.

“Which doesn't work well enough to gain us anything on this trip,” I said.

“Nathaniel made it work yesterday,” Damian said.

“And you're okay with the way he made it work?” I asked.

“Anita, are you trying to make Damian upset with me?”

I looked at Nathaniel and wanted to say no, but I tried for honest instead. “Not in the front of my head.”

Nathaniel gave me the look the comment deserved.

“I'm sorry, but I really don't want you to come to Ireland with us.”

“Why not?”

“It's a murder investigation for one thing, and that's not the part of my life that you help with.”

“I helped in Colorado,” he said.

“You did, but the initial trip was to see Micah's family. It didn't turn into a police case until after we got there.”

“Funny how many of your out-of-town trips turn into cases,” Damian said.

It made me look at him. “What do I say, that it's not my fault?”

“Just an observation,” he said, putting his hands out in a show of innocence.

“I helped you find some of the people that the vampires kidnapped,” Nathaniel said.

“You changed into your leopard form and tracked them for me, and it was helpful, but Micah's family was well-known in the area. I'm not sure we'll have that kind of connection in Ireland, so you shapeshifting will probably not be a great idea there.”

“You're concentrating on the details and ignoring the fact that I have helped, which is more than Damian has done.”

“You've had more opportunities because you live and travel with her,” Damian said, smoothing back a strand of still-wet hair.

“That's true,” Nathaniel said.

“I keep waiting for you to argue, but you don't if it's true.”

“Why should I argue if it's true?”

“Cardinale argued about everything, almost.”

“We're not her,” Nathaniel said.

I didn't like the way he said it, as if we were taking the place in Damian's life that Cardinale had. I didn't have room in my life for another romantic triangle. Wisely, I kept my mouth shut. He'd just broken up with Cardinale yesterday and had his first sex with both of us since we formed our triad by accident years ago. I'd had enough
therapy to know not to push, especially since I wanted him to travel with me to the place he probably feared most on the planet. Then I thought about being trapped in Ireland with Damian freshly broken up from Cardinale without Nathaniel to help me balance things. Crap.

“You know how people in romances say,
but no one is me
, or
no one is you
?” Damian asked.

“Yeah,” Nathaniel said.

“That can be a positive and a negative. No one will ever be the good things that Cardinale was to me, but the bad things were pretty bad and I never want those again.”

“I hear that,” I said.

“Me, too,” Nathaniel said.

I patted Damian on the back and Nathaniel reached around me and patted his leg. We all had our bad relationships.

Nathaniel sat back on his side of the bed and said, “You're going in as a consultant, not a Marshal, and they want Damian to come and help them. Just tell them he wouldn't come without me.”

“And how do I do that without explaining that I'm a sort of living vampire and he's my vampire servant and you're my animal to call?”

“The police in Ireland have less experience with vampires than the ones here,” Damian said. “It won't occur to them to ask those kinds of questions, Anita.”

Nathaniel said, “If they ask, just tell them that I'm Damian's animal to call.”

“Damian's not a master vampire.”

“The police won't know that.”

“I can't do my job if I'm worried about your safety.”

“But it's okay to endanger me?” Damian asked.

“I didn't mean it like that.”

“I know you're not in love with me, Anita, but seriously, if it's too dangerous for Nathaniel to go, then why isn't it too dangerous for me to go?”

The first answer that came to mind wasn't something to say out loud, because it was basically that I needed Damian to help us with the vampires in Ireland. I didn't need Nathaniel. I was willing to endanger Damian to help save lives and solve the case. Nathaniel didn't need to
come to help solve the case, or that was how I saw it, so any risk to him had no payoff. Police work was often about risk assessment and gain versus loss. Probably M'Lady was now scrambling to shore up her own power base, so she wouldn't be a threat to any of us, and I wouldn't be taking Damian with me when we finally hunted the rogues, so he wasn't going to be in the line of fire either way. If I'd thought otherwise I wouldn't have taken him, so why was it different adding Nathaniel? The only truthful answer was that I valued him over Damian, and that was something better not shared.

“If I really thought you would be in serious danger, I wouldn't take you either, Damian, but you have information about the local vampires that might help us figure out what is happening. You could help us save lives, and that's worth a little risk for both of us. Nathaniel hasn't even been to Ireland, so he can't help us. There's no cost benefit to him possibly risking himself by coming with us to Ireland.”

“I'm coming with you, Anita,” Nathaniel said.

“No.”

“I'm not asking your permission, Anita.”

“Excuse me?”

“I'm not asking permission. I'm telling you I'm coming.”

“It's my case. If I say no, then it's no.”

“I was able to take control of the power between us and make it work, which is something that neither one of you has managed to do. Don't you think that it might be useful to have a working triumvirate of power in Ireland when you're up against rogue vampires?”

“I'm already part of a working triumvirate.”

“Richard's doubts cripple Jean-Claude and you, too.”

“Jean-Claude and I work just fine, and it's helped make Richard Ulfric here in St. Louis.”

“I'm not sure it's been your trio so much as the fact that you ended up being so fucking powerful, and that fed into Jean-Claude and Richard. I think if you'd just been a normal animator and not a true necromancer, or if you hadn't gotten contaminated with one of the rarest types of lycanthropy on the planet, that having your first triumvirate crippled could have gotten all three of you killed by some ambitious master vampire years ago.”

I stared at Nathaniel. It was like he was somebody else suddenly. Someone more serious and more . . . Was it wiser? I didn't want it to be true, because I didn't like what he'd said, but he was right in one thing. Richard's reluctance to fully be with Jean-Claude and me had damaged the power the three of us could have had, but luckily for Jean-Claude I had become a metaphysical miracle.

“I think he's right.”

I glared at Damian. “Don't help.”

“I thought you wanted me to help by going back to the one country I most want to avoid. She let me go once, Anita, but part of me worries that if I get this close to her again physically, she'll find enough power to steal me from you forever.”

“You're my vampire servant and in a triumvirate with Nathaniel and me. Your metaphysical dance card is all filled up.”

“She won't know that.”

“She will if she tries to break you free of me.”

“She almost killed me once from a distance, remember?”

I did remember.

Nathaniel said, “We remember.”

“I always wondered why she didn't try to take you again. Maybe this is why,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe something about the Mother of All Darkness waking up and then getting killed damaged She-Who-Made-You's power.”

“If she's allowing lesser vampires to invade Dublin, then she's lost power. She would never have allowed that many new vampires to just happen that close to her.”

“The Harlequin think that the magic that kept her, or any vampire, from creating too many vampires in Ireland is fading.”

“What do you mean, the magic that kept the vampires from being created? She-Who-Made-Me kept our numbers low to help us hide.”

“According to the Harlequin, the Fey magic of Ireland itself makes the land so alive that the dead don't rise easily.”

“Are you saying that She-Who-Made-Me didn't keep our numbers low because she wanted to, but because she had no choice?”

“If Pierette and Pierrot are correct, yeah.”

“If that is true, then she lied so we wouldn't realize her power had limits.”

“What did that gain her?” I asked.

“She's controlling us all through fear of her power. If we'd known that power had limits, we might have pushed back more. Hell, Anita, she had some pretty powerful people under her power. If they had known the land itself was fighting back, it might have made them fight harder to be free. Her animal to call is seal, so she can call the Roane, or Selkies.”

“I thought they were considered a type of fairy creature, not a shapeshifter,” I said.

“I know that's what folklore says, but from my experience they reacted to her the same way that the wolves react to Jean-Claude, or the tigers interact with you. She can call real seals to do her bidding and their half-human counterparts the same way that I've seen other master vampires call their natural animals and their preternatural ones.”

Nathaniel said, “Maybe folklore thinks they're fairy creatures, because they didn't know what else to call them?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Knowing the land itself was fighting her might have been enough to get the Selkies to fight harder for their freedom. The rest of us were created by her, part of her bloodline, but the Selkies are born free folk. Only her magic, or the theft of their sealskin, could bind them to someone on land as a slave.”

“Like the stories of the seal maidens where fishermen stole their skins and forced them to be their wives,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Some of those legends are supposed to be romantic stories,” I said.

“There's nothing romantic about a man stealing something of yours and then blackmailing you into his bed or forcing you to marry him, Anita.”

“When you say it like that, no,” I said.

“Remember that the romantic versions of these stories were told in centuries when women didn't always have a lot of freedom to choose a husband. Ancient Ireland had some of the best laws for women when it came to marriage, but overall marriage was less about romance and
more about land, wealth, safety, and procreation. I mean inheritance and the safety of land and even countries. The idea that marriage is about romance and love is such a new idea.”

“Curse those French troubadours,” I said.

He smiled. “The British troubadours helped spread the new ideas, too.”

“I guess when singing and poetry were your major entertainment, that was the way new ideas traveled.”

“A good singing voice, someone who could play an instrument or recite poetry and tell a good story—they were so important that some rulers would compete to have the great bards under their roofs. A good jester wasn't just to amuse the king but to help the rest of the court while away the formal feasts. Traveling theatrical troupes were welcome in all the major cities of Europe, and the small ones, though actors were usually paid better in larger cities.”

“You were a young Viking before you became a vampire. How do you know all that?”

“She brought over an actor and a few of his troupe to entertain us. She pretended at the time that she thought making them all vampires would endanger our hiding places, but now I know that she couldn't raise them all. She wasn't strong enough. Gods, just saying that is frightening and thrilling at the same time.”

“Why frightening and thrilling?” Nathaniel asked.

“Because to question her meant punishment. I left Ireland believing that she was all-powerful. To know that she's not is exciting, because that means that maybe I could rescue the ones I left behind.”

“I didn't know you left anyone behind,” I said.

“Not in the way you mean, probably, but you spend centuries with anyone and you become something to each other.”

“Friends?” Nathaniel asked.

“True friendship was not encouraged, and in fact any relationship that didn't revolve around her was actively discouraged.”

“How actively?” I asked.

“Not as actively as a lover that you might prefer to her. I mean, she wouldn't kill someone that you were just friendly with, but actively enough that she made certain you'd remember the lesson.”