"No," I said, "no, it's okay." My chest felt like a piece of it had been carved out, not b.l.o.o.d.y and warm, but cold and icy. As if the piece had been missing a long time, but I hadn't wanted to see it, feel it, know it. "Maybe G.o.d isn't the s.e.x police, Richard. Sometimes I think Christians get all hung-up on the s.e.x thing because it's easier to worry about s.e.x than to ask yourself, Am I a good person? If as long as you don't have s.e.x with a lot of people you're a good person, that's easy. It's easy to avoid that. It's easy to think, I'm not f.u.c.king anyone, so I'm good. It makes it easy to be cruel, because as long as you're not f.u.c.king around, nothing you do can be that bad. Is that really all you think of G.o.d? Is he just the s.e.x police for you and Malcolm? Or is it that s.e.x is easy to worry about, easy to avoid, and the whole love-your-neighbor-as-you-love-yourself thing that's hard? Some days it's so hard, I feel like trying to take care of everyone in my life will break me apart. But I do my best. I do my best for everyone in my life every d.a.m.n day. Can you say that, Richard? Do you do your best for everyone in your life every d.a.m.n day?"

"Do you include yourself and Jean-Claude on that list?" he asked, his voice so quiet, so full of emotion that it was strangely empty. "Do you not include us?" I asked. I could feel the tears pushing in my throat, at the back of my eyes like heat. I would not cry for him. Those true brown eyes stared at me. I watched the pain in them, but finally, he said, "No, I don't."

I nodded, a little too fast, a little too rapidly. I fought to swallow past the tears. I thought I'd choke on them. I cleared my throat twice, so sharp it hurt. I wanted to accuse him, say, "Then what were you doing in my bed today? Why did you sleep with Micah, Nathaniel, and me? Why did you have s.e.x with me today? If I'm not a person in your life, then ..." I swallowed the words, because they didn't matter. He'd have had some answer for everything I said, or he'd have felt bad about it. Either way, I didn't want to hear it, or see it. I didn't need to hear more explanations from him. I didn't need to see him agonize over his moral quandaries anymore. I was done.

"I'm not angry, Richard. I don't hate you. I'm just not going to do this anymore. You think I'm evil. You think Jean-Claude is evil. You think what we do to keep everyone safe is evil. Fine, fine."

"I didn't mean . . ."

I held up a hand. "Just stop, don't. The hand on your arm that's keeping the doubts from eating you alive was forged through s.e.x, Richard. That calm was won through centuries of pain and s.e.x and servitude. Jean-Claude, the evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d, saved Damian, ransomed him from h.e.l.l. They didn't even like each other, but Jean-Claude wouldn't leave anyone with her, not if he could save him. Evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Anita," Damian said, and his face held-fear, something, as if he knew what was coming.

"You benefit from our evil, Richard. You count on us being willing to do your dirty work. h.e.l.l, I'm the Bolverk for your clan. Literally, I am your evildoer. I do what the Ulfric will not. So fine, fine, I will be your Bolverk, but we are not in the lupanar this night. We are not lupa and Ulfric this night. This night is vampire business. This night I am Jean-Claude's human servant. I am Nathaniel and Damian's master. That is the power you are hiding behind right this second. You think we're evil, fine." I looked at Damian; I gave him a look to let him know I meant what I was about to say. "Damian, let him go."

"You wouldn't," Richard said.

"You can't have it both ways, Richard. You're right, the ardeur will have to rise. You don't want to be touching any of us when that hap pens, do you?"

He just looked at me.

"If you mean what you say, if you truly believe it's wrong, evil, then let go of Damian's arm. Let go, and stand on your moral high ground.

If Jean-Claude and I mean nothing to you, then stand by yourself, Richard, stand on your own two feet."

He stared at me as if I'd said something terrible. He stood there clinging to Damian's arm. "Don't do this, not now." "I think now is perfect, Richard. I think now is great. We need to raise the ardeur, so let go."

"Jean-Claude," he said, and looked at the vampire.

"It is a strange night, my Ulfric. I should be arguing your case. I should fight to keep you with us, but I don't seem to want to. I, like ma pet.i.te, grow tired of being judged by someone I care for. It cuts deeper tonight, and I know that is Columbine. She is laughing at us, even now. She has stopped attacking the congregation. She has put all her power upon us, because she found our weakness. The weakness that has always been there, from the first."

"You mean me," Richard said.

"I mean our triumvirate. It is flawed, and I do not know how to fix it. I feel what Anita has forged with her servants. The two of you are more powerful; my triumvirate should be the stronger of the two, but it is not." "Because of me," Richard said.

"No, because of who we all are, mon ami. But whatever the cause, I grow tired of this fight." He leaned back against Asher, rested his head against the other man's face. "I have rejected those I do love to save your sensibilities, and Anita's."

"You're all lovers," Richard said. "Don't tell me otherwise."

"We will have to raise the ardeur, Richard," Jean-Claude said. "Let go of Damian's hand or you will be dragged into what is about to hap pen. If it is evil, and you would escape it, let go. Let go of us, Richard, let go of us all."

"This is vampire trickery," Malcolm said. "Do not let her force you into something you will regret later."

"It is vampire trickery, but as Richard said things he truly believed, so I think Anita and I have come to an understanding. We are tired of this, Ulfric. We are tired of you making us the villains. If we are the villains, then let go. If we are not the villains, then hold on, but either way, you know what I must do now. If you do not wish to be part of it, then you must separate from us."

"Let go, Richard," I said.

He looked at Jean-Claude, then turned to me. "Is this what you want?" "Is it what you want?" I asked. "I don't know," he said. "Then let me go, Richard, let me go." He let go.

CHAPTER 45

RICHARD FELL TO his knees. His head bowed toward the floor, his hands rising to his head, as if he could shut out the doubt in his own mind. Alone, he could not fight Columbine's power. He was alone, but we weren't.

Damian's hand in mine drew him into the circle of our power. He had some of the same issues with the other men that Richard had, but Damian was a more practical creature. With him pressed against me, so that Jean-Claude had to move his arm to let the other vampire in closer, I heard, or felt, Damian's thoughts. It wasn't a fate worse than death, no matter what happened with Jean-Claude and the rest of the men; nothing that we would do with him would be half so awful as what he'd endured at her hands. The other thought, before Jean-Claude grabbed the reins of all our minds, was that Jean-Claude and I were good masters, kinder than any he'd known; we were worth fighting for. Then Jean-Claude settled into the driver's seat of our meta physical bus, and calm, we were all suddenly so calm.

I stood with my back pressed against Jean-Claude. When he'd drawn Damian and me in, he'd turned us, like a dance movement, smooth and inevitable, so that we stood in the circle of his arm. Jean-Claude held us both. My hand had just slid around Damian's waist and drawn him in against the side of my body as if we fitted together from shoulder to hip. His own arm traced my shoulders, his hand cupping my arm, and again we fitted together in a way I didn't remember. Jean-Claude's arm was around Damian's shoulders, his other arm encircling Nathaniel, who was cuddled against his side, so that one arm traced the front of my body. I wasn't sure where Nathaniel's other arm was, but I knew that Asher was still at Jean-Claude's back.

Columbine stood just on the other side of the pulpit in her motley clothing, all red, blue, white, and black, edged with gold. Her tricorn hat was gold, with only a cl.u.s.ter of multicolored b.a.l.l.s to echo the colors in her clothes. Her human servant stood at her back, all in black. He looked like a shadow beside her brilliance.

"You are very good, Columbine," Jean-Claude said. "I did not even feel you roll our minds. Your magic is very subtle."

"Such a pretty compliment, thank you." She gave him a low curtsey, holding the small half-skirt of her pants outfit to the side as if it were a much longer piece of cloth.

I should have been nervous, at the least, but I stood there in the circle of everyone's arms, and was so relaxed. It was a little like you feel when they give you drugs before an operation, calm, almost a liquid warmth, as if you could float away on it. Part of me thought, Ifs what they do to you just before something really painful happens. But the thought just drifted away on the warm calm.

"You attacked the audience as a diversion," Jean-Claude said in that voice that could make your skin shiver, but it didn't make me shiver. It was as if whatever he'd done to us, the people he was touching, protected us from that voice.

She laughed, but it had none of the touchable quality of Jean-Claude and Asher's laughs. Even through the near anesthetic haze that he had created around us, the laughter felt flat, human even. Or maybe the reason it sounded flat was the anesthetic haze. I couldn't tell whether I was still able to sense a little through what Jean-Claude had done, or if his power was protecting me from her.

The laughter died abruptly on that crimson mouth. She stared at us with eyes that were gray and as serious as death. "Oh, no, Jean-Claude, it wasn't a diversion, but I admit that I may have underestimated you, and your servant. If I could have won the audience from her, then I would have had enough power to defeat you easily."

"And now?" He made it a question, with a lilt of his voice.

"I think a more direct a.s.sault on you, personally, is needed." "If you are too direct, then you will simply be executed," he said, his voice mild.

"My power can be subtle, but do not be deceived. I too can be direct. As direct as the power you hold in your arms with your raven- haired servant."

She gestured with one slender hand, and the man behind her stepped forward. He took off one glove and laid his bare hand in hers. "You are not the only master whose touch awakens more power in their servant, Jean-Claude," she said.

"I did not think I was," he said. His voice was as mild as her own, but his power was not mild. His power riffled through us, as if we were cards in his hand. What should he play? I'd had Jean-Claude drive the metaphysical bus before, but I'd never felt it like this, never been so aware of how terribly aware he was of his power, of my power, of the power we all offered him. He was vampire, which meant he was a cold power, a thing of logic, because emotions do not trouble the dead. He shifted through our talents, like Edward would have looked through his gun safe. Which gun will do the job? Which will make this shot? I had a moment to feel a thrill of fear, a thread of real doubt. He squashed it, shut it tight away from me, from us, because it wasn't just my mind that had felt it. I knew that Damian and Nathaniel had thought it, felt it, too. He feared that we had no weapon to protect from this. We had already nearly been destroyed by her power with out her servant's touch. He shut the doubts away, but they were there. It wasn't the coldness of vampire I was feeling, it was the coldness of necessity. Doubt was her weapon. You do not arm your enemy.

Her power hit us, staggered us, as if emotion could be a great wind to blow your world apart. It was like having your mind and heart ripped open, wide, so you had to feel, know, how you truly felt. Most of us live because we don't shine the light too brightly inside ourselves. Suddenly, Jean-Claude, Damian, Nathaniel, Asher, and I, were at ground zero of the brightest light in the world.

Columbine specialized in doubt and pain, but Giovanni, her man, he gave her a wider range. Loss, that choking sense of loss, when you think you'll die with the person who was buried. Somehow she knew that we had all suffered losses, and she made us suffer them all over again. But it wasn't just our personal losses; Jean-Claude had bound us together, so that instead of one loss, we got them all. I heard Julianna scream as the fire consumed her. I heard her scream Jean-Claude's name as she died. Asher screamed in the here and now, and Jean-Claude joined him. We stood before a pyre of cold ash and knew that it was all that was left of the woman who had been our heart. Damian watched his brother burn to death again. His screams haunted us. Damian fell to his knees as if he'd been hit. We were small again, and Nicholas was dying. The baseball bat made a sickening sound as it hit his head, a wet, crunching sound. He fell on the floor, reached out to us. Blood was everywhere, and the man like some dark giant above us. Nicholas said, "Run, Natty, run!" Nathaniel screamed, "No!" in the here and now.

As a child, he had run. He raised his face up, but he was a child no longer, and said, "I won't run." I looked into his eyes, those lavender eyes; they were real, not this memory of pain and death. Tears stained his face, but he whispered, "I won't run."

I was eight again, and my father was about to say the words that would destroy my life. My mother was dead. But I hadn't run then. Nathaniel had run because his older brother told him to run, but he wasn't little anymore. It had been my father who had collapsed. He had wailed her loss, not me. I did not run. I did not run then, and I would not run now.

I found my voice, and said, "We won't run."

Nathaniel shook his head, still crying. "No, we won't."

Jean-Claude and Asher had slid to the ground with Damian, crushed under the weight of sorrow. No one else was close to us on the stage. The guards, even Richard, had fled from us. Fled from the weight of horror and loss. Fled so it did not spread to them. I guess I couldn't blame Richard, but I would later, I knew I would. Worse yet, later he would blame himself.

I caught movement in the aisle close to us. Micah was the closest, the only one brave enough or stupid enough to get close to the emotional thermonuclear bomb that had just been set off. Then I caught movement just behind Micah. Edward was there. More surprising was that Olaf was beside him.

Nathaniel touched my arm. He smiled at me; with tears still wet on his face, he smiled. It made my heart hurt, but not in a bad way, in that way that sometimes happens when you love someone, and you just suddenly look up and realize just how much. Love, love to chase back the pain. It washed over my skin like a warm wind, love, life, that spark that makes us get back up. It poured down the metaphysical links between Nathaniel and me, and the other men. Love, love to raise their faces and make them look at us. Love to help them to their feet, love and our hands to steady them, to help dry their tears. We finally stood, perhaps a little shaky around the edges, but we all stood and turned to Columbine and her Giovanni.

"Love conquers all, is that it?" she said, her voice thick with disdain.

"No, not all," I said. "Just you."

"I am not conquered, not yet." The lights seemed to dim, as if something breathed in the light, ate it. Twilight filled the church, a soft edge of darkness, spread out from the Harlequin on the stage.

"What is that?" Micah asked. He was beside the stage now.

Jean-Claude, Asher, and Damian said, "The Mother of All Darkness."

Nathaniel and I said, "Marmee Noir."

That which we call the Mother of All Vampires, by any other name would be f.u.c.king dangerous.

CHAPTER 46

THE VAMPIRES IN the audience made a panicked run for the far doors. It was as if even Malcolm's tame vamps understood what was coming. Their screams let me know that the doors wouldn't open. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised; the Queen of All Darkness was coming to eat us. What was holding shut one door to everything she could do?

Micah leapt upon the stage like grace over muscles, proving that he didn't have to be in leopard form to be inhumanly graceful. He touched my arm, and the emotion we'd raised to save ourselves leapt to him. He was no one's servant, no one's master, but the love spread to him in a warm rush.

Jean-Claude looked at us with tears still painting faint pinkish streaks on his face. "You love him."

Even with all the good feelings, I frowned at him. "Yes, I do."

Jean-Claude shook his head. "I mean, ma pet.i.te, that your love for him ..." He waved a hand and let me see inside his head, so much quicker. Because I loved Micah, Jean-Claude could feed off the energy of that love. It was as if his powers through Belle Morte's line had found a new way to think. She and her vampires were all about l.u.s.t, love, but no one had ever been able to use love like fuel, the way the ardeur could use l.u.s.t. It was like an intuitive leap in math, or science. You start with this bit of reality and suddenly you understand how to make a leap to a larger reality. Love, love was power in more than just a metaphorical way "Love won't conquer her." It was Richard from behind us. He'd come back to the stage.

I looked at him and wasn't sure I wanted him to touch me in that moment. Would the love spread to him, or would it not? Had he finally hurt me enough that he'd killed my feelings for him? If he had, then he would be no help here. He'd hurt me, hurt this soft new magic.

"You'll need a wolf, like last time," he said.

He was right, but. . . He held out his hand.

The dimness breathed around us, as if the room had taken a breath. He reached for me, grabbed my hand. His hand was warm in mine. It was still Richard, every gorgeous inch of him, but the power did not travel from my skin to his. He stood there holding my hand, and his touch did not move me. I'd never had him touch me where it didn't move me. The other men, even Damian was like a press of tenderness at my back, but Richard was cold to my heart.

"Anita ..." He whispered it.

What could I say? "You said we were nothing to you. You said you didn't want the ardeur" "This isn't the ardeur" he said. I nodded. "Yes, it is, Richard. You never understood that for me the ardeur wasn't just about s.e.x. This is the ardeur"

"I can smell the edge of it, it's as if love had a scent."

"It's the ardeur, Richard, what it's become."

"If I'd stayed by your side, you'd be spilling love all over me?" He made it a question.

"I don't know."

"Ma pet.i.te, could we discuss this later?"

We looked at him, still hand-in-hand. "Sorry," I said.

Richard scented the air, and for a moment I thought he really was trying to scent what love smelled like. "It doesn't smell like her."

I scented the air, too. "No, she smells like jasmine and rain, and night. There's no scent to this." The darkness wasn't growing . . . darker. It should have been. It was twilight, and power breathed through the room, but it wasn't quite enough power, not for her.

I turned back to Columbine and her servant. "Belle Morte said that the Harlequin are the servants of the Dark Mother. Did she mean that literally?" "All of us bear a piece of the original darkness inside us, little girl. Feel the power of the night given human form and know true terror."

I shook my head and said to Richard, "It's not her."

He moved up beside me, as close as the other men would allow. We were getting to be quite a crowd again. "If I hadn't been in your dream with the real thing, this might be scary."

I nodded. "But we've felt the real deal, and this ain't it."

"This isn't the Mother?" Asher said. He'd gotten to his feet, scrubbing at tears on his face. "No, it's a shadow of her, barely that," I said. Nathaniel drew in a large breath. "I smelled her once in the car. She smelled like something cat, and jasmine, and so many things. This has no scent, it's not real."

The darkness began to press down like a shadowy hand, but it was only a shadow. The little vampires huddled and, beating at the doors, screamed louder. It had cleared the pews out so that there was no one but our guards in the aisles. The guards, and our vampires.

"The Dark Mother will consume you all, unless you lay down your arms and submit to us."

The shadow of dark tried to crush us. Damian made a small sound. "Don't be afraid," I said. "It's barely a shadow of her power. It can't hurt us."

Columbine gestured as if she were crushing something invisible in her hand. The shadowy darkness tried to squeeze down around us, but I thought, Love, warmth, life, and the shadows shredded. The lights began to grow brighter again.

Requiem spoke from a small distance away. "This is not the darkness that hunted my master in England. This is smoke and mirrors compared to what came for him in the end."

"Smoke and mirrors," I said, softly, "misdirection like a magician's illusion. How do we know you're the real Columbine, a real Harlequin? All vampires know the rules, the masks. Anyone could pretend," I said.

"You uppity little b.i.t.c.h," she said. "How dare you?" "That would explain them breaking the rules," Nathaniel said. "They tried to kill you guys without giving you a black mask first."

"Are you truly asking us to prove we are of the Harlequin?' Columbine asked.

"Yeah, I am."

"Jean-Claude, does she do all your talking for you?"