Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 12)

"Absolutely nothing," I said, "Richard beat the shit out of you, but there's not a mark left."

He raised his own hand up and touched his mouth. "It's healed," he said.

I nodded, and it was as if I was mesmerized by him. Was it mind tricks, or had more than just the damage healed? I couldn't tell, and I wasn't sure whether Nathaniel was a better judge than I was. "Micah, can you look at him?"

Micah came to stand at the end of the island closest to us. The look on his face was enough, before he said, "Wow."

But was it mind tricks? That's what I wanted to know. I reached up to touch his face, and he didn't lean away from me, as he had Nathaniel. I'd seen part of his memory of what had happened to him at the hands of other men, men that she-who-made-him had given him to, so she could feed off his pain and fear. So I understood some of the homophobia, but Nathaniel wasn't a threat to him, not in that way. In other ways, he was a threat to everyone who saw him. Oh, well.

I touched Damian's cheek, and it was solid. But it was all solid. Nathaniel was right, it was like a really good face-lift; there wasn't that much difference. What was it about his face that was different? What had kept Damian's face from being this heart-stopping before? I'd never made a study of his face, I wasn't sure I knew him well enough to know what had changed. Maybe my confusion showed on my face, because Nathaniel said, "His mouth, his lips were too thin for his face, now they're full and... they match."

Now that Nathaniel had said it, I could remember Damian's mouth, and this wasn't it. Was it just mind glamour? It had to be, didn't it? I closed my eyes and touched his mouth, but I'd never run my fingers over his lips. I didn't remember them. I kept my eyes closed and used my hands to guide me. I kissed him, soft but firm. I'd kissed this mouth less than two hours ago, and it wasn't the same mouth. The lips were fuller, as if he'd gotten a collagen injection while we weren't looking. I drew back just enough to see his face clearly. There was a slight up-tilt to his eyes, and they were bigger, not much, but just a little, or was it that his eyebrows had a wider arch to them? Were his lashes thicker, darker? Shit.

"What's wrong?" Damian asked again, and this time there was a thread of fear in his voice.

"I'll get a mirror," Micah said, and turned and went for one.

"This isn't possible," I said.

"Is there anything I can do?" Dr. Lillian was at the far end of the island. Damian looked up at her, and she said, "Oh, my."

"What?" he asked, and his voice was frantic.

I patted his hand. "You're fine, in fact you're... beautiful."

The fear spread from his voice to his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Micah came back in with a hand mirror. He simply held it out toward me. I took it, but Damian shut his eyes tight, as if he were afraid to look. "It's okay, Damian, I promise, you look wonderful." But I sort of understood the fear, because even if it was an improvement, how weird would it be for the face you've had for a thousand years to suddenly change. I'd have had trouble with changes to the face I'd only had for part of a lifetime.

He was shaking his head over and over again.

"Please, Damian, just look. It's good, not bad. I promise."

He opened his eyes a little at a time, but once he saw enough, his eyes went wide, and he took the mirror from me. He moved it around so he could see his eyes, his mouth, and there was some change to his nose that he could see and I couldn't. Like I said, I hadn't made a study of his face, but he had.

He touched his face tentatively, as if he expected it to feel different than it looked. He dropped the mirror, and Nathaniel caught it before it hit the floor. "What is happening to me?"

I opened my mouth to say, I don't know, but Micah said, "I think we need to call Jean-Claude. We know he's up."

Good idea, I thought. "Yeah, I think so."

I actually got up to go for the phone, but Richard was at the end of the island, across from the phone, and I suddenly didn't want to be that close to the phone. His right arm was taped to his chest, completely immobile, like Lillian had started to mummify him and stopped. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking lower, at Damian.

"Healing and a little facial reconstruction, you are good," he said, and his tone made it not a compliment.

"I didn't do it on purpose."

"I know," and those two words just sounded tired. "Jean-Claude told me once that he couldn't remember what he and Asher looked like before Belle, but he'd seen others before and after. Belle never chose people who weren't pretty, but some afterward were more beautiful than before. It wasn't a common thing even in her bloodline, but it happened often enough to start the legend that it always happened to her blood."

I looked at him. "And when did you and Jean-Claude find time for all this information sharing?"

"When you deserted us for more than half a year. We had a lot of time to talk, and I had a lot of questions."

I couldn't argue with the "deserted us" part, so I ignored it. "I asked him once if his body and face were vampire tricks, and he said no."

"Vampire tricks aren't real," Richard said, "this," and he motioned at Damian with his good arm, "is."

"But Damian's been a vampire for a long time; if this kind of change was going to kick in, then it should have done it by now."

"I'm not of Belle's line," Damian said. He was touching his face with just the tips of his fingers, as if that made it less awful, or something.

"But Anita is," Richard said. "Through her ties to Jean-Claude, she is a part of Belle's line."

"I'm not a vampire," I said.

"You feed like one," he said.

Anger was finally rearing its ugly comforting head. If I could get mad, I'd feel better, and Richard's presence wouldn't bother me so much. "You're as tied to Jean-Claude as I am. It's only luck that's kept the ardeur from you, Richard. Next time we get an extra special treat, maybe it'll be your turn."

"I can't heal with sex, and it looks like you can."

"Did you raise the munin when you were with Damian?" Dr. Lillian asked.

I shook my head. "I'd have noticed Raina being around. She's sort of hard to miss." I heard a distant echo in my head, Raina's "ghost" saying, so glad you noticed. I shut that particular metaphysical door tight, locked it, and bound it with silver chains. All metaphorical, or metaphysical, but all real just the same. A part of Raina lived inside me, and nothing I could do seemed able to rid me of her completely. I could control her to a point, but not exorcise her from me. God knows I'd tried.

"If it wasn't Raina, then one of you was able to heal during the sex," Dr. Lillian said. She said it like it was just logical. Two plus two is four, that kind of thing.

I was shaking my head long before I realized I was doing it. Shaking my head over and over. "I didn't do this."

"Then who did?" Richard asked. His face wore the arrogance of his anger. When he looked like that, he was both more handsome somehow, and less approachable. It was one of the few times I was sure that Richard was aware of just how handsome he was, when he was angry enough to want to strike out and cause someone pain. Why does anger make people pretty? Rage doesn't. Rage makes you ugly, but a little anger, that just seems to add spice. One of nature's cruelties, or maybe it's to keep us from killing each other more often.

"I don't know, but he didn't look like this after the sex. He didn't look like this in the bathroom when Mor... she-who-made-him popped up. He didn't look like this in the hallway," I took a step closer to Richard, "or the bedroom," another step, "or the living room." Another step, and I was as close to him as I could stand and still see his face comfortably. He was almost a foot taller than I was, there were angle issues.

"The closest person connected to Jean-Claude in this room at that moment wasn't me."

He looked down that perfect profile at me. "I didn't go near him."

"Jean-Claude might know the answer to this," Micah said. He was behind me, not too close, but close enough that if I'd done something stupid, I wondered if he'd planned on interfering.

"Micah is right," Dr. Lillian said.

"Yeah, Micah is always right," Richard said, and his voice held emotions the words didn't even hint at. It was the first real sign of jealousy I'd seen. Part of me was happy about it, and the moment that tiny glad spark reared it's ugly head, I knew better. I was ashamed of myself, and I hate that.

"Most of the time he is right," but my voice wasn't angry. We needed answers, not temper tantrums. I made a motion with both hands. "If you'll let me get to the phone."

He moved, but looked puzzled. For a second, I wondered if he'd been picking a fight on purpose, and if he had been, why? Picking fights was more my thing than Richard's. Later. I'd worry about it later.

I had my hand on the phone, when it rang, which scared me. "Shit!" I picked up the receiver and must have sounded at least a little angry, because Jean-Claude said, "What has happened now, ma petite?"

I was so relieved to hear his voice, I forgot to be mad. "You have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice."

"I can hear the relief in your voice, ma petite. Again, I ask, what else has happened?"

"How do you know anything happened?" I asked, and was already willing to be suspicious.

"I felt Damian's master flee from your and Richard's emotions. Only the two of you could turn such a simple thing as lust into something so"--he seemed unable to find a word and finally settled for--"disappointing."

"You're talking to the wrong third of the triumvirate, Jean-Claude. I can put him on, if you want to talk to him."

"Non, non, tell me what is happening."

"Can't you read my mind? Everyone else seems to be able to."

"Ma petite, do we have time for childishness?"

"No," I said sullenly, "but Richard tells me that some vamps in Belle's line turn prettier after a while. Is that true?"

"The change from human to vampire can bring on small changes to the appearance. It is rare even for Belle's line, but oui, it does happen."

"So you really weren't this beautiful once."

"As I told our inquisitive Richard, I do not know. I know that many acted as if I were this beautiful, but I have no paintings of my old face. I have no way to remember after centuries. I honestly do not know for certain. Belle never made much of any of us that changed, because she enjoyed the false rumors that her touch beautified all. If she fussed about those who did become more lovely, then it would tarnish her legend. You have met her, ma petite, she likes her legend."

I shivered. I'd met Belle, secondhand, through a metaphysical possession or two. She was scary, and not just because of how powerful she was. She was scary because of her character flaws, a certain blindness to anything she didn't understand, like love, friendship, commitment as opposed to slavery. She didn't seem to see much difference between the two.

"Yeah, Belle likes her legend so much, she's beginning to believe it."

"As you like, ma petite, but it makes it difficult to find truth in her court."

"Fine, we'll never know if you and Asher were this beautiful before."

"Asher says his hair was not the color of gold before, so that we do know."

I was getting distracted. "Okay, fine, but the point is, when did the beautification take place?"

"You became a vampire, and when you rose the first night you were changed. Due to the vicious nature of some when they experience their first blood lust, it is not always easy to see beauty, but it happens soon after they are brought into their new lives."

I didn't argue the life part, I'd been too confused too long about what was life and what wasn't. "So after a thousand years, you are what you are, right?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone. I couldn't even hear him breathing, which didn't mean anything, he didn't always have to breathe. "Has something happened to Damian? Something more?"

"Yes," I said.

"I assume the questions about Belle's line were not idle then."

"Not even close to idle," I said.

"Tell me," he said, voice soft.

I told him.

He was calm, asking questions, getting details, in his so matter-of-fact voice. Over the phone without his body posture to go by, or his face, and with him shielding like a son of a bitch, I couldn't tell if he were truly calm, or not.

Finally, he said, "That is most interesting."

"Don't go all Mr. Spock on me. What do you mean that's interesting?"

"I mean that it is interesting, ma petite. Damian is not of Belle's line, and, thus, it should not have happened. Moreover he is a millennium old, and as you so succinctly put it, he should have been what he was, and there would be no changing it, not at this late date."

"But it happened," I said.

"May I speak with Damian?"

"I guess so." I turned and held the phone out. "Jean-Claude would like to speak to you directly."

Damian got up slowly, as if he were stiff or the floor wasn't quite even. The floor was even, it was everything else that had gotten a little less steady. He took the phone and said, "Yes?" And from that moment on, they stopped speaking English. Surprisingly it wasn't French, it was German. I didn't know either vampire spoke German. If Jean-Claude changed the language because my French was getting better, then he'd outsmarted himself, because I could speak German. Not like speak it, speak it, but I could understand it when I heard it. Grandma Blake had spoken German to me from the cradle up. I'd taken it in high school as my language, because I was lazy and wanted a leg up.

I couldn't catch every word. It had just been too long since I'd used my German, and Damian's accent was different from any I'd ever heard, and I'd grown up around at least two. But I caught enough to know that Jean-Claude was asking him if the changes to his face had happened during sex, or just after, because Damian said something in German about it not happening just after the sex. No, about an hour or so later. I could understand Jean-Claude wanting to save my delicate sensibilities. I did have a tendency to get pissy about sex I didn't choose myself. Then I caught the word for power, and Belle Morte's name. Then Damian saying a lot of, nein, or not that I've seen, in German. He hadn't seen me exhibit any of the powers that Jean-Claude was asking about on his end of the phone. I didn't get it all. One, I was privy to just half the conversation, and two, my grandmother hadn't used some of these words a lot. She and I hadn't had a lot of talks about vampires, sex, and metaphysical powers. Funny that.

When the conversation seemed to be winding down, I told Damian that I wanted to talk to Jean-Claude before he hung up. He handed me the phone not long after, and I got to say, "Hi, ich kann Deutsch sprechen." The silence on the other end of the phone was long. "If you didn't want me to understand you, should have stuck to French."

"Damian does not speak French," he said in a very careful voice.

"Well then you are shit out of luck, aren't you?"

"Ma petite ..."

"Don't ma petite me, just tell me the truth. What other vampire powers can I expect to come on-line?"

"In all honesty, I am not sure."

"Right."

"Truly, ma petite, I am not. Even Belle has never transformed a vampire from another line the age of Damian. If you had asked me, I would have said it was impossible."

That sounded like the truth. "Fine, but what powers were you asking Damian whether I had, or not, and don't lie; if I order him to tell me everything you said, verbatim, he'll do it. He'll have to do it."

"You might be surprised there, ma petite. With your greater commitment to him as your servant, he may not be as much slave to your will. I do not know that this is true, but I know that the more marks you carried of mine, the less pliable to my will you became."

That was true. I'd always been sort of creeped out by the fact that Damian had to do everything I told him, just because I said so, but it had moments of usefulness, and now it might be gone. Well, hell.

"Fine, then just tell me yourself."

"You do not understand, ma petite. That you could gain my abilities is unusual, but this is an ability that I do not possess, have never possessed. What has happened to Damian is something only Belle could have done, and only if he were a new vampire. So is this a new ability altogether, one I have never heard of, and if so, then what could that mean for you, ma petite, for us, and all those connected to you? What if you have gained abilities through your necromancy that we cannot begin to guess at?"

I sighed, and was suddenly tired, not scared, just tired. "You know, I am way tired of this metaphysical shit."

"You also healed wounds with sex, without calling on Raina's munin, is that so horrible?"

"When I didn't do it on purpose, maybe. Think about that, Jean-Claude, I didn't concentrate and do it on purpose. What else might I do accidentally? You don't even know."

It was his turn to sigh. "The only other triumvirate that included a necromancer as their human servant did not exhibit this level of... power."

"You hesitated, what were you going to say before power?"

"You know me too well, ma petite."

"Just answer the question."

"I was going to say, unpredictableness."

I wasn't sure that had really been what he'd meant to say, but I let it go. He'd answered the question the only way he was willing to. I knew by now when he'd given me everything he was going to. I'd learned to let it go after that, because anything else was just frustrating, and rarely gained me anything. "Fine, I believe that you don't know what the hell we're doing either. Is there anyone that would have a clue about what might be happening to us?"

"I will think upon that, ma petite. There is no one that I know that has ever managed to form two triumvirates that intersect as ours seem to. But there may be those who could provide some more general information on triumvirates, or necromancy, or... in truth, ma petite, I don't even know where to begin to ask an intelligent question. I cannot go to most master vampires in the world with these questions. They would see it as weakness. I will think upon it and see if there is anyone we can ask." He sounded perplexed, which I didn't hear often in his voice.

"Alright, I'll call Marianne and see if she or her coven have any insights. I might even ask Tammy when she and Larry get back from their honeymoon. She is a witch, and her branch of the church has been dealing with supernatural talents for centuries. Who knows, maybe they have archives?"

"That is a good thought," he said, "Damian seems most distressed."

"You could say that."

"I do not know for certain, but if he were to go to his coffin and you not be near, I think he might sleep as he is meant to during the day."

"What if he just goes buggers again?"

"Put someone downstairs to watch him. Someone, not you or Nathaniel or Richard, someone that is not part of either triumvirate. If your watcher does not see him sleep, then they can yell for you to come and comfort him."

It wasn't a bad idea as ideas went, and I had nothing better. Also, I didn't want to spend the day baby-sitting Damian, or anybody for that matter. "I'll talk it over with him and see if he wants to try it."

"If he refuses, then you will, what, hold his hand all day?" There was the tiniest edge of jealousy. I hadn't expected that.

I spoke before I had time to think, which I'd tried to stop doing. "You're not mad at Damian about the sex are you? It wasn't planned."

"Now, ma petite, not the sex, though I do not lightly share you, no matter how reasonable I seem. No, it is that the three of you seem to have shared all four marks, though until I see you all together in the flesh, I will not be able to check that for certain. But if you share four marks and suddenly Damian is able to walk about in the sunlight, I must ask myself, if I had completed our triumvirate, would I now be a daywalker?"

Oh. "I guess I can see that, but you've been as reluctant as I am to finish the fourth mark. You said you were no longer certain who would be master and who would be slave because of my necromancy."

"And I am even less certain of it now, but to walk about in daylight as easily as moonlight might be worth the risk. If you have lost the ability to order Damian about, then that might be a telling thing."

"I'll try to order him around later and let you know."

"Thank you."

"But there is also that immortality thing, not aging, neither Richard nor I were sure we wanted to give up being mortal."

"And if you have bound yourself to Damian with the fourth mark, might it already be a moot point, ma petite."

I stood there in my kitchen and was suddenly scared. "Shit," I whispered.

"Oui, if you have truly completed all the marks, then your mortality may be a thing of the past. If that were true, then taking the fourth mark with me would lose you nothing."

"And gain you the ability to walk in the day," I said, and my voice wasn't friendly when I said it, because I'd heard the tiniest bit of eagerness when he talked about walking in the daylight. I couldn't blame him, but Jean-Claude had been working on his power base for too long not to see the advantages of things. I couldn't blame him, but part of me wanted to. Part of me still wondered if I was more important to him for the power or love. Most of me knew that I would never know for certain, and truthfully, probably neither would Jean-Claude. Love was not the nice, neat, linear thing I'd wanted it to be. It was not just one thing, but many things. I could admit that one of the reasons I loved him was that he was hard to kill. His chances of up and dying on me were smaller than if he'd been human. A large part of me really liked that. I'd seen enough of what death could do, and at too young an age, not to appreciate it.

"Perhaps, or perhaps not, ma petite, this is more art than science, or so it would seem." His voice held a thread of anger in it.

"What are you pissy about? I'm not the one trying to pick a language you can't understand so I can hide things from you."

"And I am not the one, ma petite, that has fucked another vampire, a lesser vampire, one of my own underlings."

Put that way, it did sound like he had grounds to be pissed. "Am I supposed to apologize?"

"Non, but I do not have to like it. He has come to your body, and now he is free of the tyranny of the dark. One I could forgive, but not both. Both is a bitter thing, ma petite."

"I am sorry," I said, "I didn't plan any of this."

"Of that I am certain. I am even certain that Damian planned none of it. Only you, ma petite, could keep having such accidental sex."

Accidental sex. He made it sound like I fell down, and there just happened to be an erection in the way. I kept that observation to myself. See, I am getting smarter. Out loud I said, "Accidental sex. That's one way of putting it. Am I ever going to inherit a vampire power that doesn't have sex involved somewhere in it?"

"I would never say for certain with you, ma petite, your necromancy makes you too much the wild card, but it is doubtful. So far you have inherited my powers, or Belle's, or some version thereof. To my knowledge Belle's powers revolve around sex, as do mine."

"Great, can you at least give me a list, so I'll have some idea what to expect?"

"I could, if you truly desire one."

I sighed. "No, just tell me in person when we see you tonight."

"Tonight? I was hoping that you might come earlier."

"We can't transport Damian in full daylight, his body might be fine, but I don't think his sanity would be. Besides, I've got to work this afternoon."

"Always the work, no matter what else is happening around you."

"Look, Jean-Claude, you've never seen what happens around me when I've gone too long between zombie raisings. Let's just say that I don't want a line of roadkill trailing after me, or worse yet, some 'accidental' zombie come shambling into my room."

"Are you saying that unused, your power raises the dead even if you do not wish to?"

"Yeah, I thought I'd told you that."

"You have told me of raising the dead by accident when you were a child. I assumed that was merely from lack of training and discipline."

"No," I said, "it took me years to admit it, but no. If I don't raise the dead on purpose, then it happens accidentally, or I start getting followed around by ghosts, or the spirits of the newly dead. I hate that last one, they always want me to take messages to their nearest and dearest, and it's always stupid messages. I'm fine, I'm happy, don't worry about me. What kind of message is that to knock on someone's door with? I'm this complete stranger, but your dead son told me to hunt you down and say he's fine. Nothing else, nothing urgent, just, I'm fine, don't worry." I shook my head. It had been years since I'd thought about that. "I raise zombies, and the dead leave me alone."

"Do they? Do they really, ma petite?" There was an edge of humor, but it held darker things.

"You aren't dead, Jean-Claude. I've seen dead, and whatever you guys are when you're up and running, dead isn't it."

"There was a time when you did not believe that. I believe you once called me a handsome corpse."

"Look, I was young, and I didn't know any better."

"Are you certain at last, ma petite, that I am not just a 'cute dead guy'?" Again he was quoting me.

"Yeah, I'm certain."

He laughed then, that touchable, raise-goosebumps-all-over-your-body sound. "I am glad of that. Do you speak Italian, ma petite?"

"No, why?"

"Nothing," he said, "I will see you tonight then, ma petite, you and your new friends."

I started to say they weren't new friends, but he'd already hung up. I realized as I hung up, I should have lied about speaking Italian, but hell, as good as I'd gotten at lying, my first reaction was still to tell the truth. I guess you can't undo all your upbringing, no matter how hard you try.