Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"If you bring him to help us talk to them, the police would agree to you coming in to consult."

"I can't agree to Damian coming back into Ireland, Edward. He feels like he barely escaped the first time."

"This time we know the vampires are here and real. Damian can come in with the full protection of the police."

"You don't know what you're asking, Edward."

"I know people are dying, Anita. I know more are going to die if we don't figure out how to stop this."

"It's just a bunch of vampires, Edward. You know how to kill vampires. Kill them and get out of there."

"The local police aren't letting me off leash much."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that the Irish are having trouble deciding how to deal with the vampires."

"Have you found the vampires that are doing this?"

"Not yet, but when we do the Irish still don't have a death penalty."

"Wait. Are you seriously telling me that when you finally trace these bastards down, the locals aren't going to kill them?"

"You know better than I do that vampires can become good little citizens, Anita."

"Not if they're doing this kind of shit, Edward."

"I'll bet if you ask your fiance what he did when he first rose from the grave it won't be any worse than this."

Jean-Claude had heard both ends of the conversation, of course. He said, "When the bloodlust first rises we all do horrible things, unless our masters lock us away for those first nights."

I looked at him while I said to Edward, "No one's innocent, I guess, but whoever is doing this in Ireland is killing people now, not hundreds of years ago."

"I guess that does make it worse," he said, his voice very dry.

"I can't ask Damian to go back to Ireland."

"Anita, his old master was so scary that she spooked you, but just a few years later she's lost enough power that she can't control a bunch of new vampires. What changed?"

"Damian won't know the answer to that."

"No, but he will know more about the local vampires than anyone else here, because he was one of them."

"I can't promise that he'll agree to come, Edward."

"Aren't you his master?"

"I won't force him, Edward."

"I don't ask for help often, Anita, but I'm asking now."

"Has something else happened, Edward?"

"Two more bodies."

"You've seen dead bodies before, Edward."

"I'd rather stop seeing them here, Anita."

"What aren't you telling me, Edward?"

"Are kid vampires more likely to attack other children?"

"Sometimes. It's easier for them to subdue them physically. Even modern kids who are warned against pedophiles trust other kids. Crap, the last two victims were kids."

"Yes."

"Kids are always hard."

"You don't have kids of your own yet, Anita; once you do you'll understand."

"I'm not planning to ever have kids, Edward."

"Neither was I."

"I think I can avoid dating people who already have a family," I said.

"That's what I thought, too."

"I'll talk to Damian when he wakes up for the night, but don't hold your breath."

"I can send you the latest pictures, Anita. It might change his mind."

"I doubt it."

"It might change yours."

"Me coming was always on the table."

"I've been trying to find the older vamps, Anita. It's like they aren't here."

"They're there, Edward. I promise you that."

"Then help me find them."

"Damian won't be awake for hours yet."

"Let me know when he wakes up. Maybe I can help persuade him."

"Have you and Damian ever had a conversation?"

"No."

"Then what makes you think you can be more persuasive than I can?"

"Desperation."

"You don't get desperate easily, Edward; what aren't you telling me?"

"I have that feeling, Anita. That feeling that says things are going to get worse."

It wasn't like him to be this spooked. "Guard your ass."

"Don't I always?"

"Yeah, you do, but I feel like you're leaving stuff out."

"Don't I always?" he said.

"Yeah, you do." I sighed.

"Call me with Damian's answer," he said. He hung up.

"Fuck," I said to the phone.

"What's wrong?" Nathaniel asked.

"More dead in Ireland. Apparently one of the vampires has a taste for kids."

"I didn't think vampires attacked children that often," Nathaniel said.

"We do not," Jean-Claude said.

"Their throats are so tiny that a good bite can close down the blood supply, so why attack them?" I asked.

"Ask Edward to send you photos of the new victims. If their throats are intact and the bites dainty enough, then the new Irish vampires may be breaking one of our few strict taboos."

"You mean they're making new child vampires," I said.

Jean-Claude gave a small nod. He didn't try to hide the anger on his face. "I am only king of America, but if they are doing this, then they must be stopped. It is forbidden to bring children over for a reason."

"As king of America you have no authority outside this country, right?"

"The only authority in Ireland was Damian's old master. If she cannot police her country's newest members better than this, then something has gone very wrong."

"What could have damaged her power this badly in just a few years?" I asked.

"You have felt her power from a distance, ma petite, Nathaniel. I have felt her power in person. I can conceive of nothing that could leave her toothless and powerless before any foe, save for the Mother herself."

"This feels like new monsters, not old ones," I said.

"Agreed, ma petite, but powerful new ones."

"It doesn't matter if it's old power or new," Nathaniel said. "We need to stop whoever is doing this."

"Yeah, we do," I said.

"We are agreed," Jean-Claude said.

We were all agreed, and that was great, but what we needed was a plan. Edward was asking for help. He almost never asked for help. One of the scariest vampires around seemed powerless in the face of whatever was happening in her country, or maybe she just didn't care.

I asked Jean-Claude, "Could She-Who-Made-Damian just not give a damn?"

"What do you mean, ma petite?"

"Could she just not care enough to police the new vampires?"

"Do you mean, has she given up?"

"I mean, is she old enough that she just isn't moving with the times? Some of them do that, right? They just refuse to accept change and sort of hide from it all."

"It has happened, but in the past the council did not allow it to disrupt business as usual."

"You mean that the Mother of All Darkness would send the Harlequin out to see what was wrong and fix it."

"Oui, that is what I mean."

"We killed the Mother of All Darkness, and most of the Harlequin work for us now."

"That is true, ma petite."

Nathaniel looked from one to the other of us. "Were they doing something that we aren't doing now?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Jean-Claude is in charge of the new power structure, but it's not like the old one. It's mostly just us here in America. The old council ran things differently, right?" Nathaniel said.

"They were concerned with more of the world than we are," Jean-Claude said.

"Have we dropped a ball here, Jean-Claude? Were the Mother and the Harlequin or the old council doing things to keep Ireland moving safely along, and now that we've destroyed their power did we cause this somehow?" I said.

He went very still. I knew it meant he was either thinking, or hiding what he was thinking. "I do not believe so, but if we wish to know what the council was doing to maintain the status quo in Ireland, we have people here to ask."

"The Harlequin," I said.

"Our guards now," he said.

"Wouldn't the Harlequin have told you if there was something important that needed to keep being done?" Nathaniel asked.

"All the Harlequin are older than I am, and there is something about being a certain age that gives you a longer view of things."

"Which means what?" I asked.

"They might not see it as important enough to share until it became a problem."

"Even if it cost lives?" I asked.

"The vampires of the Harlequin are thousands of years old, ma petite. They may not consider human life as valuable as we do."

"Then their attitude needs to change," I said.

"I would settle for their sharing any important secrets before they become an issue."

"We don't know that they hid anything about Ireland," I said.

"No, that is true, but the old council is disbanded. Their power is destroyed and incorporated into our power base, and suddenly a country that has run seamlessly for thousands of years is in turmoil. At the very least, we should question the coincidence."

"If it is a coincidence," I said.

"Do not borrow trouble, ma petite. Not everything that goes wrong in the world is our doing."

"True, but if we're only in charge of American vampires, who's in charge of Europe now?"

"If I try to spread our power over the rest of the world, we will have more battles on our hands. One of the reasons it has gone so smoothly is that I have not fought to rule the world, as it were."

"I don't want the equivalent of a vampire world war, but someone needs to be in charge of you guys."

"We have been in charge of ourselves longer than humans have known there was a world to rule."