Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"I woke in the dark and I didn't know where I was, but I could feel Nathaniel's fear and yours, and . . ." He reached out to us through the crowd of too many bodies in too small a space. Nathaniel went to that outstretched hand, and the moment they touched, I couldn't taste my pulse on my tongue anymore. Even letting Nicky hold me with all that strength hadn't calmed me this much, so I pushed away from him and went for them. I took Damian's other hand and was calmer yet, but when Nathaniel's other hand was in mine so I was touching both of them at the same time, I was almost eerily calm. It was like on the plane flying to Ireland, calm beyond all reason.

"How do they do that for you?" Dev asked.

Nathaniel turned to him. "I can help Damian do this, but I couldn't help us with Flannery's aunt and her mind games."

"We all have our talents," I said, my voice calm, because with the two men holding me, I was about as calm as I got outside of special circumstances.

"But mine never seem to be exactly what you need," Dev said.

"Your talents were exactly what I needed in the first pub with the Fey."

He smiled for me, but not like he believed it. Normally I'd have tried to figure out how to make him feel better, but confusing relationship issues would have to wait. "Riley said that she would kill his sister and mother if she found out what he'd done."

Nathaniel shook his head. "No, she's going to cut him again and this time she won't stop." Even with the three of us held in that unnatural calm, the fear of that shared nightmare thrilled through us and into Damian. He'd been dead to the world while we dreamed, but now he saw what we'd seen and felt, and it was pretty awful even secondhand.

"She'd never touched Riley when I left, but it's been five years. I guess he's old enough for her now," Damian said, his hands clutching ours so tight, it almost hurt.

"Do you know him personally?" I asked.

"I know most of the Roane around her, at least by sight."

"Do you have a phone number for Riley? We need to warn him."

"It was just a nightmare," Dev said.

"No," Damian said, "I never had a number for him. He was a teenager, eighteen or nineteen at most. His mother helps take care of the fortress, so Riley was just Isabel's son."

"Neither of you does dream magic," Kaazim said. "Could you both be panicking over a shared nightmare?"

We both shook our heads. "I wish, but no, somehow she was in our dreams, or we were in hers," I said.

Nathaniel looked at me, his eyes as pale as I'd ever seen them, lavender gray. "She knows that we saw his scars, Anita."

"Yeah, because when she showed us the nightmare, I wondered where his scars were."

"I wondered the same thing, Anita. It was like we were remembering him from today, but it was mixed up with her memory of hurting him."

I nodded. "Yes."

"We have to warn him," Nathaniel said.

"How? He has our phone numbers, but we don't have his."

"Flannery's aunt might know how to contact him," Dev said.

"Do you have a number for his mother?" I asked Damian.

"No, there's no phone at the castle, and She-Who-Made-Me doesn't like cell phones. She doesn't like most of the new technology."

I realized that I was still nude, so were Nathaniel and Dev, but their nudity didn't bother me. I squeezed Damian's and Nathaniel's hands once more for luck and let go so I could start getting dressed. The calmness that had been keeping my emotions in check faded when I stopped touching them. I'd known it would, but it was still a shock to taste my pulse in my throat again. It was as if the calmness had stopped the panic but not helped me process it. Just one minute calm, and the next I was back to having woken from a gruesome nightmare. The calm that the three of us shared didn't allow us to skip the bad stuff; it merely delayed us having to deal with it.

Nathaniel clutched at Damian and reached for me again. "I love you, but we have to get dressed and find him before she does."

"Riley said that he was in Dublin for work, but that the Wicked Bitch isn't here. We'll find him," Nicky said.

"If she sends one of the other Roane into the town to call Riley home, he will have to go to her," Damian said.

"Why does he have to go?" Dev asked.

"Because his mother and his sister are both still at the castle with She-Who-Made-Me."

"She uses family members as hostages to make sure the Selkie who travel outside for work obey her," I said.

"Riley's sister can't be more than sixteen now. She was just a little girl when I left."

"This is not your fault, Damian," I said. I had underwear and a bra on, but I was struggling with the jeans. I'd picked out a pair of date jeans, not work jeans. Skinny date jeans weren't good for wearing weapons. I stripped the jeans off and started pulling clothes out of my open suitcase.

"Anita, Anita, let me help," Nathaniel said, and knelt beside me to reach into the part that was still packed and magically got out a pair of black tactical pants and a fresh T-shirt. He'd packed the suitcase, so he knew where everything was; even if I had packed it, I still wouldn't have remembered it all.

He got his own clothes out before he stood back up. I had the pants on by the time he'd chosen his outfit.

Nicky turned to Dev. "If you're coming with us, get dressed fast."

"Do I have time to just change into fresh clothes?" Damian asked.

"I don't know. Do you?" Nicky asked.

Damian stripped off his shirt in one smooth motion and went for his own suitcase.

"Why doesn't someone call Flannery and ask if his aunt Nim knows how to contact Riley?" Dev asked.

I stopped in my frantic scramble for clothes. "That was smart, but I don't have a number for him either."

"I'll call Edward," Nicky said.

"Since when do you have his cell phone?" I asked.

Nicky just smiled at me and started to punch in buttons on his phone.

Dev started getting dressed. I had everything on but my boots and weapons. He'd never be dressed in time to go with us.

Dev's voice was muffled as he pulled his shirt on over his head and asked, "Where are we going if we don't know where Riley is now?"

"Girlfriend's work," I said as I got my first gun settled on my belt.

Nicky got off the phone. "Edward is calling Nolan to contact Flannery."

"Great," I said.

Damian was dressed in fresh clothes, including a coat that I'd never seen before and a pair of nice but utilitarian-looking boots. His jeans were tucked into the boots. His crimson hair fell loose around the shoulders of the warm, weather-resistant coat so that he looked like a male model in an outdoorsy-clothes commercial. The clothes were right, but he was too pretty to actually hike in them.

Nicky waved his hand in front of my face. It startled me. "Do you have all the weapons you need?"

"Sorry. It's not like me to get that distracted in an emergency." I checked the two wrist-sheath knives with their high silver content and the big blade down my spine in its custom-made holster, which attached to the shoulder rig. It held mostly extra ammo now, and it attached to the gun belt where my main handgun sat in an inner pants holster. If I could have figured out a different way to carry the big knife, I'd have gotten rid of the custom-made shoulder holster, but it was great for extra ammo and a smaller backup gun. I put the AR-15 on its tactical sling across my body over the T-shirt and sweatshirt I was going to wear under my coat. I'd have to leave the coat unfastened to be able to get to the AR, but I couldn't open-carry, not in Ireland. Hell, back home in the States, it would have freaked people out, even with the words U.S. Marshal emblazoned on the back of my Windbreaker.

I was already missing my Bantam shotgun, which was back in the armory at Nolan's compound along with a few other things, but there was just no way to keep all our dangerous stuff at the hotel. They'd offer you a safe if you had expensive jewelry, but I'd never seen a hotel, no matter how nice, that offered you a secure weapon locker. It was always a problem when tr

aveling for business.

My phone rang and it was Edward's ringtone, so I picked up. "Wait for Nolan's people to get there before you go out, Anita."

"We're big boys and girls. I don't think we need to wait for a babysitter."

"You don't have Irish credentials, and neither do I. We need someone with us who has credentials. That's part of the deal I made for all of you when you came into the country, remember?"

"I remember something vague about Nolan's people being with us when we were out in the city."

"I won't make you wait for me, but don't leave the hotel without at least one of Nolan's people with you. Promise me, Anita."

"Damn it, Edward, did Flannery have a way of contacting Riley?"

"Flannery is trying to get hold of his aunt now."

"Then we need to get to the restaurant before his girlfriend is off shift for the day."

"I know that, Anita."

"What's the worst that could happen if we get caught in Dublin without proper ID?" I asked.

"You could be deported or even jailed if you get the wrong Garda and the wrong judge."

Oh. "Okay, good point. How long until Nolan's people arrive, and where the hell are you that someone else will get to the hotel first?"