Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"You're pale," Sheridan said.

Nolan had grabbed the back of a chair. He was fighting to stand upright and not show that he was sensing it, too.

I held up a hand, and Edward understood that I wanted them to be quiet for a second. He made everyone else stop talking. I needed to listen. Listen to what? There was a voice on the air, or in it, and the voice was saying something, wanting something.

There was a sharp double knock on the door. Pearson said, "Who is it?"

"Nicky Murdock," he announced, but didn't wait for an invitation before opening the door. "Anita, what the hell is that?"

I held up my hand and waved it at him, and he went quiet. I listened, reached out toward that skin-prickling rush of energy, and found . . . "Come out," I said.

"What does she mean, come out?" Sheridan asked.

I repeated it. "Come out. That's what it's saying, over and over. It's wanting . . . us to come out. Them to come out."

"Who is them?" Edward asked.

I felt Damian take his first breath for the day inside the bag at my feet, felt him startle before the bag moved. Edward actually jumped as the bag bumped his chair.

I knelt beside Damian's bag. He was afraid of the small space and of the power that had jarred him awake. "Close the shades," I said.

Nolan was closest, but I think it was taking all he had to simply try to stand there, gripping the back of the chair, and not show the reaction that all the other preternaturals were having. Nicky walked across the room to do what I asked. The weak sunshine was suddenly plunged into gray twilight. Pearson didn't complain or tell Nicky to get out of the room because of evidence. No, Pearson was staring at the bag on the floor as it struggled. It was his turn to look pale. I saw Domino in the doorway; he was still watching the hall like a good bodyguard.

I unzipped the duffel bag. One long pale arm shot out, grabbing for air. Damian forced the zipper down before I could get to it, pulling his upper body free of it like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. His hair spilled out around him like liquid fire, so perfectly red in a stray line of sunlight that managed to get through the draped window.

He grabbed my hand in his, green eyes wide with the fear I could already feel. "It can't be," he whispered.

"It can't be who?" I asked.

"Her."

"Who is her?" Sheridan asked.

"It's a compulsion spell," Jake said from the open door, where he and Kaazim had just run up.

"A what spell?" Pearson asked.

"A compulsion spell, a magical way of ordering or commanding people," Jake said.

"I have not felt one so strong in many, many years," Kaazim said.

Damian wrapped both his hands around mine. "It's her. It's her, Anita. It's her."

"Who?" Sheridan asked.

"She-Who-Made-Me."

"Who made you? What are you talking about?" Pearson said.

"She was always able to call her vampires from their coffins in daylight. She could wake us early."

"The vampire that made him," I said.

"She's calling all her vampires to her," Damian whispered, "and I still answered her." He clung to my hands. "I'm yours, yours now; why did I answer to her?"

"I don't know. I don't know why I'm hearing it, too." I looked up at Jake and Kaazim. "Can you hear it, too?"

"Yes," Jake said.

"We can," Kaazim said.

I looked down at the bag that still held Echo. "She's not waking up."

"She was not created here," Kaazim said.

"Neither was I, or the two of you."

"I can't hear it," Nicky said. "I just feel you."

"I can hear something," Domino said. "It's like a whisper in the next room, just noise, but it's still there."

I wanted to ask if Nolan could hear it more clearly, since he had been born here in Ireland, but he was trying to play human. He was grim-faced, fingers turning white as he gripped the chair, but he wasn't going to admit he could hear anything.

"So why are the three of us hearing it?"

"And why is Domino hearing it more than I am?" Nicky asked.

"I don't know," I said. Damian was getting a little frantic to get out of the bag, but he'd gotten a piece of his shirt caught in the zipper. Nicky knelt to help me with it.

"I smell fresh blood," Domino said from the door.

I didn't smell it, but I trusted that he did.

All the wereanimals except for Nolan sniffed the air. "What are they, scent hounds?" Pearson asked.

"Better than that. They can smell a scent and then tell us about it," I said.

"A lot of blood," Nicky said, and he started tugging at the stuck zipper a little harder.

"It's close to us," Kaazim said.

"How close?" I asked.

"It's in the building, on this floor. I'm sure of that," Domino said.

"No, no," Pearson said softly, but there was a lot of feeling in those two words. He smelled scared.

"What did you do, Pearson?" Edward asked.

He didn't answer, just took off and pushed his way past Domino and running down the hallway. Sheridan followed him, and so did Edward and Nolan.

I yelled, "Edward!"

He ignored it, because it wasn't his name. Damn it. "Go with them," I said.

/>   Domino did what I asked, but Jake and Kaazim stayed in the doorway. "Our loyalty is to you."

"Damn it, then carry Echo!" Jake came to do what I'd ordered. Nice to know he listened to some of what I said. Nicky tore the zipper away from Damian's bag so that he was finally free; we helped him to his feet and started running out of the room. Kaazim was still helping Jake get Echo settled on his back. They yelled for us to wait. I listened to them as well as they'd listened to me: selectively.

64

THERE WAS NOBODY in the hallway except for a few uniformed officers, but Nicky started jogging down the hallway without hesitating on a direction. I stayed with him, trusting his nose to lead us to the blood. I had to drop back a little behind him to keep from running into people as I ran and he jogged. Damian came up beside me, both of us at Nicky's broad back. We got some puzzled looks from the officers and personnel in the halls. Surely if it had been a serious emergency they'd have been running with us, but it seemed like business as usual except for us. Kaazim and Jake had caught up with us by the time we went around the second corner. No one was acting alarmed, so we'd slowed to a fast walk. Where were Edward and Domino? I wanted to find everyone, but I wasn't emotionally attached to anyone else.

Sheridan was standing outside a closed door. She was so pale her brown eyes looked black and stranded in her face like islands in the middle of a milk-white ocean. Even her lips were bloodless; the light lipstick she'd had on in the other room was gone. She raised one hand up to push at her hair, and I saw the pinkish shine of it as if she'd rubbed her lips a lot in the few minutes since we'd seen her. What the hell had happened?

"It's in the room," Nicky said.

"What is?" I asked.

"The blood."

Sheridan looked at us then, her eyes looking like burned-out holes in her head. I'd thought she was beautiful and now she looked haggard, as if every hour of sleep she'd ever lost had all caught up with her at once.

"Sheridan," I said.

She looked at me but didn't see me, not really.

"Rachel, can you hear me?"

She nodded. "I'm keeping the crime scene intact until forensics gets here."

"Where are the others?" Jake asked.

"Looking for him."

I grabbed her upper arms and gave her a little shake. Her eyes focused on me; she even blinked. "Inspector Sheridan, I need you to focus. Report, damn it."