Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

Dev's hands rolled into fists and he actually took a step toward the other man. I touched his arm, because I knew that would go badly. I'd seen them both in practice and Kaazim would kick his ass.

Nathaniel said, "Dev isn't just one of your tigers now. He's a lion, too. The golden tigers are supposed to rule all the other colors, but he's beginning to rule other groups as well; isn't that part of your legend, too?"

"And Sin literally made the earth move just before we got on the plane," I said. "Just because people are younger than you are doesn't make them children, just young."

"We don't have time for this; night is coming," Damian said.

"You are right," Jake said.

"We don't have time to admit aloud that the Mother's energy is waiting inside Anita like a coiled snake in the dark ready to strike? We don't have time to say that if she does not pick a tiger to love and marry, all we do here in Ireland is useless, because the Mother's power will consume the world and all of us with it?"

"She will not consume us today, but once night falls Damian's old master will do her best to destroy more of Dublin's people," Fortune said.

"You are letting your fears get in the way of our mission," Jake said, gently.

"No, Jacob, I am not. You and Fortune are allowing all this to interfere with our first and most important mission. What does it matter to us if all of Dublin burns tonight, if we do not prevent the evil from rising again?"

"Are you saying that it doesn't move you at all to see all those people in the beds there?"

"I am sorry that she has done this to them, she and her people, but if Jean-Claude and you had been able to contain the power it would not have come to her. They might not be hurt if you had chosen a tiger to call your own."

"Are you saying that somehow by marrying one of the tigers, magically all the scattered bits of the Mother's energy would be chased out of everyone else, or that Jean-Claude would suddenly be powerful enough to keep this kind of shit from happening?"

"That is what legend tells us."

"I think you're whistling in the dark, Kaazim."

"What does that mean?"

"I think you don't know how to put the genie back in the bottle."

"If you could call the djinn as the old Master of Tigers could do, we would have a formidable weapon against our enemies."

"Sorry that I didn't inherit anything but his ability to control the tigers, but I still think you worked all those centuries to kill the evil queen and didn't think what might happen afterward."

There was a moment when he glanced at Jake and Fortune but tried not to, and that was enough. "It is hard to plan for all eventualities," Jake said.

"You saw the defeat of your tyrant, but not what would happen to her vacant throne," Damian said.

"We thought that the one who defeated her would take her throne by right of conquest," Kaazim said.

"But by the time you won the war, the vampire council had imploded and there wasn't a European throne to take," I said.

"We did not anticipate an American king," Jake said.

"Echo says what we really didn't anticipate is that it took centuries to build the council's power base, and we expected it to transfer seamlessly to the next ruler, the next council," Fortune said.

"A little naive of you all, wasn't it?" I asked.

Kaazim gave me a sour look. "Perhaps in retrospect," Jake said, smiling, but not like he was entirely happy with it all.

"Kaazim, I'm sorry we got through your shields further than you wanted, or we wanted, but can you get past it to do your job here and now?"

"We can put out this fire tonight, Anita, but it is like a house fire when the world is about to burn."

"Can you follow orders and do your job to help us save Dublin, or not?"

"What does one city matter if you carry the seeds of the apocalypse inside you?"

"I'll take that as a no," I said, and looked to Jake and Fortune. "All right, tell us what you've learned, because we need a plan before nightfall that doesn't need Kaazim to work."

"I will do my part of any plan," he said.

I shook my head. "You had your chance, Kaazim. You said you'd let Dublin burn, let Ireland be destroyed tonight, because you're worried about a disaster that's not here yet."

"You feel her power inside you. You must," he said.

"Power is not destiny," Jake said.

"I'm a big believer in free will," I said.

"And I have seen too many centuries not to believe in fate," Kaazim said.

I turned to the rest of them. "Let's find Edward and get our plans off the ground without gloomy puss here."

"I am not a puss," he said.

"Fine. Without gloomy dog here--no, that doesn't work, does it?"

"Gloomy puppy?" Nathaniel offered.

"Gloomy pup?" Pride suggested.

"I expected better of you," Kaazim said.

"Dev isn't perfect, Uncle Chaz, but he's trying, and you really are a gloomy hound and always have been."

"Uncle Chaz?" I said.

"When we were little, they were Uncle Jake and Uncle Chaz," Pride said.

Kaazim ignored the old nickname; too angry to care, I think. Then he said, "You are right." He turned to me. "And you are right, as well. I have made the mistake of a soldier: letting the fear of defeat in war steal my courage for fighting today's battle. Thank you for reminding me that if we do not win today's battle, then we will never survive to win the war."

"I was thinking more, you win the war one battle at a time, but okay, let's go find Edward and get our well-armed ducks in a row."

"How do you know what ducks you need, our queen?" Jake asked.

"We'll figure that out as we go," I said.

He looked at me for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed. "Just like that."

"It's Edward. It's me. It's all of you, Nolan, and his people. It's the gentle folk of Ireland singing sweet songs in our ears. With all that on our side, Jake, we'll figure out which ducks we need."

"Before nightfall?" Kaazim asked.

"Yes."

"There is no doubt in you," he said.

"I don't have time for it."

Fortune came up to me and Dev because he was so close, throwing an arm around us both. "We'll find gigantic carnivorous ducks," she said, and kissed us both one right after the other so that I tasted the echo of his mouth on hers. Nathaniel came over and added his kisses to ours, and Damian came to kiss two out of the four of us. Kaazim made an impatient sound that we were wasting time, but I've gone into a lot of fights now, and starting with a kiss beat the hell out of starting with a punch.

71

DAMIAN GAVE ADDRESSES of the old lairs that his old master and cronies had used five years ago; since they'd been using some of them for centuries it was a good bet they were still using some of them. You'd expect that once we knew possible places to go we'd suit up and bust down some doors, but it didn't work that way in America or in Ireland. The police would be gathering information on the addresses: public records, blueprints, find out if they were owned and lived in by human beings we could verify, because some of the addresses hadn't been used by M'Lady and her crew in a while, like decades. He made a list of centuries-old lairs. Not because they had been used recently, but because she owned them and she gave up nothing. Some of the buildings probably didn't even exist anymore. Those would be weeded out first and then they'd gather as much intel as possible. I'd worked with enough tactical units to know that the information gathering saved time and possibly lives later, but it was still a delay that always drove me a little crazy. It wasn't as bad this time because we didn't know which address we needed to hit, and the info would help us narrow the choices.

What to do while we waited? Edward and I both had some ideas; they just weren't the same ones. "If we can figure out why the holy objects didn't work at the police station and get them working before we send people into battle again, it will give us an advantage. It will give an advan

tage to the newbies who have never fought vamps before."

"How do you know the newbies will have that much faith?"

"They're fresh out of the packaging when we all believe in right and wrong, and that we can save the world. Your faith is always shinier before it gets a good test run."

"But not stronger," he said.

The comment surprised me from Edward, but I nodded and said, "No, not stronger, just newer."

"Your cross didn't go off either, you know."

"When no one's cross worked at the door to the station, I didn't think to draw mine. I might have, but about then he went out the door into the sunlight. I've never tried to trap a vampire between a cross's glow or burning to death in sunlight. I think I'd go for the cross first, if it were me, but once it gets dark the crosses will be the only glow they need to fear. Besides, Damian was right beside me; when some of the vampires are on our side, holy objects are a mixed blessing."

"If I'd brought my flamethrower, that wouldn't be true about the glow."

"You've almost burned one house down around us. It's left me not a fan of your flamethrower."

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"Nope." I smiled when I said it, but I meant it.