Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"But you're going to struggle anyway, aren't you?"

I lay there, looking up at both of them. The big guy was getting sort of heavy on my waist and stomach. Funny how if I was having good sex the man never seemed that heavy, but in other circumstances I realized just how much smaller I was than most men. I wasn't going anywhere with him sitting like that, but I didn't have to move him. I just had to keep him from sticking whatever was in the syringe into me. If I could delay everything long enough I was still hoping that the cavalry would ride to the rescue; I just needed to give them as much time as I could. "Yes, I'm going to struggle anyway."

"We aren't supposed to kill you, but we can hurt you. If you make us hold you down like this, I will use it as an excuse to cause you pain."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me," I said.

"He will enjoy hurting you," Hamish said.

"I believe that."

"Do not put yourself at his mercy, Anita Blake."

"I'm not at his mercy. You're here, Hamish."

"Do not look to me for protection from Rodrigo. That would be a grave mistake." He said it and he meant it, but he wasn't happy about it. Again, I smelled division in the ranks.

"Duly noted," I said.

"I like hurting people," Rodrigo said.

"You like killing people," I said.

"That, too, but I really do enjoy a slower death; otherwise I'd have stabbed your lover through the heart, instead of the lungs."

I couldn't keep my eyes neutral. It made him smile wider. "Oh, you didn't like that at all. Let's do this, Hamish. I know what sweet nothings I want to whisper in her ear."

"Then grab her arms and stop talking us both to death."

"Oh, when I do anything involving you, it won't be talk, old friend." I had seldom heard the phrase old friend sound so hostile.

"He just threatened you," I said.

"He does that," Hamish said.

"Roddy, I don't think he's afraid of you. Are you, Hamish?"

"I fear no one," he said.

"Not even Roddy, or especially not him?"

"Why are we letting her talk like this?" Hamish asked.

Rodrigo frowned; he looked like a petulant middle schooler, as if he should stamp his foot and complain to his mommy. "I don't know."

"Hold her," Hamish said, and this time he meant it, and so did I. I used my feet and legs and every bit of lower body I had to try to throw him off me. I didn't expect to really move him off me, but it kept him from using the needle on me, and that was my goal. Not to let them put whatever that was in me, and to stay in this room until help came.

"Hold her!" Hamish yelled.

Rodrigo got one of my wrists pinned, but I got a palm strike under his chin that rocked him. He tried to hit me back, and I somehow managed to block him with my one free arm, which pissed him off even more. "Stop squirming!"

"Squirming is one of my best things," I said.

"This is going to happen. Stop fighting it!"

"Fuck you!"

"Only if it would cause you pain."

"I doubt you're that well endowed."

He snarled at me, sending his beast's energy playing along my skin. I breathed it in like a familiar cologne, but he shut down too fast. I couldn't tell what scent it was; it was a level of control of his energy that was really rare, but then, he was one of the Harlequin. One of the ones who had fled across the world and the ones with us hadn't found yet, or had given up on finding. We'd told them to stay home with us and leave the world alone. If I lived through this we'd be changing that policy.

He pinned one wrist under his knee, making sure to grind it to hurt, but I'd been hurt worse before, even recently, and I knew for a fact that once they got me out of this room unconscious, I'd eventually be hurt a hell of a lot worse. He got a hand on my other arm, and my wrists were pinned under his knee and hand. I knew it was over, but I still moved the rest of me as much as I could. Hamish put his hand on my chest and leaned, and that pretty much ended my upper-body moving, and if he'd pressed long enough, my breathing. He shoved the needle in my arm, and I couldn't stop them. I screamed and Rodrigo slapped me hard enough that I saw stars for a second. When my vision cleared I was already starting to feel warm.

"What did you give me?" My words were clear, but my tongue was starting to feel thick; all of me began to feel like it was getting wrapped in cotton like some breakable object to be wrapped up for shipping. Whatever the stuff was, it was fast acting.

Rodrigo leaned over me, petting my hair, and I couldn't stop him. They still had my arms pinned, but it wouldn't matter for much longer. My body was starting to feel heavy, thick, and distant. "It doesn't matter what we gave you; it's working." He leaned his dark eyes over mine, and it was too close to the intimate eye contact that Domino and I had just shared. It helped me fight clear for a moment. I dropped every metaphysical shield I had and silently broadcast to anyone and everyone, everything, that could hear me, feel me. I needed help and I needed it now!

"What are you doing?" Rodrigo asked, leaning so close that I smelled the soap he'd showered with, and underneath that was heat and fur and . . . leopard.

"Get back, Roddy. Don't touch her now!" I couldn't focus on the man sitting on top of me now, couldn't make my eyes work the way I wanted. I kept watching the blond.

"Why can you touch her and I can't?" he asked.

"Because I'm not one of her animals to call, and you are."

I stared into the wereleopard's cave-dark eyes, and thought, Mine. He said, "No."

The drugs hit a new level and my beast quieted. Everything quieted. I couldn't move, almost didn't want to move.

Rodrigo petted my hair again. "That's better." He moved to one side and used my hair to lean my head back so I could see Ethan. I couldn't have moved enough to do it myself now. Ethan dangled from the door, a knife through his shoulder pinning him in place while the rest of his body hung there. He was deeply unconscious or the pain would have revived him.

"I did that," Rodrigo whispered near me, and then rolled my head to look at Domino, "and that, and if we get to kill you, I'll beg to help. I am not your leopard to call. I am something you cannot tame."

It took almost all the effort I had to make my lips move and whisper, "Harlequin."

It startled him, as if he didn't think I'd know w

hat they both were, but what else could they be? Nothing else could have taken out two of my tigers, with all their training, and me this fast. He reached toward Domino and came back with his hand scarlet with fresh blood. He wiped the blood across my lips and I couldn't stop him.

"When she is done with you, I will make you choke on your own blood." He shoved his fingers down my throat, but I didn't choke for him. "Swallow the blood of your tiger, Anita. Swallow him down for the very last time!"

I tried not to, but I couldn't do anything but swallow. All blood tastes the same, like sweet copper pennies. Darkness was starting to eat my vision. My tongue was almost too thick to use, but I fought to say it, while I stared up into Rodrigo's black eyes: "All the . . . Harlequin . . . belong . . . to me." Then the darkness came and I wasn't sure if it ate me, or I became it, but Rodrigo's black eyes were the last thing I saw.

77

I KNEW I was dreaming, but I knew it wasn't my dream. I was wearing a dress from a century that I'd never lived through. The skirt was heavy with one of those odd hoops, if that's what you call it, that made the dress go out to either side of your hips like you should be able to set plates on the stiff satin cloth. The cloth was red and gold, and the tight cinched waist pushed my breasts up too much so that even I was distracted when I saw myself in the mirror that was leaning up against the stone wall. It was a very realistic dream. I could feel the long skirts brushing against the rough stone floor. I had enough of Jean-Claude's memories to know that there should have been sweet rushes or something on the floor, but it was rough-hewn rock, almost cavelike, except there were windows, long, thin, and reaching almost to the high vaulted ceiling. I could hear the ocean, feel the wind of it. I thought, But where is the smell of the ocean? And that was when I knew it was a dream. There's no scent in a dream; that part doesn't work when we sleep, which is why most people don't smell smoke from fire in time. Noises wake us, but not smells.