Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

"Fine." I took his arm with one hand and put the other hand inside my pocket, where the gun was weighing it down. The gun made me feel better, though I admit it was tempting with him on my arm to just turn and kill him where he stood. If Nathaniel hadn't been with me, I might have, but he was, and we were outside. We were escaping. I'd kill him later.

The triplets led us down the grassy headland, across a parking lot that still had plenty of cars in it, and toward the town that lay spread out before us. It was still daylight and the only daywalking vampires behind us were Moroven and Damian. The Roane were the greatest danger as long as the sun was up. I felt like I had a target between my shoulder blades, and it took everything I had not to look back, but with my hood up, I actually did blend in. There were even a couple of other women with skirts as short as mine, though they were wearing tights under theirs. My legs were still so cold that I could barely feel them. It was like I'd been able to ignore the cold until I got outside in the wind. Nathaniel's new haircut helped us blend in, but every time I saw him without all his hair it was like a little punch in the gut. He'd wiped most of the blood that was visible off on a cloth that Rodina had given him, and the sweatshirt hid the rest. He was much better at playacting than I was, so they looked much more like a couple than Rodrigo and I did. Rodrigo was probably better at pretending to be a couple, but he was worried what I'd do if he did. Ru had separated from us to walk ahead through the tourists. I'd catch a glimpse of him here and there, which probably meant he wasn't hiding that hard from us.

We were crossing a stone bridge over a river that flowed into the sea. It was all really pretty, but it was moments from full dark. We needed cover before that happened. "We need to not be out in the open," I said.

Rodina leaned in against Nathaniel, smiling as if I'd said the best thing. "We'll head for one of the churches that will keep the vampires out."

"What about the Roanes?" I asked.

"You and your men have killed four of them already today."

"How many more are there here?" I asked.

"Dozens," she said, still smiling.

"We need a plan," I said.

"Where're Dev and Edward?" Nathaniel asked.

He was right. I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and then I did. Damian was fighting to stay with us, and not let her take him again, but he had all three of them touching his skin: Moroven, Keegan, and Roarke. He could fight off one of them, even two, but three . . . It was like they were trying to steal a piece of us. I stumbled and had to clutch at Rodrigo. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Nathaniel answered, "Damian." He'd thrown his arms around Rodina as if he were hugging her, which looked less suspicious than me clutching at just Rodrigo's arm. Then Damian was gone, vanished from my mind, my heart. Moroven had captured him again. Damn it!

Rodrigo said, "Are you all right?" He was holding me around the waist; apparently I was closer to falling down than I'd realized. My skirt was not long enough for around-the-waist holding. He helped me stand up and pull everything back into place.

"She's got Damian again," I said.

Ru suddenly appeared beside us. "We need to keep moving."

He was right. Nathaniel asked, "Did she take Damian over again because she knows what we've done or just because?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"There's no general alarm yet," Rodina said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"We aren't running," she said.

"Good point," I said.

We were walking like two ordinary couples with Ru as our third wheel on yet another quiet, picturesque street. There was a line of boats bobbing in the water along the quay with a blue building on the other side of the road that was apparently a seafood restaurant and a shop called the Lighthouse and the Fishman, respectively. There was fresh Irish seafood, or so the signs said. We walked without running. Rodina managed to giggle at something Nathaniel said.

Rodrigo said, "Do you want me to do the girlish laughter, while you pretend to be clever?"

I fought not to glare at him, which would have ruined the whole "touristy couple" camouflage. The best I could do was lean in and say, "Fuck you."

He smiled as if I'd said something wonderful. I actually saw an older couple across the street smile at him. I lowered my face against his shoulder to hide the fact that my expression didn't match. It made it look like I was cuddling against him. Great.

Ru had stopped walking and was staring down into the dark water. There was a seal in the dark water; you could just see it. It stared up at us with huge black eyes that reminded me of Roarke's, except under the water like this it looked like a drowning victim. I whispered against Rodrigo's neck, "Is it just a seal?"

"When they're in seal form, you can't always tell them apart," he whispered back.

Ru knelt by the water and made soft sounds somewhere between growls, grunts, and purrs. The seal ducked underwater and vanished. Ru got to his feet fast. "That wasn't a seal." He was backing away from the water.

"Fuck," Rodina said. She let go of Nathaniel's hand and faced the water.

"What do we do?" Nathaniel asked.

The water, which had been quietly sloshing between the boats, began to boil with whitecaps, but there was nothing visible agitating the water. "Run!" Rodina said, and grabbed Nathaniel by the arm and started down the street. The rest of us followed. We got stared at by the few people still on the quiet street, but it didn't matter anymore. It was too late to pretend. The seals threw themselves out of the water onto the street behind us. I saw one shiver, and it stood up a man, fully clothed and pointing at us. Fuck!

Rodrigo dragged me around the side of a building. In the distance, I saw a church. It would keep out the vampires when it got dark, but it wouldn't keep out the Selkies now.

We had to scramble over a wall to get into the churchyard, and suddenly we were surrounded by tombstones. It was a graveyard. Nathaniel grabbed my arm. "Raise the dead. Raise zombies, Anita."

"I'm not sure zombies will rise here."

"Try," he said.

"I'd rather not die with our new queen, not just yet," Rodina said. "Try."

"If they find us, we'll hold them off," Rodrigo said.

"We are your Brides now, Anita Blake. We must keep you safe and happy," Ru said, and he moved into the darkness, vanishing into the shadows as if by magic.

Rodina moved the two of us into the shadows on the edge of the gravestones. "Do what only you can do, Anita. We'll do what we are good at and protect our queen."

"We need a knife," Nathaniel said.

I'd thought she'd dig out the blade we'd used to kill the Roane in the Black Castle, but she handed me a clean blade from a sheath at her side. "And the one we used in the castle," I said.

Rodina didn't question it, just fished it out of her backpack. I heard a noise at the wall. "Do magic, Anita. Do it for the man beside you." Then she ran for the wall and the quiet sounds of struggle.

I stood in that peaceful green space and realized it wasn't dark yet; almost no one could perform necromancy before dark. Necromancers were like vampires; we didn't function well in daylight. It was dark on the streets, but there was still light up there in the sky. I could feel it. I reached into the ground underneath our feet and searched for the dead. It was dirt, living earth.

"I can't feel the dead, Nathaniel."

He used the clean knife to slice across his palm and offered it to me. "Help me walk the circle with you." I saw Rodrigo or Ru throw someone back over the wall.

Nathaniel touched my face. "Anita, I need you."

I looked up into his eyes and thought about what would happen if they captured us again. I sliced my hand open, which startled him, but I clasped our hands together, blood to blood, and said, "We walk the circle together."

I visualized it like a line of white light shining down as we walked. I ignored the sounds of fighting, because I had to trust the three Harlequin to protect us long enough for

me to do this. The dead would not rise here, but there was power here that I could use all the same. I prayed for protection and guidance. Nathaniel was an extra kick of energy, but I was already heavy with energy from having drained the Roane in the castle. I heard the circle close with an almost audible pop and felt a pressure change that made us both have to swallow as if we'd changed elevations. I took the knife with the Roane blood still on it, not even dried completely, and I pushed it into the ground. I hoped it would do what we needed.

The three Harlequin were backing toward us with a crowd three deep surrounding us. How many seal guards did Moroven have? Shit. They rushed us, and the triplets did their best. Rodina threw one over her shoulder and it fell through the circle. That could have been accidental, but then he stood up and stepped back through the circle to draw a sword almost as tall as I was, but half his body went through the circle.

"It'll keep out vampires, but not these guys," I said. Then full dark came. I felt it in my bones like an echo. The triplets all backed up through the circle and to us so that we were standing almost back to back. There was a solid wall of the Roane in human form waiting outside the circle, which I knew they could cross.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what are they waiting for?" I asked.

"The vampires to arrive," Rodrigo said. "She's told them to wait."

"I won't be captured," Rodina said.

"Nor I," Ru said.

"Crap," I said, and looked around for something, anything to help us. I saw something not that far away that gleamed in the dark. When I looked at it straight on, it wasn't there, but out of the corner of my eye, it was like a white phosphorous glow, a ghostly glow.

"The prophecy says that to guarantee our dark mistress will be lost and the Master of Tigers triumphant, they must marry one of the clan tigers," Rodrigo said.

"Is this really the time for a history lesson, Roddy?" Rodina said.

"If I die here, I need someone else to understand what's happened."

"What are you babbling about now?" she asked.

"What's in that direction that would be really haunted?" I asked, motioning.

There was a moment where the three of them sort of shifted and thought, and then Ru said, "Wicklow Gaol."

"It's just a historic site now," Rodina said.

A wind blew high and shivering through the trees overhead. It didn't smell of rain, but it felt like a storm was coming. There was a black cloud boiling in the sky toward the sea. "What is that?" Nathaniel asked.

"It's her," Rodina said, "her and all her dark court."

"We will give our lives for you," Ru said.

The black "cloud" began to separate into individual shapes. It was vampires flying in a mass like some Halloween witch poster. I leaned into Rodina. "Can you fight your way free to the gaol?"

"I cannot promise."

"Is it important enough for us to die for?" Rodrigo asked.

"There are dead there that will rise," I said.

"You won't have to kill me for what I did to your lover, Anita. The sea folk will do it for you." He gave a battle cry, which was the only term I had for the sound, and leapt into the mass of enemies.