The Killing Dance (Vampire Hunter 6)

"You mean Harley?"

"You know damn well who I mean," I said.

"He's only looking, Anita. No harm."

"But why me?"

"You're a girl maybe?"

"Stop it, Edward. Whatever he's thinking, it isn't sex, and if it is, I don't want to know the details."

Edward stared at me. "Ask him."

"What?"

"Ask him why he's staring at you."

"Just like that?"

He nodded. "Harley will probably get a kick out of it."

"Do I want to know?" I asked.

"I don't know. Do you?"

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You're stringing me along here, Edward. What's the deal?"

"If something happens to me during the fighting, Harley needs at least one other person that he'll mind."

"Mind?"

"He's absolutely reliable, Anita. He'll stay at my back, never flinch, and kill anyone I tell him to, but he's not good without specific orders. And he doesn't take orders from just everybody."

"So you designated me?"

Edward shook his head. "I told him to pick someone in the room."

"Why me?"

"Ask him."

"Fine." I walked back towards the others, and Edward followed me. Harley watched us like he was seeing other things. It was too damned unnerving.

"Why are you staring at me?" I asked.

His voice was quiet, as if he never yelled. "You're the scariest motherfucker in the room."

"Now I know you can't see."

"I see what's there," he said.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

I tried to think of a better question and finally asked, "What do you see when you look at everybody in the room?"

"The same thing you see: monsters."

"Why do I think the monsters I see in the room aren't the same ones you see?"

He smiled, a bare upturning of lips. "They may look different, but they're still monsters. They're all monsters."

He was a card-carrying, rubber-room-renting psychotic. By the time most people got to the point where they weren't seeing reality, they were so far gone that there was no going back. Sometimes drug therapy helped, but without it, the world was a frightening, overwhelming place. Harley didn't look frightened or overwhelmed. He looked calm.

"When you look at Edward, he always looks the same to you. I mean you recognize him?"

Harley nodded.

"You'd recognize me," I said.

"If I make an effort to memorize you, yes."

"That's why you were staring."

"Yes," he said.

"What happens if Edward and I both go down?"

Harley smiled, but his eyes shifted to one side as if something low to the ground and rather small had run across the room. The movement was so natural that I looked. Nothing.

"Harley," I said.

He looked back at me, but his eyes were just a little higher up than my face should have been. "Yes," he said, his voice so quiet.

"What happens if Edward and I are both killed?"

Harley stared at me. His eyes shifted to my face for just a second, as if the fog had cleared. "That would be bad."

35

There would be no backing down for Marcus tonight. He had to die, one way or another. Richard wasn't arguing anymore. But there was still the chance that Raina would lead a revolt of the other lukoi. Their loyalty was divided enough for a war, even with Marcus dead. Jean-Claude came up with a solution. We'd put on a better show. A better show than Raina and Marcus? He had to be kidding. Richard agreed to let Jean-Claude costume him up for the night. As his lupa, that meant I had to get dressed up, too.

Jean-Claude took Richard off to dress him. He sent Cassandra with a white cardboard clothes box to me. She was supposed to help me change, she said.

I opened the box and all that was in it was a pile of black leather straps. I kid you not. I drew it out of the box and it didn't improve. "I don't know how to get into this, even if I was willing to."

"I'll get Stephen," Cassandra said.

"I don't want to undress in front of Stephen."

"He's a stripper," she said. "He dressed me last night at Danse Macabre, remember." She patted my hand. "He'll be a perfect gentleman."

I sat down on the bed and scowled at the door. I was not wearing this crap.

An hour later, Stephen and Cassandra were turning me in front of the bathroom mirrors so I could see myself. It had been embarrassing at first having a man help squeeze me into the thing, but Cassandra was right. Stephen was not only a perfect gentleman, he simply didn't seem to be moved at all by the fact that I was mostly naked. It was like having two girlfriends help me. One just happened not to be a girl.

The top was mostly a leather bra with lining for comfort. It was one of those that lifted and showed your cle**age to absolute best advantage. But it was tight and held in place. Nothing was falling out. My cross was visible, though. I taped it. I'd peel the tape when I left the Circus. Werewolves on the menu tonight, not vamps.

The bottom was sort of leather shorts, except that where the shorts stopped, straps took over. I wouldn't be caught dead or alive in something like this, not even to make a good show of things for Richard, except that there were extras.

Two leather sheaths covered my upper arms, complete with a knife apiece. The knives were high quality, high silver content. If the hilts were a little elaborate for my taste, the balance was good, and that's what counted. Two more sheaths covered my lower arms with two more knives, smaller, balanced more for throwing, though they both had hilts and weren't true throwing knives. The bulge under Harley's T-shirt had been throwing knives, the real McCoy, slender and innocent looking until you saw them used.

There was a leather belt around the top of the shorts that my Browning's shoulder holster fit on nicely. Edward had bought me a new Browning. It wasn't my very own gun, but it was still nice to have. Harley had fished a clip-on holster for the Firestar out of his duffel. The small clip-on rode to one side of my waist for a cross draw.

The straps down my legs had small silver loops, sheaths, two more knives, one on each thigh. No knife sheaths below the knees because boots came with the outfit. Jean-Claude had finally gotten me out of my Nikes. The boots were soft black suede with heels only a touch higher than I would have liked. A tiny stoppered vial fit in small loops just below the top of each boot. I held one up to the light, and knew what it was. Holy water. A nice gift from my vampire boyfriend, heh?

I stared at myself in the mirror. "How long has Jean-Claude been planning this outfit?"

"A little while," Stephen said. He was kneeling by me, tugging the straps into place. "We all had a running bet that he'd never get you to wear it."

"Who's we?"

"His flunkies." Stephen stood up, stepped back, and nodded. "You look amazing."

"I look like a biker slut from hell meets soldier of fortune pinup."

"That, too," Stephen said.

I turned to Cassandra. "Be honest."

"You look dangerous, Anita. Like somebody's weapon."

I stared in the mirror, shaking my head. "Somebody's sex toy, you mean."

"A dominatrix maybe, but nobody's toy," Cassandra said.

Why didn't that make me feel better?

Cassandra had insisted on helping me with my makeup. She was a great deal more skilled at it than I. Years of practice, she'd said. My hair was tight and curling, falling just below my shoulders now. It needed a cut. But for tonight, the hair was perfect. The face was still pretty. Makeup is a wonderful thing. But the outfit stripped away the pretense. I looked like what I was: something that would kill you before it would kiss you.

We walked out of the bathroom and found Edward and Harley waiting for us. They had brought two straight-backed chairs to sit on the white carpet, facing the bathroom door. I froze as Edward stared at me. He didn't say a word, just sat there with a sort of half-smile on his face.

"Well, say something, dammit."

"I would say it isn't you, but in a way, it is."

I took a deep breath. "Yeah."

Harley stared at me with vacant eyes. He was smiling, but not at the outfit. Smiling at some internal music or vision that only he could perceive.

There was a long leather coat on the bed. "One of the vampires dropped it off," Edward said. "Thought you might want something to cover up with until the big unveiling."