Incubus Dreams (Vampire Hunter 12)

I leaned into Zerbrowski and whispered, "I can feel him in my head. I think I can find out what he saw last night."

"How?"

I shrugged. "Weird necromancy stuff, metaphysics, magic, whatever you want to call it."

"The warrant does not allow you to use magic on my people."

I looked at Malcolm; it was beginning not to be a friendly look. "I am allowed to use whatever force or abilities I deem necessary. So, yeah, I can do magic, if it gets the job done."

"I will not allow you to bespell him."

"Has it occurred to you that I don't want to kill him if he didn't do it? If I take his heart and his head, then we find out he's innocent tomorrow, what am I supposed to do, say, 'Sorry, oops'?" I was getting angry again. I took a deep breath and counted slowly to five. I didn't have the patience for ten. "I don't want to kill him, Malcolm." That last wasn't angry, that last sounded almost like a plea.

Malcolm looked at me, and it was a look I hadn't seen before. He was trying to decide if I was lying. "I feel your regret, Anita. You grow tired of the killing, just as I did."

See, that's the problem with vampires, you let them into your head an inch, and they take a metaphysical mile. I didn't like that he could read me like that, especially not with my shields up. Of course, I wasn't sure how far up my shields were. Had I dropped them to taste the vampires? I thought about my shields, and yeah, they'd dropped, or had been breached under a wave of smells and tastes and blood flowing in sluggish veins. I started to raise the shields back up, but I had something to do first.

I looked at Malcolm. "I'm going to touch Avery. I'm going to look inside him and see what I can see. I am not going to hurt him, not on purpose. I want the truth, Malcolm, that's all. Give me your word that if he's guilty, you'll let me take him."

"How will I know what you discover from him?"

I smiled, and again it wasn't a pleasant smile. "When I tell you to, if I tell you to, touch me, and you'll know what I know."

He looked at me, and I looked at him. We had one of those moments of unspoken questions. I knew that he'd tried to get information about a vampire murder when he shook my hand. There were states where that alone would get him put on a short list, a list of vampires that were getting dangerous. I knew what he'd done, and I had a warrant that allowed me enough leeway that I could pretend he was trying to hide his own involvement with the killings. I mean, there'd never be a trial. I would never have to prove my suspicions in court.

Malcolm took a breath deep enough to make his shoulders rock up and down. He nodded, once, short, curt, and almost awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure it was a good idea, but he was going to do it anyway. "You may touch Avery, if he wishes you to touch him. You may use your marks with Jean-Claude to try and find the truth."

I didn't correct him that it was my own necromancy more than Jean-Claude's powers that I was about to use. Everyone needed a few illusions, even master vampires.

I turned to Avery. "Do you agree to what I'm about to do?"

He frowned and looked puzzled. I was beginning to wonder if he wasn't as bright as he looked, and wouldn't that be a shame. "What do you want to do?"

"Touch you," I said.

His lips curved upward, the barest of smiles, but it filled his eyes with more laughter than showed on his lips. "Yes," he said, "yes, please."

I held my hands out to him and smiled. "Come to me, Avery." And just like that, he took those few steps forward. He went to his knees in front of me without being asked. He raised his face up to me, and there were two things in his face, eagerness, and a complete and utter trust. It wasn't him who wasn't bright, it was me. I'd rolled him. I'd rolled him the way a master vampire could roll a mortal. In that moment before I touched him, I wondered, if I'd drawn a gun and put it to his head would he have flinched or stared at me with those trusting eyes, while I pulled the trigger?

66

His skin was soft, even the beard stubble was softer than it looked, so black against this white skin. Just by touching the beard, I knew his hair would be soft, that nothing on his body would be harsh or wiry. He was... soft.

He smiled up at me, and it was beatific, as if he saw something wondrous. Since he was looking at me, I knew it wasn't wondrous, because it was me. I was a lot of things, but wondrous wasn't one of them. Movement made me look up away from Avery's face. There were other vampires out of their seats. Some were standing in the pews looking confused, as if they weren't sure why they were standing up. A handful of them were already in the main aisle, but they'd stopped, as if they'd known where they were going, but now they weren't sure. But there were others, a dozen or so, that were in the main aisle who didn't look confused. They looked at me the way that Avery looked at me, as if I was the answer to a prayer. It made me nervous to see that look on anyone's face, but this many, all vampires, all strangers... Nervous didn't describe how it felt. Scared maybe, yeah, scared about covered it.

"You have bespelled them," Malcolm said. He sounded angry.

"Like you do humans?" I said.

"I do not use my powers on humans."

"Are you saying you don't use any power to make yourself prettier to the humans, or even the lesser vampires?"

He blinked the blue eyes at me, set into a face that was a good face, but it wasn't the face that he'd shown me the first few times I'd met him. "That would be vanity," he said, at last, in a very quiet voice.

He hadn't denied it, but I let it go. My main concern about the "vanity" was if he was using vamp powers to look better, what else was he using them for? But that was a problem for another night.

Avery laid his cheek against my hand, not rubbing like the wereleopards did, but reminding me he was still there. I looked down at him, then up at the other vampires waiting in the aisle. It was almost a line, as if once I finished with Avery, it would be someone else's turn. I hadn't done this on purpose, and I didn't know how to undo it.

I thought, Jean-Claude. His whisper ran through me, shivered along my skin, and that shiver ran through my hand and into the vampire at my feet. It made Avery close his eyes and almost sway.

I whispered, "That didn't help, Jean-Claude. I want to stop this, not make it worse."

"I have no talent for reading another's thoughts and feelings, ma petite, not to this degree. It is not my power that you are borrowing."

"Then whose?"

"My surmise is Malcolm. For he used it on you first."

"And just like that, it's mine for keeps?"

"Perhaps not for keeps, as you say, but for now. Use it quickly, ma petite, for it may fade."

"What about the attraction thing?"

"Gain your information from this one, then I will help you tame that particular power. For now, I will withdraw, so I do not make it worse." And he was as good as his word, he was just gone. Once his leaving would have cured the attraction problem, but not now. Now, I was still left with Avery at my feet and the others still staring at me, still waiting, still wanting. Wanting what? What in the name of God was I supposed to do with them? I took a deep breath and let it out slow. One problem at a time. One disaster at a time, or you get overwhelmed.

I looked down into Avery's pale brown eyes, and thought, What happened in your apartment last night? I got a glimpse of a woman, the dead woman, but alive this time. I got a glimpse of another woman, but I couldn't see her clearly. As if part of the image was misty.

Avery pressed his face against my hand, and the mist lifted a little, but I still couldn't see the other woman. I was borrowing Malcolm's power, but most of what was in me, was a much more intimate kind of magic. I put my other hand up and cradled Avery's face between my hands, and the mist thinned even more, but it was like watching a movie where part of the screen was scratched. I was so busy trying to see the other part of the "screen" that I wasn't really watching the rest. Avery and the very alive woman were getting up close and very personal. Either my ability to be embarrassed was lessening, or when I'm working, I'm working. I was working.

I knew vamps could make people forget hours, or even days, but I'd never known anyone that could make just their part of a memory fuzzy. That was a level of control on their power that was new to me. Scary new.

Touching his face more had helped, because, like it or hate it, Jean-Claude's power and mine grew with physicality. I leaned over Avery's face, leaned into him with my hands framing him. He didn't close his eyes as I came in to kiss him, but I closed mine. I always closed mine. My lips touched his, and the woman on the other side of the bed had brown hair. The kiss grew into a press of mouths, and the woman's hair was soft brown waves that filled Avery's hand, softer even than it looked. Her face turned to his eyes, and that mist settled over his vision again. I couldn't see her face. Fine, I thought, Her name, Avery, give me her name, but there was a roaring silence in his head, as if there, too, whatever she'd done to him kept her safe, or at least anonymous.