The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 15)

Pantalone, with a missing arm, stabbed, shot, moved in a black blur. Truth was his own dark blur, his sword so fast it looked like lightning. He took him through the heart again, except spitting him this time the way Pantalone had spitted Remus. Wicked's blade glittered outward and the head went spinning. It wasn't just impressive. It was lovely in a macabre sort of way.

"Someone put the head in a sack. We'll burn it later, separate from the body."

"We should take the heart, too," Olaf said.

I nodded. "You're right. We'll do that after we take care of the other two."

"You killed our master," Columbine said.

"I would ask, does that frighten you, but I can taste your fear in your words. It tastes good. I'm going to ask you some questions. If you answer me truthfully, then you die quick, fairly painless. You fuck with me, lie to me, try not to answer the questions and I'll make your death something to write home about. I'll give you to Olaf. He's the big guy."

Olaf glanced back at me, gun still trained on them. "Do you mean it?"

"Right this minute, yes. She's a petite dark-haired woman, she even fits your victim profile. If she doesn't answer my questions, never say I didn't give you a good present."

"No," Columbine said, "please."

"You tried to kill me and the people I love. Your master killed my friend. Please isn't going to have much effect on me right now, not from you."

"Please," Richard said, "don't do this."

I shook my head. "Go home, Richard."

"Isn't there any other man in your bed who agrees with me, that there are some things you don't do, for any reason?"

Jean-Claude stood and went to Richard. He began to try to soothe him. It reminded me of when you gamed and you had to send the Paladin around the hill so you could loot the dead.

Nathaniel and Micah came to my sides. "You want to get closer to her?" Micah asked.

I nodded. "You don't think I'm a bastard for offering her to Olaf?"

"They've nearly killed you three times, Anita. You're my Nimir-Ra; I'll carve out her heart and serve it to you on a platter." The threat seemed more real with him in his kitty-cat form.

"I'm your submissive, I don't argue," Nathaniel said.

"Submissive when it suits you, lately."

He smiled at me. "I won't carve her up, but I might watch Olaf do it. She almost killed you, and Jean-Claude, and Richard."

I nodded. "And Peter."

"And Cisco," Nathaniel said.

I nodded, and started to turn back to look at Remus. Micah kept me moving forward. "Let's go ask your questions."

We went to ask my questions. Olaf was whispering to her as we came up, what he'd do to her, what he wanted to do to her. "Please, don't answer the questions. Vampires die so much slower than humans."

Guess what, she answered every question first time out. She and Nivia had killed the humans and tried to frame the church members. It had been to get leverage to try to force Malcolm to simply give the Church to them. Then I'd gone and spoiled it by killing Nivia. I didn't tell her that I wasn't even certain why Nivia had died, or what I'd done to cause it. Maybe Jean-Claude could help me figure it out later. Columbine was going to be the beard, the stalking horse, for Pantalone. Once he ruled here, even the Mother of All Darkness couldn't force him to abandon his territory. All of them, Pantalone, Nivia, Soledad, and Giovanni had all taken assassination jobs. The only question she hesitated on, even for a second, was, "Which council members did you work for?"

"They'll kill me."

"You don't have to be afraid of them anymore, Columbine."

"You'll protect me?"

"In a way. You don't have to be afraid of the council killing you later, because we're going to kill you tonight, remember? All we're negotiating on is whether you die easy, or hard. Your choice."

She shook her head.

"Olaf."

"Yes."

"We have to cut her heart out anyway. Want to do it first?"

He stared at me as if wondering if I was kidding. I remembered Remus's body in my arms. I knew now that I'd felt his body jerk as Pantalone had forced his arm through his chest, through his heart, dug his way through, and killed him. I could still hear his last whispered "I'm sorry." Not "help me," or "God, it hurts," but "I'm sorry."

"Do it," I said.

They held her down, and they held Giovanni down, and Olaf ripped her costume open, bared her breasts to the room, and began very slowly to carve out her heart. He didn't get very far before she gave up the names. Master of Beasts and the Lover of Death.

Olaf didn't stop when she gave up the names. He'd gone to his happy place. It was like trying to argue with an autistic child; he just didn't hear us.

Columbine screamed, "I answered your questions. In the name of the dark, kill me."

I told Wicked to behead her. He did, one clean blow that scarred the wood underneath her. I could never get a head to come off in one blow. Olaf looked up as the blood poured out of the neck in a crimson fountain. "I wasn't finished."

"She gave the information up a while ago. I promised her a quick death if she told me what I needed to know."

He gave me a look that wasn't friendly at all.

"You can still cut out her heart," I said.

"It's not the same," he said, and the look on his face was nothing I understood, or wanted to understand.

I started to apologize for not letting him cut out her heart while she was still alive, then I caught myself. Fuck, the shock was beginning to leave and I was wondering what the hell I'd been thinking. Legally, everything we were doing was A-okay. I had a warrant of execution, it covered a multitude of sins.

He did finish cutting out her heart. I had Wicked behead Giovanni. I was really going to see if he and his brother could teach me the beheading-a-person-with-one-blow technique. I could never manage, not even with a sword. Maybe it was a leverage thing?

I took Giovanni's heart myself, with one of Fredo's knives that was better for carving open a person's sternum than anything I had on me. I was tired, and the shock was wearing off, which made me clumsy. I was nearly elbow deep inside Giovanni's chest. I just couldn't seem to get the heart out of the ligaments that held the pericardial sac in place. I'd pierced the sac, but it was as if I'd gotten something tangled. I was so tired, and numb, and not numb enough.

"May I help?" Olaf was kneeling beside the body. His hands were bloody, too, but only one of them looked like he was wearing a red glove.

"Yeah, it's tangled. I think I'm just tired."

He slid his hand inside the hole I'd made, so that his arm slid up alongside mine in the chest cavity. It wasn't until his hand cupped mine, pressing both our hands into the still warm heart, that I looked at him. We were both leaning over the body, our faces inches apart, with our arms up the much longer torso of the male. He looked at me over the body, our hands around the heart, blood everywhere. He looked at me as if it were a candlelit dinner and I were wearing nice lingerie.

I thought very clearly in my head, I will not scream. I would be calm. Fuck, but I would be. Besides, he'd enjoy it if I screamed. My voice was only a little strained as I said, "I think it's just past my fingertips. Can you reach the ligament there?"

He slid his hand over mine, farther up the heart. He caressed my hand while he reached for the piece of the heart I couldn't reach. I started to slide my hand out as I felt him grab the piece of muscle or ligament. He laid the other heart on the dead vampire's groin and grabbed my arm before I could pull it out of the chest cavity. He held my hand inside so we'd be touching the heart together. If I struggled, he'd like it. I could yell for help, but he almost had it loose, and it would be over. I hesitated. He pulled the heart free of whatever had been holding it in place, and it spilled into both our hands. He kept his free hand on my arm, controlling how slow we eased out of the chest cavity. He made it last, and he stared at my face while we did it. I normally don't have much problem fishing around inside dead bodies anymore, but the sensation of our hands holding the heart, our arms pressed together as we slid out of the thick, bloody muscle, was too strangely intimate. For the last few inches of arm he looked down at the wound and not at my face. He watched our arms emerge from the bloody hole just under the sternum. He kept his hand on my arm and forced our hands upward, so that for a moment we held the heart together, and he looked at me over that bleeding muscle.

I knew I went pale. I couldn't help it. I knew he would enjoy my fear, and I couldn't stop it. Then he leaned in toward me. He leaned in over the bloody heart, the body, our bloody arms. He leaned in for a kiss.

I whispered, "Don't."

"You don't want me to kiss you," he whispered back.

"I don't want you to touch me," I said.

He smiled then. "Perfect."

He kissed me.

I had Fredo's blade going for a different chest when Olaf pulled back, out of reach. He laughed, a rich, deep laugh. A happy sound that didn't match anything we were doing. He'd left me with the heart in one hand and the knife in the other. If my hands hadn't been full I might have gone for my gun. Surely I could claim temporary insanity.

He wiped his bloody hands on his clothes, not just on his shirt, but wiped his bloody hands down his body, showing off all that muscled chest, stomach, and finally groin. He massaged his groin with his bloody hands, and looked at me while he did it.

That was it. I set the knife and heart on the floor and tried to run for the bathroom and never made it. I threw up in front of the door to the recreation hall. I threw up until there was nothing left. I threw up until my head was pounding and I was spitting up bile. Micah laid a cool and human hand against my forehead while I was sick. Nathaniel held my hair back, because my hands were still covered in blood.

Olaf left town. I've got a new recurring nightmare to add to the list. It's Olaf and me cutting up the body, except in the dream it's bloodier, and Giovanni is screaming, and I kiss Olaf back. Maybe the temporary insanity was not to shoot him.

Peter didn't take the injection, and he didn't catch lycanthropy. He's back home recovering, human-slow, but he's sixteen and in good shape. He'll heal, but he's going to have some seriously macho scars. I have no idea what Edward told Donna. I'm not sure I want to know.

Doc Lillian sewed up the marks on my breast. She said, "Unless you don't care if it scars?" I guess I did care. I asked her why the breast would scar when the stomach and side healed clean. They were more serious wounds. What the doc and the other doctors think happened is that the feeding on the swans gave enough energy not only to save everyone, but also to heal the injuries completely, and even faster than a normal lycanthrope could have done it. I'm not sure what a "normal" lycanthrope is, but Lillian has warned me to be more careful. "You can't find an entire animal group to feed off every night." She has a point.

Jean-Claude sent Sampson home to Cape Cod before the fight. He didn't want to get his friend's son killed. Sampson left without having sex with me. His mother's plans spoiled by the Harlequin's arrival.

There's a tiger inside me now, thanks to Marmee Noir and Soledad. We're trying to find some tigers willing to come to St. Louis. Though, strangely, something about what happened seems to have given me more control over the beasts. Or, at least, they haven't tried to tear me apart recently. In fact, letting out one beast seems to content the rest. No one seems to know why it's working this way now. I'm not sure I care why, as long as it stays this calm.

Haven stayed in town with his new lions. Joseph, his wife, and his brother all vanished. Most of the pride was offered a chance to join Haven's new pride. Some accepted. Haven and his fellow enforcers seem to be trying to live by my rules. I've managed to keep Haven out of my bed for now. The lioness seems strangely okay with that. Again, part of me wishes I knew why the beasts inside me are suddenly so reasonable, but most of me doesn't want to poke at the miracle too much. I'm just glad something is getting easier to deal with, instead of harder.

Richard had left the church before I threw up. He never saw me have my moment of conscience, or panic. Whatever. We aren't dating anymore, again. This one may stick, and the thought doesn't upset me, which is why it may stick.

Jake left town. Strangely, some people remember he was a Harlequin, and some don't. He and his master are worried that Marmee Noir will come back and try and use me again. He gave me a pendant made of a metal so soft I can bend the edges. It's carved with symbols I don't know. I'll have my metaphysical therapist, Marianne, look at it when I see her next weekend. Jake has made me promise to wear it always. After seeing Marmee Noir's slippers with little pearls, so real in the church, I'll wear the amulet, always. Small price to pay to avoid the Marmee Darling.

I found a priest to hear Malcolm's confession. I think it took like three days, with food breaks, to hear it all, but he had been saving up for centuries.

Remus and Cisco are still dead. Nothing changed that. I could bring them back as zombies, but that wouldn't be bringing them back at all. Remus's last words keep coming back: "I'm sorry." Sorry about what? Sorry he thought he'd failed to protect me? Sorry that he was dying? Sorry in general? I was the one who was sorry. I'd gotten him killed.

Peter calls me sometimes and we share our survivor's guilt. This isn't the first time people died and I lived, but it's the freshest. Peter still wants to grow up and be like his soon-to-be stepdad. If Cisco's death, and almost dying, couldn't cure him of wanting to play mercenary, then I'm not going to be able to talk him out of it.

Talking about things I'm not going to be able to talk people out of... I need to try to meet Nathaniel's needs, all his needs. I discussed with Jean-Claude that Byron had offered to teach me how to dominate Nathaniel. Jean-Claude agreed that I needed a teacher if I was serious about topping our pussycat. But Jean-Claude suggested a different teacher, one who was most certainly a top and not a bottom. Asher would be more than happy to teach me about BDSM, if I truly wanted to learn. Honestly, I'm not sure I do, but for Nathaniel's sake, I've got to at least try. Don't I? If I try and can't do it, then I've at least tried. If I don't try and we break up, then it's all my fault. I don't want to feel like any of my breakups are my fault anymore. There had to be a point with Richard, early on, where I didn't compromise. Maybe if Richard had agreed to sleep with me when I first asked, there would have been no room for anyone else. Maybe, if... I don't want to look back at Nathaniel and say Maybe, or If only. I'll compromise; I'll bend, though it's not one of my best things. Sometimes it feels like when I bend, that I'll break. Will letting Asher teach me how to make Nathaniel happy break me? I hope not.

A LICK OF FROST

The heat is on once again as America's only native-born faerie princess, Meredith Gentry, returns - and her sexy, suspenseful saga continues - in the brand-new adventure, A Lick of Frost. Leaving behind the faerie court, Merry plunges into her Los Angeles life as a private investigator, only to have faerie intrigue reach out to her yet again. Still, her coterie of handsome bodyguards are close at hand, and her erotically charged efforts to conceive an heir must go on... or else. When federal charges are levied against her bodyguards, human and faerie justice come into conflict. Between the two worlds lies territory fraught with dangers neither a princess nor a private eye can anticipate. At every turn Merry's tangled web of family and politics threatens to bring her face-to-face with a fate much worse than death.