The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 15)

Chapter Eight

BYRON LOOKED AT all of us. His usual joking face was utterly serious. "Someone talk to us poor little peons, please."

"Did you receive a gift?" Requiem asked.

"Oui."

"What kind of gift?" Byron asked.

"A mask," Jean-Claude said.

Byron paled; he'd fed tonight so he had enough color to do it. "No, no, fuck me, not here, not again."

"What color was it?" Requiem said in a voice that had fallen away to emptiness, the way some of the old vampires could do.

"White," Jean-Claude said.

Byron relaxed so suddenly he almost fell. Nathaniel offered him a hand that he took. "I'm all weak-kneed, duckies. Don't scare me like that. White, we're safe with white."

Nathaniel helped him back to the couch, but didn't stay by him. He moved back toward us.

"What color did your master in England get?" I asked.

"Red first, then black," Requiem said.

"What does red mean?" I asked.

"Pain," Jean-Claude said. "It is typically a bid to punish a master, to bring him to heel. The council does not use the Harlequin lightly."

The name fell into the room like a stone dropped down a well. You strained to hear the splash. I leaned my face in against Jean-Claude's chest. There was no heartbeat to hear. He would breathe only when he needed to speak. I raised my head away from his chest. Sometimes it still disturbed me to lay my ear against a silent chest.

Byron broke the silence. "Red means they fuck with you."

"Like someone has been doing tonight?" I asked.

"Yes," Requiem said.

"And black?" I asked.

"Death," Requiem said.

"But doesn't white mean they just observe us?" Nathaniel said.

"It should," he said. I'd begun to dread when Requiem answered in short, clipped sentences. The poetry might occasionally get on my nerves, but the short, choppy words meant something had gone wrong, or he was pissed, or both.

"You said you'd explain more about them when I got to Guilty Pleasures. Well, I'm here. Explain."

"Harlequin is now merely a figure for jest. Once he was, or they were, the Mesnee d'Hellequin. Do you know what the wild hunt is, ma petite?"

"The wild hunt is a common motif all over Europe. A supernatural leader leads a band of devils, or the dead, with spectral hounds and horses. They chase and kill either anyone who crosses their path, or only the evil, and take them to hell. It depends on who you read whether it's a punishment to join the hunt, or a reward. It's usually considered really bad to be outside when the hunt goes by."

"As always you surprise me, ma petite."

"Well, it's such a widespread story that there has to be some basis for it, but it hasn't been seen for real since the time of one of the Henrys in England. I think Henry the Second, but I'm not a hundred percent on that one. Usually the leader of the hunt is some local dead bad guy, or the devil. But before Christianity got hold of it, a lot of the Norse gods were said to lead it. Odin's mentioned a lot, but sometimes goddesses like Hel, or Holda - though Holda's version gave gifts as well as punishment. Some of the other hunts did, too, but generally it was really bad to get caught, or even see them ride by."

"Harlequin is one of those leaders," Jean-Claude said.

"That's a new one on me, but then I haven't read up on it since college. I think the only reason it stuck with me is that it's such a widespread story, and it stops abruptly a few hundred years ago. Almost every other legend that has that many witness stories is true. Or at least that's what I've found. So why did it stop? Why did the wild hunt just stop riding, if it was real?"

"It is real, ma petite."

I looked at him. "Are you saying it was vampires?"

"I am saying that the legend existed and we took advantage of it. The Harlequin adopted the persona of the wild hunt. For it was something that people already feared."

"Vampires scare people already, Jean-Claude. You guys didn't need to pretend to be Norse gods to be frightening."

"The Harlequin and his family were not trying to frighten people, ma petite. They were trying to frighten other vampires."

"You guys already scare each other; Mommie Dearest proves that."

"Early in our history, Marmee Noir decided we were too dangerous. That we needed something to keep us in check. She created the idea of the Harlequin. As you say, ma petite, there were so many wild hunts over the face of Europe, what was one more? Vampires begin life as people, and the idea of the wild hunt was something many already feared."

"Okay, so what does this fake wild hunt have to do with us?"

"They are not fake, ma petite. They are a supernatural troop that can fly, that can punish the wicked and kill mysteriously and quickly."

"They aren't the original wild hunt, Jean-Claude; that makes them fake in my book."

"As you will, but they are the closest thing that vampires have to police. They are taken from all the major bloodlines. They owe allegiance to no one line. They are called upon when the council is divided. They are divided about us, about me."

"What do they do, exactly?" Nathaniel asked.

"Disguise and subterfuge are their meat and drink. They are assassins, spies of the highest order. No one knows who they are. No one has ever seen their faces and lived. They come to us masked if they mean us no harm. Masked in the manner of Venice when the rich and powerful wore masks, caps, and hats, so all looked alike, and none could be distinguished from the other. If they appear before us in those costumes, then they are merely here to observe. If they appear in the masks of their namesakes, then it could go either way. They could be merely observing, or they could mean to kill us. They would wear their namesakes, both to hide their faces and to let us know that if we do not cooperate they could turn deadly."

"What do you mean, namesakes?" I asked.

"There is only one Harlequin at a time, but there are other Harlequin as a group name. Whatever names they had once, they have adopted the names and masks of the commedia dell'arte."

"I don't know the term," I said.

"It was a type of theatre that flourished before I was born, but it gave rise to many characters. The women were not originally masked on stage, but there are those among Harlequin's band that have taken female personas; whether they are actually women or only seek to confuse the matter is open for debate, but does not truly matter. As for namesakes, there are dozens, but some names have been known for centuries: Harlequin, of course; Punchinello; Scaramouche; Pierrot or Pierrette; Columbine; Hanswurst; Il Dottore. There could be dozens more, or a hundred. No one knows how many are in the Harlequin's raid. Most of the time they will only appear in nearly featureless masks of black and white. They will simply say, 'We are the Harlequin.' The best possible scenario is that we never learn who individually has come to our city."

"How serious a breach of vampy etiquette is it that we get a white mask but they're acting like it's red?" I asked.

Jean-Claude and Requiem exchanged a look that I couldn't read exactly, but it wasn't good.

"Talk to me, damn it," I said.

"It should not be happening, ma petite. Either this is an attack by some other vampire powerful enough to fool us all, or the Harlequin are breaking their own rules. They are deadly within their rules; if the rule of law were to break down..." He closed his eyes and hugged me, hugged me tight.

Nathaniel came to stand beside us, his face uncertain. "What can we do about it?"

Jean-Claude looked at him, and smiled. "Very practical, mon minet, as practical as our Micah." He turned to look at Requiem, whose smile had vanished. "Is this how it began in London?"