Burnt Offerings (Vampire Hunter 7)

She seemed to accept the statement. Maybe she was used to cryptic bullshit. "Why would the council want to hurt us?"

"Maybe they don't see it as hurting."

"If the firemen go down in there to save the young ones and they wake without a guardian..." She drew her knees to her chest, hugging her legs. "They'll rise like revenants, mindless beasts, until they've fed. People could be dead before they come to themselves."

I touched her shoulder. "You're scared of them, aren't you?" I'd never met a human church member who was scared of vampires, especially not one that was donating blood as a human liaison.

She lowered the neckline of her tank top until I could see the tops of her small br**sts. There was a bite mark on the pale flesh of one breast that looked more like a dog bite than one made by a vampire. The flesh had bruised badly, as if the vamp had been pulled off her almost as soon as he'd started sucking.

"Giles had to pull him off of me. He had to restrain him. Looking into his face, I knew that if Giles hadn't been there, he'd have killed me. Not to bring me over or embrace me, but just because I was food." She let her top slide back over the wound, hugging herself tight, shivering in the hot July sunshine.

"How long have you been with the Church, Caroline?"

"Two years."

"And this is the first time you've been scared?"

She nodded.

"They've been very careful around you, then."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

I unbent my left arm, showing the scars. "The mound of scar tissue at the crook is where a vamp gnawed on me. He broke the arm. I was lucky not to lose the use of it."

"What about that?" She touched the claw marks that trailed down the lower part of the arm.

"Shapeshifted witch."

"How did the cross get burned into your arm?"

"Humans with a few bites like you thought it was amusing to brand me with the cross. Just amusing themselves until their master rose for the night."

Her eyes were wide. "But the vampires in the Church aren't like that. We aren't like that."

"All vamps are like that, Caroline. Some of them control it better than others, but they still have to feed off humans. You can't really respect something that you see as food."

"But you are with the Master of the City. Do you believe that of him?"

I thought about that and answered truthfully. "Sometimes."

She shook her head. "I thought I knew what I wanted. What I was going to do for all eternity. Now I don't know anything. I feel so... lost." Tears trailed out of her wide eyes.

I put my arm across her shoulders, and she leaned into me, clinging to me with her small, carefully painted hands. She cried soundlessly, only the shakiness of her breathing betraying her.

I held her and let her cry. If I took the nice firemen down into the darkness and six newly dead vampires rose as revenants, either the firemen were dead or I'd be forced to kill the vampires. Either way, not a win-win situation.

We needed to find out if the vamps were alive, needed some control over them. If the council was causing the problems, maybe they could help fix it. When big bad vampires come to town to kill me, I don't generally turn to them for help. But we were trying to save vampires lives here, not just human. Maybe they'd help. Maybe they wouldn't, but it couldn't hurt to ask. All right, it could hurt to ask, and probably would.

43

Even over the phone, I could tell Jean-Claude was shocked at my idea of turning to the council for help. Call it a guess. He was literally speechless. It was nearly a first.

"Why not ask for their help?"

"They are the council, ma petite," he said, voice almost breathy with emotion.

"Exactly," I said. "They are the leaders of your people. Leadership doesn't just mean privileges. It has a price tag."

"Tell that to your politicians in Washington in their three-thousand-dollar suits," he said.

"I didn't say that we did any better. That's beside the point. They've helped make this problem. They can, by God, help fix it." I had a bad thought. "Unless they're doing it on purpose," I said.

He gave a long sigh. "No, ma petite, it is not on purpose. I did not realize that it was happening to the others."

"Why isn't it happening to our vampires?"

I think he laughed. "Our vampires, ma petite?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, ma petite, I know what you mean. I have been protecting our people."

"Don't take this wrong, but I'm surprised you had the juice to keep the council from messing with your people."

"In truth, ma petite, so am I."

"So you're more powerful than Malcolm now?"

"It would appear so," he said quietly.

I thought about that for a minute. "But why the early rising? Why the increased hunger? Why would the council want that to be happening?"

"They do not want it, ma petite. It is merely a side effect of their proximity."

"Explain," I said.

"Their very presence will give unprotected vampires extra power: early rising, perhaps other gifts. The more voracious appetite and lack of control of the younger ones could mean that the council has decided not to feed while in my territory. I know the Traveler can take energy through lesser vampires without possessing them."

"So he takes part of the blood they drink?"

"Oui, ma petite."

"Are the others feeding?" I asked.

"If all of the Church's members are experiencing this difficulty, I would think not. I think the Traveler has found a way to drain energy for all of them, though I cannot imagine Yvette going for even a night without causing pain to someone."

"She has Warrick to pick on." The moment I said it, I realized I hadn't had a chance to tell Jean-Claude about Warrick's little daytime excursion, or his warning. Jean-Claude had woken from his sleep while I was at the hospital surrounded by wereanimals. Since then I'd been moving from one emergency to another.

"Warrick came to visit me while you were out for the day," I said.

"What do you mean, ma petite?"

I told him. All of it.

He was silent. Only his soft breathing let me know he was still there. Finally, he spoke. "I knew that Yvette gained power through her master, but I did not realize he was dampening Warrick's abilities." He laughed suddenly. "Perhaps that is why I did not realize I was a master vampire while I was with the council that first time. Perhaps my master, too, was preventing my powers from blossoming."

"Does Warrick's warning change our plans?" I asked.

"We are committed to a formal entertainment, ma petite. If we refuse to pay the price for your wereleopards, then we will give Padma and Yvette the very excuse they need to challenge us. Breaking faith once your word is given is an almost unforgivable sin among us."

"I've endangered us," I said.

"Oui, but being who you are, you could not do less. Warrick a master vampire, who would have thought it? He has been Yvette's plaything for so very long."

"How long?" I asked.

Jean-Claude was quiet for a heartbeat or two, then, "He was a knight of the Crusades, ma petite."

"Which crusade? There were several," I said.

"So nice to talk to someone who knows their history, ma petite. But you have been near him. What age is he?"

I thought about it. "Nine hundred, give or take."

"Which would mean?"

"I don't like being quizzed, Jean-Claude. The First Crusade in the late 1000s."

"Exactement."

"So Yvette was old even then," I said.

"Do you not know her age?"

"She's a thousand years old. But it's a soft one thousand. I've met vamps her age that scared the hell out of me. She doesn't."

"Yes, Yvette is terrifying but not because of her age, or her power. She can live until the end of the world and she will never be a master among us."

"And that gripes her ass," I said.

"Crudely but accurately put, ma petite."

"I'm going to ask the Traveler for help."

"We have bargained for all the aid we will ever get from them, ma petite. Do not put yourself further in their debt. I beg this of you."

"You've never begged anything of me," I said.

"Then heed me now, ma petite. Do not do this."