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will kill you."
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"You will try." His face was nearly pressed against mine. As if when he inhaled, he would bring me to
him. Our lips would touch. I remembered how soft his lips were. How it felt to be pressed against his
chest. The roughness of his cross-shaped burn under my fingers. I jerked back, and felt almost dizzy.
It had only been one kiss, but the memory of it burned along my body like every bad romance novel
you'd ever read. "Leave me alone!" I hissed it in his face, hands balled into fists. "Damn you! Damn you!"
The office door opened, and a uniformed officer stuck his head out. "There a problem out here?"
We turned and stared at him. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what was wrong, but Jean-Claude
spoke first. "No problem, officer."
It was a lie, but what was the truth? That I had two vampire marks on me and was losing my soul a
piece at a time. Not something I really wanted to be common knowledge. The police sort of frown on
people who have close ties with the monsters.
The officer was looking at us, waiting. I shook my head. "Nothing's wrong, officer. It's just late. Could
you ask Sergeant Storr if I can go home now?"
"What's the name?"
"Anita Blake."
"Storr's pet animator?"
I sighed. "Yeah, that Anita Blake."
"I'll ask." The uniform stared at the three of us for a minute. "You got anything to add to this?" He was
speaking to Richard.
"No."
The uniform nodded. "Okay, but keep whatever isn't happening to a dull roar."
"Of course. Always glad to cooperate with the police," Jean-Claude said.
He nodded his thanks and went back into the office. We were left kneeling in the hallway. The
shapeshifter was still asleep on the floor. His breathing made a quiet noise that didn't so much fill the
silence as emphasize it. Richard was motionless, dark eyes staring at Jean-Claude. I was suddenly very
aware that Jean-Claude and I were only inches apart. I could feel the line of his body like warmth against
my skin. His eyes flicked from my face down my body. I was still wearing only a bra underneath the
unzipped jacket.
Goosebumps rolled up my arms and down my chest. My nipples hardened as if he had touched them.
My stomach clenched with a need that had nothing to do with blood.
"Stop it!"
"I am doing nothing,ma petite . It is your own desire that rolls over your skin, not mine."
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I swallowed and had to look away from him. Okay, I lusted after him. Great, fine, it didn't mean a thing.
Ri-ight. I scooted away from him, putting my back to the wall, not looking at him as I spoke. "I came
here tonight for information, not to play footsie with the Master of the City."
Richard was just sitting there, meeting my eyes. There was no embarrassment, just interest, as if he didn't
know quite what I was. It wasn't an unfriendly look.
"Footsie," Jean-Claude said. I didn't need to see his face to hear the smile in his voice.
"You know what I mean."
"I've never heard it called 'footsie' before."
"Stop doing that."
"What?"
I glared at him, but his eyes were sparkling with laughter. A slow smile touched his lips. He looked very
human just then.
"What did you want to discuss,ma petite ? It must be something very important to make you come near
me voluntarily."
I searched his face for mockery, or anger, or anything, but his face was as smooth and pleasant as
carved marble. The smile, the sparkling humor in his eyes, was like a mask. I had no way of telling what
lay underneath. I wasn't even sure I wanted to know.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my mouth. "Alright. Where were you last night?" I
looked at his face, trying to catch any change of expression.
"Here," he said.
"All night?"
He smiled. "Yes."
"Can you prove it?"
The smile widened. "Do I need to?"
"Maybe," I said.
He shook his head. "Coyness, from you,ma petite . It does not become you."
So much for being slick and trying to pull information from the Master. "Are you sure you want this
discussed in public?"
"You mean Richard?"
"Yes."
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"Richard and I have no secrets from one another,ma petite . He is my human hands and eyes, since you
refuse to be."
"What's that mean? I thought you could only have one human servant at a time."
"So you admit it." His voice held a slow curl of triumph.
"This isn't a game, Jean-Claude. People died tonight."
"Believe me,ma petite , whether you take the last marks and become my servant in more than name is
no game to me."
"There was a murder last night," I said. Maybe if I concentrated just on the crime, on my job, I could
avoid the verbal pitfalls.
"And?" he prompted.
"It was a vampire victim."
"Ah," he said, "my part in this becomes clear."
"I'm glad you find it funny," I said.
"Dying from vampire bites is only temporarily fatal,ma petite . Wait until the third night when the victim
rises, then question him." The humor died from his eyes. "What is it that you are not telling me?"
"I found at least five different bite radiuses on the victim."
Something flickered behind his eyes. I wasn't sure what, but it was real emotion. Surprise, fear, guilt?
Something.
"So you are looking for a rogue master vampire."
"Yep. Know any?"
He laughed. His whole face lit up from the inside, as if someone had lit a candle behind his skin. In one
wild moment he was so beautiful, it made my chest ache. But it wasn't a beauty that made me want to
touch it. I remembered a Bengal tiger that I'd seen once in a zoo. It was big enough to ride on like a
pony. Its fur was orange, black, cream, oyster-shell white. Its eyes were gold. The heavy paws wider
than my outspread hand paced, paced, back and forth, back and forth, until it had worn a path in the dirt.
Some genius had put one barred wall so close to the fence that held back the crowd, I could have
reached through and touched the tiger easily. I had to ball my hands into fists and shove them in my
pockets to keep from reaching through those bars and petting that tiger. It was so close, so beautiful, so
wild, so . . . tempting.
I hugged my knees to my chest, hands clasped tight together. The tiger would have taken my hand off,
and yet there was that small part of me that regretted not reaching through the bars. I watched
Jean-Claude's face, felt his laughter like velvet running down my spine. Would part of me always wonder
what it would have been like if I had just said yes? Probably. But I could live with it.
He was staring at me, the laughter dying from his eyes like the last bit of light seeping from the sky.
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"What are you thinking,ma petite ?"
"Can't you read my mind?" I asked.
"You know I cannot."
"I don't know anything about you, Jean-Claude, not a bloody thing."
"You know more about me than anyone else in the city."
"Yasmeen included?"
He lowered his eyes, almost embarrassed. "We are very old friends."
"How old?"
He met my eyes, but his face was empty, blank. "Old enough."
"That's not an answer," I said.
"No," he said, "it is an evasion."
So he wasn't going to answer my question; what else was new? "Are there any other master vampires in
town besides you, Malcolm, and Yasmeen?"
He shook his head. "Not to my knowledge." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]