I asked Jean-Claude, “They said that some lesser vamps didn’t wake up the night after we killed the Mother of All Darkness. Since no one here in St. Louis died, or for that matter no one I know of in this country, I didn’t think about Europe. Did you know?”

   “That some lesser vampires would die and not reawaken at dusk if we killed her? That was possible.”

   “You didn’t tell me it was possible,” I said, and felt that first flush of anger.

   “Ma petite, you know that when masters are injured, they reach out to their servants and the vampires that are blood-oathed to them for power to heal themselves and stay alive.”

   “Yeah, so what?”

   “What did you think the Mother of All Vampires would do when she felt herself fading, dying? Did you not think that she would reach out to her children and use them in an attempt to save herself?”

   “I . . . No, I didn’t,” I said.

   “I kept nothing from you, ma petite. You simply failed to want to understand what might happen. You had the same knowledge of her and vampires as I did. If you did not know that slaying her would kill some of her lesser children, it is because you did not wish to know.”

   “That’s harsher than you usually talk to her,” Nathaniel said.

   “Perhaps I am angry with myself tonight? Perhaps seeing Damian holding your hand shows me yet again the mistakes I made with Richard in my attempt not to force myself on him.”

   Damian picked up Nathaniel’s hand in his and brought our hands together in front of him so that he could lay a soft kiss on first my hand and then Nathaniel’s. “No, Jean-Claude. Richard was brave when you met him. He knew who he was and what he wanted out of life. What bravery I had was used up centuries ago by her. I knew only I wished to be free of her, but beyond that I had lost everything I was, or wanted to be. I was directionless. Richard was never that, from what I know of him. Nathaniel has given me back my bearings. He has given me back a star to hang in the sky, a fixed mark that will guide me home.” He kissed the back of Nathaniel’s hand again. “He is my star.”

   “And what is Anita to you, Damian?” Jean-Claude asked.

   “She is my master. She is wolf-kissed, beloved by the eagles.”

   “Very poetic,” he said.

   “It sounds pretty,” I said, “but its meaning isn’t.”

   Damian looked up at me. “It is the highest compliment for a warrior among my people.”

   “And an insult depending on how it was used.”

   “How do you know that, ma petite?”

   “I’m not sure, but I know I’m right.”

   “Is she right, Viking?” Jean-Claude asked.

   “We used to say of a great leader that the eagles must have cried out on the day he was born, for they knew he would feed them many corpses. The wolves must have howled with joy when you were born, because they knew you would feed them well.”

   “So wolf-kissed and beloved by eagles is a way of saying that Anita is a great leader and kills a lot of people?” Nathaniel asked.

   “It is a great compliment,” Damian said.

   I smiled, almost laughed. “I guess I do rack up the body count.”

   “The vampires have given you two honor names, Anita. No other vampire hunter has ever been given two names by us.”

   “I’ve been the Executioner for a long time.”

   “But your other nickname among us is fresher, ma petite.”

   “Yeah,” I said.

   “War,” he said.

   “And Edward is Death,” Nathaniel said.

   “You are traveling to Ireland with two of the horsemen of the apocalypse,” Jean-Claude said.

   “Kaazim talked about the fact that there should be a plural for apocalypse, because the Harlequin have stopped so many of them,” I said.

   “To that, I cannot speak, but I know that you are sharing more memories with Damian, because you understood his compliments before he explained them.”

   “We are a triumvirate,” I said.

   “I think you are one, at long last in more than just name and metaphysics.”

   “What if Nathaniel rolls us again?” I asked.

   “I think now that he knows he can, he will work harder not to bespell you. Won’t you, mon minou?”

   “I didn’t mean to do it this time.”

   Damian said, “That’s it. That’s what you’ve done to me. You’ve bespelled me,” and he wasn’t looking at me or Jean-Claude when he said it.

24

   NATHANIEL AND I were in our bedroom packing when Bobby Lee knocked at the door and asked to come in. He came to stand in the center of the room and was uneasy. That was the only word I had for it. It wasn’t like him.

   I turned and looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

   Nathaniel turned with the neatly folded clothes in his hands. I heard him sniff the air, and I was betting Bobby Lee smelled like anxiety. It had a scent, or so I was told by all my wereanimal friends.

   “I can’t go with you to Ireland.”

   “I’m sorry for that. Edward requested you specifically,” I said.

   “None of the wererats can go with you.”

   “Excuse me. Repeat that, because I could not have heard you right.”

   Bobby Lee sighed, then said, “Rafael says that you had an agreement that if you tested positive for rat lycanthropy, he would be your beast half.”

   “Yeah. So what?”

   “You just tested positive last week. You and he haven’t had time to formalize it.”

   “We’ll worry about that when I come back from Ireland.”

   Bobby Lee shook his head. He took off his wire-frame glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose like he was tired. His eyes without the glasses showed the tired more. “In an emergency you reach out to anyone close to you, Anita. You’ve tied more animals to call to you accidentally than on purpose, right?”

   “I guess.”

   He put his glasses back on and looked at Nathaniel. “Help me out here.”

   Nathaniel shook his head. “I’m going with Anita to Ireland. You’ve just told us that some of our best people can’t come with us. Since you’re potentially endangering both of us, why should I want to help you?”

   “There are good people for this job who aren’t rats,” Bobby Lee said.