Anita Blake 18 - Flirt (16 page)

When all the bodies were eaten they turned to me, and I watched, and felt that there was more home in them. There was something in there now that hadn’t been there before they tasted flesh. There are things that wait in the dark, that wait for a chance to find a body that they can walk around in, things that were never human. Sometimes you can feel them on the edge of your mind, the shadows that flit out of the corners of your eyes, and aren’t there if you look directly at them. The dead that stood there in the moonlight with blood decorating their mouths held the shadows in their eyes. I could finally see what hid just out of sight, just out of thought, and I knew that I could keep the dead. I could keep them animated. They could be the beginning of my own private army. An army of the dead that knew neither pain, nor fear. It would be an army that no bullet would slow, no blade could kill, and only fire would stop.

Nicky squeezed my hand and whispered, “Something’s in there now.”

“Their eyes,” Jacob whispered, “there’s something in their eyes.”

“I see it.”

“What is it?” Nicky asked.

“Shadows,” I said, and then I spoke loud, in that ringing voice that you use in ritual. “All of you, hear me, go back to your graves. Lie down and be what you were. Rest, and walk no more.”

Their eyes flickered almost like a television that wasn’t quite on station, like two channels trying to be on screen at once.

“Tell me you brought salt,” I said, voice low and even.

“Bennington wouldn’t let us bring any, because salt is for putting zombies back in their graves and he didn’t want you to do that to his wife.”

“Fine,” I said. I knelt, very carefully, keeping my eyes on the zombies the way I did when I was on the judo mat. You never take your eyes off your opponent because if you do they can rush you. I knelt and found the blade I’d dropped into the grave dirt. The blade still had Silas’s blood on it. Salt would have been good, but I had steel, and grave dirt, and power. It would be enough, because it would have to be.

I stood up, slowly, deliberately, and called my necromancy. I called it in a way I hadn’t before. I called it to use against the shadows in their eyes, the shadows that were promising me power, glory, conquest.
Just let us stay
, it seemed to whisper.
Just let us stay and we will give you the world.
I had a moment to envision a world where the dead truly walked, and moved at my will, but I knew better. I could see it in their eyes. I had animated the dead, but I hadn’t filled their eyes with dark power, or had I? Something about them eating human flesh without a circle of power had caused this, and I remembered the third reason for putting up a circle of power before raising the dead. It kept things out. It kept the shadows away.

I’d been arrogant, and I prayed for forgiveness for that particular sin. I was heartily sorry for it. Killing Bennington didn’t bother me. “By steel, blood, and will, I command you to go back to your graves and walk no more.”

There was another moment of that eye flicker.

I put power into the words, all the power I had, and willed it to work. I called the dead to me. I called them with the power that had made my dog rise from the grave when I was fourteen. I called them to me with the power that had put a suicidal professor in my dorm room in college. I called them with that part of me that made vampires hover around me like I was the last light in all the darkness. I called the dead to me, and bade them to rest and walk no more.

I shoved my power into them, and felt something else in there. Something else that shoved back, but the bodies were too much mine. Too much of my power animated them, and one by one their eyes emptied and they stood like shells waiting for orders.

“Rest and walk no more; by steel, grave, and will, I command thee.” They shambled back to their graves in a silent mass; the only sounds the shuffling of feet and the brush of cloth. Ilsa Bennington came to stand in front of us. She was still the lovely flirt that her husband had been willing to kill for, but her blue eyes were as empty as all the rest. Her mouth was smeared with redder things than lipstick.

Nicky whispered, “God.” But when I moved to the side of the grave, he and Jacob moved with me. Ilsa lay down on the grave and the dirt flowed over her like water. I’d never had so many zombies lay to rest at once. The dirt made a sound like waves crashing as it covered them all back up.

We stood in a silence so deep I could hear the pulse in my own body thundering in my ears. Then the first night insect called, then a distant frog, then the wind blew through the clearing, and it was as if the world had been holding its breath. We could all breathe again.

“You almost got us eaten alive,” Jacob said.

“You kidnapped me, remember?”

He nodded, and he was pale even by moonlight. Ellen made a small moan in his arms. “She’ll be all right,” he said, as if someone had asked the question.

He looked at the gun that was still in his other hand underneath her body. I watched the thought run through his eyes. “Don’t do it,” I said.

“Why not? You don’t have any more zombies to eat me.”

“Jacob,” Nicky said, “don’t.”

“You’ll kill me for her, won’t you?”

He just nodded.

Jacob looked at me. “I wish I’d turned down this job.”

“Me, too,” I said.

He looked at Nicky, then back to me. “They tortured our lions to get this location.” I didn’t know who he was saying it to.

“We’d have done the same,” Nicky said.

“You’ve destroyed my pride,” he said.

“No, Jacob,” I said, “you destroyed it when you put yourself on the wrong side of me and mine.”

He looked at me then, his eyes so wide there was a flash of white to them. “I’m going to try to leave before your people get here. Oh, yeah,” he said, “I feel them like something hot riding closer, so much power coming to your rescue, as if you need rescuing.” He laughed, but not like it was funny.

“Go, Jacob,” Nicky said.

Jacob looked at me. “If your name ever comes up in connection with another job, I’ll turn it down.”

“No matter how much money they offer you?” I asked.

He nodded. “There isn’t a price big enough to get me to come near you again.” He actually looked at the gun in his hand under Ellen’s body. I watched him think about it. “I’ll make you a deal, Anita Blake. You don’t come near me, and I will leave you the fuck alone.”

“Deal,” I said.

Nicky hugged me. “I don’t think I’m leaving, Jacob.”

“I know that.” He looked at me then, his eyes so wide there was a flash of white to them. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to leave. I’ll gather everyone up, and we’ll leave you and your men alone. I’d put a sign above St. Louis for all the hired thugs, if I could.”

“What would it say?” I asked.

“Here is a bigger motherfucker than you are.”

Jacob returned my weapons and trusted me not to shoot him in the back. He walked to the edge of the cemetery with Ellen in his arms and only when he was about to enter the trees did he turn and look at me. Maybe I should have shot him, but my lioness was content with beating his ass and letting him go. In the world of lions, he wouldn’t be back. Here was hoping my lion knew what she was talking about.

THE FIRST HINT of dawn showed above the trees, making them look even blacker against the growing light. I felt Jean-Claude’s frustration. He could not come for me, but there were others who could. Others that daylight worked just dandy for, and as if I’d called them just by thinking of them, Micah and Nathaniel came out of the woods with guns, and other dark figures came with them. The cavalry had arrived.

They held me while the other guards made sure there were no more bad guys. They had Nicky at gunpoint, on his knees with his hands behind his head. He looked like he was familiar with the position. I was holding them, and crying, which I never did. “I thought they’d kill you.”

“When you didn’t come back from lunch, Bert called us to see if you’d gone home,” Micah said.

Nathaniel put his forehead against mine. “Then we couldn’t find you, and you missed the call from the other marshal about the vampire execution. We went back to the restaurant you had lunch in and Ahsan, the cute waiter, told us about two men and you getting into an SUV with them.” He began to kiss his way down my face. “Then you were gone, all our connections to you were broken. I thought you’d died.” He hugged me so tight I could hear the beating of his heart against my body.

I hugged him, and Micah kept my other hand. “Jean-Claude kept Nathaniel and Damian going with energy, but we knew you were hurt; that much we felt before it all went black.” He came to us both and Nathaniel opened his arms, so we did a group hug.

Jason’s voice came. “I almost die for you and I don’t even get a hug?”

I pulled away enough to see him, and he joined the hug. “Sorry I missed the party but I had to be in charge of finding sunproof housing for the vampires.”

“I felt his frustration that he couldn’t get here before dawn.”

“Frustrated is one word for it. Insanely angry is another,” Jason said, and wiped at the tears on my face.

“What do we do with this one?” one of the guards asked.

I turned to look at Nicky, still kneeling at gunpoint. “He’s with me,” I said.

Everyone looked at me. “I needed help to heal from the injuries, and I needed enough power to raise the dead so they didn’t kill you guys. I rolled him. The dead Rex said that he’d seen male vampires that could do what I do; Brides of Dracula.”

“Brides of Anita?” Jason asked.

I shrugged.

“Are you sure you can trust him?” Micah asked, and the look he gave Nicky wasn’t friendly.

“I don’t know, but I do know that he protected me from his own pride, and almost took a bullet for me.”

“Would you have survived without him?” Micah asked.

I thought about it, and then said, “No.”

Micah went to Nicky and offered him a hand up. The guards didn’t like it, but they knew not to argue with all of us. Micah stared up at the taller man, studying his face. “Thank you for taking care of her for us.”

“I helped kidnap her, you know,” Nicky said.

Micah nodded. “I know.”

“Is he coming home with us?” Nathaniel asked.

“I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead,” I said.

Then Nicky looked at me, his eyes stricken. “Don’t leave me, Anita. Please, don’t leave me.” His face seemed to struggle for an expression, but finally he collapsed to the ground and crawled toward me. He extended one hand. “Please, please, Anita, I don’t understand everything, but the thought of you leaving me behind feels like dying.”

I looked at the other men. Micah nodded. Nathaniel hugged me. Jason said, “I don’t live with you guys, so I don’t think I get a vote.”

I hugged him with the arm that wasn’t around Nathaniel. “They threatened to kill you; you get a vote.”

He came to stand with us and looked down at the man with his hand still out. “Touch him and let us feel the power.” That was Jason, so much smarter than he pretended he was.

I reached out and took Nicky’s hand. The moment we touched, the power jumped between us, climbed over my skin in a warm, tingling rush that caressed Nathaniel’s skin and crossed to Jason. Nathaniel made a small sound. Jason said, “Tasty.”

Micah came to us, rubbing his hand up and down the goose bumps on his arm; the other hand still held the gun. “You mind-fucked him.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry you had to do that.” And in that moment I realized that he understood what it had cost me to take Nicky the way I did. I kissed him back and moved into the circle of his arms. I buried my face against the warm scent of his neck and let him hold me. The gun dug into my back a little.

Nathaniel and Jason were helping Nicky to his feet. The bigger man was crying, crying at the thought that I would cast him aside. Fuck.

I looked at Nicky watching me with frightened eyes while Jason tried to comfort him and Nathaniel came to join us, his gun peeking from the side of his jeans and ruining the line of his shirt.

I went to Nathaniel and kissed him, thoroughly and completely, so he melted in against me, our bodies, our hands, pressing against each other. He drew back laughing. “I love you, Anita.”

“I love you, too.”

“Let’s go home.”

I nodded. “Home sounds great.”

We started walking toward the woods. Jason jogged to catch up with us. I realized that Nicky was still standing back by the grave. I looked at him, so tall, so muscular, and so lost.

“What do I do with him?”

“What do you do with any of us?” Micah asked.

“He’s a stranger, and he tried to kill us all.”

“He would do anything you told him to do, Anita,” Jason said. “He seems to have even less free will than the rest of us do.”

“I did it on purpose, Jason. I took everything from him on purpose.”

“You did what you had to do, so you could come back to us,” Micah said.

“I really wanted a puppy,” Nathaniel said, “but I guess we could say he followed us home, too.”

“I told you we’d think about a dog.”

“In the meantime can we take the kitten home?”

“He’s not a kitten,” I said.

“He looks like one.”

I looked at Nicky by the grave and knew what he meant. He looked so alone, but he made no move to follow us, as if he’d simply stand there by the grave until I told him to do something else. Had I told him to stay by the grave? I couldn’t remember.

“We can’t leave him like that,” Micah said.

I sighed. “Nicky, come on.”

His face lit up as if I’d told him tomorrow was Christmas, and he jogged toward us. We slept in the motel that Jason had settled Jean-Claude and the other vampires into so that dawn didn’t find them and do something unfortunate. The four of us shared the king-size bed, and Nicky slept on the floor beside us. He’d started to shake at the thought that he couldn’t stay in the same room with me. God help me.

But in the morning, I woke with Nathaniel’s vanilla-scented hair across my face, and Micah’s warmth pressed against my back. Jason’s arm and leg were across Nathaniel’s body, touching me even in his sleep. I heard movement on the floor and Nicky sat up, rubbing his face clear of sleep. He smiled at me, as if whatever he saw was the most beautiful thing in the world. I knew that was a lie, but with all my men around me in a warm puppy pile I couldn’t be unhappy. I’d taken Nicky’s free will; I’d eaten his life on purpose. He could never be free, never be his own person again.