Kiss the Dead (36 page)

She hit him again with a stronger jolt. I could smell a little whiff of burning flesh.

“Again!”

I huddled in the doorway and prayed, “Please, God, please save him. Don’t let him die, please! Please!”

Nicky gave a huge, gasping breath. His eye opened wide, face frightened, like he’d woken from a nightmare to find it was real. He flailed out at the doctors, knocking one into the wall, but it was as if he had no strength to fight.

I pushed through to him. “Nicky, Nicky, it’s me.”

He saw me, and I watched the comprehension fill his face. His expression got less frantic, and he tried to reach for my hand, but I had to finish the gesture and take his in mine. He couldn’t even wrap his fingers completely around my smaller hand, as if even that were too much. I cradled his big hand in both of mine, and held it against my chest, over my bare breasts.

The doctor was kneeling on the other side of him, listening to his heart with a stethoscope. He seemed to like what he was hearing. “It’s slow, but steady; what happened to him?”

I shook my head, and realized tears were sliding down my cheeks. It was more like I was leaking than crying, as if it would happen totally without me. “I don’t know. We were having sex, and then he just collapsed. His heart stopped and I couldn’t get it started again.”

“How do you feel?” the doctor was asking Nicky, but if he heard the doctor it didn’t show. Nicky just kept looking at me as if I were the only real thing in the room.

“Nicky,” I said, “can you hear me?”

He swallowed as if something hurt, and whispered, “Yes.”

“The doctor asked, how do you feel?”

He frowned and looked around as if just now seeing the other people; again, as if I were the only solid thing in the room to him. He wasn’t well yet; whatever had happened hadn’t been instantly fixed.

“Ask him how he feels,” the doctor said.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

He frowned harder. “Bad, weak.”

I leaned over and kissed his fingers where they were still too limp in my hand. He gave me a small smile.

“What’s the last he remembers?” the doctor asked.

I repeated the question.

“Sex, amazing sex,” and this time his smile was wider and happier, but he still looked confused, as if something hurt, or was still not right.

I smiled back at him. “It was a-fucking-mazing sex,” I said.

That made him grin, and it was mild compared to his usual, but it was a step in the right direction. Just seeing the grin helped ease a tightness in my chest that I hadn’t realized was there.

Jean-Claude came into the room as far as the crowd of medics and guards would let him. I knew he was there before I looked up and saw him with my eyes. His face was beautiful and unreadable, but I knew the set of his shoulders, that particular stillness to his face—he knew something about what had happened to Nicky, and he was afraid I wouldn’t like it.

The doctor said, “Can he stand, or do we need a stretcher?”

Nicky said he could stand, but Domino and I had to catch him as his knees buckled. If he’d had a belt to hold on to, it would have been easier to hold him up, but he was still naked. Domino had to take most of his weight, and I struggled to keep up my side. I was just too damn short. Claudia came in on the other side of him, and I let her take my place. She didn’t have any problem helping Domino keep Nicky up and moving out of the locker room. I started to follow, but Jean-Claude was standing against the wall just outside. He was wearing the bottoms of silk pajamas in a sky blue that almost matched Asher’s eyes. I wondered if Asher was wearing the top part of the jammies. Jean-Claude’s curls still had that tousled just-been-fucked look.

“You know something,” I said, and I couldn’t keep it from sounding accusatory.

“I do,” he said, voice as neutral as his face.

“Talk,” I said.

“Not here,
ma petite
.”

“Where?” I said, and again I knew it sounded angry.

“Asher’s room or ours.”

“Why Asher’s room?” I asked.

“Because I am a fool.” It was Asher. He’d been standing in the shadows at the end of the corridor. Either he’d been so still I hadn’t seen him, or I was so upset about Nicky that I wasn’t noticing things, like vampires standing in the shadows. Good thing I wasn’t at work.

“If you want an argument about the fool thing, I’m not in the mood,” I said. I crossed my arms under my breasts and realized I was still nude. I’d sort of forgotten. I had a moment of thinking about being embarrassed about it, and then thought,
Screw it
. Nicky had almost died, and the two vampires knew something about what had gone wrong with the
ardeur
, because that had been what happened. I thought I had the
ardeur
all controlled, and now I’d almost killed Nicky by accident. Fuck.

Asher stepped more into the light, his hair a mass of gold that seemed to gather the light to it as he moved closer. He was wearing a robe I’d seen on him before. It was gold threaded with blue and silver embroidery heavy across almost every piece of cloth. Only the edging of pale fur was free of decoration, though I guess the fur was decoration, so did you decorate the decoration? Even as I thought it, it made no sense. My mouth was healed completely; physically I felt energized and almost humming with power. Mentally I was somewhere between angry, depressed, and lost. What the hell had happened between Nicky and me? What had I done wrong?

“Let me get my weapons and something to put on, and then either room. I just want to know what is making you both act like little boys who got caught.” Neither of them argued about me calling them little boys who had got caught; it was not a good sign. It meant that there was something for at least one of them to feel guilty about.

S
INCE WE WEREN’T
a hundred percent certain what had happened in the shower, the guards insisted on turning into a crowd. I pointed out that if the
ardeur
decided to eat everyone, then guns, knives, and muscle weren’t going to help save anyone, but Claudia stuck by her initial plan of more bodies to guard Jean-Claude and me. All she had to throw at the problem was more muscle, so that was what she did. I knew the look on her face. There was no arguing when she looked like that, so I didn’t try. I didn’t want to use up energy fighting with Claudia. I was saving it up to fight with Asher, and maybe Jean-Claude.

The clothes I’d worn at the crime scene were still dirty, and I was clean, so I borrowed the silk jammie top that Asher was actually wearing under his robe. It was the match to the bottoms that Jean-Claude was wearing; for some reason that bugged me. The top was wonderful sky-blue silk, soft to the skin, but it also hung to my knees, and I had to roll the sleeves up until they formed a doughnut-sized roll around each arm. I looked like I was a little girl borrowing my father’s shirt, but it was better than being naked.

I was able to put the wrist sheaths with their knives back on, but the
inner pants holster needed, well, pants. I was able to put the shoulder rig on over the shirt, but it was like putting a more complicated front-opening bra across your shoulders. It was on, but it flapped and shifted, without belt loops to attach to. I carried the things that didn’t fit, and was happy that my main gear bags were already in the bedroom.

We had so many guards it was hard for all three of us to walk without bumping into one of them. When we got to the door to Jean-Claude’s room I told them to all stay outside.

Godofredo said, “I’m sorry, Anita, but Claudia was very clear. At least two of us have to be on the other side of the door and have eyes on you at all times.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Asher attacked you earlier tonight and put Sin in the hospital, and now Nicky is hurt. Claudia doesn’t want any more problems tonight.”

“Asher isn’t going to hurt me again, and what happened to Nicky isn’t anything that a guard could have helped stop. Claudia being in the room with Nicky and me wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, except made her and me uncomfortable with her watching me fuck Nicky.”

God’s eyes widened a bit. He was never quite comfortable when I talked like a guy about sex. “My orders are clear, Anita, I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry, too,” I said, “but no, none of you come inside. It’s just us hashing this out.”

He started to protest, but I held up a hand, and he stopped in midsyllable. “Last I checked Jean-Claude and I outrank Claudia, so I’m going to throw down a presidential veto. I don’t want or need an audience.”

“You aren’t hard enough on Asher. That’s why he gets out of hand.”

I nodded. “That’s true, but that’s in the past.”

God frowned at me. “Anita…”

“No, I mean it, Asher doesn’t get any more free passes just because I love him… just because Jean-Claude loves him and keeps projecting that onto me.”

“I don’t believe you,” God said.

I turned and looked at the two vampires by the door. Jean-Claude had opened the door, and Asher was standing by him. We all looked at each other.

“
Ma petite
is correct. There will be no more free passes for
mon chardonneret
.”

“You calling him your goldfinch doesn’t exactly makes us believe you,” God said.

Domino stepped forward. “Nicky made me promise to stay with you.”

“I’m not the one who almost died,” I said.

Domino shrugged, brushing his hands through the black-and-white curls again, which I knew was a nervous gesture. His hair was mostly black with white accent curls, showing that he was half white tiger and half black. My only other born tiger that was mixed clan blood, Ethan, also had hair that reflected all his tiger forms. But Domino’s hair being mostly black with just a few white curls meant when he’d shifted last he’d been black tiger; if it had been white tiger, then that color would have predominated. Ethan’s hair stayed its human color no matter what color of tiger he’d shifted into last. Domino blinked his orange fire-colored eyes at me. Even more than Micah’s leopard eyes, Domino’s couldn’t pass for human, but Domino had been born with his tiger eyes. It was a mark of clan blood to be born with eyes like that, not a punishment like Micah’s had been.

“Nicky made me promise that you wouldn’t be alone with Asher.”

I laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh. “I guess I can’t blame him.” I looked at Jean-Claude.

“I believe it will be your secrets, not ours, that you may not want Domino to hear.”

“I don’t even know what that means right now,” I said.

“It means let your tiger join us and if you wish him not to hear things, it is your task to make him leave.”

I spoke to Domino. “What will you do if I go into the room without you?”

He shook his head. “Did you see what Nicky did to Ares?”

“I did.”

Domino looked at me with his fire-colored eyes. The look was eloquent. “I value your safety, Anita, but I really don’t want to have to fight Nicky for real.” He smiled and shook his head.

“So you’re coming in the room with me whether I want you to or not?”

“Anita, Asher cut you up and hurt Sin badly enough that he’s in the hospital for the night. Why should your bodyguards trust him alone with anyone?”

It sounded reasonable. I turned back to Asher, still in the doorway. “You going to behave?”

“Nothing I can say will comfort your guards. They will not believe me, and I do not blame them. I have been beyond childish.”

“You’re always so contrite afterward, but it never lasts, Asher. You do better for a while, and then something pisses you off again, and it’s like you forget.”

He nodded. “That is fair. I am sorry, truly sorry, but you are right. Apologies that do not lead to better actions are empty things.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

He bowed his head, all that golden hair spilling around his face. Normally it made me sad that he felt he had to hide the scars that much—it meant he was feeling self-conscious—but tonight it reminded me of Nicky and the way his hair hid his own scars, and it just made me angry at him.

“Fine, Domino can come into the room.” I looked at Godofredo. “You can tell Claudia you did what she ordered.”

“She wanted two guards in with you.”

“Don’t push it,” I said, and there must have been something in my voice, or in my face, because he literally backed off, hands held sort of out from his body as if he wanted to show that he meant no harm.

“Fine,” he said. “As long as you take Domino with you, Claudia won’t bitch-slap me.”

“More like she’ll knock you on your ass,” I said.

He smiled, and nodded. “That, too.”

I felt a touch on my psychic shielding, the equivalent of a knock. I knew the touch, and dropped shields enough to see Damian. He was still six feet of the whitest skin I’d ever seen on a vampire, because the long hair that spilled over his shoulders was the red of fresh blood, and his eyes the green of grass. He’d been pale when alive, but hundreds of years without sun had paled his skin and let his hair get as red as red could get. I could feel that he had a hand in his, and a thought let me see the woman who was almost as tall as he was at his side. Cardinale’s hair was more orangey red and curly to his very straight, but they were both natural redheads, both tall, both slender, though he’d died with muscle over his frame, and she was just model thin, but they were physically very well matched, like a team of beautiful horses chosen because they looked good together.

Damian was manager at Jean-Claude’s dance club, Danse Macabre, and Cardinale was one of the dancers. She partnered him for some demonstrations of old dances that had existed when he was alive, but centuries before she was born. She was also one of the taxi dancers, where you paid for the privilege of dancing with a vampire for a song. People loved dancing with the shapeshifters and vampires at Danse Macabre. The club even had a dance master who would work with new customers to teach them the ancient line dances. I’d seen the entire club floor thick with people: human, vampire, shapeshifter, all in neat rows with a hand held here and there, moving to a dance that no one had seen in centuries. It was just plain cool.