The Killing Dance   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Raw power, no matter how impressive, is not the same as power used with great care and great control."

I shook my head. "I'll help you if I can, Mr. Dumare. I'll even participate in a spell if I check it out with a local witch I know first."

"Afraid that I will try and steal your power?"

I smiled. "No, short of killing me, the best you or anyone else can do is borrow."

"You are wise beyond your years, Ms. Blake."

"You aren't that much older than I am," I said. Something crossed over his face, the faintest flicker, and I knew.

"You're his human servant, aren't you?"

Dominic smiled, spreading his hands. " Oui ."

I sighed. "I thought you said you weren't trying to hide anything from me."

"A human servant's job is to be the daytime eyes and ears of his master. I am of no use to my master if vampire hunters can spot me for what I am."

"I spotted you."

"But in another situation, without Sabin at my side, would you have?"

I thought about that for a moment. "Maybe." I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Thank you for your honesty, Ms. Blake."

Sabin said, "I am sure our time is up. Jean-Claude said you had a pressing engagement, Ms. Blake. Much more important than my little problem." There was a little bite to that last.

" Ma petite has a date with her other beau."

Sabin stared at Jean-Claude. "So you are truly allowing her to date another. I thought that at least must be rumor."

"Very little of what you hear about Ma petite is rumor. Believe all you hear."

Sabin chuckled, coughing, as if struggling to keep the laughter from spilling out his ruined mouth. "If I believed everything I heard, I would have come with an army."

"You came with one servant because I allowed you only one servant," Jean-Claude said.

Sabin smiled. "Too true. Come Dominic, we must not take more of Ms. Blake's so valuable time."

Dominic stood obediently, towering over us both. Sabin was around my height. Of course, I wasn't sure if his legs were still there. He might have been taller once.

"I don't like you, Sabin, but I would never willingly leave another being in the shape you're in. My plans tonight are important, but if I thought we could cure you immediately, I'd change them."

The vampire looked at me. His blue, blue eyes were like staring down into clear ocean water. There was no pull to them. Either he was behaving himself or, like most vampires, he couldn't roll me with his eyes anymore.

"Thank you, Ms. Blake. I believe you are sincere." He extended a gloved hand from the voluminous cloak.

I hesitated, then took it. His hand squished ever so slightly, and it took a lot not to jerk back. I forced myself to shake his hand, to smile, to let go, and not to rub my hand on my skirt.

Dominic shook my hand as well. His was cool and dry. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Blake. I will contact you tomorrow and we will discuss things."

"I'll be expecting your call, Mr. Dumare."

"Call me, Dominic, please."

I nodded. "Dominic. We can discuss it, but I hate to take your money when I'm not sure that I can help you."

"May I call you Anita?" he asked.

I hesitated and shrugged. "Why not."

"Don't worry about money," Sabin said, "I have plenty of that for all the good it has done me."

"How is the woman you love taking the change in your appearance?" Jean-Claude asked.

Sabin looked at him. It was not a friendly look. "She finds it repulsive, as do I. She feels immense guilt. She has not left me, nor is she with me."

"You'd lived for close to seven hundred years," I said. "Why screw things up for a woman?"

Sabin turned to me, a line of ooze creeping down his face like a black tear. "Are you asking me if it was worth it, Ms. Blake?"

I swallowed and shook my head. "It's none of my business. I'm sorry I asked."

He drew the hood over his face. He turned back to me, black, a cup of shadows where his face should have been. "She was going to leave me, Ms. Blake. I thought that I would sacrifice anything to keep her by my side, in my bed. I was wrong." He turned that blackness to Jean-Claude. "We will see you tomorrow night, Jean-Claude."

"I look forward to it."

Neither vampire offered to shake hands. Sabin glided for the door, the robe trailing behind him, empty. I wondered how much of his lower body was left and decided I didn't want to know.

Dominic shook my hand again. "Thank you, Anita. You have given us hope." He held my hand and stared into my face as if he could read something there. "And do think about my offer to teach you. There are very few of us who are true necromancers."

I took back my hand. "I'll think about it. Now I really do have to go."

He smiled, held the door for Sabin, and out they went. Jean-Claude and I stood a moment in silence. I broke it first. "Can you trust them?"

Jean-Claude sat on the edge of my desk, smiling. "Of course not."

"Then why did you agree to let them come?"

"The council has declared that no master vampires in the United States may quarrel until that nasty law that is floating around Washington is dead. One undead war, and the anti-vampire lobby would push through the law and make us illegal again."

I shook my head. "I don't think Brewster's Law has a snowball's chance. Vampires are legal in the United States. Whether I agree with it or not, I don't think that's going to change."

"How can you be so sure?"

"It's sort of hard to say a group of beings is alive and has rights, then change your mind and say killing them on sight is okay again. The ACLU would have a field day."

He smiled. "Perhaps. Regardless, the council has forced a truce on all of us until the law is decided one way or another."

"So you can let Sabin in your territory, because if he misbehaves, the council will hunt him down and kill him."

Jean-Claude nodded.

"But you'd still be dead," I said.

He spread his hands, graceful, empty. "Nothing's perfect."

I laughed. "I guess not."

"Now, aren't you going to be late for your date with Monsieur Zeeman?"

"You're being awfully civilized about this," I said.

"Tomorrow night you will be with me, Ma petite . I would be a poor. . sport to begrudge Richard his night."

"You're usually a poor sport."

"Now, ma petite, that is hardly fair. Richard is not dead, is he?"

"Only because you know that if you kill him, I'll kill you." I held a hand up before he could say it. "I'd try to kill you, and you'd try to kill me, etc." This was an old argument.

"So, Richard lives, you date us both, and I am being patient. More patient than I have ever been with anyone."

I studied his face. He was one of those men who was beautiful rather than handsome, but the face was masculine; you wouldn't mistake him for female, even with the long hair.