Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

«One on the West Coast, one on the East,» Lisandro said.

«Is that where Joseph got his last candidate?» I asked.

«East Coast pride, yeah. But you turned him down, just like all the others.»

«I can't give your leader permission to shop for lions, Lisandro. It's against the rules to interfere that much over cross-species lines.»

«Not for you,» Lisandro said. «Remember, Joseph asked you not to keep Haven. The moment he asked you to protect him and his pride, he asked you to interfere. You're the leopards' Nimir-Ra, and the wolves' lupa; you were nothing to the lions. Once he asked for your help, he gave you permission to mess with his lions.»

«I don't think Joseph saw it that way,» I said.

Lisandro shrugged. «Doesn't matter how he saw it, it's still the truth.»

I don't know what I would have said to that, because there was a knock on the door. Lisandro went all bodyguardy on us. His hand went behind his back, and I knew for sure the gun was there. «Who is it?»

«Requiem. Jean-Claude requested my presence.»

Lisandro glanced at me. I realized he was asking my permission. I liked him better for that. I didn't really want to see Requiem tonight. I was still embarrassed that I'd added him to my list of food. But he'd been in England, so he'd seen the Harlequin in person, and recently. He'd be helpful. Or that's what I told myself as I nodded for Lisandro to let him in.

REQUIEM GLIDED IN wearing a long, hooded cloak as black as his hair. He was the only vamp I'd ever met who wore a cloak like that.

Byron came behind him, carrying a towel that seemed to be full of something. He was still wearing nothing but his G-string. There was still money stuffed in it. He grinned at me. «Hi, duckie.»

«Hey, Byron.»

He always talked like he had just stepped out of an old British movie: lots of loves and duckies . He talked that way to everyone, so I didn't take it personally. He up-ended the towel on the couch beside me. It was suddenly raining money.

«Good night,» Nathaniel said.

Byron nodded and started taking the money out of his G-string. «Jean-Claude used that sweet, sweet voice of his during my act. The pigeons always give it up for him.» He slipped off the G-string, letting some bills flutter to the floor. I used to protest the nudity in front of me, but they were strippers, and after a while either you stopped being bothered by the casual nudity, or you didn't hang at the club. Nudity didn't mean to the dancers what it meant in the real world. Stripping is about the illusion that the customers can have them—the illusion of sex, not the reality of it. It had taken me a while to understand that.

Byron used the towel to dry some of the sweat off his body. He winced, and turned to show bloody scratches high on one buttock. «Got me from behind, just at the end of m' act.»

«Hit-and-run, or did she give you extra money for it?» Nathaniel asked.

«Hit-and-run.»

I must have looked puzzled, because Nathaniel explained. «A hit-and-run is when a customer gets an extra grope, or scratch, or something intimate, and we don't know who did it, and they don't pay for it.»

«Oh,» I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I didn't like watching my boyfriends being groped by strangers. It was another reason I stayed away.

« 'The evening star, love's harbinger, sits before me, and does not even waste a smile upon me. «Requiem's greeting to me. It wasn't what he always said, but it was typical. He'd started calling me his «evening star.»

«You know, I looked up the quote. It's John Milton's Paradise Lost . I'm not sure, but I think it's your very poetic way of complaining.»

He glided in, making sure the cloak showed nothing but the long oval of his face, and even that was mostly hidden by the Vandyke-style beard and mustache. The only color on him was the swimming blue of his eyes: the richest, deepest, medium blue I'd ever seen.

«I know what I am to you, Anita.»

«And that would be?» I said.

«I am food.» He bent over me, and I turned my face so that the kiss he gave was on the cheek and not the mouth. He didn't fight me on it, but the kiss was empty and neutral, the kind of kiss you'd give your aunt. But I'd made certain it wouldn't be more. I'd turned away first, so why did it bug me that he'd just accepted the rebuff and not tried to make the kiss more? I didn't want him pursuing me harder than he was; I'd made that clear, so why did his just accepting the cheek bother me? God only knows, because I had no idea. I was mad at Nathaniel for demanding more of me, and irritated with Requiem for not demanding anything. Even in my own head I was confused.

He glided away to sink into the empty chair near the desk. He made sure the cloak covered him completely, only the tips of his black boots peeking out. «Why the frown, my evening star? I did exactly what you wished me to do, didn't I?»

I fought not to frown harder, and probably failed. «You bother me, Requiem.»

«Why?» he asked, simply.

«Why, just why, no poetry?» I asked.

Nathaniel patted my shoulder, either reminding me he was there or trying to stop me from picking a fight. Either way, it worked, because I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I wasn't sure why Requiem got on my nerves lately, but he did. He was one of my lovers. He was food. But I didn't like it, any of it. He was wonderful in bed, but… there was always that feeling from him that no matter what I did it was never enough. Never what he wanted me to do. There was a constant, unspoken pressure from him. I knew the feeling, but unless you were going to have a «relationship» with a man, it was a pressure you didn't deserve, or wouldn't respond to. He was food, and we were lovers; he was Jean-Claude's third-in-command. I'd tried to be his friend, but somehow the sex had ruined that. I think without the sex we could have been friends, but with it… with it we were neither friends, nor boyfriend or girlfriend. We were lovers, but… I had no words for what was wrong between us, but I could feel it, like an old ache in a wound you thought had healed.

«You told me you were tired of my 'constantly quoting poetry' to you. I'm practicing speaking simply.»

I nodded. «I remember, but… I feel like you're unhappy with me, and I don't know why.»

«You have allowed me into your bed. I share the ardeur once more. What could any man desire above that?»

«Love,» Nathaniel said.

Requiem looked past me to the other man. There was a flash of blue fire in the vampire's eyes: anger, power. Requiem hid it, but I'd seen it. We'd all seen it.

« 'Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?»

«I don't know who you're quoting,» Nathaniel said, «but Anita doesn't love at first sight, or at least she didn't me.»

«He's quoting from Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe,» Byron said. The other vampire was counting the money he'd rained down on the couch. He had his back to the other vampire. «And what's bothering him is that he thinks he's wonderful, and he can't understand why you don't love him.»

«Do not tempt me, Byron. My anger seeks only a target,» Requiem said.

Byron turned with his stacked and counted money in his hand. «I can resist anything but temptation,» he said. He glanced at me. «He hates it when you quote back at him.»

«Your tongue doth overstep your purpose, Byron,» Requiem said, his voice purring low with warning.

«My purpose,» Byron said, his gray eyes flashing with a moment of shining power like quiet lightning. He laid his money on the lacquered coffee table and turned to face the other vampire. «I want that glib and oily art, To speak and purpose not.» He sat in Nathaniel's lap, putting his legs across my lap.