Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘Very important, everybody, when the sun goes down I will be having some vampires fly to meet us. They are my close friends and associates; do not shoot them thinking they’re bad guys.’

‘How do we tell one vampire from another?’ Paris asked.

‘Are you saying all vampires look alike?’ I asked.

He frowned at me, then said, ‘I’m saying that our main perp is a vampire, so how are we supposed to know the difference?’

‘The three that are joining us will literally be flying in, as in coming from the sky on their own power. The bad vamp, as far as I know, can’t fly.’

‘I thought flying was just a story. You mean they can really do that?’ he asked.

‘A few master vamps can levitate; actual flight is a lot rarer, but these three can do it.’

‘Who’s coming to play with us?’ Edward asked.

‘Wicked Truth and one you haven’t met yet, Jane.’

‘A vampire named Jane?’ Paris made it a question.

‘Yep,’ I said.

‘I thought all vampires had cool names like Jean-Claude, or what was the other one you just said, Wicked True?’

‘They’re the Wicked Truth, think of it as a paired call sign,’ I said.

‘See, cool.’

I was beginning to think it wasn’t personal with Paris; he just couldn’t stop talking long enough to think things through. Maybe his nickname came from the fact that the mythological Paris had started the Trojan War.

Darkness came, and it wasn’t the fading of the brilliant sunset that let me know, it was the feeling inside me as if a switch had been clicked over. It was as if I could breathe easier in the thin air, or as if I’d been holding some tension inside me all day that finally eased.

I felt Jean-Claude wake for the night. Knew when he opened his eyes and knew that he felt the cool night breeze against my face. I didn’t envy Claudia explaining everything to him. I thought about Wicked and Truth and I could feel them, too. Feel them coming aware to the night and all the possibilities. Claudia would be telling them that they had been volunteered to stand at my back and be my metaphysical battery, and if Seamus showed up they, plus Lisandro, were probably the best chance we had at winning without just shooting him on sight. Since shooting him might kill Jane, too, and she’d done nothing, we’d try not to shoot him, but if we had to, we would.

Badger’s radio crackled and he touched his mic on his vest. ‘Roger that.’ He turned to me. ‘We’re getting reports of packs of zombies.’

‘How big?’

‘Eyewitnesses are reporting anywhere from five to twenty, so probably somewhere in between.’

My phone rang and I knew the ring tone. I picked it up. ‘Jean-Claude,’ I said.

‘ Ma petite , what have you done?’

‘My job.’

‘I would stand by your side, you know that.’

‘Claudia and I talked about it, but we learned from some of the older guards that if you are in person here, then the Lover of Death could make a direct challenge to you to try to take over as king of all the vampires here. It’s too great a risk, and you know that.’

‘I would be more power at your back.’

‘Yes, but if I get hurt you have the ability to feed me energy and keep me alive. If we’re both hurt, then we’re screwed.’

He laughed, that wonderful touchable sound that seemed to glide down my skin as if he’d touched me with his hand. It made me shiver.

‘ Ma petite , you say the sweetest things.’

‘You still know I’m right.’

‘I would love to say I do not and fly to your side.’

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘Je t’aime, ma petite.’

‘Kiss Asher for me when he shows up tonight.’

‘He will not be coming tonight. They have closed all the airports and roads into the city. The National Guard is being mobilized.’

‘One little zombie apocalypse and they call out the big guns,’ I said.

‘You are the big gun, ma petite .’

‘You can’t see me smiling, but I am.’

‘I can feel you smiling,’ he said.

There was a prickly rush of cold that wasn’t the night air. ‘I sense vampire, gotta go. Je t’aime, mon fiancé. ’

‘That is the first time you have called me so; I love you, ma petite .’

I made the sign we’d agreed upon when I sensed vampire and hoped that the snipers remembered that just because I sensed vampire didn’t mean it was bad guys. I reached out toward that sense of power and found Wicked Truth. I concentrated and could feel the air against their bodies as they literally flew toward me; they were just above us. If they hadn’t been blood-oathed to Jean-Claude, and my lovers, I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint them so accurately, but they were mine. What was mine I could sense.

It made me try to sense Jane. She was blood-oathed to Jean-Claude, too, and I got a flash of vampire. I’d have known she was close and a vampire, but other than that I’d have been blind. So it wasn’t just the connection to Jean-Claude. Was it being my lovers, or that I fed the ardeur on them, that made me be able to know so much about the Wicked Truth? Later, when we got through all this, I’d experiment and see what made the difference between the vampires I could track and the ones I couldn’t.

The SWAT officers all tensed and at least touched their guns as the vampires landed. Edward took it in stride; he’d seen the show before. Truth touched ground a few seconds before Wicked, so that they were both crouched on the ground letting the momentum of landing sink into the earth itself, and then stood together, tall and handsome, their faces as close to identical as any brothers I’d ever seen. Only the hair was different, one slightly wavy and brown, the other straight, thick, and blond, plus one had slightly bluer eyes, the other a bit more gray, and choice of clothing. Wicked wore a pale designer trench coat that flared around an equally beautiful tailored suit, and Truth was back in his newly repaired knee-high leather boots; they looked like something that should have been worn to a Renaissance fair, but they were the real deal, not a modern imitation. We’d finally convinced him that modern jeans were a good thing, and a black pair was tucked into the boots. Under his black leather jacket I caught glimpses of one of his new black T-shirts, the one that read, Don’t Worry I’m Right Behind You, using you as a meat shield , the second phrase in much smaller type. They walked toward me smiling. Wicked’s smile seem to promise naughty mischief; Truth’s was open and just happy to see me.

I met them partway, and normally I didn’t greet them with a hug let alone more, but I was about to ask them to risk their lives, not as my bodyguards, but as my familiars, like a witch might use a cat. So I went to them and held a hand out to each of them. They exchanged a quick glance between them, all the surprise they showed, and then took my hands. I put an arm around each of their waists, sliding my arms under the trench coat and the leather jacket, sliding my hands over the texture difference between Truth’s cotton T-shirt and Wicked’s silk dress shirt, until I tucked myself in close between them. They gazed down at me with those mirror faces, the deep dimples in their chins like an extra grace to those handsome faces. Their arms slid around me, one across my shoulders, the other lower.

‘I’m not complaining,’ Wicked said, ‘but why the effusive greeting for us?’

‘I’m asking a lot of you tonight.’

‘We’re your bodyguards, Anita; if you need our lives, they are yours,’ Truth said.

I hugged him a little tighter. ‘I don’t want your life, Truth.’

‘Whatever you want, it is yours,’ he said.