Laurell Hamilton - Hit List

“Thaddeus isn’t in charge of these negotiations; I am, and I so fucking would.”

There was silence on their end, while they conferred. If we really planned on negotiating our way out of here, we’d need to do it before the vampires rose for the night. That was going to be soon. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but even underground if I concentrated I could feel the coming of dawn or dusk. We were actually planning on killing most of the vampires and then escaping over the dead bodies of our enemies, but to keep them from guessing that, we had to pretend to negotiate. You always have to lie more to cover the first lie you tell; it’s a rule or something.

“What do you want?” Marius asked.

What I really wanted was for the three Harlequin to work on their timing at decapitation, but out loud I said, “We want safe passage for all of us.”

A moment’s silence and then he said, “Of course.” He knew that as soon as night fell and the Mother entered one of her vampire children she would come after us, but he would pretend that he could let us go and we’d really be free. I could pretend that we were so stupid we’d believe the first part. We began to negotiate in earnest; we were both lying, and both delaying.

How many beheadings do you have to do to get the timing perfect between three sword blows? Nine, as it turned out. How many vampires can you behead before wereanimals fifty yards away smell the fresh blood and death? Yep, same answer. The three Harlequin sliced the necks perfectly, like some executioner choreography, and the wereanimals on the stairs yelled, “You’re killing them all!” “Your lovers are dead!” And the three Harlequin moved to the masters’ bodies laid in their neat row. Their swords were a shine of silver, gleaming and faster than my eye could really follow. In one second a sword was raised, there was a blur of movement, and heads rolled away from the bodies. The white masks made them look like doll heads, but dolls don’t bleed.

There was a scream from the stairs, and a sound almost of struggle, and then nothing. The silence was so thick, I could hear the blood in my head roaring in my ears. I wanted to call out to Bernardo and Ethan, but I forced myself to keep quiet. Were they doing the same, or were they dead?

The two lions moved toward the stairs, using the curved edge of wall to hide them from the stairs until the last minute. Then one did a quick glance up the stairs, and jerked back. He was so fast at it that I thought he’d seen the bad guys still alive, but then he took a second, longer look, and then he moved into the stairwell with the other lion following at his heels.

We waited at the entrance to the hallway. I held my breath, listening, but there was nothing to hear. Then one of the lions came down the stairs and gave the all-clear signal. We started across the open space and I felt it, night was falling. I felt it click into place, and I felt something else stir.

A cold breeze eased past me, breaking my skin out in a rush of shivers and goose bumps. A voice echoed in my head: “Necromancer.”

“Run!” I yelled it, and took my own advice. No one argued with me. We ran for the stairs.

THE VAMPIRES CAME for us, and worse yet, they took back control of Thaddeus. He didn’t attack us, but he stopped moving, stopped running. Thaddeus said, “Save yourselves if you can. It is too late for me.”

I reached back for him, but Lisandro grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. He got a death grip on my arm and ran toward the stairs. I had a choice of being dragged, or running. I ran.

Bernardo and Ethan were at the mouth of the stairs with guns in their hands. They fired over our heads at the vampires, and missed. “They’re too fast!” Bernardo said.

I stumbled, fell, and Lisandro half-carried, half-dragged me. I held on to my gun, but I couldn’t run like this and aim. I started to try to pull loose of Lisandro so I could turn and fight, but something hit me so hard it drove all the air from my body, and I carried Lisandro’s nail marks in my arm as the vampire slammed me into the wall. It knocked all the air out of me for a moment. Just a moment, before I was able to try to bring my gun up, but a moment was all the Harlequin needed to pin my arm and gun against the wall and snarl into my face. One minute I was looking into pale brown eyes, and the next the eyes were black, like staring into the deepest, darkest night you’d ever known. The Mother of All Darkness was here. The man’s voice said, “Necromancer,” but though the voice was deeper, the intonation was still her.

I screamed, and tried to move my arm enough to use the gun that was still in my hand. She laughed at me. “Drop your shields, necromancer, or my Harlequin will kill them one by one.”

“Don’t do it!” Lisandro yelled, and then made a pain noise. Thaddeus and another Harlequin that was probably his master had him pinned to the floor. It’s harder to capture than to kill someone as good as Lisandro.

Ethan and one of the werelions were circling each other. One of Ethan’s arms dangled, badly broken. The werelion had a gun in each hand. The other werelion had Bernardo shoved up against the wall, one arm behind his back, the other around his throat. Bernardo’s face was bloody. It looked like they’d shoved him face first into the wall to stun and disarm him.

The vampire in front of me leaned his face near mine. “Drop your shields, necromancer.”

“Don’t do it, Anita,” Bernardo said. The werelion tightened her grip on his throat and began to slowly squeeze. I watched his face darken as the werelion choked him.

“Shall we kill your human lover first, necromancer?” the vampire asked, and leaned in, the male body pinning me more solidly against the wall.

“Why won’t anyone believe he’s not my lover?”

“Jokes, even now, Anita,” she said in that deep voice. “There is a difference between bravery and stupidity, necromancer.”

Bernardo went limp in the choke hold. It takes longer to choke someone to death than you think it does, but I didn’t want to chance it. Shit!

“Let him go,” I said.

“But if he is not your lover, then you shouldn’t care.”

“Let him go,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“Let him breathe again,” she said.

The werelion eased the hold, and Bernardo made that terrible wheezing breath like coming back from the dead. He choked, and finally whispered, “Don’t do it, Anita.”

“He is very brave, your human lover,” she said.

I didn’t correct her again. “You’ve gotten inside my shields before and couldn’t possess me; what makes you think this time will be different?”

“I have a body to touch you with that I already possess. You should know that physical contact makes all vampire powers harder to resist.”

I stared into that stranger’s face with eyes that I seemed to have known for a lifetime. “But you’re wearing gloves. None of you is touching my skin.”

I saw the frown lines through the eyes of the mask. “Drop your shields, necromancer, and we shall see if I need to remove the gloves.”

I hesitated.

“You will do as I ask eventually, necromancer. The only question is how many of your companions will die first.”

Ethan was on the ground, and the werelion pistol-whipped him across the face. The werelion aimed one of the guns at the fallen man.

“We will kill the wererat first. He is more dangerous than the human, and I don’t like rats.”

“It’s because you can’t control them,” I said. “If it’s not a cat you can’t force it to do anything. You have to ask, just like with me.”

“Shoot him.”

“No!” I yelled.

The shot echoed through the emptiness of the space, but it was Thaddeus kneeling over Lisandro; he’d moved his body in the way of his master’s shot. He half fell over Lisandro, as his master fell to his own knees wounded as he’d wounded Thaddeus. “I can’t disobey you,” Thaddeus said, “but I can do things that you have not forbidden.” He coughed and blood sprayed down his chin. He looked across the room at me. “Thank you, Anita Blake.”