Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I felt that long metaphysical cord that bound me to Jean-Claude, sawhim in his bed at the Circus of the Damned with Asher still beside him. There was a shadow sitting on Jean-Claude's bare chest, a dark shape. The longer I looked at it, the more solid it became, until it turned a misshapen face to me, snarling, and showed me eyes burning with dark honey flame.

I looked at the hungry shadow of Belle Morte's power that had been trying to leech «life» from Jean-Claude all day. But the Master Vampire's fail-safe systems had kicked in—his human servant, and probably his animal to call. Richard had refused to help us directly, but he was probably paying the price for it today.

The thing hissed at me again, like some great demonic cat, and I decided to treat it like one. I threw my beast down the long line of metaphysical cord. What I hadn't planned for was that Micah's beast would follow mine, that when we attacked it would be together, ripping the thing to smoky tatters. It fled through the wall.

I wondered where it had gotten to, and the thought was enough. I saw it in the guest room we'd prepared for Musette. The shadow sat on her chest for a second, then seemed to melt into her body. There was a moment when that swimming thing moved underneath the vampire's dead skin, then all was quiet.

Angelito's voice, "Mistress are you there?"

Then I was back in the warm water, and Micah's arms. "What was that?" he asked, voice soft, strangled.

"The shadowy thing was a piece of Belle Morte's power that she gave to Musette."

"It was like it was trying to feed on Jean-Claude, but it couldn't."

"I'm his human servant, Micah. I think when Musette tried to steal Jean-Claude's strength, the attack deflected to me. She's been sucking on me all day."

"Did Jean-Claude do that on purpose?" he asked.

"No, he's truly dead to the world. It's just the way the system is set up. If she could have sucked Jean-Claude dry, then she could have taken the energy of all of his vamps, everyone that had a blood tie to him."

"Instead she's been feeding off of you."

"Yeah, and probably Richard. I bet he called in sick to school today."

Micah held me tight against him. "How do we keep it from happening again?"

I patted his arm. "You know that's one of the things I like most about you. Most people would spend time worrying about what could have happened, how bad it could have been, you go straight to the practical."

"We need to do something before it hops back through the wall."

"Is my cell phone in here anywhere?"

"In the pile with your clothes," he said.