81

The ardeur fell on us, and we fell into the water. It took us almost a minute to remember we couldn't breathe under water. We came up, gasping for air, laughing almost as soon as we could breathe enough for it. Clothes had vanished in the first rush. We were naked in the water. How had we managed to get out of the jeans that fast? A piece of jean cloth floated by me. Oh, that's how.

"No missionary position, we'll both drown," I said.

His curls were plastered to his head, and his hair looked black in the candlelight. The laughter died from his face, his eyes, and left something darker, more basic, behind. A look that made me shiver. All he said was, "Okay." He moved us to the edge of the tub, pressing my back against the smooth side of it. He pressed himself up against me, pinning me between the tub and his body. The feel of him hard and firm against the front of my naked body made me close my eyes for a moment. I had some vague memory of clothes being ripped away, but I wasn't sure when, or even which of us had done it. I was getting better at thinking when the ardeur rose, but there were moments when thinking was not what I did.

He moved back from my body so he could caress the front of himself. Just watching his hand play over that thick, firm flesh made me shiver. He angled himself downward so he could push between my thighs. He felt incredibly large sliding between my legs. He didn't try to angle upward, or enter me. He simply pushed himself between my thighs, so that the thickness of him brushed against all of me. He rubbed himself back and forth, using his body like another hand, to caress and play between my legs. But it was a thick, hard rubbing, with none of the delicacy of fingers. You'd think water would help everything be slippery, but water makes some parts less wet, less slick, so that though it felt good, it also was rougher than it would have been if I'd been wet with something other than water.

"Not wet enough," he said, and his voice was thick and strangely hoarse, strangled with desire.

I would have liked to argue, because the ardeur wanted to argue, wanted to say, take me, take me now. If I'd been with almost any other man in my life, we could have done just that without hurting me, or him, but Micah was the exception to a lot of rules in my life. It wasn't the length that was the problem, it was the width. We'd found this out the hard way, and had had the rubby spots to prove it.

I managed to say, "No, not wet enough."

He leaned his forehead against mine and said a heartfelt, "Shit."

I nodded my head against his, wordless assent, because I didn't trust my voice. Micah wasn't the only one strangling on need. He drew his body from between my legs, and even that drew a small sound from me. His hands went to my waist and he just suddenly lifted me up, up so that I was perched on the edge of the tub. If his hand hadn't been on my leg I would have overbalanced and fallen back into the water, but he steadied me. One hand stayed on my leg, but the other hand moved up the line of my thigh. I thought he was going to do me by hand, but his finger slid inside me. It was unexpected, and even one finger felt tight and good. So good that I lay back along the raised tile around the tub. I felt the heat before I actually lay down on the candles, but the heat of it pressed against my skin. I sat up so abruptly that he had to move his hands and spill me back into the water.

"Did you get burned?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No, not this time." I'd caught my hair on fire once. I laughed, sort of shakily. "Stupid."

Micah looked at me, and there was something in that look.

"What?" I asked.

"The ardeur is gone."

I thought about it, felt around for it, and found no, no, not gone, but receded. Not receded like when I fought it, but more like me getting almost burned had helped me think again. Or maybe even the ardeur bows to physical survival. But I could feel it like a storm that had moved offshore, but was still coming.

"I thought I'd caught myself on fire."

"Again," he said.

I frowned at him. "Yes, again. Is it my fault that you're so amazing that you make me forget everything, even physical safety?"

He shook his head. "Not me, the ardeur. The ardeur makes everything better, Anita."

There was something about the way he said it, something serious and a little sad, that made me say, "What's wrong?"

He kissed me on the tip of the nose. "Later."

I might have argued with him, but the ardeur decided that it had given us enough time. It hit me like a train and threw me into his arms, made my hands move over his body as if I was hungry to touch him, as if no touch, no caress, nothing would be enough. We kissed the same way, as if we were hungry for each other. It was as if we could have we would have climbed into each other's skins, wrapped ourselves through each other, closer than skin or flesh could survive.

One minute my mouth was trying to climb inside Micah's, the next my beast rose, swimming up, up through my body, coming out of that metaphysical place, and climbing up my body. Micah drew back from my mouth enough to say, "Anita..."

I used hands and body to press his mouth back to mine. His beast began to spill up through his body in a line of breath-stealing heat. It rose fast and faster as if it had to catch up with mine. They raced up our bodies, raced through that dark water, raced, and raced, faster and faster until they hit the surface. It wasn't about changing shape, it was about changing bodies. It was about that need to wrap as much of him around as much of me, as tight, and close as I could. It was as if the very essence of our bodies had responded to that desire. Our beasts spilled out of our mouths, and brushed metaphysical furred sides down each other, as we spilled inside each other's bodies. It was closer than sex. Closer than anything I'd ever felt. It was as if for a blinding, shattering moment, we were in each other's bodies. Not in our minds, not merely our thoughts, or feelings, not even memories, but for a breath or two, a part of me slipped inside him, and a part of him slipped inside me. They weren't parts that could think and feel like a human being. There was none of that, wow, so this is how it feels to be Micah. There was only a sense of burrowing down, down deep inside him, of finding that metaphysical hiding place where the beast lay and having my beast curl up, for a moment, inside his most secret space, while his beast did the same in me.

In that moment, the ardeur fed. Fed on that warm, living power, fed on the sensation of being deeper inside Micah's body than I'd ever been inside any man's before. The ardeur fed, and left us quieter, calmer, happier.

The beasts didn't turn and go back up the way they'd come. One moment that piece of me was curled warm and safe inside him, and the sensation of him inside me was like when we made love, as if even his beast were bigger and took up more room than mine. That warm, living energy didn't come back up our throats, it was as if the two energies spilled out the fronts of our bodies, out our skin, so that for a heartbeat it felt as if we'd burst our skins, and two great furred shapes were passing through us, then it was as if the two beasts dropped back into place. I swear I felt as if something physical with true weight was dropped down the center of my body, and hit the end of me. As if instead of falling from the height, I was the height, and could feel the body falling through me, and hitting my floor.

We broke from the kiss, laughing, breathless. I found my voice first, "Wow."

He looked happier than I'd ever seen him, relaxed, more... more at home somehow, as if some great weight had gone from him. "You know," he said, still breathing hard, "you're not supposed to be able to do that, if one of you is human."

"I didn't know you were supposed to be able to do that at all," I said.

"If you are both powerful, and a true mated pair, then it's possible."

"You say it, like it has a name."

"Shiva and Pavarti, or simply Maithuna, it's Sanskrit for union, or coupling."

"Shiva, who would destroy the world with his energy if Pavarti didn't constantly have sex with him and spill off the energy."

He nodded. "World religion class from college again?"

I shook my head. "A few years back we found a naga, a real live one that had been a crime victim. It made me go look up Hindu religion. I mean, if you get one type of supernatural being, you might get others from the same place."

"Did you?"

"Nope." I thought about it. "Well, not yet." I put my arms behind his head, and drew him down for a kiss. He didn't fight, but he kept himself just above my face. "You fed the ardeur."

"I still want a kiss."

He kissed me, and it was gentle at first, then grew until we were feeding at each other's mouths again. He drew back, laughing and breathless. "I thought we'd done this already."

I wasn't sure how to explain it. We'd had metaphysical sex, and like sometimes happens after regular sex I was pumped, energized. I could feel him still hard and thick pressed between our bodies. I wanted him inside me. I wanted him as close physically as I'd had him metaphysically.

I kept one hand behind his neck, but let the other trace down his body, until I could cup him in my hand. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. I moved my hand up and wrapped my fingers around him. He was so hard, so thick, so solid in my hand that it made me close my eyes, made my breath shudder from my body.

I opened my eyes and knew that my focus was already soft. "I want this inside me."

He tried for amusement, but his face was raw with the beginnings of that need. His voice was hoarse again when he said, "Even without the ardeur?"

I squeezed him tight enough to flutter his eyes back into his head. When he could see again, I said, "It's not the ardeur that makes me want you, Micah."

His voice was a harsh whisper, as if he were having trouble talking, "We'll never top what we've already done tonight."

I stroked my hand up the long, hard shaft of him. "It's not about being better, just being as good."

He shook his head. "It won't be as good without the ardeur or our beasts, and this close to full moon, I don't think we want to keep trying the beasts. It could get out of hand."

It was my turn to shake my head. "Just us, Micah, just us."

"From the moment we touched, it's never been just us. There's always someone, or something else, never just us." He looked so serious.

I cupped one hand under the soft wetness of his testicles, and gently played with them, while I played my other hand over the head and shaft of him. "Then we're past due, don't you think?"

He swallowed hard, laughed, then gave a small nod. "You're wetter after you feed the ardeur, but we ended up back in the water, so you won't be wet enough or open enough for this," he wrapped his hand around mine where I still held him, he squeezed our hands together until his head went back, eyes closed, and he shuddered hard enough to make the water slosh against the sides of the tub. He looked down at me and slipped his hand between my legs, searching, until he could slip a finger inside me. He managed two fingers inside me before my head went back, and my eyes fluttered shut. "To go in there," he whispered.

When I could talk, I said, "Oh, darn, then you'll have to make me wet, and open."

He shoved the two fingers fast and hard inside me, stopped my voice along with my breath. "I can do that," he said, and he had that look, that look that said he knew I wanted him, and that I wouldn't say no. I didn't say no, I said yes, over and over again. I said yes, until he worked me open with his fingers, and finally with his mouth, so he could push himself inside me. So we could finally put that in there, and it was wet and tight, and hard, and everything I wanted it to be. When I screamed his name and raked my nails down his back, when his body thrust one last time inside mine, thrust so far and so deep that it made me cry out again and arched his body above mine on the bathroom tile. Painted his body in flame and shadow above me, sent our hands into the candles, and spilled the candles into the water, to smoke and die, when all that was done, he looked down at me. Eyes not quite focused, face still slack with orgasm.

I said, in a voice breathy and panting, "Metaphysics, we don't need no stinking metaphysics."

It took him a blink to get the joke, but once he did, he started to laugh, and since he was still inside me, that made me writhe, which made him thrust inside me again, which made me writhe again, which made him writhe, which... He finally slid off to one side, onto a small candle-free slice of tile still laughing. We laughed until tiredness pulled at us like some giant hand dragging us under. It was as if the entire twenty-four hours caught up with me at once, and I was just done. Done for the day. Done for the night. Done for the year. Done.

We dried our hair as best we could. I insisted on at least running an oiled cloth over the knives that I'd dunked in the bathtub. Micah helped me gather up the big knife and the two handguns. I got the big equipment bag from the living room, but Micah begged me to just put it in the bedroom with us instead of putting everything into their various gun safes. "Just one night, it'll be okay. I promise," he said.

I had to agree that I didn't want to go upstairs to the long rifle safe, then downstairs to the ammo safe, then... well, you get the idea.

We dragged ourselves to bed carrying more weapons than clothes. I let the equipment bag drop beside the bed, softly. Nathaniel lay on his side, curled into a little ball, like he always lay when no one was in the bed but him. I laid the knives on the bedside table on his side of the bed, again, trying to be quiet.

He opened his eyes just enough to see me, then they closed, and his breathing deepened. He didn't wake completely, but his body responded to me climbing in beside him. He was so warm, almost hot, feverish, or maybe that was just how cool our skin was, from the bath, and the sex in the open air. I put the Browning in its homemade holster in the head of the bed. Micah put the Firestar on the bedside table by him. Nathaniel relaxed into the curve of my body, pressing as much of him against as much of me as he could. It was only then that I realized we were all nude. Nathaniel hadn't worn anything to bed, and neither had we. I let Micah come to bed nude if he wanted to, but never Nathaniel, and never me. It hadn't even occurred to me to get clothes on first. I'd just wanted to go to bed, to sleep, to cuddle between them both. Micah settled in against my back, and I let myself sink into the sensation of being held between them. I'd slept with Micah pressed naked to my back, but never Nathaniel. I'd had his ass pressed into the curve of my stomach and groin for months, but never without clothes, never just skin-to-skin. I pressed my breasts against the warmth of his back, one arm up and over his head so I could touch his hair. My other hand went around his waist. In his sleep, he pulled my hand closer to his body, lower, so that my fingers brushed areas I'd made very sure stayed covered.

"What's wrong?" Micah whispered, as if he'd felt some tension in me.

I touched the silky warmth of the skin just inside Nathaniel's hip, that soft pocket of flesh that frames the groin. Nathaniel's hand on mine, holding me close to him, as his breathing evened back into deep sleep. I snuggled in against him, until my breath danced along his neck, and he snuggled harder against me. "Nothing," I whispered, "nothing at all."

Micah spooned himself in at my back. His arm going underneath my pillow, and a little under Nathaniel's. Micah's other arm went over my waist, and because Nathaniel was so close to me, his hand ended up resting on Nathaniel's hip. "Ah," he whispered, "no clothes."

"No clothes," I said.

He whispered against the back of my neck, and it half-tickled. "That a problem?"

"No," I said, and moved my head a fraction down my pillow so I could breathe in the scent of Nathaniel's neck.

"You sure?"

"Yeah." And I was, because it felt too right to be wrong.

82

The raid on the vampire condo got national attention. A mixed blessing. Headlines ranged from "Condo of Death," to "Police Raid Ends Vampire Serial Killer's Rampage," or the most popular, "Vampires turned serial killers, next on Channel..." The reports were so similar it didn't much matter what local channel it was on. I just stopped answering my phone for a few days. The interview requests were national, and a few international. I wondered if anyone on Mobile Reserve was getting this much attention. If they were, I hoped they were enjoying it more than I was.

DNA came back, and my worst fears were confirmed. Three of the vamps killed matched the earlier victims' bites, but that left us with five unaccounted for. Five serial killers still at large. Serial killers don't stop killing, not unless they're locked up, or permanently dead.

They'd fled St. Louis, the way they fled New Orleans, and Pittsburgh before that. They'd killed policemen in all three towns. Their kill count was more than twenty, and they were still out there.

There'd been a gap of of nearly three months between the killings in Pittsburgh and the killings in New Orleans. Barely a month between New Orleans and St. Louis. They were escalating, less time between killing sprees, more victims of choice, though St. Louis had managed to get away with the fewest dead among our police. How did we get so lucky? Jean-Claude got a letter.

The writing was beautiful, calligraphy, on heavy vellum paper with a watermark. The note was from Vittorio's Gwennie:

Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis,

I have left Vittorio. His madness has grown beyond anything that I can excuse or take part in. I cannot live as he lives anymore. If he finds me, he will kill me. I have fled with another younger vampire of our kiss, Myron, and Vittorio will not forgive the betrayal. Vittorio is seeking another city now. You have driven him out, but he will find another hunting ground. His madness does not let him rest for long now. His only release seems to come when he kills the people that he sees as taunting him. I saw your Asher at Belle's Court after the church was done with him; let me say only that Vittorio was not so lucky. He is a ruin of a man now. No, he is a monster. He has let the holy water that ate his body eat his mind, as well. Everything I loved in him is gone, lost to this mind sickness.

I hope you found the little that Myron and I could do to assist the police, helpful. We moved the bodies so that they would be found sooner. It was all we could do with Vittorio so close. Myron was the one who left the policeman alive, so you would know that the girl was taken. Myron was also in the church as one of our spies. He knew that you had the address from Cooper before he died. He did not tell anyone, but me, for the rest are trapped in Vittorio's evil dream. We did all we could to help you, and your human servant. Please believe that. If we survive, I will try to contact you again. I truly expect that Vittorio will find us before the year is out. But sometimes it is better to live a short good life, than an evil long one.

Most Sincerely Yours,

Gwen

The letter solved some of the mystery, but it left the biggest part unanswered. Where was Vittorio? How long until he found another city to stalk? I was a federal officer, that meant when he resurfaced, I'd get to see it, if I wanted to, or if the local vampire hunter called me in on it. Denis-Luc St. John is still in the hospital in New Orleans. I talked to him on the phone, let him know what happened to the vampires that nearly killed him. He wants a piece of them when they resurface. Good for him, I'm kind of hoping to be left out of it. Is that cowardly? Maybe. If I thought I was the only one who could track them down and save the world, I'd do it, but I'm not the only cop in the country. I'm not even the only vampire executioner with a badge in the country. Let someone else have the fun for a change. I'd had about as much fun in the last few years as I could take. I'll go if I'm asked, but I'm not volunteering. There are always more bad guys, always. There's no way to win the war. You can win a battle here and there, but the war is always ongoing. You kill one villainous bastard, and another one just as bad, or worse, crops up. It never seems to end.

We have a meeting set up to talk to Malcolm about the blood-oath situation. Unfortunately, the no-blood-oath policy is countrywide, not just in St. Louis. A fucking disaster waiting to happen. Several of the vamps that were at the church the night I killed Cooper have approached Jean-Claude to change masters from Malcolm to him. Avery Seabrook and Wicked and Truth are among those jumping ship.

Marianne did another tarot reading that duplicated the last one. It being identical means we're still working through it. I still don't know who's supposed to help me, someone from my past. Everyone that is helping seems very much my present and future.

The Dragon has given Primo permission to stay in St. Louis and would like to talk to us at a later date about council business. A mixed blessing that.

I've contacted the police working on the Browns' case. They've agreed to have an officer fly down with some of the boy's personal effects, which means they are stumped. Evans has agreed to look at the stuff. Barbara Brown sent me a card saying how sorry she was she hurt me.

I can't fix the world, but I'm making progress on my life. Some nights it's enough to come home alive and crawl into bed beside someone you love, who loves you back.

I found orchids that were the same greenish-gold as Micah's eyes. A bouquet of them is sitting on the coffee table in our living room. Micah says he's never gotten flowers before. Nathaniel got a frilly white apron, like no one's mother ever really wore, and a string of pearls. I found him lying on the bed running the pearls over and over through his fingers.

For Jean-Claude pure white orchids in a simple but elegant black vase. He put them on the coffee table in his living room. Yellow roses for Asher, though they paled beside the gold of his hair. Richard and I aren't back to the flower-giving stage yet. And, truthfully, he never did see much point in he, himself, getting flowers from anyone.

Damian nearly started a riot at Danse Macabre the first night he went to work after we became a true triumvirate. He seems to have gained powers that are more Belle Morte's line of vampire than Moroven's line. He's enjoying his new-found sex appeal. I'm not sure Damian is exactly in the boyfriend category, but he is my vampire servant, and he deserves better than he's been getting from me. I gave him an envelope with a gift certificate in it. A certificate to a furniture store. He can decorate the basement as his room until we can have an apartment built over the garage for him. We had a basement-cleaning party one night; Nathaniel's idea. Basically invite a lot of friends over and make them do grunt work, then feed them pizza afterward. Well, okay, the wereleopards, werewolves, wererats, and humans got pizza. The vampires got something a little less solid. No, Jean-Claude did not come help clean up the basement, but surprisingly, Asher did. So did Richard. He behaved himself all the way up to refreshments, then he couldn't stand me opening a vein for Asher. He didn't argue, he just left. He's trying.

We're all trying. I'm trying to remember what I thought I was doing when I started hunting vampires and helping the police. I used to think I was doing something noble. That there was a reason and a purpose to it. I used to know that I was the good guy. But lately, it feels like I'm just shoveling one pile of shit, so another one can takes its place. Like the bad guys are an avalanche, and I'm trying to stay ahead of it, by shoveling. Maybe I'm just tired, or maybe I'm wondering if Mendez was right. Maybe you can't be one of the good guys, if you spend most of your time shooting people to death. I don't know what bothers me more, that I can shoot someone in the face who's begging for their life, or that legally there's no other option. I don't mind killing to defend my life and the lives of others. I don't mind killing if the person has truly earned it. I'd cap Vittorio in a heartbeat. But what if the girl in the condo had told the truth? What if because her master told her to do something, she had no choice? What if away from the bad guy, she's not a bad guy? Oh, hell, I don't know. The only thing I know for certain is that it isn't my job to worry about how the poor bastard turned into a killer. It's my job to make sure they never kill anyone else again. That's what I do. I am the Executioner. Murder someone in my town, and I'm the one that you get to see. Once.