Anita Blake - The Harlequin Part 10

"Non, but not all on the council have forgotten what it means to live in the real world."

"Which council member will you contact first?" Byron asked.

There was a knock on the door. All of us with heartbeats jumped.

Nathaniel gave that nervous laugh, and I said, "s.h.i.+t."

Lisandro's voice: "There's a delivery for you, Jean-Claude."

"It can wait," he said, his voice showing some of the strain.

"The letter with it says you're expecting it."

"Enter," Jean-Claude said.

Lisandro opened the door, but it was Clay who walked in with a white box in his hands. A box just like the one I'd found in the rest-room. I think I stopped breathing, because when I remembered to breathe, it came in a gasp.

Clay looked at me. "What's wrong?"

"Who delivered this?" Jean-Claude asked.

"It was just sitting by the holy-item check desk."

"And you just brought it in here," I said, my voice rising.

"No, give me some credit. We checked it out. The note says Jean-Claude is expecting it." "What is it?" I asked, but was afraid I knew. "A mask," Clay said. He was looking at all of us now, trying to see why we were so upset.

"What color is it?"Jean-Claude's voice was as empty as I'd ever heard it.

"White."

The tension level dropped a point or two.

"With little gold musical notes all over it. Didn't you order it?"

"In a way, I suppose I did," Jean-Claude said.

I stared up at him and moved away enough so I could see his face clearly. "What do you mean, you suppose you did?"

"I said I wanted to meet with them, did I not?"

"Yeah, but so what?"

"That's what this mask means, ma pet.i.te. It means they wish to meet, not to kill us, or torment, but to talk."

"But how did they know what you'd said?" Nathaniel asked.

Jean-Claude looked at me, and there was something in that look that made me say, "They're listening to us." "I fear so." "When was the mask delivered?" Requiem asked. Clay was still looking at us, as if waiting for us to throw him a clue.

"We're not sure. I went on break about thirty minutes ago. It must have come while I was off the door."

"How long have you been back on the door?" Jean-Claude asked.

"Maybe five minutes."

"They were listening," Requiem said.

"They knew what Jean-Claude was going to say," Byron said, and his voice held more panic than most vampires would have shown. He just couldn't quite keep all the emotion out of his face and voice.

"What is going on?" Clay asked.

"Something big and bad has come to town," Lisandro said. "They won't tell us about it, but they'll expect us to fight it, and die because of it." His voice sounded bitter. "What are the rules about telling our soldiers about . . . them?" I asked. Jean-Claude took in a deep, deep breath, and shook, almost like a bird settling its feathers. "Mutable."

"Mutable-oh, it depends."

He nodded.

Then I had a smart idea. "I believe we'd know if someone was listening in on us metaphysically, especially another vampire." "They are very powerful, ma pet.i.te'' "Lisandro," I said. He came to his version of attention; he gave me all his concentration. There was a demand to his dark eyes. If I widowed his wife, he wanted to know why. I thought he deserved to know why, but first things first. "I need this room swept for bugs."

"What kind of bugs?"

"Anything that would let someone listen to us."

"You think they are relying on technology, ma pet.i.te}"

"I don't believe that any vampire could spy on us like this without our sensing it." "They are very powerful, ma pet.i.te"

"They are f.u.c.king ghosts, lover," Byron said.

"Fine, they're ghosts, but it doesn't do any harm to look for technology. If the room is clean, then we can blame it on spooky stuff, but let's look for tech first."

Jean-Claude looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. "It would be interesting if they used listening devices."

"Did you look for bugs in London?" Nathaniel asked.

Byron and Requiem exchanged a look, then both shook their heads.

"It never occurred to us, duckies. I mean this is the b.l.o.o.d.y ..." Byron licked his lips and stopped himself before saying their name, just in case. "They are ghosts, bogeys, walking nightmares. You don't expect the bogeyman to need technology."

"Exactly," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"It means that most vampires don't use technology much. If these guys use it a lot, then it would seem like magic, if you didn't know what it was." "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Requiem said.

I nodded.

He stared at me. "My evening star, you are full of surprises."

"I just don't think like a vampire."

"Does Rafael have someone he trusts to clean a room of such things?" Jean-Claude asked. "Yes," Lisandro said. "Then do it." "How soon do you need it?" "We said we wanted to meet with them a minute or two ago, and the mask arrives with the invitation," I said.

"So, like yesterday," Lisandro said.

"Or sooner," I said.

He nodded. "I'll make the call." He hesitated at the door. "I'll put someone on the door, and I'll use a phone outside the club."

"Good thinking," I said.

"It's what I do." Then he was gone.

"Where do you want this?" Clay asked, motioning with the box.

"Put it on the desk with the other one, I guess."

He put it beside the first one. Jean-Claude didn't seem to want to touch it. I was the one who opened it and found the white mask staring sightless up at me. But this one looked more finished, with gilt musical notes decorating the face. I touched a note and found it was raised above the rest of the mask. The note with it said only, "As you requested."

"Is there writing inside the mask?"Jean-Claude asked. I lifted it out of the tissue paper. Inside the smooth bow of the mask was writing. "Do not read it out loud, ma pet.i.te"

I didn't, I just handed it to him. Inside the mask was written "Circus of the d.a.m.ned," and a date that was two days away. The date was written backward with the day first, then the month, then the year like they wrote it in Europe. They'd chosen one of Jean-Claude's own businesses for the meeting. Was that good, bad, or neither? Did it mean we had home-court advantage, or that they were planning to torch the place? I wanted to ask, but didn't want our enemies to hear the question. If we did find bugs in this office, we'd have to look every where. All the offices, all the businesses, my house, all of it.

I was praying we found bugs, because the alternative was that these vamps were so good that they could plant psychic bugs inside our brains. You could find and destroy mechanical s.h.i.+t in the rooms; if they were good enough to use magic inside our heads, then we were f.u.c.ked. We'd die when they wanted us to die, or we'd live, and either way it would be their idea, and not ours. I never thought I'd pray to have our offices turn out to be bugged. Funny, what turns out to be the lesser evil some nights.

CHAPTER 9

DAWN HAD COME and all the vampires were asnooze in their coffins when I finally got a few minutes to try Edward again. I'd called twice while Lisandro's experts searched everything. They had found bugs, but not where they were listening to us, like listening posts. Hours of work later and we were clean. We actually got lucky. The bugs weren't the smallest and latest cutting-edge technology. Which meant they needed to be close to the clubs to hear. Probably some thing mobile like a van, the experts said. The tech was good, but not the latest and greatest. Which probably meant the Harlequin didn't know how to hack phone lines and computer systems. Probably. But even the listening devices we found were pretty high tech for a bunch of ancient vampires. Made me wonder what other wonders of modern technology they might be willing to use. Most vamps relied on vampire powers. I wasn't sure the Harlequin did. In fact, I was bet ting they didn't. Ancient vampires and armed with modern s.h.i.+t; it just wasn't fair.

I wanted to even those odds, so I was in Jean-Claude's bathroom with my cell phone, trying one last time to reach Edward.

I dialed the number, and had almost given up when I heard the phone click over. The voice that answered the phone was thick with sleep. For a second I thought it was Edward, so I said, "Edward?"

The voice cleared a little and said, "Anita, that you?" The voice was male, but definitely not Edward. s.h.i.+t.

Edward was engaged to a widow with two kids. Lately when I wanted to be sure I'd get him the first time, I called Donna's house, not his. They weren't officially living together, but he spent more time at her place than at his own. "Hey, Peter, sorry, forgot the time difference."

I heard some movement, as if he'd rolled over and taken the phone under the covers with him. "It's all right. What's up?" His voice had spent the last year breaking and finally settled into a deeper ba.s.s that still startled me sometimes.

"I just need to talk to Ted," I said, hoping he hadn't heard the Ed ward earlier.

"It's okay, Anita," and he gave a laugh that still held a lazy edge of sleep. "I know who Edward is, but you're lucky I answered the phone. Momor Becca would have asked questions."

This was the first I knew that any of Edward's new family knew his secret ident.i.ty. I wasn't sure how I felt about Peter knowing, or about any of them knowing. They knew what he did, sort of, the legalish parts, but they didn't really know who Edward was, or at least that's what I had believed until now.

I checked my wrist.w.a.tch, which had gone on along with a robe. I did quick math in my head and said, "Shouldn't you be getting ready for karate cla.s.s?"

"They're painting the dojo." he said.

I would also have asked why he had a phone in his room, but he wasn't my kid. I mean, sixteen was a little young for your own phone, wasn't it?

"I placed first in the karate tournament last Sat.u.r.day," he said.

"Congratulations," I said.

"It's not like real fighting, not like you and Edward do, but it's still cool." "I've never won first place in a martial arts tournament of any kind, Peter. You're doing good."

"But you have a black belt in judo, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you're training in other martial arts, right?"

"Yeah, but. . ."

"A tournament is just kid stuff, I know, but Edward says I have to wait until I'm at least old enough to sign up for military service before he'll take me on anything real."

I did not like the sound of that at all. "Eighteen, right."

"Yeah"-he sighed so heavily-"two years." He made two years sound like forever. I guess at sixteen it is.

I wanted to tell him that there were other lives to live that had nothing to do with fighting, guns, or violence. I wanted to tell him that he couldn't follow in his almost-stepfather's footsteps, but I couldn't. It wasn't my place to say it, and Peter wouldn't have listened anyway. I was in the same business as his "dad," so I was cool, too.

"Is Ted there?"

"Anita," and he sounded chiding, "I know his real name."

"Yes, but you're right, I should never have said Edward when calling this number. It should be Ted until I'm sure who I'm talking to. I'm practicing."

He laughed again. I didn't think I was that funny. "Ted's here." I heard that slide of cloth again. "Though at eight on a day we don't have school, Mom and Ted are probably still in bed." He must have rolled over to look at a clock.

"I didn't mean to call this early," I said, "I'll call back later."

His voice sobered. "What's wrong, Anita? You sound all stressed."

Great, I couldn't even control my voice enough to fool a teenage boy. Truth was, I'd finally realized that I wasn't just asking Edward to come hunt monsters, I was asking him to leave his family to come hunt monsters. Edward used to live to find bad things that could test his skills. He lived to be better, faster, meaner, quicker, more deadly than the monsters he hunted. Then he'd met Donna, and suddenly he had other things to live for. I wasn't sure he'd ever walk down the aisle with her, but he was the only father the kids had, and the only husband Donna had. Her first husband had been killed by a werewolf. An eight-year-old Peter had picked up his father's dropped gun and finished off the wounded shapes.h.i.+fter. He'd saved his family while his father's body was still twitching on the floor. In some ways Edward fit in just fine. Edward picked Becca up from ballet cla.s.s, for G.o.d's sake. But... but what if I got him killed? What if I got him killed and Peter and Becca lost another parent because I was too chickens.h.i.+t to handle my own mess?

"Anita, Anita, are you there?"

"Yeah, yeah, Peter, I'm here."