14

SAMUEL SMILED AT Jean-Claude, and it was like a lot about Samuel, a very human smile. I realized that he, like Auggie, could be more "normal" than most vamps I'd ever seen. Was it a vamp trick like Auggie's had been? Maybe. Was it any of my business to mess with it, and reveal his secret? Nope. No more grand revelations tonight, not that were my fault anyway. I wasn't messing with anyone or anything tonight if I could help it. My goal was simply to get through the rest of this interview without anything bad happening. Why was I so worried? I'd sat back down beside Jean-Claude, but Richard hadn't. Richard was still standing, arms folded, shoulders rounded as if with pain. I knew the look on his face, it was the look that usu­ally meant we were going to have a really bad fight. I didn't want to fight tonight, not with anyone, but especially not with Richard.

Jean-Claude touched my hand. It made me jump, and turn startled to him. "What is wrong, ma petite?"

I gave him a look, and rolled my eyes back to our other third. "Ah," he said.

I gripped Jean-Claude's hand tight, and tried to head this fight off. "Richard?" I made his name a question.

He turned those smoldering brown eyes to me. "What?" That one word was so angry that even he flinched. "I'm sorry, what is it, Anita?"

"You don't have to pick a fight with me to leave." There, that was as hon­ est and as calm as I could make it.

He frowned at me. "What does that mean?"

"It means that ever since we started talking to Samuel about his sons and their problem, your tension level has done nothing but rise."

"And if we were talking about me having sex with three new women, two of them seventeen years old, wouldn't you be angry?"

I thought about it, then nodded. "Yes."

"Then don't expect me to be happy about it."

"What am I supposed to do, Richard, apologize? I wouldn't even be sure

what I was apologizing about. Anyway, I've told you that my answer was no on the seventeen-year-old."

"I think, Jean-Claude, Sampson and I will leave you all for the night." Samuel stood. "You seem to have much to discuss."

Sampson stood alongside his fadier. He was about two inches taller dian Samuel, as if he'd gained height from his motJier's genetics. I wondered what else he might have gained. I really didn't know much about mermaids, or sirens. I probably needed to remedy that before I got too up close and per­sonal with any of them.

"Not yet, my friend, please," Jean-Claude said. He looked at Richard, giv­ing a peaceful face to die unhappy one. "We need some riddles answered be­fore we dare take ma petite among our brethren tomorrow night."

Samuel nodded, and sat back down. "You're wondering, if you take her among nearly a dozen Masters of the City, whether the night will be even more interesting than this one."

Jean-Claude nodded. "Exactement."

"Are these questions that only a vampire can answer?" Sampson asked.

"It is from a master like your father that I need advice," Jean-Claude said.

"Then, I could go back to the hotel and check on Mother and die twins."

"I think they have enough watchdogs, Sampson," his father said.

Sampson gave his father a look like he was trying to say something with his eyes, and his father wasn't getting it.

"You're leaving because you think it will make me less upset," Richard said.

Sampson looked at him, with that open, honest face, and nodded.

"That's ..." Richard's face struggled with his emotions, because a friendly gesture, honesdy given, always touched him. "That's really ... good of you."

"You obviously don't like sharing Anita, and now here I am asking you to share her again. We need her to help us. I don't want to lose my modier and one, or both, of my little brothers." Sampson shook his head, eyes staring off into space, but not seeing anything in this room. The look in his eyes was haunted as if he, like his father, had given up on avoiding the tragedy. As if he'd been picturing it all in his head for months, trying to make peace with it, and failing.

He looked up at Richard. "I won't give up this chance to save my family, but I am sorry that it's causing you pain." He came out into the middle of the room, facing Richard. "If my going will make you feel better, I can do that."

Richard hung his head, his newly long hair hiding most of his face. When

he raised it again he looked like a man coming out of deep water, shaking his hair back from his face. "Insult to injury, damn it."

"Did I say something wrong?" Sampson asked.

"No, nothing wrong," Richard said. He sighed, and his arms started to unfold, stiffly, as if it hurt him to let go of the anger. "No, I just didn't want to like you."

Sampson looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"If I can hate you, I can get angry, and storm out. If you'd acted like some kind of lustful asshole, I could have just gone. Wrapped my injured right­eousness around me, and gotten the hell out of here."

I stood up and faced him; Jean-Claude kept my hand lightly in his. "I've already told you, Richard," I said, "you don't have to pick a fight to leave."

"Yes," he said, "I do. Because I know that I cripple us as a power by sim­ ply not being here when you need me. If I'd been here, Auggie wouldn't have rolled you. I have no one but myself to blame that you and Jean-Claude fucked Auggie." His voice held the edge of warmth, and the first bite of his power flickered through the room.

I took a few steps, leaving Jean-Claude's hand behind. "Why are you re­sponsible for everything?" I asked. "I deal with more undead than you do; I should have been able to protect myself. And maybe I should have seen it coming, but I'm not beating myself up about it. It happened, and now we deal with it."

"Is it really that easy for you, Anita? It happened, now we deal with it, we move on?"

I thought about it, then nodded. "Yes, it is, because it has to be. My life wouldn't work if I wallowed in every disaster, every moral quandary. I can't afford the luxury of self-doubt, not to that degree."

"Luxury," Richard said. "This isn't luxury, Anita, it's morality. It's your conscience. That's not a luxury item, that's what separates us from the animals."

Here we go again, I thought. Out loud I said, "I have a conscience, Richard, and my own set of morals. Do I ever worry that I'm a bad guy? Yeah, some­ times I do. Do I wonder if I've traded away pieces of my soul, just to survive? Yeah." I shrugged. "It's the price of doing business in the real world, Richard."

"This isn't the real world, Anita. This isn't the normal workaday world."

"No, but it's our world." I was facing him now, almost close enough to touch. He was controlling himself, because his power was only a warm pres­sure in the air.

He waved his hands around the room. "This is not where I want to be, Anita. I don't want to live where my choices are sharing you with other men, or having people die. I don't want those choices."

I sighed, and let him see that I was tired, and sad, and sorry. "There was a time when I would have agreed with you, but I like parts of my life a lot, Richard. I hate the ardeur, but I don't hate everything it's brought into my life. I'd have liked to try that whole picket-fence thing, but I think even with­out the ardeur and the vampire marks, that it wouldn't have been my gig."

"I think it would have been," he said.

"Richard, I don't think you see me. I don't think you see who I am."

"How can you say that to me? If I don't shield I share your dreams, and your nightmares."

"But you're still trying to shove me in a box that I don't think fit me even when we met. Just like you're trying to shove yourself into a box that doesn't fit you, either."