"It is now nine o'clock in the evening."

"Ten hours." I said it soft, like I didn't believe it.

"About that, yes."

"All this healing in ten hours?"

"It would seem so," he said. There was still a thread of anger to his voice, but it was less.

"How?"

"Should I quote to you, 'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Or should I simply say I do not know?"

"The 'I don't know' would be fine, but at least I know you're quoting from Hamlet. Now tell me, what's been happening while I slept?"

He glided to the bedside, a slight smile curving his lips. "Your friends slew a member of the Harlequin while she slept. Though the tall one, Olaf, or Otto, complained that she was dead when they arrived. He wanted her to be squirming when they cut her up."

I shivered and put my gown back in place. I tried to ignore the whole creepy Olaf thing and concentrate on business. "There should have been two members dead."

"You admit it," he said. "You admit that you sent them to slay members of the Harlequin."

"Admit it, hell, yes."

"Jean-Claude is locked in arguments with the council, even now, on whether the Harlequin are within their rights to slay us all for what you have done."

"If they don't give a black mask first, but they kill, not in self-defense, then it's a death sentence for them."

"Who told you that?"

I debated on whether to admit it, but finally shrugged and said, "Belle Morte."

"When has our beautiful death spoken to you?"

"She came to me in a vision."

"When?"

"When the three of us were dying. She helped feed me enough energy to come back and keep us all alive."

"Why would she help Jean-Claude?"

If it had been Jean-Claude, I'd have told the truth, all of it, but it wasn't. Requiem was, well, being his usual weird self. I wasn't certain that Belle would want her reasoning blabbed around. "Why does Belle do anything?"

"You are lying. She told you her reason."

Great, he knew I was lying. "The shapeshifters say that I don't smell like I'm lying anymore; my respiration rate doesn't even change."

"I am not smelling or listening to your body, Anita. I simply feel the lie. Why do you not tell me the truth?"

"I'll tell Jean-Claude, and if he says it's okay to tell everyone, then I will."

"So you will keep secrets from me."

"You know, Requiem, we have a lot of bad shit happening, and you seem more interested in your own hurt feelings than in the life-and-death stuff."

He nodded. "I feel raw tonight, undone. I have felt that way since earlier in Jean-Claude's office."

"We were being messed with then," I said.

"But there is no holy object that I can wear, my evening star, no refuge that I can take from what the Harlequin have done to me."

"Are they messing with you now?"

"No, but they showed me certain truths about myself, and I cannot seem to unknow what I have learned."

"You don't sound like yourself, Requiem."

"Do I not?" he said, and again there was too much emotion in his voice. I wanted Graham back here, or someone back here. Requiem thought they weren't messing with his head, but I was betting the Harlequin were playing Scrabble with his thoughts right now.

He undid his cloak and flung it backward onto the floor. I'd seen him do a similar gesture on stage at Guilty Pleasures near the end of his strip act. He was fully clothed in elegant gray dress slacks and a shirt that was a clear cornflower blue that turned his eyes as blue as blue could be. I'd looked into a lot of blue eyes, but none quite the color of his. It was a startling blue, a color that had made Belle Morte try to collect him and add him to her collection of blue-eyed lovers. He flung his long straight black hair behind his shoulders.

"I would not have left your side for any business, my star. If you would but love me as I love you, nothing would be more important to me than you."

I called, "Graham!" It wasn't a yell but it was close to one. Was I afraid? A little. Maybe I could use necromancy to knock the Harlequin out of Requiem, but last time I tried I nearly got myself killed. I'd like to heal from one attack before I got hurt again—selfish, but there you go.

The door opened, but it wasn't Graham. It wasn't even Edward. It was Dolph, Lieutenant Rudolph Storr, head of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, and paranoid hater of all things monster. Shit.

Chapter Thirty-five

REQUIEM DIDN'T EVEN turn around. He just said, "Leave us." But he said it in that "voice," that power-ridden voice that some vamps have. That voice that was supposed to bespell and bemuse.

I saw the flare of Dolph's cross around his neck. It made a halo around Requiem's body. I could see Dolph over Requiem's head, because he had eight inches on the six-foot-tall vampire. I didn't like the look on Dolph's face.

"He's my friend, Dolph, but the bad guys have him bespelled." My voice held more fear now than it had when I'd called for Graham. The look on Dolph's face made me afraid.

"One vampire can't bespell another," Dolph said. I saw his arms move, and knew before he moved around the vampire's body that he'd drawn his gun. He moved so that if he had to shoot, he wouldn't risk me. His cross stayed at a steady white light, not too bright—after all, the vampire who was being bad wasn't actually in the room.

"These vampires can, I swear to you, Dolph. Requiem is being controlled by one of the bad guys."

"Is that what is happening to me?" Requiem asked, and he looked confused.

"He's a vampire, Anita; he is a bad guy."

"They're brainwashing you, Requiem," I said, and reached out to him.

"Don't touch him," Dolph said, his gun up and pointed.

Requiem's hand closed over mine; his skin was cool to the touch, as if he hadn't fed. But he had fed; I'd felt his power. "If you shoot him now, like this, it's murder, Dolph. He hasn't done anything wrong." I drew a breath of my own power, my necromancy, and tried to "look" at Requiem, gently. If I had a repeat of being thrown across the room by metaphysics, I was afraid Dolph would blame Requiem and shoot him.

"You're the one who taught me that if my cross glows, they're fucking with me."

"They are fucking with you, and with Requiem. They're messing with you both."

"I'm still wearing a cross, Anita; my mind is my own. You taught me that, too. Or did you forget everything about monster hunting when you started fucking them?"

I was too scared to be insulted. "Listen to yourself, Dolph, please. They are messing with your thoughts." I traced my power over Requiem, as delicate a brush of power as I'd ever attempted. I felt the power, and I knew the taste of it. It was Mercia. If we all survived, I'd ask Edward how he managed to miss her. But it was like chasing a ghost; her power withdrew before me. She just gave him up and left. Maybe she didn't want to risk another metaphysical knockout.

Requiem swayed, grabbing the rail, and my hand, to keep from falling.

"Get away from her, now," Dolph said.

"The bad vamp is gone, Dolph," I said.

Requiem said, "Give me but a moment and I will do as you ask, officer. I am unwell." He kept his face averted from the cross that was still glowing soft and steady. It wasn't glowing because of Requiem.

Edward came slowly through the door. Olaf loomed behind him. "Hey, Lieutenant, what's going on?"

"This vamp is trying to mind-fuck me." Dolph's voice was low and even, with a thread of anger to it like a fuse waiting to be lit. He was holding a two-handed shooting stance; the gun looked strangely small in his hands.

"Anita," Edward called.

"Requiem is fine now. The bad vamps were messing with him, but it's over."