“If she can kill one of the greatest of us, then we must either tame her and you, or destroy you all,” Padma said.

“Where is the rest of the council? Why are you hidden away for this attack?” Jean-Claude said. “They don’t know you are doing this, do they?”

The two vampires lied well, but Jean-Claude said, “You would not be deep into the catacombs doing this if you weren’t hiding. You are trying to destroy my human servant and attacking another master, and both are crimes among us. Even the council is not above the law.”

“She has the powers of two bloodlines, Jean-Claude; don’t you see that we must tame her?” Padma said.

“She carries the power of Belle’s line,” Jean-Claude said.

“She calls beasts like she is one of mine, Jean-Claude. Don’t you understand yet how dangerous she is to us all? She gains power from every vampire that attacks her. She touched me once, used her ties to wolf once against me, felt me call beast once, and now she is able to call beasts as I do.”

“I was attacked by a panwere,” I said.

“And why was he attracted to your city, Anita? Why did he attack your people? He was drawn to you, necromancer.”

Funny, it had never occurred to me that my ability to call animals came from the Master of Beasts. I’d blamed it all on Chimera, a panwere who cut me up and gave me the same kind of lycanthropy he’d had, one that adapted to any beast that bled me.

“You’re giving me too much credit,” I said.

“The Mother of All Darkness wanted Anita, wanted to possess her body,” Jean-Claude said. “You ate some of her power, and now you are obsessed with Anita, too. The Mother would defy the council, but the two of you would never do anything so rash. What you are doing could turn the rest of the council against you and your people. It would be civil war among the vampires. Why would you risk all that when we are in America? We are not trying to take anything from you. Why would you risk so much when we are no threat to Europe?”

“The American vampires petitioned the council for permission to kill you, Jean-Claude,” Belle said.

Padma said, “They do not need to know that.”

“If the council had agreed to our destruction, you would not be doing this behind the other council members’ backs,” Jean-Claude said.

“Why do they want us dead?” I asked.

“They fear you,” Belle said.

“Belle Morte, do not answer their questions.”

Something passed over her face, some thought, some idea.

It was Jean-Claude who put the pieces together. “Who among the council voted in our favor?”

Belle simply answered, “The Dragon, the Traveller, and me.” She put her hands over her mouth.

I felt Jean-Claude settling in against the bed, felt some tension in him ease. “Padma wishes us dead, but you want to save us, don’t you?”

She just stared at him with her hands across her lovely mouth. I realized she was fighting not to answer his questions. What was going on?

Asher stirred and said, “Do you miss Jean-Claude and me, Belle Morte?”

She couldn’t leave that alone. “If I had missed you, Asher, I could have had you again any time in the last century. I do not bed the ugly.”

Jean-Claude and I moved toward Asher as a unit, and I realized that it was Jean-Claude’s thought first, but it didn’t matter; I agreed with it. We wrapped ourselves around Asher, his body slick with the thick lubricant that Nicky had gotten on us all. We held him and stared up at the vision of Belle Morte.

“Do you miss being with both of us together?” Jean-Claude asked.

She struggled not to answer. It showed on her face, but in the end she said, “Yes.” Then she was angry, so angry, her rage filled her eyes with brown fire, and she threw power into me again. “If I cannot tame you, I will destroy you.”

The claws struck, raising fresh welts on my stomach, but then Jean-Claude was there, his power, no, our power, spilling over all of us. He drew the power of both triumvirates to him and used it to shield us.

“Thank you, Padma, for showing us how to control the triumvirates better.”

“I did not show you.”

“Anita is my human servant. I have been able to gain vampire powers simply by having them used against us. Until now the power did not stay with me, but I think this time it will. I think you have shown me how to do what I’ve been wanting to do, to bind multiple triumvirates into one thing, one power. Thank you.”

Belle Morte screamed, “No!” She thrust that power and there was no lust to it; it was all about anger, rage, and underneath that was pain. I, we, tasted her regret like something bitter and sweet on our tongues. I reached out to all that anger without thinking about it. It was like seeing something shiny and just reaching for it. I felt Jean-Claude at my back, but it was Damian’s hard-won control that steadied us. I reached out and si-phoned off Belle’s rage, because I could eat anger. That was my ability, not Jean-Claude’s and not one of Belle’s, either.

I felt Nathaniel so calm, Damian cold and controlled, and Richard more fearful but determined not to be the weak link, and beyond that was Jean-Claude more certain, more sure, more master than ever before. He let me reach out to all that angry power and eat it. I drew off that anger and we all fed on it, because Jean-Claude understood how to share the energy between all of us. In that moment I realized that it wasn’t my triumvirate and his, but ours, and he knew how to drive the metaphysical car better than I did. I was okay with riding shotgun on this one, as long as I got to shoot Belle Morte.

Her rage wakened my own, that deep pool of anger that I’d carried for so many years. It liked Belle’s anger, liked the taste of it, and we drank it, her, down.

She fell to the floor. “No,” she said, “this cannot be.”

“The piece of the Mother you took into yourself wants Anita,” Jean-Claude said, “and that piece is controlling you both. She is not dead, she lives in you. Did the rest of the council take her power into themselves?”

“Yes,” Belle said, before she could stop herself.

“Then you are all poisoned with her evil.” I felt his fear then, and we all shared it.

“You should have let her die,” I said.

“She offered her power to us like a dark wind,” Padma said, and he looked lost.

“Oh my God,” I said, “she really has possessed you.”

Then both the vampires stared at me. “But it’s you she wants, necromancer.” They spoke in unison. The smell of jasmine was everywhere, and the scent of a rain that had fallen on earth thousands of years ago. It was the scent of the Mother of All Darkness. Marmee Noir wasn’t dead; she was in all of them.

They stared at me and said in that echo, “The Lover of Death would feed on your fear, necromancer. But these two bodies cannot, more’s the pity. We would enjoy the taste of how much you fear us.”

“Do you control Padma and Belle more completely than the rest?”

They both answered, “They are the youngest on the council, the farthest away from me in time.”

“They aren’t as powerful as the others,” Jean-Claude said.

“He hates you for destroying his son; it opened him to me. She wants you; her anger and regret opened her to me. The Lover of Death feels nothing for you, except that your death would be wise. But he hungers for slaughter and deaths to feed upon, and this new, more modern council controls him. I’ve promised him death, death as he hasn’t seen it in centuries if he will be my horse to ride. The Dragon feels nothing for you, except curiosity. The Traveller knows what is happening, and he hides from me. He has one body and if it is destroyed he is no more, but my soul fills many bodies now. You would have to kill all of them to destroy me.”

“A separable soul,” Jean-Claude said.

“Yes,” she said, “and even the death of all the council will not find all of me.” They looked at me, and said, “Thank you for killing the Father of the Day; he was the only one who could have challenged me.”