“So he’ll just kill everything he sees.”

“Probably,” I said.

“How do we find him?”

“Follow the trail of bodies. If he hides, then use dogs. He’s a decayed corpse, Finnegan. Right now that’s what he is; get some dogs and track the son of a bitch.”

“Cadaver dogs?” He made it a question.

“Yeah.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard from anyone. I’ll get them.”

“Bullets won’t hurt him until after dark. Only fire, so every team of dogs needs a flamer with them.”

“We don’t have that many cadaver dogs, or that many flamethrower teams.”

“No city does. Like Morgan said, this type of vampire is very rare in the U.S.”

“I’ll call for the dogs. Send me the video, Blake.”

“Will do. I could be on the ground in a couple of hours.”

“In a couple of hours it’ll be over.”

“Finnegan,” I said.

“No, the dogs are a great idea. You couldn’t do anything but follow the dogs and the flamethrower crew around like the rest of us.” He hung up.

I thought, Actually I might be able to track the vampire. I was a necromancer, but the other marshals weren’t always comfortable with my psychic abilities, so I let it lie. Besides, it was a trap. If I went to Atlanta the vampire would either try to kill me or try to open me for the Mother of All Darkness. Without my people to touch and get all metaphysical with, I wouldn’t be as safe against Mommie Darkest. I knew it was too dangerous to go, even if there hadn’t been assassins out to get us.

“You know it’s a trap,” Nicky said.

“I know.”

“Would you really go if they asked you?”

“I don’t know.” I handed him my phone. “Send the video to Marshal Finnegan.”

Jake asked, “What is it?”

I told him, because there was no way to keep this out of the media. Too much death, too much sensationalism, and they had to warn everyone. It probably wouldn’t do anything but make the entire city panic, but if the police didn’t warn the general populace and people died, they’d get sued, because everyone would believe that if they’d known they would have been able to keep themselves safe. I knew better, but sometimes the illusion of safety is all people have. I didn’t even have that, and hadn’t had it for years.

34

“TONIGHT MORTE D’AMOUR hit Atlanta. Tomorrow night he’ll hit another city,” Jake said.

“How many other Masters of the City are descended from his bloodline?” I asked.

“A few.”

“Either share your information, Jake, or get out of my face.”

“We can save the other descendants of Morte d’Amour in this country, Anita.”

“How?” I asked.

“Pick one of my kittens,” he said.

“You know, you calling them kittens doesn’t help.”

He smiled. “Sorry. Does it help to know that they’re all older than Cynric from Vegas?”

“He’s legal,” I said, deciding that a frontal assault was the best defense.

“I heard through the grapevine that you were bothered doing anyone under eighteen. If I heard wrong, I’m sorry.”

I sighed. “No, you’re right. It’s not just the age. It’s the level of innocence. My life isn’t about innocence. I prefer someone who knows his way around.”

“A sadder-but-wiser girl for you, huh?” Nicky said.

We both looked at him. “Are you quoting The Music Man at me?”

If it had been anyone else I’d have said he looked embarrassed. He gave that shallow shrug around all that muscle again. “What, I can’t like musicals?”

I blinked at him. “I sort of had you pegged for death metal, or club mixes.”

He grinned. “I like club mixes, but you can’t dance to most death metal. Silas was into that.”

“You’ve been with us a year. I didn’t know you liked to dance.”

“You don’t like to dance. You will dance for Nathaniel, Micah, and Jean-Claude, even Jason or Asher, but you don’t enjoy it. My primary emotions seem to be about pleasing you. It makes me anxious if I feel like you’re unhappy with me. Asking you to dance would make you uncomfortable, which would make me anxious. It’s so not worth it.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked at Jake. “Do you know much about this whole Bride phenomenon?”

“I’ve seen it. It’s really rare. It only shows up in bloodlines descended from the Father of the Day, like Belle Morte or the Dragon.”

“So it’s a power that Mommie Dark doesn’t have?” I asked.

He nodded. “The Sweet Dark isn’t into long-term relationships, really. Brides can be treated pretty badly by their grooms, but often the vampire who makes them feels responsible for them and it does become more like a group marriage, albeit with a one-sided power structure.”

“Is there a limit to how many Brides I can make?” I asked.

“It’s usually limited only by resources. How much blood you can harvest in an area determines how many vampires you can have before they begin to starve.”

“What’s the biggest number you’ve seen?”

“Twelve,” he said.

I gave him wide eyes. He studied my face. “You’re delaying meeting the weretigers; why?”

“I know this is going to sound churlish, or childish, or just stupid, but I don’t know how to go down to your tigers and pick one to sleep with when I haven’t even introduced myself.”

“There’s a reason that most vampires who have Brides are men,” he said.

“And that would be?” I asked.

“Women complicate things.”

Nicky made a sound that he turned into a cough, but I was pretty sure it started as a laugh. “You got something to say, Nicky?” I asked.

He caught his breath, face shining a little too much with his “cough.” “Nope.”

“Fine, if I were a guy I’d just march down there and pick someone. I get it.”

“Why don’t you have Jean-Claude help you pick?” Jake suggested.

It wasn’t a bad idea. I tended to pick low-power wereanimals and vampires to bond with, with a few rare exceptions like Micah. Jean-Claude could always be trusted to pick the wereanimal or necromancer most likely to up his power level, and if we were going to add someone else to our bed then it might as well pack a power punch to offset the embarrassment. My embarrassment, never Jean-Claude’s.

35

THE WERETIGERS WERE in the living room, but the rest of us were in Jean-Claude’s bedroom. I was sitting in one of the chairs by the fireplace. I was drinking coffee and watching the men in my life discuss how to pick the next man. Jean-Claude was in the other chair. Nathaniel was sitting curled by the fireplace, sipping tea and watching everything. Damian, Asher, and Micah were moving around the room as they talked.

Richard was still in wolf form, so his part of the discussion was sitting beside the chair and watching. I kept the coffee mug in one hand, but the other was on the ruff of his neck fur. He was warm and alive under my hand. His cinnamon fur was rougher than most dogs’, but the pulse and beat of him seemed closer to his skin than it would in a dog. Most wolves are about the size of a German shepherd, but Richard was like most werewolves; his wolf form was somewhere between a mastiff and a Great Dane in bulk and height. No modern-day wolf was ever this big. It should have been comforting to touch him the way it was comforting to touch a dog, but it wasn’t. Because this “dog” watched the other men talk, his bright amber eyes moving back and forth following the conversation in a way that no dog, or wolf, would, could, or would want to. Dog just wouldn’t care.

“Anita.” It was Micah leaning over me.

I stared up into his chartreuse eyes, blinking. “I’m sorry, what?”

He touched my face. “Your skin is cooler than it should be. You’re shocky.” He laid the back of his hand on my forehead. “Did something happen with Jake that you aren’t telling us?”

“Not with Jake, no,” I said, and my voice sounded distant.