As promised, I phoned Asher from the jeep and told him about the police coming. Asher, in turn, sarcastically informed me that he already knew that because the police had arrived ten minutes ago and were waiting for Jean-Claude and me in the general manager’s office at the Circus of the Damned. I told him we were on our way and hung up. Cripes, now I had Asher mad at me too.

The silence inside the jeep after that was deafening. Jean-Claude didn’t want to talk about what he was going to tell Zerbrowski and was sitting as far away from me as the confines of the backseat would allow. Damian and Jason kept exchanging worried looks with each other, but didn’t say anything out loud.

When we pulled into the parking lot behind the main office building for the Circus, Asher came out the back way to meet us, looking more than a little ticked off.

“Did you know the police were coming to see you tonight?” Asher asked Jean-Claude, dispensing with the pleasantries of greeting us to get right to the point. “They were under the impression they had an appointment. I didn’t know what to tell them.”

Jean-Claude nodded placatingly. “Do not blame me for this, mon ami,” he began. “I was only made aware of the fact an hour or so ago. I’m sorry we did not get here sooner.”

Asher pointed in the general direction of the office. “They’re waiting for you inside. What are you going to tell them?”

“I will tell them what they want to know,” Jean-Claude replied, lowering his voice an octave. “What would you like me to tell them?”

Sighing heavily, I stepped around the two arguing vampires and made my way into the general manager’s office to greet Zerbrowski and let him know Jean-Claude was right behind me. I stepped through the door however and stopped dead in my tracks. There was Dolph Storr, sitting in a chair that looked far too short and way too small for him. Zerbrowski was lounging on the large sectional sofa against the wall opposite him. I could tell right away Dolph wasn’t in the best of moods.

He got to his feet when he saw me, more from anticipation than manners, I’m sure.

“Anita, what a surprise,” he said tauntingly. “And here I thought we’d be talking to the monsters.”

“Dolph,” I greeted flatly. “Long time no see. Have you been on vacation?” There. I could poke at him through the bars too.

Zerbrowski wisely intervened. “We just want to ask Jean-Claude a few questions then we’ll be on our way, okay?”

I nodded. “Fine with me. We’re all on the same side.”

“Then why are you standing over there?” Dolph snidely asked.

I sneered at him. “Is this the way it’s going to be all night?”

Dolph just shrugged. “You tell me.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep steadying breath. If poor Asher had been subjected to remarks like these for the past half hour it was no wonder he was in a foul mood.

“Gentlemen, my apologies for keeping you waiting,” Jean-Claude rang out, gliding into the room and unconsciously riding to my rescue. Or maybe Dolph’s rescue, it was hard to tell. “Please,” he paused and motioned to the black sectional that dominated the office, “make yourselves comfortable.”

Jean-Claude stepped over to me and I suddenly felt his hand on the small of my back. His voice suddenly filled my head. Please let me do the talking, ma petite.

I glanced over at him but didn’t say anything in reply. I wasn’t promising anything at this point. Jean-Claude seemed to sense this and sighed softly, wearily. He guided me to the other end of the sofa and motioned for me to sit down. I more or less flopped onto it as Jean-Claude slid onto the cushion beside me. Asher came and stood beside us, leaning against the wall. Jason and Damian took up twin positions at the office door. Dolph stayed standing in front of his chair. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and glowered down at me from above.

Just to spite him, I scooted closer to Jean-Claude, draping my arm around his shoulders, and played with a lock of his hair. The faked display of affection made Jean-Claude more uneasy than it did Dolph however. He glanced over at me with a quick sideways sweep of his eyes, and then fixed them determinedly on Zerbrowski.

“What can I do for you this evening, Sergeant?” he gently prodded. “I am at your disposal.”

Looking up at Jean-Claude, Zerbrowski flipped open a small steno pad and pulled a blue Bic pen from his shirt pocket. “Let me just run a few things by you and maybe you’ll think of something you could tell us that may help in this investigation, is that all right?”

Jean-Claude leaned back into the sofa cushions, raising one arm to prop his head in his hand and effectively stop me from toying with his hair. He was a master of body language and this particular pose conveyed a certain air of nonchalance tinged with a little authoritative arrogance, but also receptivity.

“I will do what I can,” he answered.

Zerbrowski quickly reviewed his notes, and then touched his pen to the pad. “Can you tell us what you know about the vampire that’s killing these women?”

Jean-Claude raised his chin slightly. “I know nothing for certain. Like you, I am trying to piece together clues as to his identity. Until then, I merely suspect.”

“Well, since you want to split hairs, who do you suspect then?” This from Dolph.

Lowering his eyes, Jean-Claude brushed at some non-existent lint on his thigh. “There is no one specifically I would condemn just yet. I was able to obtain a physical description of the vampire from one of my employees however. Perhaps you would find that helpful, but in truth, the description alone does not narrow the field of choices.”

I stared at Jean-Claude in surprise. One of the last things I expected him to do was tell them about Damian. I spared a glance at Damian and he looked even more surprised than I was. But then I understood what Jean-Claude was doing and unfortunately for me, Zerbrowski and Dolph took the bait.

“We’d like to talk to this employee, if you could give us his name and a location where we could find him,” Zerbrowski said, writing something down in his little pad and sitting forward with undisclosed enthusiasm.

Jean-Claude raised his eyes and fixed them on my vampire standing across the room. “Damian, come here please. These gentlemen would like to speak to you.”

I glared at Jean-Claude as Damian was asked by Zerbrowski to describe Aristide. I knew what was coming next and decided if I was going to have any kind of chance to take out the killer at Guilty Pleasures tonight, then I was going to have to say something.

Zerbrowski stopped writing. “Would you be willing to come down to the station with us and give this description to a composite artist? If we could put a face on this vampire, it’d be a tremendous help.”

Like the good little vampire servant he was, Damian looked over at me, waiting for my consent before agreeing to anything. Instead of giving it to him, I jumped to my feet.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, grasping at straws. “Not tonight anyway. Those composites take hours and it would be too risky keeping him at the police station all night. He may not make it back to his coffin before dawn if you do that.”

“If he gets in a pinch, we could always put him in a cell,” Dolph offered facetiously. “He’ll be fine in the basement for the day.”

I licked my lips. “He’s offering to help you and you’re joking about locking him up for the day?” I turned to Zerbrowski for some kind of help. “Does that make sense to you?”

“Anita, it’s only,” here Zerbrowski paused to consult his watch, “ten forty-five. It’ll only take a couple of hours at the most. He’ll be back safe and sound with nighttime to spare.”

I turned and glared at Jean-Claude. Sure. He knew exactly what he was doing. The meeting with Death Fantasy For One was supposed to be after midnight. Without Damian, I wouldn’t have anyone with me who could positively identify him as the killer. If I went tonight alone, I’d have to let this vampire practically bleed me to death before I could legally move on him.

You bastard, I growled at him in my mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m still going.

Jean-Claude merely looked back at me. He didn’t look smug, or angry, or upset. He just looked.

I faced Zerbrowski. “You’re right. He’ll be fine. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I nodded at Damian. “Go with them.”

Damian glanced from me to Jean-Claude. The slightest of nods from him seemed to reassure Damian enough to relax some. They had clearly spoken volumes to each other in that one exchanged look.

“I’d be happy to help,” Damian said quietly, clasping his hands together and bowing his head in a rather subservient pose.

“When did you see this vampire?” Zerbrowski continued, writing painstaking notes. “And what made you suspicious about him?”

Damian frowned. “Nothing. I saw him last night around ten-thirty in the alley behind Danse Macabre. He was with a girl. I didn’t think anything of it until that same girl turned up dead. I told Jean-Claude about it, but he couldn’t be certain who it was I saw.”

Zerbrowski grimaced. “Too bad he can’t read your mind. That’s why I think this composite will help. A description is one thing, an actual image is another.”

Dolph peered at me. “How long would it have taken him to kill her?”

At first I didn’t hear him. My mind was still mulling over what Zerbrowski had said to Damian about Jean-Claude not being able to read his mind. Technically, Jean-Claude was not Damian’s master, I was. But I knew Jean-Claude had the ability to reach into practically any mind: be it human, shapeshifter, or vampire. I turned to look at him again and suddenly knew Damian wasn’t the only one who could positively identify the killer.

“Anita? Anita?”

I whirled around. “What?”

“How long?” Dolph repeated. “How long does it normally take for a vampire to kill someone?”

Pushing aside my anger, I tried to do the mathematical calculations in my head. “There was evidence of sexual activity before her death which could have prolonged the time he was with her. Damian said around ten-thirty and her body was found around one-thirty. It most likely was that vampire, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Zerbrowski focused on Jean-Claude again. “I was recently given the impression you were having Blake here guarded. Is there some specific reason for that? You said last night the Morris murder really wasn’t anything for you to be overly concerned about. Do you still believe that?”

Jean-Claude shifted slightly and crossed his legs. “But I am concerned, Sergeant. I’m concerned in the sense that one of my vampires has apparently gone insane and is murdering innocent women on some baseless, unfathomable spree.”

Zerbrowski squinted back at him. “But then why order protection for Blake? Is she in some kind of danger that you know of?”

With a slight shake of his head, Jean-Claude appeared to dismiss the notion. “Nothing I am specifically aware of, but without knowing for certain, I thought having one of my people look after her would certainly cause no harm. It is just a precaution on my part. I do what I can to protect my own.”

Dolph pointed at Asher. “Why didn’t you order him guarded?”

I looked up at Asher. He looked back at me and shrugged as if to say I didn‘t tell him anything. I think he was wondering how Dolph knew he was one of Jean-Claude’s own as well, but I knew Dolph hadn’t meant it that way.

Jean-Claude had no qualms about letting Dolph know about Asher, however. He smiled easily and peered affectionately up at the golden-haired vampire who shared our bed on occasion.

“Mon Asher is not as easy to kill. He rarely ventures out in public places and when he does, he is normally accompanied by me or ma petite. Add my own bodyguards to the mix and he typically becomes my most guarded possession. Ma petite, on the other hand, casually flits from one lethal situation to another without batting her beautiful eyes. Attribute it to an age old sense of chivalry, if you will, but I still…worry about her.”

The last few words he spoke were whispery and soft. I gaped back at him, fully aware of what he was really talking about.

“I don’t care,” I told him. “I’m not your property. I’m not your responsibility. You don‘t have to look out for me.”

Zerbrowski chuckled. “It’s your own fault, Anita. That’s what you get for dating a guy from the seventeenth century.”

“Yeah, you lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” Dolph added with a sneer. “Or in this case an even bigger parasite.”

I snapped around to face him, pointing my finger at him in a barely contained fury. “You can cut the crap, Dolph! I already know how you feel about me banging vampires, but let me tell me you something--I don’t give a shit anymore about what you think, okay?”

I heard Jean-Claude sigh behind me. “Ma petite, please? This is hardly the time or the place to go into such things.”

I shook my head. “No, this is the perfect time! ‘Cause I’ve had it up to here with this kind of narrow-minded bullshit. This is my life and I’ll do what I damned well--”

Asher and Damian were suddenly at my side. Damian boldly stepped in between me and Dolph and placed both of his hands on either side of my face forcing me to look into his eyes. Behind me, Asher encircled my chest with his arm and drew my back against him.

“Anita,” Damian said tenderly. “It’s all right.” He leaned his face forward until our foreheads touched. “Don’t let him get to you. That’s what he’s trying to do and you’re letting him.”

Asher rubbed my arm and bent over my shoulder to whisper in my ear. “He’s just jealous because we’re the ones banging you.”

I had to smile at that. Taking a deep breath, I reached up and wrapped my arms around Damian’s neck. I closed my eyes and drew his power into me, absorbing his calming influence like the warmth from the sun.

“I’m okay,” I whispered to the vampires surrounding me. “I won’t kill him. I promise.”

Asher laughed lightly, sending gentle vibrations skittering through my body. I twisted around and reached up to grasp his jaw. I planted one on him just for the hell of it. A second later I wished I hadn’t however. As if recognizing him, the ardeur’s presence suddenly simmered to life in my blood, making me pull back from Asher as though my lips had been seared.

I heard Zerbrowski trying to tactfully clear his throat. “Look, Blake--”

I pulled further away from Asher and Damian, and turned around to face him. “Let’s just forget about it, okay? Let’s just wrap things up here. I’ve got places to go, people to meet.” I could feel the weight of Jean-Claude’s gaze bearing down on me, but I knew if I looked back at him, the ardeur would most likely consume me. I struggled with it for a moment, and then concentrated entirely on Zerbrowski. Maybe if we got things back on track…

“What about Perry’s prostitution lead?” I asked him in a slightly wavering voice. “Have you turned up anything with that?”

Zerbrowski frowned. “There’s got to be over a hundred vampire prostitutes in this city and the surrounding area. It’s taking us awhile to sift through our list.”

Dolph shuffled his feet like a little kid, drawing my attention to him. He looked extremely uncomfortable now, as if he didn’t have a friend in the room. Imagine that. He didn’t look at me however. He fixed his attention on Jean-Claude. I think he wanted to get things back on track too.

“What have you done to try to find this vampire? We’ve already got three bodies, maybe more. We need a name.”

“I’ll get you a name,” Jean-Claude told him. “I’ll get you his head on a crystal platter. It is only a matter of time, gentlemen.”

Zerbrowski flipped his notebook closed and hauled himself to his feet. “Do you have any ideas on why this vampire is killing these women?” he asked Jean-Claude.

For a moment, Jean-Claude remained silent. Then he got to his feet and stepped up behind me. He didn’t touch me, but he was so close to me, I could practically feel the line of his body pressing against mine. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.

“Perhaps he is the sort of vampire who pines for the days of old when blood was routinely taken through death. There are some who seem to miss the thrill of the hunt--a time when we monsters were not quite so civilized. Some cling to that reclusive mystery which once surrounded my kind for an assured sense of security. It is one theory anyway. Another is, perhaps, he truly pities these women and is providing them with a service no one else would, or could. Except a vampire.”

Zerbrowski looked at Dolph. Apparently, they had finished, but neither one looked particularly pleased. Zerbrowski glanced at me, and then raised his eyes to Jean-Claude again.

“I want you to know, the press has already gotten wind of this,” he said. “They’re plastering these killings all over the front pages. It won’t be much longer before the humans in this city start clamoring for more than one vampire head. All your careful mediating is headed right down the proverbial drain. I want your word, Jean-Claude. I want you to swear to me, you’re doing everything you can to find this guy.”

“If you can’t control your vampires,” Dolph put in, “we’ll bring someone up here who can.” He couldn’t resist a snide look at me. It was hard to believe at one time I considered him my friend.

I heard Jean-Claude sigh behind me. “You have my word, Monsieurs.” His voice poured out of him like rich, thick syrup. His trick might have worked on Zerbrowski and Dolph, but it didn’t affect me, and I was pissed. Now they’d really gone too far.

“You can’t remove Jean-Claude from power,” I told them, stabbing my finger into Zerbrowski’s chest. “If you even try something like that, you’ll find yourselves in way over your heads.”

Zerbrowski looked back at me somewhat startled as if he’d lost track of what we were talking about awhile back. Dolph shook his head and gestured at me.

“I wasn’t talking about a coup d’etat, Anita,” he rumbled. “He can keep his paper throne for the time being. No, I was referring to enforcement--having someone around who can keep the monsters in line. That used to be you.”

Just then, I felt Damian’s hand slip into mine. I tried to inconspicuously free it, afraid it would only spark the ardeur again, but instead, his cool grasp helped me tamp it down further. My head felt clearer and the tension in my body slowly ebbed away.

“It still is me, Dolph,” I stated, growing wearily of sparring with him tonight.

Dolph shook his head. “You’ve been compromised. You used to think the same way that I do about these things, don’t try to deny it.”

I squeezed Damian’s hand and took a deep breath. “Look, you boys get me a signed court order of execution and I’ll be more than happy to take out this vampire for you. I’m still a licensed, practicing vampire executioner and I’m still damned good at what I do. I’ve got more recorded vampire kills than any other executioner registered in the United States. We won’t even get into the un-recorded kills. So don‘t give me any of this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately bullshit. I‘ve done plenty already and I have the scars to prove it.” I paused and jerked my thumb at Jean-Claude who was still standing behind me. “If he can’t control his vampires, I can.”

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Zerbrowski peered over my shoulder at Jean-Claude. “You knew this about her when you started sleeping with her, right?” he teased.

I heard, and felt, Jean-Claude laugh lightly. “Sergeant, when she starts talking like that, it makes my heart truly beat.”

He drew up beside me and put his arm across my back, resting his hand on my waist in what I believed to be a rather possessive gesture. I wasn’t sure if he was actually feeling the need to claim me now or if his sudden display of affection was just for show. I’m sure he had sensed the ardeur subside, if he feeling confident enough to touch me, but there was still one thing that hadn’t subsided in me yet, and that was my anger. I moved, pulling away from him, shifting closer to Damian, pointedly ignoring Jean-Claude.

“Let me know when you get back from the police station, all right?” I told my vampire. “I want to hear how it went.”

Damian nodded, his brilliant green eyes sweeping from mine to Jean-Claude’s and then back again. “I’ll come find you.”

“Jason,” Jean-Claude summoned. “Will you be so kind as to escort Damian and our esteemed guests to their vehicles?” He smiled easily at Zerbrowski. “As merely a courtesy,” he assured him.

I waited patiently until I was certain Dolph and Zerbrowski were well out of earshot. Then I turned and faced Jean-Claude.

“That’s it!” I seethed. “It’s settled. I’m going to Guilty Pleasures tonight to meet with Death Fantasy For One. If you thought for one minute that I‘d change my mind if I had to go alone, you‘re wrong.”

Asher settled his elegant frame into the corner of the sectional sofa and looked up at me questioningly; then he looked over at Jean-Claude. I knew Asher didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about, but right now, I didn’t have time to explain it all to him.

On the other hand, Jean-Claude knew exactly what I was talking about. His face was perfectly void of any expression, but I noticed his eyes narrowed a teeny, tiny bit.

“Ma petite, you’ve no need to prove anything to anyone. Their insinuations were spawned from frustration. Neither you, nor I, can wholly blame them, but to put yourself at such risk simply to smooth out the creases in your relationships with those men seems more than a little extreme.”

“Pride goeth before a fall, ma cherie,” Asher added from the couch.

I glanced over at him. “You stay out of this. You don’t even know what this is about.”

Asher gestured at Jean-Claude. “He said you are set on proving something you’ve no need to prove. What else do I need to know?”

I sighed. I wasn’t about to argue with him too. “Fine, whatever.” I turned back to face Jean-Claude. “This isn’t about proving anything to anybody. This is about doing what is right, and reasonable. This is about stopping Aristide from killing again. That‘s what this is about.”

For a long while, Jean-Claude said nothing. He grew so still, I could tell he wasn’t even breathing. It was as if the supernatural life inside him had faded and left just an empty shell of a man standing in front of me. It was unnerving to say the least.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say something?” I prodded. “Look, I know you purposefully made Damian go with Zerbrowski tonight so he wouldn’t be able to go with me. And I know you looked into Damian‘s mind and are now fully aware of who the killer is. I know you‘re keeping things from me….I‘ve had enough. I‘m not going to argue with you about this anymore.”

Jean-Claude shifted his weight to one leg, abruptly coming back to life, startling me slightly. “Ma petite, arguing with you is pointless.”

I felt a jolt of triumph shoot through me at his words. He clearly knew better than to cross me once I had my mind made up about something, but he’d been so adamant about me not going before, it seemed as if he’d given into me too easily this time. Maybe my RPIT colleagues had something to do with it. He’d seen first hand now how strained things were between us.

“So, just like that, you’re letting me go?” I had to be sure.

Much to my surprise, Jean-Claude shook his head. “Non, ma petite. You misunderstood me. I meant there is no point in arguing because you cannot go and that is final.”

I threw up my hands. I should have known it wasn‘t going to be that easy. “Is that so? Well, I guess I‘ll just hang around here for tonight and let Aristide rape and bleed another woman to death even though you and I both know I can stop him.”

Sighing, Jean-Claude reached out and tentatively placed his hands on my shoulders. “Ma petite, listen to me--”

Apparently now he was going to try reasoning with me. Wary of the ardeur’s return, I shrugged him off. I didn’t mean to do it quite as callously as I did, but my apparent over-reaction to his rather innocent touch seemed to startle him, and he stopped talking in mid-sentence. I tried softening my voice to lessen the blow. “I’ve been listening, Jean-Claude but you haven’t been saying anything. Maybe if you give me a real reason not to go tonight, I’ll consider staying away. But until you do, I’m going…and that’s final.”

Jean-Claude turned his back on me and walked over towards the desk. “No,” he said softly, but with enough authority in his tone to let me know he meant business.

That did it. I shook my head. “Goddamn it, Jean-Claude. I meant it when I said I’m not your property. Don’t pull this chauvinistic crap on me!”

Jean-Claude turned on his heel to face me. “And I meant what I said about protecting my own!” he snapped back. He unexpectedly seized the back of the desk chair and banged it soundly on the floor, effectively startling me into a contrite silence. His anger was short-lived however and in moments, his eyes took on a dispirited sheen. “When I say you are my own, I do not speak of you in the same context as I would speak of this chair. You are in the same context as my heart, ma petite. As my friend, my lover. As my life.”

The poignancy of his words pricked momentarily at my resolve. I wanted to go to him and take him in my arms and tell him everything would be all right, but knew, deep down inside, that I simply could not give into him on this. I was still too baffled by his motives to leave well enough alone.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Asher scowling at me. “Can’t you simply trust in his instinct and abide by his wishes for once?” he spoke up. “Doesn’t his concern for you mean anything?”

I whirled around to fully face Asher, to tell him to stay out of this, when something suddenly occurred to me.

“You know why he doesn’t want me to kill this vampire, don’t you?”

Jean-Claude turned and looked at him. Asher’s icy blue eyes flicked to Jean-Claude, then back to me. He sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions and stretched out his long legs. “Yes,” he admitted. “I am aware of his reasons just as I am aware that should he relay them to you, they would scarcely make a difference in your decision making. He truly has so little power over you, that it is better for him to keep his reasons to himself and let you imagine something much more significant.”

I raised my brow. “And you agree with him?”

“Yes I do because in most respects, I feel the same regarding this…situation.”

“A situation. Well, I guess you could call it that.”

Asher looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he sat forward and gestured at Jean-Claude. “What would he have to do to keep you from hunting this vampire?”

I glanced at Jean-Claude. He was leaning forward slightly against the back of the desk on his hand. His head was down as if he were looking at something on the floor, which I knew he wasn’t. I think he just didn’t want to look me in the eye. I wondered briefly if I had hurt him by not responding to him the way I had initially wanted to.

I faced Asher again, crossed my arms over my chest and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Asher frowned. “Yes you do.”

Trying not to be distracted by Jean-Claude’s sullen silence, I walked over to the sofa and peered down at the tall vampire sitting there. Asher was giving me clues--feeding them to me bit by bit though. All I needed to do was ask the right questions.

“Aristide is the one killing these women,” I stated knowingly, “and because you two seem to have some kind of past with him, you don’t want him executed, do you? You’re not going so far as to hamper the efforts to find him, but you’re not exactly aiding in his capture, are you?”

Flashing a toothy smile, Asher settled back against the sofa cushions. “Au contraire, ma cherie. We both very much want him dead. We are doing as much as we can to capture him with the exception of enlisting your services. I personally would like to see him crucified to the side of a building, but that’s just me.”

The door to the office opened and Jason slipped inside. He took one look at me and frowned deeply. “With Damian gone, I think we should go back to the original plan of having me meet with Death Fantasy For One tonight. It only makes sense. You can’t go after him alone.”

“I can and I will.” I waved off Jason’s incredulous expression. “Are you all forgetting that I’ve been up against a lot worse than this? I think I can hold my own against one single vampire.”

“Anita, you said it yourself, it won’t work,” Jason countered. “You can’t just walk up to him and kill him. You need proof that he’s the right one.”

I jerked my thumb at Jean-Claude. “I have all the proof I need right there!”

Jason looked nonplussed for a minute, and then put his hands on his hips defiantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I laughed humorlessly. “Ask your master.” I’d had enough. I headed for the door but Jean-Claude was suddenly right in front of me. He had moved so fast I hadn’t seen him.

“You never answered Asher’s question, ma petite,” he said simply.

I gazed deeply into his eyes, searching for something I didn’t know where else to look in order to find. I couldn’t stay angry at him anymore though. Especially considering he was wearing his heart on his sleeve tonight. Sighing, I reached up and laid my hand on his face.

He stared back at me and I watched his long, thick lashes sweep slowly over those beautiful, dark blue orbs in complete enchantment. The phrase ‘lost in his eyes’ came to mind and struck me as being entirely plausible right about now. The room and everyone around us just didn’t exist anymore. Nothing seemed as important to me as looking at him. The urge to kiss him became overwhelming.

Leaning forward, I raised my face to his and parted my lips beckoningly. His mouth fell over mine as if he simply couldn’t help but kiss me. His arms encircled my back, drawing me tightly against his body, and he moaned softly, sounding almost as if he were in pain.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily, shifting in his embrace to be touching as much of him as I possibly could at once. Not surprisingly, my ardeur roared to life. Surprisingly, it cooled right back down. I pulled away from Jean-Claude and looked at him curiously.

“I cannot hold it at bay much longer, ma petite,” he told me in a whispery voice. “If you continue to deny it, it will only grow more insistant with each passing minute.”

Of course. He must have been keeping it under control for me all night long. I wondered briefly why he hadn’t released it after Zerbrowski and Dolph left, but then when I thought about it, we hadn’t been on the best of terms for a good portion of the night. I’m sure I had given Jean-Claude the impression I didn’t even want him to touch me, let alone let him feed the ardeur for me.

I cleared my throat and tried to think through my passion-mired brain. “Below,” I managed. “Your bedroom is right below us.”

Jean-Claude’s gaze sweep around the room and he smiled slightly. “Are you suggesting we go somewhere more private?”

I nodded. I could feel the heat slowly saturating my body. “Yes and right now. Please.” I turned and looked apologetically at Asher and Jason.

“Oh, you don’t have to leave on our account,” Jason said a little too eagerly.

I frowned at him, still clutching Jean-Claude’s neck in near desperation. He was either getting uncomfortable or he was feeling romantic because all of a sudden, he bent a little farther towards me, slipped his arm under my thighs, and lifted me up against his chest as if to carry me off. I took advantage of my new proximity to his face and started gnawing on the side of his neck. I heard the breath catch in his throat and felt a small shiver ripple through him.

“I’ll get the door,” Asher said, rising. I expected him to go to the office door, but Jean-Claude turned away from it. Asher moved to a section of paneling just behind the desk. He touched it and it swung inwards. As Jean-Claude moved past him with me into the dimly-lit halls beyond, Asher leaned towards him and whispered in his ear. “Call me if you need me.”

It was a tempting proposition, but I couldn’t afford the luxury of whiling the night away between both of them. As it was, Jean-Claude may not know it yet, but he was going to have to make this fast. We only had an hour before midnight. It would be enough time. It would have to be. I still had every intention of going to Guilty Pleasures tonight to meet Death Fantasy For One.

We traveled at a good pace through a maze of hallways I’d never been down before. In moments, Jean-Claude glided into his bedroom and deposited me effortlessly in the middle of the bed. As he turned from me to close the door, I seized the opportunity to get undressed. I couldn’t manage it with any kind of grace lying down, so I rolled off the side of the bed and worked hastily to unfasten my jeans.

Jean-Claude faced me and tugged at the knot of lace at his throat. It fell open displaying an enticing triangle of white chest.

I watched him in growing fascination as he stripped off his shirt across the room from me. His eyes locked on mine as he draped it over a nearby chair. With an excruciating slowness, he popped the buttons down the front of his pants and opened them just enough to let me catch a glimpse of the glossy black curls furring his groin. Running his left hand down the side of his left leg, he pulled at the leather lacings of his thigh-high boot to loosen them. With more grace than I could have managed, he stepped out of it; then repeated the process with his right leg.

Straightening again, he locked his eyes on mine and started towards me. The muscles beneath his skin flexed and rippled as he walked and I felt the breath catch in my throat at the sight of him. Pure animal lust was coursing through my veins now because every movement he made was sexual and uber seductive.

“Oh god,” I whispered. “I want you so bad right now.” I wiggled out of my jeans and practically tore off my shirt. I still had my bra and panties on, but Jean-Claude was so close to me now, I suddenly couldn’t do anything besides watch him.

It wasn’t the ardeur spurring on my desire either. I knew he hadn’t released it yet and I was glad he hadn’t. It helped keep me from pouncing on him and going at it right there on the floor like some rapacious wanton. Not that I thought for a minute he would have minded, but I would have. He deserved a little more decorum than that.

Jean-Claude stopped a few inches in front of me and raised his hand. He ran his long fingers from the top of my head, over my face and throat, and then down to my cleavage. I closed my eyes, savoring the sensuality of his touch.

“Sssshh,” he soothed and bent forward to softly kiss me. He gathered me into his arms, nearly lifting me off my feet, and steadily deepened the kiss.

I dragged my hands down his sides and impatiently peeled back his skintight pants, exposing the top of the perfectly sloping curve of his butt. Trailing my fingertips across the taut, yet pliant muscle below the small of his back, I explored his form with unabashed relish.

I turned my head away from his ravishing mouth just long enough to speak. “Off,” I gasped and tugged at his pants so he would understand what I wanted.

Stepping away from me without hesitation, he slid his pants down past his hips and down the long length of his legs, revealing his penchant for wearing nothing underneath. He nudged the garment aside with his foot and stepped towards me again, tossing his hair back over his shoulder as he did. He gestured at my bra.

“Off,” he echoed, reaching around my back. Jean-Claude deftly snapped the clasp of my bra and slid it off my shoulders. He pulled away from me just far enough to lift it off me, and then tossed it aside. His attention turned to my breasts now and he covered them with his hands, rubbing my nipples over his palms and squeezing them gently until they were achingly hard. I closed my eyes and practically swooned, feeling all my blood rush to my crotch, making it throb with need.

Delving my hands into Jean-Claude’s hair, I guided his head down encouragingly. He obliged me willingly, bending over to wetly suckle my nipple. His arm slid around my waist and he lifted me, pivoting around so my back was to the bed. Without raising his head, he picked me up and set me on the mattress on my knees, then trailed small kisses across my chest to my other breast to lavish attention on it for awhile.

I bent down and dropped kisses on his hair, bunching up his long silky tresses in my hands. He really had the most beautiful hair…. Languidly, I ran my fingers through it, massaging his scalp and the base of his skull before sliding my palms down his neck to his shouders. They moved beneath my hands as if he were sliding away from me. I opened my eyes to look down at him curiously.

He peered back up at me and smiled reassuringly, then pressed a soft kiss between my breasts before dropping to his knees in front of me. His mouth meandered down the length of my torso to the waistband of my panties. Reaching up, he carefully eased them down my thighs and leaned forward to brush his lips over my lower abdomen, making me seize with anticipation.

Twisting his hair tightly around my hands, I waited, feeling his fingers spreading me open to him. Closing my eyes, I told myself to breathe and when I felt that first sensuous flick of his tongue, I gasped. Tremors of pleasure rippled through me and my mind zeroed in on every exhilarating caress his mouth made.

Soon, the pleasure became so intense, I couldn’t stay up on my knees and crumpled back against the mattress. Jean-Claude accommodatingly climbed up to join me and continued his ministrations with even more zeal. He grasped my thighs and pushed them apart to allow him deeper access between my legs. His tongue delved into me, lapping at my moist insides with a maddening rhythm that sent me into delirious fits of pleasure. I moaned and thrashed around, grinding my hips against his mouth with wild abandon. Then, the first sparks of my impending orgasm shot through my mind, telling me the time had come.

“Release it,” I gasped, hoisting Jean-Claude’s head up from between my legs. “Release it and fuck me.”

A split second later, I felt the ardeur fall over me like a wave of heat just as Jean-Claude’s body descended over me. I felt him push himself into me and tangle his legs around mine. I pushed back against him as he started pumping me. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I clutched him tightly to me, scraping my teeth against his chest to keep from screaming too loud. My body was spasming harder with each luscious thrust of his hips and in moments I was spiraling out of control with a mind-blowing ecstasy, writhing and shrieking my release until I was zapped of strength.

With my brain still shorting out from climatic aftershocks, I was only vaguely aware of Jean-Claude’s orgasm when he came seconds later. I stroked his back while his body clenched on top of me and lavished his chest with dozens of kisses. Slowly, his shuddering subsided and the tension in his muscles eased. He curled himself around me, opening his eyes to peer down at me and murmured something breathy and French at me I didn‘t understand.

I smiled and panted under him, reaching up to encircle his neck with my arms to draw him down to me for a kiss. He readily lowered his face to mine, but paused just before our lips met. As he spoke, I could feel the brush of his cool breath against my mouth.

“I love you, Anita.”

There was something in his tone that sent chills prickling down my spine that had nothing to do with the sex despite the fact he remained nestled snugly between my legs and hadn‘t made any move to pull out of me. I blinked up at him and studied his face for any kind of clue as to what he was thinking. As usual, his beautiful face was void of expression, but that, more than anything, told me there was something definitely wrong.

I reached up and stroked the side of his face. “I love you too,” I murmured then closed my eyes to receive his kiss. It was all about emotion despite the passion with which it was bestowed. There was a veiled need behind his tenderness that seemed to speak volumes.

“Jean-Claude talk to me,” I begged him. “Tell me what’s really going on. You say you’re protecting me, but keeping me ignorant of the situation puts me in more danger. How can I be prepared to react to something that I’m not expecting? Don’t do this to me. You’re frightening me more than anything. You’re making me feel vulnerable and vulnerable is not something I enjoy feeling.”

Jean-Claude sighed heavily. He gazed down at me and licked his lips slowly. “I’m sorry,” he began. “You are right. I should just tell you. It is not going to make any difference at this point in time I’m sure. It won’t change anything, but if knowing what I do will help keep you from harm, then at least something positive will come of it.”

I could have cried with relief at his aquiesence, but instead, I braced myself for what was to come, not sure if I really wanted to know his secrets or not.

Jean-Claude shifted his body off mine and rolled over on his side next to me. He put his arm around my waist and lay his head over my shoulder so his mouth was very close to my ear. Taking another deep breath, he started speaking and his voice sounded distant despite his nearness.

“I believe I mentioned to you, at one time I had been imprisoned in a coffin.”

I cleared away the tightness in my throat as I recalled the story. Knowing him now, it was easy to forget the horrors he had been subjected to earlier in his existence. I nodded slightly. “Yes. I remember.”

“There are vampires who are trained to release the ones confined,” he went on.

I remembered our ordeal with Damian and Gretchen. “I know,” I said quietly.

“Aristide was one of the vampires who freed me. I was…not myself after being confined for so long and no one wanted me. I had no where to go, no one to turn to. It was Aristide who took me in and looked after me until I had fully recovered. We were both something of social pariahs in those days and found consolation in each others arms. I merely used him in our time together, but unbeknownst to me, he had fallen in love. I left him as soon as I was able to try to reconcile with Asher and I hurt him deeply. After all he did for me, I treated him despicably.”

I rolled over on my side to face Jean-Claude, stretching my hand out to stroke the tendrils of hair lying across his arm. “How did you find out about this?” I asked softly, though I think I already knew.

Jean-Claude lowered his eyes, dropping his gaze from mine. “When he came to me to request asylum here. He told me I owed him that much and in all honesty, I couldn’t dispute it.”

I nodded. “Asher disagreed.”

A fleeting shadow of a smile flitted across his features for less than a heartbeat, and then disappeared. “Oui. To put it mildly. Aristide hates Asher for supposedly taking me away from him and even tried to have Belle kill him on more than one occasion.”

“But…you felt like you owed him,” I surmised.

“To a point,” Jean-Claude replied. He looked up at me again. “Residence in my lands was not the only thing Aristide requested of me in payment of his…services.”

I was already getting a certain sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I took a steadying breath and ran my hand down Jean-Claude’s arm to grasp his hand. “Go on.”

“Aristide requested a night with you,” he told me, his voice lowering. “It is customary for master vampires to lend out their servants to others. He saw nothing wrong with the request since he had admired you the moment he saw you.”

This was beginning to make sense now. I brought Jean-Claude’s hand to my lips and kissed it. “Thank you for not agreeing to that.”

It became apparent from the look in Jean-Claude’s eyes that my appreciation was the only worthwhile thing to come of his refusing Aristide. What he said next confirmed it.

“You’re most welcome; however, I fear my denying him is what set this wheel of tragic events into motion. He all but disappeared after that night, but not until he had directly threatened to find a way to get to you without having to go through me. He means to kill you, ma petite. He swore he’d find a way to destroy my power-base and now I believe he has. Le Sergeant was right. If these attacks continue, there’ll be no way to placate the fears of the humans in this city.”

I stared back at him incredulously. “You think what he’s doing is setting a trap to bring me to him? That’s why you don’t want me going after him?”

Jean-Claude nodded. “He’s a powerful vampire. And you will not be immune to his influence. If you hunt him down, you’ll be playing right into his hands. I do not mean to downplay your rather impressive abilities, ma petite, but I’d rather not risk it. I’d rather not risk you. Believe me when I say, I have every vampire in this city searching for him. We will find him, there’s no doubt about that. I am simply asking you to step aside, just this once, and let me be his executioner.”

I raised myself up on my elbow. “But don’t you see, he’s not just out to get me. He wants you. How do you know this isn’t his way of forcing you to go after him? We don’t know this, Jean-Claude. Not for sure. You have to let me help capture him. You don’t want to risk me, well, I don’t want to risk you.”

Jean-Claude sat up now. “Ma petite, you’re giving him more credit than is due.”

I shook my head. “All right. Listen. He knows who I am--what I do. He threatens me and then devises a way to ensure you will be the one to have to deal with him. He’s got something up his sleeve. This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

I must have made some sense, because Jean-Claude wasn’t arguing with me. Instead he looked rather depressed. “He’s gone completely insane,” he muttered. “He has to know, either way, he will not get away with any of this. In the end he will be killed. He must just be hoping to take one of us down with him.”

Nodding, I crossed my arms over my chest feeling chilled. Bits of phrases, smatterings of conversations, and words on lavender paper all came crowding into my mind. I remembered my talk with Damian before we left for the morgue: Even now, I see my wretched existence then, and my pointless, wasted existence now, and wish I could find some way to be rid of it all. Then Jason talking about archaic vampires and how some of them have a hard time adjusting. Jean-Claude saying earlier this evening: he’s as good as dead. The advertisement in the paper that ended with the words: Join me. The three suicide notes: I‘ve decided I don‘t want to do this anymore but I‘m too much of a coward to end it all alone; No one wants me, no one loves me, what’s the point in going on?

“Oh my god,” I said as the full force of what I’d just realized hit me. “Those notes. They aren’t the victims’. They’re his.”

Jean-Claude and I had joined up with Jason and Asher in the spacious living room beneath the Circus. As I relayed to them our new theories, I had their full attention. They followed me with their eyes as I paced a small path in front of them on the carpet next to the sofa.

“But isn’t immortality one of vampirism’s biggest selling points?” Jason asked no one in particular. “Why would this vampire actually want to be killed? Doesn’t that go against his hard-wiring?”

I shook my head. “Humans and other mortals tend to believe that nothing could be more appealing than living forever, but I think unless you’re living the perfect life, living forever isn’t such a good deal.” I glanced over at Jean-Claude, who was sitting next to Asher at the end of the sofa. I gestured at the tall, blonde vampire tucked under his arm. “I know you know what I’m talking about.”

Asher nodded solemnly. “Oui. All too well.”

I faced Jason again. “Damian told me recently he had often thought about killing himself. Imagine being tortured every day of your life for a thousand years? A thousand years! And if Jean-Claude hadn’t ransomed him away from his mistress, he could have been tortured for another thousand years. Explain to me the appeal of that?”

Jason nodded. “Damian’s never been the happiest vampire, but he’s had good reason. What about Aristide? Why do you think he’d want to kill himself?”

“Why does anybody want to kill themselves?” I questioned.

Jason had to think about that for a minute. “They lose hope, I guess.” He looked over at Jean-Claude to confirm his answer. “Do you think maybe Aristide has lost hope in something?”

Jean-Claude shifted slightly next to Asher and absently ran his fingers up and down his arm as he considered the possibility. “Granted, Aristide doesn’t have much to live for,” he said softly. “As long as I’ve known him, he’s never found someone to share his life with. He has always been alone and has always been a prostitute--which is not the most edifying profession. Despite his power, he is not a master vampire and has routinely wandered the world many times over in search of somewhere he could call his home. He’s very bitter and he feels cheated by fate somehow.”

“The problem with Aristide is he will not do for himself,” Asher added with a sneer. “He wants everything handed to him and it just doesn’t work that way. Once he and Jean-Claude were on the same level.” He turned his head to face his lover and smiled, but continued to address me. “Now Jean-Claude is a soudre de sang, to say the very least.”

“The very least,” Jean-Claude echoed.

“So he’s miserable,” Jason continued. “Why doesn’t he just off himself? Why go on a murdering spree? Just so he can be hunted and killed?”

“These murders are merely a way for him to sabotage my vampiric infrastructure,” Jean-Claude said with a heartfelt sigh. “And murdering humans is the equivelent of waving a red cape in front of a bull, as far as ma petite goes.” He looked at me and winked.

“Then, by all means, let’s oblige the poor bastard,” Asher more or less growled. “If death is what he wants, we’ll be more than happy to put him to death.”

Jason sat forward and clasped his hands together in barely contained enthusiasm. “So what’s the plan?”

I chewed my lip a moment before answering. “Jean-Claude has called off his people. We both came to the conclusion that Aristide won’t show if he knows they’re the ones hunting him. He’ll stay in hiding, and while that’s a wonderful way to keep more women from being murdered, it’s not the way we’re going to catch him. He wants me and Jean-Claude to go after him. If we let him think his ploy has worked, he won’t stop conducting business as usual.”

Jason looked at his watch. “It’s twelve-thirty-five. If we leave now, we can be at Guilty Pleasure in less than a half hour. We could still catch him tonight.”

I was just about to nod when the phone rang. None of us were expecting it and the sound was startling to say the least. I watched Jean-Claude rise to his feet and cross the room to answer it. He picked it up on the third ring and greeted the errant caller with a less-than-enthusiastic ‘hello’. Moments later, his eyes locked on mine.

“Oui, she is here,” he told the caller. “Let me get her on the line for you.”

Lowering the phone from his ear, Jean-Claude held it out to me and sighed heavily. “It is a Detective Clive Perry. He wishes to speak to you.”

My stomach clenched knowingly. When the police call looking for you in the middle of the night, you know it isn’t a social call. I took the phone from Jean-Claude and took a deep breath.

“Perry? Hey, it’s Anita. What’s happened?” I said clutching the phone to my ear with both hands.

“Anita, I’m sorry to interrupt your evening,” Perry said politely. What a breath of fresh air compared to Dolph’s comments earlier.

“That’s okay. What’s up?”

“A fourth victim was discovered in a stairwell of an apartment building just west of town. It appears to have a similar method of operation as the previous three. The body’s been drained by a single vampire bite and there’s evidence of sexual activity prior to death.”

I glanced at Jean-Claude. He hadn’t moved away after handing me the phone and was facing me with his hands on his hips. I’m sure he knew what the police were calling for too and he certainly didn‘t look happy about it.

“Was there a note around the body? On purple-colored paper?” I asked into the phone.

Perry murmured something to somebody talking to him in the background about keeping ‘those people’ back, and then answered me with a simple, “Yes.”

I swore under my breath. We had only called off the ‘troops’ less than a half hour ago. Sure Aristide had killed this woman in a more secluded place, but he had still been able to kill her without anyone finding him.

“What’s going on over there?” I asked with a growing sense of dread.

Perry sighed heavily enough to be heard over the phone. “Somebody tipped the press and you know as well as I do, wherever there’s a news van parked, a crowd starts to gather. Well, this one’s starting to get ugly.”

“I’m on my way, Perry,” I told him. “What’s the address?”

He gave it to me and I grabbed a pen that was on the end table and wrote it down on my palm. I was surprised it was located so far from where the other murders had occurred. Aristide clearly hadn’t gone to Guilty Pleasures tonight as he had planned.

Hanging up the phone, I handed it back to Jean-Claude and stepped around him. Asher and Jason looked at me expectantly.

“Aristide’s killed again. They’ve found another body with another purple suicide note. He’s just mocking us now. He’s fucking mocking us.” I shook my head. “I’ve got to go.”

All three men were at my side in an instant. I looked at them and shook my head harder. Jean-Claude reached out and grasped my jaw, turning my head to face him. He looked me squarely in the eye and slowly shook his head. Clearly, I was not to argue. I sighed heavily and threw up my hands.

“Fine! But for Pete’s sake, try to be inconspicuous! It could be a mob scene down there!”

“Mob scene?” Jason asked dubiously. He crossed his arms over his chest.

I nodded. “You know. Like the villagers are gathering with their torches?”

“Don’t worry about us,” Asher put in. “Villagers are the least of our concerns right now.”

I looked up at him and gestured forward. “Shall we then?”

“Oui,” Jean-Claude said simply and turned to go.

There was nothing left to do but follow.

********

What the hell had I been thinking?

Even under the most normal circumstances, a group of men together tend to draw attention. Three nice-looking men, even more so. Make that three really nice-looking, supernatural men, and they were very nearly stopping traffic. Then when Damian dropped out of the sky to join us, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to slip inconspicuously into this crime scene.

I faced my vampire with a slightly disapproving scowl that he obviously didn’t understand, but I wasn‘t going to waste time explaining. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the police station.”

Peering back at me, he knit his brow in agitation. “I told you I would find you when I had finished there.” He gestured at Jean-Claude, Jason, and Asher. “It wasn’t hard.”

I frowned, shooting a quick glance at the crowd of on-lookers behind the yellow police tape. Some were pointing right at us and others were whispering to the person next to them. The reporter, who had been taping a segment for the local news in front of the apartment building, apparently noticed the crowd’s reaction and got wind of Jean-Claude’s presence. She quickly gathered up her cameraman to pursue us from across the parking lot. It didn’t help that she was screaming Jean-Claude’s name to get his attention. Soon, we had most of the on-lookers heading our way as well.

Jean-Claude looked at me, raising his hand to stave off anything he anticipated I might say. “I will speak to her,” he announced. “It will distract them from you.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t good with the media and Jean-Claude knew this. The times I’d been approached by them in his company, I’d come off looking like the proverbial deer in the headlights. At times like this, I really hated the press though. I totally understood the need to keep the public informed, but for crying out loud, they could show a little more respect for the dead woman and her family.

The light the camera guy was holding blazed on just as we started walking towards the apartment building, stopping us short. The reporter lady couldn’t have cared less about me however; she was after Jean-Claude. This was one of the few times I pitied Jean-Claude’s media-magnetism. What a scoop though! Local news gets exclusive comments with the Master of the City! I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d break in regular programming to go live with this one. I’d no sooner thought that when I heard the reporter speaking into her microphone: “We’re live with….”

Asher and Damian flanked me as I strode on towards the front door of the apartment building. Jean-Claude and Jason trailed after us the best they could; Jean-Claude was fielding questions from the reporter, vaguely answering her and declining to comment on anything specific. We made it as far as the police tape before the uniforms on guard stopped us, making me fish out my badge.

“Anita Blake, Federal Marshal,” I announced, sweeping the badge from side to side so everyone within a ten foot radius could see it.

“These other people need to stay back!” one of the taller uniforms with blonde hair barked. He was waving his gun at the crowd, looking a little unsettled to say the least.

Completely undaunted, Asher strode up to him and looked him right in the eye. Needless to say, the officer backed down. Then with more grace than I ever managed, Asher ducked under the police tape and held it up for me as I passed under it. Damian followed closely at my heels and Jean-Claude and Jason slipped quickly under the tape behind us, looking grateful to be escaping the television cameras.

Apparently it was all about attitude because none of the uniforms protested the parade of men following me into the crime scene. I guess they figured since they looked and acted like they had every right to be there, they probably should be. I’m sure a little vampire powers were thrown in the mix for good measure. Jean-Claude’s power combined with Asher’s was more than enough to make the good officer lose time here and there. Just enough so no one would notice them.

I had never been a cop, but I knew all too well the importance of preserving a crime scene. The fewer bodies traipsing through it the better. As we stepped into the hallway of the apartment building, I told Jason and Damian to have a look around but stay out of the stairwell, it was going to be a tight enough fit with a body, myself, and two master vampires.

Clive Perry was talking to a civilain man dressed only in boxer shorts and a stained muscle tee shirt. He was a good forty pounds overweight and his graying hair was mussed and standing on end as if he’d just crawled out of bed--which he probably had at this time of night. I couldn’t help but notice the tears streaming from his face and he was fighting valiantly not to break down completely. I approached him and Perry tentatively.

“Theresa was a good girl!” the man seemed to be protesting. “So what if she was shacking up? Who doesn’t these days? She told me she loved the guy and I believed her. It was her husband that did this! Her husband beat her up just about every night before she left him. I never met a meaner sonofabitch. He killed her, I tell you! She didn’t give herself to no vampire! He staged it. Her old man. He did it!” Finally he gave into his emotions and sobbed into his hands. Perry motioned to a nearby uniform to escort the poor man away, then turned and faced me.

“The uncle,” Perry said. “He’s the one who found her. A tenant called him and said she thought she heard some ruckus in the stairwell. He went to investigate. He owns this apartment building. His neice rented a two-bedroom on the fourth floor. She moved in after she left her husband two months ago and recently started co-habitating with another man. Her name is Theresa Mermalone. The uncle is Vincent. He’s convinced her husband killed her, but it’s obvious our rapacious vampire got to her. Take a look.”

I turned to ask Jean-Claude a question but he and Asher had slipped quietly off somewhere. I looked around futilely, but neither one was in the hall. Forced to leave them to their own devices, I followed Perry through a glass fire door exit into a stairwell made of polished cement painted a sickly-colored pale green. It made my skin look like I’d been battling a bad case of influenza and lost.

“Does anyone have any idea as to who the guy living with her is? Anyone know where he is?“ I blinked up at Perry, whose dark complexion let him fair a little better under the harshness of the lights. He gestured upwards.

“Forensics is in the apartment now but they haven‘t turned up anything yet. Hopefully we can track down the guy before he sees this on the nightly news. The uncle never knew his last name, but his first name was Mort.”

“Mort?” It struck me as an unusual name for this day and age. I mean, no one goes around naming their baby boys Mortimer anymore. At least I sure as hell hoped not.

Perry just nodded. “She’s in between the second and third floors. The coroner is standing by to take her away when you’re finished. The pathologists have already been through. We were just waiting for you to confirm the kill, so after you’ve made your assessment, come see me. I’ll be in the apartment. 12D. I want to show you something.”

I nodded and grasped the metal handrail, starting up the stairs. I couldn’t help noticing a trail of tiny numbered yellow cones marking small stains up the steps. I bent down to examine the stains more closely and realized they were blood stains. Interesting.

There is no doubt, ma petite, Jean-Claude suddenly relayed to me mentally. Aristide was her killer. His power is all over her. The scent of his body around her is pungent.

Where the hell are you? I asked Jean-Claude in my mind. I didn’t need to bother, because turning the corner to mount the third flight of stairs, I saw him and Asher kneeling on either side of a woman’s inverted body. Jean-Claude’s hand was on her bathrobe-clad arm and he seemed to be in deep thought. He looked up as I approached and nodded gravely, rising to his feet. Asher stayed kneeling where he was, and appeared to be examining the steps above the victim’s bare feet.

I sighed heavily, blowing air through my teeth. This woman looked to be in her mid-thirties and definitely appeared to have had a hard time of it before this. Her nose was crooked having been broken maybe a couple of times and she was missing her two top incisors. She was only wearing a bathrobe that was loosely tied at the waist and nude underneath. It had bunched up over her twisted legs since she was facing head down, on her back, which gave me the impression she might have fallen sometime during the attack.

I examined her for other vampire bites, but there weren’t any. A first time caller? What genuinely surprised me was the fact her slim wrists bore two identical vertical slash scars that clearly stated that this woman had tried to kill herself once before. Now there were two fresher slash marks on her throat. She must have struggled because the bite was savage-looking, exposing the cartilage and the torn windpipe in her neck.

“A wound like that and there’s hardly any blood,” I said out loud. “Just a few drops on the stairs below. That kind of thing screams vampire. He must have met her here and then attacked her.” The bathrobe thing was puzzling though, but then maybe I was just more modest than she had been. “Tell me if this seems strange to you, but if she had arranged a meeting with a prostitute in a stairwell behind her boyfriend’s back, wouldn’t she have at least put some sort of clothes on? Even if she was going through with the whole Death Fantasy thing. She lives…lived on the fourth floor. If she wanted to stay in her bathrobe, why didn’t she just take him up to her apartment?”

Asher looked at me. “She did, cherie. He brought her here, but he didn’t kill her here,” he stated and gestured at the steps above her feet. “There’s a faint trail of tissue here. It continues on up the stairs.” He paused here and strangely enough lifted one of the victim’s legs, turning the back of it to me so I could see what he was talking about. “The skin on her heels is gone--scraped off. He dragged her down the stairs, don’t you see? He more than likely killed her in her apartment.”

I frowned as something struck me. “Is there blood stains on the stairs above her too?” Asher rose and nimbly jogged up a few steps out of my line of vision. “Oui, Anita. The police have marked them. They go all the way up.”

And all the way down too. I thought for a moment, studying the body and the position she was in. Asher was right. She had been dragged down the cement stairs from the fourth floor, but since she wasn‘t bleeding anywhere, the blood trail was a bit of a mystery. Especially the trail that continued down below. The shape of the spots told me they had actually fallen from a higher distance, like from someone standing. Most likely it wasn‘t her blood at all….

Jean-Claude came down the steps over to me. “You were right about us forcing him into hiding. He didn’t want to kill her in seclusion, but he had no choice. If he had taken her on the streets, my people would have found him. This was for our sake, ma petite.”

“Why else would he drag her body out of the apartment?” I agreed. “Dumping her in the stairwell was like leaving his calling card.” I lifted the head carefully and examined the back for some kind of contusion. There wasn’t any, so she hadn’t fallen backwards like I had first believed. Asher was right. I took a deep breath and looked up. “Forensics apparently has his other calling card up in her apartment. If you two can keep up the camouflage trick, I’d like you to come up with me and take a look around. Who knows? You might find something forensics overlooked.” I really didn’t feel the need to examine Theresa Mermalone anymore. Perry was right. What and who killed her was obvious. “I‘ve seen all I need to here.”

As the three of us gingerly made our way around the sprawling body to head upstairs, Asher turned and peered over his shoulder at the woman lying there.

“Triste,” he lamented. “C’est triste. My heart goes out to her.”

I put my hand on his back and rubbed it soothingly. “Asher, I’d like to think she’s in a better place now. No more abusive husbands, no more pain, no more loneliness.”

He looked back at me piercingly. “And if we kill Aristide? Will we be sending him to a better place? Rewarding him for his gross misdeeds?”

I had to think about that for a moment. I personally had always believed once a vampire was killed, he or she was just gone. Dead. I had long preached the fact they had no souls to go to heaven or hell. I didn’t want to come right out and say that however, considering I was looking into the faces of two vampires I willingly adored. Finally, I just shook my head. “No. We won’t be sending him to his reward.”

Jean-Claude turned his head as if something just occurred to him. “But by killing him, we will be giving him exactly what he wants, oui?”

Frowning deeply, I shrugged. “I guess, in a way, we will be.”

Jean-Claude then turned to Asher and spoke something in rapid French to him that I couldn’t understand. I hated when they did this, especially with me standing right there in between them, but I think some things were better discussed in their native tongue to ensure there was no possibility of incomprehension.

It didn’t take long before my curiosity got the better of me though. Tactfully, I cleared my throat as they continued talking over my head. Literally. “Either of you boys want to clue me in on this conversation?”

Jean-Claude suddenly peered down at me as if he just noticed me beside him. “Asher and I agree these crimes are heinous.”

I nodded. “No arguing that.”

“To simply put Aristide to death is not a fit punishment for such crimes.”

I glanced from Jean-Claude to Asher, not liking the implications behind what Jean-Claude was saying. “You want to torture him first?”

“Torture him forever,” Asher growled. “Seal him up so he never sees another face again. Never walks about, never feeds, and slowly, very slowly, wastes away.”

The very notion, combined with the creepy way Asher had just relayed it, made me shudder in my shoes. I stopped in my tracks and looked back at him aghast.

“That’s just…cruel, Asher.” I had always had a problem with torture.

Asher shook his head. “He’ll be off the streets. He won’t be allowed to harm another living being. Isn’t that what you want above all things?”

“Not at that price!” I answered, raising my voice. I turned to Jean-Claude and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You’ve been sealed in a coffin before, you know what it’s like, yet you’re willing to do this to a man you once loved?”

“I never loved him,” Jean-Claude said very meticulously. “I used him, ma petite. I indulged in him. He was nothing more than a means to an end for me. Now he is a rogue murderer. He deserves nothing less.”

I sighed heavily under the weight of his conviction, struggling to come to terms with the cruelty he and Asher had planned. Finally, I closed my eyes and nodded.

“How about a compromise?”

Both vampires turned and looked down at me expectantly. I grasped the metal handrail tightly and hoisted myself to the steps above them, forcing them to look up now. It was all about attitude.

“You can keep him imprisoned for a year,” I pronounced. “After a year, you kill him. Agreed?”

Asher and Jean-Claude turned to look at each other. Then they both faced me again clearly having conferred with each other in that single glance.

“It is agreed,” Jean-Claude said quietly. “But let me tell you this. Aristide is clearly not mentally stable. Even just after one year, ma petite, if we release him, we will most likely have to kill him. If we leave him the way he is, he‘ll adjust after time. Think about that.”

I did and it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. “At least he’ll be out of his misery.”

“And that is what you think he deserves?” Asher asked sharply.

I faced him, angry now. “You’re better than this. I know you are, but I can feel your hatred for this vampire like a tangible entity hovering around you. I know he tried to have you killed, but in his eyes you took away the only person he apparently ever loved. Does this sound at all familiar to you Asher? Looking back on your misguided passions now, would you condemn yourself to an eternity of imprisonment for it?”

Asher bowed his head and furrowed his brow. “Looking back from where I stand now, perhaps not. Then neither did I feel worthy of forgiveness either. I often think I should have been punished. Maybe not with imprisonment, but somehow. It would have helped me better come to terms with what I had done and what I had fully intended to do. Aristide expects to be punished, Anita. He knows what he is doing is wrong. We are simply giving him the chance to come to terms with the severity of his crimes. One year hardly sounds fair. But if you can live with that, so can we.”

“Fine. We’re all agreed then.” We reached the fourth floor in a shroud of uneasy silence however. I think they knew I wasn’t very happy right now and had little to offer by way of consolation. I pushed open the door to the hall, glad to be free of the sickly-green stairwell. My skin still looked a little on the green side however. Queasy? Not me.

We immerged from the stairwell into the hall and made our way through the mass of uniforms questioning neighbors and discussing clues with each other. Continuing through the marked door of apartment 12D, I stepped inside and gave the place a quick once over. The room wasn’t much to look at. There was a modest sofa, an easy chair, a coffee table covered with newspapers and women’s magazines, a television and a VCR that blinked 12:00 continuously.

Clive Perry was talking to an officer by the one small window positioned directly opposite the front door. I made my way over to him to see what it was he had for me.

“Detective,” I hailed, stepping up to him. I quickly relayed to him the conclusions I’d come to while in the stairwell. He nodded solemnly in agreement, but didn’t look particularly surprised by anything I had to say. Obviously forensics had already come to the same conclusion. “So. What do you have for me?”

Clive Perry faced me and handed me a folded newspaper sealed in a plastic evidence bag and the infamous purple-colored suicide note. “Theresa Mermalone didn’t write this note. There‘s samples of her writing all over the apartment. Our only guess is the vampire did.”

Lifting up the bag containing the pale purple note, I held it up high enough so Jean-Claude and Asher could read it over my shoulder.

The first thing that struck me was the awful penmanship. It looked like a third grader had written it in a big hurry. Second, was all the exclamation points. Third was all the expletives. He was pissed now. That much was obvious.

I cleared my throat. “Not much of a suicide note, is it?”

Perry shook his head. “No. He’s trying to tell us or someone, something. But what, I’ve no clue.”

Licking my lips, I handed the note back to Perry and talked to Jean-Claude in my head. Can I assume this note was meant for you? Did it tell you anything you didn‘t already know?

Nothing that gives us any clues as to his whereabouts, Jean-Claude answered somewhat despondently. Just his fractured state-of-mind.

With that, Jean-Claude and Asher, still cloaked in their power, split up and prowled the adjacent rooms without any of forensics mulling around them even batting an eye.

“We believe she was murdered while in bed,” Perry continued, completely oblivious to the two vampires’s previous presences. “There’s some small blood stains and evidence of ejaculate on the sheets. What I don’t get is why he just didn’t leave her on the bed. Why drag her into the stairwell? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me.” He paused and tapped the other plastic evidence bag I was now holding. “But take a look at this.”

The newspaper wasn’t old. In fact it was this morning’s headlines. Killer Vampire Takes Third Victim in Two Days. Not Suicides Police Chief Declares.

Feeling a distinctive nudge from Asher in my mind, I looked around the living room and spied him leaning against the bedroom doorframe. When we locked eyes, he made a subtle gesture for me to come to him. I tried to inconspicuously nod back, then turned around and faced Perry again. “Okay. What does that have to do with anything?”

Perry gestured towards the kitchen. “There’s evidence of a struggle in the kitchen. The phone has been torn off the wall and some silverware was spilled on the floor.” We walked into the kitchen. My eyes were immediately drawn to the little yellow cones numbering blood spots on the floor.

“More blood?”

“Mmhmm,” Perry confirmed. “Two theories here. One, the boyfriend was trying to stop Theresa from killing herself in the kitchen with a knife or something. A struggle ensued. He stormed out and Theresa got wind of this vampire prostitute who kills people who want to commit suicide. The second theory is she was struggling with the vampire. Maybe she called him, invited him in, but then changed her mind. He kills her anyway.”

I looked at the globular spots of blood more closely and frowned. “Or maybe the boyfriend and the vampire fought,” I surmised. “Somebody went for some silver and it got knocked on the floor. Are there any pieces of it missing? I bet you ten to one that this is the vampire’s blood. It explains the blood trail down the stairs too.” I was getting excited by the idea now. I peered up at Perry and smiled.

Perry smiled back. “Very good, Marshal Blake. I think you might be on to something. There’s a silver serving fork missing from the set. And, you’ll be happy to hear I’m having the blood analyzed as we speak. We should have the results back by tomorrow night. I put a rush on it.”

I suddenly remembered Asher wanting to see me in the bedroom. I bet he and Jean-Claude could tell if the blood was Aristide’s. Jean-Claude had said Aristide’s scent was all around. I had to wonder if maybe he was smelling the blood.

My mind racing now, I walked with Perry back into the living room, then paused. “Look. I’ve got someone with me who could identify the blood for you without having to send it to the lab. He’s not really supposed to be here, but I brought him along because I think he can help.”

Perry eyed me warily, then looked carefully around. “Okay, Anita. You’ve got my attention. Who are we talking about?”

“Jean-Claude. He’s here now with his second-in-command, Asher.”

Detective Perry frowned deeply, but said nothing. I jumped in voluntarily to put his mind at ease.

“Nobody even has to know they’re here,” I told him glancing around at the other officers in the room. “Didn’t you ever see the movie ‘Silence of the Lambs’? Sometimes, the best way to catch a criminal is with another criminal…so to speak. It’s like having a hands-on profiler. They’re vampires. They know vampires better than anyone on the force.”

“They’re not on the force,” Perry reminded me.

I bit my lower lip. “You know what I mean.”

“Anita, if Dolph or Zerbrowski catch them here, it’s going to be the biggest explosion since the atomic bomb.”

Just the thought of that made me visibly shudder. “Where are they anyway? Have you heard anything about the composite they were working on yet?”

Perry raised his brow. “They got a description? That’s good to hear.”

I smiled. “One of Jean-Claude‘s employees saw the killer with Cynthia Morris just before she died.”

Perry smiled back. “Well, if we’re going to use your vampires, let’s do it because Zerbrowski and Dolph should be on their way.”

Nodding, I made a beeline for the bedroom. Asher was still leaning on the doorframe. He straightened as I approached. I gestured at Perry behind me.

“It’s okay, Asher. This is Detective Clive Perry,” I introduced. “He would like you and Jean-Claude to examine some of the evidence the police have found and tell him what you think.”

Asher tilted his head curiously at me, then faced Perry. “I’m at your service, Monsieur.” He escorted us inside and waited for me to look around the room before he turned to face me. “Interesting, non? Jean-Claude’s found something of interest as well.”

Prying my eyes off the blackened windows and heavy draperies, I turned to face Jean-Claude. Surprisingly, he was rifling through the only closet in the room. He turned to face me as I moved towards him and seemed only vaguely surprised that Perry was with me.

“Bonsoir, Detective,” Jean-Claude greeted quietly. He dipped his head in Perry’s direction before turning his full attention back on me.

I frowned. “I know you’re a clothes horse, Jean-Claude, but is there some reason other than that you’re going through the closet?”

He chose not to dignify my jibe question with an answer, but instead, asked a question of his own. “Who is the man who resides here?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Theresa’s boyfriend, Mort.”

“Mort?”

Nodding I stepped closer to him. “I’m sure I mentioned she lived with a boyfriend. No one seems to know much about him however. Not even his last name.”

Jean-Claude glanced up at Asher.

Asher smiled, almost slyly. He peered down at me. “Mort, ma cherie, means death en francais.”

That just about knocked the wind out of me. I had known that, but hadn’t made the connection. I felt a chill crawl up my spine. “What are you saying?”

Jean-Claude reached out and lifted the sleeve of one of the leather jackets in the closet. “These are his clothes, ma petite.” He paused and gestured around the room. “These are his things.”

Asher picked up the rest of the explanation. “At first, we thought we could smell him so strongly because he and the woman had had intercourse on the bed. But Jean-Claude noticed a gold chain on the bureau that he remembered seeing very recently. We began sifting through the other possessions of his in the room and his scent is quite literally, everywhere.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Perry was gaping open-mouthed at Jean-Claude, completely taken aback.

“You mean the vampire we’re looking for…lives here?” he asked, still somewhat flabbergasted.

Jean-Claude nodded. “Or did, Detective. I doubt he’ll return now.”

“We looked everywhere we could,” Asher added. “There’s no coffin. It has to be stored somewhere.”

Everything was beginning to make sense now. I elbowed Jean-Claude to get his attention while I talked to him in my mind. The pieces to tonight’s puzzle are falling into place. Aristide was forced off the streets and had to cancel his appointments and spend the night with Theresa. She didn’t have bite marks on her, so I don’t think she let him feed off her, but tonight he probably needed to. More than likely, Theresa put two and two together after reading the paper today and went to call the police or somebody. She and Aristide fought, he ripped the phone out of the wall, she stabbed him with a silver fork and he killed her, using her as his next victim.

“The blood!” I exclaimed out loud. “We need you two to look at the blood. We think it might be his.”

Asher raised his brow inquiringly.

“Someone was injured tonight with what we believe might be a silver serving fork from her dinnerware in the kitchen,” Perry explained to him.

Asher went right to the bed and knelt down. Lifting the spotted sheet, he passed the material under his nose a few times, then touched a spot with his forefinger and dabbed it on his tongue. Rising to his feet, he looked up and shook his head.

“It’s not human blood,” he stated knowingly.

I almost smiled. “He’s injured and he’s leaving a blood trail,” I said excitedly.

Catching my meaning, Jean-Claude nodded. “I’ll send for Jason,” he said. “If he has a coffin hidden somewhere, he won’t go far from it.”

“And if he’s lost enough blood, he’ll need to feed again,” Perry added. He sighed forcefully, sounding frustrated. “I sure would like to have that composite in my hand.”

That reminded me of Zerbrowski and Dolph. I grabbed Jean-Claude’s arm and ushered him away from the closet.

“That’s our cue to leave,” I told him. “I want to get out of here before Zerbrowski and more importantly Dolph get here. They’re on their way.”

Jean-Claude and Asher exchanged looks that clearly stated they both empathized with me. Then Jean-Claude faced Perry. “We’ll continue searching for the coffin, Dectective. When we find it, I’ll post one of my people there. It may not help catch our rogue, but it will certainly complicate things for him.”

Perry nodded. “I’m for that.”

He turned with Asher and me to leave, then hesitated and addressed Perry once more. “This will end tonight, Monsieur. We will stop this vampire. You have my word.”

Jason must have sensed our approach. He was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs just inside the stairwell.

“They took the body away,” he announced. “So I figured it would be all right to come in here.” His bright blue eyes were twinkling with undisclosed enthusiasm.

I could tell he had more to say to us than that and wasn’t sure if discussing it out in the hall would be appropriate so I stopped where I was on the stairs and leaned on the handrailing. “Where’s Damian?” I wanted to know first off.

Jason flashed a quick smile. “You’re not going to believe this,” he began, rubbing his hands together as his gaze shot back and forth between Jean-Claude, Asher, and me. “You told Damian and I to scout around and we did. You’re gonna love what we found.”

“A coffin?” I asked with mock hope, being more facetious than anything. My luck usually didn’t run that good. Not in a million years.

Jason’s excited expression deflated. “How did you know? We thought you’d be surprised at least. Here we were all excited.”

I could hardly believe my ears and eyed him warily, suspecting he just might be teasing me. Before I could react appropriately, Jean-Claude stepped forward, glowering down at him threateningly.

“If you are joking about this my wolf, I promise you will not--” Apparently we both knew Jason’s sense of humor all too well.

Jason held up his hands as if to ward off his master’s ire. “It’s not a joke! We really did find a coffin! What? Don’t you believe me? Why would I kid about a thing like that?”

Jean-Claude backed off and shot a quick look at Asher before asking, “Where?”

“And where is Damian?” I asked Jason again.

“He’s with the coffin in the basement,” the young werewolf informed us. “He thought he should stay there just on the off chance the owner shows up. There‘s like an old storage closet there. We were just poking around down there to stay out of the cops’ way and more or less stumbled across it. Damian said it looked as if it had been used as recently as yesterday.”

“To make a long story short,” I explained. “The victim had just started shacking up with a guy, roughly around the same time Aristide darkened Jean-Claude’s doorstep. Turns out the victim’s roommate is a vampire. Even more surprising than that is when Jean-Claude and Asher got up to her apartment, they recognized some of Aristide’s things and his scent was everywhere.”

“Speaking of scents,” Asher began, addressing Jason and making a sweeping gesture behind him at the ascending stairs. “There’s a trail of blood that leads from the apartment on the fourth floor but seems to end here at the bottom of the stairs. We think Aristide was injured and maybe didn’t realize he was losing blood until he got to this point. He was stabbed with a piece of silver, so he won’t be healing the wound anytime soon, but he could have put something