«She is lost to us, Ms. Blake. You know nothing of her.»
«She lies in a room that is underground, but high up. There are windows around the front of that room that look out upon a cave, or underground building. There's always firelight down below, as if whoever watches is afraid of the dark.»
«I am aware that Valentina has been inside the room you describe, and lived to tell the tale. Do not seek to impress me with secondhand stories.»
I was beginning to think that Merlin didn't know that I'd been in his head with her. Did he not know that I'd seen his memory of her coming out of the darkness? «Let's try another secondhand tale, then. I saw her in the shape of a great cat, maybe a type of extinct lion, bigger than anything that we have today. I watched her stalk you in a night where the world smelled of rain and jasmine, or something like jasmine. I mean, I don't know how long jasmine has existed as a plant; maybe my mind just calls it 'jasmine' because it's the closest smell I know.»
I thought he'd gone still before, but I had been wrong, because now he went so still that I had to concentrate on his chest to make sure he didn't just disappear. So still, more still than any snake, still in the way that live things don't get. Still, as if he were willing himself not to be there anymore.
His voice was as empty as his body when he said, «You shared her memory tonight.»
«Yeah,» I said.
«Then you know her secret.»
«She's got a lot of them, but if you mean that she's a shapeshifter and a vampire, simultaneously, then yeah, I know that secret.»
He drew a breath. A lot of them did that when they came back from that still-stillness. They drew a breath as if to remind themselves they aren't dead yet.
«But Ms. Blake, everyone knows that you cannot be both.»
«The strain of vampirism that we have today is destroyed by the lycanthropy virus, but maybe once it wasn't, or maybe it's a different kind of vampirism. Whatever. I know what I've seen.»
«Musette brought some of the Dark Lady's cats to visit us,» Asher said, «they were both, and neither.»
«Yes, Belle Morte says the sleeping cats of our mother have woken to her call,» Merlin said. «What do you think of that, Ms. Blake? Do you think Belle Morte has grown so powerful that the servants of the mother have woken to her call?»
«No,» I said.
«Why no?» he asked. His voice was still empty, his body not moving much. He wasn't trying to play human now.
«Because Belle Morte doesn't have that kind of power.»
«You have never seen her in the flesh,» Adonis said, «or you would not be so quick to judge.» He didn't sound happy as he said it, which was interesting. It was the first time I felt that he'd lost control of his voice.
I glanced at him. «She's powerful, but it's not the same kind of power as Mommie Dearest. It's just not.»
«If Belle Morte did not wake the servants of our good mother, then who did?» Merlin asked.
I had a moment of insight. I don't get them often. I debated on whether to act on it, or ask Asher's opinion first. Then I thought, to hell with it. I was tired. I'd fed, but the healing had taken more than the feeding had given back. I was too tired for games.
«Do you want her to wake up, Merlin? Or do you fear her waking up?»
He sank back into that stillness again. «I do not know how to answer that question.»
«Yeah, you do.»
«Then I will not answer it.»
«Are you a flunky of the vampire council, is that it?»
«Merlin has been outside the circle of inner power for centuries,» Asher said.
I nodded. «Yeah, you guys filled me in on the limo ride here. He grew so powerful that he was given a choice of giving up his territory, or being killed. He gave it all up, and vanished into the mists of time. Jean-Claude thought there might be a place for him here on American soil.» In my head, I thought, and the next time that Jean-Claude offers refuge to someone this fucking powerful, he better run it by me first. I'd made that clear in the limo. He hadn't even argued with me.
«If you're not working for the council, then who are you working for?» I asked.
«If I said myself, would you believe me?»
«Maybe, maybe not, don't know, try me.» My hand was on the gun again.
«Why touch your gun?»
«Because, I think if you don't want to answer the question that you may try vampire powers again. It just depends on what you're more afraid of.»
«I am not afraid of your little gun,» he said.
«Probably not, but you are afraid of Mommie Dearest, aren't you?»
He actually licked his lips. The gesture gave me hope that his faзade was cracking, and it made me give his eyes a full glance. Which was what it was supposed to do. He tried to roll me in that moment of eye contact, and he might have done it, except that Asher and Damian touched my bare skin at the same time. It was enough to distract me, make me look away.