Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 14. Danse Macabre(216)
«Why is she so interested in a human servant?» Adonis asked, not rudely, but like he truly wanted to know.
«I believe it is not the human servant who interests her, but the necromancer.» He looked at me, and again I fought not to meet his eyes. I didn't think it was mind tricks, just habit. You look in someone's eyes. You just do. «Did you know, Ms. Blake, that it is on her orders that the necromancers of old were slaughtered?»
«No,» I said, «I didn't know that.»
«It was her orders that all with your gifts be killed before they could grow to such power.»
«I can sort of understand that.»
«Can you?»
I nodded, and squeezed Asher's hand, and pressed Damian's hand closer to my skin. «I can roll a vampire's mind the way you guys roll us.»
«Can you, truly?»
I realized that I'd said too much, overshared. «I am too tired to play games tonight, Merlin. When she mind-fucked us both tonight a well-meaning friend gave me a cross to hold.»
«Oh, dear,» he said.
I raised my left hand so he could see the new scar.
«How did you heal it so quickly? A holy item heals slowly for us.»
I put my hand back on top of Damian's. «I'm not a vampire, Merlin, I'm a necromancer. It's just another kind of psychic gift. It doesn't make me evil.»
«And are we evil, merely because we are vampires?»
The question was too hard for me with a vampire in each hand. «I'm too tired to debate philosophy with you. It took energy to heal this.»
«We felt you feed,» Adonis said.
I fought not to look at him again. «Yeah, I fed, but it wasn't enough. Dealing with Mommie Dearest takes a lot out of a girl.»
«It takes a great deal out of everyone,» Merlin said.
I wondered for the first time if the reason he hadn't done some major mind control after the mother left wasn't just to be polite, but because he was scared. Maybe he didn't have enough juice left. Maybe he, like me, was drained of energy.
«She can feed off other vampires, just by touching their powers, can't she?»
«Why do you ask?»
«She almost always comes to me after some other vampire has used major power on me. She used to follow Belle Morte's mind games. Tonight it was you that she followed. Does she feed off us when she does this?»
«Sometimes,» he said.
«So she hasn't been asleep and not feeding for thousands of years. She's been like some kind of dark dream, feeding on energy, on power.»
«I believe so.»
«Why did she go to sleep in the first place?»
«How should I know?»
«Avoiding the question, aren't you?»
He gave a small smile. «Perhaps.»
«Do you know why she went to sleep?»
«Yes.»
«Will you tell me?»
«No.»
«Why not?»
«Because it is not a story I wish to share.»
«I can't make you tell me, can I?»
«You could try to see if you are necromancer enough to command me to tell you.»
I grinned. «My ego isn't that big.»
«More of the mother's servants have woken. Most of the council, like Belle Morte, believe it is their own growing powers that have broken the servants from their long sleeps.»
«Which council members don't believe it?»
«Since I am forbidden to go near the council, how would I know that?»
«The same way you know what Belle Morte thinks.»
He gave that smile again. I think it was his I'm-not-telling-you smile.
«You need to feed again, Ms. Blake, as do I. The good mother fed upon us both.»
«She's not good, and she was never your mother.»
He made that hand gesture again, the one that passed for a shrug. «She was mother to what I am now.»
I couldn't argue with that, so I didn't try. «You wanted to know if she's waking; she is. You say you wanted to know whether Jean-Claude was a power strong enough for you to call him master.»
«You do not believe that I seek a master?»
«I believe that the only master you've ever acknowledged is lying in a room somewhere in Europe, haunting my dreams.»
He took a deep breath, sighing. Vamps didn't need to breathe, only air enough to talk, but I'd found that most of them sigh, from time to time, as if it's a habit that even a few millennia can't break.
Damian's hand tightened almost painfully on the back of my neck. I was being utterly calm; what was the deal? I started to look up at him, but I felt it. He let me feel it. I was sucking his energy. Taking back the energy I gave him to live. Shit.
There was a knock on the door.
Claudia looked at me. «See who it is,» I said.