Hit List(110)

I screamed, and tried to move my arm enough to use the gun that was still in my hand. She laughed at me. “Drop your shields, necromancer, or my Harlequin will kill them one by one.”

“Don’t do it!” Lisandro yelled, and then made a pain noise. Thaddeus and another Harlequin that was probably his master had him pinned to the floor. It’s harder to capture than to kill someone as good as Lisandro.

Ethan and one of the werelions were circling each other. One of Ethan’s arms dangled, badly broken. The werelion had a gun in each hand. The other werelion had Bernardo shoved up against the wall, one arm behind his back, the other around his throat. Bernardo’s face was bloody. It looked like they’d shoved him face first into the wall to stun and disarm him.

The vampire in front of me leaned his face near mine. “Drop your shields, necromancer.”

“Don’t do it, Anita,” Bernardo said. The werelion tightened her grip on his throat and began to slowly squeeze. I watched his face darken as the werelion choked him.

“Shall we kill your human lover first, necromancer?” the vampire asked, and leaned in, the male body pinning me more solidly against the wall.

“Why won’t anyone believe he’s not my lover?”

“Jokes, even now, Anita,” she said in that deep voice. “There is a difference between bravery and stupidity, necromancer.”

Bernardo went limp in the choke hold. It takes longer to choke someone to death than you think it does, but I didn’t want to chance it. Shit!

“Let him go,” I said.

“But if he is not your lover, then you shouldn’t care.”

“Let him go,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“Let him breathe again,” she said.

The werelion eased the hold, and Bernardo made that terrible wheezing breath like coming back from the dead. He choked, and finally whispered, “Don’t do it, Anita.”

“He is very brave, your human lover,” she said.

I didn’t correct her again. “You’ve gotten inside my shields before and couldn’t possess me; what makes you think this time will be different?”

“I have a body to touch you with that I already possess. You should know that physical contact makes all vampire powers harder to resist.”

I stared into that stranger’s face with eyes that I seemed to have known for a lifetime. “But you’re wearing gloves. None of you is touching my skin.”

I saw the frown lines through the eyes of the mask. “Drop your shields, necromancer, and we shall see if I need to remove the gloves.”

I hesitated.

“You will do as I ask eventually, necromancer. The only question is how many of your companions will die first.”

Ethan was on the ground, and the werelion pistol-whipped him across the face. The werelion aimed one of the guns at the fallen man.

“We will kill the wererat first. He is more dangerous than the human, and I don’t like rats.”

“It’s because you can’t control them,” I said. “If it’s not a cat you can’t force it to do anything. You have to ask, just like with me.”

“Shoot him.”

“No!” I yelled.

The shot echoed through the emptiness of the space, but it was Thaddeus kneeling over Lisandro; he’d moved his body in the way of his master’s shot. He half fell over Lisandro, as his master fell to his own knees wounded as he’d wounded Thaddeus. “I can’t disobey you,” Thaddeus said, “but I can do things that you have not forbidden.” He coughed and blood sprayed down his chin. He looked across the room at me. “Thank you, Anita Blake.”

“Thaddeus,” I said.

“I am a slave no more.” He let himself collapse over Lisandro, and then his hand was up, his gun under his own chin. He pulled the trigger before his master could tell him not to, and they both fell in a heap, their cloaks and their bodies entwined. Lisandro lay under them and I couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt.

“You are forbidden to harm yourself,” she spat out, and the werelion that had Bernardo seemed to shift her weight, as if she’d been thinking about it.

The last Harlequin went toward the last werelion. “I forbade such things centuries ago, or he would have done himself a harm long ago, wouldn’t you, my pet?”

The male werelion snarled at him, but he kept the gun steady on Ethan. They might not like what they had to do, but they’d be good at it.

“Good, pet,” the vampire said, and then he stalked toward us.

The vampire pinning me to the wall said, “Everywhere you go you disrupt my vampires. Revolution follows in your wake like a plague after a rat.”