Guilty Pleasures - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,95
enlighten her," he said.
"Yes," she said and glided back to the chair. "Burchard, tell her how old you are."
"I am six hundred and three years of age."
I stared at his smooth face and shook my head. "But you're human, not a vampire."
"I have been given the fourth mark and will live as long as my mistress needs me."
"No, Jean-Claude wouldn't do that to me," I said.
Nikolaos made a small shrugging motion with her hands. "I had pressed him very hard. I knew of the first mark to heal you. I suppose he was desperate to save himself."
I remembered the echo of his voice in my head. "I'm sorry. I had no choice." Damn him, there were always choices. "He's been in my dreams every night. What does that mean?"
"He is communicating with you, animator. With the third mark will come more direct mind contact."
I shook my head. "No."
"No what, animator? No third mark, or no you don't believe us?" she asked.
"I don't want to be anyone's servant."
"Have you been eating more than usual?" she asked.
The question was so odd, I just stared for a minute, then I remembered. "Yes. Is that important?"
Nikolaos frowned. "He is siphoning energy from you, Anita. He is feeding through your body. He should be growing weak by now, but you will keep him strong."
"I didn't mean to."
"I believe you," she said. "Last night when I realized what he had done, I was beside myself with anger. So I took your lover."
"Please believe me, he is not my lover."
"Then why did he risk my anger to save you last night? Friendship? Decency? I think not."
All right, let her believe it. Just get us out alive, that was the goal. Nothing else mattered. "What can Phillip and I do to make amends?"
"Oh, so polite, I like that." She put a hand on Burchard's waist, a casual gesture like petting a dog. "Shall we show her what she has to look forward to?"
His whole body tensed as if an electric current had run through it. "If my mistress wishes."
"I do," she said.
Burchard knelt in front of her, face about chest level. Nikolaos looked over his head at me. "This," she said, "is the fourth mark." Her hands went to the small pearl buttons that decorated the front of the white dress. She spread the cloth wide, baring small breasts. They were a child's breasts, small and half-formed. She drew a fingernail beside her left breast. The skin opened like earth behind a plow, spilling blood in a red line down her chest and stomach.
I could not see Burchard's face as he leaned forward. His hands slid around her waist. His face buried between her breasts. She tensed, back arching. Soft, sucking sounds filled the room's stillness.
I looked away, staring at anything but them, as if I had found them having sex but couldn't leave. Valentine was staring at me. I stared back. He tipped an imaginary hat at me and flashed fangs. I ignored him.
Burchard was sitting beside the chair, half-leaning against it. His face was slack and flushed, his chest rising and falling in deep gasps. He wiped blood from his mouth with a shaking hand. Nikolaos sat very still, head back, eyes closed. Perhaps sex wasn't such a bad analogy after all.
Nikolaos spoke with her eyes closed, head thrown back, voice thick. "Your friend, Willie, is back in a coffin. He felt sorry for Phillip. We will have to cure him of such instincts."
She raised her head abruptly, eyes bright, almost glittering, as if they had a light all their own. "Can you see my scar today?"
I shook my head. She was the beautiful child, complete and whole. No imperfections. "You look perfect again, why?"
"Because I am expending energy to make it so. I am having to work at it." Her voice was low and warm, a building heat like thunderstorms in the distance.
The hair at the back of my neck crawled. Something bad was about to happen.
"Jean-Claude has his followers, Anita. If I kill him, they will make him a martyr. But if I prove him weak, powerless, they just fall away and follow me, or follow no one."
She stood, dress buttoned to her neck once more. Her cotton-white hair seemed to move as if a wind stirred it, but there was no wind. "I will destroy something Jean-Claude has given his protection to."
How fast could I get to the knife on my leg? And what good would it do me?