Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,129

to the floor and the water underneath us. Our arms trembled in an echo of exertion and pleasure.

‘I love you, ma petite,’ he said, in a shaky voice.

‘Je t’aime, Jean-Claude,’ I said, and my voice trembled as I said it, but that was just great sex, and I was as certain of what I’d just said as anything I’d ever said in my life.

39

Once we cleaned up, I told Jean-Claude about the rotting vampires, the flesh-eating zombies, and the mystery master vampire that was making and possessing the vampires. Somewhere in the telling of it, I realized something.

‘The only reason we didn’t try to cure Ares the way that Asher and Damian cured Nathaniel in Tennessee was that we didn’t have a vampire with us, but you’re here now. You could heal Micah’s dad!’

We were dressed and Jean-Claude was fussing with my hair, using those long, graceful fingers of his to get the curls to lie just right. I stepped away from him enough to see his face. His expression was not comforting.

‘Why can’t you?’ I asked.

‘If it were fresh, I could have tried, but it is days old, ma petite. The doctors have cut away the initial wound and the corruption has spread to other places that have no wound to show.’

‘How do you know all that?’

‘Nicky reported to me on the plane as I traveled to your side. He is a very thorough and dispassionate observer without you awake and aware to feed him your emotions.’

‘So you knew everything I just told you about the vampires,’ I said.

He moved close enough to pick up another of my curls and begin to wind it around his finger. ‘I did, but you gave details that Nicky could not. He has no real psychic ability, or magic, except for being a werelion. It makes his reporting very physical. You add the metaphysical and I need to know that as well. I can ask you questions that he could not answer.’

‘Such as?’ I asked.

‘The Lover of Death is supposed to be dead, killed by other hands, but the Mother of All Darkness was supposed to be dead once before, and she was not. Was this he? Is this the Lover of Death come back from the dead, so to speak?’

I started to just say no, but then I stopped and made myself really think about the question.

Jean-Claude focused on entwining my hair around his fingers, serious as a small child. I let him do it, because my hair would look great, but it was also something that relaxed him. He usually only fussed with my hair as much as he fussed with his own when he was nervous or we were going to be out at some public event.

‘I’ve felt the Lover of Death’s energy when he was combined with Mommie Darkest. This didn’t feel the same. The vampire didn’t do that nifty trick that the council did, kind of appearing in vision above our heads, or in our heads. This one had to use the vampire he’d made as his puppet to talk to us.’

‘But you felt his energy, ma petite; was it the same?’

‘I didn’t feel the presence of this one and think, Oh, it’s the Lover of Death, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Yes, that is what I mean. So it is not him.’

‘No.’ I thought about it as I said it. Something was nagging at me, as if I’d forgotten something important.

‘What is it, ma petite? You look troubled.’

‘Was the Lover of Death able to take over the vampires he made like this?’

‘No, never.’

‘Could he control zombies?’

‘No.’

‘So how the hell did we end up with a master vampire that can jump bodies like the Traveller, make rotting vamps like the Lover of Death, control zombies like a necromancer, and control shapeshifters through a bite from his puppet vampires?’

‘The Traveller can move to almost any body that is his animal to call or a vampire; this master can use only his own creations, which was a gift that the Dark Mother possessed, and when she was in her prime I am told she could control all types of undead, not just vampires.’

‘How about the rotting bite and controlling shapeshifters through it?’

‘She made the Lover of Death, but like Belle Morte’s ability with sex it was something that sprang to life in the Lover of Death’s line of vampires. Most powerful master vampires can control their animal to call through a bite.’

‘Not a bite through another vampire they’ve created and possessed,