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wearing a bright red T-shirt, which meant he was available for blood donations or sex. So far I’d managed to keep him off my menu, and I was planning to keep it that way.

He grinned at me. “I can’t believe I missed last night.”

“Be happy you did,” I said.

He looked stricken and way younger than his early twenties. “It was an orgy. You fucked people that you’ve never touched.”

I glanced at Nicky, who was at my side. “Does he know everything that happened last night?”

Nicky nodded.

“You guard this door, and if anything happens to Nathaniel because you failed at your job I will kill you.” My voice had just a little inflection at the end, but only a little.

Graham looked at me. “What’d I say to piss you off ?”

“That you have to ask that question, Graham, is why I don’t sleep with you.”

He still looked totally lost. It was Nicky who said, “She feels bad about Noel and Haven being dead.” His voice was pleasant as he said it, and I realized that his inflection never changed, either, but it wasn’t numb, just pleasant like nothing he had just said moved him.

“We need another wereanimal to bunk with Nathaniel.”

“You told me to stay on the door,” Graham said.

“Sorry, just thinking out loud.” My head felt buzzy and full of static. The shock was beginning to wear off, which was both good and bad, apparently.

“If you want more people to sleep with Nathaniel while he heals, the infirmary is the best place. People are on rotating shifts.”

I opened that part of me that was connected to so many people. I just threw it wide to see who was close. Nicky hit the radar first because he was right beside me, but the energy went out and out. I knew that Jean-Claude was here, and he felt my urgency and my confusion and started walking this way. I found Jason, and felt sorrow from him. I wondered what was wrong. I found Damian still up, still awake. Apparently none of the vampires who woke early were going to sleep at all today. Crispin’s and Domino’s energy came and with that one brush I knew there were more tigers here. They flared brighter in my head. They shouldn’t have been brighter on my metaphysical radar than the shapeshifters I was closest to. I narrowed down my search, leaving that bright energy out of my search pattern. I brushed a lot of people’s energy inside the Circus, but one person I didn’t find was Richard. He wasn’t here. Crap.

I started dialing his number. Inside the Circus was like an underground bunker, almost impenetrable, but outside it all bets were off, and Richard was the least capable of the three of us to watch for this kind of danger. He was still too trusting, and too tied to trying to be “normal.”

Stephen came down the hallway. He should have been at the apartment he shared with Vivian. No, wait, it was daylight out and since he worked nights he often spent the day here being snack food for vampires among other things. He wasn’t on my food list. Stephen was cute enough but just not that kind of friend. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His curly blond hair was loose around his shoulders. He always looked younger in his street clothes. He took one look at my face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

The phone went to voice mail. “Shit.” I waited for the beep. “Richard, it’s Anita. Come back to the Circus. We have assassins in town with a contract to kill you, me, and Jean-Claude. You aren’t safe. Call me back, damn it.” I hung up.

“Text him,” Graham said.

“What?” I asked.

“Text him. Some people check their texts a lot more than they do their voice mail.”

I hadn’t had the phone that long. I handed it to him. “I don’t know how to text. Help me.”

Normally, he’d have said something smart, but wisely he just started working the phone. “What do you want me to tell him?”

“Assassins in town. You’re in danger. Come back to the Circus.”

“How do you spell assassins?”

“Let me, faster if I type and spell,” Stephen said, and took the phone. He typed in what I said. “Sent.” He put that cornflower-blue gaze on me. “Now back up and tell me, why are there assassins in town and how do you know?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have time to explain. I need to find Richard and get him back