Bullet Page 0,125
I had let him go when I could have turned him over to the police, or just kept him.
“Sebastian was and wasn’t one of us. He had been, but the Father of the Day was truly his master, so the Mother of All Darkness didn’t trust him. She allowed him to live, but he had no one. My master and I kept track of him, but he has been on his own for a very long time.”
“Tell me who’s on our side and who isn’t, Jake.”
“The remaining black tiger’s master is not. We have one male gold tiger, and he and his master have agreed to be on your side if we can prove to them that you can be Master of Tigers.”
“How do we do that?” I asked.
“Funny you should ask.”
“One more oblique answer, or question, and I’m going to get pissed.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat up and almost shook himself like a bird settling its feathers. “When the Mother of All Darkness declared the gold clan to be destroyed, some of us hid a few of them. We helped them escape to various parts of the world, including the New World. We’ve been helping them to hide, waiting for another Master of Tigers. One who wasn’t evil.”
“Or a sexual sadist,” I offered.
He gave a very small smile. “That, too.”
“The other clans think the gold is destroyed and the strain of lycanthropy inside me is the last remnant of them,” I said.
“They would be wrong.”
“You’ve hidden the gold tigers since the first emperor of China; that’s twenty-two hundred years. You’ve been planning this for that long?”
“We’ve been hoping for that long.”
I raised eyebrows at him. “That’s a long damn time to hope.”
“When you live forever and don’t age, it gives you the time to hope.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I shrugged. “So you’re saying the tigers with you are gold, yellow, whatever.”
He nodded.
“They are the purest of their line that we have been able to preserve. There are some who are like your Domino, of more than one clan. We have found that the tiger survivors mated with the gold breed mostly true.”
“I’m an American, Jake. It means that pure blood is sort of overrated. We’re a nation that’s all about the melting pot.”
“The tigers are not. It’s important to them.”
“So, I pick one and do what?”
“Bond with them, Anita. Pet them, fuck them, mind-fuck them, whatever it is you do when you gain a tiger to call.”
“I can also make them my Brides.”
“Like your werelion,” Jake said.
I fought to keep my face neutral. “How did you find out?”
“Rumors that you’ve just confirmed. And I’ve seen other Brides over the centuries; they have a certain smell to them.”
Nicky moved against the wall, as if he’d say something, but he just settled back like a good bodyguard, seen and not heard.
“I think we need one of the tigers to call you master in the way that your wolf and leopard call you master. I don’t think making one of them a Bride would be as impressive.”
“You left out my other lion,” I said, and studied his face, though no matter how human he looked, I knew that after enough centuries you could get pretty good at keeping your thoughts off your face.
“No games, Anita. We heard what happened to your local Rex. We know that you need a new Rex, and you haven’t chosen a lion to call, which was one of your old Rex’s bones of contention.”
“You have spies in with us,” I said.
“We have spies everywhere, Anita; don’t feel special.”
“Oh, it’s not special I feel, trust me.”
“The Mother of All Darkness is trying to turn the council back into her puppets. We must stop her.”
“How? How do you fight something with no body of its own? How do you fight something that can jump from body to body?” I asked.
“By being powerful enough to cut her off from each body in turn, until she is nothing but spirit and spite. We believe she will fade then.”
“But you don’t know,” I said.
“If I said we were sure, you’d know I was lying.”
“How do we cut her off from their bodies?”
“The way you cut her off from Belle Morte.”
“No one in that room told you.”
“Belle told us, Anita. She has turned to us to hide her.”
I just stared at him.
“Why do you look surprised?”
“I’m not sure, but Jake, we used the powers of Belle Morte’s own line to free her. We don’t carry the power of anyone