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didn’t know it before.”
“It was legend, fairy tales, Anita. I didn’t believe in stories of the Living Dark, a dark Goddess, and a God of Living Light, who created our people. Who believes such things?”
She had me there. I mean, I know as a good little Christian I should really buy all that Old Testament stuff, but I thought of it as representative stories trying to explain why a God of Love would make a world where people suffered so much.
“But now you believe,” I said.
“What choice do I have?” She sounded bitter.
“What did you dream?” I asked.
“No, to talk of such things gives them power, but it was only the Light, the God, that kept us from her power the first time. It was the combined power of all the tiger clans that gave him the power to keep her from conquering the world.”
“Look, Bibiana, we’re all shook, but being able to call a little electricity and fire isn’t going to defeat Mommie Dearest.”
“You have only seen what the weaker of my clan can do, Anita. You haven’t even seen what Domino’s black tiger side is capable of, but if the Master of Tigers and the Consuming Darkness are real, then the powers that our clans once had must be true, too.”
“Bibiana, come on,” I said.
“The red tiger you slept with can call fire to his hand, he’s a pyrokinetic. They exist even today among the humans.”
“Fine, I’ll give you that, but white tiger is all metals, and it seems to be basically really uber-static electricity. It’s not a weapon.”
“Black tiger is water, Anita. The human body is made up mostly of water.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying you have only begun to touch the surface of what we are capable of if you give us back all our powers.”
“Cynric hasn’t gotten any new powers.”
“He’s young and you only slept with him once, Anita.”
“Once was plenty,” I said.
“Blue tiger is the power of air. Legend says that Blue could raise storms and make them obey their will. The golden tigers controlled earth and all energies upon it.”
“What does that mean?”
“They could make the very ground obey their will.”
“You mean earthquakes?” I didn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
“One of the council members that Jean-Claude defeated in St. Louis was called the Earthmover, Anita; what do you think he did?”
I licked my lips; I didn’t have a good answer, because she was right. The only thing that had kept the duel from turning St. Louis into a pile of rubble was the Earthmover giving his word of honor that he wouldn’t use that particular power to defeat Jean-Claude. He’d actually won the duel, but he’d made the mistake of breaking my vampire marks to Jean-Claude and making me belong to his vampire lieutenant. His mistake had been thinking I’d put a stake through Jean-Claude’s heart and not risk my own death killing them. They had misjudged me.
“Okay, say that Cynric could call storms, I’m not sure how I feel about a seventeen-year-old with that kind of power in my city.”
“But it won’t be his power, Anita, it will come to you. If you raise it in the tigers it will come to you, and you will be too powerful for the Darkness to eat.”
“I’m not a vampire, Bibiana.”
“But you are, you just don’t drink blood, Anita. The time for pretty lies is past. The hour is late, Anita, and the Darkness is coming. If you do not save us she will possess all the tigers, including you, and once she has a golden queen—you—as her vessel, she will destroy us all.”
“I am not a weretiger. I can’t shift.”
“Yellow was meant to be our ruler over all, a sort of High Queen. Some say that the power to move the ground is only to the Yellow. We won’t know for certain until you bring more of us into our full power.”
“Bibiana, this is all speculation. You don’t know that any of this is possible.”
“Do not doubt it, Anita. You must believe. It must be real. You must be able to harness the power of all the clans. You must.”
“I don’t must,” I said.
“Yes, you must, because if you fail us, the Darkness will rise up and consume the world. It was she who destroyed the yellow tigers so long ago. It was the Darkness who whispered evil in the ear of the First Emperor. She knew once we lost the golden, that the Master of Tigers