Bullet Page 0,62
their hands and their nearness. Asher put his head in my lap, as if I weren’t covered in gunk. With all the terrible things that had happened, he seemed determined to concentrate on the good things. It wasn’t like him to be cheerful, but it was like him to be sensual.
Bibiana made a clucking noise at me. “Make all the jokes you wish, but do what we need you to do, or the next time the Dark visits our dreams she will begin to possess the queens of the clans.”
“She can’t possess anybody who isn’t a vampire,” I said.
“Why, because the council member known as the Traveller is so limited?” It was Bibiana’s turn to sound scornful.
“Yes,” I said, my voice no longer so certain.
She laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “You still do not understand what she is; she is one of the first. She has powers that the others mimic, but none of them hold the same level of ability. They are all but pale imitations of her. She can and will possess someone who is not a vampire if it serves her purpose.”
“Humans?” I asked.
“I don’t believe so. I believe it is vampires and werecats. Her animals to call and her people are all steeds for her to ride if we allow her to grow powerful enough.”
“A lot of this is guesswork, Bibiana.”
“If Adam and Eve suddenly walked in your door, would you not have to believe in the serpent?”
“What?” I asked.
“This is a story as old to the tigers as the Garden of Eden is to the humans. We believed our story was a metaphor, too, but when the evil from that story turns out to be real, then the story is simply true, Anita. The story is true, and you must process, or whatever word you choose, that fact immediately, and act upon that truth. You must do this for us, Anita, or she will take the vampires one by one, and then she will move against the tigers and take them, too, and when she has that much power to wield she will rise up and cover the world in Darkness. Do you not understand that?”
“Every creation story has an end-of-the-world clause, Bibiana. It’s usually just stories of floods or earthquakes that were local to the original people. Disasters that seemed world-destroying, but if you traveled a hundred miles it wasn’t.”
“You have felt her power, Anita. You have felt that she does not love, or care; she is an intellect and a nearly pure sociopath. She cares only for her own pain; all else is just toys for her to use, not real people, real beings. Do you really believe that she will stop with the destruction of just the vampires?”
I let the silence build as the tight, cold lump in my stomach grew and spread in chills over my skin. “No.”
“Then stop trying to throw logic at nightmares. Sometimes the monsters are real, Anita. Sometimes they’re real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster.”
“Wait, if I could do all you said, why would I be the bigger monster?”
“Do you really believe that you could hold all that power and resist the temptation to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Anita.” She said my name the way my stepmother had said it when I was about fifteen.
“Don’t you want me to use the power if I could get it? Isn’t that the point?”
“Yes, but I’m not just trusting you with the power, Anita. I trust that once you’ve used it to defeat the Dark, you won’t turn all that light and power against us. I’m trusting in your sense of honor and morality as much as I’m trusting in your psychic abilities.”
“You’ve only met me once. That’s a lot of trust.”
“I put my son, and Cynric, the only known blue tiger in existence, and some of our most powerful weretigers on a plane this morning. If I didn’t have faith in you, would I send you such precious things?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Arguing that she was wrong seemed ungrateful; thank you seemed inadequate. What do you say when someone trusts you like that?
“I’ll do my best not to hurt anyone.”
“See, Anita, not that you will do your best, but that you will do your best not to hurt anyone. You believe your moral compass is broken because of the sex, but I believe if you can get past the idea of it being a sin, your moral compass