thought was so me, that it opened my eyes. Cookie was standing beside the bed. His hands were at his sides. The look on his face was eager, but wary, as if he'd finally figured out that something might be wrong. His blue hair was flattened on top as if he'd been asleep when I'd called him. His eyes were very blue as he stared down at me. I could see the tattoo on his left shoulder now: the faces of Bert and Ernie. I sensed a theme.
"Any more tattoos?"
He grinned. "Yeah, want to see?"
"I don't know," I said.
"You called me," he said, and his voice was softer, as if he wasn't sure what was happening, and was finally not sure he was happy to be here. Cautious, at last. It pleased the cat in my head. Pleased me, too, I guess.
Micah said, "She needs to give you her beast."
Cookie turned to him, frowning. "I don't understand." His nostrils flared, as he scented the air. "She smells like lion, but she smelled like leopard earlier. She smelled like wolf, too." He shook his head, as if clearing his mind from the scent. He looked down at me, frowning, speaking softly. "What are you?"
The truth would have been, I wasn't sure, but some of the people in this room weren't our friends. Octavius would be our enemy if he could. I was about to try for half-truth, when Jean-Claude stepped up beside the bed and spoke. "Ma petite seems to have the ability to acquire the animals of the vampires she comes in close contact with. I knew she gained wolf through me, as some servants do. She gained leopard through contact with another. It may be her closeness with your own master that has brought lion to her." Not a lie, but it certainly wasn't the whole truth. But hey, I had no better suggestions.
"That would make her very dangerous," Octavius said from near the door. He and Pierce were still close to the door as if for a quick getaway.
"It would make her powerful, yes," Jean-Claude said.
"Dangerous," Octavius said. "Do the other masters know that they risk seduction and the loss of their animals to you, Jean-Claude, or are we your first victims?"
Jean-Claude sighed, and the sound echoed through the room, and slid over my skin. The lioness paced, growled low and deep, and the sound slid from my lips. "Don't," I said.
"My apologies, ma petite," he said. He turned to Octavius. "Truth then between us, Octavius, before you think even worse of us. I know you of old; you will spread these rumors. So I give you truth, and I will know if you tell, because no one in this room will tell but you."
"I do not gossip."
"You have always gossiped." He motioned to me. "Anita holds different types of lycanthropy inside her."
"That is not possible."
"Nor is it possible for her to have a vampire servant, or an animal to call that is not mine, but those are true things."
"We had heard, but we thought the servant was rumor."
Jean-Claude shook his head. "Augustine is powerful enough to see truth. When he sees her with Damian, he would know the truth anyway. I tell you only a night early, oh, a day early." He said it as if he had just remembered that he was up at dawn. He had so not forgotten. "I swear to you that human doctors have drawn her blood and tested it. She carries more than one strain of lycanthropy, and yet has not shifted to any. She holds the animal but seems unable to turn. They have tried to tear their way out tonight, and still she cannot shift."
Micah added, "She's stuck at that point where the beast is trying to get out, and you don't know how to let it out."
"Ouch," Cookie said. He looked down at me, smiling. "You've had a hard morning."
"You have no idea," I said.
"Yes he does," Nathaniel growled from beside me.
The two shapeshifters looked at each other. It was a long look. "Yeah, I remember the first time, we all do."
"She fought, fought it to a standstill."
He looked at me, eyes narrowing. "You can't do that, no one can."
"Never underestimate how stubborn Anita can be," Richard said from across the room. "You'll regret it, if you do."
I looked at him. He'd taken one of the chairs near the fireplace, as far from the bed as he could get without leaving the room. He was mostly in shadow,