Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,146

viewpoint was always hovering. None of us knew exactly why it worked the way it did.

Dev’s smile was content like a cat that’s been into the cream. I had a moment to wonder what he and Jean-Claude had been doing to put that smugness on his face, but I knew that it wasn’t sex. If they crossed that boundary there’d be discussion beforehand, at least on Jean-Claude’s part. I’d let Dev be his own person for most of our relationship, so I wasn’t sure on his part. He might consider that Jean-Claude was the king, so . . . I shook the thoughts away. One issue at a time, damn it.

Jean-Claude either read my mind or knew me that well, because he said, “Mephistopheles and I have been talking about his new form and what it might mean for his power level.”

“He seems pretty happy with himself.”

“He is enjoying the thought of being closer to the seat of power.”

It took me a moment to realize it was a double entendre. I trusted Jean-Claude to handle the other man and keep things from getting out of hand before we’d all discussed it among ourselves. An in-depth talk with Asher and Kane was so on the to-do list before we decided what to do with our golden tiger.

“I’ll try not to attract too much undead attention; you guys be good.”

Dev’s smile broadened, and he leaned in against Jean-Claude in a very intimate way. “We’ll be good.”

I hoped he didn’t think he was home free and on Jean-Claude’s list of lovers just because of gaining more power. It was a mistake to underestimate how carefully Jean-Claude orchestrated the people around him. He valued domestic happiness highly; even power wasn’t always enough for him to upset personal issues. Some of the Harlequin saw that as a weakness, but when you can have several hundred years of companionship from someone, being happy with them should be important. I’d actually begun to think that one of the reasons most of the older vamps I met were miserable bastards was that they spent too much time being all Machiavelli in their life, and not enough time being Cupid. It sounded stupid, but love isn’t stupid; it’s necessary for a happy life.

I shook my head and closed the link between us; anything else I said was just going to distract me more. I needed to find the necromancer who had loosed the ghouls from their cemetery. I was almost a hundred percent certain that they hadn’t originated in this graveyard, though it would definitely need a priest to visit soon or they might spread here.

I knew how to search for the undead, or even vampires, but I’d never tried to search just for someone like me. I knew what vampire felt like to my power. I let it “taste” the zombie in its grave. Warrington felt it, because he said, “What would you have of me, Ms. Blake?”

“I’m trying to find other undead, but first I have to ignore your energy, so I won’t keep picking up on zombies.” He probably didn’t understand most of what I’d said, but he replied with, “Let me but feed and I know I can help you.”

“Feed how?” I asked.

“Flesh.”

“You’re craving flesh again?”

“So hungry,” he said.

I still didn’t know what to do with the zombie in the grave, and I didn’t have time to figure it out right that minute. “I’ll attend to you later, Warrington; right now I have other dead to visit.”

“Free me and I will help you.”

“Be quiet, you’re distracting me.” He stopped talking, either because he wanted to be helpful or because I’d given him a direct order and he couldn’t disobey it. I hoped the latter, because that would mean he was closer to a normal zombie, and I needed some normal tonight.

I aimed my necromancy at the ghoul closest to me. He went very still, that stillness that zombies and vampires can have, as if the body stops. It’s a cessation of movement that live beings can’t do. We can hold our breath, but we can’t stop our hearts from beating, or the blood from flowing through our veins. The undead can do exactly that.

The ghoul looked at me and gave me the stillness that only the dead can, and my power tasted him, and then spilled out into the night to taste his brethren. There were five of them. The typical size for a group was between three and six, though I’d seen much larger