The Traveler stepped beside Padma. "Would you slay this body?" He spread his hands wide and stepped in front of Padma. "Would you kill your Willie's lady love?"
Tears hot enough to scald trailed down my cheeks. "Damn you, damn you all."
"Padma did not personally rape your friend," the Traveler said. "Any unskilled man can rape, but it takes a true artist to skin a live shapeshifter."
"Who then?" My voice was just a little calmer. I wasn't going to use the machine gun, and we all knew it. I dropped the Uzi, letting it slide back under the coat. I wrapped my hand around the Browning and thought about it.
Jean-Claude started walking towards me. He knew me too well. "Ma petite, we all walk out of here in safety at least this night. You have given us this. Do not destroy us all for vengeance now."
Fernando walked through the door, and I knew. He might not be the only one, but he'd been one of them. He smirked at me. "The Traveler wouldn't let me have Hannah."
I started to tremble, a fine quivering that started in my arms and spread across my shoulders and down my body. I'd never wanted to kill anyone as badly as I wanted to kill him right that second. He glided down the steps in his bare feet, hands roving across his chest, playing in the line of hair that started on his belly. Rubbing his hands along the silk of his pants.
"Maybe I'll have you chained to a wall," he said.
I felt a smile stretch across my face. I spoke very clearly, very carefully, because if I didn't, I was going to scream, and if I lost control of my voice, I was going to shoot him. I knew that just as surely as I was standing there. "Who helped you?"
Padma stopped his son, drawing him into the circle of his arms. I saw real fear on the master vampire's face. His son was still too arrogant or too stupid to understand.
"I did it myself."
A laugh that was bitter enough to choke me came out. "You couldn't do this much damage on your own. Who helped you?"
The Traveler touched Fernando's shoulder. "Others, unnamed others. If the woman can tell you, let her. If not, you do not need to know. You will not be hunting them, Executioner."
"Not tonight," I said. The trembling was quieting. That cold, icy center of my soul, the place where I'd given up a piece of myself, spread outward. I was calm, deadly calm. I could have shot them all and not blinked. "But you said it yourself, Traveler: there will be other nights."
Jason was talking in a low voice and Sylvie was answering. I glanced at her. She wasn't crying. Her face was pale and strangely stiff, as if everything was held inside, tight and hard. Jason undid the locks on the chains and she slid down the wall. He tried to help her pull up her pants, but she pushed him away.
I knelt beside her. "Let me help, please."
Sylvie tried to pull the pants up herself, but her hands weren't working right. She kept fumbling and finally collapsed to the floor in tears.
I started to dress her, and she let me. She helped where she could, but her hands were shaking so badly, she couldn't do much. Her pants were pink linen. I couldn't find the underwear. It was gone. I knew she'd been wearing some, because Sylvie wouldn't go without. She was a lady, and ladies didn't do that.
When everything was covered, she finally met my eyes. The look in her brown eyes made me want to look away, but I didn't. If she could have that much pain in her face, the least I could do was look at it. No flinching. I'd even stopped crying.
"I didn't give them the pack," she said.
"I know," I said. I wanted to touch her, reassure her, and was afraid to.
She collapsed forward, sobbing; not crying, but sobbing like she'd cry out bits and pieces of herself on the floor. I put my arms around her, tentatively. She sagged against me, holding me. I held her half in my arms, half in my lap, rocking her slowly. I leaned over next to her ear and breathed a sound into it, "He's dead. They're all dead."
She quieted slowly, then looked up at me. "You swear it?"
"I swear it."
She huddled against me and said softly, "I won't kill Richard."
"Good, because I'd hate to kill you now."
She laughed, and it turned it into more crying, but softer now, quieter, not quite so desperate.
I looked up at the others. The men, dead and alive, were staring at me. "Rafael comes with us, no more debating."
Padma nodded. "Very well."
Fernando turned to him. "Father, you can't let her do this. The wolves, yes, but not the Rat King."