"I wish you wouldn't."
"I know."
I left, walking a little too fast out to the waiting limo. It was white. "Well, isn't this shiny and bright," I said.
"I thought black looked too much like a hearse," Jean-Claude said.
Edward had come out also. He closed the door behind us. "I'll be there when you need me, Anita."
I met his eyes. "I know you will."
He gave the briefest of smiles. "But just in case, watch your back like a son of a bitch."
I smiled. "Don't I always?"
He glanced at the vampire standing by the open limo door. "Not as well as I thought you did." Edward walked into the darkness towards his waiting car before I could think of a reply. It was just as well. He was right. The monsters had finally gotten me. Seducing me was almost as good as killing me, and nearly as crippling.
14
The name of the club, Danse Macabre, blazed in red neon letters nearly eight feet high. The letters were curved and flowed at an angle like some giant hand had just finished writing them. The club was housed in an old brewery warehouse. The place had stood on the Riverfront, boarded up and abandoned for years. It had been the only eyesore in a line of chic restaurants, dance clubs, and bars. Most of them were owned by vampires. The Riverfront was also known as The District, or Blood Square, though not in polite vampire company. For some reason, the nickname bugged them. Who knew why?
The crowd had spilled out from the sidewalk into the street, until the limo was stopped by the sheer weight of people. It was so bad that I spotted a uniformed cop trying to ease the people back enough for the cars to get through. I looked through the dark tinted windows at the press of people. Was the assassin out there? Was one of those well-dressed, smiling people waiting to kill me? I opened my purse and slipped the Seecamp out.
Jean-Claude eyed the little gun. "Nervous, ma petite?"
"Yes," I said.
He looked at me, head to one side. "Yes, you are nervous. Why does one human assassin unnerve you so much more than all the preternatural creatures you have faced?"
"Everyone else who's wanted to kill me, it was personal. I understand personal. Whoever this is wants to kill me because it's business. Just business."
"But why is that more frightening to you? You will be just as dead, regardless of your assailant's motives."
"Thanks a lot," I said.
He touched my hand, as it gripped the gun. "I am trying to understand, ma petite, that is all."
"I don't know exactly why it bothers me. It just does," I said. "I like to put a face on my enemies. If someone kills you, it shouldn't be only for money."
"So killing for hire offends your moral sensibilities?" he asked. His voice was very bland, too bland, as if he were laughing silently to himself.
"Yes, dammit, it does."
"Yet you are friends with Edward."
"I never said I was consistent, Jean-Claude."
"You are one of the most consistent people I have ever known, ma petite."
"How consistent can I be if I'm dating two men?"
"Do you think being unable to choose between us makes you frivolous?" He leaned towards me as he said it, hand smoothing up the sleeve of my jacket.
The trouble was I had almost chosen. I almost told him, but I didn't. First. I wasn't a hundred percent sure. Second, Jean-Claude had blackmailed me into dating him. Date him or he'd kill Richard. He wanted a chance to woo me away from Richard. Which meant really dating him. As he put it, "If you allow Richard to kiss you, but not me, it is not fair." Supposedly, if I chose Richard, Jean-Claude would merely step aside. I think he was egotist enough to mean it. The Master of the City couldn't imagine anyone not being won over, eventually. Not if you had access to his lovely body. He kept offering it. I kept refusing. If I chose Richard over him, would he really bow out gracefully, or would he take us all down in a bloodbath?
I stared into his deep blue eyes and didn't know. I'd known him for years. Dated him for months. But he was still a mystery to me. I just didn't know what he would do. I wasn't willing to push that button, not yet.
"What are you thinking about so seriously, ma petite? Do not say it is the assassin. I would not believe you."