Bullet

17

I LAID MY hand on Noel's back. I waited for his body to breathe, but it didn't come. "Shit," I said. "Get Dr. Lillian, get someone. Get some fucking medics down here now!"

I heard someone on their cell phone doing what I'd asked. Please, God, don't let him die. He was only twenty-four, a year older than Nathaniel. The brown-haired woman knelt by his head, tears beginning to trail down her face. "Don't cry, not yet," I said. She looked at me, startled. I realized she was wearing a red dress. It was as if I were only seeing things in pieces. The other female lion came to stand by us. Her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was wearing almost as many weapons as I was. "This wasn't our choice."

I realized that the guards and the other three lions were fighting. Haven was trying to get to me, whether to hurt me back or try for another kiss I didn't know and I didn't give a fuck. I trusted the guards to keep him off me. Hell, I trusted Wicked and Truth alone to keep a small army of werelions off me. Three lions was nothing.

"If we had a real Regina or Rex, we could delay it," the blonde said.

I nodded, because to some part of me that sounded logical. I remembered the energy between Haven and me, and the ghosts of fire around the other werelions. I prayed, Help me save him. I visualized my lioness, but not inside me; I tried to call that shining, golden fire that had been around us all just minutes ago.

The blonde knelt by me. "Like this," she said, and suddenly I could see her lioness again, so much bigger than her human form, a wavering golden energy that looked at me with golden eyes while her blue eyes stared at me through a lion's mask.

I reached out, and the moment her hand came near enough mine it was as if I caught fire. My lioness blazed around us, golden, shining, burning  bright. I turned dark gold eyes to the other woman and held out my hand. She reached out and the three of us knelt over Noel. We didn't touch hands, but it was as if that pulsing energy touched the fire of our lions.

"We put energy into him, force his beast," the blonde said.

"Do it," I said.

She reached down to Noel's still form, and our hands came with hers so that we all touched him at the same time. But it was like trying to heat stone; there was no answering spark. I knew how to work with the dead, but not like this.

"It's too late," the dark-haired woman said.

"No!" I said.

"Maybe," the blonde said.

I called out, "Jean-Claude!"

He came to me, kneeling beside me. "What would you have of me, ma petite?"

"He's too far gone. Help me."

He didn't say the obvious, that he didn't know how, or that we'd never attempted anything like this. He simply called, "Richard, Nathaniel, Damian, come."

Nathaniel and Damian came immediately. Nathaniel asked, "Where do you want us?"

"Touch your master," Jean-Claude said.

They laid a hand on each of my shoulders as they knelt, and the moment they touched me I felt my eyes go. Through the golden glow of the lions I knew my eyes burned like dark brown stars. Nathaniel and Damian cried out beside me and they turned purple and green glowing eyes to me. The lion's energy flowed over them both. Nathaniel's leopard sprang to life like some wavering black shape. Damian had no animal to flow and he was just covered in the gold of lions.

Jean-Claude knelt behind the three of us and laid his hands over theirs, so we all touched. The energy flowed over him, too, but I felt it spark, like a jolt of electricity through it all. I didn't have to see it to know that his eyes had sunk to midnight-blue fire.

Richard stood above us, hesitating. "What do I do?"

"Touch Jean-Claude," I said.

I wasn't sure he'd do it, but he did. He stayed on his feet so he loomed above us all, but laid his hands over Jean-Claude's and the power spread, flowed. I heard him say, "God!" Then I felt Jean-Claude move closer  against my body. I moved my legs apart so he could press as much of himself against as much of me as possible. I knew that Richard, still standing, was pressed against the back of Jean-Claude.

The five of us knelt in a flickering bonfire of different-colored energy, but it didn't travel to the lions. Their power flowed to us, but not the other way. I realized that the blond woman's hand was just above mine, not touching.

I grabbed her hand. She startled and started to pull away, saying, "It doesn't work like that . . . ," but then our energy jumped the circuit. It flowed down my hand and into her. Her hand convulsed around mine and around the dark-haired woman. I saw the black flame of my leopard, the spark of Jean-Claude's eyes, and the emerald glow of Damian, and a reddish shine that had to be Richard's wolf flow into the lions.

The dark-haired woman laid her hand on Noel. His body jumped as the power shoved into him. His human body split, gushing thick, warm, liquid around our knees. Fur flowed over him until he lay in the shape of a huge lion. Its dark mane was not very thick, not very impressive, but I didn't give a damn. I just wanted him to breathe.

Micah was suddenly there. He knelt on the other side of Nathaniel and took his other hand. The power jumped another octave.

The woman touching him said, "Heartbeat, but he's not breathing."

I felt lion, more lion, running down the hallway toward us. I knew it was Nicky still in lionman form. He was coming for the fight, coming toward the energy we were raising. I knew that the lions more than the other animal groups gave off energy to attract, or warn off, other lions, but I hadn't understood until this moment that there were other things you could do with all that power.

Noel spat blood onto the floor, but he had to be breathing to do that. The blonde kept the energy concentrated on him as I turned to look at Nicky. The golden lionman burst through the curtains and started toward the fight, but I said, "Nicky, I need you."

He never hesitated. He simply turned toward us and said, "Where do I go?"

I said the first thing that came to mind. "Puppy pile, touch as much as you can." It was all I could think of; the kind of vampire we were worked better with touch, and more touch couldn't hurt. He laid all that golden lionman across Noel's lion, and put his arm around Travis, drawing the still form in with us. Nicky put one hand out and grabbed my belt, putting  his big fingers inside it against my bare waist. My lioness flared into that bonfire of energy, and Nicky's rose with mine. It wasn't as bright as it had been with Haven, but it was bright, and it was power, and it joined all the other power seamlessly. I realized what we'd missed, what we'd needed, willingness without will of its own. Nicky gave himself to this as he'd given himself to everything I'd asked of him since he became mine.

Barriers broke that I hadn't even known were still there. Richard stopped holding back, Damian stopped being afraid, Jean-Claude stopped being so careful, the blond woman let go of some deep anger, the dark-haired one let go of love searching for love, there wasn't enough left of Travis to give up anything else, Nathaniel gave up the last of his fear that I'd grow tired of him, Micah gave up that hard, deep rage that I'd never even known was there, and I gave up my control. I wanted Noel alive more than I wanted to be in control.

The power flared around us in a dark rainbow of energy. It blazed toward the ceiling. If it had been real fire it would have burned the Circus to the ground. We took that power and shoved it into Noel. I'd worked with other animators when we needed to raise a lot of, or very old, dead. I'd been trained to share power with others with similar talents and work as a unit. One magic is surprisingly like another.

Travis grabbed hold of the nearest lioness. I thought he meant to be healed until I saw his own dim orange-gold lion flare and realized he was giving up his own energy to Noel. With all that energy he gave and did not keep for himself.

Nicky wrapped his furred arms around the two lions. His grip on me tightened and he gave everything to me, no holding back, no fear, no hesitation. He let me have anything, everything, and he helped the rest of us give up, give in, and feed it to Noel. Noel shuddered and then he began to breathe. His furred side rose and fell, and I could hear his heartbeat. I could feel the rush and flow of the blood in his veins, feel the rise and fall of his life that we'd fought so hard to give him, and on the heels of that was a desire to bite him. It was a desire to bury my teeth in that warm fur until I found blood, and I realized that we'd given up our control, all of it. I was kneeling in a pile of wereanimals and vampires who'd given up their controls. We wanted flesh and blood. We wanted to feed.

Richard's voice, strained, said, "Anita, change it. Change it to something else, don't let us."

Jean-Claude said, "Change the feeding to something we can survive, ma petite. Change it or we will tear the lion apart after saving him."

I was drowning in the scent of fur, the feel of flesh. I realized that Nicky was rubbing his face against Noel's side. We so wanted to take a bite. "Help me, help us not do this. Jean-Claude, help me!"

"The ardeur, ma petite, like this it will be . . ."

"Do it!"

I wasn't the only one that screamed it; Micah and Richard echoed me. We all valued our control above almost everything, but in this moment we were out of control. It was just a matter of what we lost. I wanted to sink fangs and claws into that soft, breathing form. It was as if the power had turned on itself and become about death instead of life.

I smelled flowers, jasmine. Oh, God. But it wasn't her or not her alone, and not her voice that echoed through my head. It was a male voice that I'd never heard before. "Feed and I will feast," and then he laughed, a manic, insane sound.

I heard Jean-Claude think it - "The Lover of Death, God help us all" - and I knew in the fast-forward way that he could communicate with his servants that the Lover of Death, Morte d'Amour, fed on death the way that Belle fed on lust. He was the creator of the vampires that rotted, but were the hardest to kill of all. He would feed on the energy of every life we took. He was the ultimate carrion crow, a psychic vulture.

Jean-Claude took that need to stab and tear and bite, to taste raw flesh and have fresh blood gush in our mouths and over our bodies, and turned it to the only other hunger we had. One moment I was kneeling there with the feel of him behind me. I knew where everyone was and what we were doing, and then the ardeur hit the energy we'd raised. Hit it and exploded all that power out into the room.

I had a moment to hear the Lover of Death wail, "No, I cannot feed on that." I smelled jasmine and disappointment, because the Mother of All Darkness could only feed on what her host could feed on. Belle had escaped somehow and no one else could feed on the feast we were about to give them.

I had a moment of fierce happiness about that, and then there was nothing but hands and bodies and things to do with teeth that didn't kill, but would leave a mark.