“To be whatever my master needed me to be.”
“We know that,” I said, “but what did you do in there?”
He looked at me, his face serious. “I was trained as if I was going to be one of the Harlequin in a lot of ways. They couldn’t be the spies and executioners of all vampirekind if they couldn’t keep clean of other people’s psychic abilities.”
“The Harlequin are either master vampires themselves or their animals to call are protected by their own masters against crap like this, but I’m your master and I was caught. How did you help break us free of the illusions?”
“Did you see through her illusions from the beginning?” Nicky asked.
“Yes,” Dev said.
“How?” he asked.
Dev seemed to think about that as we walked. A light pole came up and we had to decide who was letting go of whom so we didn’t walk into it. Dev let go and walked wide, dipping down into the brick-lined street, before rejoining us on the sidewalk. “Would it make sense if I said we were all raised to be a sort of living talisman?”
“I heard the sentence and all the words are English, but I still don’t understand,” I said.
“Jake will probably explain it better, but they used magic on us from the time we were babies. They sort of forged us into . . . talismans. All of us see through illusion and magic better than anyone but a true adept of the mystical arts. We can act as a sort of familiar to add to our masters when they perform or fight magical energies.”
“All of us can act as power boosts and familiars for Anita,” Nicky said.
“We can?” Ethan said.
“News to me,” Domino said.
“She’s done it with me, Micah, and Nathaniel, and I think with one of the vampires that’s out of town now.”
“Requiem,” I said. “I may be able to use any undead for a power boost, or it may need to be one that’s bloodbound to Jean-Claude and me.”
“I didn’t know that,” Dev said. “That does give you more options.”
“So you’re almost proof against certain kinds of magic?” I said.
“Yeah. If you want details on how it was done and how it works, ask Jake and Kaazim.”
“Could any of us do it with training?” Domino asked.
“I think you have to be gold tiger.”
“Could I do it, then?” Ethan asked.
“You’re part gold tiger, so maybe. Ask Jake, though you may need to have started from a baby. That’s what they did with us.”
“What if someone evil and crazy had won, like the Lover of Death we defeated last year in Colorado? Would you have served him, too, just like you serve me?”
Dev wasted a very nice smile on me. “I don’t think I was his type.”
“It’s a serious question,” I said.
The smile slipped away until he was almost as solemn as I ever saw him. “We were raised to serve whoever killed the Mother of All Darkness and became the new King of Tigers. They trained us to serve all the vampire bloodlines, so I guess in the end, I’m supposed to say yes.”
Nathaniel stopped and turned to look up into Dev’s eyes. “The Lover of Death drew power from causing death by violence or disease. The only way for him to grow strong enough to rule would have been to constantly slaughter people. Would you really have helped him do that?”
“I don’t think I could have done that, but I have cousins who could have and maybe would have. Literally, Jake went through us like a litter of kittens, or puppies, and periodically made us into smaller groups that concentrated on one set of skills over another. Pride, Envy, and I were in the group that was more schooled in Belle Morte’s bloodline, which is one of the reasons that we were offered to Jean-Claude and you.”
“Who was in the Lover of Death’s box?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter, Anita. He’s dead. No one has to serve him now.”
“You don’t want to tell me, because you’re afraid I’ll hold it against the ones who would have gone to him.”
“I know you’ll hold it against them. I can feel it just standing here with Nathaniel between us.”
I sighed and let my breath out slowly. “Is it really the jet lag that’s making me so emotional?”
“You need real food and a couple of hours of sleep in the hotel, and then we need to do something outside in the sunlight,” Nicky said.
“Will that help me stop losing control like this?”
“Sleep will help everybody feel better.”
“Why the sunlight?” Nathaniel asked.
“Because the more daylight you get in the time zone you’re in, the faster you adjust to it.”
“Fine. Let’s get to the car and either get food or a nap,” I said. “I need to feel more like myself.”
“Necromancy doesn’t work here the way it does anywhere else in the world, so they keep saying. Could that be affecting you?” Nathaniel asked.
I looked at him. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“That’s an excellent point, though,” Ethan said.
“We still don’t know if my necromancy will work at all here.”
“We can’t find out until full dark,” Nicky said.
“And by then we’ll be ass deep in newly risen vampires,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You should try to raise a zombie while you’re here in Dublin, just in case,” Nathaniel said.