26

EVERYONE AGREED TO the test. Everyone seemed happier about it than I did. Okay, everyone but Remus and some of his guards. I think that was because he was pretty sure it was going to go horribly wrong and he and his people would have to pick up the pieces. I agreed with Remus.

Part of me hopes that someday I get over being so damned uncomfortable about group scenes like this; part of me hopes I don't. It's sort of the same part of me that mourns that I can kill without feeling bad about it, most of the time. Yeah, that same part thinks that doing metaphysical sex in front of a bunch of men, for any reason, is just another step down the slippery slope to damnation. But if the alternative is having the ardeur go off like a metaphysical bomb during the party tonight, well, what we were about to do was the lesser evil. Still it might be nice, once in a while, not to have to choose between evils. Just once, couldn't I choose the lesser good?

Requiem lay back against the fresh sheets, his hair spilling out around his upper body like a dark halo. His day job, or would that be night job, was stripping at Guilty Pleasures. The body showed that, but all I could see was the wounds. Meng Die had come very, very close to putting out his light forever. I traced fingertips across the sternum cut. His breath came out in a shuddering sigh. I couldn't tell if it had hurt, or felt good.

Normally I could read Requiem, but today there was nothing in his face that helped me. He gazed up at me as if I were the most wondrous thing he'd ever seen. It was a step above, or below, love. Worship was the only word I had for it. It hurt my heart to see that look on his face. There was no Requiem left in that look.

Requiem of the somber, pretty speeches. He'd earned his name because he was poetic but damned depressing. But there was no force of personality to him now, nothing but this overwhelming need.

"God, help me," I said.

Jean-Claude came to stand next to the bed, to me. "What is wrong, ma petite}"