33

WHEN LONDON'S PULSE had slowed, he sat me down, gently, on the bed, and asked Jean-Claude's permission to use the bathroom for cleaning up. Jean-Claude gave it. London had taken his pants off the rest of the way, so that he was nude from the waist down, though his dress shirt and suit jacket were long enough that they hid him from behind. He held his shirt up in front to keep it out of the mess, and his pants wadded in his other hand. He looked at no one as he went inside, and closed the door behind him.

He left behind him a silence so loud that I could hear the blood in my own head.

I knew that the vampires could be so still it was like they weren't there, but it was the first time I'd realized that die lycanthropes had their own version of stillness. Of course, there were fewer people in the room than we started with. It was almost as if people had fled before things got bad. Some bodyguards.

Though, admittedly, I didn't look around too much, to see who was left in die corners of the room. Maybe they were all there, huddled around each other, trying to keep the big bad succubus from getting them.

Jean-Claude moved first, and it was as if the pause on a television program had been turned off. He moved, and everyone else breathed, moved. Voices broke into a low murmur. Jean-Claude helped Requiem stand, from where he had apparently fallen on the floor. He must have left the bed sometime during London's and my little ... feeding. Even in my own head, I heard, So that's what they're calling it these days.

Requiem gripped Jean-Claude's arm tight. He spoke low, urgently, as if he had something important to say.

"Damian's coming." Nathaniel's voice turned me to look at him. Micah was helping him climb onto the bed. Nathaniel lay down beside me, his lavender eyes blinking at the ceiling as if he was still having trouble focusing. He was right about Damian. I could feel him coming down the corridor from