Page 52 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

“No,” Claudia said, as if she thought I’d asked a serious question.

“Why does our magic know you, Anita Blake?” Neva asked.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked.

“The truth.”

“I told you the truth already, so just tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it.”

“Are you afraid of our small brethren?” she asked.

“You can hear how fast my heart is beating, you know I’m afraid.”

“Look at me, Anita Blake.”

It was a little too much like a command for my taste, but I’d worry about who was the toughest later, so I looked at her. I trusted that Pierette and Claudia would keep an eye on the furry horde, for what little good it would do us. We needed heavy firepower to have a hope of keeping the rats from engulfing us, things like shotguns and fully automatic machine guns and flamethrowers. Since we didn’t have any of that, I looked at Neva. Honestly, she was a much better view than the waiting rats. Funny how you don’t realize you’re scared of something until it’s staring you in the face. I’d forgotten how much I didn’t like rats.

Her eyes were like black diamonds except they weren’t just reflecting the dim light like the real rats, her eyes had their own light as if she were a vampire. The only shapeshifters that I’d ever seen with eyes like that had a vampire they called master. Holy shit, did she belong to the same vampire that Hector did? I wasn’t the only “vampire” who had multiple animals to call. If Hector’s master was the same, then we were in serious freaking trouble here.

“Anita Blake.” She said my name like it tasted bitter.

“Neva,” I said, for something to say while I screamed down my metaphysical connections, hoping that Jean-Claude was getting all this.

She turned her head to look at me out of one eye the way a bird will, and I caught a glint of light in her eyes that wasn’t black. I blinked and took a step toward her, then thought to ask, “May I come closer to see your eyes better?”

“A step, or two, no more; I do not want you tempted to go for a blade. I would hate to explain to our king what happened to his concubine.”

I didn’t really like being called a concubine, but she had several thousand rats waiting to swarm over us, so until that changed, she could call me any damn thing she wanted. I moved slowly and deliberately the two steps she’d given me; I didn’t want a misunderstanding.

She stared at me aggressively, both eyes forward, and there it was, starshine in her black eyes. They were the darkness of space with stars scattered and shining in the permanent night between the worlds.

“I’ve seen eyes like yours before,” I said, keeping my voice low and careful, just in case.

“You have never been to the heart of our people, so you have never seen eyes like mine.”

“I think I know why your power and I are getting along so well.”

“Tell me.”

“How about if I show you?”

“Show me what?”

“I’m going to call a little of the magic in me, so you can feel how similar it is to yours.”

“We are not necromancers here.”

“This isn’t necromancy. I just don’t want you to freak out when I open myself to the power, okay?”

“Show me something worth seeing, Anita Blake.”

I took that for reassurance that she wouldn’t freak out and I called an ability that hadn’t come through Jean-Claude, or any of the shapeshifters I was tied to, but a self-professed goddess. My skin ran with the energy she had shared with me. The magic around us pulsed and then hesitated like a heart skipping a beat.

“Your eyes,” Neva said, “this can’t be.”

The beat of magic around us caught up with that lost beat, and it was as if my body were a gong and it had hit me solidly in the chest. It stole my breath and staggered me backward.

Claudia caught me or I might have fallen. “Neva, you are not allowed to harm her.”

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