Page 55 of Rafael (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 28)

“Your eyes are back to normal,” Pierette said.

“Then let’s go.”

“Can you call the eyes back at will?” Claudia asked.

I thought about it, then nodded.

“Good, because all the rodere respect the magic of our brujas.”

“Respect or fear?” I asked.

“Both.”

“You want me to flash the eyes as we go inside?”

“Save them in case we’re losing,” she suggested.

“What would happen if I accidentally drained the energy out of one of them?”

“Would it just weaken them?”

“No, they’d start to dry out like mummies.”

“Like what you did to Chimera?” Claudia asked.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t do that,” she said.

17

AFTER NEVA ANDthe rats outside, I thought I was ready for anything inside, but I was wrong. They wanted to touch me, not to hurt me—women, men, young, old, they touched my arms, squeezed my shoulder, shook my hands. The first one who tried to hug me nearly got punched, but Claudia touched my hand in time so that they hugged me without getting hurt.

“It’s so good to see you in person,” a woman said, and hugged me like I was her long-lost friend. I smiled and nodded and said, “I’m glad I could be here tonight.”

A man grabbed me in the fiercest hug yet and tried to kiss me. I turned my head to the side so he got my cheek, and Claudia pulled him off me before I could decide how violent to be about a stolen kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

It was a woman with half her head shaved and more tattoos and piercings than I’d seen in a while who took my hand in hers and said, “When you feed theardeuron us, it’s amazing.”

“Thanks,” I said, not sure what else to say.

She stepped a little closer, both hands holding mine. I thought her eyes were black, but they were just thedarkest charcoal gray I’d ever seen. “My name is Mariposa, it meansbutterfly.”

I looked at the butterfly tattooed on her left shoulder and smiled. I think the smile encouraged her a little too much, because she leaned in even closer and said, “I would love for you to feed on me in person.”

My face must have shown that I didn’t know what to say, because she laughed and said, “Don’t tell me I’m the first one who’s asked.”

I nodded.

She laughed again, lips parted enough that I could see her tongue was pierced.

Pierette pulled me back with an arm across my shoulders and drew me into a hug. Mariposa grinned and just moved back to let the next person take my hand. She was the first one to proposition me, but not the last. I’d known theardeurcould be addictive, but I’d trusted Rafael to be strong enough to resist. I hadn’t even thought about what might have been happening to the other wererats. I felt careless that I hadn’t thought about it; Jean-Claude breathed through my head, letting me know that it hadn’t occurred to him either, and that did make me feel a little less slow on the uptake.

A man grabbed my arm and I’d had so many people touching me by then that I just turned to him with a smile, trying to be friendly, or at least diplomatic. I felt his body lunge forward before I even saw the blade in his hand. I didn’t have time to go for one of my own knives; all I could do was use my free hand to sweep his arm past me. He’d committed too much energy to stabbing me, so when I swept his arm, he stumbled past me even more than I’d planned. I put my hand over his where he was still gripping my arm and used it like a handle to help his stumble become a fall that put him on his knees.

He tried to twist back toward me with the blade in his hand, but I still had his other arm. I went from using itlike a handle to turning it into a joint lock on his elbow. I put enough pressure on it to let him know I’d break it if he kept moving.

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