Page 80 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

“Precisely,” Jake said.

“In human form is he just a vampire, or does he have other powers?” I asked.

“You saw some of his other powers tonight.”

“When the Dragon went to battle she could cause rage in her warriors and make them stronger, faster, impervious to pain. A wise man from her old country said she was a fallen dragon because she turned her gifts to destruction. He spoke about it as if in ancient China dragons could fall like angels in Christian theology,” Jean-Claude said.

“It wasn’t as simple as good and evil, but the analogy is close enough,” Jake said.

“So, if he can look human could he have been there tonight in the crowd?” I asked.

“No, I would have smelled him. He can look human, but he never smells human.”

“The shadow serpent tonight didn’t smell real,” Richard said.

“It was a sending, a form of attack, but his physical form was never at risk.”

“I’ve chased power back to its source before and been able to do harm to it,” I said.

“Was he real enough to chase back to his body tonight?”

I thought about it. “I don’t know, but I think it was all smoke and mirrors. That’s what I thought at one point, that he was a trick, or like Richard said, he wasn’t real. You mentioned djinn along with the fey earlier. The fey are real like us, solid, but the djinn are not. They’re made of wind and magic, there’s no way to physically hurt them.”

“When did you see djinn?” Richard asked.

“Las Vegas,” Wicked and Truth said together.

“I’d love to hear about it,” Richard said.

I fought not to frown at him, because people had died because they couldn’t physically hurt the djinn, and like Ireland I couldn’t remember Vegas without starting with the losses. I could never seem to take the win. I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “They were just whirlwinds, or like heat waves in the summer, but they could wield blades and you couldn’t touch them except with one spell that could disperse them. It was kind of awful.”

“Awful in every way?”

“I was chasing down a serial killer that mailed me another policeman’s head in a box; the killer used the djinn to decapitate him, so yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Anita.”

I took another deep breath, counting as I breathed out. I didn’t want to be pressed against him in the seat. Richard had never understood my work, or what it cost me. He’d always been trying to force me to give up having a badge. It was hard to make the transition to this new, less cranky Richard. It was like I wasn’t ready to give up being cranky at the person he’d been for so long. It made me move the minute inch I could toward Wicked, who took that as his cue to curve his hand around my shoulders.

Richard’s skin ran with heat again, his anger and his beast starting to rise. I did not need his wolf to call to mine, so I said, “Wicked and Truth were in Vegas with me on that trip.”

“Thank you for keeping her safe,” Richard said.

And that was it. “They didn’t keep me safe; I mean they did, but... Richard, I was there as a U.S. Marshal with an active warrant to hunt down the vampire that was behind the murders. He could control the djinn as his animal to call. Yes, Wicked and Truth were there, and they helped me, but they didn’t keep me safe. I wasn’t in Vegas to stay safe, or to play the victim. I was there to hunt down an ancient vampire before he killed again.”

“I don’t know what I said wrong, but I’m sorry it was wrong,” Richard said.

Wicked said, “May I try to translate?”

“If you can, be my guest.”

“You thanked us for keeping Anita safe, as if she were the maiden in distress. She is never that. Even if she gets hurt, or kidnapped as she did in Ireland, she is still never the victim to be rescued. We may someday rescue her but she will still never be the maiden in distress.”

Richard looked from him to me, then to Jean-Claude. “I don’t understand, aren’t we all saying the same thing?”

“Non, mon lupe, you thanked the Wicked Truth for taking care of Anita, and that is not how it works.”

“Then explain it to me.”

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