Free Burnt Offerings (ab-7) by Laurell Hamilton Page A

all. He'd had a plan to take out Jean-Claude, take over the vamps in the area, and force them to slaughter humans. Oliver had thought a slaughter like that would force the authorities to make vamps illegal again. He thought vampires would spread too quickly with legal rights and take over the human race. I'd sort of agreed with him.
    His plan might have worked if I hadn't killed him. How I managed to kill him is a long story, but I'd ended up in a coma. A week unconscious, gone, so close to death that the doctors didn't know how I survived. Of course, they hadn't been too clear on why I was in a coma to begin with, and no one felt like explaining vampire marks and
Homo erectus
vampires.
    I stared at Jean-Claude. "The crazy son of bitch that tried to take you out last Halloween?"
    "
Oui
."
    "What about him?"
    "He was a council member."
    I almost laughed. "No way. He was old, older than sin, but he wasn't that powerful."
    "I told you he agreed to limit his powers,
ma petite
. I did not know who and what he was at first, but he was the council member known as the Earthmover."
    "Excuse me?"
    "He could cause the earth to shake by his power alone."
    "No way," I said.
    "Yes way,
ma petite
. He agreed not to cause the earth to swallow the city because it would be blamed on an earthquake. He wanted the bloodletting to be blamed on vampires. You remember his plan was to drive vampires back to being illegal. An earthquake would not do that. A bloodbath would. No one, not even you, believes that a mere vampire can cause an earthquake."
    "Damn straight, I don't." I stared at his careful face. "You're serious."
    "Deadly serious,
ma petite
."
    It was too much to take in all at once. When in doubt ignore and be terribly unimpressed. "So we took out a council member, so what?"
    He shook his head. "There is no fear in you,
ma petite
. Do you understand what danger we are all in?"
    "No, and what do you mean the 'danger we are all in'? Who else is in danger besides us?"
    "All our people," he said.
    "Define 'all,' " I said.
    "All my vampires, anyone that the council considers ours."
    "Larry?" I asked.
    He sighed. "Perhaps."
    "Should I call him? Warn him? How much danger?"
    "I am not sure. No one has ever slain a council member and not taken their place."
    "I killed him, not you."
    "You are my human servant. The council sees all that you do as an extension of my actions."
    I stared at him. "You mean anyone I kill is your kill?"
    He nodded.
    "I wasn't your servant when I killed Oliver."
    "I would keep that bit of knowledge to ourselves."
    "Why?"
    "They may not kill me,
ma petite
, but a vampire hunter who killed a council member would be executed. There would be no trial, no hesitation."
    "Even though I'm your human servant now?"
    "That might save you. It is one of our most stringent laws not to destroy another's servant."
    "So they can't kill me because I'm your servant."
    "But they can harm you,
ma petite
. They can harm you so very much that you may wish for death."
    "You mean torture?"
    "Not in a traditional sense. But they are masters at finding that which terrifies you most and using it against you. They will use your desires against you and twist everything you are into a shape of their choosing."
    "I've met master vampires that could sense your heart's desire and use it against you."
    "Everything you have seen of us before,
ma petite
, is like a distant dream. The council is the reality. They are the nightmare on which we are all based. The thing that even we fear."
    "Yvette and Balthasar didn't seem that scary to me."
    He looked at me. There was no expression on his face. It was a mask, smooth, pleasant, hidden. "If they did not frighten you,
ma petite
, it is only because you do not know them. Yvette is a toady of the council because they are powerful enough to give her a ready supply of victims."
    "Victims? You aren't talking about human prey, are you?"
    "It can be human. But Yvette is considered perverted even by other vampires."
    I