Free Anita Blake 24 - Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

to finishing the design for the rings.”
    “We will begin again with another jeweler. They may not be the great artists that you and Irene are, but I’m sure they will be able to help us create something of lasting beauty. Though finding a living jeweler who has a true flair for crowns and diadems will be difficult. It’s almost a lost art among the living, don’t you think, Melchior?”
    Irene’s face looked pained, and her hand pressed to her chest. “Crowns, diadems, this is the first you mentioned such things.”
    “We had been discussing having something to hold Anita’s veil in place. I know your work of old, Melchior; you would have done a masterful job of it, but we will make do with someone else. Perhaps Carlo will be interested in having a chance to create the first crown for vampirekind in centuries.”
    “That charlatan! No, my lord, my king, Jean-Claude, please do not turn to Carlo. He has no eye, no feel for the metal.”
    “You are a master of metalwork, Melchior, that is true, but it has been said that Carlo has a better eye for jewels. I prefer the jewels to the metalwork, so perhaps it’s just as well.”
    “My lord, you must be teasing me.”
    I was right up next to Irene now. Her feet were at odd angles. The vampire ignored me as if I weren’t standing right next to his servant’s body. He discounted me completely. I wasn’t sure if it was my being human, being female, or both, but either way I’d had enough. I moved a little behind Irene’s body and foot-swept her legs out from under her. She fell so suddenly that if I hadn’t been more than human-fast I couldn’t have caught her in time. I held her in my arms and stared into her eyes and could finally see that they weren’t as black as her hair, but a deep, rich brown. I smiled into those startled brown eyes and said, “You can’t feel her feet. If I hadn’t caught her she could have been hurt.”
    “What is your servant doing?” He turned Irene’s face to look at Jean-Claude again, rather than me, though my face was inches from his.
    “If you can’t feel her body perfectly, it makes me wonder how tight your bond is with your human servant. It makes me wonder how hard it would be to give Irene a choice.” I whispered that last against her cheek, their cheek.
    Either he felt my breath or the whisper had gotten his attention, because he turned her face to look at me. “What are you talking about, woman?”
    I smiled, and knew it was my unpleasant smile, the one that said I could do really awful things and never stop smiling. It wasn’t voluntary, and it always unnerved people for some reason. “Look into my eyes, Melchior.”
    He gave a little chuckle. “That’s our line, surely.”
    I felt my necromancy open like a fist too long closed. The power marched across my skin in a wave of goose bumps and hit Irene’s skin where we touched.
    “What is that?” He looked again at Jean-Claude. “Is that you, my lord?”
    Jean-Claude shook his head and smiled.
    Those brown eyes turned back to me. I was still holding Irene’s body in my arms as if she weighed nothing, and she couldn’t have been much over a hundred pounds. Her body was fragile, as if too many of her bones were too close to the surface, and again I thought she’d spent too much of her human life near starvation. It left its mark on you, and that thought wasn’t mine, nor were the memories that went with it. Jean-Claude had been born poor, and he had memories of going to bed hungry, of listening to his sister’s cry from lack of food.
    “It is you, my lord, I see your eyes in her face,” and the voice was happy again, satisfied.
    I closed my eyes and called my power, chasing back Jean-Claude’s memories. When I opened my eyes again, Irene was afraid of whatever she saw there. “Your eyes . . . they are cognac diamonds in the sun, so bright . . .” I knew it was my eyes as if I’d been my own vampire. I’d seen it happen before by accident, but lately