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

I’d been able to do it when I wanted to do it.
    “Go away, Melchior; leave Irene free to answer a question for me.”
    “What question?” He still sounded arrogant, even with fear in the edges of her eyes.
    “I will ask her if she wishes to be free of you. Free to find a lover that you won’t kill if he interferes with her work. Free to have a life outside your workrooms.”
    “She is my human servant; only death will free us of each other.”
    “Irene has met our Black Jade; her master is still alive, but his tiger to call now answers to me.” I whispered it into her face from inches away, as if I meant to kiss her.
    She swallowed hard, and I could see her pulse beating against the side of her thin neck like a trapped bird in a net. One of them was afraid of me.
    “Only the Mother of All Darkness was able to break such bonds.” But his voice didn’t sound so sure of itself now.
    “And who killed her, Melchior?”
    “Jean-Claude did.”
    I smiled a little wider, and it was still unpleasant. I held Irene a little closer to me, straightening up, so I wasn’t having to bend my back at quite the odd angle. “And what weapon did he use to kill the night herself?”
    He stared at me, the fear spilling through more of those brown eyes. “You,” he whispered.
    “If Irene wishes to be free of you, we can make that happen.”
    “It is forbidden,” he said.
    “I don’t like slavery. I think it’s so 1800. If I think that Irene is just a slave for you, then I’ll see that as breaking the law, Melchior.”
    “Breaking what law?” he asked, and started trying to push Irene’s thin hands against my chest. He couldn’t use her hands right, as if even now he couldn’t really feel her body. When Jean-Claude and I shared like this we got every sensation, but then we never did the whole puppet thing; maybe that’s what made the difference. We shared emotions, and physical sensations, not this possession.
    “Slavery has been illegal here since 1865,” I said.
    “That is human law, not vampire law.”
    “But we are now subject to human law, Melchior,” Jean-Claude said.
    The vampire pushed at me clumsily with Irene’s hands. “This is not what the new laws mean. It is one of our greatest taboos to interfere with another master’s human servant.”
    “I had not thought of servants as slaves before, but you see, that is one of Anita’s gifts, to see things from the point of an officer of the law. If she says that you are treating Irene as a slave, and it’s illegal, then I’m sure a case could be made for it.”
    “You would not dare,” he said, pushing at me like some girl in a horror movie who’d been told to struggle, but not too much.
    “Do you love Irene?” Jean-Claude asked.
    “What?”
    “You heard him; do you love her?”
    “I . . . I love her art. I love her creations.”
    “Do you love her?” Jean-Claude and I asked at the same time.
    Those brown eyes stared up into my brown eyes, but mine burned brighter. Her face went a little slack. “I love the way her eyes glitter as she looks at the jewels and metal, and begins to create in her head. I love her long, thin fingers, so delicate when she sets the jewels in my metal. I love that I can begin engraving a line and she can finish it with a flourish or two that I didn’t see. I love that she adds to my vision, and she still loves watching me work in metal, even as she aids me.”
    “You love her,” I said, softly.
    He looked puzzled, and then slowly, as if each word were drawn against his will, he said, “I think I . . . I think . . . I do. I don’t know what I would do without her at my side. I would be lost without her quick fingers and her bright eyes. Her smile is the first to greet me at night and the last I see as dawn comes. I did not realize that she was so important to me.”
    “You love Irene,” Jean-Claude said.
    Irene’s face didn’t turn toward him this time, but continued to stare up into mine. “I love her, don’t