He nodded. “It is a long time since someone has asked me something in the name of friendship, Anita, a very long time.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because everyone should have friends.”

He smiled again, but I couldn’t see his eyes at all, so I didn’t know if it was a happy smile or a hiding smile. “The Harlequin do not have friends, Anita. The animals of the Harlequin have even less than that.”

“I’ve done my best to eradicate the double standard that the old vamps feel toward their animals to call.”

“You and Jean-Claude have done much to help us.”

Damian kept my hand in his, but he took a step toward the other man. “Help me, Kaazim. Help me because Anita is your friend, or your queen.”

“You are a servant. I do not answer to servants.”

“Kaazim, what is it with you and so many of the Harlequin? All of you seem to dislike Damian. Why?”

“I can answer that one,” Bobby Lee said.

“Then answer it,” I said.

“All the Harlequin are old vampires. That means they think that human servants are lesser beings, but Damian is a reminder that to you, they are the servants. They don’t like that much.”

“Okay, I get that, but why do Kaazim and the other shapeshifters have an issue?”

“They all treat any Harlequin human servant as a lesser being, because very few of them were ever good enough to fight at the skill level that the vampires and shapeshifters of the Harlequin did.”

“I’ve noticed that almost none of the Harlequin vamps have human servants.”

“Humans are too fragile for our world,” Kaazim said.

“The world of the Harlequin, you mean?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Damian is a vampire servant, so the animals to call of the Harlequin have one vampire they can feel superior to,” Bobby Lee said.

“That makes sense, I guess.”

“Feel superior to me, then,” Damian said, “but if you know anything that can explain what is happening to me, please share it.”

Kaazim stepped out of the shadows enough so I could see the puzzlement on his face. “Doesn’t it bother you that I think of you as less, because Anita has forced you to be her servant?”

“No.”

“Because you do not care about my opinion.” Kaazim sounded angry now. The first thread of his beast breathed through the room as if someone had opened a hot oven for a second.

“You are Harlequin. That means that you are a better warrior than I will ever be. That alone gives you reason to feel superior to me, but the vampire who made me tortured any pride out of me centuries ago. She made of me an empty vessel to fill as she saw fit. Empty vessels do not have pride, so I have no pride to be injured.”

“We know of your creator.”

“I always hoped that She-Who-Made-Me would finally do something so awful that the vampire council would send the Harlequin to slay her.”

“If we had been sent to kill your master, we would not have left any vampires so old as you alive.”

“Either way, I would have been free of her.”

“You would have embraced death to be free of your master?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Suicide would have freed you, too.”

“But it might have denied me entrance to Valhalla. Death at the hands of the Harlequin would have been a glorious death.”

“Do you still believe in your Valhalla after all these centuries?” Kaazim asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Most of us lose our faith under the power of the vampires.”

“It was one thing she could not take from me.”

Kaazim studied him, emotions playing over his dark face like cloud shadows on a windy day, too fast for me to understand, but it was more emotion than I’d ever seen him display. “If she left you your faith, then it was only because she could not understand it enough to tear it away from you.”

“Yes, most likely.”

“You are lucky that your master did not understand faith.”

“I am.”

“I was sent to spy on her once, your mistress. She was a terrible thing.”

“Did you see me?”

“Yes.”

“I did her bidding.”

“I saw.”

“I will not ask what you saw me do on her orders, because I do not want Anita to know the worst of me.”

“You are her servant. She knows all your secrets.”

“No, she leaves me space and privacy.”

Kaazim looked surprised. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t want Damian to know all my secrets either. I don’t want anyone that far inside my head.”

“That is very you,” Kaazim said.

“Yeah, it is. What do you know about what’s happening to Damian?”

“Nothing,” he said.

Bobby Lee said, “What do you know about a vampire with symptoms like Damian has?”

Kaazim smiled and nodded respect at the other guard. “Well worded, my friend.”

“I’ve been in your part of the world a lot.”

“It has been centuries since we have seen such symptoms.”

“Symptoms of what?” I asked.

“Of having angered the Mother of All Darkness.”

“I don’t understand.”