Anita Blake 15 - The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton

to punish a master, to bring him to heel. The council does not use the Harlequin lightly."
    The name fell into the room like a stone dropped down a well. You strained to hear the splash. I leaned my face in against Jean-Claude's chest. There was no heartbeat to hear. He would breathe only when he needed to speak. I raised my head away from his chest. Sometimes it still disturbed me to lay my ear against a silent chest.
    Byron broke the silence. "Red means they fuck with you."
    "Like someone has been doing tonight?" I asked.
    "Yes," Requiem said.
    "And black?" I asked.
    "Death," Requiem said.
    "But doesn't white mean they just observe us?" Nathaniel said.
    "It should," he said. I'd begun to dread when Requiem answered in short, clipped sentences. The poetry might occasionally get on my nerves, but the short, choppy words meant something had gone wrong, or he was pissed, or both.
    "You said you'd explain more about them when I got to Guilty Pleasures. Well, I'm here. Explain."
    "Harlequin is now merely a figure for jest. Once he was, or they were, the Mesnee d'Hellequin. Do you know what the wild hunt is,
ma petite
?"
    "The wild hunt is a common motif all over Europe. A supernatural leader leads a band of devils, or the dead, with spectral hounds and horses. They chase and kill either anyone who crosses their path, or only the evil, and take them to hell. It depends on who you read whether it's a punishment to join the hunt, or a reward. It's usually considered really bad to be outside when the hunt goes by."
    "As always you surprise me,
ma petite
."
    "Well, it's such a widespread story that there has to be some basis for it, but it hasn't been seen for real since the time of one of the Henrys in England. I think Henry the Second, but I'm not a hundred percent on that one. Usually the leader of the hunt is some local dead bad guy, or the devil. But before Christianity got hold of it, a lot of the Norse gods were said to lead it. Odin's mentioned a lot, but sometimes goddesses like Hel, or Holda—though Holda's version gave gifts as well as punishment. Some of the other hunts did, too, but generally it was really bad to get caught, or even see them ride by."
    "Harlequin is one of those leaders," Jean-Claude said.
    "That's a new one on me, but then I haven't read up on it since college. I think the only reason it stuck with me is that it's such a widespread story, and it stops abruptly a few hundred years ago. Almost every other legend that has that many witness stories is true. Or at least that's what I've found. So why did it stop? Why did the wild hunt just stop riding, if it was real?"
    "It is real,
ma petite
."
    I looked at him. "Are you saying it was vampires?"
    "I am saying that the legend existed and we took advantage of it. The Harlequin adopted the persona of the wild hunt. For it was something that people already feared."
    "Vampires scare people already, Jean-Claude. You guys didn't need to pretend to be Norse gods to be frightening."
    "The Harlequin and his family were not trying to frighten people,
ma petite
. They were trying to frighten other vampires."
    "You guys already scare each other; Mommie Dearest proves that."
    "Early in our history, Marmee Noir decided we were too dangerous. That we needed something to keep us in check. She created the idea of the Harlequin. As you say,
ma petite
, there were so many wild hunts over the face of Europe, what was one more? Vampires begin life as people, and the idea of the wild hunt was something many already feared."
    "Okay, so what does this fake wild hunt have to do with us?"
    "They are not fake,
ma petite
. They are a supernatural troop that can fly, that can punish the wicked and kill mysteriously and quickly."
    "They aren't the original wild hunt, Jean-Claude; that makes them fake in my book."
    "As you will, but they are the closest thing that vampires have to police. They are taken from all the major bloodlines. They owe allegiance to no one line. They are called upon