Book 3 - Circus of the Damned

[Yoko]

It was too cold to be standing outside with my jacket half-unzipped. But if I zipped it all the way, I'd never get to my gun in time. Freeze my butt off or be able to defend myself. The clowns on the roof had fangs. I decided I wasn't that cold after all.

(Circus of the Damned, page 30, paragraph 4)

Reference
A carnival/circus attraction, located in the District
* owned by Jean-Claude (also his daytime resting place)

[Yoko]

1 Anita has an early morning meeting with Jeremy Ruebens and Karl Inger. Both are part of HAV. Jeremy also is the founder of Humans First. They want the daytime resting place of the Master of the City. Anita refuses. Later she gets a call from Dolph. He thinks it was a vampire murder.
2 Anita identifies it as a multiple vampire murder, because of multiple bites (she measured bite marks with a ruler). Probably a master vampire and his pack. Dolph questions Anita about them while Zerbrowski listens to the analysis. Anita promises to talk to the Master of the City and find out if it is a rogue master vampire. She assures Dolph he won't be rising as a vampire.
3 Anita goes back to her apartment to get some much needed rest and call Bert, letting him know she is not coming into work later today. She also calls and leaves a message at Guilty Pleasures for Jean-Claude to call her back. Enroute, she bumps into Mrs. Pringle who is concerned about Anita and mentions that Mr. Giovoni had said she went to a hotel when her apartment was destroyed (in LaC).
4 Willie calls back for Jean-Claude and arranges a meeting for Anita.
5 Anita goes to the Circus of the Damned to meet with Jean-Claude. She is greeted by Stephen and led inside. She figures out that he is a lycanthrope. As they walk in, Anita sees Shahar, a snake-charmer, who dances for a giant cobra, which Anita not so jokingly refers to as a 'god.'
6 Entering the inner chamber, Anita finds a canopy bed with a man in it. Naked. Jean-Claude is seated with Stephen nearby. Yasmeen comes in behind Anita and tries to seduce her, testing her human servant status. But then Marguerite attacks Anita in a jealous rage. Eventually Anita is forced to fight Marguerite in ritual combat, human servant vs. human servant. It was a setup. Anita manages down Marguerite, but then Yasmeen attacks. She gets ahead by using her silver cross. Jean-Claude calls a truce. In the meantime, the king-sized cobra has killed Shahar and everyone rushes out to help.
7 Being near Jean-Claude, Anita gives him additional power. The naked man, Richard Zeeman comes out, along with Yasmeen, Marguerite, Stephen and an unnamed Rashida. Using Anita as the bait to distract the cobra, the group kills the cobra. The police then show up.
8 Anita talks with Richard and Jean-Claude is "jealous". There is something that Richard is hiding, and Jean-Claude intimates this. He also assures Anita that the master vampire murderer is not himself nor Yasmeen. Anita ends up taking Richard and Stephen home by car.
9 Anita and Richard continue to talk in the car and he asks her out on a date to go caving. Anita agrees, after much cajoling.
10 When Anita gets home, Edward is waiting for her. She tells him about her night, leaving out Jean-Claude and Richard. Edward tells her that he is here to kill the Master of the City. Anita lies enough to Edward to get suspicion off of Jean-Claude. He gives her until full dark to tell him what he wants to know.
11 Waking from a dream with Jean-Claude, Anita goes to exercise with her friend Ronnie, when she gets a phone call from Dolph. The vampire victim was Calvin Barnabas Rupert. Anita then arms herself and goes to workout with Ronnie.
12 Working out at Vic Tanny's, their local gym, Anita talks about Cal and finds out from Ronnie that he was a part of HAV. Later, the discuss Catharine Maison-Gillett's Halloween party, and Anita realizes she has to invite Richard as it is the same day they were to go caving. Ronnie takes this opportunity to tease.
13 Anita calls Richard to inform him of the party and he agrees to get them costumes. She then gets a call from Dolph. There's been another murder. She tells him of Ronnie's lead and Dolph is angry at first, but then is appreciative of the information. Anita goes to see the newest victim.
14 While examining the female victim, Anita notices that her features become more real upon the approach of night. She recalls an article in the Vampire Quarterly. and they call the St. Louis Hospital and there is no response. Cal had a dying will and John Burke was supposed to stake him.
15 They make it to the hospital and John's car is not up front.

[Yoko]

16 They get ready and enter the hospital. Anita, Dolph, Zerbrowski, and four other cops, two sets of partners. One set consists of a black veteran cop and a blond rookie. Anita takes point after confronting Dolph. She is the only one with silver bullets.
17 In their search, they find Jimmy Dugan, retired cop, dead. They take his gun with silver bullets. Another guard is found torn in half. A third victim was found with her chest burnt out. Dolph makes the hunt a voluntary basis, and one set of cops leave. The veteran and the blond stay.
18 Dolph takes point now. They find John Burke, who is also tracking the vampire. It attacks and kills the blonde cop before Anita can kill it. They find the body of the vampire counselor in the vault and the door torn off. It isn't Anita's fault after all, since they locked the vampire up anyway.
19 Anita has an appointment to make for her job, and she makes it to the Oakglen Cemetery in time to see Larry Kirkland nearly lose control of a zombie because he is too tired. She helps him by cutting herself and giving her blood to the zombie, an Andrew Doughal. He is then able to help the lawyers sort out his will.
20 Anita tries to get Larry to realize how close he came to being in big trouble, but Larry is "youthful" enough to not take it to seriously. When it's time to put Andrew back in his grave, he is confused at first, thinking he is still alive, but then he goes quietly. Afterwards, they are nearly accosted by Humans First, but they manage to escape in Anita's car, after she shoots one of the humans, Martin.
21 However, while escaping, Larry hits a child on the road. Only, it's not a child, but a vampire, and much older than Jean-Claude. Two female vampires and a master vampire, Alejandro, subdue them a moment, before Anita uses her cross charm bracelet to gain the upper hand. She and Larry attempt to escape once more in the car.
22 A vampire's hand crashes through the windshield and Anita puts her crosses on it. Unfortunately, while the escape for the moment, she crashes the car and Alejandro threatens to kill Larry if she doesn't give up. She gives up.
23 Alejandro offers to free Anita of the master vampire's marks on her if she will tell him who he is. Anita refuses. He then rolls her mind and she blacks out.
24 Anita awakens to find out that Humans First with Ruebens and Inger, saved both her and Larry from the vampires.
25 Larry drives Anita home. On the trip, she finds out his ultimate goal is to be a vampire executioner, like her. Since she cannot dissuade him, she will teach him.
26 Anita makes it home only to find Edward waiting for her. He wants the name of the Master of the City. Anita gives him Alejandro.
27 Anita is awakened from another Jean-Claude dream by Irving Griswold. He wants to be sure that he's quoting Humans First correctly when they say they saved her life. He tries to get the details from Anita and she helps a little.
28 When the phone rings again, it's Karl Inger. He tells Anita that he has another plan to kill the Master of the City if she wants to hear it. She must meet with him.
29 Anita meets with Karl and he takes her to see Mr. Oliver.
30 Anita meets Mr. Oliver and discovers that he is the oldest known vampire. Over a million years old. He has a lamia called Melanie. She attacks Anita, but Mr. Oliver brings Melanie to bear.

[Yoko]

31 Anita gets home to a phone call from Ronnie. She remembers where she heard Cal's name. He had a dying will drawn up by a lawyer. A Reba Baker also had a will drawn up - the female victim. The lawyer might have leaked information without knowing it. Anita suggests Alvin Thormund, a hypnotist, might be able to find out what she has forgotten.
32 At work, Anita chews out Bert for sending Larry into the field alone. Dolph calls to confirm that the victim is indeed Reba Baker. Anita finishes her argument with a promise that Larry will not go out alone on a zombie raising until he's ready.
33 After raising zombies with Larry, Anita gets paged. It's Irving. Jean-Claude wants to see her right away. She brings Larry with her.
34 At the Circus of the Damned, Anita meets up with Jean-Claude, but then acts like he isn't the Master of the City to protect Larry. Anita and Jean-Claude withdraw to "see" the master vampire alone.
35 Jean-Claude tests Anita and discovers that she has been marked by Alejandro. It is unheard of for a human servant to bear the marks of more than one master vampire. Jean-Claude wants to give her the third mark, but wants it willingly, since it would be rape otherwise. Of course, Anita refuses. He had given her two marks to Alejandro's one. She leaves the office.
36 Outside, Richard is in a crumpled heap, Irving is a wolf, and Larry is being held down by Yasmeen and Marguerite, the later licking the blood from his face. Eventually Yasmeen releases Larry and Anita takes him and Richard out of the room.
37 Richard tells Anita he has their costumes - Civil War soldier and bride. Anita is pissed she has to wear a dress, but tempers it. Later, she talks to Larry about his experience so that he understands what it means to hunt vampires.

38
Anita arrives at home, only to find Melanie and three men, Smiley, Blondie and Ronald in her apartment. But the lamia only comes to bring Anita to see Mr. Oliver. Anita goes with them.
39 They arrive in the middle of nowhere and go into a cave. They walk for quite a bit inside, lit only by flashlight. Too late, Anita realizes its a trap as Alejandro comes out and the lights go out.
40 Anita kills Smiley first, shooting him. Alejandro grabs her and she manages to shoot him in the throat and wound him enough to stop him from coming after her temporarily. She loses her gun and kills Blondie with her knives. Her Browning is underneath his body. She then shoots Ronald, just as she sees him becoming a snake. Anita then realizes Melanie is breeding. Shooting the lamia does nothing, so she runs into the dark cave without seeing a thing and praying she doesn't die. Alejandro gives her the second mark. She ends up finding and killing Melanie's mate, Raju, but not before the other lamia bites her. She escapes and gets picked up by Edward who had followed her to the cave.
41 Edward takes Anita home. He's worried about the bite, but it seems to be okay. Richard shows up, ready to go to the costume party, but canceling when he hears what has happened to Anita. Just before Edward leaves, he gives her a phone number to reach him. After he leaves, Anita feels a pain in her leg. The lamia bite was deadly. She bleeds to death from the inside, hearing Richard promise her that he won't let her die.
42 Richard brings her to Jean-Claude who saves her by giving her the third mark, drinking he blood from her wrist. Anita is less than pleased. She swears she will kill him, and he informs her that to do so would kill her as well. She doesn't care, and Jean-Claude smells the truth in it and instructs Richard to bring her home. Anita decides to give him over to Mr. Oliver after all.
43 Richard takes her home and Anita argues over his choice to let Jean-Claude save her. They meet with Larry in her parking lot and Richard leaves the two of them to go into work.
44 At work, Anita calls Mr. Oliver and informs him that Jean-Claude is the Master of the City. When asked why the change of heart, she explain about the third mark and how she wants to be rid of him. Hanging up, she feels like she has betrayed him.
45 On the job, Anita gets a call from Dolph. They found out that the vampires are going to kill innocent people on Halloween. And since only the Master of the City can control the vampires, Anita realizes she was played by Mr. Oliver. She calls Jean-Claude to warn him, and then Edward for backup as she and Larry head for the Circus of the Damned.
46 Jean-Claude arranges for the battle to be fought as a circus show, so that there are no innocents killed. It is Jean-Claude, Anita, Rashida, Stephen, Edward, Yasmeen, Marguerite and Richard, vs. Mr. Oliver, Alejandro, Melanie and Melanie's creatures.
47 During the fight, Alejandro kills Yasmeen and Marguerite scratches her eyes out in grief. Alejandro manages to give Anita the third and fourth mark, making her his full human servant and stealing away Jean-Claude's powers so that he cannot fight. However, Anita is empowered by the fourth mark and has complete immunity to the vampires. Richard tries to attack Oliver and he gets his windpipe ripped out by the vampire. So she kills him. Oliver is stabbed with the stake meant for Jean-Claude and Alejandro gets his heart ripped out. Anita dies with him.
48 Edward gave her CPR until the paramedics arrived and take her to the hospital. When she waves, Richard is seated nearby. Anita asks about Jean-Claude and is relieved he is not dead. She is surprised Richard isn't either, 'til she's told he is a werewolf. She still agrees to date him. It turns out that the vampire marks canceled each other out. Anita is no longer marked by Jean-Claude.
49 Jean-Claude sends her roses and she has a nurse give them away. Jean-Claude also gets Melanie a green card and has her working at the Circus of the Damned. Anita really likes Richard, and Jean-Claude keeps sending her gifts. She's caught in the middle.