Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton

This is the book that got me started on the LKH books. My friend’s husband said this was one of his favorite books, so I decided to read it. I found out that it was third in a series, so I read the first two and enjoyed them.

In this book, we have more Jean Claude and we meet Richard and Stephen.

The book begins with Karl Inger and Jeremy Reubens from Humans First trying to get Anita to give them Jean Claude’s daytime resting place. As it happens, she doesn’t know it, so she can’t tell them.

Anita gets a call from Dolph. There has been a murder. It turns out that several vampires – at least 5- have attacked the person. Anita decides she needs to see Jean Claude to find out if he knows who this Master Vampire might be.

She meets JC at Circus of the Damned, another business he owns. It really is a circus with supernatural creatures. Anita meets Stephen (a werewolf) as he escorts her from the entrance to where Jean Claude is. Anita is tricked into a fight with Marguerite, the human servant of Yasmeen. Richard is also there, naked in bed, for some reason. I think we never find out what it was.

The fight is interrupted because there is “the world’s biggest snake” that has gone amok and killed its trainer. It takes everyone to get the thing under control, including Anita.

Anita and Jean Claude spend an inordinate amount of time debating whether Anita is or isn’t Jean Claude’s human servant. She has two of the 4 marks necessary to make her “officially” his human servant so she is resisting.

Anita takes Richard and Stephen home and Richard asks her out. She says yes. While working out with Ronnie, Anita realizes she has made a date for a night she is supposed to be at a party, so Anita asks Richard to go to that with her.

Again, Anita gets called by Dolph. There’s another murder. This time it’s a woman. Anita realizes that the woman is going to rise as a vampire. They thought she couldn’t since she’d been bitten by so many vampires. She realizes that the first victim wasn’t put in the special vampire room because she’d said that so she, Dolph, Zerbrowski and others go to the morgue to see what they can do. They find that the vamp had, in fact, been put in the special vamp room but he’d broken out.

The next thing that happens is that Anita finds out that Bert has hired another animator, Larry. She meets Larry and they are attacked by vampires. She doesn’t know who these “bad guys” are but one of them was made a vampire as a very small boy.

At some point before this, Edward shows up and tells Anita he needs to know who the Master of the City is. For some reason, Anita lies and says she doesn’t know. She doesn’t even know why since she doesn’t like Jean Claude at all.

Anita meets up with a lamia, supposedly extinct but as they are immortal, there is no way for them to be extinct, right? The lamia, Melanie I think, is working for Oliver. Oliver is a million years old and supposedly damn near unkillable. He can even be outside during the daytime, which is why it takes Anita so long to figure out that he’s a vampire.

There’s another vampire, Alejandro, but I can’t remember who he is. There are too many characters for me to keep them all straight.

The lamia comes to get Anita because Mr. Oliver wants to see her. She takes her to a cave only it isn’t Mr. Oliver, it’s Alejandro. They try to convince Anita to let Alejandro give her his marks, but she refuses. She barely escapes and Edward picks her up and takes her home. Richard shows up for their date, but Anita was bitten by the lamia and the poison finally takes effect and she passes out. She wakes up in Jean Claude’s house. Richard took her there and JC has given Anita the third mark. She is furious, to say the least, so she calls Mr. Oliver and tells him that JC is the Master of the City and where his daytime resting place is, now that she knows it.

Anita finds out that Mr. Oliver’s plan is to take over the city and to send all the vampires on a killing spree since the thinks that vampires should be illegal again. Anita calls Jean Claude and tells him everything. He arranges to have a “battle” which is staged as a show at Circus of the Damned. They have the fight and somehow Mr. Oliver gives Anita all 4 marks to make her his human servant. She kills him and passes out.

Anita wakes up and Richard comes to visit. Richard, who had his throat torn out by a vampire the night before, so she finds out he’s a werewolf. Somehow, Mr. Oliver’s marks reverse Jean Claude’s so Anita no longer has any marks and is free of JC. She is relieved.

They call Anita “The Executioner” and they call Edward “Death”