Blood Noir — Laurell K. Hamilton

Werewolf Jason Schuyler needs Anita Blake -- not as a vampire hunter, federal marshal, or necromancer, but as a friend. He wants to pretend, just for a few days, that he's an everyday guy in an everyday relationship with a pretty woman who loves him, so he can say good-bye to his dying father. It shouldn't be hard to keep their real identities under wraps for a few days in Jason's small hometown.

Really, by now, Anita Blake should know better.

Marmee Noir, ancient mother of all vampires, picks this weekend to make a move. Somehow she has cut the connection that bonds Anita and Jean-Claude, leaving Jean-Claude unable to sense what is happening. Dangerous even as she sleeps, buried in darkness for a thousand years somewhere beneath the old country of Europe, Marmee Noir reaches for power. She has attacked Anita before, but never like this. In Anita she senses what she needs to make her enemies tremble . . .