Blood Recall

by Connie Suttle

  "Hmmph. See that he calls me. I wish to hear this story myself. The way you tell it, it is preposterous."

  "He ah, says there was a note with the body."

  "Then I await his call."

  "As you say, sir."

  "Hmmph." I punched the button to end the call, sick as I was of looking at the imp's pasty face on my phone screen. Kornel would explain this mess to me personally, and apologize for telling the imp to call me to begin with.

  At that point, an image came through, causing my cell phone to beep. I opened the attachment to see it better. The note was written in Russian.

  Greetings, General, it began. We would like very much for you to halt your pursuit of William Winkler and any others connected to him. We've returned this vampire to you; the other four we've caught are now ash, including the mister. Continue at your own risk—you have been warned.

  Zaria.

  Zaria? I knew of none by that name. "Hmmph," I said again and shut off my phone. A woman was responsible for my mister's death? Well. We would find this Zaria, and teach her a lesson she would not forget—until her death came at our hands.

  Lissa

  "Damn, I'm tired," I said, while pouring a cup of coffee and adding cream.

  "Here," Zaria held out a bottle of honey.

  "Thanks." I dumped a generous dollop of honey into my cup and stirred before sipping. Sundown was almost on us, Zaria had been cooking for werewolves most of the day and looked exhausted to me. She'd left dinner for them in warming pans, which the housekeeper promised to clean up afterward.

  "Bend time and get some sleep," I suggested. "While I wake up from a bad nap."

  "All right—I'll be back in an hour." I watched her disappear, wondering where she'd go so she'd feel safe. After seeing the grave opened and body parts strewn everywhere the night before, my sleep had been filled with all sorts of bad dreams—dreams of being up against more than we thought we were.

  And, as my dreams had a habit of being true or mostly so, I was worried. I thought this would be a walk in the park. Things were sliding sideways, however, and Winkler was at the center of the maelstrom.

  Why did they take his father's rib bones? Three were missing. Why? The same question had haunted my sleep, too, and still there was no glimmer of an answer.

  I hoped Zaria was able to rest; we needed to discuss all these events when she came back, and she needed a clear head to do it properly.

  As did I. Taking a sip of my coffee, I waited for its magical waking properties to manifest.

  "The boss is irritable, with a capital I," Trajan said softly when he walked into the house an hour later. "Where are Zaria and Ilya?"

  "Ilya is upstairs in the shower. Zaria is still asleep, I hope. Not only was she out all night, but she cooked all day for your bunch, too. I hope Winkler remembers that come paycheck time."

  "We uh, may have a line on another cook," Trajan cleared his throat. "Boss mentioned the same thing about Zaria—says she's too valuable to us elsewhere, although her cooking is more than fine."

  "Thank goodness," I let my shoulders droop in relief. "She needs sleep just like anybody else."

  "She won't have to carry that disguise if she stops cooking and stays over here," he added.

  "I'd say that's up to her," I said.

  "Yeah."

  "Lissa?" Winkler called out from the front door. "There are three people out here who want to see you."

  "What the fuck?" I slid off my barstool quickly and headed toward the front door.

  "Problem," Zaria announced as she ran down the stairs and breezed past me. No, she didn't look like Harriett Majors any longer. She looked like the dark-haired, bright-blue-eyed Karathian witch, Zaria.

  "You know about this?" I followed in her wake, expecting the worst.

  "Just now. Come on," she stopped to grab my arm and pull me forward. "Let's go tell dear old Dad how nice it is to see him."

  Terrified that I'd find Griffin at the front door, my posture stiffened so much I was marching straight-legged toward waiting doom, only to find Charles, Dalroy and Rhett at the door instead.

  Dear old Dad.

  Zaria's dad.

  Charles.

  "We've taken out five vamps, but Baikov isn't one of them," I explained to Dalroy, after he asked the question.

  "I should have known you were involved in all this—it explains everything," Rhett grinned. Ever since we'd met in Kansas City that first time, he'd hoped we'd see one another again, somewhere.

  "Well, don't get your hopes up too high," I cautioned. "I think this is worse than I imagined at the beginning."

  I studied Zaria—she'd not said a word after Charles' arrival. I wondered if arms crossed tightly meant she and Charles were having a mental sparring match, instead. Ilya, whose widened eyes indicated the only surprise he was willing to reveal at Zaria's new appearance, soon settled in to join the conversation.

  "We haven't come across the werewolves, either, and I know he has some," Winkler interjected. "We got their scent twice, now, but no sign of them since the full moon. Weldon is flying in tomorrow," Winkler went on. "He doesn't like the looks of this, either, so I sent the jet to pick him up."

  "Do you three want to stay here?" I asked Charles. I didn't bother to discuss that the Charles I knew in the past had never indicated he thought I was anywhere else. This one knew where the current me was, and that the future me was here, sitting at the kitchen island two chairs down from his.

  "I think it's safer—I worry that the safe houses may have been compromised with this many vamps involved. They can't attack during the day, but the werewolves can."

  "Weldon may want to stay here, too, just so he won't have to hear Kellee's tantrums," Winkler sighed. "Will you have enough space?"

  "That'll fill all but one bedroom," I said. "We have enough room."

  "There's something else," Zaria said.

  "What's that?" Winkler turned to her.

  "I can cast a spell so Lissa and our other vampire guests can walk in daylight. We don't have to confine our activities to night hours only, if we don't want to. I'll remove the spell the moment this is over," she held up a hand. "I don't want word of this to get out, you understand."

  "The wolves will be pissed," Winkler confirmed.

  "Then we just won't tell them. Present company excepted," Zaria said.

  "Are you sure this will work?"

  "I've seen it done," I confirmed. Actually, I'd done it a time or two on Le-Ath Veronis, getting a sire to a comesula on the light half of the planet to perform a turn—after a deadly accident when time was extremely short.

  "I'm willing to try it first," Charles grinned.

  The schmuck.

  "Your eyes will be shielded, too, enough that your brain will believe you're in darkness and your body's urge to shut down won't be such a problem," Zaria went on before approaching Charles first. "I warn you, though, your body clock will fight this all the way down."

  Does he actually need it? I sent to Zaria.

  He has to separate himself from this body to appear in daylight for now. Breanne will give him her blood later and eliminate that problem.

  He can do that? Separate himself?

  Yes, although he looks like he does in the future when that happens. His corporeal body—this one—is left behind somewhere, so he can go out during the day. It expends a great deal of power.

  Yeah. I knew all about a humanoid body being affected by the amount of power it could actually contain. I used to have to separate my spirit from my body and let it fly free to recharge. Once I was promoted to a higher echelon in the Hierarchy, it was no longer necessary.

  Charles, in the here and now, was dealing with the same problem. He knew he'd gather more power eventually, but he'd have to either change his current body or leave it behind to do so. In essence, he'd recreate himself, just as I'd been recreated during my promotion.

  I hadn't done it myself; I'd went to sleep the same old Lissa, and awoke the brand-new
Lissa, capable of holding myself together while expending massive amounts of power.

  When I was new to my earlier power, Ashe had held my body together so I could visibly wield enough of it to make an impact. Without that help, I'd have blasted my own body to atoms with the energy I'd expended on the High Demon world; it was like building a spider web to hold back a speeding train.

  That's when I realized something important. Yes, I was one of the Mighty, now; I'd been promoted.

  Just as Charles, Breanne and Ashe had likely been promoted—or had promoted themselves—into a higher echelon. Yes, people still called them the Three, or the Mighty, but they never referred to themselves like that.

  Not anymore.

  Remind me to have a talk with my sister when we go home, I sent to Zaria.

  I'll be interested in her answers, Zaria replied. Well, all Zaria had to do was look at me to determine what I was thinking—unless she blocked it. Fortunately, she blocked that sort of thing much of the time.

  I didn't want to consider what Zaria might actually be—in the final analysis. She held the entire Metal Library inside herself, and I still didn't fully understand its purpose.

  "What's the plan for tonight, then?" Winkler asked.

  "I did research before retiring for the day," Charles said. "There has been an uptick in the number of flu-like cases reported by physicians. It stands to reason that Ivan Baikov and his vampires are feeding off the population rather than leaving a blood trail in the form of bagged blood shipments. I had to do some coordination of reported cases, but the usual idea of hitting bars and other places where many gather in one place appears evident."

  "Did you narrow it down to which bars?" I asked.

  "Six, in different parts of Dallas, two in Fort Worth."

  "Does this mean we split up tonight?"

  "That makes sense," Charles shrugged. "Nobody goes alone—anywhere. Stay in touch as best you can."

  "I'll take Lissa," Winkler raised his hand immediately.

  "Rhett and I will go," Dalroy offered. They'd opted out of the daylight spell Zaria offered.

  "I will go with Zaria," Charles said. Zaria frowned but didn't say anything.

  "I suggest that Charles go with Trajan, while the only human travels with sure protection," Ilya countered.

  "Hear that?" I turned to grin at Zaria. "You're sure protection."

  "I'll put that on my resume," she laughed.

  Charles wasn't happy, but he acknowledged that Ilya was correct—he needed protection against vampires if he came across any. He might get one shot off before a single vampire was on him, and more than one vampire was a definite death sentence.

  "Let's split these bars up, then," Winkler said. "Lissa and I can take the two in Fort Worth; the rest of you take two each close together, if you can."

  Bar locations were sorted quickly, before we walked out the front door. "Are the shields still up around the houses?" Winkler mumbled as he led me toward a waiting van.

  "Yes."

  "Good." He rolled his shoulders to remove kinks. He was still upset about the night before, and frankly, I needed to speak with Zaria about his father's bones and what might be done with them.

  She had far more experience with the drug than I did. Maybe they were pointing their machinations in that direction, and I didn't like it one bit. Telling Winkler about it, too, could cause more problems than we could deal with.

  For now, that shit was on a need-to-know basis, and I hoped Winkler would never need to know.

  "It's kinda nice to have just the two of us in the car," Winkler sighed as he shut the driver's side door and started the van.

  "Yeah. I feel like I've been on edge for a month, and I've only been here a few days."

  "If you were really on your own, without the Council hanging over your head every minute, I'd take you to the beach and we'd relax."

  "Sounds great, but that's not in the cards."

  "I know. Since Charles is here, does that mean Wlodek knows you escaped?"

  "Not in a manner of speaking. Charles keeps some things from Wlodek. I know that, now."

  "You sure you can trust him?"

  "With my life." I realized I meant it, too.

  "What about the other two?"

  "They know to obey Charles. If he says not to talk, they won't."

  "I always thought Charles was nothing more than a well-organized flunky."

  "Well, we all thought that. Turns out, we were wrong."

  Really, really, wrong.

  Charles

  Zaria had barely looked at me the whole time we were in Lissa's kitchen. I'd hoped to bring her out with me so we could talk in private, but instead, I was with Trajan, Winkler's werewolf Second-in-Command.

  Zaria and Lissa thought I was the current Charles. That body was in sleep stasis elsewhere, while I attempted to help in the here and now. I only changed my appearance to resemble the current Charles, to keep things simple.

  Frankly, things were anything but simple, and they had a lust for power—from both rogue gods and men—stamped all over them. Trust Liron and perhaps others to make this sideways grab at power while the Vampire Council was distracted by the threat posed by Xenides.

  Had the General in this timeframe been aware of Liron's dealings beneath his radar, he'd have removed that threat and carried out Liron's plans himself. Or, he may have subjugated Liron more than he did and together, they'd have destroyed everything.

  It made me grateful that Liron, in his own lust for power at the top, kept his dealings away from the General's prying senses.

  The General was adept at scheming, but Liron was even better.

  "So, how's the mess with Xenides going?" Trajan asked as he steered our van toward the first of two bars on our list.

  "About the same," I replied. "We track him; he eludes us. For him, it's a game with a sick prize at the end of it."

  "Glad I'm not in the middle of that, then," Trajan grimaced.

  I didn't tell him he was in the middle of something that could turn out to be so much worse.

  Zaria

  While summer days in Dallas are generally rated as hot, hotter or hottest, the nights can be slow to cool down. Pulling the collar of my silk shirt open by another button while the SUV's air conditioner blasted at full speed, I considered things. "Why so quiet?" Ilya asked softly.

  "Thinking—about where all the trails lead in this mess," I replied.

  "Yes. I think about that, too. I believe things are more complicated than I originally thought."

  I almost said that's what I love about you, but bit the words back. Instead, I said, "Can you make spaghetti marinara?" It was one of my favorites that he cooked for me in the future.

  "Of course. I have a special recipe. Would you like some? I noticed that you don't eat meat."

  "That's true—it's why I asked."

  "I'll make it for you tomorrow, if we have time."

  "Good, because those werewolves are all about their animal protein, meaning I can't eat everything they do."

  He laughed, and that was a good sound. I was surprised at how well he knew the Dallas area, but didn't ask. If I lowered my blocking shield to read him I'd learn why, and didn't want to pry into other parts of his life. He could tell me those things in his own time, if he wanted me to know.

  The sad truth was I loved him, no matter where or when or how we were, and that would always be. It didn't matter that he was in his late fifties, with a bit of gray in dark-brown hair. The cynical glint still shone in the depths of dark-blue eyes in this existence, and the wry smile would follow him in any guise.

  "Do you ever get the feeling that you've known someone you just met forever?" Ilya asked out of the blue.

  "Once," I agreed. "It was like there was no learning curve—that anything we did was exactly what the other wanted—for the most part." I had memories of Krav Maga lessons that I hadn't wanted, but somebody else told him to teach me, so there was that.

  "Who was it?" he asked.


  I was so tempted to tell him. "I'll tell you someday. How's that?"

  "Someday means you intend to stay in contact. That suits me."

  "Sounds like a deal, as long as you promise not to teach me Krav Maga."

  "You don't want to learn?"

  "I have no aspirations in that area. In fact, it was a New Year's resolution, once—never to learn. Frankly, people have attempted to teach me how to physically protect myself, with mixed and rather disappointing results for them, of course."

  "You rely on your ability to keep you safe?"

  "Generally speaking, yes."

  "Good enough, as long as it continues to keep you safe."

  "So far, so good. Besides, I know a few defensive moves—I learned those during all those previously-mentioned failed attempts at hand-to-hand."

  A familiar, wry smile curved his lips in the dim light of the van's interior. "At least you're not completely helpless," he teased.

  "Those are fighting words, Mister. If you weren't a fellow coffee-lover and spaghetti marinara maker, I'd turn you into a gecko. Don't ever trade insults with a witch, dude, unless you want to shave scales instead of skin."

  His shoulders began to shake—he struggled to hold the laughter back. It failed to work, and he guffawed.

  "Here we are," he turned into the parking lot of the first bar, still chuckling. I went still.

  "Hand on your gun," I whispered. "They're coming."

  Lissa

  It was a trap. They knew we'd look into the matter, and they were content to wait for us to arrive.

  Except they didn't expect Winkler to have anyone except Trajan at his side. The moment we'd stepped out of the van, they attacked. I had shields up or Winkler would have gone down quickly.

  We have three trying to get past my shields, Zaria reported in mindspeech, while I blinked at the four attempting to get past my own. Winkler stepped backward until his shoulder bumped mine before giving all four whirling, striking vampires the finger—with both hands.

  I have Dalroy and Rhett en route to your location, Charles informed me. Trajan and I are about to deal with three who are waiting for us. They won't expect an attack from the outside where you are, so keep your shields up until they're dead. They want Winkler more than anything, I believe, and they've just upped their game to achieve that end.