Department 57: Bloody Crystal

by Lynne Connolly

  “So don’t keep me on a string.” He felt the tension. A note in Grady’s voice told him something was wrong.

  “Her parents? We didn’t know about them. No records at all. They never asked for new IDs from us. They must have managed all that on their own. If they were nomads, that made it easier. They probably bought false IDs on the black market when they needed them. Are you getting me, Tryfanwy? Nothing. No records.”

  Nobody accused Rhodri of being slow on the uptake. “You mean the Department didn’t find them on the street on the day they died?”

  “Nope. I’m still investigating, but even under another name, there’s no reference. Because of the information you gave us, we could place the family sigil. Your Cerys has relatives, very distant, living in the US, but they’re there. So we have records of the family. Not her parents. I’m looking into it. We’re checking the media and the government records in other places.”

  Officially Department 57 in the UK was part of the intelligence network. They had discreet offices in the MI6 building, even. So they had privileged access, and if they were anything like the US setup, they had geeks who could get in anywhere they wanted to. “Thanks. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  No record.

  Fuck. That meant someone else had scooped them off the main street at the demo. If that had actually happened. She said a member of the Department had visited her, which was how she’d known how her parents had died. Looked as if there was an ulterior motive going on. He didn’t like it—didn’t like it at all. In his bones, he itched. His skin crawled. This was too close to things he knew too much about. The laboratories that captured Talents to experiment on and sell. Geoffrey fucking Wilkinson, who was king of the labs right now. Something.

  He needed to make sure Cerys was safe. He could be called back at any time. He was still officially on duty, still waiting for Wilkinson to make a move. He didn’t want to leave her unprotected. Couldn’t.

  He turned and strolled back to the main road, ignoring the car that blared at him. Bloody tourists always thought they owned the place. He decided not to give it the finger, start something that might just liven up his afternoon. He’d damaged enough tourists. Even though he was certain he hadn’t dealt a deathblow to any of them, one had ended up dead. And since he’d definitely rendered them unconscious, that was partly his fault. Whoever came after him and Cerys had found it easy. It could have been drunks, someone looking for a punching and kicking bag. It had happened before. Or it could have been someone who wanted to silence at least one of the five.

  It was his duty to report it, but he hoped it wouldn’t lead to anything else. Not here, not in the town he’d regarded as a comfortable backwater, somewhere to come and recharge his batteries, a place where nothing happened. He liked it that way.

  The picturesque bay was fringed by Victorian houses, most of them hotels. Tall buildings with double bays on the ground floor, painted faded pastel shades or white. Not like the lurid and vivid shades of San Francisco’s Painted Ladies. He liked it like this. Familiar, very British. Very Welsh. He stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered to her lodging. He wouldn’t put his senses out to her. He’d do it the mortal way. He pulled out his phone and hit her number—like Grady’s, on speed dial. After a week. She answered. “Hi.” Her voice, soft and intimate, warmed his chilled skin.

  “It’s me. Are you home yet?”

  “Yes, I just put the kettle on. Do you want to come up?”

  He paused. So tempting. “Not today. I’m outside. Unless you can’t wait for that cup of tea, come down. I want to show you something.”

  She laughed. “Mysterious much?”

  “Call it a surprise. So how about it? If I come up, you know what will happen.” The main reason he hadn’t made it to his hotel much this week, except to change. He grinned. He couldn’t deny it tempted him now. They could always walk later. No, they wouldn’t. “Come on. Grab an umbrella.”

  She came down five minutes after, leaving the house, which opened with a waft of the damp, cabbage smell he couldn’t like, no matter how much it was coming to mean to him. But it also meant her discomfort, and he definitely didn’t like that.

  Chapter Five

  When Rhodri kissed her, Cerys felt complete. He enveloped her, and his gentle kiss invaded her slowly, as if she were made of cotton wool. She loved it, but she’d never admitted it to herself before. Men often treated her like she was delicate, but that didn’t mean as much to her as when Rhodri did it. He knew what she was, and he knew she wouldn’t break easily. Yet he still treated her like something precious.

  She loved that.

  But he gazed down at her for a moment before he swung away, though he ran his hand down her arm until he found her hand. He threaded his fingers between hers. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Gareth’s.”

  She hadn’t known Gareth Tryfanwy. Now she knew why. Perhaps he preferred to keep himself solitary, not to contact other Talents, as she did. Strange to think that another Talent was living so close and she’d never known it.

  They walked to the next road, crossed it, and passed in front of the big hotel there. The Excalibur. Never full, its heyday had been in the years of Victorian splendor, when holidaymakers had come to ride along the promenade in their best crinolines and frock coats, showing off to their neighbors and friends. When going abroad hadn’t been something most people thought of. The surge to Spain in the seventies, the advent of cheap air travel to places that could guarantee sunny weather, had almost killed places like Llandudno. Now they had a resurgence for weekend breaks, secondary holidays. She’d been delighted to see the refurbishment of the great hotels. The Excalibur’s pristine white paintwork gleamed in the light of the intermittent sun, windows glittering, and the drains a crisp black. She remembered rust on those drains, patchy paint on the exterior, and a faded sign missing letters.

  “You’re staying at Gareth’s?”

  He shook his head. “I’m staying here at the Excalibur. It was more convenient.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  They crossed the road and walked a little farther, almost to the end of the parade, where they faded out to less grand, more homely looking places. These were more lodging houses and moderately priced bed-and-breakfasts rather than full-fledged hotels with licenses to serve drinks and en suites in every room. Traditional boarding houses. They had small front gardens, most of them paved over to provide parking areas.

  He tugged her toward one at the end of the row, a semidetached flanking a small side road. “Here we are.”

  “A change of scene?”

  He slid the key in the lock. It opened easily. That should have been her first clue.

  She’d expected a run-down house with old-fashioned furniture, perhaps infested with the curse of the seaside home: damp. Maybe a rash of brown and orange, carpets with brash patterns dating back thirty years or more. Pictures of the Tretchikoff green woman or a child with a single tear running down his face. That kind of thing. The house had been owned by someone who had, she’d heard, died of old age.

  Nope, she saw nothing like that.

  If anything, the house looked empty. Absent of any personality, but it had a potential that took her breath away. The front door opened onto a smallish hallway with a polished wood floor and a row of hooks, presumably for hats and coats, although they were empty. The walls were painted a soft white color.

  He pressed a hand into the small of her back, and they went through to the first reception room.

  Everywhere the house was in excellent taste, and although the furniture was sparse, it was of good quality. The ground floor had two reception rooms, a dining room, and a kitchen, equipped with an Aga, a modern gas cooker, and all modern conveniences.

  When he asked her what she thought, she told him to wait until she’d seen the whole house.

  They went upstairs. There were two more floors and above that an attic, which had been converted i
nto a potential office area. They went down to the main floor and into the kitchen. She found a canister with instant coffee in it next to the kettle and decided black coffee was better than nothing, and in any case, it gave her something to do. She busied herself filling the kettle and finding mugs for the coffee. It meant she didn’t have to look at him while she told him what she thought. “What do you think?” he asked her.

  “It’s nice. But it has no soul.” That was the problem, she realized. “It’s like a show home. No tatty books, no ornaments that don’t match, nothing personal. Did your uncle really live here?”

  He sighed. “Yes, but it was a slum. Awful. It stank, and it had old newspapers and garbage in every room. It was as if he’d nested here.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t sure what to do. I’d made sure he didn’t want for money, but he wasn’t particularly friendly. Having a nephew who was his several greats older but looked a lot younger than him freaked him out, I guess. So I stayed away. When he died, I tried to find other relatives, but there were none left. None my solicitor could find, anyway. So I got it. I had a choice. I could sell it as it was, or I could refurbish it. I decided to do that, but I don’t want to make a profit. I don’t want it to become a holiday home.”

  She turned around, her back to the work surface. “I’m so relieved. I thought it was your taste or something.”

  He grinned. “It has no taste. Or at least, I asked the people I employed to do the work to make it neutral. Whoever takes it over can put their personality into it.” He’d taken a seat at the large kitchen table, and now he stretched, putting his hands behind his head.

  “In that case,” she said, “it’s perfect.”

  “Come here.”

  Abandoning the kettle, which would switch itself off once it boiled, she crossed the room and stood between his open thighs. He studied her, his face relaxed and open. She loved that. She guessed his life hadn’t been without its troubles. He slid his hands around her waist.

  Then something occurred to her. “You said your uncle is really your nephew. Does that mean he wasn’t a vampire?”

  He met her gaze steadily. “Yes, that’s what it means.”

  “So—so your family weren’t vampires?”

  “Nope.”

  She swallowed. “You’re a made vampire.” She caught her breath as he nodded to confirm. She should have realized before, but she’d almost come to think of made vampires as legends. It was so hard to achieve she’d thought it a myth.

  “I am.”

  “You don’t have to tell me any more if you don’t want to.”

  He got to his feet but kept hold of her, his arms around her waist. “Later. I’ll tell you later.”

  And just like she’d dreamed as a girl, he swept her into his arms and took her upstairs.

  She wasn’t wearing much. Neither was he. They began to strip each other between kisses and caresses. When he bared her breasts, he paused and lifted one gently. “These are so lovely. Every time I see them, I’m amazed at how beautiful they are.” And he drew her close and kissed her, nestling her against his hard, broad chest. She loved his heat. He always seemed so hot. “I’m not usually this greedy with a woman. I should have taken you for dates, treated you a bit more, but I can’t seem to get past the bedroom. I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” She didn’t care. “So I’m a cheap date. So what? It’s what I want too.”

  He touched his lips to her forehead. She loved their closeness at these times and the way he let her in. She wasn’t fooled by the casual way he allowed her into his mind. She’d sensed closed areas and hadn’t pushed, feeling that he didn’t do this often. Not that she’d ask. He might close up. He had secrets. She knew that, and she didn’t feel she should press. Maybe natural reticence, the way her parents had brought her up to respect people’s spaces. And the knowledge that this was all they’d have. He’d move on. She’d mourn, but she’d keep that to herself. Maybe they could meet again as friends in the future, and in that case, he might not want her to know too much about him.

  He growled low in his throat, kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth in total possession before he gripped her waist and urged her to turn around. “Put your hands on the bed.”

  Her heart thudding, she did so. He pushed her down. They were probably the first people to use this bed, if he’d had the house stripped and refurbished. Her hands sank into the soft white duvet.

  “Comfortable?”

  She nodded.

  “You won’t be.” She was naked. He wasn’t. He still wore his jeans, although he’d kicked off his canvas high-tops. They lay askew on the Oriental carpet, incongruous and untidy, making the place instantly more lived-in. She began to warm to the house, especially when he kissed down her spine right to the base. When he stroked his finger gently between the crease of her buttocks, she shuddered and opened to him. The tops of her thighs were damp with her arousal, chilling quickly when he nudged her legs apart.

  What was going on? Why didn’t he take her? When she lifted her head, she saw why. The cloudy weather gave a foil to the window, and she saw their images in the glass. While she couldn’t see in detail, she saw his head was lowered, and he was looking at her with an intensity she could almost feel.

  Belay that; she did feel it. He was projecting his need into her mind, and—oh…

  “Oh yeah.” His voice came so softly she had to strain to hear it. “You look so beautiful there. Lovely curves, and all that pink…”

  “Pink what?” Her voice sounded too high. She cleared her throat.

  “Just pink.” He touched her labia, fingered her, then pinched her clit. She jumped at the solid shock it sent through her. “Ready or not, sweetheart, here I come.”

  He grasped his cock—she saw it through their mental link—and guided it to her wet, inviting pussy. She saw them kiss when they connected, a light contraction of her opening to welcome him, and then he slipped in. Just. But he didn’t linger for long. With one violent thrust, he drove his way inside.

  Her mind went blank, her body overdosing on delight as he continued to thrust—deep, hard, and relentless. He kept his fingers on her clit, pinching and tweaking to increase the pleasure he brought her. So deep.

  “Feels good,” she managed.

  “Yes, oh fuck yes, it does.”

  Just the hard pumping of his body into hers would have brought her up, but the action of his fingers made it more intense. Her hands shook, but she braced herself more firmly. No way did she want this to stop. Little shocks gradually increased, waves of sheer sensation coursing through her body, washing her and leaving her clean.

  She no longer worried about the sounds she made, and here she didn’t have to worry about alerting neighbors, so she let rip, telling him just what he was doing, showing it with their combined minds. He responded, encouraged her, supported her. Gave her everything.

  Her cries increased, and he loved it, or so he said to her. “Never, ever stop telling me. You sound so good. You look so hot. So good, Cerys.”

  She came, her pussy clenching helplessly around his cock.

  She didn’t know how he held on, but she felt him withdraw, and then he removed his hand from her oversensitive clit and wrapped it around her waist. “Stand up. Lean against me.”

  She did. “I’ll do anything if you carry on doing what you do so well.” She turned her head to kiss him. He cupped her cheek and held it while he kissed her, and the scent of her arousal from his fingers wove around them, sent her higher. She had left her scent on him like a cat claiming its possession.

  He spun her toward him, then turned them so he backed onto the bed.

  He broke the kiss and sat. She stared down at him, the head of his cock red and wet, bathed with the juices from deep inside her body. “Do vampires take from each other?” she asked him.

  “Sometimes. But only when they want their connection to be permanent. If we do that, you’ll never be free of me, and I won’t be free of you.”

>   “Do you want to be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Honest.”

  He bared his teeth, snapped them together just millimeters from her stomach, then leaned back to gaze at her. His dark eyes softened, his gaze intense. “One day we might. I’ve never said that to any other woman. I’ve fed women before, at their request sometimes, but never another vampire.” He pressed against her back, urging her down onto him. “Now come and sit here. Let’s get comfortable.” He leaned back, rested his weight on his hands, and watched her lower herself onto him. This time she held his cock with one hand while she eased her pussy over him, enclosing him once more.

  It felt better. Much better. He penetrated deeply, at a different angle. And this time she could watch him, not borrow images from his mind.

  He smiled up at her. “Kiss me.”

  Needing no further invitation, she bent her head and accepted his mouth. He cupped the back of her head to hold her close, and she lifted and plunged down on him. She was fast coming to love this position, although she’d never really enjoyed it before. He threaded his hands through her hair, moaned into her mouth, encouraging her to do more. And more.

  Holding his body under her, he pressed up with his hips, deep into her as she bore down on him. He kissed her ruthlessly, invading her with his tongue, tasting every inch of her. No images in her mind now, no words, just heat, as if they’d left words behind. They didn’t need them anymore.

  He eased the kiss, making it more leisurely, tasting her with a thoroughness she’d never forget. And all the time they moved, driving each other to a joint aim they could almost taste. After she’d come, her only ambition was to help him get there, but now she wanted more. Greedy beyond anything she’d known before, she felt her desire rise. Not in shock waves as it had last time, but in warmth suffusing her body, building to heat.

  They were burning up, but she didn’t care.

  Then the sun went down.

  It stopped him cold. She moved on him, rotated her hips, and then opened her eyes and stared down at him. She hadn’t realized she’d closed them. Fuck, she’d been so close.