by Mark Henwick
She came over and hugged me.
“Honey, he makes ’em, he breaks ’em. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve kinda forgotten, but Yelena’s Carpathian. Genuine Carpathian, not just by infusion like you.”
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t shout and swear like I wanted to. It wasn’t Jen I was angry at.
I tried to speak calmly.
“And Yelena’s my House now. House Farrell. Sworn to Panethus. Not Carpathian.”
Yelena spoke from behind me: “Yes, but I was born and raised, infused and trained in the domain of Carpathia.” She had the suite across the hall, and she’d have heard us talking. “Carpathia closed borders to all outside Athanate long before I was born. No news comes out. Skylur will say I know more about the domain than anyone else he has access to.” She shrugged. “He’s probably right. I can understand that he wants to find out anything I can tell him.”
“He wanted to take her away down in LA,” Jen said. “Diana told him to wait until you were more recovered.”
“It’s only talk. Only a few days, Mistress,” Yelena said. She joined us and Jen slipped an arm around her, pulling her into our embrace.
Yelena was putting out pacifics to calm me down.
“Keep them to yourself,” I snapped. “I’ll be angry until I’m ready to stop.”
They laughed, a little humor in a bleak afternoon. An indulgence of my immature reaction.
“I have to finish packing.” Yelena pulled away. She kissed my cheek in parting and returned across the hallway.
“And me.” Jen returned to her case.
Her voice took on a casual tone which warned me something else was coming. “Skylur’s let a lot of things slide while you were in Diana’s care.”
“Such as?”
“Biting,” she said, not meeting my eye. “You. Me.”
I sat down on the bed abruptly. She was right, of course. Jen was running Altau Holdings for him. Yes, she was my kin and bound to me, and I was bound by Blood oath to him, but no other Athanate in his position would have someone like Jen, a human, that close to him, with that much control over his House assets, without biting her as well. And he hadn’t bitten me, either.
“You think this trip is all about biting you?”
“No, honey. The business is real and it’s a good time to get things done that’ll be easier if I’m there in New York. It’s just I think he’ll take the opportunity to ask, and I don’t feel I’m in a position to refuse, any more than you would be. He’s not singling me out. I’m the only one on his staff he hasn’t bitten. It’s just the Athanate way.” She refolded her scarves, her graceful hands becoming clumsy and her voice tight. “In fact, it’s probably not sensible to refuse him anything.”
My stomach got that out-of-control dropping elevator sensation.
Blood and sex.
Jen came and knelt in front of me.
“Honey, it’s okay. It’ll be fine. We haven’t got... what was the phrase you used? A suburban, white picket fence kind of marriage. A hybrid vamp, a wolf and a human? It’s kinda a given we’ll have problems. Problems which we can get over.”
I wanted to say it was still unfair, but she was right. We had no neat human borders.
She took my hands and kissed them.
“I know I’m not saying this right, but Alex and I knew we’d have to talk about this soon. It’s not as if it’s all about me. On one hand, you need more kin, and on the other you’re in the same position here, with Bian, as I will be with Skylur.”
My mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but again, she was correct. This was House Trang’s territory. Bian had every Athanate right over me and my House. My Blood, by Athanate law, and my body, by custom.
And she’d made it clear she was attracted to me. Many times.
“She has sixteen kin at Haven,” I said, because I had to say something. “Why would she bother with me?”
Jen snorted, dismissing my argument.
“I’m jealous,” she said. “Of course I am. But I got into this with you, knowing what I was getting into. And I’ve always known that I’d need to separate what I could control from what I couldn’t. If I get hung up on things I can’t control, it’ll eat me away from the inside, and there’s no defense against that.”
“Well, Bian’s one issue. On the other, I have katikia, Jen. I don’t need more kin.”
Jen gave an elegant time-will-tell shrug. “Maybe. You know, I like Bian. She’s been much more understanding than we have a right to expect.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to be upset about that.”
I knew she wasn’t telling the complete truth, but I was too shocked and upset to say so.
“I love you,” I said instead.
“And I love you too.” She kissed me and it was all right for a minute.
Then she chased me out, saying she needed to concentrate on packing. Her eyes were misting.
Yelena’s door was open. She had less elaborate requirements for clothes than Jen, and she was finished packing.
“I’ve told Julie to take you to Haven,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied dully. My Diakon was being efficient, but it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. “Jen’s just told me I should be getting more kin and be prepared for Bian to make demands.”
“I know,” Yelena said. “Is hard for both of you. I understand.”
“It is hard, but I don’t understand why it needs to be like this,” I said. “I’m Athanate. I enjoy sharing Blood with you. I haven’t demanded you to come to my bed. I don’t mean you’re not attractive. I mean...”
The words seem to twist around inside my head but Yelena understood. She laughed.
She was about to speak when Amanda interrupted us, coming in behind me and looking worried.
“I’m sorry, Amber. I seem to be apologizing for Flint and Kane all the time.”
“It’s okay.” I waved off her apology. “They just accused me of being a blood magic witch performing Satanic rituals. No big deal.”
That was spiteful and unnecessary.
“Sorry,” she repeated.
“No, Amanda. I’m sorry.” I ran fingers through my hair and tried to visualize gathering the stress into my lungs and blowing it out of my body. This little vacation had started so well. “I need them to say things like that, because if they think it, that’s the attitude I’ll face out there from other Adepts. I need to know that.”
“It doesn’t excuse them,” she said and moved forward awkwardly to give me a hug.
I squeezed her back and we both got a reminder of how much we were looking forward to exchanging Blood. Just not quite now.
“I promise they won’t be so crass again.” Amanda hurried out, her face warm.
I watched her go, still enjoying the pulse of desire for her Blood.
“Need to scratch that itch before it bites you,” Yelena said quietly, straight-faced.
I glared at her.
“Is old Carpathian saying,” she protested.
She was trying to make me feel better. I was House Farrell, and she was my Diakon. She was being ordered to leave her new kin behind while she went to New York so my ultimate boss could be sure of her reliability, as if my word was not enough. And that meant, as Mistress of the House, I’d failed her. I should be the one trying to make her feel better.
“Amanda and I will bite each other as soon as it calms down,” I said. “And there’s nothing else in it.”
“Maybe.” She grinned briefly and then got serious again, unknowingly echoing Jen. “Is difficult time. Don’t waste it on worrying things you can’t control. Skylur? He’s being an asshole, but he’s not here, and he’s not going to hurt Jen or me. Bian? How bad is that? Felix and Cameron? All quiet. Empire of Heaven? Far away. You have Adepts in Denver. You can’t fight them, so don’t fight them. Don’t get caught up. Get Tullah back with Kaothos and let them handle the Adepts.”
“Wise words, Diakon. I’m not sure I can avoid the Hecate.”
“The ice bitch wants to speak to Diana, let her speak to Diana.” She tilted her head to indicate the rest of the house. “Your Adepts say she’s powerful, but not so powerful she could do something to Diana and Kaothos, I think, yes? Is not your fight. Your job is getting Tullah back. She hasn’t called yet?”
“No. I’m getting worried. Matt promised she would call.”
After a scatter of calls on Christmas day, the cell phone had been quiet. Right on cue, it pinged and I grabbed it without even checking the number.
“Tullah?”
“No.” The voice was calm, precise. It made me wonder what it took to ruffle the Hecate.
“Speak of the devil,” I said. I wasn’t going to ask how she had my number.
“We were speaking of dragons, actually, last time, and I know she’s back in Denver now.”
It chilled me that she knew, but I wasn’t going to confirm it to her, so I said: “What do you want, Hecate?”
“What I want is to avoid the horrendous mistakes that Diana, you and Tullah are about to make with Kaothos.”
“What mistake would that be?”
“Almost anything you do. Even if you do nothing. You’re blundering in the dark.”
Dark. Dark magic.
I didn’t want to even think about that until I’d spoken to Kaothos.
“And you, in contrast, are an expert with dragons. Got a long history with them.”
If my sarcasm bit her, it didn’t show in her voice, which remained quiet, her wording careful.
“No, we don’t have a long history, but what we do have is a sophisticated structure that is designed to avoid mistakes. I dislike analogies, but if you had a live grenade, you wouldn’t give it to kids to play catch. You’d give it to someone who understands explosives.”
“A dragon is not a grenade.”
“I did say I disliked analogies, which often seem designed to encourage argument and ignore the central issue—”
“The central issue being what you do with something as powerful as a dragon spirit guide.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “You can’t use her to power unstable, unpredictable shamanic workings, or even structured workings, if you don’t have safeguards in place. You have none of those safeguards and no ability to create them. You have no idea of the power you’re trying to control.”
“So you want Kaothos. You’re like the Empire—you want to take her for yourselves. Do you have someone lined up already who’ll take Kaothos? Do you even believe you can persuade her to move?”
I was arguing from a position of weakness here. Kaothos had moved before, from Tullah to Diana. An instinct, I’d been told, something hypnotically attractive about Diana’s power, even though Diana wasn’t an Adept.
Was it purely instinct?
She certainly hadn’t wanted to move from Diana to the Empire’s chosen Adept.
Could she choose where to move to? If not, was it going to be possible to get back to Tullah? Was Tullah not strong enough?
Was the Hecate strong enough?
Her voice interrupted my thoughts. “I’d rather discuss all that with Kaothos.”
“I don’t have her cell phone number handy.”
My snark was rewarded with a faint sigh. “Just tell Diana she must allow me access. It’s important. More important than anything else. More urgent even than your enemies gathering, about which you seem to be almost willfully ignorant.”
What? Enemies?
I’d have to find out what she meant, but for her to tell me now would put me more in her debt.
“What if Kaothos refuses?” I said instead.
“Then we all have a problem. You, me, the whole world, including Kaothos.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 16
Would getting Kaothos back to Tullah just cause an even more serious problem?
Ignoring Yelena’s good advice, I worried that around in my mind on the way to Haven.
That and the reasons the Hecate might have for lying about it.
Though she hadn’t killed me when she could have.
Okay, maybe she just saw me as an easy way to get to Kaothos, and kept me alive for that, but I wasn’t sure she needed my help. Couldn’t she and her coven fight their way into Haven? Pull the whole place into the spirit world, where there were no firearms and their magic was lethal?
Flint and Kane didn’t think she could, but she’d caught them off guard down in RiNo.
If she could just kidnap Kaothos, and hadn’t, it was a point in her favor.
But Kaothos a devil? No.
I’d have to hand the decision about what to do with the Hecate over to Diana and Kaothos. I forced my mind away from her and thought about things I might be able to control. Maybe.
Where was Tullah? Why hadn’t she called? How far away was she?
None of that circular tail-chasing was getting me anywhere either.
Julie drove and said very little. I sensed she wasn’t happy about Yelena’s situation. It made for an unusually quiet and tense journey, and it was a relief when we turned into the open gates at Haven.
There were ex-Ops 4-10 people everywhere. Some faces I knew. Most of them knew Julie.
Normally, I’d have expected smiles and high fives, but either they had something going on, or we didn’t look approachable this evening. It wasn’t until we reached the guard on the front door that someone spoke to us.
A message from Bian.
She wanted Julie to go down to the gym to help out assessing some new arrivals. I was instructed to visit the Dark Library, fetch a couple of books that were waiting there and then join Bian and Diana down in Skylur’s Lyssae hall.
I’d heard Skylur speak about the Dark Library, but I’d never seen it. Haven was like an iceberg, with most of it hidden below the ground, and I knew both the Lyssae and the Dark Library were only accessible from secret elevators.
Bian’s instructions explained how to get there: End of the ground floor corridor, room on the right, stand on the circular pattern.
I’d been this way a couple of times, but it was still a little strange when curved glass whispered out from the wall to surround me and then the floor dropped away.
At the bottom, I ended up in a blank passage with featureless walls and dim lighting.
This way to the Dark Library?
No signs. There looked to be a door of some kind at the end. Perhaps it was in there.
I touched the door, and I could feel it begin to open, but the lights in the passageway went out.
Maybe there was a timer on them.
I felt along the wall.
“There is no light switch,” a voice from the darkness said.
Crap. Dark Library, as in literally dark.
“How the hell am I supposed to see well enough to pick up a couple of books?”
“Give it time.”
The voice was dry and soft, whispery.
“And you are?”
“Ptolymeus.”
Old, old Athanate. Centuries old.
Something tickled a memory. Things that I’d seen and heard started to come together like a jigsaw puzzle.
“You dress dramatically,” I said. “Black cloak with a hood.” I’d seen him walking along a corridor at Haven once—arms outstretched as if feeling his way.
The laughter was like paper rustling.
“And Skylur calls you Tolly?”
Ptolymeus—Tolly-may-us—Tolly. Skylur had said something about Tolly’s unverifiable assertions. Tolly was the guardian of Altau’s library, their printed knowledge, and their arcane lore.
“You have me,” he said. “Tolly. The blind mole in the basement. The poor, abused servant hidden from view.”
My eyes were adjusting. My wolf-eyes went deep into the infra-red, and from his body heat, I could make out his form sitting at a table not far from me.
There were steps down, which no human woul
d have been able to see.
And there were books waiting on the table, cooler than the wooden surface of the table itself. I could see them more as an absence of warmth, but their shape was unmistakable.
I went down the steps and walked across carefully to pick up the books.
“These are for me?”
“Yes. Your eyesight is excellent. I would suppose that’s the wolf in you.”
“Probably. Tell me, why have no light in a library?”
“There are books in here that would fade. In fact, some of them would actually crumble in the light,” he said. He made a dismissive waving motion. “And I have no need of it.”
“So people have to know what books they need before they come and ask you?”
“It’s more the case they have to ask House Altau,” he replied. “If he agrees, I merely serve. Some books I can let out, some I have to read down here to the person requesting.”
I opened one of the books from the table at random. “You can read this?”
I couldn’t even see the writing.
“Of course.” One hand stretched out and the fingers skimmed over the surface of the book’s page. He spoke, but since he was speaking a language I didn’t recognize, I had to take his word for it.
I wanted to ask how, but maybe that was a sensitive area.
Instead, I asked: “And this library is... I mean, the scope of it?”
“Everything written that the Athanate people have ever collected, or been interested in, that I have heard about, I have bent my mind to obtaining.” His voice was less dry now. “All praise to Altau for sponsoring and protecting this vital work down the ages, without one moment of doubt. Knowledge is power, and only the Carpathians’ library at Hutsul could in any way challenge the Dark Library for scope.”
He paused and I sensed him stirring in the darkness, beneath his enveloping cloak. “I so want to talk to the librarians in Hutsul, Amber of House Chrysos, the Golden House, the long-lost House of Carpathia.”
“It’s Amber of House Farrell, sub-House of Altau, recently-found in Denver, Tolly. I have no idea of my welcome in Carpathia, and no plans to find out.”
“Perhaps,” he said. I got the impression the topic was not closed. “Forgive me. For me, this is my life. Altau desires the power of knowledge. I desire knowledge for its own sake. I will not rest until I have gathered it all, every book.”
