by Lisa Olsen
In the end Jakob would make his own decision, he always did. “Be gone before I decide to banish you too,” he grumbled irritably, and Bishop had his answer.
For the moment he would be allowed to stay, and that was good enough for now. Knowing Jakob’s moods lent him the wisdom to withdraw without saying anything else. Something was eating at the Ellri, and he only hoped it had more to do with Jakob’s sudden re-emergence into society and not with a certain blond vampire.
Speaking of which, he spotted Rob up ahead and jogged up to catch him before he got to the staircase. “Hey, you got a minute?”
Rob glanced at the stairs, almost as if gauging whether or not he could make a break for it before he turned to face Bishop. “Sure, what’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you for a sec.” Bishop tried a familiar door, his head jerking inside when he found the parlor empty. “Let’s go in here.”
“What’s this about?” Rob asked warily, automatically searching the room to make certain they were completely alone.
“Look, I’m sorry Jakob was ragging on you before about Anja. I wanted to thank you for coming back for us. I’m sorry I slowed us down. I feel like I’m responsible for what happened to you.”
“You are,” Rob said without a trace of emotion. “Then again, so am I. I should never have allowed her to be taken in the first place. I underestimated that brother of yours. Won’t happen again.”
“Right,” Bishop replied uneasily, not sure if he was forgiven or not. “I also wanted to say that even though Jakob’s here and Anja’s under his protection, that isn’t a reason to let your guard down. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s still in danger here. So, be careful and make sure you take care of her.”
Rob’s jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists. “Everybody can bloody well stop telling me how to do my job,” he growled and Bishop took a step backward, surprised at the anger burning there.
“Hey, I just care about her, man. And I can’t get close enough to her to see it through.”
“Neither can I.”
“You’re as close as anyone is right now.” Bishop waited for his meaning to sink in.
“It’s not like that,” Rob snapped, his head canting to one side as he regarded Bishop’s choice of words. “What makes you say something like that?”
So it was true. Bishop wasn’t a hundred percent positive about it until he heard Rob’s denial. It wasn’t just tender feelings on her part, there was something between them. “I know Anja. I can see it every time she looks at you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Actually, I do.” Bishop pulled out Anja’s locket and handed it over. Rob stared at the silver necklace before snatching it up without opening it. They both knew what was inside.
“Where did you get this?” he breathed, turning the worn metal over in his fingers before pocketing it.
“It was in the personal effects locker after we were detained the other night. I retrieved it along with the rest of her jewelry. I don’t think anyone bothered to open it, and everyone on duty last night is dead now anyway, so your secret is safe for now. But it’s only a matter of time before he notices. You can’t keep something from him like that.”
Rob grabbed Bishop’s t-shirt, his grip tight enough to tear the fabric. “There’s nothing going on between Anja and me. Say otherwise and I’ll kill you myself.”
Bishop didn’t move a muscle, he could understand Rob’s agitation. “You’ve had a rough couple of days, so I’ll let that slide this once. But you’d best get your hands off me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Rob said, his lip curling into a challenging sneer.
“Then you’re dumber than I thought you were.” To illustrate his point, Bishop grabbed hold of Rob’s fists and slowly pulled them free of his shirt. “You think because you can push around your average vamp on the street, you stand a chance coming up against me?” He shoved lightly, sending Rob back a foot or two, but the belligerent man was right back in his face again a heartbeat later.
“Keep talking and we’ll find out.”
“I don’t want to fight you.” That wasn’t his intent at all.
“You sure about that? It seems like you’d give anything to trade places with me right about now.” Rob’s chin came up pugnaciously.
“I thought you said there isn’t anything going on between you,” Bishop couldn’t help but gloat, his point made, and Rob’s eyes narrowed to thin slits.
“Keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you.”
Yep, there was definitely something going on between the two of them. That, more than anything else, had Bishop reaching for a drink as soon as Rob stalked off.
*
The lower levels deserted, Bishop wandered through the halls, bottle in hand. It was the second bottle of the night, and he wasn’t completely sure what it was he was drinking anymore. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore. The sun would be up soon, most of the mansion had settled down for the night, and he missed the signs of activity under the house where his teammates would typically still be up and around.
The labs were cleared out, Winter and his surviving team long gone, bound for Rome to await new orders. Probably the same as he should be doing, but Bishop couldn’t rouse himself to pack. Instead he’d wandered upon Fisher’s quarters, untouched since his sudden death. The room showed more signs of life than his ever had, a poster of a blonde in a bikini hanging above the bed and strips of word art scattered on a small magnetic white board next to it. A paper fortune from a Chinese restaurant was taped to the corner of it. Never give up.
Bishop left the room untouched, shutting the door behind him, not that there was anyone left to disturb it. The stone walls felt more like a tomb than anything else, and he half expected to find moldering corpses around each corner. He was losing it. What was he doing down there, wandering the halls like a ghoul?
Suddenly, Bishop didn’t want to stay down there any longer. Heading straight for his quarters, he threw some things together into a bag, planning to find a room upstairs or even in town rather than stay down there one minute longer. His fingers brushed against a file folder as he bent to retrieve the gun he kept under his pillow, and he recognized Fisher’s tight script across the first page. His report on the vampire activity in Vetis.
For a split second, he considered leaving it there. It hardly mattered anymore, but a tiny kernel of curiosity had him snatch it up at the last second before he left. Without a specific destination in mind, Bishop found himself back in the parlor again. The parlor he’d come to think of as theirs, his and Anja’s. Not that he had any real claim to it, but he felt closer to her there, remembering the firelight flickering over her expressive face, and the sound of her begging him not to stop as he’d pressed her up against the wall.
He needed another drink.
All that was left in the bar was vodka, not his first choice, but Bishop gamely switched, settling in front of the fireplace to page through Fisher’s report. He’d been right, there was definitely something fishy going on. On the papers he’d sampled, there were several common markers. Names of local magistrates that approved them, mostly over the past thirty years, but Bishop knew the solid increase of numbers hadn’t dated that far back. That meant there was a concerted effort to backdate the docs. What had Corley been up to?
Bishop spent the better part of a half hour trying to wrap his drunken senses around it before he realized – it didn’t matter one damn bit. Corley was gone, the Order was gone – what difference did it make if there were extra vampires in Vetis? Sure, he could turn the report in to Rome, let them puzzle it out, but in the end, he didn’t care.
Instead, Bishop tossed the report among the logs in the fireplace, watching the paper curl and burn in the rush of flames. The flicker of the fire held his attention until the beep on his phone shook him out of it. Mason’s name flashed across the display, and that was the only reason Bishop answered the call.
“Are you drunk?”
Bishop could hear the surprise in Mason’s voice, he could count the number of times he’d been blotto in front of his subordinates on one hand. But Mason was more than that, he was his closest friend. “Yep.”
“Things are that tough, are they?”
“You have no idea.” He had no right to share what happened without being debriefed by Rome first, but Bishop told him the whole thing, starting with their arrest by Volkov and ending with Jakob completely eradicating the Order’s presence in Vetis.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” Mason sounded like he was trying to decide if it was the liquor talking, or an elaborate hoax.
“I wish I was.”
“Jesus, I can’t even comprehend what that means.” There was a long silence as Mason processed the news, and Bishop tipped the bottle up again. “So, what are you doing now? Gonna pack up and head for Rome?”
“I don’t know,” Bishop answered honestly. “I’m finding it hard to toe the line anymore. I’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and where has it gotten me?” So emotionally fucked up he’d pushed away the woman he loved. “Maybe I should quit altogether. Go somewhere…” He let out a long breath, where could he go? Money wasn’t an issue, but he had no desire to do anything.
“Hey, how about you just come home, man. This is where you belong. We’ll figure it out together.”
Part of that sounded good, being on familiar territory, but it also meant he’d have to watch Anja with someone else. He wasn’t sure he was up for that. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“We need you here, buddy. That’s why I’m calling. The shit is seriously about to hit the fan. I swear Frost’s about a hair away from declaring martial law.”
“That bad, is it?”
“You have no idea,” Mason repeated his words. “It’s like they’ve all been taking crazy pills, attacking us left and right. It’s all we can do to play clean up and try to keep this shit out of the media, we can’t do our jobs at all. Things are completely out of control. Whatever you said to Anja about dialing it down, it didn’t work.”
“She’s not exactly taking my advice these days.”
“Well, can you turn on the charm and convince her to call off her commandos?”
If only it was that easy. “They’re not her commandos. She seemed to have no idea how bad it is back there when I brought it up.” Had it only been a few days ago? It felt like a lifetime.
“Someone’s pulling their strings. They’re way too organized for it to be vigilantes.”
Bishop sat in commiserating silence for a few seconds, his alcohol soaked brain taking longer to come up with an idea. “Maybe you guys should bug out for a while? Let them have San Francisco, pull a strategic retreat to L.A. or maybe Sacramento until the dust settles?”
“I don’t think that’s an option anymore. We’re getting dangerously close to a real crisis here.”
Bishop let out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment to try and clear his head. “Alright, I’ll talk to Anja then.”
“Thanks, man. And remember, you’ve always got a home here. Even if it is fucked up and on the brink of chaos.”
“Thanks, I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
It took him less than five minutes to run cold water over his face and make his way up to her rooms. The thought of Rob sharing her bed made his fist hesitate before his knuckles rapped on the door, but Rob was still completely dressed when he answered it.
“Yeah?”
“I’m here to see Anja, I have something to talk to her about.”
Rob’s brows twitched closer together. “Something like you wanted to talk to me about earlier? I’m not letting you upset her, bugger off.” He started to close the door, but Bishop blocked it open with one hand.
“It’s not about that, it’s important.”
Rob sniffed the air in front of him. “You’re bladdered.”
“Look, I just need a few minutes of her time.”
“She’s gone to bed,” Rob answered, not even pausing to consider the request.
“She’s going to want to see me. It’s about what’s going on back home.”
“Whatever it is, it’s nothing that can’t keep until tonight, now sod off,” Rob said with a light shove at Bishop’s shoulder.
“You can’t keep her all to yourself, you don’t own her.”
Rob’s fist hammered out, catching Bishop squarely across the nose. Bishop was too drunk to do more than stare at him stupidly. It took long seconds to process the hit and for his own fist to cock back. Rob looked positively giddy at the notion of a good, old fashioned, knock down fight. But before Bishop could answer the punch with one of his own, he heard a deep, menacing growl as Tucker edged closer in wolf form, his ruff standing on end. Bishop took a step backwards, cursing inwardly as he almost tripped over his own boot.
“You’re not wanted here.” Rob’s arms crossed, and Bishop wanted to knock that smug look off his face, but some shred of self preservation had him stumbling down the hall in retreat.
“Tell her…” You’re not wanted here. “Ah, fuck it… never mind. Forget I was here.” He waved it off, going back to pursue the bottom of the bottle.
Chapter Six
I lay in bed, running through my last conversation with Jakob to see if maybe I’d read too much into it, when the sound of angry voices had me up and tugging on my robe. But by the time I got to the sitting room, all I saw were Rob and Tucker standing by the door.
“Was someone here to see me?”
Rob’s brows drew together when he spotted me. “You’re meant to be asleep.”
“I thought I heard Bishop’s voice, was he here?”
“He’s had a bit too much of the sauce. Whatever he had to say can wait for sundown. Back to bed with you.”
Bishop was drunk? That didn’t sound like him at all. Sure, I’d known him to take a drink when the chips were down but… whatever it was, must’ve been pretty bad if he’d shown up hammered. “What if it’s important?”
“Ain’t nothing more important than your rest right now.”
“Do you honestly think I can fall asleep after that?” I snorted. “Maybe it has something to do with the Order. Let me see what he wants.”
Rob stepped in front of me to block my way and my brows came up in surprise before they pulled back down to study him more carefully. Something was definitely up. His muscles were all tense and bunched up, his hands making fists.
“Is there some reason why you don’t want me to talk to Bishop right now?”
For a second it looked like he was going to lose it, but instead I watched Rob assert his self control. His shoulders eased, fists softening and then disappearing altogether, and his voice was utterly calm as he replied. “No, miss. I’ll have Tucker fetch him for you straight away.”
Where was this coming from? If he was trying to diffuse my interest in talking to Bishop, his rapid mood change had the opposite effect. “No, don’t bother. I think I can use a short walk before bedtime.” Rob moved to come with me and this time I was the one to block him from the door. “I can find him on my own, thanks.”
“You shouldn’t be roaming the halls without protection.”
“I’ll take Tucker with me then. Unless you feel like telling me what this is all about?”
His eyes darted to the wolf’s back and back up again. “No, miss.”
Whatever it was he didn’t feel like talking about it with Tucker present, that much was clear. “I’ll be back soon,” I said in a softer voice, laying a hand on his shoulder before I opened the door. “Come on, Tucker, help me find where Bishop disappeared to.”
It didn’t take long to track him down, Tucker’s sensitive nose picked up Bishop’s scent right away. The reek of alcohol hit me as soon as I opened the door and I spotted Bishop kneeling before the fireplace, picking up chunks
of broken glass. Tucker trotted to the far side of the couch, sniffing the floor carefully.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shutting the door behind me.
“You mean apart from the obvious?” There was a trace of amusement in his voice, but not behind his eyes when he looked up from the mess.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s been a rough night. I just wondered if something new…”
“Turned me into a sloppy drunk? Ah, shit…” His sharp intake of breath came an instant before the tang of his blood filled the air, a sliver of glass embedding into the palm of his hand.
“Here, let me.” I rushed to his side, taking care not to step on any of the glass in my slippered feet. “Hold still…”
“It’ll be fine.” Bishop tried to pull away, but I fought to keep his hand in mine.
“Right, it will if you stop being a dumbhole and hold still.”
“Sorry,” he said with a lopsided grin while I fished the piece of glass out and held the wound together so his body could knit it closed. In a few seconds there was nothing left but a smear of blood, and he pulled his hand free from mine. “Thanks.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Humpty Dumpty’s got nothing on me. See, I do know some children’s stories.” His grin was still loopy like he’d made a joke, but I couldn’t follow it.
“Huh?”
Bishop lurched to the couch and flopped down with a heavy sigh. “A man can only take so much before he breaks. And stays broken.”
That, I could understand. He’d lost a lot over the past twenty-four hours. Sure, we’d both been tortured, but I still had my friends to support me. He’d lost much more than a job when Jakob sent the Order packing. I settled beside him, covering his hand with mine. “You won’t always feel broken. It’ll get better, I promise. I’m sorry about your friends.”
