Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3)

by Victoria Danann

  Glen shook his head slowly, trying not to do a Snoopy dance in his chair or look otherwise too eager. Personally, he couldn’t imagine why anyone with faculties functioning properly would want the job, but if the guy in front of him turned out to be the real deal, he just might be the recipient of the first kiss Glen ever bestowed on another guy.

  He didn’t really care how Farthing knew about the opening. He just hoped he was looking at a real replacement candidate for somebody who couldn’t really be replaced.

  “Why do you want it? And what makes you think you have what it takes?”

  The two questions that went straight to the heart of the matter. Sol was proud enough of Glen to bust the buttons on his shirt.

  “I could give you a bunch of baloney answers, but I’m going to tell the truth even though it’s going to make me sound like an ass.”

  “Okay.” Glen looked intrigued.

  “I like to run things and I’m good at it.”

  Glen stared for a minute and then started laughing. “You want to know what’s funny about that answer?”

  “What?”

  “That’s exactly the kind of thing the former Sovereign would have said. And there was never one better at the job. Ever.” Sol would have been lying if he didn’t admit that he enjoyed the flattery. It was nice to know that he’d left life with people thinking good things about him. “And what makes you think you can do the job?”

  “Give me a try. No harm. No foul. Let’s negotiate a probation period.”

  “Well, it’s not quite that easy to get hold of command around here, but I accept your application. Gladly. And will get the two other people who will be most instrumental in making a decision to conduct your vetting.”

  “Could I ask who the other two are?”

  “I doubt you know them. The head of science, research, and development, Dr. Thelonius Monq and knight emeritus, Sir Engel Storm.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know them, but I have heard of both of them. I’ll look forward to the meeting or meetings, whatever the process may be.”

  They chatted about various issues of running Jefferson Unit for a while longer until Bo stuck his head in to say breakfast was served. They moved the conversation into the conference room where Glen almost got the feeling that he was the one being interviewed.

  The questions that Farthing asked about J.U. were so germane, so pertinent, that with each passing minute Glen was more and more certain that the perfect guy had just come walking through the door asking for the fu...

  “If this is an example of the food around here, then I’m in.”

  “You know, Farthing…”

  “Call me Rev.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell you what. There’s an outside chance I might even get the two decision makers in here to talk to you right away. If it’s up to me, we’ll get your tryout.” Sol smiled. “You got a resume?” Sol’s face dropped and Glen started laughing. “Gotcha. Just kidding. Not a resume kind of job. Nothing could prepare somebody. Believe me. Wait here.”

  Glen left and, while he was gone, breakfast dishes were taken away and replaced with a fresh coffee service. Since there was nothing else to do, he poured himself a cup of black and settled into a chair. Waiting wasn’t his favorite thing whether it was lying on a grassy knoll or sitting at a conference table. He’d already heard enough to know that time was being wasted, but he understood the need to convince his own people that he should be in charge. It was just weird.

  Twenty minutes later Glen opened the door and held it as Monq and Storm entered. It was harder than Sol could have imagined pretending that he didn’t know them. He’d shared considerable history with both those men, but had to act like they were strangers.

  They sat down at the table and conducted the interview informally, more like a casual conversation than a tribunal. Sol didn’t have a resume on paper, but he was able to recite his qualifications on demand and make a case for why he should be given a try.

  It was a tricky mental exercise, using key points that could only spring from his personal working knowledge of the position without revealing that he actually had personal working knowledge of the position.

  He noted the glances that passed between the three as punctuation to some of his answers. After a couple of hours, Storm said, “Will you excuse us for a few minutes, please?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  In less than two minutes, the door reopened and they filed back in. He guessed from the grin on Glen’s face that he was going to be sitting in his old chair real soon.

  “You’re in,” Glen said, looking a little elated and a lot relieved. “Ninety day probationary position. If all goes well, there will be a review by higher ups at the end of that time and then it will be made permanent. Don’t screw up because we,” he motioned between himself and Storm, “don’t want the job back.”

  Storm stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Jefferson Unit, Temporary Sovereign Farthing.” Sol took his hand and Storm used his other hand to slap Sol on the shoulder.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Glen said, “I need to make a call to get everything ready. We’d made arrangements to house a new knight and hadn’t planned on opening up the Sovereign’s apartment.”

  “Anything is fine. I just need a bed. I’m ready to get started.”

  “Come on,” Storm said. “Let me walk with you and help you get situated with credentials and a tour while they’re getting your quarters ready.”

  They were chatting as they walked. Unbeknownst to Storm, Sol was asking sly questions for the purpose of getting up to date and up to speed on what was going on in his absence.

  He was totally focused on that conversation when Storm stopped and said, “Okay. I’m dropping you off here, but I’ll catch up with you in a little while.”

  Sol nodded and turned his attention to where he was.

  There were two things that almost caused him to give himself away. The first, and by far more traumatic, was standing behind a counter a few steps away. The sight of her almost made his knees buckle and, at the end of his life, he would say the hardest thing he ever did was to keep from vaulting over the counter and pulling her into his arms.

  “Can I help you?”

  He thought she looked much the same, but with a touch of sadness maybe. She was wearing her business persona: crisp, efficient, determined not to miss a single detail. Few Black Swan employees had ever seen Farnsworth off duty and relaxed.

  A lifetime of discipline helped with the control. Instead of grabbing her up and showing her how much he missed her, he stared and swallowed until she repeated herself.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  His presence of mind snapped into place and he knew he had to play the role of newcomer. He stepped back outside the door, pretending to read the placard. “Operations, right?”

  “Yes. This is Operations.”

  He walked up to the counter and smiled with the sort of warmth she didn’t usually get from the knights.

  “Rev Farthing. Reporting for credentials.” She lowered her eyes and reached for the clipboard that held her docket. “And what’s your name?”

  “Everybody calls me Farnsworth,” she said without looking up as she reached for the packet sitting near her right hand.

  “Farnsworth. I’ll bet our names will be next to each other on the revised list of J.U. personnel.”

  She was distracted and only halfway listening to what he was saying. When she realized he’d been speaking to her, a little line formed between her brows. “What?”

  When she looked up, she met his eyes and registered that his gaze was intense.

  He pointed to the personnel manifest. “Farthing. Farnsworth.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She placed the packet on the counter in front of him, “Here it is,” then turned her head to the left to speak to a trainee who was doing office time. “Mr. Chorzak, take Sir Farthing on a thorough tour of the facility.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Spaz hurried ar
ound the counter and waited by the door.

  Sol leaned so far toward Farnsworth that she took a small step back. The fact that he’d put her in a position of retreat pushed at least one of her buttons and made hackles rise. With satisfaction he saw that fire could still be brought to her eyes.

  He held onto her gaze like he was trying to cast a spell. “That’s Sovereign Farthing.” He said it softly with a slight smile, making it sound more like a promise than a correction.

  “Sovereign?” She looked confused and a little flustered, which she tried to hide by looking through paperwork. He noticed that she wasn’t wearing the ring, but wasn’t surprised. She was no longer engaged. “I don’t have any documentation to that effect.”

  “Just got the job. Technically I’m on probation for ninety days.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Well, um, congratulations, Sovereign Farthing.”

  It was hard for her to imagine someone else filling Sol’s role, but intellectually she recognized that the page had to be turned.

  If Farnsworth wasn’t acutely aware of the difference in their ages, she would have thought the probationary head of Jefferson Unit was flirting with her. But she’d just reviewed his file that morning as she prepared to complete the transfer of a knight. She knew that he was thirty-one. That put her at a whopping thirteen years older.

  Internally, she scoffed at her imagination for sending the thought of flirtation across her radar. She told herself that she was old enough to be his mother, at least in a few drastically primitive and barbaric cultures.

  The time she’d been without Sol crystalized in her heart the fact that no replacement for Sol was ever going to walk through that door. He was one of a kind.

  “Sovereign Farthing, my function as head of Operations is to make things work here. If you find that you’re in need of feminine companionship, I can make arrangements for you to connect with a variety of, ah, establishments frequented by young women.”

  He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then cocked his head slightly, gave her a suddenly wicked smile, knocked on the counter with his middle knuckle and turned toward the door where the trainee was waiting patiently.

  “Let’s take that tour, shall we? Mr. Chorzak, is it?”

  ‘Yes, sir. Everyone calls me Spaz.”

  Sol looked down at him. “Not really.”

  Spaz grinned. “Yes, sir. Really.”

  “Well we may have to do something about that. Even my knights-to-be deserve more respect.”

  “It’s alright, sir. I don’t mind.”

  “Well. I do. So far as I’m concerned, you’re Mr. Chorzak.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kellan Chorzak offered a small, shy smile. He really didn’t mind being called Spaz. He knew it was done good-naturedly and almost affectionately. Still, the idea of being ‘respected’ had its own appeal, particularly when that respect was coming from the new head of J.U.

  Farnsworth had been working in that office for twenty years, since she was twenty-four years old. The first decade and a half, she received her fair share of attention, and flirting, from the knights who drifted in and out. They were used to being admired by the female sex and they typically came with a certain swaggered poise that said they knew they were looking good.

  She couldn’t pinpoint when the flirting had stopped, but one day she realized that nobody had tried to impress her with a smile or a bedroom voice in, well, years. So naturally having one of the young knights, or, er, administrators, regard her with something other than professional courtesy was a little bit noteworthy and a lot flattering.

  All morning her thoughts returned to the encounter with the new Sovereign. Her instincts had told her he’d been deliberately charming, but her intellect contended that he couldn’t possibly be genuinely interested in her. And, even if the Earth tilted on its axis and he was interested in her in that way, she wasn’t ready to try to move past a love affair with a man like Solomon Nemamiah and didn’t know if she ever would. A woman just never gets over a man like that. Ever.

  The second time Sol almost gave himself away because of an inappropriate emotional response was the stop on Chorzak’s tour at The Chamber. Sol stepped inside trying to pretend to see it for the first time, but his breath caught in his throat when he saw the portrait hanging on the west wall.

  Chorzak had been prattling away when he noticed that Sol had stopped. He turned to see what had grabbed the attention of Big Boss.

  “That’s a picture of the last Sovereign.”

  “Oh?” Sol said simply as he started moving toward it.

  “Yeah. Everybody around here thought he was the sh…, um, thought he was the best.”

  Sol smirked down at Chorzak. “Did they now?”

  “Yep. I’m afraid you got big shoes to fill, sir.”

  “Watch the impertinence, Mr. Chorzak.”

  Spaz stood up a little straighter. “Yes, sir.”

  Sol kept going until he was close enough to read the plaque.

  In honor of

  Solomon Neuhm Nememiah

  Jefferson Unit Sovereign

  and Distinguished Knight

  The Order of the Black Swan

  “The Lady Laiken… She’s our martial arts teacher? She had the portrait done by the same guy who paints the heroes. I guess she’s the one that decided what the words should say.”

  “The one who decided.”

  “Sir?”

  “She isn’t the one that decided. She’s the one who decided.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thinking through how he would handle things if he was new to J.U. and had never held the job of Sovereign before, Sol decided he would want to brain pick the people who had done the job previously. So he called a meeting with Storm and Glen for the dinner hours that very night. Exercising one of his brand new privileges, he had the club lounge closed and had Crisp deliver dinner for three where they could dine and talk privately away from curious, prying eyes and ears.

  At several points in the conversation he pressed his lips together in an expression that was familiar to Storm and unique, or heretofore unique, to Sol. It would have been impossible for Storm and Glen to recount their history with the job without memorializing Sol in the process. He sat back and looked amused while they chuckled over Sol stories.

  After dinner he withdrew a small box of pencil thin black cigars from his pocket and offered them to Storm and Glen. Glen shook his head, but Storm quietly took one and waited to see what would happen next. Storm thought that it would be a curiosity of synchronicity if two people attracted to the J.U. Sovereign position happened to smoke the same brand - the same obscure brand - of imported Turkish cigars.

  While Storm was mulling that over, the new Sovereign reached into the same shirt pocket and produced an old-fashioned lighter, the kind that requires lighter fluid. He noticed Storm eyeing the lighter. He looked down at it and said, “Found this in the Sovereign’s apartment. I guess it belonged to the former resident. Would you like to have it? As a memento?”

  “No. He’d probably enjoy knowing it was being used. Not many people want to fool with them these days.”

  Sol was pleased with the cover. He lit Storm’s cigar before lighting his own, then placed the lighter on the table and proceeded to give it lazy quarter turns, exactly as Sol had done when he was alive. It caused goose bumps to rise on Storm’s skin.

  As they talked, understanding began to settle around Sol like an unwelcome shroud. It didn’t take long for him to deduce that neither Storm nor Glen had been apprised of the information which he’d come by when called to Edinburgh in the middle of his holiday. Before he died. Which meant unit personnel were way, way, way behind in making preparations for the massive overhaul needed to get J.U. ready for a swarm of new or returning residents.

  What was worse, if Storm and Glen didn’t know, that meant that Farnsworth didn’t know either and she would be ninety-nine percent of the reason for the success or failure of relocating a steady stream of
Black Swan immigrants. Sol couldn’t believe that something so big could have fallen through the normally sealed shut Black Swan cracks. He supposed that between the sudden and unexpected need to replace him as Sovereign and the immediate crisis of a viral mutation, the briefing had just gotten lost in the stampede.

  Maybe Simon Tvelgar had thought he’d had a chance to pass on the intel before he passed. He took a drag on his little cigar while thoughts whizzed through his brain at Mach one. Instead of weeks to get ready, they had days. Truthfully, in his opinion, Storm and Glen were not prepared to implement far-reaching changes of that scope. And after all, wasn’t that exactly why he’d fought so hard to get back there? Because he honestly believed that nobody else was as passionate about walking the tight-rope dichotomy of ridding the world of vampire while trying to take care of Black Swan knights at the same time.

  Unfortunately acting on that information meant making some of the people that he most cared for very unhappy.

  Sol thanked his temporary replacements for the informal briefing and, before they parted for the night, told Glen he would like to see him in the office the next day at ten o’clock. Storm received a similar instruction, but he was given a time of three o’clock instead.

  Storm agreed, but added that he would be making himself scarce now that a suitable replacement had been found.

  Sol gave no reply, but turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 9

  The first decision Sol made as the new head of Jefferson Unit was to put his old identity to rest in his own head. He needed to stop thinking of himself as Sol and begin thinking of himself as Rev Farthing, Sovereign on probation who took over for the late Sol Nememiah. On the first night of residence in a comfortably familiar apartment, he held a memorial for his first incarnation with a bottle of Scotch, vowing to rise the next morning, reborn, and ready to conquer Life: Part Deux.