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

by Victoria Danann

  The tiniest scowl formed between his eyes. “Considerin’ the inventive nature of our private and personal sex life, I’m a little taken back by the question.”

  “Yes, but it’s entirely different when you suggest, uh, things.”

  He wasn’t laughing at her exactly, but his amusement was evident. “’Tis only different if you make it so. I see now that I’ve been remiss in no’ pressin’ for your own imaginin’s. There’s no’ a thin’ in this life I want more than to see you pleasured.”

  “You do pleasure me, Ram.”

  “In every way possible,” he corrected.

  Seeing that he was taking the idea seriously and was so sincere, she couldn’t help but smile. He glanced at his watch. “We have eighty-three minutes before we need to gather Helm. Let’s go to our place where I can get you naked and tickle you into revealin’ everythin’ I want to know.”

  Unlike men who let the zest for life drain out of them when they become responsible for families, Ram still carried a party with him wherever he went. And that was just one of the things she loved about him.

  She cut her eyes toward him and smiled slyly. “Do any of your fantasies involve unpacking moving boxes? Because there’s a lot of that to do.”

  He snarled and bit her on the neck so suddenly that she shrieked. Looking around she saw that they’d drawn the attention of the few people in the lounge. “You’re embarrassing me, Ram.” She slapped at him playfully.

  “Embarrassed?” Ram looked around the room and chuckled. “Elora, those fuckers are so jealous of me their balls are a semi-permanent shade of ugly cobalt blue.”

  She shot him a pretend glare and slid out of the booth.

  “What? If you do no’ believe me, pick one out. I’ll take his pants down so you can see.”

  “Rammel. Ugh!” And that was the last thing she said before giving him the pleasure of watching her walk away. An activity of which he never tired.

  When Rev showed up at the Operations Office at eight, Farnsworth glanced up and then did a double take. He looked freshly showered and enticingly damp. She, on the other hand, felt old, ill-used and in need of a long soak in a hot receptacle with scented bath oils.

  She had dismissed the trainee assistants hours earlier so that they could complete their study and elective requirements for the day, which meant she was in the office alone.

  Rev nodded at her. “First to arrive, last to leave?”

  She smiled in a polite way that didn’t reach her eyes. “Always.” There was a folder sitting on the right side of her desk. She stood, grabbing that and her tablet. “I keep most things in digital form these days, but I printed some reports. I didn’t know if you prefer hard copy.”

  Rev shrugged. “It’s easier when you’re reviewing details with a second person. Would you like me to carry it?”

  She was so surprised by the question she laughed out loud. “No. I’ve got it. Lead the way.”

  Farnsworth’s normal pace was more along the lines of a brisk determined stride, but she consciously decided that, if the new Sovereign thought there was time to stroll, she would follow his lead.

  His eyes slid sideways as they ambled toward Mess. “I hope there are lots of pages in there that we both need to see at the same time.” Her brow crinkled momentarily with an unanswered question. “It’ll give me a chance to get close. Smell your perfume.”

  He grinned and winked while she practically gaped.

  She started to turn into Mess when they reached the doors, but he gently took her elbow and pulled. “We’re over here tonight.”

  She kept walking, but took a second look back at the Mess entrance. “Where are we going?”

  “I asked Crisp to find us a place where we could have a business dinner with a little more privacy because some of the details we discuss may be sensitive, clearance-wise.”

  “Oh.”

  “Nice man.” He decided to fill the silence with small talk because he sensed that she was feeling as awkward as if it was a first date, which it was in a sense. She just didn’t know it. “Here we are.”

  He opened the door to one of the small rooms off the fountain court and gestured for her to enter. The table was set with forest green linen and fine German china with a Black Swan emblem in the center and the presentation was all the more appealing because of an arrangement of calla lilies and white tapers that had already been lit. A bottle of chardonnay was chilling in a bucket of ice next to the table.

  Farnsworth’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “Fresh flowers and candlelight?”

  Rev cleared his throat. “Well. Seems Crisp went all out. Very nice, isn’t it? You know how to do things in style at Jefferson Unit.”

  He pulled out her chair and waited. When she looked at his face she thought she saw a little uncertainty and a lot of hopeful expectation. She told herself it couldn’t hurt to have their dinner meeting alone.

  As she sat she said, “It is very nice, but Crisp must have misunderstood. We’re going to need more light if we’re going to look at reports.” She watched as Rev seated himself, then said pointedly in her most professional tone, “After all, I don’t have twenty-year-old eyes.”

  He leaned back in his chair, studying her. “No. What you have is better.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Sovereign, if I’ve given you the impression that…”

  “I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable and I’m sorry if that’s what’s happening here. Look. I’m new in town,” he smiled, “as you well know. Could we just enjoy a nice dinner, get to know each other a little, and then we’ll dive into the stacks.”

  He noticed that her shoulders relaxed. She sat back just enough to cross her legs, which he tried very hard not to notice, then looked over the table. “I do love calla lilies,” she said.

  He smiled, but stopped himself from saying, “I know.”

  For the next three quarters of an hour the new Sovereign asked the Operations Manager all manner of questions about herself. Whenever she tried to return the favor he neatly steered the conversation back to her. After getting her to reveal that she had been engaged to the former Sovereign and that it had ended tragically, he asked for her insights as to how successfully Jefferson Unit had been operating since then, adding that she – above all others – was in a position to know.

  She seemed to open up and lose her reserve when talking about the day to day details of running the New Jersey complex. It was the closest he came to seeing the spark that used to fire in her dark eyes when she was emotional about something and she wasn’t shy about holding his gaze when the subject matter was work.

  Rev watched the lady pick at her dessert and cast her gaze around the room. Finally she said what was on her mind. “We need to bring the lights up so we can see the files or else move the meeting someplace more conducive.”

  When Farnsworth met his eyes as she waited for his reaction, she thought she saw a touch of sadness, but he covered it quickly with a smile just as Crisp entered and said, “I hope everything was to the lady’s liking, sir.”

  Farnsworth thought it was strange that he’d directed that comment to her companion. “I’m right here, Crisp. If you want to know something, just ask me.”

  Crisp moved his head in her direction in a gesture that was more a bow than a nod. “Of course, madam. Did you enjoy your dinner?”

  “I did, Crisp. Thank you for asking.”

  “And will there be anything else?”

  “Not for me.”

  He turned in Rev’s direction. “And you, sir?”

  “More than satisfactory. Will you have this cleared and turn up the lights? Oh and have someone take the flowers to Ms. Farnsworth’s office.” Rev looked in her direction with a twinkle in his eye. “She likes calla lilies.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “I’ll have a coffee. You?” he asked Farnsworth. She nodded and Crisp withdrew taking the wine and flowers with him.

  A couple of hours later Rev was satisfied tha
t he was fully informed on every conceivable detail of running Jefferson Unit, other than duty assignments for hunters, which was entirely the purview of the Sovereign. Likewise, Farnsworth was fully informed of everything that must be accomplished to bring the facility back from training and research facility to fully staffed hunter unit.

  Farnsworth leaned into a stretch of her back and shoulders and couldn’t quite suppress a yawn. When he chuckled at that, she smiled as shyly as a teenager and he thoroughly enjoyed that expression of vulnerability it had taken him hours to win from her.

  CHAPTER 10

  New York

  After the speed dating incident, Mercy had decided it was time for a change. So when she received an invitation to apply for a highly specialized position with a Scotia-based charity organization, she retrieved it from the shredding bin and rethought her initial reaction. She pulled the letter out and reread it thinking that it was not superstitious to believe that opportunity knocks in mysterious ways.

  Teaching positions at universities like Columbia didn’t grow on trees. They had to know that she wouldn’t give it up lightly.

  She couldn’t imagine why a charity would need an historian/archeologist who specialized in Slavic studies and artifacts, but if the price was right and the work was worthy, it might be fun to earn more than subsistence pay. For a change. And, after all, change was exactly what she’d called to her.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” she whispered to herself just before she picked up the phone and made an appointment with a Dr. Monq in New Jersey.

  “What!?!”

  Mercy jumped at the response coming from inside the door upon which the young escort had just knocked. She turned to the young man with wide eyes, but he just grinned in response. He seemed brave for someone who appeared to be about fifteen years old.

  “Don’t let him scare you. He just acts like that. Bark, bark, bark, bark, no bite at all.”

  Mercy smiled uncertainly as she watched him knock again.

  The door jerked open. “I SAID...!” Seeing the young woman standing there looking unsure of herself, Monq looked at his watch and said, “Oh.” He mumbled something about where time goes. “You must be Dr. Renaux.”

  “Yes. If this has turned out to be a bad time…” She was turning away, but he stopped her.

  “No. No. I’m always getting lost in my projects. The “zone” as they say. I didn’t mean to be off-putting. Please come in.” He motioned to one of two wingback chairs sitting in front of the fireplace. “Send us some hot water and tea complements, Monty. Would you, please?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The young man smiled and winked at her as he turned to go, which she thought required a measure of audacity beyond his years. Mercy sat in the chair that had been pointed out and watched the boy, whose name was apparently Monty, close the door.

  “How was the bridge crossing?”

  She thought that was odd wording. People didn’t usually make it sound so adventurous or romantic. “Oh. I took the tunnel.”

  “Did you? Well, you’re braver than I. Something about an entire ocean of water pressing on the ceiling right above one’s head…“ He shuddered dramatically.

  “I understand that reaction isn’t uncommon.” Monq had been scurrying around his office while seeming to chat mindlessly and half-heartedly. “Please forgive me for rushing you, Dr. Monq, but my curiosity really has the best of me. I can’t wait to hear why a charitable organization would be interested in someone with my particular skill set.

  “I’m also dying to know why a charity would be located in the middle of a highly restricted military base.”

  “Both excellent questions!”

  Monq snatched up a file from one of the piles on his massive carved desk, opened it and handed her a document that appeared to be several pages in length.

  The title page read, “Vampire skeletons unearthed in Bulgarian monastery.”

  She looked up at his face for a clue that it was a joke. When she saw that his expression remained passive and serious, she read it one more time. Despite the fact that Dr. Monq’s face was seriously passive, she laughed. “Bulgarian vampires.”

  “Actually that’s vampire.”

  “What?”

  “Vampire. The plural of vampire is vampire. No cause for self-recrimination. Most people get it wrong.” He glanced down at the memo in front of her. “Read on. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

  She paused for a couple of beats to search his face then lowered her eyes and began to read the body of the text.

  Archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with ploughshares, apparently to either keep them from turning into the undead or to keep them firmly in place.

  They are the latest in a succession of finds across western and central Europe which shed new light on just how seriously people took the threat of vampires and how those beliefs transformed into the modern myth.

  Bulgaria's national history museum chief, Bozhidar Dimitrov, said: 'These two skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century.'

  According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod or stake before being buried.

  People believed the rod would also pin them down in their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorizing the vicinity.

  According to Mr Dimitrov, in Bulgaria alone, the corpses of over one hundred buried people were stabbed according to rituals to prevent them from becoming vampires.

  Dimitrov: 'Because of the persistence of the folklore surrounding vampires, commoners believed that people who were evil when alive would rise from the dead as vampires and continue to torment the innocent. That is why vampires were so often aristocrats or clerics,’ he laughed.

  He added, 'The curious thing is that there are no women among them. They were not afraid of witches.'

  However last month Italian researchers discovered what they believed to be the remains of a female 'vampire' in Venice - buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.

  Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death.

  The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave from the Venetian plague of 1576 - in which the artist Titian died - on Lazzaretto Nuovo, which lies around two miles northeast of Venice and was used as a sanitarium for plague sufferers.

  Borrini said: 'This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire.

  'This helps ... authenticate how the myth of vampires was born.'

  The succession of plagues which ravaged Europe between 1300 and 1700 fostered the belief in vampires, mainly because the decomposition of corpses was not well understood, Borrini said.

  The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead were often decayed by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the corpse's teeth, and vampires became known as 'shroud-eaters.'

  According to medieval medical and religious texts, the 'undead' were believed to spread pestilence in order to suck the remaining life from corpses until they acquired the strength to return to the streets again.

  'To kill the vampire you had to remove the shroud from its mouth, which was its food like the milk of a child, and put something uneatable in there,' said Borrini.

  'It's possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognized.'

  The article was supported with photos of the archeological site. The most interesting, by far, was a detailed close up of one of the skeletons. Dirt and debris had been brushed away, but it w
as otherwise untouched.

  When she had digested the memo, Mercy put it down on the table in front of her. Monq noticed that her hand continued to rest on the paper after she looked up at him.

  “Very interesting. Certainly I understand how my specialty might dovetail this discovery. What I don’t understand is why a philanthropic institution might be investigating Dark Age beliefs in vampires,” she caught herself, “um, vampire, and practices of rites of disposition.”

  Monq sat back in his chair. “What if I told you that vampire are as real as you and I?”

  She didn’t laugh, but did look around the room, almost as if she was scanning for hidden cameras. Perhaps either consciously or subconsciously that’s exactly what she was doing.

  “I would say that I have absolutely no reason to believe that might be true.”

  “Fair enough. A prudent answer and wise as well. Should I take that to mean that you discount my claim as patently false or that you are reserving judgment?”

  She pursed her lips. “If you’re asking if I’m able to keep an open mind, that is the very nature of science, even social sciences such as anthropology. I will proceed with an assumption that vampire stories are myths until I’m persuaded by evidence to the contrary.”

  Monq smiled. “What sort of evidence would convince you?”

  She cocked her head. “Well, an actual vampire…”

  “Are you the sort of person who is self-aware enough to know that you would, in fact, believe your own eyes if you were face to face with a vampire?”