Anastasia had knocked on her door that night and invited herself in to listen sympathetically. Then she made Margot the most extraordinary offer; one that seemed preposterous, even coming from Anastasia. The opportunity to be a new kind of Auditor, a sponsored representative of the Black Sun. To become part of the emerging inner circle of the most powerful cartel of all, something no vampire had ever achieved.
There had been no need to think it over. Margot knew exactly what she wanted to do. There were any number of things that she could have done. She could feel them falling away from her like dead leaves, possibilities she had shed and abandoned. It was exhilarating; at the same time, it was also terrifying.
The night flowed past her like water, light, code, and language and Margot moved through it with the brutal grace of a tiger shark, a grey shape flitting across the swirl of color that surrounded her; the promise of violence, an implication carried in the chill of the wind. Margot felt that if she ever stopped moving she would suffocate. The car arrived, a boxy van manufactured in one of the factory towns that had sprung up across the countryside; inside, holding the door open, she could make out the white of Xia’s mask, pulled tight around his mouth and nose, and the reflection of the city lights in the goggles he wore.
Margot continued forward, the only way she knew.
Sitting in Alice’s diary room, her legs folded neatly beneath her the way Mitsuru had taught her, Rebecca sat with her hands intertwined in Alice’s, and thought about stargazing.
Rebecca was sure that nobody else knew her secret, unless Alistair had done more digging around in her head than he would admit to. A sudden reminder of the question her first combat instructor had asked her, “What kind of idiot trusts a telepath not to read minds?” The impact of this statement was somewhat diminished by the fact that this same combat instructor was now sitting opposite her, Rebecca’s hands in her lap, with blank eyes and an equally vapid facial expression. The old Alice Gallow, the one Rebecca remembered from when she arrived at the Academy, had been a wolf just barely wedged into a woman’s clothing.
For most people, peace was a place, a physical location, and Rebecca was no exception. In moments like these, when she needed to generate a calm, a state of gentle fulfillment, she thought of a certain night, spent alone in the Swiss Alps, lying on wet grass in a meadow and staring at the stars. It was a private memory, a secret from everyone; she kept it sacrosanct, sharing only the way it made her feel, not the where and why of it. Rebecca had extended this feeling to Alice twenty minutes ago, and then nurtured it when she felt it take hold, like blowing on a coal to start a fire. She had the process going smoothly by the time Alistair arrived, cultivating peace into Alice and drawing strength from it herself, a feedback loop that Rebecca occasionally suspected could lead to Nirvana. She followed it so far and no farther (except once, accidentally, with the infinitely troublesome Alex Warner) because she was afraid she would not come back. As it was, Rebecca barely noticed when Alistair came in and sat down beside them, taking one of each of the women’s hands in his own.
Because they had agreed upon it, years ago, Alistair spoke with his voice instead of his mind. Alice claimed to trust his voice more, but Rebecca had mixed feelings.
“Hello, Alice. My name is Alistair, and I am a friend, an old friend and a student who is happy to see you. I am Rebecca’s friend as well, so you know you can trust me. Isn’t that right, Rebecca?”
Rebecca nodded and oozed trustworthiness. She had arrived two hours earlier and discreetly dyed Alice’s hair her usual matte black, and then washed her hair, amazed the entire time that Alice allowed the procedure without registering a protest. When she’d helped her shower, Alice’s body was as lovely and youthful as always, taut with perfect, unscarred skin, and Rebecca marveled over it, over the crisp black tattoos that crawled over her back and arms, as perfect as the day she’d gotten them. She couldn’t imagine Alice allowing anyone to touch her like this under normal circumstances, and while she felt an almost maternal satisfaction in caring for her, it was somehow troubling. Rebecca had clamp down on the emotion, to avoid infecting Alice with it. She hoped that Alistair wouldn’t notice the black dye that still stained parts of Alice’s scalp. Alice might have changed a lot since they first met, but she was still vain and sensitive about her age.
However old she actually was.
“Now, Alice, you probably won’t remember, but this has happened to you before. We made a plan to help you get better, in case it happened again,” Alistair continued softly, his voice as tender as Rebecca had ever heard it be. “You’ve lost part of your memory, but don’t worry — we made a copy, and we put it somewhere safe.”
Somewhere safe was inside Alistair’s head. Lacking his breathtaking telepathic abilities, Rebecca couldn’t explain how he had done it, she only knew that he had copied a chunk of Alice’s memories, and then somehow stored them in his own mind for future use.
“You won’t remember everything, but you will know the important things. You can use the diaries to help you recall anything that doesn’t come back to you.”
Rebecca kept pumping Alice full of contentment and optimism. She knew that Alice’s memories weren’t actually erased by her Black Protocol, but rather, she simply lost her access them. With sufficient time and explicit reminders, Alice could recall some of things she had forgotten. However, she seemed to remember less and less with each passing year.
“If I have your permission, Alice, I have something that I have been holding, something that’s rightfully yours. Something that belongs to you. May I return it?”
Rebecca’s eyes were screwed shut, concentrating on keeping Alice happy, secure, and calm. But she could feel, through the empathic link, the weight of memory descending on Alice’s fragile mind, years of thoughts and experience making her gasp like cold water hitting her skin, like flame tearing through dry summer grass. Rebecca absorbed the pain and terror that Alice felt, the horror of her past and its resurgence, and replaced it with peace and serenity, while Alistair labored beside her, tethering the memories to Alice’s psyche, forcing synapses to fire and activating dormant neural pathways. It was psychic surgery, with Alistair holding the scalpel and Rebecca acting as the anesthetic, and they worked at a fever pitch, trying to stop Alice’s mind from hemorrhaging its way back into blankness.
The process went on for a little bit more than an hour, and at the end of it, Alistair was white-faced and exhausted. Rebecca was half-blind by a migraine, with Alice resting peacefully in her lap, mercifully rendered unconscious by the final moments of the procedure. Rebecca didn’t bother to ask if they had been successful, because she was afraid that they hadn’t been, afraid that saying that aloud might actually make it come true. She didn’t say anything when Alistair rose to his feet and stumbled out of the room, punch-drunk and weaving. She waited there, the migraine slowly receding into a pulsing pain in the back of her neck. Alice’s eyes fluttered in a slow, sleepy movement, and then closed again. A moment later, they snapped open in wordless horror, and Rebecca had to calm her again, drawing from her almost depleted reserves.
“Oh, God,” Alice said, her voice thick and rough from lack of use. “Fucking hell. What — what happened? What happened to me? Why is my head all — ah, Rebecca? Why are you crying?”
5
“It seems possible that I made an ass of myself back there.”
“Do you think so?”
Alex looked away while the nurse swabbed his forearm with iodine, prepped a needle, and then, without so much as a warning, gave him a numbing injection. Alex yelped in protest, but the nurse ignored him, collected her tray, and informed them that the doctor would be there shortly, and then left, the door swinging slowly shut behind her.
“Well, the thing is…” Alex continued, kicking his heels against the examination table. “When we first met I may not have done everything I could to make a good first impression.”
“Oh?” Katya asked, her face pleasant and serene from where s
he sat in the uncomfortable molded plastic chair that haunts every doctor’s office. “That would be when you referred to me as a ‘bitch’, right?”
“Um, yes, technically,” Alex said, hanging his head. “But I wasn’t really talking about you as much as I was…”
“You were pointing at me when you said it,” Katya noted.
“Okay, that’s true,” Alex admitted. “I wasn’t actually upset at you, though. It’s just that, you know, I’ve had issues with Anastasia, issues with the girls at this school in general, and…”
“Which is it? Do you have a problem with my boss? Or is it a problem with girls in general?”
“Uh, well, it isn’t exactly like that…”
Katya leaned forward, but he wasn’t sure if she looked concerned or amused at his expense.
“Are you gay, Alex?”
“What?” Alex said, flustered, shaking his head emphatically. “No! I mean, not that I have problem with gay people, but no. Ah, crap. Is there any way I can just apologize and we can start over?”
“Sure,” Katya said, sitting back and shrugging. “Go for it.”
“Okay, then,” Alex said, nodding uncertainly. “I’m, uh, sorry for being rude. I was mostly yelling at Anastasia. She likes to interfere in my life, and I wasn’t at all prepared for her to spring the whole ‘bodyguard’ thing on me, and the last time she got involved in things…”
“She saved your life, right?” Katya asked, inspecting the muted burgundy paint on her nails. “That’s what I heard.”
“That’s, well, yes. You could look at it that way, I suppose,” Alex allowed, helplessly.
“I see why you’ve got a problem with her,” Katya said flatly.
“Are you messing with me?” Alex sighed. “I can’t even tell anymore.”
“No,” Katya said, and then laughed shortly. “Well, maybe a little bit. You didn’t do much to win me over when we met, and you do have a bit of a reputation for being a wimp.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about… hey, wait a minute. I have a reputation for what?”
“Well, you were clutching your arm and moaning a minute ago.”
“No, you have it all wrong! I have this chronic injury — I hurt my arm a few months ago, and for some reason, it never seems to get all the way better.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Katya asked, inclining her head to indicate the forearm he was still holding, despite the fact that it was chemically numbed.
“Actually, a werewolf bit me a while ago, and it hasn’t been right since.”
“Ah. Remind me to stay at arm’s length during full moons.”
Alex’s jaw dropped.
“Really? But, it’s been a while and nothing like that…”
Katya laughed again.
“No, not really, Alex. Humans can’t become Weir. In fact, Weir aren’t even humans — they are wolves who do a good imitation of a person. You don’t pay much attention in class, do you?”
“Not really.”
“It shows.”
The silence stretched out while Katya sat, pointedly not looking at him, until Alex gave up.
“I’m really sorry about what I said,” Alex said, shaking his head. “I’ve had a difficult night, and I wasn’t at my best at that particular moment.”
“Don’t get all gloomy,” Katya scolded, unfolding her arms and slouching back as far as the unyielding material of the chair would allow. “I’m not actually upset with you. I wasn’t too happy when I heard the news from Anastasia earlier today. I was hoping for something a little more prestigious when she had me brought over from Mr. Cole’s class. No offense, but looking after you isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“I meant to ask… so, your parents gave you to Anastasia?” Alex asked, unable to repress his curiosity any longer. “Is that some sort of punishment?”
“Are you kidding me?” Katya asked, eyeballing Alex as if he were mad, possibly dangerous. “My original cartel is tiny, Alex, and my parents had seven kids, just to be sure. Most of the other cartel members did the same. How many positions do you think there are to inherit? I don’t think that the Kiev Oblast has ever had more than thirty members…”
“Why did they all have so many kids?”
“You haven’t noticed yet? Man,” Katya said, whistling. “You really are dense. Being an Operator isn’t exactly hereditary. The trait is passed down from parent to child maybe once in three times, so every family here has some completely normal members. That’s where all the day-to-day personnel come from, the maintenance staff and the lawyers and the bookkeepers and what not.”
“Oh,” Alex admitted, fascinated and ashamed to admit that he had never thought about it.
“You aren’t too observant, are you, Alex? Take Anastasia, for example. She has four siblings, and only her older brother is an Operator, and not much of one at that. My parents figured on the same odds, and they wanted to make sure the family business would be secure. Most people don’t show the potential for activation until they hit puberty, more or less. So, my parents had a bunch. And, as it turned out, six of the seven were Operators, a great many more than they needed.”
“Wow.”
“A man of few words,” Katya observed coolly. “Anyway, that used to mean fights over succession. Back in the old days, we probably would have tried to kill each other off fighting over potential inheritance. Fortunately, the Black Sun has a system to prevent that’s sort of thing. My parents pledged my brother and myself to the Black Sun’s service when we were twelve, freeing them from the need to pay Academy fees or find jobs in the cartel for us, and in return, their own standing was enhanced. It was a good deal for us, too, because we have a better chance at advancement and prestige in the Black Sun. Everyone knows that Anastasia will take over in a few years. All the precognitives swear to it, I hear even her father thinks it’s a foregone conclusion and plans to step aside. All the subsidiary cartels are trying to get on her good side.”
“That does seem to be the usual reaction,” Alex agreed ruefully, poking at his numbed arm. “What about her brother? You said she had an older brother.”
“He put his claim aside. Anastasia had a couple cousins who have tried to challenge her position as heir apparent once. Nobody ever heard anything from the entire family, ever again.”
“Are you supposed to be telling me all this stuff? I’m not part of the Black Sun or anything.”
Katya shrugged, tossing her hair. In the fluorescent light of the examination room, Alex could see that her hair was actually dyed in very fine streaks of red and dark brown, intermingled so that it appeared auburn from a distance. Alex wondered how it could have taken him this long to notice that she was cute, in a quiet way. Something about how Katya carried herself, the lines of her body beneath her uniform — she gave off a general air of indifference, as if she wasn’t concerned with being seen as attractive.
At least, not by him.
“None of this is a secret. Besides, Anastasia told me that you would join eventually, that it was inevitable.”
“I bet she did,” Alex said sourly. “Look, no hard feelings, but I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“Are you sure?” Katya asked, slowly standing up from the plastic chair, her expression hardening. Alex followed her eyes to the open door of the examination room.
“You don’t look like a doctor,” Alex said.
It was true. Grigori Aushev looked nothing at all like a doctor. He was solidly built, but not like Michael; it was as if he had the frame to be tall and skinny, but had managed to pack a bunch of muscle on in defiance of nature’s intentions. He moved gracefully, like a dancer, belying his size. He looked unhappy; however, the face beneath his uncombed dark hair did not seem capable of expressing happiness, so Alex wasn’t sure. He had Slavic features, three days worth of stubble on his cheeks, flat brown eyes that refused to acknowledge the light, a thick accent and a voice so deep that Alex had to lean forward to hear him.
“Alexander Warner? Grigori A
ushev. We need to talk.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Alex muttered, his head in his good hand. “Can’t any of you people at least wait until I see the doctor?”
“You’re going to have to explain that to me.”
Anastasia was brushing her teeth at the time, so she did not hear him approach. It wasn’t like Renton to come into her wing this late in the evening, and it wasn’t like Donner and Blitzen to ignore the intrusion. She was surprised; surprised enough that her she poked herself in her gums with her toothbrush, the sting making her eyes water, though she had enough composure to make sure it didn’t show. She was decidedly less than happy with Renton when she turned around and made an interrogative noise, her mouth full of toothpaste.
“Sorry,” Renton said, looking anything but. “But I’m curious. Timor I understand, he has done some personal security courses, and I think he will make a decent bodyguard, even if he is a bit inexperienced. But Katya was trained as an assassin, Ana.”
Anastasia said something that apparently sounded enough like ‘And?’ that he understood.
“I looked up her records,” Renton admitted with a guilty look. She knew from experience that it was entirely for show. Renton didn’t make mistakes, and he didn’t feel bad for anything he did. “She’s formidable in her own way. Six years worth of tradecraft and combat training, and her aptitudes are all solid. Nevertheless, her proficiency is all in wetwork. She is academically, diplomatically and socially unfit for the position; moreover, she does not know the first thing about protecting someone. Katya is nothing more than a killer, not to mention emotionally unstable. So, why her?”
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