by Mark Henwick
Which did I want more? That was a little like asking if I preferred Lario’s steak or his chocolate dessert. It was a pointless question anyway. I couldn’t take it any further with either of them. Even if I didn’t infect them with the Athanate prions, I would end up wanting to drink their blood.
A shudder ran through me. Not a shudder of disgust, but a reaction to the startling premonition of how erotic I would find it to bite. I began to shiver. I used to think it was disgusting, didn’t I? Surely, I could remember thinking how disgusting it would be.
But if I had, that was now erased by the intensity of the thrill at the thought. I turned the shower to cold and stood under it. The prion reading this evening was over .56—I wondered how much longer I had left.
Top’s advice seemed bleaker now. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt.
SATURDAY
Chapter 46
In the morning, we moved Jen’s base to her downtown apartment, but Jen herself was booked into a hotel under a false name, with the whole corridor taken up for security.
We called in at police HQ to give our version of what had happened the previous evening and I handed over the Glock. I also managed to speak to Morales for a few minutes to update him. While Jen was driven back to the hotel, I took some time out to divert to the convention center to pick up the stole and gloves. I returned them with the beautiful green dress and earrings to Lisa.
When I walked through the door, she threw her arms around me. Ethel Harriman had stopped by earlier and asked Lisa to put on a private fashion show for twenty of her friends in time for the Christmas season. Lisa wanted me to keep the dress, but I told her to put it in the window as she had suggested and if I ever needed it again, I would come calling. As much as I loved it, it was no use to me at the moment, and I didn’t even have an apartment of my own.
As I was making my way out, she stopped me. “Oh, I nearly forgot. There was a call for you as well.” She smiled and handed me a note with a number and an address. “A gentleman called Alex. You gave him the wrong business card. He said it’s very important.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Just one of the bankers,” I said. “Short and smelly. Cross eyed. Hair growing out of his ears.”
“And so important that you should talk about your bank balance on a Saturday?” She laughed as I left.
I tucked the note into a jacket pocket. Plenty of time for that later. It wasn’t as if I could do anything about it. I couldn’t go around infecting people with Athanate prions. How would Hollywood put it? My libido was writing checks my rules wouldn’t let me cash. The trouble was, my libido was up when the sun was down and I wasn’t sure my morals were strong enough when the Athanate inside got the upper hand. Still, it felt nice.
When I got back to the hotel, Jen was arguing for a trip down to Browns hotel. There was a committee meeting there to finish up on the charity ball, and even though she was excused, she wanted to drop in. Knowing her, I suspected a fancy lunch was on the cards as well.
Jameson, the head of Victor’s security detail today, wasn’t happy. To placate him, I scouted through the sports shop down the street, coming up with some Lycra cycling outfits, running shoes and helmets for both of us. I got a red fright wig I used for raves out of my car and we put wraparound shades on as well. Dressed like that, Jameson had to admit that neither of us looked like ourselves. He agreed we could go, providing I went with Jen, and there would be three guards in the building, including himself. No lunch.
At Browns, Jameson and the others spread out through the atrium, keeping visual contact with each other and their comms units active.
Browns’ conference area was being transformed for a meeting on Monday that seemed to be a convention of flower sellers. Every walkway and every flat surface had exotic displays of flowers and shrubs. It was like being in the botanical gardens.
I saw Jen into one of the small meeting rooms where the rest of the committee were talking. I stayed outside, strolling back to check the guards every few minutes.
An hour later, Jen felt she had done enough and we were walking back to the escalator.
“Crap!” I spotted Carter at the bottom of the escalator. “Kath said whatever I do, I shouldn’t talk to him.”
Jen giggled and pulled me aside, squeezing us between two of the huge plant displays and up against the railing. The plants hid us. Even if he looked through, he wasn’t going to recognize me from the back with my bright red wig sticking out from under the bike helmet.
I could hear Carter talking to his companions as he reached the top of the escalator and then moved off toward the offices.
“Well,” Jen said, very close to my ear. “Not quite where I had in mind, but about time.”
I was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of how close we were pressed together. And the feel of Jen’s hands on my hips. Time to cancel that check.
“Jen, I’m straight,” I said. Am I? Why am I enjoying this so much?
“Course you are, honey,” she murmured. “Knew that right off, first time I saw you. I’m good like that.”
Her breath was tickling my neck. “I’m good like this too,” she whispered and kissed my neck. Only fair, given that’s what I’d done to her last night. My legs felt wobbly. Her lips brushed against my chin. In another second we would be kissing.
I grabbed her and held her away.
“No!” I said. “Stop. Please, Jen, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing, honey.”
I had to turn my head away. Staring into those blue eyes, I would have lost it. I took one look down at the base of the escalator and I wrapped her back in my arms and pulled her to me.
“Change of mind, honey?” She chuckled, her arms slipping around me and pulling right back.
“Shh. Just stay there. It’s Onebrow and Tucker, coming up the escalator.”
She froze. “Shit! Together?” she whispered.
I nodded. “We need to be out of here as soon as they’re gone. There’s half a dozen others with them.”
They were arguing.
“This is too public,” said Onebrow.
“No one’s listening,” grunted Tucker. “Plain sight—best place to hide. And anyway, he said he had to meet us here.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t trust him. And what is it with the plants?” Onebrow’s hoarse voice asked, and my blood froze. What if he wandered across and took a look where we were hiding?
Tucker replied too quietly to hear and the footsteps moved away.
I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Jen pushed my frizzy wig away from her face and peered out.
“Gone,” she said. We eased out between the plants and ran down the escalators.
As soon as they saw us coming, the guards hurried across and I told them who had just passed us. Jameson looked worried and started talking on the comms. The car came up right outside and we jostled across to it, with the three guys around us.
I ditched the itchy wig and helmet and called Morales to tell him that Frank Hoben was at Browns with Tucker. He swore and told me he’d get back to me.
Once I ended that call, I turned to Jen. Jameson and I were sitting in the back with her between us. She looked pale, but angry rather than shaken. Her body had gone stiff and her mouth was set in a hard line.
“Jen?”
“Tucker. It’s been Jack Tucker all along, hasn’t it?”
I sat there thinking. What would Tucker have to gain? Kingslund was the only company that was willing to buy him out of his problems.
“The merger announcement,” Jen said. “He pushed for it to be called a merger and we made the press release the day you and I went to Silver Hills.”
“Yes, but—”
“If he’s got Verdoon doing what he wants, and I’m dead, he can make Verdoon sell my company to him for peanuts. Ordinarily, that would be too suspicious. But if everyone thinks it’s part of a merger process that’s been agreed, he can jus
t bluff it out.”
“He never wanted to be bought.” I thought it through and the connection fell into place. “Oh my God! He can’t let himself be bought.”
Jen looked blank.
“That’s what I couldn’t understand about what Tucker and Alex said last night. Alex told me he ran Tucker’s trucking contracts.”
“He does,” Jen said.
“But Tucker said I caused him a lot of trouble when the police locked down Crate & Freight. I thought he meant Carter was running his trucking. He didn’t. That was his frigging shipment that got seized. He can’t let anyone buy him—they’d see what he’s been doing.”
“He’s running drugs to keep his business afloat?”
“Yes.” And weapons. What else? And who were they meeting? I wanted to say Carter, but it didn’t add up. That left Matlal.
Chapter 47
Morales called to say Onebrow wasn’t in the center when the police arrived. I left Jen talking to him and Victor about our suspicions on Tucker. There was nothing more that we could do without proof. There was no way Morales could move on someone like Tucker without slam dunk evidence.
There was one person who had to know about this and I had to go and see him anyway. Skylur’s payment for me when I agreed to attend the charity ball was the information that it was vital for Jen’s sake. Obviously, he must have known about the attack. And if he knew, how difficult would it have been to give me the details and stop the whole thing?
Once I was away from the hotel and wouldn’t give the location away if I was being traced, I turned on my cell. There were a host of missed calls. I picked out Bian’s ID and returned the call.
She answered immediately. “Amber, are you okay?”
“Why, Pussycat, I might think you cared. My cell’s been off because it may be being tracked. I’m turning it back off and coming in.”
“We’ll pick you up where we last met.” Bian caught on quickly. A cell that might be tracked might be listened to.
“Don’t bother, I know where to come. And I’ll meet him upstairs, not in the basement.” I turned the cell back off before she could respond. It wouldn’t be fair to take out my anger on Bian. I had the impression she was fairly high up in the hierarchy at Altau, but I wanted to save it all up for Skylur.
I headed out of town, taking a couple of extra turns to check that I had no tail. I’d already searched for trackers like the one they used on Jen’s car.
Half an hour later, I was driving along Bear Ridge. It wasn’t a ridge and there were no bears, but I guess people with this amount of money can call their road anything they damn well please. I drove along slowly. Oak and ash trees lined the road, planted in well-tended grass verges. Small, elegant signs gave the names of the houses. I got the briefest glimpse of houses themselves, every one set back in acres of landscaped garden and surrounded by walls and gates. The house at the end didn’t stand out particularly, and it wasn’t called House Altau of course. It was called Haven. Indeed. I shivered. I might call this place home soon.
I had been expecting a reaction at the gate and I got it.
The gates were recessed and out of view from the road. Once I was in front of them, there was a thunk sound and six-inch spikes emerged from the ground behind me, angled forward. There was no way back and with the gates still closed, no way forward.
To the left and right were curving brick walls which looked very decorative, except for the black slits. Behind those slits I got the sense of metal and movement. I knew I was between two heavy caliber machine guns. If it were me, I might have gone for a flamethrower as well, and there was nothing to say I was more paranoid than them, so I sat very still and waited for instructions.
“Open the trunk and doors, get out of the car and stand in front of it with your hands on the hood.”
I complied and a couple of guys with ugly, stubby Herstal P90 guns walked out and checked the car over. I refused to get embarrassed when the one checking the trunk snorted. Doesn’t everyone keep half their clothes in the car? Along with a bright red wig.
A third guard, a female, came and frisked me thoroughly and impersonally, taking my boots away for checking and leaving me standing on the gravel barefoot, leaning against the car. The gates opened behind me.
“Well, Round-eye, you sure know how to cause a fuss.” I heard Bian walk up and I watched the effect on the guards with interest. They all but came to attention.
“I just came to deliver a message and trade some information, Pussycat. Can I stand up?”
“Yes, and put your boots back on.” The female guard held them out to me. I took a good look at her and a sniff as I took them. She wasn’t Athanate, but I could see faint healed scars on her neck. Part of some Athanate’s family. Kin.
“Let’s walk. They’ll drive your car around,” said Bian, taking my arm. The house was about a hundred yards further on and we walked across a lawn which was bordered by a huge circular gravel drive. A large oak dominated the lawn and the outer edge of the drive was defined by flowerbeds with an array of scented plants. Buddleia, honeysuckle and jasmine, just as I had smelled on my first visit.
“How did you find the address?” asked Bian.
“Maybe I’ll trade that with Skylur,” I said.
She snorted and shaded her eyes against the late afternoon sun as she looked sideways at me. “A word of advice, Round-eye. A bit of humility might be a good idea today.”
“Diana said something very similar during my first visit. Didn’t seem to do me much good. And you know, I just have a problem seeing you in that position.”
“I don’t think you showed any humility at all on your first visit. And as for how I behave, I’m not about to try and explain to Skylur how I come to be in possession of an Altau secret. No outside parties are allowed that knowledge. Think about that.”
She held open the front door and I walked into the reception area.
On my last visit I had been restricted to the information from my ears and nose. I had been right about the wood floors and the size of the room. The floor was tiled in warm blond oak, making a large bright area bordered by twin curving staircases of dark redwood coming down from a gallery corridor. Opposite us, an archway led to a corridor and I could see a living room and library off that.
The whole place spoke of enormous wealth and restraint.
In this area, the one piece of ornamentation was a huge carved eagle mounted on the balustrade of the gallery. It had its wings spread and its eyes covered by a cloth.
Bian saw my eyes on it. “That’s the symbol of the Hidden Path,” she murmured, as we passed underneath. “The path so secret, even the eagle cannot see it. Our path.”
The corridor ran most of the length of the house from what I could see. I assumed that the little room with the elevator down to the dungeon was behind one of the doors. Bian stopped so suddenly, I nearly bumped into her. A figure in a black robe, face hidden by a cowl, passed silently along the corridor.
“What was that?” I said, but Bian was moving again. She led me straight across the corridor into a library.
Above us, a wooden ceiling arched, illuminated by hidden uplighting. A large stone fireplace dominated one side and the other side was given over to bookshelves. Comfortable, high-backed chairs were arranged around the fireplace. The far end of the room was a huge bay window looking over formal gardens at the back of the house.
“Come in and sit down please, Amber,” said Skylur, from one of the chairs with its back to me.
Chapter 48
Bian left and I sat down opposite him. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked that I suddenly recognized him. He had been the man accompanying Diana when I was kidnapped, whose face had disappeared from my memory. He had the kind of looks you might pass over in a crowd as you walked by, dark-haired and handsome, but not exceptional. Until you looked at his eyes—a hard, shocking blue. I hadn’t seen them the first time we’d met. In the parking lot, the light had been bad and in the dungeon, it had
been dark and he’d been playing tricks with my head.
“Are you going to screw with my memory again when I leave?” I said.
“If you leave, no.” He let that hang in the air.
“What’s so important about keeping this place secret?”
He sighed. “We’re at war, even if it’s officially peacetime. The Basilikos party will not hesitate to attack this house if they discover the location. When we host the Assembly next week, every member will arrive here blindfolded—that’s the level of care we take. The only people who know this location are completely loyal.”
“And you’re saying I’m not. What does it take to prove I won’t give this location away? Diana read my mind.”
“She was looking for a specific thing—that you would go to the ball and get the message for us. Loyalty is a much more complex matter and the answer isn’t yes or no.”
“So how do you know those guards out there are loyal?”
“You’ll understand the kin bonds when you become fully Athanate. When you stop fighting it. Now, my question which you will answer. How did you find the address?”
“Let me say first that no one else knows. What’ll you trade for the answer?”
“This isn’t a trade. It would be much easier to just keep you here.” He glared at me.
Fortunately, at that moment, Diana arrived and distracted us. I knew that Skylur was stronger and quicker than me. I suspected he could break through my mental defenses. But something made me keep challenging him.
“Amber, hello. Lovely to see you.”
I got up and remembered the formal Athanate greeting kiss—the neck and not the cheek. We parted and Diana’s lips pressed into a lazy, predatory smile which made me sit down again in a hurry.
“You have the message?” said Diana.
“I want the answer—” Skylur began, but Diana cut him off.
“She’ll tell us when she’s ready. I will vouch for her. And we owe her for putting her in jeopardy.” Skylur looked angry, but didn’t say anything. Diana didn’t play fair. I had a lot more difficulty arguing against her approach than Skylur’s.
