Department 57: Rubies of Fire

by Lynne Connolly

  “We found copies of all Fabrice’s ad campaigns in her apartment,” Cristos said quietly. “She must have been obsessed with him for some time. When she found Ellie knew him, she engineered a meeting, even enrolled in a course with her so she could get to know him, and then suggested they got an apartment together.”

  “Where would she have seen him?” Roz asked. Get the facts first, then work out what they were going to do. What could be done. She didn’t look directly at Andreas when he spoke, but listened carefully to his reply.

  “He’s made a few TV appearances. He did Letterman when his company sponsored a campaign to raise awareness of breast cancer. He appeared on a quiz show once when they did one of their charity specials. Fabrice did a lot of work for charity. People accused him of needing something to fill his time, since sex was a no-no. Fabrice just laughed. He called his charity work ‘a different kind of tax.’”

  Roz would do anything she could to help him, whatever she thought of his best friend.

  Talents couldn’t expose themselves to regular hospitals, so they had small wings discreetly tucked away in most of the world’s major cities. This was one of several facilities in New York.

  Roz would have been glad never to see any of them. Although the medics had kept Fabrice sedated, she felt the Sorcerer’s confusion, his feeling of utter helplessness.

  “A few TV appearances, a few magazine articles,” Andreas said. “It’s terrifying. What made her hook onto him? Why Fabrice? Jenna isn’t Talented. She has no idea he’s a Sorcerer, so why Fabrice? Did she know? Was she part of the leak?”

  Roz shared Andreas’s confusion. She couldn’t understand the mentality of such a person. Jenna had seemed so happy that evening at the gallery. Thinking back, she did seem attached to Fabrice, but he was a handsome man, possessed of a magnetic appeal. “If you were a woman, you wouldn’t have to ask why him,” Roz answered Andreas. “Whether he likes it or not, Fabrice Germain has a very sexual aura. It makes him attractive to women. Haven’t you ever wanted a man, looked at him and thought, ‘If only I were gay, I’d go for him’?”

  Andreas shook his head, and Roz made a sound of exasperation. “Well, anyone who had an inclination for male sexuality found Fabrice attractive.”

  Andreas looked up. “What are we doing about Jenna?”

  “I’ve done it.” Cristos said. “She’s in a facility for the criminally insane. I told them the truth, and they won’t let Jenna out unless she is completely cured of her obsessive behavior. We’ll go through the formalities, but that’s the outcome.” He sighed. “She’ll never come out.” He glanced up. “Vencel stripped her mind before we let her in.”

  “I left her as I found her,” Vencel said. “She didn’t know about Talents, didn’t know about Ellie, wasn’t any part of the leak.”

  In a strangled voice, Andreas said, “So she drugged him, took him home, and…violated him. Just because she wanted him.”

  He looked up and snagged Roz’s gaze. She stared at him with sympathy, but hopelessness. She felt him trying to enter her mind, but she only allowed him into the outer part, the part it wouldn’t have been polite for her to refuse him. If he used telepathy, with the number of people in the room, he might as well have spoken out loud. She couldn’t bear any closer contact, not until she’d thought everything through for herself. And this was so not the time.

  “I’ll stay with him unless you need me for anything else.” Andreas spoke to Cristos but kept his attention on Roz.

  “No,” Cristos said. “We don’t need field agents right now. After Roz’s idea, I put our techs onto it. Candy’s heading that side of the operation, and we’ve made a few discoveries already. But stay on call, and I’ll get back to you. I want Candy to do a bit more research before I send you back in.”

  They left soon after that, only Andreas remaining to care for his friend. Roz went home. She wanted something, anything to distract her. And she needed to feed. Hunger clawed at her. Stress did that to a vampire. How was Andreas faring? Had he fed?

  Did she care?

  Yes, she cared, more than she wanted to. Rejecting the idea of coffee, Roz headed for the liquor cabinet. Sunset hadn’t yet arrived, but it would soon. She found the vodka and poured herself a shot, not bothering with a mixer.

  “I’ll have one of those.” Don slid into the seat by the cabinet. Roz started but then smiled and poured him a shot. “Nancy’ll be out in a minute. I’ll feed her soon.”

  “It’s amazing how you’ve taken to vampire ways.” Don was a practical, prosaic man, and as such had accepted the existence of vampires as soon as Nancy had offered him the proof.

  “I’d be stupid to deny what’s in front of my eyes. You fall in love with a vampire, you take the territory that goes with it.”

  She handed him the drink. “Any news on a donor?”

  “No. I don’t expect any. We’ll just take each day as it comes. You know as well as I do how rare donors are.”

  She did. So many mixed couples wanted them, and so few Talents ever willingly gave up their life for another. Sometimes a Talent would die without passing on his gift. A daytime accident, a murder, even. Every death proved a loss to the whole community, with so few vampires giving birth. Roz took the view that if they died out it was probably meant to happen, but not every vampire accepted that.

  Which went a long way toward explaining why the Gardiners longed to marry her off and get her breeding. If she married a mortal and got lucky enough to get pregnant, even then her child might not become a vampire at puberty. It had a fifty-fifty chance. If Andreas had given her time, she could have persuaded the Gardiners to accept him, but he’d accused her of lying to him. She tossed back her drink and reached for the bottle to pour another. She never lied to people she cared about. If he couldn’t trust her that much, it seemed to her he couldn’t care about her as much as he claimed. And he didn’t trust her enough. She couldn’t live like that with anyone, not even a man who aroused her body so much she didn’t know where she ended and he began. No, not even for that.

  “You’ll get there.” She patted Don on the arm, struck for the first time how like Fabrice he appeared. Both agents, both confident males—at least that had described Fabrice until recently—both golden-haired and blue-eyed. But Fabrice seemed more vital, more alive. That might well have been a part of his Talent. Sorcerers usually possessed magnetic personalities. She wouldn’t know until he’d recovered and she could talk to him again. But she suspected Fabrice Germain might still have the edge on Don Harris for sheer power of personality.

  He flashed her a quick smile. “Yeah, I know we will, one way or another. Meantime, I love a woman who will stay gorgeous forever. That’s compensation enough.” But it wasn’t. From the bleak look in his pale blue eyes, Roz knew he was thinking of a time when he would die, no longer there to love her. Nancy would find someone else.

  As Roz nearly had. But John had never broached the subject, never asked. In a way, that seemed braver than the doubts she heard Don express to Nancy occasionally. John had kept his doubts to himself.

  Nancy walked slowly through from the bedroom. Her skin glowed with health, and her hair gleamed with secret highlights. Don must feed her well if she was preparing to do it again. “You look peaky, Roz. Go and feed.”

  “Yes, I will.” She knocked back her vodka and put down her glass. She’d have to go out to feed. She never used Don. It seemed wrong, somehow. “I’ve broken up with Andreas.”

  “Oh, Roz, I’m sorry!” Nancy’s instant and heartfelt sympathy warmed Roz despite her feeling of misery. “So you won’t want to go away with him anywhere?”

  Roz shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t last long.” Long enough. Long enough for her to fall deeply in love for only the second time in her life. Long enough to know she’d miss him badly. But she couldn’t stay with a man who didn’t trust her word. It wasn’t possible.

  Nancy shook her head when Roz lifted the bottle, offering her a drink. “No, I’m fi
ne.” As though struck by a sudden thought, she leaned eagerly toward Roz. “Say, how about we take off for a while?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How about we kick up our heels, go home, and have some fun? I’ve spoken to my mother, and she promises to keep the vampires off us. We can get ready for the wedding, rest up. The boys won’t let up until we do go home, and then we can tell them no.” She winked. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.” By “the boys” she must have meant Marshall and George Gardiner.

  Roz made a face. “I don’t want to marry anyone. I’ve changed my mind about Marshall. Do you think they’ll mind?”

  Nancy laughed. “Well, they’ll have to learn not to. It’s about time these guys came into the twenty-first century. They can’t force you, and if you’ve gone off the idea, it’s their tough luck. Tell them.”

  “If only it were that easy!”

  Nancy touched her arm, a gesture of simple friendship that warmed her. “They’ll have to. If we go home for a few weeks, until Don and I are married, we can tell them then. They’ll take it. They might want you, but they won’t force it if you get enough elders on your side. How about it?”

  Roz thought it over. Without Andreas, she couldn’t think of a reason to stay. Except for one more thing. “Someone I know was captured and hurt. I want to stay until I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, of course. Tell me about it.”

  Roz told them what she could, that Fabrice had been kidnapped and abused by a stalker. They were impressed when they heard Fabrice was a virgin Sorcerer, appalled when she told them what Jenna had done, and surprised when she told them Andreas was his best friend.

  “From what the doctor said, he’s not been physically damaged,” Roz commented. “It’ll be a long road back for him, though. Psychological wounds and all that. But he has his friend.”

  For a moment, Roz thought she saw a speculative spark in her cousin’s eyes, but she couldn’t have. Unthinkable.

  Ellie, while not bearing a dangerous stalker crush on Andreas, clearly loved him. Whatever. If Ellie wanted him, she could have him. Roz was done with him, finished. She’d been stupid to even think of it. She hadn’t known him long enough, and this was just a symptom. Sex, that was all. Admittedly great sex. Nothing else.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Twenty-four hours after they admitted him, the doctors allowed Fabrice to wake up, taking him off the sedation that had kept him docile while the drugs worked their way through his system. Quietly Andreas helped him, doing what he could to alleviate the effects, because even in his sleep, Fabrice needed release. He stirred in the bed, restless and straining for help.

  Andreas got to know his friend’s cock almost as well as he knew his own, although during the last day he only thought about his own when he had to piss.

  His dour promises of revenge centered on Jenna Brice. He imagined vivid scenarios where Jenna was the powerful, wicked adversary he could destroy without a qualm instead of the pathetic, sniveling ruin he and Leon had found in that terrifying studio. Terrifying because of the lack of control it demonstrated. Terrifying because several times in his life Andreas had felt his control slip, had done things he’d rather not think about too much. He’d always pulled himself back in time, drawn by a thread of sanity that had completely snapped in Jenna.

  When Fabrice’s eyes flickered open, Andreas breathed out a long sigh. He’d expected Fabrice to wake up ever since they’d withdrawn all but the saline drip earlier in the day, and while dreading what he would have to tell Fabrice, he wanted it over with. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey.” Fabrice stared at him, his eyes dull. “How long have I been under?”

  “A day, more or less. It’s sunset in a couple of hours.”

  Fabrice grimaced and licked his lips. “Is there any water around here?”

  “Sure.” Andreas poured a glass from the bottle of mineral water on the nightstand. The moment had come; he didn’t know what to say. He listened to his friend’s groans with a dull sense of fatality.

  “It feels like I’ve been here a fuck of a lot longer than a day.” Fabrice gulped down the water and flopped back down again before Andreas had a chance to fluff his pillows. “Is sex usually this exhausting?”

  Shock lanced through Andreas when he realized he didn’t have to talk about it at all or tell Fabrice anything the ex-Sorcerer didn’t know already.

  Fabrice stared at his face and then smiled. “I knew as soon as I woke up. There’s something missing, and I have weird memories. That kid, Jenna Brice. She raped me, didn’t she?”

  Andreas swallowed. How like his friend to face the problem head-on. “Yes.”

  Fabrice had been a powerful virgin Sorcerer, rare and special, even among his kind. When Fabrice had taken the choice to remain a virgin, he had to learn not to orgasm. After maturity, anytime between eighteen and twenty-one, the Sorcerer’s course was set, his body recognizing the choice. Subsequently, if he lost his virginity involuntarily, he lost all his Talents too. If the virgin Sorcerer chose to make love to someone, he stood a chance of regaining at least some of his Talents, though even that wasn’t certain. But Fabrice had been raped, and you couldn’t get more involuntary than that. He’d lost everything, with no hope of getting any of his Talents back.

  “People learn how to manage if they go suddenly deaf or blind, so I can manage too.” He didn’t need telepathy to see Andreas’s reaction, because Andreas didn’t attempt to hide it. “Yes, it’s that bad. Losing one of my senses.”

  “It must be worse than losing your hearing or even your sight. You were one of the most powerful Sorcerers anyone had ever known.”

  “I was, wasn’t I?” Fabrice quirked a brow, a very slight movement, but one that showed Andreas he hadn’t lost his sardonic sense of humor. “Now I’m not. But I still have a job that doesn’t depend on my Talent. I have five other senses and some powerful friends.”

  “I’m not so powerful.”

  “You will be in a couple of hours.” Fabrice took a deep breath and then another, before lifting himself up and almost falling back, cursing.

  Andreas crossed the room to the closet and found a couple of pillows, coming back to lift Fabrice with one arm and shove the pillows behind him to make him more comfortable. Fabrice gave him a shaky smile. “Thanks. Although I know that’s not all you’ve done for me.”

  Andreas almost dropped him. He’d convinced himself Fabrice wouldn’t remember what he’d done.

  Then Fabrice really laughed, a deep chuckle of appreciation. “You’re very good at it, man. How much do you charge?”

  If Fabrice hadn’t been so ill, Andreas might have considered hitting him, friend or no friend, but his obvious glower only made Fabrice laugh more. “Andreas, you’re one of the straightest men I’ve ever met. I’ve heard you complaining about it before. Do you think I don’t know how bad you feel about what you did for me?”

  Heat rushed to his face. Fuck, was he blushing? “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember. Or at least, you wouldn’t remember who’d done it.”

  “Better you than the doc. Only we know what I needed and what you did, and I’d rather keep it that way. Thanks for preserving what dignity I have left.”

  Andreas sighed in relief for the second time in ten minutes. “I’m glad you see it like that. That’s why I did it. Leon knows I did it the first time, but he won’t say anything.”

  “The fucking Italian was useful after all.”

  Andreas busied himself pouring another glass of water for Fabrice. The shared knowledge had created a kind of bond between the Italian dragon and himself, one he would never have expected. Under all that bulk, Leon proved to be quite a sensitive individual. The dragon had even turned his back.

  Andreas handed Fabrice the water, making sure his friend had a good grip on the glass before sitting back again. “What do you remember?”

  Fabrice took a few deep swallows before he replied. “Well, no doubt Cristos knows I’m awake. He’ll want t
o debrief me.”

  “Not necessarily. Your abduction had nothing to do with anything the Department is involved in. You’ll probably have to tell the police, though.”

  “You called the cops?”

  “The woman who owned the art gallery did that. We showed her our creds, but she called the NYPD anyway. They don’t know anything except the girl drugged you and—and—”

  “Raped me.” Fabrice looked away, staring at the end of the bed. “Do I have to go to court?”

  “Probably not. We’ve put her in a facility, and she’s clearly nutty as a fruitcake. If they want to be hard-nosed, they’ll prosecute.”

  “I’m not sure I want them to. Not if it means I have to go to court.” Fabrice handed Andreas his empty glass without looking at him. “I never really realized how women felt when they suffer rape. I was stronger than her, one of the most powerful beings in the country, but none of that helped me, did it?”

  “We were looking for some powerful enemy, someone who could have overpowered you.”

  “Yeah, well.” Fabrice stared at his fist, pale against the blue coverlet, and clenched it. “It didn’t matter how powerful I was. I wasn’t careful enough.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went out for coffee.” He spoke slowly, clenching and unclenching his fist, watching the tendons tighten and the muscles tense. “I met her there. Or more likely she had staked out my hotel and followed me to the coffee bar. We got talking, you know, general stuff, about art, about life, and I thought I’d accidentally scored, so I started to back off, talk about her art, impersonal stuff. Christ, how I’d scored!” The bitter note in his voice was almost welcome to Andreas. At last, the response he’d expected instead of the light, humorous tone Fabrice had used up until now. Because Fabrice couldn’t respond, Andreas kept out of his head. Fabrice had been invaded enough.

  “She asked me back to her place, and I accepted. After all, what trouble could she be? I’d beaten off far more experienced women than her in my time. I’d met her at the gallery, Ellie knew her well and shares the apartment, and Cristos himself had vouched for Ellie. I was feeling pretty rough by then and getting worse, so I changed my mind. Thought I was ill, so I figured I’d tell her I wasn’t available after all and get a cab back to my hotel.” He glanced up at Andreas. “How’s Ellie taken all this?”