Cyneric opened the back door and waved Nial and Sebastian inside. He smiled, showing even, white teeth and absolutely no humour.
Nial faced him across the open doorway and motioned Sebastian into the limousine. “After you, Sebastian,” he said quietly.
“Your caution is quite unnecessary,” Cyneric said, his smile growing. “You are under the protection of my employer and have been for two days.”
Since the photo hit the newswires, Sebastian calculated. Two days ago, it would have reached Britain.
He ducked between the pair of them, the skin on his back crawling, and made his way into the limousine. Nial had his back. It was a reassuring thought.
A woman sat on the glowing leather bench seat behind the driver, her knees crossed and her calves angled at a perfect forty-five degrees. She wore conservative shoes, a dress that Sebastian suspected was some sort of silk, definitely designer and possible haute couture, in a dark moss green that matched her eyes.
Her hair was pulled back into a neat French twist. It looked as if it was a chestnut colour.
“You were the other one in the photo,” she said.
“Guilty,” Sebastian agreed.
She pointed to the long seat running under the windows, down the side of the car. “You may sit there.”
There was one other seat near her – a single seat next to the other windows, which left enough room to slide through to the bench where the woman sat. The seat was the only single chair in the car. It faced the woman and reminded Sebastian of the tales of the Round Table and the Perilous Chair and the fate of all who had dared sit in it.
Sebastian settled on the bench opposite the lonely chair.
Nial eased passed him.
“You sit there.” The woman pointed to the chair.
Nial sat and leaned forward, studying her.
Cyneric shut the door of the limousine and sat next to Sebastian. He leaned sideways and tapped the glass separating them from the driver.
There was an almost silent purr as the engine started. The limousine swayed gently as it pulled away from the curb.
The woman glanced at Cyneric.
“They are Nathanial and Sebastian, as you suspected.” He lifted the padded lid of the bar next to him and began mixing a drink, his hands moving with practised ease. “They are lovers, perhaps even married and living in a ménage with a woman called Winter. She is Curandero and has just discovered her heritage. The Curandero are teaching her now. Nathaniel believes the time for disguises will soon be at an end. Coupled with the rumours we gathered of events in New York last year, I would say that Nathanial is planning to announce the existence of vampires to the world at large. That is backed up by the fact that the Curandero did not wipe his memory when they first tracked down his wife and they teach her openly, in front of her husbands. He is sure enough of his mission he has managed to convince them it is feasible.” Cyneric gave a one-sided smile. “Passionate so often provides filler when intelligence is missing.”
Nial brought his fingertips together and rested them against his lips. Sebastian knew the gesture of old. He was hiding his real reactions. Holding them all back behind a mask of artificial calm.
Sebastian took a deep breath and let all his angst drop into a deep black pool and calm wash over him. He had to take his cues from Nial for now. He was completely out of his depth. There was too much information he didn’t have that he needed to be able to make any sort of decision. Nial knew more.
But Nial had been around a lot longer than he.
Nial didn’t even look at Cyneric. It was as if the man hadn’t spoken. The vampire. For Sebastian had him registered now. He had no scent and no blood markers. Sebastian could hear no heartbeat. The man was vampire.
The woman was vampire, too. She was studying Nial with odd intensity. “Do you know who I am?” She had an accent that Sebastian had never heard before. He might have called it mid-European, except it wasn’t. His instincts said it was very old.
“I could guess,” Nial replied.
“Most of the blood calls me Khurshid.”
Nial nodded. “Then my guess was correct. It is an honour, madam.”
“I’m glad you think it so.”
Cyneric handed her a martini glass, complete with an olive and curl of lemon skin. She smiled her thanks at him and wrapped a perfectly manicured hand around the elegant glass. The liquid shifted inside as the limousine rounded a corner. Sebastian watched the glass, fascinated.
“I don’t like to travel,” Khurshid told Nial. “It takes me away from my things. You have made me travel, Nathaniel Aquila Valerius Aurelius.”
Nial sat back. Sebastian saw his chest lift as he breathed deeply. He was on the defensive.
Then Khurshid lifted the glass to her lips and drank half the martini in one long mouthful. She licked her lips and put the glass down on the coaster, on the flat table top next to her. “Perfect as always, thank you,” she told Cyneric. Cyneric nodded and closed the lid of the bar and sat back.
Sebastian found his gaze flickering between the half-empty martini glass and Khurshid. He really had seen her drink it.
Khurshid settled her hands in her lap. The movement disturbed the hem of her dress, inching it higher, which revealed the lace of a slip beneath. Everything about her screamed of an elegance of days gone.
But Sebastian kept looking at the martini. She had powers they didn’t understand and couldn’t estimate.
“I’m sorry you feel you were inconvenienced,” Nial said, his tone polite. “But there was no need for you to stir yourself.”
“If I had not, others would.” She reached for the glass and sipped from it again. A long sip. “Are you professing no notion of what your games are stirring up, Nathanial?”
Nathaniel smiled. “I know exactly what…and who…I’m stirring, madam. That’s the point of these games.”
Cyneric gave a small sound, something like a sigh that was a mix of irritation and illumination. “He’s building himself a chessboard. He doesn’t like a hunting range.”
“Exactly,” Nathanial agreed.
“Explain,” Khurshid demanded.
“Chess is a game of perfect information,” Cyneric said. “The players know all the information there is to know about each other and their pieces. There are no secrets. That renders the game one of almost pure strategy. Nathanial believes that is a game he can win. A hunting range, on the other hand, hides everything including the hunter, more often than not. It’s a game of stealth and sometimes the players are not certain of who is in the game. That is what Nathaniel is trying to learn. Who is in the game.”
Nathaniel raised his brow.
“And how are you doing this?” Khurshid demanded. “Tell me.”
Nathaniel explained his game plan, designed to draw the individual members of the Pro Libertatis and the League for Humanity out into the open where they could identify them. He spoke for five minutes and during that time neither Khurshid nor Cyneric interrupted him once. They listened in absorbed silence.
When he had finished, Khurshid drained her martini glass and put it aside. “You do all this as preamble, before exposing the blood to humans. Did you not think to ask anyone if exposure was what they wanted? Did it not occur to you that the resistance you are experiencing from your brethren is a vote ‘no’?”
Nathaniel leaned forward. “With all due respect, madam Khurshid, the Pro Libertatis have not voted ‘no’. They have voted ‘not yet’. But the timetable I am following is not of my choosing.”
Cyneric snorted. “Let me guess. Humans and their technological ways are going to be the undoing of us all. Let’s put ourselves ahead of the inevitable.”
“Yes,” Nathaniel agreed quietly.
“And there we have the measure of his foolishness,” Cyneric said to Khurshid, his tone withering.
But Nathanial didn’t look at Cyneric. His gaze was locked on Khurshid. “You haven’t asked about the timetable that was forced on me,” he said.
“Not this time,” Nial insisted. “The crisis is coming, madam. It’s about three years away, which gives us just over a year to do anything useful.”
Khurshid’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t like that. “What crisis?” she insisted.
Sebastian drew in a breath, anticipating Nial’s cue. Nial looked at him. “Sebastian?”
“The results of a research study completed by a trio of computer analysts at Harvard was published two years ago. It didn’t draw a lot of attention because it was six hundred pages of data analysis and two hundred pages of conclusions. I read it.”
Khurshid glanced at Cyneric.
Cyneric nodded. “The profile said he was a computer hack.”
“The study was based on a simple question. How many organizations collect data on individuals in one week? The analysts took samples around the world, from one hundred and fifty different countries. Simple, as I said, but quite profound, really. The results were startling even for them and they thought they had a fair idea to begin with. One of the more interesting tentative conclusions the study came to was that within ten years, an individual’s complete life would be digitally traceable, from the time they got up in the morning, to the time they went to bed.”
Khurshid grimaced.
“Ten years,” Cyneric clarified.
“Yes, but the authors qualified that estimate,” Sebastian told him. “They said that if technology went through another evolution similar to the Internet, then that time period could be shortened by fifty percent or more.”
“And such an evolution has happened while we were mid-air over the Atlantic?” Cyneric’s tone was withering.
“It’s about to,” Sebastian replied calmly, although his heart was hurrying along. Stress was straining it. “Every device in the world is about to be linked and be able to talk to each other with BlueTooth 4 technology.”
Khurshid blew out her breath impatiently.
“No, I’ve heard of it,” Cyneric said quietly. “I wasn’t aware of its potential.” He studied Sebastian. “It links everything?”
“A whole house can be automated and run by a cellphone. People can run their entire lives with a wristwatch. The degree to which humans will be plugged in and will be able to keep track of digital information will explode,” Sebastian replied.
“We won’t be able to dodge and hide behind redundancies and errors in the system anymore,” Nial concluded. “No one will.”
The silence in the car was total.
Khurshid looked at Cyneric. He pursed his lips. “They may have a point,” he said reluctantly.
Sebastian breathed more easily.
Khurshid pushed her empty glass at Cyneric, while looking at Nial. “Tell me more,” she ordered. “Tell me everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Garrett tapped the window behind the cab driver’s head. “Just pull in there,” he told him, fishing out a fifty dollar note and pushing it through the grill.
Winter yawned and stretched and reached for the door handle. As the only one who really needed human amounts of sleep, she suffered the most for the nocturnal habits of the rest of them.
“What was the room again?” she asked as Garrett stepped out and shut the door.
“The Eckhorn Suite.” He looked up at the hotel. It was a small, non-franchise, exclusive hotel that businessmen might use who knew L.A. well enough to know it was here and were willing to pay for the luxury. He suspected it got by on word of mouth alone. Reputation was everything in the business world. The doorman was already straightening up, paying attention. He wondered if he would be recognized and if that would be an issue tonight.
“I’m slipping into asshole businessman role, Winter,” he murmured.
“Aren’t you always there?” she asked as they walked under the portico into the well-lit area where the glass doors and gleaming brass planters framed the carpet.
His laugh caught even him by surprise.
Winter grinned.
The doorman nodded and opened the door for them. “Mr. Garrett,” he murmured as he opened the door. “A pleasure to have you visit us here tonight.”
Garrett nodded back. So, he’d been recognized. Ah, well.
“Next time I’ll see if I can arrange a more reasonable flight,” Winter told him. “This really is ridiculous. And the luggage, too!”
Garrett played along. “Let’s just get some shut eye and sort it out tomorrow. David should be here by now.”
That gave them the excuse to by-pass the check-in and go straight to the elevators.
He spotted the elevator bank and angled toward it. “You’re very good at extemporizing, for one so young,” he told her, as they waited for a car.
“Sebastian and I used to do it for a living.”
“Doing what?”
“We stole things.” She grinned at him.
“You were good at it, then?”
The elevator chimed and they stepped in. Garrett pressed the top floor button.
“We were never caught. I suppose that defines good. We quit when…well, that’s a long story for another night.”
The elevator rose smoothly and swiftly and deposited them at the top floor. It was silent and muffled there, but as they stepped out, one half of a double-doored suite entrance opened and Sebastian emerged. “I heard the elevator chime. I thought it would be you. We’re waiting.” He beckoned. “Winter, I’ve made coffee.”
“My hero,” she told him. Her pace quickened.
Garrett followed her into the suite.
“Watch your step,” Sebastian murmured as Garrett passed him. When Garrett looked at him, startled, Sebastian raised a brow just enough to add emphasis to his warning.
Garrett didn’t respond. But the warning had been sufficient to put him on alert. He quartered the room with his gaze. To the human eye, it looked like a peaceful, elegant late night after-dinner party. Winter was at the sideboard, pouring herself a coffee from a silver urn. There was a low lamp spreading yellow light across the board and over the group of chairs and a low pair of sofas with tapestried upholstery that made up the rest of the room’s furniture.
A woman sat on one of the sofas, leaning against the arm. She sharply reminded Garret of a 1940’s or ‘50s film star – all glowing beauty and classic style. She would have given Ingrid Bergman a run for her money, if she had been blonde. It was that sort of bone-deep grace that breathed out through the pores. But her pores didn’t work. The only people in the room who weren’t vampire, Garrett estimated, were Sebastian and Winter, judging by their heat signatures, and they weren’t precisely human, either.
From the body language of everyone else in the room and from the way they were focused, the woman was the power holder.
Garrett quickly tabled the rest. There was one other stranger. Tall, dark haired, with a chin-strap beard. He looked to the woman, then.
Nial sat on the chair directly opposite the woman. In defense, or was he opposing her?
Sebastian wasn’t quite next to Nial, but he was closer to him than the woman. And he was on the same side of the room as the stranger. So…Sebastian’s warning was about the stranger, then. That was the danger. Sebastian was going to try and take the stranger out first if anything happened.
Garrett picked the chair that put him closer to the woman and on the opposite side of the room from the stranger. If Sebastian was going to take on the stranger, the least he could do would be to deal with the woman. That would leave Nial to protect Winter.
Nial’s mouth quirked in a quick grin as Garrett sat down. Then it disappeared. He pulled one of the light chairs closer to him and patted it. “Winter,” he said quietly.
She smiled her thanks and settled on it.
Nial caught Garrett’s gaze once more, briefly, then looked at the woman. “Madam, may I present Calum Micheil Garrett of the clan Bruce?”
&nb
sp; The woman nodded at him. “You are most welcome, Garrett.” Her accent was very old, with inflections that spoke of ancient roots and times long gone.
“Thank you, madam.”
“I am Khurshid Tabrizi Amirmoez. You have heard of me?”
Garrett kept his face still while his mind raced. Heard of her was a mild understatement. She was one of the unspoken ones, one of the ancient blood that had moved silently down through history. They came from such ancient times, they often found modern humans too taxing. Unable or unwilling to adjust, they found ways of stepping out of the mainstream of life and letting it pass by them, leaving them untouched, while they lived in their own little timeless pockets of existence. Vast compounding streams of wealth certainly helped them to achieve such isolation. So did their powers, which it was rumoured were more extended than the average vampire’s.
“You honour me with your name, Khurshid,” Garrett said carefully. Names were another touchy subject with the unspoken ones. They liked their anonymity.
She gave him a small smile. “It seems my name will be public property all too soon.”
Garrett slid his glance toward Nial. “Then you have been acquainted with Nial’s plans. That is why I am here, then.”
“I see he has a modicum of ability to think.” The dry tone and deep voice issued from the stranger, who stood neatly at equidistance between Nial and Sebastian, his hands loosely held at his sides.
Garrett looked directly at the man, assessing him. Memories stirred and tried to surface. Roman had spoken once about an English lord, who ran with the unspoken ones… Garrett stretched for the memory. It brought to mind a tavern in olde London town, horses’ hooves clinking on cobblestones, a fire built high against chilly winter rain, and stagecoach drivers’ calls outside. Raucous laughter and the smell of cheap beer.
“Cyneric Pæga, the Assassin,” Garrett intoned, remembering even the tone that Roman had used to invoke the man’s name as he’d told his tale over the beer-soaked table.
Cyneric gave a bow so brief it was nearly just a nod of his head. “At your service,” he said, his tone so dry deserts seemed like oceans in comparison.
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