“It makes you want to puke,” Olympias observed, remembering an era when being a vampire had been a lot more fun.
There was nothing a girl could sink her fangs and claws into these days that wasn’t regulated by the Council and the Laws. Maybe she was a member of that Council and she was likely to vote on the conservative, cautionary side on the rare occasions the Council met to decide how to cope with the modern world. But that didn’t mean she liked being forced to hide deeper and deeper in the shadows. She didn’t mind that her kind were a minority—predators needed to be in the balance of nature—but being a marginalized minority fighting hard not to become an endangered species was a pain in the butt.
What I need is this bunny’s name, Olympias decided as she walked along, her long, quick strides eating up distance. A phone number. Something concrete and factual, since I can’t seem to wrap my mind around his and suck out what I need to know in the nice, old-fashioned, traditional way. What’s the use of being one of the few truly powerful, genuine psychics in the world, with long-practiced and -perfected technique, with thousands of hours and years of experience under my belt, when I need a phone book to look up this joker to see whether or not I’m going to let a wet-behind-the-fangs bimbo turn him into a vampire?
Olympias paused to take a mental breath and patted Bitch on the head. If she gave it some effort, she could find the vampire kid. But the idea of approaching the girl for help after having made such hard-ass pronouncements about the matter was embarrassing, demeaning, and would weaken her standing in a time when she was heading for a showdown with every vampire in the area about their living arrangements. She didn’t expect them to take it quietly and didn’t yet have a clue where the attack would come from. She didn’t know whether a show of superior indifference would cow them into shuffling off in a surly, mumbling heap of resentment. That was the plan, of course, but it was more likely someone was going to challenge her. Olympias didn’t want it to come down to her having to kill someone, because, frankly, though it was necessary to clear the nests out of their territories, it wasn’t the vampires’ fault that the mortal government was spreading farther and farther out of the central city. The Law was clear about vampires living in the capital cities of mortal lands. It could be argued that there were nests in Moscow, but she’d argue that those old Imperialist farts still thought St. Petersburg was the capital of Russia. Olympias’s territory was Washington, and she saw the need to keep the city clean of bloodsuckers. At least of the immortal variety. In fact, she’d waited too long to order this move and knew it, even if the nests wouldn’t agree.
That was a situation she’d think about later. Right now she wanted to get what should have been a minor vetting job out of the way. She’d decided that the best way—the only way left—was to find the park where she’d stopped the girl from raping her prey.
“This is where you come in, Bitch,” she told the eager dog. She rubbed Bitch’s ears and passed a mental image of what they were looking for into the animal’s mind. “First one to find the scent of the party gets a treat.”
Bitch took off instantly. Olympias laughed and kept pace with the hellhound, the pair of them becoming moving shadows passing through the quiet streets of Georgetown. She should have thought of this sooner, for it didn’t take long at all before she caught the lingering mental signature of lust, fear, and anger. Within a few blocks she spotted the park, a dark square of trees, grass, and flowerbeds circled by a wrought iron fence and surrounded by narrow streets lined with row houses. Parking in Georgetown was always at a premium, and even though there was little traffic, the narrow streets were jammed with expensive cars, squeezed in nose-to-trunk, taking up every inch of curb.
Before entering the park Olympias noticed a plaque on the fence by the gate. It stated firmly that no animals were allowed inside, a rule Bitch had already disobeyed. The hellhound was already sniffing around a stand of trees. An unnatural chill halted Olympias just inside the gate. The unexpected sensation cast an odd overlay to the fading mental energy already spread across the area. She looked carefully around, searching for the anomaly with all her very sharp senses. She picked up images—no—impressions of images. Faded, indistinct columns of energy—energy that wasn’t really there? Images that weren’t there but left a residue anyway? Like sensing someone on the darkened side of a mirror? She knew nothing had been there, but that it was a nothing that left its mark. Four or five—entities—intelligences—anti-images scattered all around . . . but not here now.
“Weird,” she muttered, while the hairs on the back of her neck rose in reaction. Whatever this nothing was, it was like nothing she’d ever encountered. Considering she’d encountered about every type of psychic and supernatural thing that existed in her more than two thousand years of life, that was saying quite a lot. This made the mystery of her mystery man even stranger, and she didn’t like that at all.
It was supposed to be a simple job.
Bitch gave one deep bark. Glowing eyes looked anxiously at her out of the dark.
“Coming,” Olympias answered. “Yesterday upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn’t there,” she said as she moved very carefully toward her dog. “He wasn’t there again today.” She laughed, remembering a version of the rhyme she’d read somewhere that ended, “I think he’s from the CIA.”
What she’d come here to do was pick up the man’s mental signature and follow it to where he lived. That was what she was still going to do. Once she found him, she’d ask him not at all politely what he knew about the weird things in the park that weren’t vampires.
When her pocket rang, Olympias discovered that Sara had thoughtfully tucked her cell phone into her sweatshirt jacket. It was an unlisted number known to one mortal and every Enforcer in the country. The Enforcers were instructed not to use it unless they had a strigoi-threatening emergency on their hands. Indirect forms of communication were so much easier to keep secret than a conversation on a cellular telephone. Enforcers were semiautonomous, very capable, and she was the one who usually called them with instructions. It kept on ringing, and Olympias was tempted not to answer. Olympias didn’t want to cope with a national emergency right now. But if Sara was in trouble with Andrew, she’d call for help. That must be why Sara slipped the phone into the jacket.
She pulled out the phone and flipped it open. “What?” The voice was not Sara’s. Olympias stood very still and listened. “Memphis?” she asked. “There’s an Enforcer in Nashville, but not in Memphis. Right. I see to—hold on, I’ve got another call on the other line.” She hated call waiting and made a mental note to tell Sara to get rid of it as she answered the other call. This caller wasn’t Sara, either. “How’d you get this number?” There was the old boys’ network, then there was the old girls’ network, and the caller was a very old girl indeed. Olympias listened to her for a few moments, dread growing, then said, “Yes, I know about the hotel opening in Las Vegas. Oh. That’s not good.” She looked around the park. She had no time for bunny hunting right now. “I’ll call you back. Right. I don’t have your number. Call me back in half an hour, on a landline.” She switched to the first caller. “Stay there. I’ll call you back.”
Olympias switched off the phone and called her dog to her. She had to get home and start the process of putting out a pair of serious fires. She would worry about local emergencies later—which seemed to be happening more and more these days.
“Memory doesn’t lie, but it does hallucinate. I hope,” Falconer muttered to himself as he made a careful search through the park.
“What?” the friend he’d brought with him asked.
“Nothing.” Falconer was looking for a particular tree. Though it was daylight, the place was thick with unnatural shadows, as if it didn’t want him to know it was here.
But he knew he was in the right place, though he couldn’t explain to his forensic scientist friend that his certainty came from the psychic residue of the Walkers, and not because this was where the attack had to have
taken place. The thing was, he shouldn’t have forgotten where he’d been attacked. He hadn’t suffered any head trauma, and there was no logical excuse for him to have forgotten the existence of a park he passed on his walks all the time. When he’d come to his senses it had been like walking out a long, black tunnel, and he’d found himself standing stupidly in front of the door to his house.
Maybe he should forget the incident and move on, forget the weirdness the Walkers had encountered yesterday, and forget the man who might or might not be a vampire who showed up in visions and dreams when Falconer was looking for something else. Of course, if he were serious about dropping any investigation, he wouldn’t have called Russ Krantz from the FBI forensics lab and asked for a private crime scene investigation. Russ was ex-military, and he and Falconer went way back. Tight-assed as the Feds were, Russ hadn’t balked at the request, only at the early hour Falconer asked him to meet him. Falconer had placated him by bringing coffee and donuts. Now, as heat built and storm clouds loomed in the early morning sky, the two men ignored curious glances from runners on the park paths and methodically quartered the block-square area.
“Here,” Falconer called at the third tree he inspected. “Broken bark,” he told Russ when he came trotting up.
“So I see. Stand back,” Russ directed, waving Falconer away from the tree.
Falconer stepped back to let his friend work. After a brief inspection of the tree trunk and the ground around it, Russ opened a bag, put on gloves, and took out a selection of equipment. He used tweezers and put things in vials. It was all very arcane to Mike Falconer.
After a few minutes Falconer couldn’t contain his impatience anymore. “Well? What have you found?”
“Hair, mostly,” Russ answered. “Some fibers. Possibly a tiny amount of blood.”
“Evidence,” Falconer said, and sighed. He was surprised at how anxious he’d been that there might be no way to prove the reality of what had happened to him. “Good.”
“I’ll let you know if it’s good after I get back to the lab. This is everything.” Russ sealed the last bit of evidence and put the container in his bag. “I could bring in some fancy high-tech equipment and go over the area if you like, Mike.”
“Neither of our budgets could handle that.”
“Not if all you’re paying in is coffee and donuts.”
“And favors to be returned,” Falconer added.
Russ grunted and hefted his bag. He checked his watch. “If you’re going to tell me you need this stuff by tonight, you’re out of luck.”
“Understood.” Falconer checked his own watch. He had an appointment in an hour and important meetings the rest of the day. There were no Walking sessions scheduled for the rest of the week, thank goodness. “I wouldn’t be home tonight, even if you had anything for me,” he told his friend. “I’ll be at a party.”
Russ canted a bushy eyebrow at Falconer. “Hot date?”
“Only if you consider kissing up to appropriations committee members hot.”
The FBI scientist laughed. They strolled toward the street together. “I thank God regularly that I’m a faceless cog in the bureaucratic wheel. At least I don’t have to personally worry about where my funding comes from.”
“Lucky bastard. Thanks for the help.”
“No problem,” Russ answered.
They tossed empty coffee containers into a garbage can. Russ hefted his bag on his shoulder. Falconer did not let himself look nervously over his shoulder at the shadows and ghosts in the park, and they went their separate ways.
The taste of the Irish coffee was good against his tongue, the heat of it spread a comforting warmth. The raincoat he’d folded over the chair next to his was still soaking wet, and his hair was a little damp. Rain poured down outside, the storm clouds covering the city so dark it was hard to tell that it was near the middle of the day. Frequent flashes of lightning lit up the street outside the wide windows at the front of the bar. Bentencourt checked his watch, something that was a habit still more than a necessity. The blood he shared with Rose was changing him. Among those changes was the growing awareness of the exact position of the sun as the earth turned in its rotation.
He loved the taste of her blood, and hated the necessity of having to taste it so rarely. The anticipation was sweet, of course, and the test of his control was good for him. He needed to be disciplined, to remain focused. The threads he held in his hands were only beginning to come together. He had to keep careful watch on each and every intersecting plan. The drives of the body changing and opening up to new and powerful kinds of magic left one distracted to the point of madness. Look at how Cassandra had behaved at lunch the day before, making a fool of herself in front himself and Gavivi, showing her vulnerability.
Poor dear, he thought. There must be some use I can make of her obvious misery.
Someday he would go through that change, but not until he was in control of the world around him. He looked forward to the night he made his first kill and the brief decadence of rebirth that would follow. Once he was a strigoi he would always be in command of the magic, the need.
“Let me go!” he recalled Lora begging last night when Rose stopped her from leaving the house. He had to admit he was impressed that his lethargic little Rose sensed the young vampire’s intentions and moved with decisive speed to keep the girl in the house. “I need!” Lora cried.
Rose held her in her arms, rocking her like a loving mother trying to ease the broken heart of a child rather than soothing a monster who ripped them out. “Patience,” she urged. “We always need. The hunger bubbles in the mind and whispers all the time—take, Hunt, rape, kill. Fight the hunger, Lora. Be strong, one moment at a time.”
“You told me I could have him!”
“You will.”
“She hurt me. She wouldn’t let me taste him. I stalked him, I claim him. He’s my prey!”
“He’ll be in your bed soon. You hunted him too close to the Hunter’s territory, and that was my fault. I didn’t think she’d care. I shouldn’t have let you go without consulting with the Hunter. I was wrong.”
“You’re never wrong,” Bentencourt interjected quickly. “The Greek witch doesn’t care, except to try to exert control she doesn’t deserve. She can’t control what goes on inside your nest. The Law says that Lora has a right to take a companion.”
“Of course she does,” Rose answered, still holding Lora in a grip of steel. Lora moaned and clutched at Rose’s shoulders, her claws out, but not piercing flesh that only appeared soft and vulnerable. Rose made Lora look deep into her eyes. “You will have a companion. His blood is yours. Soon.”
The constant hunger to Hunt was palpable in both women. Bentencourt could taste it on the charged air. No matter how well vampires managed to control the dark urges, much of the time it was their weak spot, the place where they could most easily be manipulated. He loved that about them. It made it so easy for him.
Bentencourt smiled at the memory of last night’s little drama. Lora certainly would not be granted her wish to take the companion of her choice soon, but perhaps she would have her bunny one way or another. Bentencourt really didn’t care what happened to Falconer, as long as Lora’s interest in him brought Olympias trouble.
He had plenty of time before he had to leave, especially since he would probably catch a cab instead of walking the ten or twelve blocks to his meeting in this downpour. Time for a pub lunch, and maybe a game of darts if any of the bar’s regulars put in an appearance. The place was not too far from the zoo and a metro stop. Too many tourists found their way to the place at lunchtime to sample the excellent beer and simple but genuine Irish fare. Evenings it was different; locals came for the music and gatherings in the back rooms. Several genuine psychics did readings here once or twice a month and taught classes as well. It was a meeting with one of those psychics that had changed his life. He’d ended up holding his own classes as a way of developing his mental abilities and gaining information with the hy
pnotic and mind-reading skills he discovered he was so gifted with. Bentencourt was not the regular he’d been at one time, but he did miss the evenings holding court in the back rooms.
It was good to indulge in a bit of nostalgia, but Bentencourt wondered why he was really here today. True, this old haunt was not too far from his destination, but he knew there was no such thing as coincidence for mental adepts, only synchronicity. By the time he’d signaled a waitress, given her his lunch order, then turned his attention to the door, he had his answer.
Ah, he thought, of course.
Bentencourt raised his hand to get her attention. Grace Avella smiled when she saw him. He noted that she did not look a bit surprised at his presence as she made her way through the mass of small tables to reach his place near the dark paneled wall. She’d been Walking, he concluded, looking for him. He was annoyed with himself for not having felt her. He’d tried such astral projection but hadn’t yet figured out how it was done. It was not high on his list of priorities. While the ability to watch the actions of others without detection was useful, he didn’t absolutely need it now. Besides, it would develop naturally with other strigoi talents once he’d made the change. He was not paranoid that others could spy on him. He was clever enough to make sure his actions masked his motives, but it was annoying to know that it could be done.
He showed no annoyance when he greeted Grace, and certainly no awareness of how she’d found him. He rose and took her folded umbrella, placing it on top of his raincoat. “What a pleasant surprise,” he said as he gallantly rose and pulled out a chair for her. “I’ve missed our little sessions. You’re looking well. Still practicing the exercises we tried out?” She flushed with pleasure at such attention. It was surprising how these old-fashioned gestures disarmed modern women. “I’ve just ordered lunch. What can I have the waitress get for you?”
Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions Page 8
