He blinked, and came back from the dizzy edge of nausea. “Stay out of this.” Her expression remained stubborn. She didn’t recognize that he wasn’t giving an order; he was begging her. Right now he knew there was nothing he could do to stop her. “We’ll discuss it when I’m out of here,” he said. “Please don’t do anything until then.”
Grace backed away from the bed. “We will discuss it,” she said.
It wasn’t a promise not to do anything. He knew he wasn’t going to get one. “Fine,” he said. “Thanks for stopping by. Don’t let the cop see you leave.” Someone was knocking on his head again. “I really need to get some sleep.”
He really did.
“Even injured you are one hard head to crack into.”
“I really wish you’d knock.”
“I’ve been knocking for an hour. Pretty girl, your visitor. She looked familiar. What’s her name?”
“You don’t think I’m going to tell you anything about her, do you?”
“She seems to believe in vampires.”
“Lots of people believe in vampires.”
“And vampires believe in them until they get them to believe otherwise.”
“I’m not sure that made sense.”
“It seems a great many vampires believe in you. You Falconers draw attention to yourselves.”
“Animal magnetism?”
“Hot blood and sexy minds.”
“Falconers? Why the plural?”
“Long story. Vampires have lots of long stories. We don’t like to share them. With you I’m willing to make an exception.”
“Do you find this floating bodiless in space conversation as disconcerting as I do?”
“You want to go somewhere for coffee?”
“Sure.”
The next instant he was in the Afterwards Café, sitting across a table from Olympias. There were people sitting at tables all around them, all of them immersed in reading books and drinking coffee. No one was in the least aware of their presence.
“We’re not really here, are we?” he asked the pale woman on the other side of the table.
“Of course not. You’re on drugs, I’m comatose, we’re dreaming together. Which means the coffee is free, and it’s always fresh. Would you like to know the history of coffee?” she asked.
“I’d rather know what you are.” He noticed that they were both wearing black turtlenecks and slacks. She was wearing sunglasses. He experimented with the dream imagery, and his clothes changed into his uniform.
Olympias took off her dark glasses and looked him over critically. “Impressive. You learned that sort of control in the Walker Project?”
He picked up a large white mug of steaming coffee and took a sip. It was fresh, delicious, and scalding hot, but it didn’t burn his mouth. “The point of an information exchange,” he reminded her, “is to exchange information. What are you?”
“Sorry for what happened.”
“We both know what I mean. You saved me from the vampire chick. Twice. Why?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, doll. I was doing my job.”
“Which makes you, what? A vampire cop?”
She nodded. “Enforcer of the City, or Hunter of the City, as they say out on the left coast. Some of the other titles include Nighthawk, Daughter of the Nighthawk Line, and Goddess Chosen. Then there’s the really old names for what I am—Tytan, Bubo—very few remember those. What I do boils down to being a vampire who protects.”
“You protect humans from vampires?”
“Don’t look so hopeful. I’m not a protector of your world; I’m a protector of mine. Most of the time I protect vampires from mortals. And vampires from each other, and other supramortal beings.”
“Supramortal?”
“It’s a word I just made up. It’s very hard to define what demons and werewolves and fairies and all that other trash is. Pests, mostly. Mortals are the most dangerous. I spend every waking—and most of my sleeping—moments keeping vampires from being discovered by mortals. A thankless job, I might add. It’s not even an elected post. I was appointed. I had no interest in coming to America, but the Council decided I was the best one for the job—meaning that they wanted me out of town—” She took a deep breath. “Am I boring you? ’Cause I’m boring me.”
“You’re fascinating. What town?”
“Prague, of course, just after the Great War. Though if you’ve ever faced a Mongol horde you might not consider what happened during World War I all that impressive. The center of strigoi power has moved quite a bit over the centuries,” she explained. “To Warsaw and Budapest among other places. The one thing movies get right is that many vampires speak with Eastern European accents. The ones that don’t are second-class citizens, believe me.”
“Why are you telling me all this? Planning to make me forget it when we’re done?” He took a sip of delicious imaginary coffee. “If you have a need to talk to someone, you should seek professional help. I’m not a therapist.”
She smiled. He watched carefully, but could detect not the slightest hint of fang in her dentition. Of course, they weren’t exactly in the real world. If a newbie at this like him could manipulate his appearance, Olympias could probably make herself look like a talking giraffe if she wanted to. Or the sexiest woman in the world.
“I don’t need special effects to do that,” she said.
Falconer shook a finger at her. “You’re reading my mind.”
“Where do you think we are at the moment?”
“Sharing our minds,” he answered. He looked around the phantom coffee bar. “You’re not doing this without my help.”
“You’re guessing.” She paused to drink her own coffee before adding, “A good guess.”
“Why are we talking?” he asked. “Why are you bothering to tell me vampire history?”
Olympias folded her hands on top of the table. She turned a very direct gaze on him. Nothing but earnestness shone out of her dark eyes. He wondered how many centuries she’d had to practice that open look. “I’m being sincere,” she responded to his cynicism. “Not my normal attitude at all.”
“What’s your normal attitude?”
She laughed. And the next thing he knew Falconer was seated across the table from a creature that did not resemble a vampire at all. He was tempted to scream, jump out of the chair, and run away. He asked the multiple-fanged monster across the table, “You want another cup of coffee?” He studied the creature’s sharply pointed muzzle. “And maybe a straw?”
The monster threw back its head and laughed, then became Olympias again. “He doesn’t mind my having a bad fang day. Goddess, I think I’m in love.”
He already knew he was, which he supposed was sick, disgusting, and perverted. “Should I thank you for saving me?” he asked. “Why did you save me? For yourself?” he guessed. Hoped? That was sick.
“You flatter yourself.”
“You’re blushing.”
“I am too sophisticated to blush.” She touched her cheeks. “Hmm. How odd that a reaction that I can consciously control doesn’t cooperate in here.”
“Maybe because you have to tell the truth inside your head.”
“People lie to themselves all the time. Even people like us.”
“Loons and mons—creatures of the night?”
“People who have their roots in the underneath world. Your roots are with my kind, Mike. You may be mortal at the moment, but your dad is not.”
“My father is dead,” he answered, deliberately stubborn, and filled with the usual anger. “I hope he is. He abandoned my mother, and I don’t want to talk—”
“But you do want to talk about it. To know what happened. We’re telling the truth in here, Michael.”
“Speaking of truth.” He changed the subject. “Are you really the Olympias? Did you kill Philip of Macedon?”
“Not personally, no. I didn’t get my hands bloody back in my mortal days. Missed out on a lot of fun that way.”
�
�You murdered your husband?”
“I arranged the assassination of a political rival who had arranged to have my son and me murdered.” She shrugged. “I got there first. In the end—” Another shrug. “Alexander didn’t live to see the results of the changes he brought to the world. I did, and I don’t really like the consequences. Andrew Falconer didn’t desert his family,” she went on, her direct gaze focused intently on him again. She made him listen. “What happened to your father is what nearly happened to you last night. A vampire took him as a lover, without bothering to ask if he wanted to be her lover. When you become a vampire’s lover, you eventually become a vampire. Before he became a vampire, and left town, he left a little something with his wife. You.”
He heard what she said, wanted to disbelieve it, but couldn’t. The news should have been devastating. Maybe it would be later. Right now, he focused on one of the things she’d told him. “Left town. Could my father have returned recently? I saw a vampire—Walking or dreaming, I’m not sure which—this was even before the attack in the park. Was that my father?”
“I have no idea.”
“Yes, you do.”
She shook her head. “Andrew is in town. I don’t know if you saw him. Maybe. You’ve got some weird gifts. This Walking stuff has to stop, by the way.”
Ah, so they’d gotten to the real reason she’d intruded on his mind again. “Are you asking me nicely? Ordering me? Somehow going to use my father against me if we don’t disband the project?”
Olympias sipped a fresh cup of coffee. Then looked at him over the rim of the cup. “The ground your people are treading is very dangerous, Mike. You have to decide whether you want them to live or die.”
“Damn you!”
He rose angrily to his feet, but Olympias was gone by the time he was out of his chair. Then the room disappeared, then the world turned to gray fog. Falconer turned around and around, growing dizzier and dizzier. He felt like he was being poured down a drain. Fortunately, after that, everything went black.
•••
“Thanks for seeing me.”
Bentencourt had some trouble keeping his smile as benign as usual, as he basked in Grace’s nervous excitement. She looked delicious, there was no other word for it. If he’d had fangs he’d have been all over her the instant she walked in the door of the Irish bar. Such a feast was not on his plate just yet, but anticipating his glorious future brought the smile that was so hard to keep curious and friendly.
He had a lunch appointment with several other people, but had arrived early on an intuition that something interesting would turn up. A cell phone call from Grace the moment he arrived at the pub turned out to be the answer to his intuition. She’d sounded excited, and he’d told her to meet him at the usual place. It turned out she was already on the way, and joined him within a minute of his being seated.
Grace was always interesting, young, vital, and full of life. If all went well, that life would be ending soon, but the knowledge that her blood would be drained for the sake of his cause both pleased and amused him. His plan was coming together swiftly. Olympias would soon be defeated, and thanks to recent discoveries, he could arrange for her to die sooner than his original plan had called for. It was hard to keep from becoming positively giddy with anticipation. He couldn’t afford to let himself be this way. This was the most dangerous time, while he pulled all the strings at once, wove them together into the final pattern that would bring the bitch down.
He made himself relax. He made himself focus his full attention on the young woman opposite him. He did not bask in the triumph of watching her eyes widen and her expression go dreamy with the usual reaction his full regard had on people. “How can I help you?” he asked her. What can you do for me, he thought.
She glanced from side to side, and kept her voice low as she spoke. “I have a feeling you aren’t going to be as surprised as most people would be about what I’m going to tell you.”
“You’re going to tell me about vampires,” he said, cutting to the chase.
Grace sat back in her chair, looking deflated. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t you think I wouldn’t experiment a bit on my own after we discussed techniques for linear astral projection?”
She accepted his excuse for the knowledge easily. “So you found them too.”
He nodded. “I did. I wasn’t really surprised.” He pointed between her and himself. “People with special talents like ours exist. It’s actually something of a relief to realize that we aren’t freaks—and that the supernatural world that logic and science has denied has refused to go away because no one is supposed to believe in it anymore. It’s probably safer for us that our gifts and powers are derided as nonexistent by the establishment. Think how the government could exploit us if it knew about us.”
She gave him a hard look, and for a moment he thought he might have gone a bit too far, since Grace had carefully never mentioned her involvement with a government agency to him. What he knew about her had been picked up telepathically. Right now, he sent mental commands to her to obey any suggestion he made and ignore any suspicions he might arouse.
Fortunately, her attention was firmly set on the subject she’d come to discuss. “The world might not know about them, but we do. What are we going to do about them?”
He appeared to give the subject some thought, while Grace watched him with growing impatience. “I suggest observation might be the first step,” he said finally.
“We have observed them.”
“We have—”
“Physically observed them.”
Grace shook her head. She looked quite scared. “One of them attacked a friend of mine. He’s in the hospital.”
“Really?” Bentencourt was genuinely intrigued. “I’m happy your friend is alive. What happened?”
“Mike doesn’t want to talk about the details. He doesn’t want to put the rest of us in danger.”
“Knowing that vampires exists puts you in danger,” Bentencourt answered. “I’m sure your friend is concerned for your safety, but I think silence is more dangerous than taking a proactive approach.”
“Exactly what I think. But I’m not sure how to go about hunting them.”
“Perhaps knowing how your friend survived the incident would help.”
She nodded. “All I know is what another friend heard. She was on the phone to Mike when the vampire broke into his house. I guess that puts the myth that vampires need to be invited in to rest, ’cause Sela heard a window break, and then Mike told her the vampire was there. There was a fight, and Mike got beaten. Sela says she heard him screaming, and Mike’s not the screaming type. The craziest part is that it sounded to Sela like a second vampire showed up, another female.”
“The first vampire was a woman?”
“Didn’t I mention that? It sounded like the first female vampire wanted to bite Mike, but that the second female that showed up didn’t want the first one to have him. I could see fighting over Mike,” she added. “He’s not exactly handsome, but he’s got this whole macho but soft-spoken gentle but tough as nails thing going on that I personally find irresistible. If he was ten or fifteen years younger I would have jumped him myself, but . . .” Grace took a deep breath and gave Bentencourt an apologetic look. “That’s not telling you about the vampires, is it?”
“Fascinating as your description of this Mike is, no.”
“Sorry. Remember that what Sela thinks happened came from listening on the phone, so her context isn’t exactly perfect.”
“I understand.”
“She thinks she heard the second vampire kill the one who attacked Mike. The police didn’t find any vampire bodies when they showed up, just Mike, all beaten and clawed. I guess he isn’t as badly hurt as he looks, but he looks terrible. Do you think the second vampire took the body of the first one with her?”
“It would be logical that vampires wouldn’t want any evidence of their existence to be found.”
“That make
s sense. I think this pair must have been the ones we observed when we tried Walking backwards. They fought over Mike that time, too.”
“No doubt.”
“Maybe they’re the only ones around.”
“I doubt that.”
“Me too. Besides, even if one of them killed the other one, that’s still one vampire too many.”
“I quite agree.”
“Guess we have to find and somehow kill her.”
Bentencourt could barely contain his pleasure. From what Grace said, his plan had worked exactly as he’d set it up. Olympias had killed Lora. He would now make sure that the rest of the area’s vampires were outraged at the violation of Lora’s rights, and at her vicious murder. Bravo, Lora, you’ve served your purpose. Time for Grace to serve hers.
“If I were to find a way to physically observe vampires, would you and your colleagues be interested in joining me?”
Grace didn’t look happy, but she slowly nodded. “We do have to do something. I know that. I was all gung-ho about it at first. But the more I think about facing vampires—”
“You won’t have to face them alone.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll observe them, figure out how to kill them, then develop a safe strategy for destroying them.”
“Find out where they sleep in the daytime, you mean? Attack them when they’re helpless?”
“Precisely.”
“Couldn’t we trace them down by Wal—astral projection?”
“I certainly think you should try that method. I’m going to try looking for their waking whereabouts. I’ll call you if anything turns up.”
“Me too.”
“I’m afraid I can’t talk any more right now,” he apologized. Bentencourt stood. He took Grace’s hand and helped her rise, then he gave her a quick, reassuring hug. “All will be well,” he promised. “Remember, we are the good guys.”
She smiled. “Right. Thanks for the help.”
He nodded, and she turned to make her way through the growing lunch crowd. He remained expectantly standing, his gaze on the door. While he watched her go, he called one of the numbers on his cell phone’s speed dial, but once again got no answer from Sara Czerny. He left a message, then decided to call Sara’s assistant, Gerry, after his next meeting. He’d let the slave run his errands. It’s about time I stopped doing all the work, Bentencourt decided.
Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions Page 18
