I might be fantastically demented to hold out such a hope. But I do. And life has honed me into a complete starrkopf, as my fellow ’walkers are so quick to remind me. Not always in the fondest tone, either. I can tell the coming weeks will be an enduring battle of wills. No black and white sides here. I study the vampire. Just Black . . . and blacker.
I don’t believe Garthelle would throw me away so easily. The impression builds and solidifies as I watch him, the intensity of emotions in his body language. Sacrificing pawns without purpose is the mark of an amateur. The Monsieur of York is far from that. “What’s stopping you from doing that right now? You’re not pleased with this development. Or with me.”
Garthelle takes a step back. And then another, as if abruptly aware of my proximity. “What leads you to that conclusion?”
I wonder how long I can goad him into retreating. “You seem disturbed.”
“Disturbed by the sudden inability to sense your very existence?” He turns away. “Indeed. I would not put it past my opposition to facilitate such.”
“And you’re unbalanced by the prospect of my death. At hands other than yours, I presume.”
He glances at me, a quick furtive look over his shoulder, prey fleeing unflappable pursuit. “No.”
“Because that, as I recall, was the alternative you initially offered me.” I don’t succeed in keeping the rough edge of resentment out of my voice. “My death. By your own hand.”
And that marks the extent of his retreat. Garthelle turns back and faces me, arms folded loosely across his chest. “Your point being?”
“I want to know why you’re so concerned over the welfare of a mere gutter trawler.” That’s the phrase I heard bantered around last night by the altes Geld lyche. They dislike the term “vampire” but are oblivious to the offense caused by the epithets they use just as freely.
He laughs, dark brows arching up his forehead. “Such knowledge you desire. At what cost?” He tilts his head as though hoping an altered perspective will help. “All the ugliness in the world, my dear innocent, lurks in the shadows, in the most obvious—and humble—of hiding places. Don’t go rooting around unless you’re prepared to live with the consequences of what your curiosity drags into the light.”
“And what if I am, Garthelle? What then?” Brazen of me to address him in such a manner. The vampire halts in his progress toward the door but doesn’t turn back.
“Then I would ask what motivates you.” He turns his head a fraction. Brows furrowed, eyes narrowed. Wary, defensive.
“The desire to understand isn’t enough?”
His head lifts slightly. “What is it you desire to understand? Psychology? Sociology? Politics? I am teaching you what I can, you and Red both. It cannot possibly be absorbed in a single afternoon.”
I hesitate, not entirely understanding my own motivation, deep down. He’s right; nothing is simple with them. It’s not “brooding”; it’s “the contemplative assimilation of one’s reflections on individual sentiment and the profound existential implications.”
I think he knows better than me what I’m after. I also believe he’ll continue refusing me until I become aware of it, at least enough to state it.
Perhaps it’s Garthelle—Leonard—I actually wish to understand.
I stare at some indefinite point on the shagged carpeting between us, and the vampire turning to confront me registers as a blur of movement. I look up and feel my eyes widen at his expression of disbelief. Heat crawls up my neck, choking me like a vine of ivy strangling the life from a tree.
“I . . . ah . . . wh—” I give up, swallow roughly, and try again. “I said that out loud, didn’t I.” Not really a question. I can’t think of anything I possibly could’ve said to elicit such a reaction from him.
“Indeed.” The fingers of his left hand twitch, dangling loosely beside his thigh. Fuck. He starts to smile, but it fades away so swiftly I wonder if it was just a figment of my imagination.
“I think Red has been left to her own devices long enough.” And just like that, Garthelle turns back to the door, smoothly detouring around my entire faux pas.
Jhez looks up from her perch on the edge of Garthelle’s desk when we enter his office. Judging from the glint in her eye and the loosening of her mouth and shoulders, she’s relieved that I’m visibly intact and none the worse for wear. Her attention returns quickly to the small collection of papers in her hand.
“Come look at this.” There’s strain in her voice that I suspect has nothing to do with her previous concerns, now allayed. “These genealogies . . . are . . .” Her statement trails off unfinished. I move to stand at her side.
Scrawled across the top in bold font is the name “Noire.”
The current generation fans out at the far right, and veins of gold track to the left like glowing rivulets tracing backward from the mouth of a river delta. Judging from the dates in small font beneath each entry, the large page follows the family to its origins over a thousand years before.
It’s mind-numbing to look at.
Trying to comprehend the implications borders on dizzying. A collection of colored symbols scatter the page, notations referencing missing information.
Vincent Noire IV m. Alennia Fillun, ch. Caitlin, Andre, Vincent V.
I try to swallow, to breathe. Neither happens.
Soiphe Noire. Kathryne Noire. Alexandre Noire.
Siblings. More than just one. More than just the echo of our father staring at me from sightless eyes. And children. Three of them.
My mind reels, vision blurring as the questions spin through my mind one after another like bats erupting from their cavern perch at dusk.
With a conscious effort, I force myself away from it, turning my back to face the unadorned wall. And I can breathe. My first breath in what seems like years whooshes from my chest, and my shoulders shake. Lifting my hands, I grip them against my chest, clenching my fists in a battle of wills.
I should not be reacting this way. But I can’t stop it.
Vincent Noire, V. He gave my name away to someone more worthy. Someone whose blood demanded it. Someone sufficiently acceptable to the vampire community, no doubt.
Wrong. Someone acceptable to the lyche.
He obliterated our memory, scouring all evidence of us from his mind and his past. Obliterating our very existence, the evidence right there in harsh Indian ink on heavy parchment. As if we never existed. Rage boils up, corroding every coherent thought and emotion, searing along the edges of my vision, dulling the world to shades of black.
Jhez’s hand on my shoulder reinstates a measure of sanity. I know without turning to look that it’s her touch; her energy radiates into me, soothing away the fierce burn of emotion and dulling my discomfort with echoes of her own. Grounding me. After all, she had some time to herself to assimilate the discovery. Some measure of privacy.
No matter how much time has passed since I discarded my birth name and surname in favor of another, they will always remain. A mark set into flesh in my formative years—the vision of what my parents saw in me. That will always haunt me. A specter of my past, a dark shadow leering at me through the feeble fabric of time.
The lyche draws my eye. He steps away from the door, cautious in his approach. There’s no chance of him not feeling the emotions radiating from me, even with the drugs blocking energy flow between us.
Yet he ignores it entirely. “One would immediately assume, looking at that, a direct correlation between the Fillun and Noire families. That it exists with such immediacy is profound; it’s common knowledge, though, that if one traces the genealogy of any lyche lineage far enough, such correlations can be found between every bloodline.”
“One big happy family, then, eh?” Jhez’s comment is flippant as she tosses the long paper and its reviling content back to the clutter on the desk.
“Far from it.” He skirts the edge of the desk and flips through the layers of paper crammed with fine print. “The notations by the names in
dicate far more valuable bonds.”
Red brows furl into a scowl. “Thicker than blood.”
The Monsieur of York glances at her. “Many things are, amongst lyche.” He holds out a smaller paper populated with a list of vibrantly colored symbols and dark, enigmatic text. “Each refers to an association based on a circle. Which is in no way a linear correlation to ancestry. Occasionally, the two will parallel one another, but it is rare. The Fillun connection with Noire is one such instance, though.”
“Circle.” Jhez utters the word with the same tone she uses when she taste-tests my cooking.
“Thirteen circles exist in lyche society.” Garthelle’s mouth twists and he shuffles through the disarray on his desk as if attempting to distract himself. “Thirteen clans, each with their own agendas, operating in complete secrecy. Distinct from political factions, family, or business relations. They’re chronicled there by name; some trace their existence back as far as the most ancient lineages. Others are younger, only formed shortly before the disclosure. I know little about the majority of them, so few details are included in that list. Most of the connections between members are easily identifiable. Not all, though.”
What binds the clans, if it isn’t political or financial interest, and isn’t blood? I’m all but opening my mouth to ask as much when a sharp knock at the door precedes the arrival of Garthelle’s butler. “Monsieur. I’ve come to give forewarning of your father’s presence.”
The lack of intonation is odd. The tension in the room increases as Garthelle straightens and swiftly circles the desk, making for the door.
In the doorway, he turns back to study us. “Remain here until I return. Don’t venture anywhere.” The door clicks shut, the sound leaving a portentous silence in its wake.
“As if we have a notorious history of being snoops or something.” Jhez twists her mouth into a snarl and makes no effort to curb the volume of her voice.
Offering a smile, I pat her shoulder in passing and move around behind the desk to sit in Garthelle’s chair. “Show me what else you found before we got here.”
The edge in my request makes her stare in consternation before indulging me. “This list of circles. There’s associations between them as well as within them. From what I can make out,” Jhez pauses to tug a chart from deep within the mess and toss it on top, “no circle has associations with more than three others. Some have less.”
“What’s with the different lines?”
“That indicates the strength of the alliance. One’s always strongest between two circles.”
“But that leaves an odd man out.”
“Yes it does. The oldest of the circles, the original.” She taps a finger to the center of the chart, to a circle on the page with no deviating lines at all. “Either it maintains no identifiable associations, or it truly does choose to isolate itself.”
“And the Noire family with it?”
“The Filluns, as well. Which would explain their family-circle parallel. From what I can make of this mess, they don’t mix with others very often.”
I snag the lineage map and scan it. “Not all the family members have been aligned with this circle though.”
Jhez’s curt bark of laughter makes me flinch. There’s not a whit of humor in her tone. “You mean aside from us? It’s not unusual. The weakness of familial bonds explains that. It’s actually normal for ensuing generations to align themselves with totally unrelated circles. Look.”
She’s right. The deviations almost seem to follow a pattern. “But the Noire family has at least one member of each generation in the oldest circle.”
As Jhez leans forward from her perch on the edge of the desk, her brows and mouth twist into a scowl. “Think it means anything?”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence. But while it’s interesting, none of it points a finger at who’d benefit from the death of Vincent Noire’s sister.” Rifling through the mess, I look for another chart. “Having allies means having enemies.”
“Don’t bother; if he has one, it’s not here.”
My eyebrows arch toward my hairline. “Really?”
“I looked. It occurred to me just as quickly.”
“What’s the purpose of us doing this? Surely he doesn’t need our help.”
“What’s the first question that comes to mind?”
I laugh. “Quite a few pop up. Which circle is Garthelle’s? Does it have a hostile past with the center circle on that chart?” I squint in an effort to make out its label, but the lettering is too small to read without leaning forward again. “If that’s the case, is Garthelle’s sole purpose in this mess to get his hands on the illicit offspring of a rival?”
My sister’s dark eyes harden and she turns away, back stiff. “What’d be the point in that? It wouldn’t give him any leverage.”
“Not that we can see. The fact that Noire’s had children since the war suggests otherwise. That lyche society might strongly disapprove of our existence.”
“Black. That’s ridiculous.”
I grin at her. “I know. There’s no way anyone would accept that I am who I say I am, that my sire is indeed who I know it to be.” That vamp is not my father; I refuse to call him that. He doesn’t deserve it. “Not when he took such care to give the same exact name to another.”
“He walked away from us then; I doubt he’d acknowledge or associate with us now. So that possibility is insanely unlikely. We’d have no blackmail value, provide no leverage.”
“Yeah? I’d agree with you, except that I don’t believe in coincidences. And wouldn’t you say the most ironic one of all was our aunt found dead in Leonard Garthelle’s home just days after he took us into his employ?”
“You think someone knows who we are.”
I nod slowly. “I might even venture to say someone has proof. I don’t know how these things work, but I imagine someone might be unhappy to discover they’re not the heir, but the spare.”
“But bloodlines don’t carry that kind of weight.”
“Family, perhaps not. Consorting with a ‘lesser species’ though? I don’t know, I’m going on a hunch. They didn’t suddenly decide to hunt us down for chi-theft. Not after a two-decade crime spree. You don’t believe that, do you?” I push out of the chair and snag Jhez’s pack from the floor. Toss the crinkling bags of evidence on top of the chaotic paperwork before sitting back down and abandoning the pack with a negligent flip of my wrist.
“Let’s start with this.” I grab the medallion left at the murder scene, the metal heavy and solid through the plastic. “Is the symbol on the front indicative of family, or circle?”
“Circle.” She taps the corresponding representation on the chart. Not the center one. “But if you’re right and Le Gross has ulterior motives in”—she waves her hand, searching for the right word—“acquiring us, why would someone drop a dead member of the Noire family in this gathering?”
Snagging the lineage chart, I drag it back up on top of the pile. “Because our Auntie Soiphe wasn’t a member of the esteemed Noire circle.” Alpha, it’s labeled. “Not Alpha. She . . .” I trail off, grabbing the legend listing of symbols, “. . . was a member of this circle here.” I tap a different circle from the one Jhez indicated. The only relational bond between the two circles is four steps removed via the lines of strongest secondary relations.
I stare at the chart, frowning, wondering why it was constructed the way it was. Why put the twelve circles around Alpha like that? There has to be a reason why it would be placed in the center when it demonstrates no direct association with any of the other circles. Why not place it at the top, the bottom, or to one side, out of the way, so that the relationships of the other circles could be more easily visualized?
“Of course there isn’t a second chart.” The revelation hits me with such force that I sit back in the chair, stunned and chilled to the very core. “It’s designed that way for a reason.” Jhez is silent and motionless. I turn to look at her. “Politics,” I whisp
er, forcing a faint smile. It’s a short-lived expression. She doesn’t respond, waiting for me to explain. “Politics, and negative space. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Together, our gazes return to the chart. The center circle is enemy to all. Ally to none. The strength of hostility toward Alpha defines the bond of friendship between the other circles.
“Oh fuck.” Her voice wavers. “We’re caught in the middle of another war.”
It isn’t a very pleasant realization. “And the enemy of my enemy’s enemy . . .”
The vampire’s return is abrupt. He slides in past the door and leans against it as if his weight is holding off an imminent attack. One arm folds across his chest, the opposite hand resting beneath his clean-shaven chin. His gaze flicks over me lounging rather comfortably in his chair, but I don’t feel the impulse to relocate. Garthelle intimidates me, but I’m not about to let him know it.
The corner of his left eye twitches, and as I let my gaze drift down his form I notice other hints of stress. The vein standing out on his temple, tendons cording in his neck, the stiff posture.
“You’ve uncovered a shred of something disturbing I take it.” His yellow eyes linger on my gaze.
“What makes you think that?” Jhez’s retort is slightly more caustic in tone than I like, given the nature of what we’ve thus far managed to deduce.
The vampire pushes away from the door, arms and shoulders relaxing. Almost as if we radiate sufficient surplus energy that being in our company elicits an improvement in his mental state. Can they feed that way, without actively tapping in to someone’s chi? I have no idea.
“Do you think I can’t feel it? It was obvious enough earlier. Now . . .” He stops a few paces from the desk and clasps his hands at his back. “The energy in here . . . If I didn’t know better, I’d think my younger brother left his pet rabbits in here to breed.”
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