by Mark Henwick
I shrugged. “That’s him, according to him. Whoever he is, his marque matches someone who tried to attack me yesterday. I was told to bring him in securely. That’s my interpretation, under the circumstances.”
The second guard gave a thumbs-up and closed the trunk. They both ignored Jaworski. I guessed that meant I outranked him.
After a call to the house to check, they directed me around the side and down into an underground garage. I parked in a spare slot and got out.
Diana emerged from a door and strode over.
At the sight of her, my heart stuttered. I’d expected Bian. Diana and I exchanged Athanate neck kisses and I wondered if I was in trouble again. And had I just created another one of Skylur’s unhealthy situations?
Jeez, bit late for regrets.
Maybe I’d overcompensated in making sure there weren’t any security problems. The asshole deserved it, but I might have created all kinds of diplomatic problems.
Apparently not. After giving me a quiet smile, she reached into the car and effortlessly lifted Jaworski out, setting him down on his feet roughly. The tough duct tape snapped under her fingers like stale pasta and she tossed the towel aside.
The bluster died on his lips. “Diana,” he stammered.
I had a full view of his face. I would have laid good odds that, for whatever reason, he hadn’t expected to see her.
Diana thought so too. Her eyebrows lifted gently. “Surprised, Diakon?” She began to pace around him. He froze into place. I stood back and watched. “Romero declines to attend an Assembly, and sends a Diakon, late, with an instruction to be accommodated in House Altau, and you didn’t expect me to get involved?”
“You have to understand, things are very difficult,” he stuttered. “There’s pressure from Matlal all the time. We feel threatened.”
“You feel threatened by Basilikos, and Romero has to be in New Mexico to keep control?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” He was standing straight, trying to appear confident, but he was shifting his weight nervously. I guessed no Diakon would be a dummy, but I’d match Bian against him any day. I could smell the fear coming off him, hear the tripping of his heart.
“Even though this puts the Panethus vote at risk in the Assembly?” Diana said.
“Panethus voting is solid on all the major issues, Diana.” He sounded almost as if he’d prepared this little speech. “And I will address the Assembly on behalf of House Romero on any points you wish.”
“But you won’t vote, because you can’t,” Diana said flatly. “And outside of the major issues are a host of minor issues that will become major if we don’t settle them now. Basilikos are eager to exploit the slightest weakness in Panethus. If Romero doesn’t attend, what signal does that send to Teugis or Madrone or Ubbriaco? If Romero is too frightened or too hard pressed to attend, why should they? How many before it’s a major issue in itself?”
“But Matlal—”
“The only thing keeping Romero free from Matlal, is that Romero is too small to bother with. Romero has his head locked in the 19th century, thinking he has a border to protect.” She whirled on him. “The border is meaningless. Matlal is here, in Denver. And if he wanted, he would be in Albuquerque too.”
Diana’s voice hadn’t risen, but her words were like ice. She paced around him once more before coming up behind him, very close to his ear. “Or is he there already?” she whispered.
“No, Diana. No. I swear it.”
“Can you? Tell me, have you come straight from a briefing with Romero? You were in Albuquerque?”
“No, no. I was in Santa Fe. That’s my area of responsibility. But we spoke by phone just before I left.”
Diana snorted.
A guard came into the garage. She was armed with Altau’s standard weapon, the stubby, ugly Herstal P90.
“Put him in a cell. I’ll question him later,” Diana said.
“I protest—” Jaworski stumbled as he was led away, and the door closed behind them, cutting him off.
Diana strode back to me. “It’ll be a waste of time. He doesn’t know anything. His ignorance is telling me more about what’s going on in New Mexico than he could say himself. Romero has deliberately sent a junior Diakon to us. One who hasn’t been briefed, who hasn’t seen Romero in months. Who has no scent of Matlal about him.”
Diana had no real concept of personal space, or chose to ignore it. I made myself stand still as she rested a hand on my shoulder and bent close to me, her nostrils flaring. She snorted again.
“So one of the people who tried to ambush you yesterday was House Romero?” She walked around me, the same way she had with Jaworski, but without the menacing edge to it. Or not as much.
I nodded. “Jaworski was being an asshole as well. Not that it influenced me, of course, but under the circumstances, I thought it was better to be careful.”
“I like your careful,” murmured Diana.
“How can Jaworski not know about what’s going on in House Romero?”
“Romero’s is an old structure, a border House. They deliberately set up to cover a lot of territory, with sub-Houses in major towns. It’s feasible for Jaworski to be out of contact with Romero himself for a year.”
“Would they really go to Basilikos? I mean the whole House—Romero just decides and his House follows him?”
“No. Changing creed tears a House apart. Some will go and some won’t. They’ll fight.” She sighed. “Almost everyone is damaged.”
Did that mean Larry could be one of those that was fighting, not following? But if he was, how come he’d been sent to work with Matlal? And how damaged? More questions to ask, if he showed.
When, not if. Stay positive.
I felt a sting of guilt as Diana’s eyes swept over me curiously. I should be telling her about Larry, especially now that I’d found out he was Romero. But I’d just gotten back to what felt like level footing with her. What if I said something and created another of Skylur’s issues? After all, I didn’t know Larry was going to show tonight. I decided to keep a lid on it until I could present it neatly gift-wrapped: a solution, not another problem.
“Where’s his luggage?” she asked.
I popped the trunk and explained the Faraday cage. She brought out a scanner even more trick than Matt’s from her pocket and waved it over the open cage. When it didn’t respond to anything, we took Jaworski’s luggage and clothes out and dumped them in a carry bin at the side of the garage. Nothing lightweight would be able to beam out a signal underground.
“Good,” Diana said. “I knew it would be the right thing to have you look at our security after the Assembly. We get complacent sometimes.”
She walked me to back to my car.
“Can I see David and Pia before I go?”
“Not at the moment. But they’re fine. I’ll make sure they schedule a break tomorrow and you can see them.” She caught me off guard by changing tack completely. “Your visit with Alexander went well, then?”
I looked at her nervously. It was stupid of me not to have realized she would be able to tell. Her face showed no hint of what she thought about it. “Is it that obvious?”
“You reek of wolf, Amber.” She closed her eyes and put her head back for a moment, looking tired. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow. You can explain to me what you think you’re achieving. And after that, we’ll talk about the complaints Matlal has made about you.”
That sounded like one step forward and two leaps back; I’d lost some of the traction I’d gained by bringing Jaworski in. Crap.
I started to ask what complaints, but she overrode me.
“You’d best go now,” she said.
Something prompted me to stand my ground. “Because?”
“Because I haven’t fed for too long and that fool Jaworski has got my Blood up.” She paced behind me, and I twitched as I felt her breath on my neck. “Because, despite the overtone of wolf, you smell more delicious all the time. And Skylur’s ban is still in for
ce.”
I turned my head to watch. Her movements had become slow, almost languorous. She continued circling. Her face had paled and I could feel the air crackling as her breathing deepened. There was a scent of violence about her, like a thunderstorm threatening to break. A shiver passed through me and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was chill or thrill.
I’d made a decision last night on the matters in Top’s letter, and I needed to take my first step now. I tried to act calm and keep my heart rate down. I caught her and held her arms, leaned forward slowly and kissed the side of her neck. Then I stood straight again and tilted my head back. I was completely aware of every throb of the pulse in my neck.
I was watching her eyes. They glittered, fixed on my pulse, but her half-smile was back on her lips.
“Testing, Amber?” she said softly, her voice low. My neck felt warm and loose.
“Yes,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
Her head bent forward. I could feel the warmth of her face near me. My eyes closed. I didn’t think Skylur’s ban extended to him or Diana. I truly didn’t know what to expect, teeth or lips, but I had to know.
Her lips grazed my neck.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” She strode to the door. “It would be a shame if we can’t find a way to encompass you,” she said over her shoulder. “As Bian says, you are so much fun.”
Chapter 16
Heading back to Denver, I texted Niall that I was running late and then I called the colonel.
Colonel Laine was the last remaining link between me and the army. Thanks to Lieutenant Krantz’s investigation, I wasn’t even being paid a retainer. So what exactly was the army’s hold over me now?
Other than emotional. I’d loved my time in Ops 4-10. What I’d done there had sunk such deep roots in me, it’d left me feeling hollow when it had all been torn out. My brief time with the police had been a pale imitation. Being a PI was better than the police, but nothing on 4-10, so far. Over time, would my job and my new friends and the Athanate start to fill those empty places in me?
I didn’t know. But if I was going to talk to the FBI and if they started asking questions about the time I spent in the army, I was going to toss the ball to the colonel.
His voicemail came on again.
Damn.
I’d never had any problem getting through to him before.
I suspected the trouble might revolve around Major Petersen, the guy who made me sign that original bullshit agreement. I’d been warned, he was now angling to take over the whole unit, Ops 4-10 and Obs. And that he had an agenda about vampires. The only place I had in his organization was strapped to a table for examination.
Now I was worried, but I couldn’t exactly drop in on 4-10 and resolve it.
With sigh and a feeling that I was making a mistake, going in without backup, I checked the note that Tullah had given me for the FBI, and called the number.
“Griffith,” was the terse greeting when the call was answered.
“Farrell,” I responded in kind, and waited. Any excuse.
After a moment, he relented. “Agent Griffith, FBI, who is this please?”
“Amber Farrell, PI. You left a message with my assistant that you have something to say to me.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Farrell. We need you to come in. We understand you were involved in identifying the criminal operation at Crate & Freight, and that’s now under our jurisdiction. It would be most useful for us if you could answer some questions about that and also the events at the Nexus building yesterday.”
“You keep saying we and us. Who are we?”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And the Department of Homeland Security.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and I didn’t like the sound of Agent Griffith. Anyone who chanted the names out like that was full of it himself. He was trying to intimidate me. Wasn’t going to stop me from being flippant though.
“Nothing from the Coast Guard? Park Service? Those slackers at the CIA? I’m disappointed.”
He ignored that. “Where are you, Miss Farrell?”
“It’s Ms.,” I said, “and I’m assuming you’re at the CBI building.”
“Yes—”
“I’m on Route 6 and I’ll be there in five,” I interrupted him. “You’ve got an hour, so get all your bureaus in line and get all their questions in order.” I ended the call.
A couple of minutes later, I came off on Garrison and made my way back to the Kipling cloverleaf. I parked in the shadow of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s threatening office building.
What if they just chucked me straight into a cell? I felt some of my bravado evaporate.
Man up, Farrell. Always made me smile, that phrase.
Agent Griffith wasn’t there to greet me. Big surprise. But security knew who I was and escorted me to an empty interview room.
I turned in the doorway, preventing the guard from closing it and accidentally locking me in.
“I need you to pass a message to Agent Griffith, please. I’ve given him an hour and that’s all he’s getting.”
The guard looked down his nose at me. I was here in an interview room to talk to an agent, so I was a criminal, naturally. He tried edging closer, invading my personal space, so I would move back and he could close the door.
Sergeants don’t have personal space, they have attitude. I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms. I did not back up an inch.
“Are you coming on to me?” the little demon in my throat asked.
He retreated in confusion.
I left a chair holding the door open, and checked the room. It was blank and bare. Table, chairs and one wall taken up with a one-way mirror. Not even a wastebasket for trash.
After five minutes of pacing, I sighed and sat, cross-legged, on the table, facing the mirror. I straightened my back, closed my eyes and started visualizing my way through Master Lui’s Kung Fu forms.
Tick tock.
Forty-seven minutes later a man came in. I stopped the Praying Mantis visualization and eyed him. He was pasty-faced and jerky in his movements. He clutched a file and a tablet computer in one hand and he was eyeing a text on his smartphone in the other. It looked as if he was trying for the image of a busy guy, but just managing to look like someone who was always late.
“Would you take a seat, Miss Farrell?” He slid sideways onto one of the chairs.
“I’ve already told you, it’s Ms. It doesn’t bode well if you can’t even remember that. As for the invitation, I’m already seated and comfortable. And you’re running out of time. Drop the text and ask your questions.”
Griffith had a problem, but no idea how to deal with it. He’d expected my wait to soften me up, make me amenable. He had all sorts of training on how to sit at a table and induce a person to talk. Someone sitting on a table threw him.
He knew he’d just lost the initiative and that was a mistake. He’d never trained for a situation where he was trying to verbally subdue a person who was sitting on his table.
He tried to get height advantage back by standing up, but that put him in the subordinate position. He realized that too late and thought about sitting right back down again, but couldn’t stand to appear indecisive. I almost smiled.
“You don’t seem to be taking this seriously—” he started.
“You can’t even remember whether it’s Miss or Ms., you’ve apparently forgotten that I said an hour, and you’ve wasted over fifty minutes of that already. You’re the one who’s not taking this seriously.”
“If you think I haven’t got other—”
He’d walked right into my trap. “So, it’s not a priority then. I’ll let you get back to your important work.”
“Miss Farrell—”
“It’s Ms., and you’ve wasted the opportunity to talk to me with bad manners and stupid attempts at mind g
ames.”
I swiveled my butt off the table and made for the door.
He grabbed my arm. I stopped and glared at him.
Another agent breezed in, as if completely by chance, and I mentally grimaced. This one wasn’t an idiot asking to be pushed around. He was tall and silver-haired, carried a bit of a belly, but comfortably. His face was tanned; this guy got out a lot. His bright blue eyes had little laughter lines running back from them and he had a nose that twitched like a fox’s.
“Howdy, I’m Hal Ingram,” he drawled, Texas slow, and offered his hand. “Is there a problem here?” He made at least two syllables for every one in each word.
I wrenched my arm out of Griffith’s grip and shook Agent Ingram’s hand.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “Master Griffith seems to think I’m under arrest.” I had to fight my demon not to stretch all the words out like Ingram did. I bet I could make four syllables in arrest.
Ingram’s eyes smiled, while his face remained solemn. “Absolutely not. Nu-uh. We were just fixing to see if you could come in and shed some light on a couple of incidents. I surely must add that the Denver police made a point to inform me just how valuable your assistance was in those incidents.”
“Thanks.” The police had only known about the drugs shipment at Crate & Freight because I called them. And they’d still be negotiating at the Nexus building if I hadn’t gone in and rescued the hostages, including Captain José Morales. Yeah, my help was invaluable. “That’s what I thought I was coming in for, an hour ago. It’s a shame I’ve spent the hour I said I could spare, in this room, without a single question to answer.”
“Maybe—” Griffith tried to wrestle the initiative back. He shouldn’t have tried it with a sentence starting with ‘maybe.’ Didn’t apply to me, of course.
“Maybe we could rearrange. Pick a date and a place where other important things don’t get in the way. Send me a text or an email.” I retrieved one of my cards and handed it over to Ingram. If he made a joke about it I was going to punch him. Tullah’s choice of my skin tone for the color and the tag line ‘reliable—efficient—discreet’ made me seem like a hooker. But I’d gotten kind of attached to them.
