by Mark Henwick
Bian’s eyes lit up. Not distracted in the slightest. “We can have her along as well if you like. She gets tired so easily one on one. And the floor’s plenty strong enough.”
I rolled my eyes. She was completely outrageous, and there wasn’t any way I was going to win this type of conversation.
I pointed through the door she’d come out of. “Shouldn’t you be concentrating on—”
“Oh, I think the security arrangements for catering during the Assembly will go just fine without me,” she purred, leaning in again.
I was saved by Diana’s arrival. “Bian, you have no excuse not to be in that meeting.”
Bian slunk back in, grinning at me over her shoulder. It was impossible not to grin back.
Diana sighed and ushered me down the corridor. “I did warn you that she would get you back for your joke last week.”
She opened a door and we walked into a sitting room.
“She can be so fun and irritating at the same time.” I sat down on the sofa. “Changes direction like the wind in a storm. Tell me, how long does adolescence last for Athanate?”
Diana laughed. “Forever. Or until they come out of it on their own. Don’t be embarrassed, Amber. If Bian can’t get a response out of you, you’re already dead.”
I was more embarrassed that I couldn’t ignore it. And whatever I thought I ought to do, I was being nudged off course by my Athanate reactions.
“How do you manage it?”
“The mock-aggressive intimacy? I don’t fight it.”
“So that stops her? You just stop fighting and she backs off?”
Diana shook her head. “You need to understand, Bian makes no promises, even in fun, that she is not prepared to keep.”
Crap. I’d misread the situation between Bian and Diana. “Are you…”
“Lovers? Yes, occasionally,” Diana said calmly.
I blushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Are you mad at me?”
“Why? Am I jealous? No. I love the butterfly. That doesn’t make me jealous of the flowers.” Diana frowned. “No, perhaps it’s not fair to dismiss it like that. Of course, Athanate have all the human emotions, including jealousy. But with our needs, and over time, we’re unlikely to get jealous over something like that. Bian and I are not exclusive.”
“Why…” I paused. Diana was old. I didn’t know how old, but the last time we’d spoken about kin, I knew she’d survived many of them and it had taken its toll. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s not polite to ask. Why do you need any more partners? You have kin. Aren’t they your partners?”
“Athanate endure,” she responded, her voice dropping and her great eyes going dark. “Athanate endure, when kin do not.”
She turned away, and I gave myself a little shake. Talking to Diana was always unsettling.
“This is Bian’s way with people she likes,” she said eventually. “She hides serious points behind joking.”
“What was the point in what she just did?”
“Well, what have you been talking about recently?”
I cleared my throat. “Well, everything that happened yesterday...”
“And…” Diana prompted.
“Kin.”
“Ahh. She may feel your needs are changing more quickly than your comfort zone.” Diana shrugged. “Perhaps she’s trying to make you realize fully that, as an Athanate, you’ll experience relationships differently. And as House Farrell, it’ll be even more complex. You got a taste of that at David’s house on Monday.”
I nodded, remembering the feeling.
Despite what she said, I was sure that Bian had layers to her behavior and I had a strong feeling there was at least one layer I wasn’t seeing. A feeling that something deep watched me, and that it was neither the sexually playful Bian nor the serious Diakon.
“And she is making a serious point,” Diana said. “We’ll have to talk this through. Maybe we should talk about Athanate politics and the Assembly later this afternoon. We have a lot of important things to cover today. None more important than how you changed your marque, and why your Blood had the effect it did with David, even though I have no plan in place, yet, to investigate that. But first, you have to make time for the Judicator.”
“What is he going to do?”
“Some tests, nothing more. Tests that provide a sensory stimulus and measure how your body and brain react.”
“What do these tests prove?”
“Well, this is the method the Warders consider the best way to independently determine your Athanate status. It’s nothing really, Amber. And the independent Warders’ assessment cannot easily be challenged.”
I didn’t think Diana would actually lie to me, but I didn’t like the sound of these tests.
The Warders had a strange position, brought about by the creation of the Assembly. They were effectively a large Athanate House, independent of Panethus and Basilikos, with embassies in most countries and guaranteed free passage throughout the Assembly domains. They were intended to police the Assembly and provide escorts for representatives when they traveled on Assembly business. They provided neutral venues for small meetings between Houses on opposite sides. They prized their neutrality and tended to claim ownership and responsibility for everything that they deemed to be for the common good or advancement of the whole Athanate. I hadn’t heard a good word for them yet.
“How does he do these tests?”
On cue, a funny little man pushing a cart full of equipment came into the room. I took one look at the contents of the cart and my skin started to crawl. It was a horror of wires and tubes and that cloying antiseptic smell. Something about it made the Obs tests look like a Sunday stroll.
Chapter 22
Diana’s hand rested on my arm as if I might run away. That didn’t look like a bad option.
“Welcome, Philippe. Amber, this is Philippe Remy, Judicator of the Warders from their Belgian office. Philippe, Amber Farrell.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice heavily accented. “Mesdames, enchanté.” He bowed over our hands. “At your service.”
He was a short, fussy man with flat, black hair that looked as if it was starched in position. My nose quickly told me he was kin, not Athanate. His round face would have looked jolly, but the eyes were too sharp.
“I understand, Ms. Farrell, that this appears daunting.” He plugged a cord into the wall socket and baleful red LEDs started to glow on parts of the gray equipment as the demons inside it woke up.
“Yeah,” I replied. “You could say that.”
Diana looked at me as if I was a specimen in a lab. “Fascinating,” she said. “You are almost contemptuous of physical danger, but this harmless equipment concerns you.”
“Associations,” I muttered. Dad, Top, Obs. Nothing good ever came of equipment like this.
Remy noted my concern and fluttered around me, settling me into a chair and bringing a drink of water, all of which had the effect of making me more antsy.
“This will influence the readings. No, no, no. This is not good.” He took my wrist pulse and peered at my eyes.
Diana nudged him aside and perched on the armrest.
“Come, Amber.” She leaned forward, her eyes pinning me in the chair. “Be at ease.”
It was like looking up at a skyscraper with clouds passing behind it. My brain tried to tell me I wasn’t falling. What the hell was she doing? The feeling of power that she gave off was staggering.
My body was tense as a blade. She slipped a hand behind my head and pulled me gently against her neck. As an Athanate, it had become more and more difficult to get my heart rate over 120, but now it went skywards and my lungs started to labor. But quickly, quickly, her scent of copper and cinnamon percolated through me. It was so strangely soothing.
“Have you thought of the reason we kiss necks in greeting?” she murmured.
“It’s where you—we—bite,” I tried. “Sort of a symbolic offering.” My eyes closed and my fists unclenche
d. Her neck was warm against my face. I could feel her pulse, lazy as sea surf, and mine slowed to match it.
“There’s that, too,” she said. “But the real reason is that our Athanate glands are at the base of the throat. Most of the Athanate scent pheromones are released from there. And the receptors are concentrated in the nose, of course.”
I was floating. “The greeting brings them close together,” I said. “You get a dose of what the other person is feeling. Or wants you to feel. Clever greeting.” I giggled. “Damn. You’ve just sedated me, haven’t you?”
“A little. Come, let Philippe run his tests. I will be back soon.”
I slumped in the chair and let Remy stick electrodes all over me. After the electrodes came tubes, one taped to my neck, and a nasal cannula against my upper lip. A set of blank goggles went over my eyes. It felt almost funny. Whatever Diana had dosed me with was good stuff.
But surely, a sedative would distort the readings as much as an overdose of adrenaline?
“No, no, no,” said Remy, and I realized I had actually spoken. “It does not affect the test. The oniric state is most conducive to accurate readings. Stressful excitement is not.”
At that stage, I didn’t care what that meant.
I didn’t even care when he took blood from my arm and made me spit in a specimen jar.
Then a set of headphones went over my ears and his machine started its routine.
It was like a peculiar dream, or sequence of dreams and semi-nightmares. I wasn’t entirely sure if I remained awake through the whole thing. My body responded to scents from the cannula, lights from the goggles and sounds from the earphones. The electrodes on my head tickled my brain. Sensations and emotions chased each other through my mind. Fragments of memories floated up, to be chased away by bizarre phantoms of things that I was sure had never happened to me.
“I’ll feel better tomorrow,” Dad says, patting my hand. “We’ll go walking in the hills.” But he doesn’t, and Cassie is crying because the wound in my neck will never heal. “You won’t get better,” she says. “You can’t speak to me.” Burnt popcorn. The wolf looks in through the window, its tongue like a pink washcloth hanging down. Fresh cut grass. And Kath gives me her ice cream, even though it’s her favorite. “David is taking me to the ball game,” she whispers. “Try it again, higher intensity,” says a disembodied voice. “The colonel will be here soon. We don’t have much time left.”
I twitched and cried and laughed and shivered.
I was very glad for Diana’s pacifics because it was far, far worse than the tests that Obs used to run on me. The thought that this was a one-time thing helped a little, when nightmares seemed to flicker just outside the limit of my perception.
And, unlike the Obs room, this one had windows and a door. I could tear this stuff off and run away. But then there would be no other way; Skylur would have to bite me to find out what was going on inside my body.
Remy was finally peeling off the electrodes when Diana returned.
“Well?” I said to him when he removed the cannula.
He paused, cocking an eyebrow at me.
“Am I Athanate or not?”
He looked offended. “Madam, I am not a fairground prognosticator. There is a veritable mountain of data to work through before I will venture an opinion.”
“Fine, whenever.” I pulled the last tubes away from my neck and threw them over his cart.
“When, Philippe?” asked Diana.
“Definitely at the Assembly, of course,” he replied and gave an expressive shrug. “Perhaps earlier. One cannot be entirely sure.”
“That’s unacceptable,” said Diana. “We must have the results before the Assembly.”
“Madame, science does not move quicker because we wish it so. I will make preliminary results available as soon as I can.”
He wheeled his equipment away and Diana closed the doors behind him.
Diana settled into the next chair. “Are you all right?” she asked.
I waved it off. It was done.
“What is it, Amber? This has unsettled you more than it warrants.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because it reminds me of Obs.”
She raised an eyebrow. My brain got back into gear. She knew nothing of Obs, of course.
“When the army decided that vampires did actually exist, they formed a scientific medical team to investigate me. Called Obs.”
“And they did these kind of tests.”
I shrugged. “I was suffering some kind of shock; I don’t remember the early parts very clearly. There were machines like that. I remember being strapped down in a room with no windows. Probably for my own safety. I think I can remember lashing out or something. It seemed to last…”
What? Weeks? Months? Can’t have been. It was all such a blur.
“I thought I would never get out,” I whispered, rattled.
Diana frowned and waited, but I’d had enough of stirring those memories. Time to change the subject.
I nodded after Remy. “Do you trust him?”
“I trust him to do exactly what I expect him to do.” If I hadn’t been so dosed, I would have picked up on that, but she went on smoothly. “I have an idea which will help with the schedule today. Would you drive me to the airport? Then we’ll have an extra hour or so.”
“Of course.”
“Good. We’ll take my Jeep. I want you to borrow it while I’m away, and I have an apartment on University Boulevard where you can stay. You’re welcome to use it tonight. If you’d rather go elsewhere, at least you won’t be tracked, driving my car.”
“Thanks.” I stopped and chewed my lip. “I don’t want to appear ungrateful but—”
“But why am I doing all this for you?” Diana smiled. “Some entirely self-serving reasons. It is important, under the very eyes of the Assembly, that Skylur’s mantle is fully under control, that Altau’s associate Houses are safe within it. And it’s not just the FBI. Matlal will be actively searching for you. The loan of a car and a flat are nothing in comparison to that. I wish we could do more.” She paused. “Then there’s our interest in the effect your Blood has had.” She got up and started pacing. “Then, as well, my purely personal reasons. You are the key to a path I wish to follow to bring the Athanate Emergence. And lastly, my offer to be your Mentor still stands.”
“But I may already be through the crusis. Surely I don’t still need a Mentor?”
“A Mentor does more than guide an Aspirant through the crusis. In fact, that part of it, I cannot help with. Your path through the crusis seems to be different from everything we’ve seen. If you need help there, all I can do is walk beside you.” She paused. “But Mentors exist for every step of the path. And again, if I cannot show you the way, I would still walk beside you. The way is dark, and long.”
The hairs on my neck stood up. “And if I fall…”
“I will lift you up,” she said. She got up and patted my shoulder before turning to the windows overlooking the gardens. “Think on it, Amber.”
“I will.” I cleared my throat, feeling adrift. “Ahh. There’s a problem with that plan on Emergence.” The week before, we had discussed starting a process with Colonel Laine, recruiting senior army commanders into a group, one at a time, and introducing them to Diana, until we had a path of trusted people all the way to the president. “Colonel Laine isn’t in the army anymore.”
Diana looked at me questioningly. I explained and requested asylum for Colonel Laine and Vera.
Diana was quiet for a while, looking out at the gardens. “This may still work. Your Colonel wasn’t always in this secret unit?”
“No.” I stopped and got up to join Diana at the window. I wasn’t supposed to discuss Ops 4-10 with anybody. Even if the agreement they’d made me sign wasn’t enforceable, the whole project was under Special Access Program levels of secrecy. But I was starting to have doubts about it all now. Who really commanded the unit? What the colonel had hinted at had unn
erved me—a unit like 4-10 effectively being told not to go after some drug lords? I had a lot of questions to ask him when he got here.
“He moved from a different branch of the Special Forces to take over the unit.”
“It may still work,” Diana repeated. “From what you and everyone else can’t tell me,” she said, “I know this military unit is self-contained, sealed off. Your Colonel would have had to use his contacts outside to make any progress. Maybe, he can still do that.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “And if he cannot, what else can he do for us?”
I had been thinking through this.
“If you’re about to fight a war, you need an army. A secret one. He’s the best operational commanding officer you could possibly have for that.”
Diana looked at me for a long time. “A position like that is key,” she said, slowly. “That means he would have to be Athanate or kin.” She watched the effect of those words on me. Damn. What would the colonel think? I would need to explain that all very carefully.
“Come, Amber, it’s time we discussed kin.”
I retrieved the glass of water Remy had brought me. Bian and Diana seemed to effortlessly keep me off balance. I didn’t think Diana was doing it to needle me.
“In lots of ways, I feel Athanate.” I took a sip. “The physical side: feeling stronger; being healthier; seeing in the dark. I love all of that. And I get the structural thing.” I frowned. There didn’t seem to be quite the right words to describe it. “The connections, the obligations between me and David and Pia. Different connections to you and Skylur and Bian. I get all that, sort of.”
“How do you mean ‘sort of?’”
I’d known she wouldn’t let that go by.
“Well, I’m Athanate, or part Athanate, but I’m also an American, and part old world and part new world, Celtic and Arapaho, and I’m proud of all of that. I’ll swear oaths to Skylur, but I swore oaths before, to this country, and I won’t let them go. I just don’t know what happens when they come into conflict.”
“We didn’t think you would just let your human side go, Skylur and I. His approach is that we must all be more like you. At least all of us in America.” She frowned. “There will be conflict. It may be a terrible price that you pay while you are in transition. But, Amber, however much you try and rule over them, your Athanate instincts will become stronger. All of us will try and find this new balance. Some of us may fail, and we do not know what will happen then.”
