Monday, November 28, 2005

Day 27: 2,885 words; 45,020 total

Part 10: Make it personal

The door of my apartment building closed behind me like a coffin snapping shut. My feet found each step down, balance on the crag in the concrete just before hitting the asphalt, like I always do, little rituals that you find yourself inventing once you've been living in one place for over half a decade. My mind was elsewhere.

It wasn't premonition, the Sight, any half-formalized prestidigitator dreck like that. Just knowledge of the way people's minds worked. Having your own brain vivisected from the lobes down, and other lovely things he'd done to me in Katanga, meant I was intimately acquainted with the thought processes of someone in love with both the guru and the cause.

Mandii didn't have the advantage I had. She was still wrapped in all the layers of humanity and dreams and nightmares, and I hadn't felt like stripping them away. Not for someone who'd lied that much, hurt people I cared about - I'm a bitch like that. So with every step I took away from the building, I was drawing in more breath, ready to hold it when-

Fire.

A breath of hot air swooping over me, the tinkle of glass, car alarms flaring in the night.

The street was wet with pre-dawn dew, and it reflected the flames in the windows of the place I'd called home. Nothing but glass on the street; they built those buildings strong, and damage would be minimal. Just whoever had opened the door.

Something soft brushed against my leg. I picked up Miss Daisy and scratched her ear.

"Nice fireworks."

Genevieve was leaning against a beat-up Chevy Corsica, one of those interchangeable nineties sedans where you have to look at the maker's sign to find out if you're dealing with domestic or import, with Dave's Pre-Owned Cars tags still glued to the gravel-matted grille. The sunglasses were pushed up, holding her hair back, and she'd traded in the Barbie Girl t-shirt for a Victorian blouse that was definitely borrowed from some vampire's closet. William Gibson does Alice in Wonderland.

Darklighter was crouched on the hood of the car and doing his best to smile.

"More answers," I told her. "Give me fifteen minutes."

"You've got it."

Mrs Cortez was not only awake, but completely unsurprised by my appearance, bloodstains and all. She even let me use the shower as she cooed over the cats and fed them prime grade ground beef. Another flash of not quite insight told me that the next time I saw Darklighter and Miss Daisy, they would be wider than they were long.

My top was a write-off, but I managed to use it to get the blood off my jacket, and surprisingly not much had soaked through to the slip I'd worn under it. Both that and the jeans were black, which showed neither stains nor moisture, after I'd washed the blood off. Mrs Cortez calmly recommended a blood-remover I should try once I got home, and I made a mental note to check if she and Kirill's housekeeper were related. Maybe it was just a Mexican matron thing.

Genevieve's car smelled of patchouli and pipe tobacco, and she turned out to be a decently competent driver. I played with the radio dial until I found a station playing older-than-oldies. Strangers in the Night, and the sun was rising over the towers of the financial district. It didn't have far to go; for reasons that have more to do with protective spells than zoning regulations, few buildings in New Granada are higher than six floors or thereabouts.

"Where to?" she asked.

"The airport." I shook my head as I saw her eyes open wide. "No flights. I just need to buy a book."

The kiosks at the airport were the only booksellers in town open at a quarter past six in the morning. I could have told her to get me to Kirill's and picked up my own copy from wherever Anton had left it, but I didn't feel like talking to either of the vampires in my life. Not yet, not when the snake was going strong and my anger let me surf the synchronicity highway, pieces falling into place as soon as I laid my eyes on them.

Time mattered.

I did call Merle while Genevieve stood in line to get a macchiato and a dried-out sandwich. She'd offered to get me something, but the tightness in my stomach told me there wouldn't be any point to it. Merle was uncharacteristically obedient, getting on the case without any questions beyond the necessary and delivering results before I had time to disconnect the call. I knew he'd be calling Kirill as soon as the line was free, but I also knew my boss, friend - I ignored the snake's hiss that might have been another word - would know when it was time to let me do my own thing.

I told Genevieve the address and she just shrugged, then hit the gas. The Starbucks-clone cardboard cup tottered in the broken cup holder that had been glued together with duct tape.

"How did you find me?" I asked as I thumbed through the book. I'd never made my way through the sequel, but I was hoping the first one would give me information enough, at least for what I was going to do.

"I've got a file on you, too." She changed the station, but since she chose bright Mexican pop, I didn't protest. "There's your home address. They noticed you were gone when Arthur wanted to ask you about the guy you've done in outside - the werewolf was saying he didn't catch anything, but you did - and I sort of volunteered to get you, as an uninvolved party. Your guy seemed relieved. You didn't break up or anything?"

"No." The last few pages of the book were left blank, and I used them to jot down notes. "Kirill Yevgenyevich knows that I can be difficult at times - I respond better to unfamiliar agents, and to females. It's just the way I am."

"What's with all the shrink talk? You're all like you were in therapy or stuff."

"You've read the file." The pieces were almost forming a whole picture now. There were advantages of having a direct line to your subconscious.

"Just wondering if it had the whole story."

"Of course it doesn't."

She just gave me a look, like she was thinking who she'd have to choke to get some answers. I wasn't particularly worried; Lucian had dealt with worse up to and including being burned at the stake, and all the other suspects were safely beyond her reach, in one way or another.

The morning traffic was picking up by the time we got back within New Granada city limits, but I wasn't worried about missing my prey. Among the things Merle had clogged my e-mail inbox with was a summary of common interview questions, and the average work day happened to be among them. By now he would be sitting at his desk, writing drivel. Or planning another kidnapping, murder, strike against the powers of New Granada Night.

For a moment, I was tempted to get a sniper rifle, find the right rooftop and solve all my problems with a single shot.

One of the reasons I gave up on the idea was because there wasn't a right rooftop in sight, not once we saw what the house looked like. Clearview Heights, much newer part of the district than Darkspring Manor, but almost as ritzy. The grounds were spacious enough that we could barely see the front door from the entrance gate at the bottom end of the drive. Enough occult symbols on the gate to give multiple orgasms to members of a dozen secret societies.

A guard waved us down in front of the gate, and for a moment I wished I'd picked a vampire companion who could just look him down. Then again, it was daytime, so we would have been s.o.l. either way.

And Genevieve turned out to be even more useful. She waved a laminated card in front of the guy. "FBI. We have questions for the master of this house."

"I have to call-" he stuttered.

"Listen, buster, we're sitting here talking and back outside, there's people killin' the troops and taking hard-earned A-MER-ican money." California accent morphed into the back end of Texas at the drop of a ten-gallon hat. "So do right by the boys in black and don't give me any shit, comprende?"

"Smooth," I remarked as the guy hurried to open the gate.

"Thanks." She threw me an inscrutable look. "You know, I'm counting on you to have a plan once we get there."

I bared my teeth in an approximation of a smile. "Just stay quiet and look cute. You're the good cop."

"Now that's one for the books." The radio turned off as she shut down the engine, but she kept whistling Me Gustas Tu all the way up the stairs to the mansion. She pulled the shades over her eyes as we went inside, and the melody changed to Black Suits Coming.

The house was mock-Tudor, plastic window frames and Soviet reproduction papyri trying to look like something they weren't. A couple of girls in skirt-suits in Chinese labor camp blue tried to head us off, but Genevieve flashed whatever it was she was using for ID, and they fell back, flailing for their cell phones.

I took out my own phone. I'd typed a message in the car, struggling with the configurations of alphanumericals, and now I hit send just before we pushed through the last set of carved doors.

He didn't look like much. Round face, cleft chin, thinning dirty blond hair whose length didn't disguise the fact that it wanted nothing to do with the domed forehead. Deep gimlet-like eyes with a good-natured stare that made him look like an elderly hamster.

Just like his back cover photo.

I didn't wait for him to invite me to sit down. "Good morning, Mr Green."

"Ms Malory. And Ms Sands, I presume." There were pop-occult books open all over the table, and he picked them up one by one, closing them after sliding in bookmarks and stacking them neatly on the sides. "How may I help you?"

I cocked my head, as if I had to think on this. I moved my jaw a little, heard it pop. To the side, Genevieve walked around the room, reading the book spines and getting fingerprints all over the artifacts.

"Making money off Daylighters has downsides," I finally said. "The system swallows you, and then you have to play by two sets of rules. If the police were to search this place, they wouldn't like finding people kept against their will."

"Ms Malory, trust me when I say your nocturnal friends are not the only ones with influence." The way he said it, more than the actual words, was what convinced the upper, hesitant and constrained part of me that my instincts had been correct.

The snake coiled around my brain happily. Up to you now, Rachel dear. You're the one with people skills.

"Mount De Vries is rock," I said. "There are no tunnels. If you play with the cops' minds, the Tribunal gets you. I think that's something you want to avoid at this stage."

"You think right." The round dark eyes narrowed into slits, and I could practically hear the cogs whirring.

I didn't hear the door open, just saw Genevieve's head whip around. Her hand went to her side, then lowered hesitantly. I knew why as soon as the newcomer walked up to the desk.

He looked seventeen, tops, and probably closer to fifteen. Lean build, track and field or martial arts. Narrow face with wide, generous lips and a pair of brown eyes that looked friendlier than anything I've seen this side of the cow pastures in New Granada Zoo. His hair stuck up every which way as if he'd just got out of bed, a fact corroborated by the New Granada Crusaders pajamas and the fluffy crocodile slippers.

The snake flickered up, curious, but I pushed it down and calmly withstood the boy's scrutiny.

"I'm Sean," he offered suddenly.

"Mal." Something stopped me from offering my full name. "Morning."

"Mm." He turned to our host. "Ralph, she's making sense. We don't need them anymore."

"I think that's my decision to make." Green looked grumpy. "We do not know if she will not need them-"

I doubted he was talking about me now, and I took copious mental notes.

"I'm the tactics guy, right?" Sean wrinkled his face like a pissed-off Chihuahua puppy. "My call. Come on, Mal, I'll show you."

I took a last look at Ralph Green as we walked out of the office, following Sean's fluffy slippers. He was sitting stock-still, like a hamster that's just been told it's too old and his master is going to have him stuffed before the rest of his fur falls out.

Dungeons are supposed to be underground, but I guessed the rocky terrain limited not only Arthur's crypt options. The room Sean showed us to was ground-level, not far from the door. Handy for outsourcing torture, I thought, because I didn't see Green sullying his own hands with it.

Sean unlocked the doors and stepped aside. As I walked past him, he took a soft, hissing breath, his lips opened in a u.

Heads snapped around to face us as we walked in, those that were able to.

The werewolf girls were in the middle of the room, holding each other tight. They trembled and watched me with half-crazed eyes, like dogs that have been kicked around too long. There were silver collars around their necks, and deep angry burns where the metal touched the skin. A flaxen-haired woman - Malvina, I remembered, the kidnapped hedge witch who ran the herb shop in the lower concourse of Alhambra - was half-hidden behind them, gray with shock. Losing what looked like half the flesh of an arm tends to do that to people.

The other two missing witches were lying on the floor, too exhausted to do anything but look up at us. Justin stood over them, and I had to look twice to recognize him. He was pale and preternatural, his eyes flashing dark even now that the sunlight outside had leeched all his power. There was little trace of the boy who'd fallen in love with Eudokia and been willing to both die and live for her. He trembled with hunger, and yet there were no marks on any of the other prisoners.

I bowed to him, just as deep as I would have done to Arthur, and he bowed back. Rituals, I thought, show truth about who and what we are.

I felt a key-ring pressed into my hand, and I took it without a glance at Sean. He went to the werewolves, taking off their collars with surprising tenderness, and I crossed the room to loose Justin's shackles before turning to the women he was protecting. He put his arms around me; he smelled of hunger and blood-sweat, but he made no move to drink, again.

Then I saw the dark corner of the room, and what it held.

Someone had burned Alcibiades' resplendent beard, and it hung like seaweed off a sharp chin, but he paid no attention to the remnants of his vanity. Not with what - who - he held in his arms.

Justin let go of me and fell into step beside me, vampire instincts telling him what to do in a way that belied the fact vampire manners are so much more in-born than ingrained. I went down on one knee, reached out, faltered and then persevered.

Willem's eyes had been burned out.

When I spoke his name, his face turned slowly towards me, but he gave no sign of recognition. I swallowed down the burn of anger and looked at Justin and Alcibiades.

"Who cannot walk on their own?" My voice was calm, calmer than I thought it would be.

"Willem and Margreta," Justin told me. "We can manage-"

Then an angry snarl from Genevieve, and we turned to see Sean pick up the gray-haired form of Margreta Laisi. He looked surprised to see himself the object of so much scrutiny. "The car's in the drive, right?"

"Yes," I bit off. "Lead the way."

Others had trouble walking too, but between us we managed to get everyone into Genevieve's car. The werewolf girls had no problems with squeezing down in each other's laps, as they completely refused to let go of each other, and somehow everyone else got in, Justin holding the prone form of Margreta Laisi, who seemed even more damaged than Willem was.

I looked at Sean for a long time. "I'll be wanting answers," I told him.

"To want is to sin," he said cheerfully. "You should ask until the Lady grants you her grace."

"Is that what you do?"

He seemed surprised. "Sure. What else is there to do?"

I shook my head and got into the car. He knocked on the window and waited until I rolled it down.

"I'll be seeing you."

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do like Genevieve... and I haven't stopped laughing about the music on the radio yet:

"Now that's one for the books." The radio turned off as she shut down the engine, but she kept whistling Me Gustas Tu all the way up the stairs to the mansion. She pulled the shades over her eyes as we went inside, and the melody changed to Black Suits Coming.

4:18 pm  

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