by DD Barant
“Could just be an educated guess. You pretty much do that to most people.”
His voice still doesn’t sound right. Maybe I’m the one who should be checking IDs. “Yeah? Where did I shoot you, exactly?”
“In my office. Or the face, take your pick.”
Yeah, it’s him. “Are you all right?” I take a few more quick steps forward, rounding the corner so I can actually see him.
What I see is something of a shock. He’s crouched on one of the steel girders overhead, and he’s bare-chested. I’ve never seen Cassius without a tie, let alone topless; he’s not nearly as pale as I would have imagined a centuries-old pire to be.
What’s even more disturbing is the look on his face. Cassius usually swings between radiating absolute authority or boyish, disarming charm; what I see now is a lot more primitive, something just below the surface barely being restrained. Anger?
“Hey,” I say. “You Cassius, me Jace. I’ve heard of people losing their shirt in Vegas before, but I never thought I’d actually see it—”
“I ran into one of the locals.”
“Guess they don’t like Armani.”
“Brooks Brothers.”
“Ah. And you’re up in the rafters because?”
“Tactically sound.”
“Of course. Are you coming down, or is there a pigeon you suspect—”
“Shut up!”
Now, that shocks me. Cassius may be older than paper, he may be a supernatural blood-drinking creature of the night, he may run one of the most ruthless and efficient intelligence agencies in the world—but he’s not rude. That would imply a lack of both control and judgment that he outgrew a few centuries ago—and a Cassius that’s out of control scares me to the basement of my soul.
“I don’t have the time for this,” he spits out.
“Sure, I hear that from a lot of immortals.” I regret saying it as soon as it escapes my mouth, but some reflexes are hard to suppress.
“This place. This place,” he hisses. “I can’t—I can’t think. It’s getting into my blood, Jace—into my blood.”
You don’t ever, ever want to hear a hemovore say blood the way Cassius just said it. It makes my heart stutter and my stomach clench and my breathing stop dead for a moment. It’s kind of like hearing Hannibal Lector say, “A nice Chianti.”
He leaps down, landing in a crouch and staying there. That must have been one hell of a scrap he got into, because he’s missing his socks and shoes, too.
“When you say, ‘this place,’ I’m guessing you’re not talking about the half-size Eiffel, right?” I keep my tone light, because I’m really not sure exactly what will happen if things get serious. Cassius is acting like a junkie who took the wrong drug and doesn’t know how to handle it.
“It’s the aging spell, Jace. It has to be.” He keeps his head down, not looking at me. “It’s interacting with whatever kind of magic permeates this place.”
I get it. Cassius has been in a state of arrested development for hundreds if not thousands of years—but since he agreed to share the time-debt for Gretchen’s child, that clock has been restarted. It’s kicked his hormones back into gear, but other than a slight case of acne he was fine—until he came to Azura’s homeland.
“I think I know what’s happening to you,” I say. “This place has some kind of root system beneath it that channels energy. It’s got enough mojo to turn a walking stick into a walking Palace of Versailles, so I’m guessing it could definitely supercharge a pire’s metabolism.”
“Root system. That makes sense. The farther away I got from the ground, the more in control I felt.”
If this is what he’s like now, I’m glad I didn’t run into him downstairs. “Look, you’ve got to stay up here, at least for now. The sun never makes it above the mountains in this place, so you don’t have to worry about being flash-fried. But you can’t walk the streets in your condition.”
“I know. But I…”
“I’ll get you whatever you need, okay?”
“I need…”
Oh, boy. Here it comes.
He straightens up, looks me in the eye. His eyes are blood red, and his incisors way too prominent.
“I need a hug,” he says.
FOURTEEN
I stare at him. I blink. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I say, resisting the urge to turn around and run. “Not really office-appropriate.”
He doesn’t argue, just closes his eyes. Concentrates so hard I can see his body shaking. His fangs recede, and when he opens his eyes again they look normal. “I understand,” he says. His voice sounds more exhausted than feral. “I’m sorry, I just—”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say. I feel ashamed of myself for what I was thinking. This is David Cassius, not some newly turned Lugosi with a dollar-store cape and a head full of B-movies. If he seriously wanted to chow down on me, I never would have made it to the top of the stairs. “I trust you, okay?”
And then I just step forward and wrap my arms around him.
It’s like hugging a statue, at first. His skin is cold, his muscles rigid. But I’m just as stubborn at hugging as I am at everything else, and I refuse to let go.
Slowly, gradually, his body relaxes. His hands touch my back, ever so lightly. If he were human, I’d be able to feel his breath on my neck—but he’s not. He’s an ancient being in a dangerous profession who’s kept himself intact by evaluating every situation for its strategic value. Despite all that, he keeps on falling for humans—not because they’re the practical choice, but because he can’t help himself. We embody everything he’s given up, and a man like Cassius hates surrendering anything.
He’s not addicted to blood, he’s addicted to life. And he hates admitting that he needs anything, let alone anyone.
“You can hold me tighter,” I whisper. “I’m not going to break.”
“I could snap your spine without even trying,” he whispers back. He sounds more sad than threatening.
Everybody needs to be held sometime. By a friend, by a lover, by a parent—it doesn’t really matter. It reconnects us, reminds us that we’re not alone in this world. Someone like Cassius needs it worse than most, because it’s not something he knows how to ask for; it took a spell, another dimension, and a sub-basement full of enchanted roots to get him this far, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him down.
Basement. Roots. Down …
A wave of dizziness hits me, and for a second I think the whole tower’s developed a serious case of tilt. My knees go a little wobbly, and I kind of sag. Cassius notices and keeps me upright, but he pulls back and looks me in the face. “Are you all right?”
I shake my head, trying to throw it off. “I’m fine. Just a little—woozy, I guess. It’s not you, it hit me before.”
“Of course.” The formality is back in his tone, and I can sense him shifting back into Official Government Agent mode. I can almost hear the steel shutters slamming down inside his head—
“Thank you,” he says softly. He looks me in the eye when he says it, and there are no shutters behind his eyes; they’re wide open.
“Anytime, Caligula.” I hate the joky tone in my voice, but I guess he’s braver than I am. “Hey, we’re standing on top of the Eiffel Tower and you’re not wearing a shirt. Where’s that damn photographer I bribed?”
“Probably been eaten by the were-grizzly I ran into earlier.” He drops his arms, steps back. “Seemed disappointed I wasn’t edible.”
“So he ate your shoes? And socks?”
“No, I got rid of those myself. It was … an impulse.”
“Well, sometimes you have to listen to those.”
He smiles. “Yes. I suppose you do.”
“I’m probably going to regret asking this, but are you … hungry?”
“I’m fine, Jace. I can go for days without blood.”
“As a normal pire, yeah. But you’re aging now, remember? Your engine’s going to need more fuel.” And I’m a litt
le worried about what happens when the gauge hits EMPTY, too.
“I’ll order takeout.”
“Right. Stay here—I’ll go find you something.”
“Don’t you mean someone? I don’t think there are a lot of corner stores around here, Jace.”
True. But there are pires, kind of—what do the Lyrastoi do at suppertime? If Azura were here I could ask her, but she isn’t. She’s not here, and neither is—neither is—
“I killed Charlie,” I say. My voice sounds strange.
Cassius stares at me. I stare back.
And just like that I’m the one that needs to be held, because all I can see is that spray of sand as the bullet hits, I remember exactly how that felt against my skin, the impact of every tiny grain of Charlie’s life … and then Cassius has his arms wrapped around me again as I bawl my eyes out and try to explain between sobs.
Everybody needs to be held, sometimes.
* * *
“You did what you had to do,” Cassius tells me, over and over. “This isn’t just another case, Jace. We’re at war.”
He’s right, but I still hate it. And myself. And even Charlie, for putting me in that position in the first place.
But not a fraction as much as I hate Ahaseurus.
When I’m coherent again, I tell Cassius everything that’s happened since he and Tair left. He pays close attention, but his body language’s kind of jittery; he’s obviously still having a hard time holding himself together.
“All right,” he says. “Azura’s gone, and we can’t count on her coming back.”
“I think she will. This is her home turf—she’s got the resources and connections—”
“Jace,” he snaps. “We can’t trust her. She’s got her own agenda, and she’s the agent of a foreign power. We don’t know what these people want, or what their allegiances are; they could be hammering out a treaty with Asher himself right now. Time is not on our side.”
“Then what do you suggest? You have some NSA gadget in your pocket that’ll yank us back home? No, you don’t, because as you’ve told me many times before, interdimensional travel is major sorcery.”
“You have to go,” he mutters. “You can’t stay here, Jace. It’s not safe.”
He’s not just talking about the location; his eyes are looking redder all the time. “I’ll go, but I’m coming back. I’ll bring you a nice juicy rabbit or something.”
“No. Just—wait for Azura to come back, then come get me. If I need … sustenance badly enough, I’ll go find something.”
“That’s not much of a plan. In fact, it’s probably the worst plan I’ve ever heard; it edges out the top spot previously held by ‘Let’s wait around and do nothing,’ by the clever addition of ‘Let’s split up, wait around, and do nothing.’ ”
“You have a better idea?”
I sigh. “We jump off this tower in a doomed but futile attempt at a double suicide?”
“Take the stairs.”
* * *
I’m halfway down when I realize I’ve forgotten to ask Cassius about what he experienced inside the myth he and Tair visited. I’m debating whether or not to go back up when the dizziness hits again, and this time there’s a smell that goes with it. A rich, earthy smell, with something rotten underneath.
The dizziness gets worse, and I change my mind about talking to Cassius; going down doesn’t have much appeal, but going up seems impossible. By the time I get to the bottom of the stairs, the world seems like it’s gone sideways and I’m going to fall off.
I make it back inside the Wonderland and halfway across the gaming floor when my vision grays out and the floor smacks me across the face. The last thing I hear is the chime and ping of all the slot machines, lulling me into unconsciousness with promises of instant wealth, burbling sweet electronic nothings into my ear …
I look at the pictures spread out in front of me on the conference table. Agent Krisfell waits for my reaction; he’s trying to see if I’ll throw up or blurt out My God! or maybe try to stonewall, pretend they don’t affect me. I haven’t been with the Bureau that long and this is my first really big case, so I’m an unknown quantity that he needs to evaluate, and fast.
“I heard he was a trophy taker,” I say after studying them for a moment. “Unusual choice, but it tells us quite a bit. He’s been around strong women a lot, most likely his mother. Emotional abuse is more likely than physical. He lives in a house with a yard.”
“Why do you say that?” Agent Krisfell is short, black, and completely bald. His voice is soft and smooth, like a DJ’s. He’s the first FBI agent I’ve met who has a manicure.
“Look at those cuts. Crisp, clean, with a slight curve to them. They were made by pruning shears. That means he’s most likely a gardener, which means a yard. Childhood abuse is common in cases like this—and his choices indicate a desire to control certain aspects of his victims.”
“Aspects embodied by his mother.”
I shrug. “That’s what I would say. If it were his father, he’d be killing men.”
Krisfell nods. I suspect I haven’t told him anything he doesn’t already know, but hopefully I haven’t missed anything obvious, either.
I hold myself together for the rest of the interview. That night I drink most of a bottle of scotch to get to sleep, and I wake up screaming at 3:00 AM.
Which is exactly how I wake up now.
It’s not a proud moment, but those pictures … they got to me on a level I didn’t want to admit, not to Krisfell, not to anyone. Not even to myself.
I get to my feet, still kind of shaky. When I had RDT before, it came with hallucinations of my ex, Roger, who seemed to be standing in for my subconscious and warning me not to trust anyone. This was different, more like actually reliving a memory than just recalling it.
This isn’t RDT. It’s the curse Ahaseurus threatened to lay on me, the one that’s going to make me go through the worst moments of my life over and over again. The good news is, it probably won’t kill me—it’ll just make me wish I were dead.
And here I thought I was going to be bored.
Back to the third floor. If I’m going to lose my mind, I’m going to do it in private, preferably with a drink in one hand and my feet up. I can stare out the window at the wildlife and see how many subspecies I can identify—bonus points for spotting anything truly bizarre. I’m hoping for a were-flamingo, myself.
But when I get to my room, my plans change. I can hear a voice inside, and it’s one I instantly recognize.
Aristotle Stoker.
* * *
The first time I met Aristotle Stoker, I didn’t know who he was.
I mean, I knew who he was by reputation: descendant of the infamous Whitechapel Vampire Killer, an Irish novelist named Bram Stoker. In a world infested by actual bloodsuckers as opposed to the fictional kind, he went a little batty himself and wound up slashing a few undead prostitutes to pieces with a silver-edged knife. They caught him and hanged him, but it did drive his novel Dracula up the Victorian best-seller charts—and unlike the Bram from my world, this one had decided to procreate.
Which, a few generations later, produced Aristotle. I guess he figured he had a legacy to live up to, because he wound up being the most wanted pire killer in the world.
He was one of the driving forces behind the human rights group called the Free Human Resistance, until he faked his own death and resurfaced as an assassin known only as the Impaler; as the name implies, he was less focused on activism than terrorism. He was almost a complete mystery to intelligence agencies, with no photo or even accurate description of him existing. Some professionals even believed he had to be a composite identity, a fiction invented by the FHR to instill fear in the supernatural population.
There’s no doubt he did exactly that. But he turned out to be very real, very dangerous … and more than a little crazy.
I take out my eskrima sticks and ease the scythe blades out quietly. Stoker stands about six foot ten, all of i
t muscle, and he’s made a career out of killing beings stronger, faster, and more durable than he is. I don’t know how he found me, but I need to take down both him and Ahaseurus in order to go home.
The last time I had the chance to kill him I didn’t take it. This time I won’t make that mistake—but who is he talking to?
I listen carefully for a minute, then shake my head and reholster my scythes. I open the door.
Stoker isn’t in my room. He’s on my TV.
Pretty sure I didn’t leave the set on, but I doubt someone broke in, turned on my TV, then left again. More than likely it’s some kind of spell, turning on sets all over the city in hopes of getting my attention. If I hadn’t been so spaced out from my little abduction to Memory Lane, I probably would have noticed noise coming from other rooms on my floor.
The message ends, then starts over again.
“Hello, Jace,” Stoker says. He’s sitting, arms in front of him on a table. Some kind of white sheet in the background, probably hung over a window. He’s wearing a buttondown white shirt, open at the collar. Simple, nonthreatening. His hair is a little shorter than the last time I saw him, but other than that he looks the same: broad, handsome face, eyes alert and intelligent under a heavy brow. “If you’re watching this and you’re not alone, you should know that only human eyes and ears can perceive this. Everybody else will be getting a recorded news update that’s six hours old. Pay attention, okay?
“I’d rather talk to you face-to-face, but I don’t know where in the city you’re hiding. That’s probably a good thing—but you need to think about your next move really hard.”
He leans forward and clasps his hands together. There’s no sense of scale in the image, nothing to compare those hands with, but I know he could pick up a bald midget by the skull while eating a sandwich. Him, not the midget.
“You’re a smart woman, but even a smart woman can make bad choices if she has bad information. I’m sure you already have a pretty good idea what’s happening, but there are a few things you need to be clear on.