Masked Possession

by Alana Delacroix

  It wasn’t that he was influential. She’d met more than one celebrity at both the Post and JDPR and had realized they were regular people. People with entourages and fancy cars, but still mere individuals with no more right to deference or obsequious kowtowing than anybody else.

  Yet Eric fascinated her, and she told herself firmly that it was only her curiosity that was aroused. What kind of a man had such incredible determination that he could live not one, but two public lives, not to mention all the others? Why did he choose those masques? Was he after fame? Money? Anonymity? Or something else? Man, he must have great time-management skills, she thought irrelevantly.

  Forget it. He was a masquerada. She was going to do her job, and do it well, but that was it. Thinking about his motivations, or about him in general, was asking for trouble. Masquerada were captivating by nature—their gifts of mimicry always drew people in. Look at her own parents, her poor father enthralled by the novelty of her mother’s parade of masques, finally leaving only when he realized he’d never know the real woman. Perhaps, Caro now thought, there hadn’t even been a woman to know. How could her mother become all those others without constantly fragmenting her own self? At the end, what would be left?

  Caro leaned back and let Julien’s chatter wash over her as she stretched, then pulled herself out of her chair to walk to the window. JDPR was on the top floor of a small building near King Street and she could see a glint of blue water and a plane taking off from the island airport when she looked south. She thought of sunny vacations and beaches, even though chances were good the passengers were on their way to get bitten by the black flies in Thunder Bay.

  “What about a night cruise?” Julien’s voice came from behind her.

  Caro nixed that instantly. Thanks to the attack in the Washington alleyway, she couldn’t bring herself to leave her apartment after dark. The moment the sun started to set, the need to make sure she was inside, and safe, became overpowering. It kind of put a damper on her social life. She didn’t care about that—she didn’t actually have a social life—but she didn’t want to parade her weakness in front of Julien.

  Estelle brought in some sushi for their lunch, winking at Caro as she passed over a cup of burning-hot green tea. After sorting through the Styrofoam containers for his order, Julien pushed aside his laptop and mixed wasabi into the dark brown soy sauce he poured neatly into a tiny plastic dish.

  “Our new client seemed taken with you, mon ange. I’d say be careful, but everyone knows he doesn’t appreciate statics. I doubt he’d ever be with a half-blood like you, lovely though you are. Too good to associate with outsiders, I’m told, and more arrogant than the usual masquerada. That’s saying something. Did you see how he spoke to me?”

  A thrill rushed through her at the idea that Eric had noticed her as anything more than the PR flack who was going to haul his ass out of trouble. Caro immediately repressed it, reminding herself that she wasn’t interested in masquerada. She ignored the barb. Julien could be a real bitch when he tried. The compliment she also carefully pretended not to hear since he had been uncomfortably observant about her appearance lately. Instead, she said, “Statics?”

  “Mon dieu, I keep forgetting how ignorant you are of some of these things. Un bébé. Our new clients are masquerada, Caro.”

  She resisted an eye-roll. “Yes, Julien, I know.”

  “Then a static is someone who can’t change. A human. You are close enough to a static, since you don’t take on masques, or can’t.” He gave the end of his sentence a questioning lilt that she refused to react to.

  “Oh. Makes sense.” She found an avocado roll with her chopsticks and popped it in her mouth. She wasn’t in the mood for fish.

  “He’ll know you’re arcana, though. Everyone knows I don’t hire humans.” The last sentence was said in a tone of such smug self-congratulation that Caro had to refrain from giggling.

  “Of course.” She’d been immersed in the arcane world for long enough to know the overall attitudes toward humans ranged from abhorrence to neutrality to food source. She wondered how her parents had even met, given all the prejudice to humans. She’d only been told it was at a dance. A brief and unwelcome thought occurred to her. What had Gaelle sacrificed to be with her father? She pushed this aside. This was not a side of her mother that she’d ever considered before, probably because her mother had rarely thought of anyone but herself. No doubt marrying a human had served some need of Gaelle’s own.

  Julien looked at her curiously. “Have you never had an urge to explore your abilities?”

  “No.” She ignored his probing gaze and hunted around for another avocado roll.

  “Pourquoi pas?”

  “No desire. No need. Masquerada thrive on lies and deceit.” Her ignorance of everything to do with her mother’s background was limitless and she had little interest in changing it. No man, however hot, was going to change that. Masquerada didn’t like humans? The feeling was more than mutual on her end.

  “Hard on them, aren’t you?”

  Caro put the chopsticks down, goaded into an answer. “How can you trust any masquerada? Could you ever know their real faces? Their real selves? It’s always what they decide to present to you.”

  Julien regarded her with interest and she instantly regretted speaking her mind. The less Julien knew about her innermost thoughts the better. Time to change the topic. “I think I’ve seen Kelton before. Rich guy, philanthropist. Builds women’s shelters, right?”

  Her boss picked up a piece of salmon sashimi. “Do you even know who he is?”

  “Who Eric Kelton is? Yeah. We’ve been talking about him all morning. A masquerada with a problem.” She tried to push down the little part that craved talking about him and was dying to hear more about how he seemed interested in her.

  “Very funny. They didn’t parade it during our meeting but he’s the top dog. King man. Chief. Le Roi. They call him the Hierarch. He rules all the masquerada in North America.”

  “You’re joking.” Even as she said it, Caro knew it was true. Eric had the unmistakable assurance of a man who expected to be obeyed.

  “I never joke about power.”

  Caro leaned forward. “How did he become Hierarch? Is it hereditary?” She felt her curiosity perking up and welcomed it. It had been a long time since she’d felt that intense need to know more, to know everything.

  “Apparently he was chosen by the masquerada High Council after the old Hierarch died, but who knows?” Julien sniffed the pale green tea and made a face. “They’re not as close-mouthed as the vampires, but it’s still difficult to know what’s going on, particularly if you’re only a fey. Masquerada think they’re better than everyone, as you no doubt saw this morning.”

  He sounded bitter. At first, Caro put it down to simple resentment and hurt ego that anyone could consider themselves more important than himself. Then she realized it was more than that, deeper than that. Did Julien have a personal beef with Eric? With masquerada?

  Her boss continued speaking. “The masquerada aren’t weres, you know. They can’t turn into animals, or have links to the lunar cycle.”

  She nodded. Her mother hadn’t been much on sharing information, and Caro had never cared enough to ask, but that much she knew.

  “Some can adjust only their features a bit. Some have only one masque, or are confined to their own gender. They have levels of ability, based on heredity, strength, and training. Only the most capable, such as the Hierarchs, have no limits.”

  “What do you mean?” This was new. With a shock, Caro remembered her mother’s many masques. What level had she been? It must have been up there.

  “Male, female, black, white. They can look like anyone under the sun.” He ate some edamame, then sneaked some of hers. That wasn’t the fey coming out. It was greed.

  She snatched the plate away. “It’s deceit.”

 
“A different way of life. That’s why our clients were surprised by your idea. Either a masquerada keeps a masque for life or they’re slowly retired. They’re never suddenly killed off. It’s a cultural thing.”

  That made sense. “Convergence is something that affects all of them?” Caro asked.

  “Tell me, mon ange, what do you know of it?”

  “What was said today,” she admitted.

  “Convergence is the thing they dread most. All of them.” He paused and sniffed at a piece of ruby-red sashimi before popping it into his mouth. “I can see why.”

  “The fear is that they’ll lose themselves in the other personalities, isn’t it?” A terrifying prospect.

  “That’s part of it. There’s a physical aspect as well, je pense. If a masquerada converges, the personalities not only merge, but so do the physical masques.”

  “You’d get the face of one and the body of another?”

  “If you’re unlucky you would get the faces of both,” he said wryly. “Or so they say.”

  She shuddered. Poor Eric. “How does this even happen?”

  “J’sais pas,” Julien said. “I assume it’s some sort of an emotional involvement. A breaking down of the mental order needed to maintain the barriers between masques.” He shrugged. “No matter. This is speculative psychobabble and we have work to do.”

  By the end of the day, they had a plan ready to present to Eric. Julien made it clear he would be doing it solo and Caro bit her tongue to quell her protest. She didn’t want Julien to know that she’d hoped to see Eric again. For that matter, she didn’t want to admit it to herself. She’d met attractive men before. Why did Eric intrigue her so? She didn’t know, but decided it was a good thing that her contact with him would be limited. She’d seen firsthand the careless emotional damage a masquerada could do to those around them.

  Julien paused at the doorway, his silver laptop tucked under his arm. “Time for a drink, Caro? Celebrate our day?”

  “Sorry.” It would be dark soon. Even the thought of being caught outdoors when night fell was enough for the sweat to pop out on her forehead.

  His lips tightened and he gave her a curt nod. “Au revoir.”

  She watched him go. Surely he wasn’t angry about that? Jesus. Men. She put it out of her mind as she gathered her things. Time for her to be on her way home.

  Chapter 6

  Eric stood waiting in the library. He liked this room. Mementoes were scattered around: a collection of medals under a glass-topped curio table, a worn beaded leather belt. The golden morning sun lit the books that lined the walls and Tiffany lamps hung over comfortable leather club chairs. In front of the fireplace, the huge velvet sofa lined with plump pillows caught Eric’s eye and for a brief and dizzying moment he imagined Caro lounging there, naked, with the glow from the flames warming her skin.

  “Package, sire.” One of the security guards walked in, breaking his reverie.

  Eric turned. “Leave it on the table.”

  “Yessir.”

  He didn’t remember ordering anything lately, but that wasn’t unusual. Late night online shopping had led to some of his most treasured purchases, such as a room fan shaped like a pineapple. It helped keep some surprises in his life.

  Stephan pushed the door open. “It’s almost nine, so Julien D’Aurant will be here shortly,” he said. “Do you think he’ll have something good?”

  Eric fell into the one of the chairs and stretched. It had been a long, fitful night of ominous dreams. He’d finally gotten out of bed at four in the morning to go for a run in the hopes of calming himself and restoring order to his increasingly chaotic thoughts. His mental state fluctuated between intense desires to play video games or bake scones or going to networking events—all traits from his masques that should come out only when he was in them. The exercise had helped but he knew time was running short.

  Taking on Alex’s masque yesterday had been a mistake.

  “As long as it’s fast.” Perhaps Julien would bring Caro. One of Eric’s dreams had featured her straddling him, her face shadowed and eyes shut in ecstasy. That had been the only bright spot of the night.

  Stephan walked to the window and gazed out onto the street. “Was it worth it, taking on so many masques that you brought yourself to this point?”

  Eric didn’t bother pretending he didn’t understand. Nor could he resent the question. It was valid. He’d wanted to show he could do it, but there was another, darker reason. “It was,” he said simply. “It got me through le vide.”

  Le vide. An extra few hundred years of living could pull a number on mental well-being. Masquerada dreaded the touch of that chilling emptiness almost as much as they feared convergence.

  Stephan examined him with sharp eyes and nodded. “Okay, then,” he said, and mercifully left the subject alone. “I wish you would consider letting me call in Frieda Hanver.”

  “You know how I feel about Frieda.”

  “She’s skilled in convergence and owes you allegiance, despite what happened. I think we can trust her.”

  “You do?”

  “Trust her now,” Stephan amended. “She’s been on excellent behavior since the High Council’s punishment.”

  Eric considered this. Frieda. Absolutely she was skilled, one of their best healers. She was also an incredibly talented and manipulative liar.

  “She’s been doing a special study of convergence lately,” Stephan said. “There’s no one more knowledgeable in North America.”

  Tom pushed open the door, his large hand swamping a delicate porcelain cup. The smell of Darjeeling wafted in.

  Eric nodded a greeting. “What do you know about Frieda Hanver’s latest doings?”

  “Not hearing much about her, these days,” Tom said immediately. “She’s keeping a low profile, concentrating on her work. She’s well-connected with the old lineages.”

  “Trustworthy?” Eric asked.

  Tom thought about this. “It depends on what you were trusting her with. She takes her healer vows seriously. She’s good at what she does. You can never guarantee it, but it looks as if the punishment put the fear of God into her. I’ve used her to help injured team members.”

  “You have?”

  “She fixed Amit’s back when he fell from the wall practicing in the Throne Room recently.”

  “You practice in the Throne Room?”

  “We do drills everywhere you are on a regular basis.”

  Eric glanced at Stephan. “Fine. Keep her in mind and do some background work to see if there’s anything we can get from her research without bringing her in. The fewer people who know about this the better.”

  “Understood.”

  Eric picked up scissors and began to cut through the tape on the package. Tom frowned and put his teacup down on a shelf lined with books. “What’s that?”

  “Not sure. Came this morning.”

  “Stop.”

  When Tom spoke in that tone, even Eric listened. He paused and glanced up. Tom’s eyes were as steady on the package as a predator’s that had sighted its evening meal.

  “Sire. Put the scissors down and move away. Slowly.”

  Stephan came to full attention as Eric did as Tom ordered. “What is it?”

  Tom didn’t move. “Could be nothing. Could be something. Eric, Stephan, out in the hall.” He followed, then pulled the door shut and barked an order into his phone.

  “We’re going to leave and let my team work.” Tom angled his head down the corridor.

  “Agreed.” Eric led the way out and down to the main security command room, which was reinforced and protected. On the way they passed a team of hazmat-suited and body-armored masquerada. Tom put out a general order to all the staff to head to the basement. The three men stood silently for a minute when they reached the command room.

  “Th
at package had something to do with Iverson?” Eric cursed himself for being careless.

  “Might be. There were no courier marks on the package. Better to be cautious. I increased our security. There’s still nothing concrete, but it looks like it’s true that he’s back and active.”

  “Assume it’s true.” Eric checked the security video of the library but all he saw was people moving purposefully around. “Even if it’s nothing, there’s something going on in the city under his direction.”

  Tom’s phone beeped and he picked it up. “Understood.” His eyes stayed vigilant, but he relaxed somewhat. “Eric, we can go up.”

  “Is it safe for the staff?” Stephan said. At Tom’s nod, he sent the all clear signal.

  Back in the library, the security team stood in a small knot around the desk, murmuring quietly. They moved aside when the three men entered.

  “What the hell is that?” Stephan stared at the open box in astonishment.

  “It’s a knife, sir.” Eric thought it might be Mai, but it was hard to tell through the helmet she wore over her head. “A bloodstained knife.”

  “Whose blood?” Stephan demanded.

  “Iverson’s.” Eric knew this blade, with its familiar notch on the hilt and the engraved E on the pommel.

  Stephan’s eyes flickered over it. “Jesus. Don’t tell me.”

  “It’s my knife, the one I used to slice his throat.” Eric glanced up at the security team. “Thank you. Take the knife and check it over. I want it back.”

  Getting the hint, the team saluted and left the room with the knife and the packaging. Eric waited until the door was closed and lowered his voice when he spoke. “We’ve got a mole. That knife was in a locked box in the throne room. No one should have even known it was there, let alone been able to steal it.”