The work also distracted her from thinking about the craziness that had been her morning at Eric’s house. She deliberately blanked out the sheer weirdness of being in someone’s mind. The arcane world was strange and odd things happened.
Being with Eric, though. Not any masquerada, but the Hierarch. Go big or go home, Caro. Okay, they hadn’t had sex. Maybe they had. Did it count as sex? Her entire body lit up at the memory of his touch so it sure felt like something, even though it happened in someone else’s mind. She sighed. That must be a new definition of mindfuck.
It had felt—right. More than right. She made a face and drank the rest of the coffee. She had to get a grip before she tricked herself into thinking that it meant something. After all, Eric Kelton was a lot of things. Arcana. Immortal, or close enough to it. A big-name masquerada. Scratch that—a masquerada king. A client. A man so far out of her league that he might as well be living on a different planet. She should treat this as one of those lovely random fantasies that occasionally sweeten the day and be vigilant about keeping it in not-actually-going-to-happen land, where it belonged. Nevertheless, her face burned as she lingered on the memory. Was he thinking about it as she was? He’d kissed her hand. What did it mean?
“It means nothing. It was nothing,” she whispered. Stop acting like a teenager obsessing over your crush’s every word.
“What’s nothing?” Estelle asked. The vampire stood at the door of Caro’s office, her pale skin set off by the dark red lipstick covering her bee-stung lips. Sleek black hair curled forward onto her cheeks.
Caro forced herself to smile. “A problem I was figuring out. Turned out I was worrying for no reason.”
“Oh. Do you want to come out for a drink? We can go to that little place around the corner. You look like you need a break.”
It sounded good but night was coming. There was no way that she could risk it. “Can I get a rain check? I need to finish a few things.”
Estelle shrugged. “Sure. For that Stephan guy? God, he was hot.”
“Stephan?” Caro tried to remember him in detail. He was tall and muscular and she guessed he was good-looking. She hadn’t noticed.
“Are you joking? Dude was like a male model. I didn’t know men like that actually existed in real life.”
“I guess he’s attractive,” Caro said doubtfully. Maybe he was, but she hadn’t felt anything beyond appreciating that he was smart and didn’t treat her like she was a criminal. Compared to Eric’s bone-deep sexiness she’d only registered Stephan as a guy.
Estelle rolled her eyes. “I seriously do not believe you. Well, tell me if you don’t want him.”
“Stephan’s all yours, but he’s a masquerada. You don’t even know that’s what he looks like in real life. He also seems dedicated to his job.” Caro stretched and felt her vertebrae pop alarmingly.
“Doesn’t matter what he looks like in real life, as long as he can look like that some of the time. It’s fun dating masquerada. You never get bored, you know? Always something new to try. That is, if they’re able to get over themselves. They can be snooty bastards.” Estelle pulled out a jeweled compact and pouted into the mirror. “I love this red.”
“You’re like a parody of a vampire.”
“I know.” Estelle looked delighted. “Hiding in plain sight. Who do you think started the goth trend anyway?”
“No way.”
“Zombie walks? Halloween? All arcana, girl.” The vampire winked, then pulled on her gigantic Prada sunglasses. “Anyway, don’t stay too late and set the alarm when you go. You’re the last one.”
Caro waved goodbye and turned to her computer. Two more things to tie up and she was done for the day. As she began typing, the phone rang. She answered it without checking the caller ID.
“Caro speaking.”
“Caro, it’s Eric. Eric Kelton.”
Her heart thumped hard, and she couldn’t speak.
“This is Caro Yeats?”
Pull it together. He’ll think you’re a nut. “Yes, sorry, you surprised me.”
“Of course. I wanted to check in with you. To make sure everything was in place.” Eric’s voice was deep and rich and Caro realized her eyes were shut. In a moment, she was back in that dark room, stretched out with him, skin on skin. No, Caro, come on!
“I’m finalizing some confirmations and we’re set,” she managed. “Stephan has all the details.”
“I spoke with him. The work you’ve done is impressive. Julien is lucky to have you.”
She tried to laugh naturally and was morbidly aware she probably sounded like a twit. “I’ll pass that on to him.”
“I’ll do that myself.” There was a long pause. “There was something else I wanted to discuss, about this morning. What happened.”
Caro picked up a pen and twirled it around her fingers. When she was a journalist, she had forced herself to develop an easy comfort with silence. People hated silence, and often would rush in to fill in the gap. She had gotten some of her best quotes that way. Now, the pause continued so long she wondered if he was still there, but decided to wait him out. Her mind’s eye pictured him the way she’d seen him as she left—shirtless, his smooth hard chest rippling with toned muscle and the blanket draped over his shoulders, begging to be pulled off. She felt the heat rise off her skin when she remembered how that body felt pressed against her, and in her.
Finally he spoke. “The convergence. When you appeared in my mind.”
She still didn’t speak.
“Dammit, Caro, are you even there? This is hard enough.” He sounded both frustrated and amused.
Caro gave in. “I’m listening.”
“I’d like it to stay between us,” he said. “I should have mentioned it before you left. Not the actual convergence, although it’s important that stay confidential. I refer to the more, ah, private experience.”
She bristled. “I didn’t broadcast it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It was an unfortunate occurrence,” Eric said easily. “I apologize and assure you it won’t happen again.”
There. She knew it had meant nothing. Caro was torn between hurt resentment and cynical amusement at his assurance that there would be no future interludes in a mystical cavern located in his mind. Finally she settled on a neutral answer: “Okay.”
“Okay.” He sounded relieved. “Good.” There was a long pause before he spoke again. “What happened—that’s never happened to me before.”
Now she was intrigued. “That’s the first time you experienced a convergence?”
He laughed wryly. “You usually don’t survive long enough to have it happen twice.”
Caro remembered how he had collapsed. “Can this happen to any masquerada?”
There was a pause. “You don’t seem to know much about us, for someone who works with arcana. And must be arcana herself, to work at JDPR.”
She went immediately on the defensive. “Masquerada aren’t the only group I work with.” She wouldn’t respond to the implicit question about her heritage and knew enough that he wouldn’t ask outright—it would cross arcana etiquette.
He laughed. “No, but we do think we’re the most important.” There was a small note of self-deprecation in his voice.
He was right, now that she thought about it. She remembered the many little digs she’d heard about masquerada from other arcana. She’d never bothered to probe too deeply into the reasons behind it, happy to have her own biases confirmed. In fact, it was strange how little she knew about the arcane world at all, despite both working in it and being a half-blood. It could be denial, or it could be a nasty indication of how much she had changed from her former self, when she was Lynn Butler, ace reporter. Julien had hinted that she shouldn’t ask too many questions about the inner lives of the clients. Her real value, he’d indicated, was her human-world perspectiv
e. Lynn would have taken the hint as a challenge and learned everything she could about vampires, weres, masquerada, mers and the rest.
Look at you now, a little voice mocked. Working in an impossible world that most people don’t even know exists and taking it for granted.
A little spark rose in her. The hell with that. Fuck Julien and his hints. She wasn’t going to stay as that half-dead, incurious woman. That was over.
She’d corner Estelle later to learn about the bloodsuckers. Today, she was going to learn about masquerada.
“Why is that?”
“Why are we self-centred as hell?”
“I wouldn’t have phrased it like that. But yes.” Being on the phone gave her a sense of intimacy. It was the two of them, focused on each other’s voices and words. No distractions.
“It’s a good question.” A long pause. “If you ask some of us, it’s because we have a natural superiority to the other arcana. The weres are barely one step up from animals, mers are flighty, and the fey can’t be trusted. Vamps feed on blood, which is disgusting. I could continue.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
“No, but unfortunately many of my people do. I think it’s because of the nature of our culture. Masquerada spend a large amount of time seriously assessing their place and status, and your status is directly related to your masquing ability. The stronger the better.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “You tell me. Every arcane group has its own way of determining status. For us it’s masquing. For the weres it’s physical strength, although many of my people could match a were in a fight. You can’t deny it happens with humans.”
“No, but…” she paused. There was no but. Eric was right. Power and strength drove humans as well as masquerada. “You’re right.”
“Naturally.”
They both laughed. There was more to learn, though. On to the next question.
* * * *
By the time Eric hung up, he felt as though he’d been put through a wringer. Three minutes through the conversation, it was as though Caro had flicked a switch. Even her voice had changed. She’d turned from an extremely competent, utterly desirable woman to an incredibly sharp, wonderfully inquisitive, and extraordinarily desirable woman in about twelve seconds.
She’d wanted to talk about being a masquerada and the questions she’d asked demonstrated astonishing insight. Before he even knew what he was doing, he’d explained the horror convergence held.
“It’s about the loss of control, then.” She’d sounded thoughtful. “Of course. A race that needs to maintain that at all times would grieve the loss especially. It’s a valued trait.”
“More than anything, I’d say. We learn it young—control and power are intertwined. To lose control threatens your ability to maintain your masque as well as being dishonorable.”
She’d absorbed that quietly, then had asked, “Do you ever feel as though you’re losing your real self, or even wonder if that self exists or is merely another masque?”
He’d almost dropped the phone when she’d said that. In a sentence, she’d laid open his deepest terror. He’d managed to answer casually, something along the lines of being trained to keep hold of the core self, but he’d been shaking.
The call had accomplished his primary purpose, which was to apologize for what had happened. As incredible as the experience had been for him, he wasn’t quite arrogant enough to think that she automatically felt the same way. From her response to his apology, it was clear she didn’t. Their conversation also had an unintended consequence that he couldn’t bring himself to regret—an increase in his already strong attraction to her. He walked over to the windows and looked out at the pools of light left by the street lamps and leaned his forehead against the cool glass. He had to tell himself that it was a good thing that nothing would ever happen with her again. Again? It hadn’t even happened at all, not in real life.
Damn.
* * * *
Caro finished her two tasks, humming. She was happy, a feeling so unusual she experienced momentary confusion trying to identify it. In a small way, she was taking her life back. Screw you, Franz Iverson. I’ve let you hijack too much of my life. You didn’t kill my body that night, but I let you kill my soul. That’s over. I’m taking it back. I’m taking it all back.
Thanks to Eric. During their conversation she’d been her old self again, researching a subject. She’d forgotten how much she loved talking to people about what was unfamiliar in the world. It was like a puzzle, putting the pieces together to make a complete picture in her mind.
Then there was listening to his voice. She licked her lips. During their conversation, she’d closed her eyes to let his words flow around her.
Not for long, though, because she’d been enthralled by what he’d told her. Guilt fisted her heart. She could have had this type of conversation with her mother. How much of her anger had been typical teenage resentment? If her mother had lived, would they have been friends? Had her mother needed to cope with the same deep fears as other masquerada, but with no one to speak with? A memory intruded: her father seeing her mother come out in a new masque and turning away with a shudder. She stared at her monitor, which flickered over to the JDPR screensaver. Her mother had killed herself. How much of that was because of her solitude?
Caro dropped her eyes. This introspective thread was new and extremely unwelcome. She pushed it away.
Saving the final file, she shut down the computer and grabbed her purse. It wasn’t until the alarm was set and she was in the main lobby that she realized how late it was.
Night. Darkness.
A wave of panic overtook her. This intense fear of the night hadn’t left since her attack, no matter what she tried. Feet frozen to the marble floor of the lobby, she gazed out into the dark. JDPR was located on a side street, off King Street West. Only a block away, hipsters were drinking fifteen-dollar cocktails made from lovingly crafted artisanal liqueurs and taking pictures of their food. Look, there are streetlights. Cars. People walking around. Nothing can hurt you. The bad men? They’re still in Washington. They can’t get you here.
The pep talk didn’t work. Her rational brain was useless against the warnings shrieking out from her nervous system. Out there in the dark were killers, cruel men with bright knives and cold eyes, waiting for her to walk out.
“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
No, she would try. Caro tried to bring back that feeling of triumph, of composure she had felt after the call with Eric. I can do it. One step. Take one step.
She forced her foot forward and the second it hit the floor, she began to pant, dark spots rising up to obscure her vision. I’m dying. I can’t breathe. I’m having a heart attack.
Caro scrambled back into the safety of her office. She couldn’t. If she went one more foot toward the inky blackness that lay beyond the lobby windows, she would die. She knew it. Once she was back inside, away from the terrors of the night, she sank to her knees and sobbed, her fingers tracing the raised scars that lined her stomach. Maybe Iverson had won, after all.
Dashing her tears away, she curled on the floor, put her jacket over top of her, and waited for sleep.
Chapter 10
Two days later, Caro walked into the JDPR boardroom in a state of exhilarated exhaustion. Julien was already set up at the long glass table, which was covered with newspapers. He scrolled through more news sites on the three laptops in front of him, eyes dancing greedily between the screens. Caro dropped her suitcase on the floor, her whole body aching. Belize was only a few hours’ flight but she’d been too wired to sleep.
Julien glanced up at Caro and blinked. “Mon ange, you look like shit.”
“Thanks. One of the local police had a conscience so it was hard to buy him off to guarantee the body’s pr
ivacy. He gave in when we told him that we weren’t letting the remains out of our sight and doubled the bribe.” She yawned. “A good thing, since there wasn’t actually a body.”
“Doesn’t sound like conscience to me. Sounds like he was holding out.” A laptop pinged and he checked it. “Another obit. Good, just standard.”
“Conscience is relative.” Caro rubbed her watery eyes. “No doubt for him it would be unconscionable not to make as much money as possible.”
Julien had already tuned her out. “All the Alex coverage looks bien, très bien, mostly because there is little coverage. A one-day wonder. Only small mentions and some longer obits in the business papers about a promising career cut short.”
“Any suspicion?”
“Viewed as a tragic accident but we’ll keep monitoring it for a while. The funeral will be quiet, with no information to media. Shouldn’t be an issue.”
He frowned, momentarily lost in thought as he absently pulled her notebook toward his side of the desk before tucking it under his own papers. “What about Kelton’s other masques?”
Caro fetched back her notebook, then went and poured herself a coffee from the carafe on the Danish-style credenza. The strong aroma raised her spirits and she poured in so much cream and sugar that it probably counted as a dessert. “No problems. The teams report that all four alternate masques have been taken care of. They’ll continue to watch, but it looks clean.”
They sat quietly, drinking coffee and paging through the papers like a couple on a Sunday morning. Caro’s eyelids began to droop in the warm room. It had been a busy two days. Stephan had agreed there needed to be someone on the spot to take care of problems. Caro hadn’t minded Belize, although she resented not having time to look around that incredible coastline. She’d been too busy resolving the various small issues that could easily derail the entire plan, while at the same time making sure she was safely indoors the moment night arrived. Thanks for adding to the stress, stupid phobia. At the end, watching the yacht sink, she’d felt nothing but a satisfying sense of completion of a job successfully done.
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