Masked Possession

  It was also where that damn belief of masquerada dominance began to take shape among his people.

  “I know why you want to keep this hidden,” Frieda murmured. “I ask you to consider how valuable it would be for others to know they aren’t alone. It might give them hope. Save lives.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Until you decide, it stays with me, Eric. I won’t give the information to any of your data specialists. I can’t take the risk of them recognizing a name. They’re discreet but they might not be able to help themselves if they think a loved one is about to marry into a weak lineage.”

  “I understand.”

  Frieda gave him a slow smile and left, crossing paths with Tom as she went through the door. Eric watched with interest as the two whispered for a moment, then Frieda nodded and went down the hall.

  “What was that about?” Eric asked the security chief.

  Tom stood at attention. “Frieda has been doing her best to show her loyalty. She has connections to the older lineages and has been willing to share information with us.”

  “Why?”

  “Has she been trying to seduce you?” Tom asked bluntly.

  Eric winced. “Yes.”

  Tom held up his palms. “Then with all due respect, I think she’s trying to become your consort.”

  “Not that again.” Before Frieda had illegally taken on his identity there had been some encouragement from the Council about the need for Eric to find a queen. He’d shut that down, fast.

  “You’re the Hierarch,” Tom pointed out unnecessarily. “It might not be a bad idea to align yourself to one of the older lineages.”

  Both he and Tom knew that as a turned masquerada—one that was not born to the blood—Eric labored under both a blessing and a curse. Some families would rejoice in bringing in fresh blood to their lineage, and turned masquerada were notoriously powerful. Others weren’t adventurous, preferring to stay with bloodlines they knew.

  “Maybe so, but I’m not in the marriage market at the moment. What do you have for me?”

  “Frieda’s intel has already been valuable.” Tom walked around the room doing his habitual check. “We’ve been able to track Iverson far better.”

  “No more burlesque halls?”

  “No, but he’s still meeting with that woman. Frieda gave us some tips. They meet only at night and she’s covered enough that we can’t even get a good image with infrared.”

  “You sure it’s the same?”

  “Yes, and it’s confirmed by Frieda as someone who claims to be close to you.” He paused. “I think we need to be open to the idea that it could be Caro Yeats.”

  Eric laughed. “Caro wants nothing to do with masquerada and Iverson hates half-bloods. Tell me why that would be a good working relationship.”

  “Perhaps he’s promised her something. Immunity when he comes to power. The fact is, she is the only one around you who has not passed a security scan.”

  True enough, but still so outlandish that Eric didn’t even bother to take it seriously. “We’re masquerada, Tom. That could be anyone. They’re probably lying about access to me.”

  “Possibly.” Tom sounded unconvinced. “I’m still going to keep the watch on Caro.”

  “Only to protect,” Eric ordered. “You are not to interfere with her unless she’s in danger.”

  “Of course,” Tom said. His expression remained as still as always.

  Chapter 20

  Caro took an extra two days off to annoy Julien, then went back to work on Wednesday. She needed the diversion, anything to stop her from thinking about masquerada, Eric, and whether she’d made the right decision to leave his bed.

  As she trudged into the reception area, hoping to avoid all contact with coworkers for at least an hour or until she’d had more coffee, it was almost destined that Estelle, Robert the warlock—dressed in a sharp blue Tom Ford suit—and the weird witch from accounting would all be there, chatting cheerfully with a stranger.

  Estelle wrinkled her nose. “What kind of a vacation did you take? You look awful.”

  “Thanks,” Caro said drily, nodding a greeting at the others. “Insomnia.”

  “Warm milk and nutmeg. Works like a dream.” Estelle waved toward the stranger. “Caro, this is Patricia. She started while you were gone.”

  Caro smiled politely at the small, mousey woman with big horn-rimmed glasses. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Caro blinked. Patricia’s deep and suggestive voice sounded like it belonged to a dominatrix rather than a woman dressed in a beige twinset and sensible shoes.

  “Patricia will be working with Robert mostly, but Julien suggested you show her the ropes for all the templates and the billing system,” Estelle said. “Also, don’t mind the smell. New carpet in the meeting room.”

  “Sure. Give me ten minutes to settle in and I’ll be with you.” Caro scratched her arms, which were suddenly itchy—no doubt a reaction to the new carpet’s off gassing—and made her way down to her office. Estelle had taped a big welcome back sign, complete with a picture of a hand-drawn cluster of balloons. That was nice. She opened the door and tossed her small, red leather purse on the table.

  It had been a difficult decision to come back and she almost hadn’t. There was enough money in her bank account for a few months and last night, she’d tossed and turned on the couch, her body still craving Eric, her mind still spinning about the masque she’d taken on. She’d almost given up and said, “The hell with it, I’m moving to Australia. Or Portugal. Malaysia. Anywhere but here.”

  It would be running away, but she didn’t care. Lynn Butler had cared about not being a coward, but she was no longer Lynn Butler. As Caro Yeats she had already run away once. She could do it again.

  So why was she still here? Caro stared at the expensively designed yellow-and-gray JDPR logo that appeared on her start-up screen. It wasn’t for her job. The pay was good and it had some interesting challenges, but she wasn’t sure it was worth it to have to deal with Julien’s stupid jealousy and accusations. Her apartment was nice enough, but not home. Friends? She’d left them back in Washington, what few there were, and hadn’t been back in touch since she’d moved to Toronto. She could be lonely in Peru as well as here.

  Eric? She shivered and ran her finger over her lip, still feeling his kiss. She couldn’t see him again. It would be bad.

  A dainty knock sounded on her door and Patricia poked her nose in. “Is it a good time?”

  Caro turned and smiled, rubbing at her arms. “Sure. Come on in.”

  At least she’d be busy today. Maybe that was the best she could hope for.

  * * * *

  Two days later, she still felt uncomfortable. Patricia was a fast learner, but there was something unsettling about her that Caro couldn’t put her finger on. The woman was a model coworker; polite, quick, and intelligent. She made jokes and offered to go on a coffee run. She talked about her dog and how annoying it was to commute. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about her. In fact, she was almost extraordinarily normal.

  So why did a little cloud drift over her when Patricia walked by?

  Julien liked her, that’s for sure. The two of them were closeted in his office so often that Estelle insisted they were having an affair. She made up an entire story that she told to Caro at lunch. “I bet she has an insanely jealous husband and this is the only way they can meet,” she said breathlessly. For a hundred-year-old vampire who claimed to have seen it all, Estelle had a romantic streak a mile long.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.” Caro rummaged through her bag. “Can’t find my house keys.”

  “Don’t you have a spare?”

  “Of course. It’s weird though. I’m sure they were here.”

  “She’s fey, like him.” Estelle checked her lipstic
k. “At least Patricia seems a bit more restrained. I don’t think she’s swiped a single thing of mine yet.”

  “She said she wasn’t married,” Caro reminded her.

  “Boyfriend.”

  “She said she was single.”

  “She’s trying to break it off.”

  Caro scoffed. “Or maybe she’s new and Julien’s training her. Like he would any new employee.”

  “You’re no fun.” Estelle scowled. “He sure didn’t train Robert like that. Didn’t even see the guy for a week.”

  “True. She seems nice enough.”

  “If you like boring little nothings.” Estelle retouched her crimson lips. “That woman’s unnoticeable. I forget she’s in the room. She’s like wallpaper. Beige wallpaper. Or carpet.”

  “That doesn’t seem like Julien’s type.” His last fling had been a dramatic Brazilian dancer with a personality—and voice—as big as the sky.

  “That’s for sure. Maybe he’s making a change. Thinking of settling down. He’s already been stealing less.”

  “Julien? Settling down?”

  The two women looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  Caro was still smiling when she walked down the hall—until she saw who was in her office.

  “Patricia. Can I help you?”

  “I was waiting for you. Robert said you’d be back soon.”

  “So you waited in my office?” At least Caro had brought her purse with her, and there was nothing of value in the room except for some shoes. If the new woman was stealing used shoes from Caro’s office during the workday, she had more than boundary issues.

  God, it could be annoying to work with the fey.

  Patricia looked confused. “I’m sorry. I can see you’re upset. I thought it made sense, since we were meeting here. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  A meeting? Caro checked her calendar, and saw she was in fact ten minutes late for one with Patricia, in her office, about the Riceway account. She could have sworn it hadn’t been there earlier, but things got booked into her calendar all the time without her noticing.

  “Right. There it is. I apologize.” She could tell her voice was stiff so she tried to soften it with a smile while scratching her elbow. The fact was, she didn’t like Patricia.

  “Of course,” Patricia smiled her big, gummy smile. “I understand completely. Should we get started?”

  * * * *

  Eric stared at the cell phone that he had placed on the table. It was the one he’d used for Alex, and had left untouched since the masque’s fatal “accident” in Belize. He should have destroyed it when they were clearing out the rest of the paraphernalia—the suits, the awards, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulated for each masque without even trying. Some masquerada kept mementoes from their masques and he knew it brought them a sense of comfort and safety, like revisiting old friends. For him, when the masque’s time was done, it was finished. The memory in his mind’s cavern was enough.

  Then why was he sitting with a dead cell phone?

  Earlier that day, when he had opened his closet, his hand had brushed against the newly retailored suit he had worn as Alex. He’d slammed the closet door shut and retreated across the room before he was able to stop shaking.

  He sighed and stared at the phone, forcing his hands to stillness. Without a doubt, Alex had been the masque he’d invested the most in. Stephan had warned him right at the beginning that it was going to be a problem, and as usual, his lieutenant had been right. The convergence had been his own fault. He’d overreached, getting into more problems as he tried to avoid le vide. Look where that had landed him. He’d tried to shift again that morning and had collapsed in a sweaty bundle on the floor after knocking himself nearly unconscious on that clear and impassable wall.

  Christ, quit dancing around it. Eric let the thought surface. He was scared shitless to take on a masque now. This time when he had stopped trying, the intensity of the relief had nearly taken his breath away. He paced the room. He was going to have to work through this alone. No fucking way could he go to the head doctors. It would be as good as handing Iverson the throne if this got out.

  If he couldn’t shift, he lost his mandate to lead.

  What if he couldn’t?

  Eric had realized centuries ago that he needed to shift. It was an addiction, one he’d been feeding since 1640 when he’d been transformed into a masquerada by the Nipissing shaman in New France. A few days without masquing left him with an unbearable excess of energy that had to be burned off on long runs or sparring matches with his security team. It was part of him. He couldn’t live without it.

  Was it any different for those who had been born as masquerada, rather than made? Eric was one of the few who had been turned and unlike most of his subjects, knew a life where one had only a single body and a single face. He shuddered. Now that he knew the freedom of becoming others, the thought of being imprisoned in his own flesh was horrifying.

  It didn’t take any particular psychological insight to know what was up: His mind equated masques with convergence and the mere thought of that shit happening again filled him with a deep horror. It wasn’t even the physical symptoms that bothered him. Naturally, it would suck to have several more arms. But more arms compared to the thought of losing himself in a past sea of masques, to forever lose his own mind and his own self? The hair on his arms stood up at the thought of it.

  As if that wasn’t enough, the restlessness was already building in him and it had been less than two weeks since he’d stopped masquing. In a month he’d have so much energy you’d be able to plug him into a socket and he’d power the city. If he survived.

  Maybe it was time for another run. He’d gone for six miles in the morning, but exercise was the only thing that helped him keep in check. Or he could call Frieda, see if she had any advice.

  Instead, he stood at the window and thought about Caro in her flimsy little athletic shorts.

  He wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Caro. She had no idea how much of a debt he owed her.

  Caro. A half-masquerada, but tremendously gifted. An enigma. What had happened to her that she pushed aside her heritage with such fear and disgust? He’d met few half-bloods in his long life, but they’d been almost indistinguishable from full masquerada in their strength and abilities. Caro was already part of the arcane world. There would be no new secrets for her to keep, nothing fresh for her to hide. Why did she reject her power?

  Tom had come up with only bits and pieces of her history, clearly frustrated at his failure to uncover more dirt. It could be the disjointed story of a person who wasn’t in the spotlight often, or of someone who had carefully covered her past. It was killing Tom that he couldn’t get any further. Details about Caro’s masquerada background were a mystery as well, at least until Tom could get his paws on a DNA sample. He couldn’t see Caro agreeing to that.

  Was it strange that Eric wasn’t worried? He knew Stephan would say it was because he hired Tom to worry for him, and Eric was the first to admit that on many topics that was undoubtedly true. But not about Caro. He trusted her. She had touched his mind and he knew her, knew the type of woman she was. When he looked at her, he felt a bond that he couldn’t deny or fight. She hated masquerada and had a huge misconception about what it meant to be a masquerada and the many rules they had in place to ensure that trust could reign and flourish. She would understand one day—he would make sure of that—but it had to be on her own time. To rush her would be fatal.

  The woman was impossible and he couldn’t forget her. He had petitions to answer, he had Iverson ratcheting up the crime levels in the city and he was preparing for a civil war. Not to mention a death challenge in that defie. There was enough work to keep him busy around the clock. Yet here he was, staring at a dead cell phone and thinking about why Caro decided to fight against her fate.

&nbs
p; Eric was at least honest with himself. He wanted her. Caro enticed him more than any woman had in years. He had no chance of winning her as long as she rejected her masquerada nature. He was a logical man. To get Caro, he’d have to break down that barrier until she saw the truth about who and what she was.

  Not only was he a logical man, he was a determined one. It was only a matter of time. Unfortunately, time was one of the things that was in short supply for him these days.

  Chapter 21

  The meeting with Patricia went much longer than Caro had expected. Despite the many hints about work that needed to be done, and information that could be covered later, Patricia seemed intent on draining every ounce of knowledge Caro had, or had ever had, on not just the Riceway account but multiple others. Finally, after even Estelle had waved goodbye for the night, Patricia looked up with what Caro bitterly suspected was feigned surprise.

  “My goodness me.” She pulled over Caro’s monitor so she could see it. “Look at that time. I can’t believe it’s so late, but you were very interesting and informative.”

  “Glad to help.” Caro tried unsuccessfully to keep the sour note out of her voice as she yanked the screen back into place. Patricia beamed that stupid toothy smile in her direction as she gathered up her notes and left.

  It took about four seconds for Caro to decide that she was done for the day. There were a few tasks she should do, like fill out her timesheets and poke out her own eyes in frustration at losing hours to Julien’s new hire, but they could wait. All she wanted was to go home while it was light, turn on some mindless home-decor show, drink a bottle of wine, and not think about work. Or Eric.

  Good luck with that, she thought as she checked through her bag. Keys—her spares, she still hadn’t found her other ones—phone, notepad were all there. Eric had been on her mind constantly; anger chased by regret chased by anger again. That was her mind, though. Her body had a single thought.

  She wanted him.

  She groaned as she let herself out. Why did relationships always have to be messed up? Either the guy was married, or gay, or not willing to commit. Or a masquerada Hierarch.