Digital Knight

by Ryk E. Spoor

  He had me pegged right. I thought a moment. "Nothing illegal involved in this job?"

  "I know of nothing that would be illegal in finding my father, no."

  "Very well, then. I agree. I'll find your father, if it's at all possible."

  His nervous fidgeting quieted almost instantly; he relaxed visibly. "Thank you."

  "So what can you tell me about your father? Skip the description for now—I've got a computer program we'll use later to construct the best picture. Tell me any facts his appearance wouldn't tell me."

  "That is where my memory is weak. I can only tell you five things about Father."

  "Shoot."

  "Excuse me?"

  "That means, go ahead, let me have them."

  "First, he was not my natural father. I was adopted. He was not of Oriental blood, but I think Westerner instead."

  Well, that weakened one approach. Obviously there'd be no link in appearance between father and son, and not necessarily one of immigration, either. "Next?"

  "Father was a priest. Priest of . . . um . . . nature? I'm not sure the term . . . ?"

  That was interesting. "You mean of the earth itself? Not Shinto or something of that nature?"

  "Yes. The world's spirit?"

  "Our word for that is generally 'Gaia.' "

  "Yes! That is it." He nodded, apparently recognizing the word. "Father also had a ring that he wore, which he would never remove."

  "Kind of ring?"

  "A big, wide, heavy gold ring, with a very large red stone—I think a ruby—set in it."

  I blinked for a moment. "O . . . kay."

  "Something wrong?"

  "No, nothing. Go on."

  He hesitated. "This is the . . . weird part."

  "I'm ready."

  "No, I mean, really strange. Please believe me when I tell you this is not a joke?"

  I studied him carefully. "I believe you're not playing a joke on me. You seem too serious to be able to joke about it at all."

  "Thank you." He had tensed up again; my assurance made him relax. "All right . . . my father didn't eat; instead, he drank blood."

  I stopped dead in mid-keystroke. No. This was ridiculous. What were the odds? But drinking blood? A red-stone ring that never came off?

  Tai could tell something had happened to me. "Mr. Wood?"

  "What was the fifth thing?"

  "What?"

  "That's four facts about your father. What's the fifth?"

  "His name . . . the name he was using then. His name was V'ierna Dhomienkha a Atla'a Alandar."

  It was impossible. But it had to be. I stood up. "Excuse me for a minute; I'm going to check something."

  "What? Mr. Wood, what is it?"

  "I'll be back in a moment."

  I stepped into the back office, grabbed the phone off the hook, and dialed Verne's number.

  "Domingo Residence, Morgan speaking."

  "Morgan, this is Jason. I need to speak with Verne."

  Morgan's voice was puzzled. "But, Jason, you know that Master Verne is never awake at this time. Why, it's barely two o' clock."

  "Then wake him. I know he can move about in the day, if he wants. This is important!"

  There was a long pause—even longer to me, sitting on the other end doing nothing. But finally I heard the familiar voice pick up at the other end. "Jason? What is the emergency?" Tired though he was, what I heard most in his voice was worry. "It isn't the Wolf, is it?"

  Jesus, I should have realized that was the first thing he'd think of. "No, no. Nothing that bad. Maybe not bad, really, at all. I have a guy here looking for his father."

  His tone was slightly nettled. "And how does this concern me?"

  "Because of what he told me about his father: that he wore a ruby-colored crystal in a gold-setting ring that he never took off, and that he drank blood."

  There was dead silence on the other end for several moments. "Interesting coincidence to say the least, Jason. But I have no children."

  "He said he wasn't a natural child of this man—adopted. He also said that his father was some kind of priest of nature, and he gave his father's name. I'm not sure quite how to spell it, but it sounded awfully like yours . . ."

  In a whisper almost inaudible, I heard, "V'ierna Dhomienkha a Atla'a Alandar i Sh'ekatha . . ."

  "Holy shit," I heard my own whisper. I still couldn't believe it.

  "That name? He spoke that name? But . . . that is impossible." Verne's voice was at the edge of anger, laughter, or tears, I couldn't tell which, and hearing that strain in his voice was more upsetting than I'd imagined. "I am on my way, sun or no sun."

  I hung up and stepped back out into the office. Tai Lee Xiang looked up at me. "Mr. Wood?"

  "If what you've told me is accurate, Mr. Xiang . . . I think I've located him already."

  As his jaw dropped, a chill wind blew through the closed office, and from my back room stepped Verne Domingo, dark eyes fixed on my visitor.

  There was no recognition in Verne's eyes, but there was no doubt about Tai Lee's reaction. He leapt to his feet, eyes wide. "Father!"

  Verne fixed him with a cold glare. "Who are you? Who, that you know that name unspoken for generations unnumbered, that you would claim to be son to me?" That alien accent was back and emphasized by his anger.

  There was no mistaking the shocked, wounded look in Tai Lee Xiang's eyes. "Father? Don't you recognize me? The boy in the temple?"

  Verne's mouth opened for a bitter retort, but at the last words his mouth slowly closed. He stared at the young man intensely, as though he would burn a hole through him by gaze alone. I felt a faint power stir in the room. Then Verne's face went even paler than usual, and he stepped forward, reaching out slowly to touch the Oriental's face. "The scent is wrong . . . but the soul. I know that soul. Is it really you, Raiakafan?"

  Tai jerked as Verne spoke the name, as though slapped in the face, then nodded. "Y . . . yes. Yes. That was my name."

  For the first time since I'd known him, Verne seemed too overcome to speak. He simply stepped forward, around the desk, and stared straight into the young man's eyes. "Even with what I feel . . . I must have proof. For you disappeared . . ."

  Tai—Raiakafan?—studied me, and suddenly I had a completely different impression of him. The uncertain, nervous young man was gone; instead I was seeing a black, polished-stone gaze as cold as black ice. I found myself stepping backward involuntarily; only once before had I gotten an impression of such total lethality, and that had been when I had stood in a hospital hallway and watched Virigar himself assume his true form. That feeling carried the utter conviction that Tai was not merely trained in the arts of killing, but a killer to his very core. "In front of him?" he asked coldly.

  I could see that Verne was slightly surprised by the tone, but not apparently by the question. "It may be necessary later . . . but you are quite correct. We shall speak in private. But I would appreciate it if you moderate your tone of address to one who is not only my friend, but the one who has reunited us."

  The cold gaze softened abruptly, replaced by an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Father. You are right. Mr. Wood, forgive me. It has been a difficult time for me. But I am very grateful . . . and amazed."

  I shrugged. "Don't mention it. Not as much a coincidence as I thought at first; anyone who was Verne's friend would have been around during the last dust-up. The only real coincidence was that one of those friends happened to be an info specialist. No," I said as I saw him reaching for a wallet, "no charge. Not only is Verne a friend, I hardly had to do any work on this one."

  "Still, I thank you, Jason," Verne said.

  His hand on Tai's arm, Verne and the mysterious visitor disappeared into thin air. I jumped a bit at that, but my mind was distracted by the fact that I'd seen a new and different sparkle in Verne's eyes as they vanished.

  Vampire tears are just like ours.

  30

  "Guess who!"

  Two soft hands covered my eyes in time
with the words. To my credit, I managed to keep from jumping, though she probably knew how much she'd startled me anyway.

  "Madame Blavatsky?"

  She giggled. "Nope."

  "Nostradamus?"

  "Do I feel like I have a beard? Try again!"

  "Then it must be the great Medium of the Mohawk Valley herself, Sylvia Stake!"

  The hands came away as I turned around. "You guessed!"

  "No one else has a key to this place, and Verne's voice is two octaves lower and his hands five sizes bigger."

  Sylvie was looking good this evening, in one of her gypsyish outfits, black hair currently styled in tight ringlet-like curls pulled back by several colorful scarves, a low-cut dress with a long skirt, and a big over-the-shoulder bag that was handwoven with enough different colors to supply a dozen rainbows. "Oh, is that the only difference?" she said, leaning forward.

  Sylvie makes me nervous. I don't know why; she's not the only woman or girl I've ever dated, and I never got this nervous around them or anyone else for that matter. Because she always saw it, Syl assumed it was all women who made me nervous. And she always enjoyed flustering me. Leaning forward in that dress was just another such approach. "C'mon, Syl, cut it out. I can't take the games today."

  She switched gears immediately. "Sorry, Jason. I noticed you seemed tense, but I thought it might be just work and the fact I'd been away so long."

  "It's not like I fall apart when you go away, you know."

  "Then what's bothering you?"

  I turned back to the computer screen. "Sorta business, sorta personal."

  "Verne." It was a statement, not a question.

  "How did you know?"

  "Just a feeling."

  At least part of what made Syl tough to be around was that she was able to sense things. Until vampires and werewolves showed up, Syl was the only truly paranormal thing I'd ever encountered, and I'd denied even that until the night one of her New Age crystal trinkets had kept a vampire from crushing my throat. She was also the only person either I or Verne had met who could at times see through a werewolf's disguise. According to Verne, in fact, that should be impossible . . . but Sylvie had managed to warn me with a glance just in time to keep me from being sliced to ribbons by a werewolf disguised as my friend Renee. "You know, it's tough to hide anything from you. A guy came in the other day, asking me to find his father, who he'd been separated from for years. It turned out that his father is Verne."

  "Well, that's wonderful . . . isn't it?"

  "I dunno." I pointed at the screen. "Verne didn't recognize his face at all, just said something about recognizing his 'soul,' and then the two of them went off to talk together. Verne seems convinced that he's bona fide, but I have to wonder. Even if he is the real McCoy, that doesn't mean he couldn't have something nasty up his sleeve."

  "Jason, it's not like you to be this paranoid."

  I told her about that cold gaze. "That just started me thinking, though. I wouldn't go around worrying if that was all it was. But because of that, I decided to just run a background check on this guy, and I didn't like what came up."

  Syl looked at the screen. It showed a front-page story from a Vietnamese paper of several months ago, accompanied by two pictures. One showed a Vietnamese in a business suit in one of those typical "ID Photo" poses; the other showed a blond-haired, sharp-featured young man with a cold, angry expression.

  "If you color that hair black," I said, hitting the command as I spoke, "that guy's a twin for our 'Tai Lee Xiang.' "

  "What does the story say?"

  "Says that the unnamed subject—the blond guy—here killed the man in the picture while escaping from a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Doctor Ping Xi, the dead man, was a very important man, apparently." I hit a few more controls, and another newspaper headline appeared. "A couple days later, they claim he killed off a colonel in their army, and he's been hunted ever since. International warrants, the whole nine yards."

  "You don't really think even a madman would be a threat to Verne, do you?"

  I chuckled slightly in spite of myself. If I glanced out the righthand window, I was able to just make out one of the two girders left standing from the warehouse that Verne had single-handedly demolished while killing Virigar's brood of werewolves. "It does sound a little silly, doesn't it? But this guy isn't an ordinary killer. According to the files I've been able to worm out, this colonel was practically torn apart." I felt a spike of ice suddenly form in my chest as I spoke those words, and remembered a particular clearing in the woods.

  Sylvie paled suddenly. "You don't think . . ."

  " . . . Yes, I do think. We'd better get over there."

  Neither of us had to explain the hideous thought that had occurred to us. Werewolves. Shapeshifters whose guises were perfect, impenetrable, even down to the molecular level. Beings who could be anyone and fool even an ancient vampire like Verne. If Virigar, their King, knew something about Verne's background . . . how very easy to have one of his people change into some form with a good background story. If Verne knew no way to tell a werewolf from a real man, that meant that they were even capable of imitating souls.

  Pausing only to grab a couple pieces of equipment, we headed for the car at a dead run.

  31

  "Good evening, Master Jason." Morgan said, opening the door.

  "Evening, Morgan." I answered, glancing around. There were still lots of pieces of clutter around from the work that was being done on the house. "Verne around?"

  "He and Master Kafan are in the library at the moment, sir."

  I opened my mouth to ask who "Master Kafan" was, then remembered Verne calling Tai Lee Xiang "Raiakafan." "Thanks, Morgan."

  "Your coats, sir, Lady Sylvia?"

  Though impatient, I didn't show any sign of our concern. Neither did Syl; we both knew that if it was a werewolf, any hint that we suspected it could be fatal.

  The library was much neater than the other areas. I remembered that Verne pushed the contractors to finish that room first and to clean it up each day; he valued the library more than just about any other room, except naturally whatever room it was that he slept in during the day. Verne and Tai were sitting together, bent over what looked like an atlas, with other books scattered about the table. Both looked up as we entered.

  "Jason!" Verne rose. "I did not expect you. And Lady Sylvie." He took her hand and bowed deeply over it.

  I felt slightly jealous as Syl developed a slight blush and thanked Verne for his courtesy. She used to be scared stiff of Verne, but that seemed to be a thing of the past now.

  Tai nodded to me and stood up at a gesture from Verne. "Tai, please meet my good friend Sylvia Stake," Verne said.

  We'd hoped for a setup like this. As he reached out, his attention focused on Syl, I pulled my hand out of my pocket and flung what was in my hand at him.

  Neither of us saw everything that happened; from Syl's point of view Tai suddenly seemed to disappear. I, on the other hand, saw a blur move toward me and felt myself lifted into the air and slammed into a wall so hard that breath left me with an explosive whoosh and red haze fogged my vision. I struggled feebly, trying to force some air back into my lungs.

  The pressure on my windpipe vanished suddenly as my attacker was yanked backwards. "Raiakafan! Jason! What is the meaning of this?" Verne demanded.

  "I saw him move quickly; the characteristics of his motion strongly implied an attack." Tai's voice was level, cold, and flat, almost like a machine rather than a living being. "I therefore moved to neutralize him."

  "No one 'neutralizes' a member of my household or my friends." Verne stated flatly. "As to Jason's action, I am sure he will explain himself . . . immediately." The last word carried a considerable coldness with it.

  "Urrg . . ." I gurgled, then managed to gasp, pulling precious air back into my system. "Sorry . . . Verne." I studied Tai carefully. Yes . . . I could see traces of the stuff. It had definitely hit him. Hell, he'd char
ged straight into it. Obviously he didn't realize what kind of an attack it had been, if it had actually been an attack. "In a way, Tai was correct. Under the right circumstances, what I was doing would have been an attack. A lethal one."

  Verne's eyes narrowed, fortunately showing more puzzlement than anger; we'd been through enough that he knew that I'd never do anything like this without damned good reason. "And just what circumstances would that have been?"

  Syl answered. "If Tai had been a werewolf, he'd be dead now."

  Tai blinked, brushing away the silver dust I'd thrown in his face.

  Verne's expression softened in comprehension. "Ahh. Of course. You could hardly be blamed for such a suspicion, Jason. Without knowing the extent of my senses, you had no way of knowing that I knew this was the real Raiakafan, no matter what his outward seeming. And he has confirmed it in other ways since then."

  "According to what you told me," I said, "a werewolf could foil even your senses."

  "True," Verne admitted. "But there are other things that mere duplication of the soul and body cannot achieve, such as the memories that would have to be derived from . . . well, from someone supposedly dead a very, very long time ago. You still seem unsure, Jason. Please, tell me what troubles you."

  Without a word, I pulled out a printed copy of the pictures and articles I'd located and handed it to Verne, who read them in silence, then studied the picture and Tai carefully. Finally he handed them back.

  "As we expected, Raiakafan," he said. "I am of the opinion that we must tell them everything."

  That dead-black gaze returned; I saw Syl shrink back from it and it took some effort not to do so myself. "Are we sure?"

  Verne waited until the strange young man was looking at him, and then answered. "Jason has risked his life to protect me. He has rekindled the Faith that was lost. And the Lady Sylvia is his best companion, a Mistress of Crystal, and born with the Sight. If I cannot trust them, then I cannot trust you, and if you cannot trust them, then I am not who you believe." His words were very strange, half-explanation, half-ritual, spoken in a measured, formal manner that sent a shiver up my spine; that alien accent had returned again.