by John Conroe
I tried to process all that, but I just couldn’t put it together. I had only the barest of memories of this beautiful girl and no memories of any other vampires. Katrina was the only specimen I had to go by, and right now, still wearing most of the sleeping bag, she looked like a demented teenage worm-girl with arms.
“Okay, tell me more about this Coven. It sounds pretty complex… lots of rules and politics. I’m not good at political stuff,” I said.
“No shit, Sherlock!” Katrina said. “Okay, let Auntie K school you. We’ll cram what we can into that thick, damaged skull of yours in the time left.”
Stacia gave her a nasty glare at her description of my head, but it rolled off the youthful-looking vampire like water on Teflon. After a moment’s pause to gather her thoughts, Katrina launched into a lesson on vampire politics. Surprisingly, it was well thought out, concise, and full of useful facts. It lasted till Stacia pulled into an underground parking garage in Manhattan and turned off the car.
Instantly, the vehicle was surrounded by really serious-looking people who had so many weapons that they appeared to grow from their skin.
“Here we go!” Katrina said as we stepped out of the car. I didn’t like the nervous tone in her voice. I was worried enough as it was.
Chapter 25
They were all vampires, I just somehow knew it. And they were older than Katrina, for the most part. And despite their professional demeanor and outwardly calm appearances, they were, to an individual, scared. Even the big Russian who seemed in charge of the security detail was worried.
The group in front of us split apart, allowing another group of three to approach. They were all female and my instant impression was that all were attractive, but that’s where all comparisons stopped. Along with my breathing. The girl in the middle was her, but my meager memories had done her no justice at all. Heart-stopping… breath-stealing… time-freezing. None of those phrases come close. Glossy rich black hair the color of space, eyes so blue, they burned. Skin a perfect creamy white. She wore black leggings and a clingy green shirt and she looked so good, it had to be illegal in every state. Like walking-talking-living sin.
My vision had shrunken to include just her and her alone; the sound of my heart pounding filled both ears. I could literally feel the emotion coming off her in waves. Love, joy, desire, fear of loss, uncertainty, need, lust, and possessiveness were interwoven with jealousy and not a little anger. She also wanted to bite me… very badly.
“Tanya, he’s lost a lot,” the pretty blonde vampire on her left said. This one was staring at me with focused eyes like she was trying to see inside of me.
“I can tell, Nika,” Tanya replied, never looking away. She moved closer, her lithe body graceful. Before I could quite prepare myself, she was directly in front of me, her eyes finally moving off of mine to study my forehead. “I don’t see anything.”
“It healed almost instantly,” Stacia said from behind me.
Things changed fast. Tanya was gone, the wind from her passage ruffling my tee shirt. I turned and found her holding Stacia by the throat with one hand, bending the werewolf girl over the hood of the Volvo without effort. Her fangs were fully extended and she was slowly moving down to Stacia’s neck. Not going without a fight, Stacia’s clothes ripped and tore as she shifted into a beast-woman form, muscles expanding and jaws reforming. It wouldn’t do her any good. I knew that, deep in my core, the same way I knew that I couldn’t possibly stop the insanely fast vampire from killing Stacia. Even with Grim’s speed, it wasn’t possible. The vampire was as fast or possibly faster than my alter-ego.
“Stop!” I yelled.
Tanya’s head turned as if on a pivot, the rest of her body frozen, easily holding the thrashing were. At my word, Stacia stopped fighting as well, turning her glowing, green wolf eyes as far in my direction as the steel hand clamped around her throat would allow.
“I remember you… I feel you! Here –" I said, patting my chest. “Inside me. I can’t remember almost anything of before, but I somehow know you. And I know that you can feel me, right now! So feel this—if you kill her or hurt her, then I am through! Whatever we had and might have will be gone!”
“You would leave me for her?” the ebony-haired girl hissed, her face contorted with sudden pain.
“I will leave you if you hurt her. I don’t know much about my recent life. I… I can’t remember anyone or anything but you. But I know she is my friend! I know it! And she has done nothing but help me and have my back since I was shot. You cannot kill her without killing something between us,” I said, moving closer to my vampire. And she was my vampire. I knew that—at the cellular level, maybe. But my words were honest, and she felt the truth of them through whatever it was that linked us.
She let go of the blonde werewolf’s neck, standing upright and moving in front of me in one eye-blurring movement. “She wants to take you from me! I will not allow it!” she protested, her voice just a sibilant whisper.
“I know that. She’s been nothing but honest about it. In fact, she’s been nothing but honest with me from the moment I woke up. I think… I feel that she was honest with me before I got shot, as well. And Tanya, no one else has been completely honest with me. I feel like even you have kept things from me. Am I wrong?”
She didn’t answer, but the link between us did. She had kept things from me. Things she felt it was safer I didn’t know. I answered her unspoken words.
“See, that may be true, but I still need to know those things, even if it endangers me. So you see, she’s my friend. She says she’s in love with me, and I have to take her at her word. I can’t help how she feels, but I can tell you she has been a true friend through everything. In fact, she could have lied about dozens of things when I awoke last night, standing in the woods with a dead vampire assassin. But she didn’t. I don’t think I have too many friends, let alone ones that are that honest with me. I can’t afford to lose a friend like that.”
The waves of emotion I felt were shame, discomfort, and intense, white-hot fear of losing me, along with jealousy.
I took her deadly hands in mine, wondering at the feel of them, seeing them like it was the first time, which to the current me, it was. “Tanya, I have lost almost everything I had for memories,” I said. “But I can feel this bond between us. And I get memories back when my dark half is out. That gives me hope, which I haven’t really had much of since last night. I need you, I can feel that. But I also need the few friends I have. Last night, an assassin blew two years out of my head. Today, a band of witches tried to roast me for a book. I’m told that yesterday afternoon, I somehow closed a portal to Hell, and the night before that, I had to exorcise three little girls all at once. I needed help to handle all that, and I get the impression that things are only just getting started.”
She just nodded, internally struggling with the fear for me that my words had invoked. She swallowed, then turned to Stacia, who was almost back to fully human but otherwise hadn’t moved. “He is mine! He will always be mine!” she said in a deadly tone. “But it seems possible that you may have helped him or even saved him. So despite your coveting my Chosen, I will let you live.” Then she turned from the barely clothed were and back to me. “I will tolerate any who protect you, but that’s it. Get his stuff.” She directed the last bit to one of the security vampires. Another vamp opened the tailgate of the Volvo, then jumped back as Awasos landed lightly on the concrete floor, holding a luggage bag in his teeth. It was Stacia’s bag, and the giant wolf carried it to her, dropping it at her feet.
“Thanks, ‘Sos,” she said quietly.
“You, too?” Tanya asked the big beast, who just woofed at her softly. He, too, was, in his own way, explaining his opinion of the platinum were girl. Shaken by her first meeting with the supernatural force named Tanya, Stacia was doing a good job of regaining her composure as she took undamaged clothes from the bag and pulled them on.
The tension in the bond had lessened enough that I was ab
le to spare some attention for the group around us. All of the vampires had been on a hair trigger, all had been watching their young leader from the corners of their eyes. They were walking on eggshells, like bomb technicians handling nitroglycerin.
I had, according to all accounts, been gone for three days. Apparently, it had been a bad time in the world of New York vampires, and if I was correct, the generator of those unhappy moments was standing five and a half feet tall, directly in front of me.
A siren whooped, echoing off the underground garage walls. An NYPD cruiser rolled around the corner from the street ramp, followed by a second one, both with their lights flashing. The driver powered down his window and looked us over, chewing gum while he did so. If the weapons displayed by the security vamps were of concern, he didn’t show it.
“One of you named Gordon?” he said to all of us but looked directly at me.
“That’s what they tell me,” I replied. The passenger door opened and a dark suit stood up.
“The Commissioner wants to see you,” the new guy said. Tall, middle age, good condition, fairly high up on the police food chain. Likely a Lieutenant or higher. How all that came to me, I don’t know, but the information was just there, stuff I just seemed to know.
“Why?” Tanya asked.
“He don’t explain stuff to us… Ma’am,” the uniformed driver said, studying her appearance and liking what he saw.
“The Man just said to find you and bring you in. Said you hadn’t returned his calls,” the suit said. “You coming, or do we gotta bring you?”
I thought about that for a bit. I could resist. Really, really well. But then I’d have the whole department after me. For what? Refusing a meeting with the Commission of the NYPD. Nah, if I went to war with the forces of New York, it’d be for a better reason than that.
Tanya and her blonde friend both turned and looked at me incredulously as I ran through that. The little Goth-looking vamp who had also come with Tanya had a worried expression on her cute little face. Stacia just looked puzzled.
“Alright. Although I wasn’t ignoring his calls. I just don’t have a cell phone anymore,” I said.
“Tell it to the Man,” the suit said. “We don’t really care.”
Thirty-five minutes later found us pulling up to One Police Plaza. Tanya, Awasos, and I piled out of the back of the first cruiser, while Stacia, the blonde Nika, and the little vampire who was named Lydia got out of the other cop car. The two vampires ignored the werewolf as much as they could, and Stacia just bore it with stoic grace.
The conversation where I explained that the four women and the big wolf dog would have to accompany me had been interesting. The cops were happy to ogle any and all of the women, but their orders were to just bring me in. Add on an almost-three-hundred-pound wolf, and it got a bit tense. The boys in blue gave in when Tanya spoke to them in an odd tone of voice. Flashbacks to Star Wars and Obi Wan Kenobi popped into my head. Those, at least, I could remember.
The cops in the lobby all turned and watched our little procession as the suited cop took us up the elevator to the Commish’s floor.
The office we were ushered into was plush and impressive. Beautiful wood, fine furniture, expensive drapes, and carpet. Lots of photos with important people.
The man waiting for us fit the room. Buzz-cut gray hair, square physique, and a square jaw that framed a serious pair of penetrating blue eyes. A full Inspector and a Deputy Inspector stood to either side of the big desk.
“I remember asking for Gordon and only Gordon. Did I ask for anyone else, Larry?” he said to the Inspector but kept his eyes on the Lieutenant, who about crumbled under the scrutiny.
“He had the choice of bringing all of us or none of us,” I said, immediately hostile to the man for reasons I couldn’t put my finger on. He was impressive and commanded respect, but I had almost a visceral hatred for him on sight. Stacia had told me I had worked for the NYPD until my group was disbanded. Maybe some part of me remembered who was responsible for that.
“In this City, it should have been you with a choice—of handcuffs or not,” he growled at both the L.T. and me. “Bringing a troupe of models and a wooly mammoth was not part of my instructions,” he said.
“Hmm, models… perhaps that is a complement?” Tanya said, catching his attention. “I will choose to take it as such. But my name is Tatiana Demidova, Commissioner Rielly, and I pay a big slice of the taxes that give you all this,” she said with a sweep of her hand.
Rielly was quick, I had to give him that. My first sight of the vampire princess had almost left me witless… more witless. He not only handled that but also managed to attach some sort of recognition to her name, which appeared to be a big deal. Both of his lackeys straightened unconsciously, looks of mild panic flitting across their faces. But the Commish just raised his eyebrows as he visibly recalculated the situation.
“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Demidova. I’m afraid your manner of dress and beauty put me in mind of fashion models. My apology,” he said with a wave at their clothes.
I hadn’t really been paying attention at the time, but the clothes that Stacia had pulled on were black leggings and a clingy blue top. Platinum blonde hair, green eyes, wearing blue and black, next to a girl with galaxy-black hair and blue eyes, wearing green and black, they looked exactly like deliberately dressed super models. Nika and Lydia both wore sleek pantsuits; Nika’s red and black and Lydia’s just black.
“Well, we weren’t expecting an armed summons," Tanya said. "My fiancée has been away, Commissioner Rielly, and somehow, your troops found him within minutes of his arrival back in the city.”
“We’ve got a new vehicle recognition program that uses the city’s traffic cameras. It was looking for that Volvo,” he explained.
“Ah yes. I believe one of my companies may have built that for you,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “But perhaps we can get to the reason for your interest in my Christian?”
Her tone and words were very clear. She would use every resource at her disposal for my protection. Katrina had explained a little bit about some of those resources, and what little I knew boggled my mind. And that was just the public Demidova Empire. It did not include the massive Coven that backed the young vampire princess.
The wheels spun and turned in Commissioner Rielly’s head as he reevaluated the situation.
“Perhaps we’ve started this on the wrong foot. Gordon, this city is facing a problem we have no solution for. When I came into this office with the Mayor, I was given some bad advice by an agent of Homeland Security. Had I known then even a part of what I know now, I would never have disbanded the Special Situations Squad. But I did. And now we have a… problem.”
His phone buzzed at that moment and the Inspector standing by the desk picked it up, listened for a breath, then said, “Commissioner, they’ve arrived.”
At a brisk nod from his boss, the Inspector said into the phone, “Send them in.”
The big door behind us opened and a white-haired man, wearing the robes of a Catholic Cardinal strode in, accompanied by a pretty Hispanic woman with dark hair and dark eyes.
“Have you told him about the demons yet?” the man asked.
Chapter 26
“Chris Gordon, meet the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Kellan,” the Commissioner said.
Apparently this was my first time meeting him, which was a relief. Coming face to face with dozens of people you’re supposed to know but don’t is really stressful. You don’t even know what you don’t know anymore.
“And you already know Gina Velasquez,” he said, waving at the woman who was completely foreign to me. She watched me with steady, careful eyes as she shook my hand. “We’ll get caught up later,” she said. She knows I don’t remember. I could just tell that from her expressions and mannerisms. Then she hugged the little punky vampire, the blonde vamp, and my vampire as well. So she was clued in, but she was clearly human. One who was comfortable hugging vampires.
/> The Cardinal’s eyes had widened at the sight of the three vampires with me. While the police brass hadn’t shown the slightest sign that they recognized the women as anything other than inordinately attractive females, the Cardinal showed a hint of discomfort that, once you saw it, was definitely fear.
“Mr. Gordon, I’ve heard a great deal about you—all good,” he rushed to add at my frown.
I was frowning because it seemed like an awful lot of people knew about me, apparently including the highest-ranking member of the Catholic Church in New York State. What the hell had I been up to for the last two years?
“Has the Commissioner explained our problem to you?” Cardinal Kellan asked. I shook my head. Kellan looked at Rielly with raised eyebrows, and the Commissioner took the hint.