The third one of the trio, the other giant, had not just swiveled to look at him. He had risen to his feet and turned to face him. Glossy black hair hung in loose curls around his shoulders. A severely trimmed beard outlined his jaw and mouth. He appeared lean, but Marcus looked at his wrists, which were always a good tell. The tendons were flexing in the hand he had curled over the back of the chair. A thick wrist, strong with muscle. The leanness was deceptive, then.
He brought his gaze back up to the man’s eyes, which were black or dark brown. The man was staring at him with open curiosity.
Roman stopped by two empty stools on the side of the island, while Winter settled on a stool next to the man with the greying temples. Marcus stepped up beside Roman. Every head turned to look at him.
He cleared his throat, uneasy at being assessed by so many strangers – vampires, he reminded himself – at once.
“Everyone,” Roman said. “This is Marcus Anderson. CIA coordinator and Kate’s handler.”
The man with the very blue eyes and grey temples nodded. “We’ve heard about you from Kate, Mr. Anderson. I’m Nathaniel. What can we do for you?”
“You’re the one I came to see,” Marcus told him. “Call me Marcus.”
Roman pulled out the stool in front of him and sat down. “Sit,” he encouraged Marcus softly, but he remained standing. The tall man with the long hair immediately to his left was still on his feet. It just felt better if he stayed on his, too.
“Why did you need to speak to me, Marcus?” Nathanial asked.
Marcus took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s a very long story, but I can cut it down to bare facts, for now. The leader of the League for Humanity – I don’t know who he is, but I do know that he’s contrived to let you think he’s sending an assassin for you, but he’s not. His real target is the vampire coordination unit of the CIA, and anyone associated with them.”
The silence that greeted his words was total. Then Sebastian placed a bowl of soup in front of Winter and the crockery clanked solidly as it made contact with the counter.
Nathanial stirred and leaned forward. “Rick?” he asked softly.
The man standing on Marcus’ left paddled his hand on the counter in a thinking motion. “From where did you get your information?” he asked Marcus. His accent was rich, upper-class English.
This was the tricky part. Marcus braced himself. “You’re going to have to trust me on this. It’s complicated. The leader of the League has a vampire assassin – a sniper. She is trying to leave the organization and she came to me for help. She told me what she was supposed to tell me – that she was coming after you, Nathanial. Then she revealed what she really thought might be happening. It was a matter of extrapolation after that.”
The total silence that met his words was eerie. No one moved. Winter’s gaze swung to the man Nathanial had called Rick.
Rick was staring at the counter. No, not staring. His gaze was inward. He sank down onto the stool almost in slow motion. “Ilaria,” he murmured. Then he closed his eyes. After a moment, he rested his elbows on the counter and covered his face with his hands.
The young guy sitting between him and Nathanial looked to Nathanial. He gave a tiny shrug with his shoulders.
Everyone else remained still. They were all watching Rick now and Marcus thought he could detect pity in Winter’s gaze.
He fumbled for the stool as understanding flared in him. “You’re the other one,” he said. His heart was banging in his chest. “You’re the one that’s trying to help her.”
Rick lifted his head. His gaze seemed to pin Marcus to the spot. “You knew?” His voice was a hoarse growl.
Marcus rested his hand on the counter, trying to stop himself from holding it up in appeasement or surrender. The rage coming from this guy was prodding all his defense instincts. “I found out last night,” he told him. “She won’t let me help. She seems to think you can.”
“Last night,” Rick said flatly. “That was at least eighteen hours ago. What did you do with the rest of your time before you wandered here to fill us in?”
Sebastian gave a smothered snorting sound. Marcus glanced at him. His lips were very thin, held tightly together, as he scooped up another bowl of soup and placed it in front of the guy between Rick and Nathanial. The Hispanic guy touched his fingers to his lips and let them roll forward. Sign language. He was deaf.
Rick glared at Sebastian, then swiveled his glare around to Marcus.
All his instincts were screaming at him to get up onto his feet and reach for his gun. The menace radiating from this Rick was like the blast of hot air from a vent. It made him feel sticky with sweat and, yes, a touch of fear, too.
But Marcus had outfaced more than one asshole in his time. He made himself stay upright on the stool. He even leaned forward a little. “Look, Rick. I don’t like this any more than you, but do me a huge favor and suck it up. Ilaria needs help and your posturing isn’t going to help her. I came here to find out more about her situation because I do want to help her. She might have you stashed in her back pocket as her ace, but I’m not going to sit around and wait for someone else to take care of it. So go take a pill or something and leave the adults at the table to figure it out.”
For a moment, Rick seemed to vibrate with the potential for violence. The man’s breath was ragged. Then he seemed to suck it all back inside him. He straightened and gave Marcus a smile that was completely without humor. “How do you know she wasn’t conning both of us?”
Marcus shook his head. “No one is that good.”
“She is,” Rick said flatly.
“Take off your shirt,” Marcus replied.
Rick seemed to freeze again. His gaze met Marcus’. “She told you?” he asked, his voice low. His gaze shifted slightly sideways.
He hadn’t told anyone else but Ilaria, Marcus realized. It was something he had held deeply inside him until Ilaria, who was just like he had once been, had come along to yank the secret from him.
“She told me,” Marcus confirmed, just as softly. “But I don’t understand all of it. She wouldn’t tell me who her boss was. Who owns her,” he amended.
“A very old vampire called Heru,” Nathaniel said, speaking up. “We’ll tell you about him in a while. But for now, I think you need to walk us all through how Ilaria contacted you. We need to figure out what she wants.”
“She wants help,” Marcus said flatly.
“Let us make that decision,” Nathanial replied. “Rick is very good at sifting for unseen possibilities…if he is detached enough to see them.” The last was a gentle admonishment, telling Rick to pull himself together, for he was sitting as stiff as a statue on his stool, staring at the counter, fury spewing from his still figure like a radioactive cloud.
Then Nathaniel looked at Marcus. “Why don’t you start, Marcus? Then Rick can tell us his side of it.”
Rick made a low, snarling sound. Marcus ignored him. He would have to defuse his anger later, in private. He glanced at Sebastian. “Would you mind very much…may I have some soup, and a glass of water? I haven’t eaten today, and this is going to take a while.”
Sebastian looked startled. “Of course,” he said, wielding the soup ladle and picking up one of the bowls.
Winter slid off her seat and retrieved a glass from a cupboard, then poured ice and water from the dispenser in the door of the fridge and put it in front of him with a small smile.
Marcus knocked back half of the water in three satisfying gulps. He sighed and put the glass down. Nathaniel was watching him patiently. “Two and a half weeks ago, the assassin that I came to know as The Whisper, and eventually as Ilaria, took a shot at me.”
“She is too good to miss.” Rick’s tone was cynical and dry.
“She aimed to miss, clearly,” Nathaniel said. “Please go on, Marcus.”
Marcus took another quick sip as Sebastian put the bowl of delightfully scented soup in front of him, plus a spoon. Then he settled on the stool next to
Winter, the last one left, and stirred his own bowl of soup.
Marcus realized that no one else was eating. That meant there were at least three in the room beside himself that were not vampire. It seemed that what he had observed in Kate’s home applied here, too. Humans were as valued as the vampires were.
He took mental note of who was watching him patiently, and who was eating. Then he began to talk.
It took over an hour to tell his story, with clarifying questions thrown at him every now and again by someone around the octagonal island. Just as Ilaria had predicted, no amazement or disbelief appeared in their faces as his story wound on. They all wore expressions of deep concentration, as they listened. The few questions he was asked were insightful, leaping upon holes in his story that he had not yet explained.
Roman also weighed in with his part of the story, tracking the bullet.
During that long hour, Sebastian moved quietly around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards. The soup pot was removed. So were the empty bowls and spoons. A cup of espresso coffee was placed in front of Marcus, along with cream and sugar. The coffee was excellent, when he took a sip.
His water glass was refilled several times, reappearing at his elbow.
Marcus finally picked up the coffee cup and swirled the remains of the espresso. “She left this morning,” he said, “after urging me to contact you, Nial,” for Nial had insisted on Marcus using the short form of his name some time ago.
“To go where?” Rick asked. Sometime while Marcus had been speaking, Rick’s posture and attitude had unfrozen. He was sitting and listening as intently as the others, and his question now was civil.
“Back to her—back to Heru. She said he would become suspicious if she did not.”
“He would,” Rick agreed. He looked at Nial. “You must have my side of this?”
Nial’s expression was kind enough, but his words were flat. “Of course we must, Rick. You would say the same if you were not so personally involved.”
Rick dropped his gaze to the counter once more, where his long hands were resting, the fingers splayed. “Very well,” he said softly and began to speak.
Marcus leaned forward. It was his turn to listen, and he was throbbing with tension, for now he would find out about this other man upon whom Ilaria was pinning all her hopes. This was a chance to assess Rick and determine if Ilaria was right to trust him.
But the story that unraveled was not what he was expecting. He found himself growing immersed in the details, filling in Ilaria’s life when she had not been with him.
At first, Rick had tried to gloss over the personal details, but Nial skewered him with a sharp: “All of it, Rick. Marcus had the guts to bare it all, after all.”
With a hiss of impatience, Rick had gripped his hands together. “We became lovers,” he said flatly. “And we hunted together.”
Hunted? Marcus puzzled through the reference, as the others all looked surprised. It took him a minute because he simply hadn’t coupled up these vampires with one of their known customs. Hunting meant the stalking of humans for their blood. Feeding, he supposed. Everyone’s surprise could only mean that hunting together held a significance that eluded Marcus right now, but he would find out later.
The fact that Rick and Ilaria had had sex wasn’t a surprise to Marcus, and Rick seemed to relax once that fact had been laid bare – at least until the matter of his inscription was revealed. Marcus could tell from his phrasing and the impersonal words he was using that Rick did not want to tell them this part of his tale.
Marcus sympathized. Laying his heart out on the table for them to analyze had been tough. It had been worse telling Kate and Garrett because he hadn’t accepted for himself yet exactly the impact Ilaria had upon him. Now, watching Rick mentally writhe, he held himself deliberately silent. Anything he said would exacerbate Rick’s agony.
But Nial jumped on his evasion, anyway. “What are you not saying, Rick?”
Rick drew in a breath and hissed it out impatiently. “I’m giving you the relevant facts,” he snapped back.
“Are you trying to avoid telling us you were once inscribed?” Nial asked.
Rick’s gaze dropped to the counter once more, and Marcus realized it was an escape for him. He could think when he looked away. He could regather his defenses. Emotions and private confessions were difficult for him. Very difficult.
“Yes, I am,” Rick said flatly.
“Did you think we had not guessed by now?” Nial asked, his tone kinder.
After a long moment, Rick answered. “I would rather not speak about it at all.”
“You know what is happening to Ilaria,” Nial pointed out. “None of us understand inscription the way you do.”
“I know,” Rick said reluctantly. After a moment, he picked up the tale once more. There wasn’t much more to tell. There had been no slow search for her – she had arrived unexpectedly in his apartment and her second appearance had been just as abrupt.
What was illuminating for Marcus was Rick’s description of Ilaria’s punishment. Rick spoke in a monotone, his hand clenched into a hard fist, telling them what she had gone through when Heru had mete out his payment for not working fast enough. The description, despite Rick’s dry tone, made Marcus shudder and his heart to start thudding again.
At last Rick’s story came to an end. Marcus blinked as he realized it was growing dark in the kitchen. The sun was getting low in the sky. They had talked the afternoon away.
Nial shifted on his seat. “Rick, I need your mind now, not your gut. What do the facts say?”
Rick brought his hands together, the tips of his forefingers just touching his mouth. “Straight extrapolation,” he intoned. “Heru’s ultimate aim in stirring Marcus to action is not the CIA vampire unit, or the CIA itself. He wants to disable the Pro Libertatus, and he thinks that he can identify them via the CIA.” He looked at Rick. “It’s a good move – I think he got the idea from me. If you stir the nest with a big enough stick, the ants will come out. Then he just has to pick out the ones he wants.”
“But he’s already killed the head of the Libertatus,” Winter pointed out. “They’re leaderless. What else can he achieve that a leaderless mob doesn’t give him?”
“He doesn’t want them leaderless,” Rick replied blandly. “He doesn’t want them at all.”
“You mean he’ll kill them all?” she asked, horrified. Marcus agreed with her reaction.
“A few dozen or hundred vampires is nothing to him. They’re in his way,” Rick answered in the same flat tone.
“In the way of what?” Nial asked patiently.
“My first analysis still stands,” Rick said. “He wants us and the Libertatus wiped from existence.”
“We’re a threat,” Nial concluded.
“Yes,” Rick agreed.
Marcus lifted his hand. “Can I ask a question that will probably sound stupid in this company, but you’re all making an assumption…you’re all speaking like there are Libertatus people in the CIA.”
“That’s right,” Sebastian said, picking up the coffee cup in front of Winter and standing up.
“But the CIA doesn’t employ vampires,” Marcus said slowly.
“That it knows about,” Rick told him.
Marcus slumped. He had never considered this possibility before. Why not? He wasn’t used to thinking about vampires at all, was the problem. He remembered the analogy he had given Ilaria about his learning curve out-pacing Everest. The slope wasn’t getting flatter.
When his phone rang, he jumped. Roman had been discreetly texting all afternoon, but he had turned his phone to silent mode. Marcus dug his phone out of his jacket. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s usually a client--”
I want to see you. Meet me where we met. xIx
Something hard clamped around his heart and squeezed. Ilaria. Was she alright?
He looked up and realized that everyone was looking at him. Then he remembered that he had broken off mid-sentence. He hois
ted the phone up a little. “She wants to meet me.”
“Rick?” Nial asked quickly.
Rick was frowning. “I can’t see a good reason for wanting to meet him. It doesn’t sound right.”
“That’s your gut talking,” Marcus accused him. “You just don’t like that she contacted me, not you.”
“If it was my gut talking,” Rick replied urbanely, “I would rip your heart out and your throat, then meet her myself. Logic provides a dozen reasons why she reached out to you, including the fact that of the two of us, you are the most gullible. All of the other reasons are mired in danger.”
“If you think she is working an agenda,” Marcus shot back.
Reluctantly, Rick nodded. “Yes, if she is. If she is not, then it is simply that she wants to meet.”
Marcus stood up. As Winter had let him into the house, he looked at her. “Thank you for your hospitality. It has been a very interesting afternoon.”
“Where are you going?” Nial asked.
Marcus shrugged. “To meet her.”
“Your car is at my place,” Roman reminded him.
“I’ll call a cab.”
Rick stood up. “I’ll take you.”
Marcus shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m covered.” He reached into his jacket for his cellphone, but Rick shot out his hand and gripped Marcus’ wrist. His strength was incredible, and it reminded Marcus of something that Kate had said once in passing – vampire abilities were completely uncharted. No one knew how strong they were, or how powerful, or how good their hearing or sight really was because no one had ever tested them.
“I said I will take you,” Rick said, his voice low and very determined. His expression said he would hear no objections or anything resembling reasoning.
“Okay,” Marcus said, removing his hand from his jacket and shaking off Rick’s grip. “Lead the way.”
“Keep us posted, Rick,” Nial said. “You know why.”
Rick nodded and strode to the kitchen door. He looked over his shoulder at Marcus. “Coming?” he asked shortly.
Blood Unleashed (Blood Stone) Page 24