Kettil inclined his head.
“I had heard they refer to you by another title.”
Kettil raised his eyebrow. Again. “Elder?”
My heart skipped a beat. I knew exceedingly little about the Conclave, but what I did know seemed to indicate that elders were … ancient. And that perhaps only a half-dozen existed.
“Breathe,” Kettil whispered.
I exhaled, keeping my gaze firmly affixed to his left cheekbone and maintaining a polite engagement, but not staring directly at him, eye to eye. “I was referring to your other title. Executioner.”
Kettil stilled.
Which was disconcerting, because despite him playing at being human, I would have described him as being perfectly still just a moment before.
I waited, aware of my heart beating slightly quicker than normal in my chest. The moment stretched between us, painfully stifled. I became uncomfortably aware that we were surrounded by activity and chatter, even as we sat awkwardly staring at each other.
“I was unaware you were versed in Conclave business,” Kettil finally said.
“I’m not. Is anyone who isn’t a vampire?”
“Yet you claim to know me.”
“From the reconstructions, in the bakery basement and in London.”
A slow, deliberate smile spread across Kettil’s face. The expression transformed him into so-nearly-human that I momentarily forgot who and what he was. He was suddenly languid … approachable. Sexy.
The lower edge of my ribcage hit the table. I was listing toward him, infinitely eager for his next word, his next —
“Jade,” he murmured. It pleased him to utter the dowser’s name. As if he owned her somehow, claiming her just by naming her.
The weird connection between us snapped. I dropped my gaze to my wineglass. I’d been rotating it on the table in my right hand. I stopped. Though I knew that no matter how I tried to hide it, the vampire would know he unnerved me.
“Did she weep for me?” he asked. “As she was telling you all my secrets in London? Did the alchemist shed tears and tales?” His cool tone had warmed, become honeyed.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. I had no idea how to maintain a professional demeanor around the vampire. “I don’t believe Jade intended to share any secrets, as you call them.”
Kettil shifted back in his seat and picked up his glass of wine, reverting back to playing human. He’d been leaning intimately forward as well. We’d been matching each other’s body language.
I was certain that was a bad sign.
For me, at least.
“If Pearl Godfrey wishes it, I would be delighted to assist the Conclave in this matter,” I said, erecting an impassible wall of professionalism between us.
Though I rarely needed to do so in the course of my job, I was more than capable of dealing with Adepts of power.
Kettil took a sip of his wine, then nodded. He slowly turned his silver-blue gaze on the rest of the room and all the humans in it. He held his glass in his palm, like other people held their brandy to warm it.
The server traversed the room, setting my dungeness crab risotto appetizer in front of me. I immediately retrieved my fork and took a bite, aware that the vampire was watching me. The dish was spotted with peas, three poached quail eggs, and served in a crab bisque. I’d been worried about the fennel I’d noted on the menu’s description of the dish, but no one taste stood out above any other. It was creamy and delicious. The serving size was petite, perhaps six or seven spoonfuls. I applied myself to relishing each one. Once sliced, the quail’s eggs revealed a perfect hint of soft yolk. I made an effort to get a tiny taste of every component in each bite.
I kept my focus on the food, and not on wondering what the vampire was thinking as he watched me eat.
“Whether or not we are to work together, I would recommend you allow the investigative team to continue,” I said, since it was obvious Kettil wasn’t done with the conversation. He was still sitting across from me, after all. And I wasn’t completely sure he was actually drinking the wine, so I doubted that was what was keeping him.
“You didn’t appear to be overly fond of Carolina and Dalton,” he said, mockingly amused.
I whipped my head up so quickly that I awkwardly cricked my neck. He’d been at the cemetery, close enough to pick up my attitude toward the team, yet I hadn’t noticed him when I’d been looking for residual spots of magic.
That was unnerving.
“It would seem prudent to have someone with you,” I said. “Someone skilled in nonmagical investigation, computers and such. Unfortunately, my magic is a hindrance with technology.”
Kettil flicked his gaze to my hands.
I resisted the urge to hide them in my lap, taking the final bite of my delectable risotto instead.
The vampire nodded thoughtfully, lifting his gaze to my face. Though he somehow looked past me, through me.
I stiffened my spine. If I was actually going to have to work with him, I couldn’t be constantly cowering and casting my gaze to the side. “It’s only logical with the victim being human, and his attacker obviously also —”
“I already agree, reconstructionist,” Kettil said. “You have no need to press your point. I assume, if we are to work together, as you say, that you have a recommendation?”
“Jasmine Fairchild.”
A slow smile spread across the vampire’s face, but I had no idea what was so amusing about our conversation. There was something underlying all this that I was obviously missing.
“Your cousin, I believe,” he said.
I set my fork down across my plate, then lightly pressed my linen napkin to my lips. Jasmine was well known, and not many witches worked with technology as well as she did. Pearl Godfrey commissioned work from her regularly. But it bothered me that the vampire had chosen to refer to our familial connection, instead of Jasmine’s magical abilities.
The server slipped by our table, glancing at our full wineglasses, then bussing my empty plate without a word.
“Is Jasmine Fairchild as skilled at keeping secrets as she is at uncovering them?”
“She’s been keeping mine for over a quarter of a century,” I said flippantly, tiring of whatever game was being played even before I’d fully figured out the parameters or rules.
Kettil smirked, sipping his wine without looking away from me.
The thought of what he might rather be sipping drifted through my mind.
The vampire’s smile widened, revealing the tips of his perfect teeth, as if he might be picking up on my thoughts. Though I felt none of the magical control he’d exerted on me earlier.
“Good,” he said.
I racked my mind for a moment, trying to recall where the conversation had stopped. If this was his typical pace when exchanging information, spending too much time with Kettil would be exhausting.
“When and where would she need to meet us? Assuming our participation in the investigation is sanctioned by the Convocation.”
“We’ll be in Vancouver for another day at least.”
“She was to meet me in Seattle this weekend. I maintain an apartment there.”
“I know.”
I ignored the vampire’s statement. He obviously enjoyed intimidating me, but I wasn’t willing to cede control of the situation any longer. “At some point, vampire,” I said archly, “I will move beyond being frightened of you and simply walk away. I don’t pay much heed to bullies.”
“Good, Wisteria Fairchild. Otherwise, you will bore me utterly. I loathe being bored.”
Jade Godfrey had thought that Kettil died in London. She’d mourned him deeply, bitterly. Yet he was in Vancouver, sipping wine, and seemingly challenging the Convocation’s jurisdiction.
I despaired of ever witnessing what being bored might entail for him.
“Pearl Godfrey is expecting us at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow,” he said.
So my participation was a forgone conclusion,
was it? Though, honestly, that went without saying when it came to the Godfreys and the Convocation. I wouldn’t have been able to legally separate myself from my family at sixteen or maintain a livelihood without either of them, even with my Aunt Rose maintaining one of the Convocation’s thirteen seats. My debt was deep and undeniable.
Kettil glanced toward the kitchen a moment before the server stepped through the doors, then crossed into the dining room carrying my Arctic char. “I will leave you to your dinner.”
“Goodnight, Kettil.”
“Kett,” he said, reaching across the table and touching the palm of my left hand before I’d had any chance to see him move. “It suits this century better.”
He ran his fingers along mine, so lightly that I could barely feel his touch. Cool shivers ran across my wrist and up my arm.
Then the vampire was gone.
The server placed my main course before me. “Yukon Arctic char,” he said. “With celery, swiss chard, gnocchi parisienne, and lemon caper vinaigrette.”
“It looks delicious. Thank you.”
He straightened Kett’s chair, glancing toward where I assumed the bathrooms were. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you.”
The server nodded and retreated toward the kitchen, slowly checking on his tables as he walked away.
Kett had tucked a hundred-dollar bill underneath his still full wineglass. Canadian currency. He’d also just touched my hand as if it were … precious. I glanced down at my palm, but I could see nothing there that might have inspired an ancient vampire.
That he was ancient, I had no doubt. I knew little of substance about vampires, but I was fairly certain that a young vampire would never have recovered from the wound Kett sustained in London. And that a middle-aged vampire would have no need to adopt a nickname for a new century. Granted, I hadn’t met a vampire of any age before. But I was willing to wager that an ancient vampire played at being human in order to not be bored by his unending existence.
I shuddered at the thought of such immortality. Then I applied my attention and my fork to the piece of art masquerading as food on my plate.
The delicately pink fish flaked underneath the lightest of touches. I swirled a bite in the vinaigrette, managing to capture a caper before placing it in my mouth.
Savoring the subtle, fresh flavors, I vowed to not worry for one extra moment about what I’d just seemingly agreed to. Pearl Godfrey would have the final say tomorrow. It would be silly of me to fret and ruin my dinner tonight.
I took a picture of my main course when I thought no one was looking, then texted it to Jasmine, who was the only other person I knew who reveled in food as much as I did.
Of course, Jasmine could cook.
I couldn’t even boil water. Literally. I had to leave the kitchen after I set the kettle on the stove, then cross to the other side of the apartment just to make tea.
I was a skilled reconstructionist. But I eroded everything else I touched. Again, literally.
I housed my cellphone in a metal case coated in one of Jasmine’s expensive spells — the workings of which I didn’t even remotely understand — to protect it from my magic, and I still had to replace it every three months or so. I was exceedingly thankful that ‘the cloud’ was a thing these days.
Texting in a restaurant as lovely as Bishop’s was unseemly, so I quickly tucked the phone away and applied myself to my food.
I always ate alone.
I lived alone.
Even my work was mostly a solo endeavor.
By choice. By preference.
Yet with Kett’s departure, I felt uncharacteristically lonely.
After ordering the cheese plate for dessert, I contemplated wandering up the block and knocking on Jade’s apartment door. Would the dowser invite me in and offer me cupcakes?
Except a witch like me — with a powerful but specific skill set — didn’t become friends with someone like Jade. Being around people of her power level made me antsy to unleash my own magic.
And I didn’t unleash.
I couldn’t.
The cheese plate came with fruit. I paired a slice of camembert with a sliver of pear and tried to settle back into the comforting surroundings and chatter.
No. Powerful people — including Kett and Jade — got witches like me hurt or killed. Even worse, not all wounds were skin deep. Some dented the soul.
And my soul had been damaged enough for a lifetime. It had been that way since before I was sixteen, and was proving to be exceedingly slow at healing.
❒ ❒ ❒
Built out of white steel and blue glass, the Pan Pacific Hotel sat on the edge of Vancouver’s inner harbor, boasting one-hundred-and-eighty-degree views of the North Shore Mountains and the city skyline. The convention center and cruise ship terminal attached to the four-star hotel stretched across the foreshore, perched over the water on piles drilled deep into the ocean floor.
I left my rental car to the valet and gave my bag to the porter, strolling through the automatic glassed front doors into the grand entrance, then up the escalator to check in at the front desk. The hotel’s contemporary decor was lush but not gaudy. Golden-lit cream pillars, sweeping staircases, sepia tiled floors, and light wood accents dominated throughout. A display of fresh-cut flowers easily four feet tall and two-and-a-half feet wide was perched on a large round table in the center of the atrium lobby. Glassed railings on every floor offered an inner view of the first five storeys of the building.
This trip was my second stay at the Pan Pacific. During my first visit, the service had been polite and professional, plus the view was spectacular. So I’d seen no reason to try another hotel.
I checked in without any fuss, finding my luggage tucked just inside the door of my room by the time I rode the elevator up to the twelfth floor.
I didn’t bother turning on any interior lights. Immediately crossing to the windows, which practically ran from floor to ceiling, I gazed out at the night-shrouded harbor and the soaring mountains to my right. The lights of the city spread for miles on my left. A neon-lit filling station for boats floated between the hotel and the dark swath of trees that was Stanley Park. Beginning at the edge of the park, countless lights decorated the steel cables of the Lions Gate Bridge, creating the effect of a massive, single-stranded pearl necklace suspended over the inlet that separated the city from the North Shore. From my vantage point, I could trace the exact route I’d driven to and from the cemetery that afternoon.
I tugged off my heels, then curled up on the firm but comfortable high-backed armchair and ottoman combo that sat in the corner of the room. Still gazing out at the view, I retrieved my cellphone from my bag and dialed Jasmine.
Raindrops sprinkled across the window, blurring the downtown lights. But there was nothing forlorn about sitting alone in the darkness perched above the city and the ocean. It was comforting, inviting.
“Hello, cousin,” Jasmine said, answering my call after a single ring. Her greeting was cheerful but slightly distracted, as always.
I tucked the phone between the side wing of the chair and my ear, holding it close and risking eroding the spells that protected it from my magic just for a moment. “So I just had dinner with a vampire.”
“What?!”
Jasmine’s shriek forced me to drop the phone into my lap out of deference for my eardrum. Laughing, I retrieved it, resting it on the arm of the chair, then tapping the speaker icon while my cousin continued to natter excitedly at the other end. So much for capping my evening with intimate, calm conversation.
“Tell me everything.” Her demand reverberated through the phone’s speaker. “I’m pausing my game. Start from the beginning.”
“Pausing your game? That is serious.”
“A vampire? A vampire! Was he seriously creepy and fangy? Or was he a she? Who set up the meeting? Pearl? Why a restaurant? That seems like an odd choice of location. Wouldn’t it give the vampire ideas about what he or she shoul
d be eating? Have you ever met one before?”
Jasmine paused, inhaling as if to line up her next set of questions.
I took the opportunity to answer the final question of her first round. “You know I haven’t.”
“Please. With the secrets you keep? I can never know for sure.”
The smile slipped from my face as my chest tightened at the implication beneath her words. I toyed with my bracelet, looking out the window again. From the lower vantage point of the chair, I could see the far third of a vibrant blue outdoor pool and its red-tiled sundeck situated below on the eighth level.
“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said. “I know you don’t keep secrets. Not really. I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“It’s okay.”
We sat in silence together for another minute or so, then Jasmine tried to pick up the thread of the conversation.
“So was the meeting work related?”
“He wants me to work on a case with him, connected to the case I reconstructed today.”
“For the Godfreys? With a Convocation-certified reconstructionist? That’s not really a vampire thing, is it? Cooperation?”
“I’m not sure.” I suddenly felt tired. The reconstruction in the cemetery hadn’t been taxing, but all I could think about was how I wouldn’t mind burrowing underneath the thick white duvet that topped the bed, then closing my eyes on a long day. “I think this vampire might be a bit different than we’ve been taught.”
“What little we’ve been taught.”
“Exactly.”
“Wisteria.” Jasmine paused again. “I’m sorry.”
She hated it when I went quiet, but sometimes I just didn’t have anything to say. Sometimes I didn’t want to justify my past behavior or my current choices. My secrets, according to Jasmine. “I’m just tired.”
“If you need me, I’m there.”
“I already mentioned the possibility of you working with us to Kett,” I said. “Assuming I accept.”
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) Page 4