by Mindy Klasky
He was already heading toward the refrigerator. Suddenly, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. My body had given up answering any of my demands, conforming to any of my expectations.
Chris found a block of Cheddar cheese, which he quickly sliced into even cubes the exact size of dice. Grapes, which he rinsed at the sink, then snipped into regular clusters of five. An apple, which he carved into a dozen perfect crescents, as precise as if he’d used a laser.
It was soothing to watch him work. He was restoring order. Balance.
I gulped half the feast before I managed to ask, “How did you find me? How could you locate Richardson’s sanctum?”
He answered my question with one of his own. “Should we sit down?” He gestured toward a quartet of chairs splayed beside a square table in the breakfast nook.
I accepted the invitation, automatically twitching one of the empty chairs closer to the table, making the pattern uniform. Chris brought over the food, then collapsed into the seat closest to me. He took a deep breath, spread his fingers on the table, and said, “I felt you, when you put on the bracelet and ring. That’s how James and I found the sanctum. Your insignia called to mine.”
“Insignia?” I stared at him, wondering if he was crazy.
He pointed toward the grapes, refusing to answer until I’d eaten a cluster. Only after I swallowed did he hold up his wrist to show me his watch. The gleaming band was darker than silver. It was made of hematite. As I stared, Chris worked the clasp, slipping off the timepiece to reveal a row of coral inlaid against the metal links. “Insignia,” he said. “The physical focus for your powers.”
“My powers? What the hell am I?”
“You’re a sphinx. We both are.”
“A sphinx.” The word made no sense at all. I started laughing, not even trying to ignore the hysterical tinge to my voice. “You mean, like a giant statue of a lion with the head of a woman, hanging out at the Great Pyramid?”
Chris nodded and pushed the plate of cheese toward me. “That’s the Egyptian sphinx.”
Egyptian. Like the hieroglyphics I’d used to write my name in James’s office. I thought of the other letters I’d generated. “And there’s a Greek one, too?”
Chris waited until I’d eaten three Cheddar cubes before giving me an answer. “Our people started in Egypt, centuries before we moved to Greece. Originally, we were priests sworn to the goddess Sekhmet.”
“Sekhmet.” The name felt strangely right as I said it.
Chris said, “The goddess of war. She had the head of a lioness and the body of a woman. She drank blood.”
Like a vampire.
None of this made any sense. I was an ordinary human woman. I was twenty-six years old, working as a Court Clerk in Washington, D.C. I had a crush on my boss, another on the journalist who’d been trailing me for the past five weeks. I was godmother to my best friend’s daughter. I was totally, completely, mind-numbingly normal.
Strike that. Strike all of it.
Chris was still talking, his voice light and even, as if I couldn’t possibly be slipping into some sort of shock. “Legend says that Sekhmet’s breath created the desert. She was an incarnation of the sun. She was associated with justice. With order.”
Order.
Like the compulsion to snip grapes into clusters of five. To organize pens by color. To place legal documents in files, page by painstaking page.
I didn’t want this to make sense. I didn’t want to be different, to be bizarre.
But I was. I always had been.
Everything Chris said made sense; it resonated deep inside my mind, as if I were remembering an old story that I’d been told when I was only an infant. Part of me had known the truth, from the moment that James awakened my subconscious. All those dreams that I’d been having, about sand dunes, the desert, Egypt… “And the lemons?” I finally asked. “Where do they fit in?”
Chris’s grin was so quick that I would have missed it, if I hadn’t been measuring his face for every tiny reaction. “Sekhmet’s power faded over time. When the pharaohs lost their throne, our people shifted to the new heart of civilization, to Greece. We protected sacred groves there. Lemon groves. We guarded the lamia.”
“Lamia?” The word was new to me.
“The descendants of the Egyptian warriors who dedicated their lives to Sekhmet. The ones who drank blood. The lamia have faded, too, over the years. They no longer pass on their traits, parent to child. Vampires are made these days, not born, but our fate as sphinxes is still tied to theirs. We guard them. Bring order to their lives, even when they don’t want us there. Even when they think they can handle everything on their own. They’re lousy at organization, and they can’t keep up with the filing.”
And that was when I was certain that everything Chris said was true. Those were the exact words James had used, when he’d explained why the Night Court needed a clerk.
Some time after he’d Enfolded me. I raised my fingers to my forehead, rubbed at the spot that James had touched five weeks before. “And the Enfolding? Why weren’t we controlled by Richardson?”
“Sphinxes are immune, after we’ve awakened our insignia.”
“What do you mean, awakened?”
“We are closest to the old power, closest to Sekhmet, when we sleep. It wasn’t enough for you just to put on your insignia. You had to sleep just once, to dream. After that, you could never be Enfolded again.” Chris smiled sympathetically as my fingers traveled automatically to my bracelet, seeking comfort against the bizarreness of the truth. “Hematite represents the magnetism of our bond with vampires,” he said. “Coral is for purification.”
“What does menesai mean?”
“Remember. It’s Greek. I needed to awaken your past, let you find the true order in your fighting. The space between the chaos.” He raised a rueful hand to a bruise that was coming out on his cheekbone. “For what it’s worth, we sphinxes don’t usually engage in physical battles. Not since the very beginning, when we first administered Sekhmet’s judicial sentences. Then, we were the goddess’s executioners. We strangled prisoners.”
I shivered at the thought. Something about the word—strangled—called out to my memory. “That first night in the vampire’s court, when Brandt attacked me. He yelled something. I thought he said “strangle her.” Was he really saying ‘strangler’? Did he know I was a sphinx?”
“We think so. We don’t know how, what made him recognize you when the other imperials didn’t. Morton was the only one who knew the truth, and that was only because he’d tested you.”
“But why did he do that? Why did it even cross his mind that I might be something special?”
“The Eastern Empire is always on the lookout for imperials who have lost their way, creatures who aren’t on the official roles. It’s standard operating procedure to test everyone who can see the Sword and Parchment. Morton was just following the rules.”
Morton. I heard the rivalry there, the tension. Apparently sphinxes did not submit to vampires blindly, not in all things. Or maybe it was just Chris, who didn’t submit to James.
“But what if I had never applied for the clerk job in the first place? Chances were a million to one that I’d even find out about the position!”
Chris shrugged. “The odds were nowhere near that long. I only had to push you a little bit.”
“Push me!”
“How did you find out about the job?”
“From Allison! A friend of a friend…” I trailed off. “You were the friend, weren’t you?”
“A few times removed.” He flashed his familiar easy smile. “We sphinxes keep records. I was pretty sure you had some power. You had the compulsions, and those are usually a pretty good predictor. There are gaps in your bloodline, though. I couldn’t be certain, but I thought something interesting might happen when Morton tested you. When he gave you the insignia. I just had no idea how interesting you would turn out to be.”
I flushed at the implication laced b
eneath his tone. Rather than examine the sparking emotions that suddenly clamored for my attention, I asked another question. “So you followed me. And you wrote your article. Did you know about Dan Feld all along, then? About Richardson controlling him?”
“Of course not! Sarah…” He sounded concerned that I could even ask the question. “I had no idea that Richardson was exerting power over the D.C. Council. He’s never bothered with mundane government before. That was a complete surprise.”
“But you still wrote your article. You trashed the court’s reputation.”
“I didn’t trash them,” he chided gently. “I didn’t say anything about DuBois that he hasn’t said himself a hundred times. He wants to appear boring. Ineffectual. Not worthy of any human attention whatsoever.” When I hesitated to nod my agreement, he said, “I will admit to trashing those ancient computers you wrestle with. Purposely. A sphinx is only as good as her tools.”
I couldn’t help but meet his gap-toothed grin with a smile of my own. For just a moment, it was simple to talk to him again. Relaxed. Comfortable. And then I had to say, “It’s just because we’re both sphinxes, right? The way I feel around you?”
Chris’s smile was patient. “No, Sarah. It’s not just because we’re both sphinxes. At least not to me.”
I flashed on the memory of kissing him in my living room, of his stepping away, of his leaving me standing there, lonely and embarrassed. “But you dragged in your code of ethics,” I whispered.
“Not as a journalist,” he said. “That was just an excuse. I had an ethical bond as a sphinx. It wasn’t fair to take what you were offering, not then, when you didn’t know the full truth. It wasn’t fair to you. Or to Morton.”
I still had a million more questions. What was the real source of the antagonism between James and Chris? Was it just me? Or were there deeper issues there, real chasms between vampires and sphinxes? Was Chris going to take over my training, teach me about my people? What other responsibilities did I have, now that I knew I was a sphinx?
Before I could pump Chris for more information, though, I yawned, barely managing to cover my mouth with my hand. “What time is it?” I asked.
Chris glanced at his hematite and coral watch. “6:05,” he said.
We realized what that meant at precisely the same time. Sunrise was less than an hour away. Chris pushed back from the table and led the way into Richardson’s living room.
James was huddled in the dark, bracing himself against one wall with a trembling hand. His face was lit by the faint glow of the cell phone he held by his ear. “That’s not soon enough!” he growled, turning toward us in frustration. I gasped as I saw the blistered welts that striped his chest. The damage was worse than I could have imagined.
Chris reached for James’s phone before I could move. I only truly realized how much pain James was in when he gave up the device without a fight. Chris interrupted whoever was talking on the other end of the line. “This is Christopher Gardner,” he said. “Yes. Yes. That won’t be a problem. Yes.”
He snapped the phone closed and handed it back to James. “I’ll keep watch for the day. The Empire team will collect them an hour after sunset. Go.”
James snarled a protest, but it faded to a hiss before he could complete the sentence.
Chris ignored him, turning to me. “Take him. He needs to sleep. To heal.”
I looked from Chris to James, and back again. I didn’t want to leave Chris behind. He’d taken care of me, given me food and information, grounded me after the chaos in the basement. I couldn’t imagine sending James out on his own, though. Not so injured, not this close to dawn. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. What I wanted to do.
Chris whispered, “Menesai.”
The word shot through me like a jolt of espresso. I was a sphinx. Sphinxes guarded vampires. We protected them. We brought order to their lives.
A day earlier, I wouldn’t have had the courage to demand James’s car key. I wouldn’t have had the nerve to march him out to his Mercedes, to hold the passenger door while he painfully levered himself down to the seat. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to drive the luxury vehicle through the early morning hours, to park it in front of my house, in front of the fire hydrant, parking tickets be damned.
As I collected James from the passenger seat, a strange vampire materialized out of the darkness. I bit off a scream.
James, though, merely shook his head. “Josef,” he said. “We’re fine.”
The other vampire looked like he wanted to argue, but James raised a hand. “Richardson is captured,” he said. “Spread the word. Let the others know.”
The mysterious Josef nodded and melted into the darkness. So much for having a guard around my house, day and night.
The sky was already hinting at dawn when I unlocked my front door, fighting past the sticking tumblers of the lock to burst into my living room. I ordered James to sit at my kitchen table. “There isn’t time,” he said, and his voice was thin, terrifyingly weak. He started to push himself up, to head toward the bathroom, toward the cramped isolation of my porcelain tub.
I settled a hand on his shoulder, on a patch of skin that wasn’t burned. “There’s enough for what I need to do.” I surprised myself with my even tone, with my absolute confidence. “Sit. Wait.”
I turned to the corner of my living room, to the bucket of paint that had languished since Chris had carried it inside. I grabbed a butter knife from my silverware drawer and worked it under the rim, prying off the lid. I didn’t own a paintbrush, but kitchen towels would work in a pinch. I tugged on my Latex dish-washing gloves and dropped a towel into the Desert Sage paint, urging the cool green color to spread through the white terry fibers.
I sponged over the kitchen windows first, making the paint heavy, opaque. The dark living room didn’t have any windows—lucky for me. The bedroom took a little longer; the planes of glass were larger, and I had to stretch to reach the corners.
I finished in plenty of time, though. Well before dawn.
Back in the kitchen, I flipped on the overhead light with my elbow before tossing the green-soaked towel into the garbage. I’d never be able to rinse it clean. Stripping off my gloves, I turned to James, victorious. “There,” I said. “You’re safe.”
For a heartbeat, I thought I was too late. He was trembling like a lost child. I looked around the room in a panic, wondering how he was being hit by sunlight, how he was being poisoned. “What?” I cried out. “What is it?”
“N— Nothing,” he stammered. “Just the b— burns.”
“What can I do? How can I help?”
He shook his head. There was nothing.
But I knew better. I had learned more, when I drank from him weeks before. His blood had taught me the truth—feeding helped a vampire to heal.
I knelt beside his chair. I ran my fingers through my hair, lifting it off my neck, exposing the slash that Richardson had made. I tried not to think about the pain that had raked my body as Richardson drank, the jagged agony that had branched through my veins as his tongue and lips worked my wound.
That cold was nothing compared to the fire that was destroying James as I watched.
“Drink,” I said.
This was a way for me to protect him. A way for me to bring order to his life. This was a way for me to be a sphinx.
“Drink, James, and heal yourself.”
CHAPTER 17
HE STARED AT me forever.
I realized that I’d come to know those eyes in the past five weeks. I’d come to understand James’s moods, his worries, his overwhelming sense of obligation. In Richardson’s basement, I had looked into those eyes, and I had known that he understood me, that he knew I wasn’t Enfolded.
I knew, now, that he was angry. Disappointed. Not with me, though. With himself. With the very nature of his vampire existence. Renewed shuddering racked his body, and his teeth began to chatter.
I leaned closer to him, resting my palm on his knee. He f
linched as I tilted my head at a steeper angle, as I completely bared my neck. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’m ready.”
I knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist the scent of me, of my blood. He licked his lips, using the action to release his fangs. My instinct was to look away, to avoid seeing him in this other state, but I fought that inclination, for fear that he would abandon feeding entirely if I gave him the slightest excuse. His lips were thin and pale against his gleaming incisors.
He leaned forward tentatively, like a forest creature afraid to enter a clearing. He brushed a kiss against the tender flesh beneath my ear, a velvet warning that tensed every muscle in my body against the pain I knew would follow. I felt his lips settle on Richardson’s incision; I tried not to flinch as a sliver of ice slipped beneath my skin.
James pulled back after that first tiny sip. He rubbed his lips together, as if he were trying to make a precious treat last, and I watched his throat work as he swallowed.
I started to protest. He hadn’t taken anywhere near enough. He couldn’t begin to replenish himself, to heal the horrible burns that even now made my stomach turn. He shook his head, though, and his fingers tangled in my hair. His palm against my head was warming, heating as his body processed his first taste of my blood. He tilted my head with his sensitive fingertips, finding the perfect angle for feeding.
His tongue was warm as he returned to my neck. His lips grew hot, firm and demanding. I’d braced myself for the cutting pain that Richardson had delivered, for the frozen, alien agony, but James was nothing like Richardson. Nothing at all.
I felt him swallow. I knew that he was drinking, that he was taking everything I had offered, all that I had freely given. I understood that he couldn’t Enfold me, couldn’t take my mind away from the sheer mechanics of his actions.
But he had some other trick for transforming my body. As his vampire flesh awakened, something in him called to me. Something let me drift into a state of utter relaxation. For the first time since I’d reported for my meeting with Dan Feld, I knew that I was safe, that I was protected. That I was cherished.