Department 57: Rubies of Fire

by Lynne Connolly

  “He didn’t come in this morning, so Cristos sent someone around to his hotel. There were no obvious signs of struggle. Nobody could reach him, although we tried. We’d already linked with him, Leon and me, so we tried every way we knew to trace him.”

  “God!”

  She felt his thought before he said it aloud. “Yes. They could have used too strong a drug, if they thought he was a Talent. He’s mortal, for all his abilities. But if they’d killed him, they would have left him or dumped him somewhere. Cristos put out an APB to all services in the area, so the cops are looking for Fabrice too, dead or alive. So far no NYPD officer has found a body. He’s got airports, bus companies, the railway companies on the alert too.”

  Candy walked to the window and stood with her back to them. “I’ve known Fabrice a long time,” she said, in a voice completely devoid of humor or even liveliness. “If he’s dead, whoever killed him is also dead. I will personally see to it.”

  She turned around, her grim face a contrast to the carefully applied makeup and frivolous clothes. Roz saw the basilisk glint through the human, a great, terrifying gray form. “Where do we start?”

  Roz hugged Andreas tighter, as though to reassure herself that he was safe. “Cristos wants you to accelerate your search. No subtlety anymore. We need to find the spies. They’re the prime suspects, the only ones we have. Andreas, you and I are to act as bait.” She addressed Candy. “Andreas has been seen out with Fabrice. Everyone who might have been watching Fabrice will be aware of him, so Cristos wants Andreas out and about, especially in the places Andreas met Fabrice. I’m backup, and when Nancy returns, so is she, as well as Leon.”

  “I found a leak today,” Candy said tonelessly. “I wish I’d known about this earlier, but I only found the irregularity late this afternoon. I’m going back. I’ll tell them I’m doing overtime.” She walked to the door, paused to take them both in. “You two take care. Contact me if you need me. I’ll be there in a minute, and I’ll alert you to let you know I’m safe. You hear?”

  They nodded, and Candy left the apartment.

  “She’s exhausted,” Andreas said, his arms still tight around Roz. “But she’s tough.”

  “Candy?” Roz could hardly believe a being with the power of a basilisk would use such a playful name.

  “Yeah. She said a basilisk is almost colorless and boring, so she makes up for it in her human form. And she wasn’t born Candy. Any more than you were born Roz.”

  “I wonder what made her change her name.”

  He stared down at her face. “I don’t know. It might have been boredom.” Suddenly, as though the words were torn out of him, he asked, “Do you still miss him? John?”

  She couldn’t lie to him. “Yes, I always will. I will always love him too. But what we have is different, Andreas. You’re not a rival.”

  His mouth covered hers in a sudden, passionate kiss, his tongue driving into her as though he needed to link them, and she felt his mind in hers, surrounding her, caressing her. He wanted her, but not in a loving way, as he’d taken her last night. It was more a need, a basic requirement to assure himself she was safe and here. She felt the same, but they couldn’t take time out to satisfy their urges.

  He knew as well as she did. “We have to go.”

  “Leon and I read each other deeper than usual. We aren’t taking any chances. Nancy and I are already deeply linked. She’ll join us when she can.”

  He hugged her close. “I know you’re an agent, I know you’re older than I am and probably a more powerful vampire, but I can’t help it. I want to keep you safe, to lock you up somewhere and take care of you.”

  She chuckled into his chest. His concern for her warmed her. And she doubted she was more powerful than he was. As a young vampire, he might need to feed more frequently, but his prowess probably equaled hers, his training making up for his lack of experience. Her family’s desire to lock her away was proprietorial. His was purely from his concern for her. His care. His—

  She broke off her thoughts, aware he was with her, knowing her, but not reading her. His respect for her privacy sometimes took her breath away. Very few vampires paused to consider if sometimes thoughts were private ones.

  “What do we do now?”

  He took a deep breath. “We go look for him. Tell me what Cristos said and what he thinks. Or rather, what he told you he thinks. Machiavelli could have taken lessons from Cristos.” He paused. “He probably did.”

  “Cristos thinks the DIB might be involved. I sensed someone else that night when you met Fabrice at the nightclub, and we never found out who it was, but it could have been a DIB agent. At the time I thought it was the people who attacked us outside, but Fabrice said they were all controlled mortals, and I sensed a Talent. Candy’s found a leak. And Bernard Knox knows far more than he should. So Cristos wants you to go in and back Candy up while she does an in-depth search of the DIB’s computers.”

  “What about the trail? I know Fabrice better than anyone. Cristos must know I’ll go looking for him anyway.”

  “He knows. He says report to him after work.” She lifted her head and put her hand gently on his cheek. “Fabrice may be a mortal, but his mental powers are far beyond anything we can muster. If they’ve knocked him out, they’ll have to revive him to let him eat and drink. He’ll get in touch. I’m sure he will.”

  She turned his lips into the palm of his hand.

  “What if he’s already dead?”

  “Is he?” Roz gazed up at him and held her breath. If Andreas couldn’t sense Fabrice at all, then the chances were they were too late. But if a research facility had captured Fabrice, the researchers would want him alive. It was the Department’s only hope.

  A fraught minute passed, when Roz didn’t dare interrupt Andreas as he turned his thoughts inward. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “If Fabrice were dead, I’d feel a void. I feel an absence. I can’t contact him, and I don’t think he’s conscious, but I don’t think he’s dead. I’m almost sure of it.”

  Roz breathed out in relief. “Then we’ll find him. We have to.”

  Heavyhearted, Andreas went into the DIB the next morning. A long, exhausting, and noisy tour of New York’s hotspots the night before had resulted in nothing. No one followed them; no one took any interest in them. He’d have been better off spending the night in bed with Roz. Much better.

  He dragged his chair back and sat down, automatically booting up his computer before contacting Candy. “Good morning. Is anything happening?”

  “Oh yeah. Get over here, Constant.”

  Candy had a cubicle at the other end of the office from Andreas, and for a change he hurried there instead of taking his time. Curious gazes followed his swift progress, but he didn’t care. This assignment was coming to an end soon. He wouldn’t be here tomorrow if he had any say in the matter. He’d be out looking for Fabrice.

  Candy told him. “I think we’re wasting our time here,” she said, tapping the screen.

  Andreas stared at rows of numbers.

  “I found something, and I’ve taken it apart. The security here is pathetic, just pathetic. It took me an hour.” She made a sound of exasperation. “See this? It’s a loop. It’s using this department to bounce off, and to make it look like the DIB is the origin of the leak. It isn’t.”

  “Fuck!” Suddenly recalling security, Andreas got to his feet and glanced over the cubicle next to him. Candy gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Don’t worry, I checked. Nobody can overhear us if we keep it quiet.”

  He extended his senses. She was right; nobody was nearby. He should have done that from the start, but he’d trained himself to close down while he was in the DIB. He turned his attention back to Candy. The same manicure job as the day before, he noted, and not a nail chipped. “We’re wasting our time here. There’s nobody here who can harm us. The threat’s coming from outside.”

  “Except Bernard Knox wants us to investigate the Department. Why would he do that?”
/>   “Presumably the same people who’ve used this network as a router have told him to watch us.”

  This operation wasn’t quite over yet. “So we need to know who told him.”

  Candy glanced up at him and what she saw made her blue eyes soften in sympathy. She laid one of those carefully manicured hands over his, where he’d braced himself on her desk to lean over her to look at her screen. “I’m really sorry about Fabrice. You knew him well, didn’t you?”

  “Fabrice was—is—my best friend. No question.”

  “Then I’m even more sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  They sensed someone approaching. Candy minimized the window on her screen, leaving a desktop adorned by a seminude Hugh Jackman.

  The person stopped, and Andreas looked around. It was Stacy, the woman he’d begun his office campaign with. He must have been too good, because she hadn’t given up on him yet. Her gaze fixed on the screen. “Nice! Have you got a copy of that?”

  “Sure, I’ll e-mail you one.”

  “Thanks.” Still she paused, and Candy took her hand off Andreas’s and swung her chair around to confront the leggy blonde. “Was there something else?”

  “Only that Bernard was looking for Andreas a while back. Have you seen him yet, Andreas?”

  With a muffled curse, Andreas made for the Knox’s office, only now remembering his boss’s orders. “I should have seen him first thing. What with one thing and another, I forgot.”

  Stacy followed him. “Why do you bother? I thought you liked Roz, but she’s hardly been out the office a week, and you’re hitting on somebody else. Why waste your time with her?”

  “Why? Don’t you think she’s attractive?”

  Stacy let her eyelids droop and trailed one hand down his shirt, lightly tracing his chest with her nails before looking up at him through her lashes. “Not as attractive as you. Are you free after work?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Stacy dropped her hand, accidentally brushing his fly on her way past, and her full lips pushed out in a pout. “Tomorrow night then. Nobody will live up to me, Andreas.”

  Only then did he realize he’d met the female equivalent of the office wolf. The men in the office had warned him about Stacy, that she never stayed with any man for long, and he’d used that as an excuse to drop her. But it seemed she hadn’t dropped him. “You don’t walk away from me, Andreas. You just don’t.” With a wink, she turned and left him.

  He watched her, a new understanding filling his mind. When he’d behaved like a wolf, moved from one woman to the next, he’d been careful not to engage them too closely, only enough to loosen their mental barriers so he could search them one-on-one. But there were people who enjoyed hurting others, who saw it as a kind of game. Stacy was undoubtedly one of those people.

  He turned away to enter Bernard Knox’s office and give him the brief report he should have delivered first thing that morning. He found Knox’s mind closed to him. Either the man had trained in blocking techniques, he was a sensitive, or he was a Talent. Or just had natural defenses. Andreas’d scanned him before and discovered exactly the same thing. Unfortunately, he had no way of discovering any more without a stronger wielder of psi. Like Fabrice.

  A brief phone call from Diane summoned Andreas back to Department 57 that evening. To anyone eavesdropping, it would have sounded like a call between two lovers, confirming his cover story that the affair with Diane caused his break with the Department, but she used the key words they’d agreed on at the beginning of the operation.

  Candy had gone home early, saying she felt sick, much to Bernard Knox’s disgust. Knox had claimed no one in the office cared about the work they did, that they were a bunch of slackers. He could have been right about most of his workers, but Andreas wasn’t surprised to find Candy already in Cristos’s office. So was the dragon, Leonide Fiorentini.

  “We’re changing our plans,” Cristos said briefly, waving at an empty seat. Andreas took it. “I’m sending you to London, Andreas.”

  “London?” His head reeled. “Is that where they’ve taken Fabrice?”

  Cristos shook his head. “No, we have a lead that goes there. It could be another false lead, but it’s the only one we have, and so we have to follow it. I’ll get a story ready for you.”

  Andreas made a fist. Deliberately he uncoiled his tension, forced himself to relax. He couldn’t afford to lose his temper. “I won’t go until we’ve found Fabrice.”

  “He could be there. You can flash back, Andreas. I’ll tell you the minute we find him.”

  “You need me. I’m his friend. We’re close. You need someone close to him to track him.” Never in his whole career had he allowed his personal feelings to interfere with doing his job, but this time Andreas was tempted. His whole being rebelled at the thought of leaving to travel halfway across the world when his friend could be in danger. And what about Roz?

  As though Cristos had heard the last thought, he turned to the topic. “I’ll arrange for Roz to go too.”

  That was a relief. If she wanted to go. If she didn’t…

  The realization hit him like a fist to the gut. She’d never be happy with him there. She left a husband there, a man she’d loved, a man who’d betrayed her and then been killed before she could come to terms with her feelings. He couldn’t take her. It wouldn’t be fair. The memories London would be sure to bring back to her would probably turn her against him. “She might not want to go. Do you know her history?” He wouldn’t betray her by saying it out loud.

  “Shit!” Oh yes, Cristos knew all right. “I’ll leave the decision up to her, then. But you, Andreas, you’re under orders. I want you in London and soon. We have to start operations before they cripple us or force us to change. So you,” he said to Andreas, “are to go to London.”

  “What is it? Afraid I’ll lose it?”

  When Cristos gave him that frank stare, Andreas knew he was about to hear something he’d rather not. “Frankly, yes. If you find his kidnappers, you’ll kill them. You’re a good field agent, Andreas. The only fault I’ve found in you is your quick temper, but you’ve always been able to control it before. I don’t think you’ll bother this time. And I want these people alive if possible, plausibly dead if not. Shot or wounded. Not left with all the blood drained out of them but the one small speck that stops them turning vampire.”

  Andreas couldn’t stop his smile of satisfaction at the thought of this scenario. He’d never killed, not that way, but this time he’d take great satisfaction in doing so.

  Fuck, Cristos was right! He’d kill and not even stop to think about it. He cared, truly cared, about very few people, but Fabrice was one of them, a man who’d gotten past all his defenses, even his indifference to other people, and become the closest friend he had.

  But Cristos was another of those people, and he had no choice but to listen to him.

  “Andreas, no. I want Fabrice back as badly as you do, but I won’t let two of my best agents die in this operation. I really do need a good agent to follow this lead. I’m setting up a team to continue in London under Will Grady, and I want you as part of it. Don’t do anything stupid.” He stepped away and stared out the window at the building opposite, another rank of flat, glass windows gleaming dully in the last light of day. “We’ll find him. I swear it. And I’ll tell you as soon as we do. I swear that too.”

  Why did he always have to be right?

  Chapter Eleven

  When Andreas appeared in her bedroom, Roz only just restrained herself from flying into his arms, romance-style. That would have been too much, but she couldn’t stop her need to see him. It scared her. He was getting too close, too fast. She didn’t know him. She didn’t want him that much; she couldn’t.

  Could she?

  But when he walked to her and wrapped her in his arms, she responded enthusiastically, lifting her face for a deep kiss of greeting, feeling his thoughts envelop hers warmly, blending with them.

  An
d what he said when he finally lifted his head could have come from her own mouth. “You think there’s something to all this soul mate stuff? Is there one mate just made for one person?”

  It took all her strength of mind not to scoff, but she managed it. “It’s in all the stories, but since we’re not Beauty and the Beast, I think we can rest easy.”

  His hands were busy at the front of her blouse, slipping buttons through holes. “I don’t want to rest easy. Roz, I want to be inside you, fucking you. Now. Or better still, five minutes ago.”

  Since she felt the same way, she didn’t object, and since she seemed to be stripping him as fast as he was stripping her, the next few moments were taken up with the hiss of zippers, the slide of cloth, and small sighs when clothing gave way to warm, living flesh.

  He took a moment to step back and sweep his gaze comprehensively over her—head to foot and back again, his eyes fiery coals—before he surprised her by spinning her around. When he stroked down her back with the very tips of his fingers, she shuddered. He let his touch wander down, past the cleft in her buttocks, lingering, then passing on until he found the bud at the front of her sex and gave it a stroke in greeting. He felt desperate for her, but she felt the same, urgency taking her over in a great wave.

  He drew her hard against his aroused body, his cock pushing against her bottom and lower back as though it had a mind of its own, blindly trying to find a way in while his hands curved around the front of her body, cupping her breasts, pinching, stroking.

  When he finally pinched her clit, her whole body stiffened, her head went back against his shoulder, and he swooped to take her mouth once more in a swift, hard kiss. “Sweetheart, you are something else,” he murmured before he drew back and entered her, so suddenly she gasped. She hadn’t been quite ready, so his swollen flesh pushed hers aside, forced its way in, not painfully—she was too aroused for that—but enough to tell her he was taking her in the way he wanted.

  Moaning, she pressed her bottom hard against his groin and received a gasp in return. He bit her shoulder, and his fangs grazed the sensitive place where her pulse throbbed.