by J. K. Beck
"Mesmerize? You mean, like hypnosis?"
"Something like that," he said, peering carefully at her. "You're worried."
"Didn't you mean for me to be?" She hoped she sounded businesslike, because the truth was that she was more than just worried. She was terrified. The thought of someone else inside her head, dictating how she should act, all her free will removed, nauseated her.
She thought of Luke, her stomach twisting. She'd been wild with him. Open. They'd shared an intimacy that had, at least to her, seemed like more than sex. If he'd been inside her head ... if he'd made her want him ...
She honestly couldn't bear the thought.
"A vampire's ability to mesmerize is a concern in this office, yes, but for you it is a minimal one. That's another reason I want you on this case. Your psych profiles show a remarkably high natural defiance to a vampire's power of hypnosis. To all forms of mind control and invasion, actually. That's a rare trait."
"A psych profile is hardly proof positive," she said, even though a tiny bit of the weight lifted from her shoulders.
"True enough. That's why we've had you tested as well."
"Excuse me? Someone's been poking around in my head making me do things?"
"Someone tried." He shrugged. "Several someones actually."
"Who?"
"We have agents whose sole job is to determine the vulnerability of our staff. You passed. Congratulations."
"Forgive me if I don't shout for joy." Although, to be honest, she was extraordinarily pleased. Her feelings for Luke--however much they might now complicate her life--were at least her own.
"The tests are an intrusion, yes. You could even say they are an invasion of your privacy. Or could have been, had their efforts succeeded. But if you said that, I would be forced to once again tell you that we do things differently down here."
"I'm beginning to realize that," she said sourly. "But hold on. Didn't you tell me that if I didn't want the job you could wipe my memories clean? How can you do that if I'm not susceptible?"
"To a vampire's assault," he said, "and to the intrusion of many other creatures with similar abilities. But there are others whose mental powers are stronger. You might not bend to their will, but they could undoubtedly replace or alter your memories."
"Oh." She didn't much like the sound of that.
"Don't worry," he said with a grin. "It's all in the manual." Her brows rose. "Seriously?"
He leaned over and punched a button on his desk. "Martella, do you have Ms. Constantine's office manual prepared?"
"It's on her desk, sir."
"Take it home," he said to Sara after he clicked off. "Study it. You'll find 48
summaries of basic office procedures, the primary characteristics of all the creatures you're likely to meet during your employment here, profiles of the judges, and a map of Division. It's bigger than it looks, so you might want to keep a copy of the map with you your first week or two."
"Oh," she said again. And then, realizing they'd gotten off track, she turned her focus back to Luke. "You mentioned the defendant's reputation during the interview, along with his Alliance connections. That's not something I'm familiar with." She spoke with calm focus, a prosecutor determined to get a handle on the case, nothing more.
"You're right. The Shadow Alliance is a governing body populated by the leaders of the most powerful groups of Shadow creatures," Bosch began. "Vampires, Therians, daemons, and the like. A parallel in your world might be the Senate. Or better yet, the United Nations."
"Okay," she said. "And Dragos works for the Alliance?" His smile was almost amused. "Lucius Dragos works only for himself." She thought of all those cases Bosch had rattled off, and could come to only one reasonable conclusion: Luke was a hired killer. An assassin. And from what she'd seen and read, he was damn good at his work. "No one has ever been able to make a charge stick?"
"Luke is extremely clever," Bosch said, with an admiration that seemed almost affectionate. "He has powerful friends, both in and out of the Alliance. And as we both know, that kind of power can all too often result in a backroom deal, especially when the evidence is weak or nonexistent."
"Those victims," she began, recalling Luke's responses in the interrogation room.
"The way Dragos described them and their crimes--was it accurate?"
"Every one of those men could have easily been found guilty within these walls and staked in front of a gallery of witnesses," Bosch said. "Does that make what Dragos did right? Or, excuse me, does that make what we suspect that Dragos did right?"
"Absolutely not," she said. Her mother had been a district attorney, and Sara had been weaned on the idea that the courts meted out justice, not civilians. And though she meant her words--truly meant them--she couldn't stop the tiny trill of relief that fluttered in her chest. Relief that maybe, just maybe, the man she'd slept with wasn't as much of a monster as she'd thought.
Still, those crimes were not on her docket, and there was no point analyzing either them or the man who may have committed them.
"The evidence isn't weak in this case," she said.
"No," Bosch agreed. "It's not." His brow furrowed, his gray eyes going dark with inquiry. "You said you had something to discuss with me concerning you prosecuting this case?"
"Right." She slipped her hand into her pocket, her fingers closing automatically around the ribbon that had once encircled a gift of tulips. "It's just that Wednesday night, after the jury came back on the Stemmons matter, I was at this bar celebrating, and--" He held up a hand. "We know."
"Oh." She forced herself to keep her chin high, even though she was certain she'd turned six shades of pink. "And you still want me on this case?" A stupid question, since they'd already assigned her to the case, but the words were out before she could recall them. And, besides, she really did want an answer.
49
"As I've already mentioned, you're going to find that we do things differently here in the basement. Comparatively speaking, the community is small. And when you factor in the life spans of the various Shadow creatures, odds are high that prosecutor and defendant, investigator and suspect have crossed paths before. Such interweavings do not demand an immediate recusal. Not without additional extenuating factors."
"Right. Of course."
His eyes twinkled with what she could only interpret as amusement. "Let me ask you this. Does this-- encounter-- in any way impact your ability to prosecute this case?" She hesitated before answering, because the question deserved honest appraisal, and she tried to ignore the rage she'd felt in that interrogation room, knowing that she'd cozied up to the very thing she tried so hard to keep off the streets. The truth was, she couldn't ignore it.
She'd been handed the chance to put a lying, scheming, murdering vampire into a cage. A vampire, she now knew, who committed heinous crimes, then abused his connections to the Alliance to wriggle free from the law. To thumb his nose at the system into which she'd put her heart and soul. No way-- no way-- was she walking away from this opportunity.
Crouch might have escaped justice on a technicality. But Sara would make damn certain another vampire didn't slip through the noose as well.
"No, sir," she said firmly. "It doesn't impact me at all." He leaned back, then steepled his fingers. "I believe you. More than that, I know that you believe what you say."
She forced herself not to frown, wondering what new path he was starting down.
"But?"
"But I wonder if you fully comprehend how inherently different things are down here in the basement."
She couldn't help her smile. "Trust me. I've noticed."
"We have interview rooms and secretaries, along with file sheets smeared with toner because budget cuts don't allow for the replacement of the copy machines. We have judges and juries, as well as chairs at the counsel tables that desperately need to be reupholstered. We have laws, Constantine, just like you do upstairs. But our laws date back to ancient times, before even the common memor
y of humans. And when those laws are broken, judgment is swift and punishment is brutal. On the surface, it may look the same. But that is where the similarities end."
She swallowed. "I understand," she said, even though she was quite certain that was a lie.
He reached onto his desk and buzzed Martella. "Has Lortag been brought into the theater yet?"
"They'll be leading him in any minute now."
He clicked off, then stood and gestured for Sara to do the same. "Let's take a walk."
She didn't ask why. He clearly had a point to make, and he'd tell her his purpose in his own time.
They wound through the halls of Division 6, finally reaching an elevator bank that took them even further into the bowels of the building, all the way to sublevel twenty. The doors opened on a concrete tunnel, much like a highway underpass. No signs 50
announced the floor's purpose, and Sara was struck by the thought that if you had to ask, you didn't belong there.
"Come," Bosch said, and with that single word led her out of the elevator and into the tunnel. He stepped onto a moving walkway, and she followed, the black rubber path leading them through the lengthy tunnel and toward a dim yellow light at the far end, its color and strength as out of place as sunshine in the subterranean environment. As they drew closer, Sara began to hear the thrum of voices, of dozens, possibly hundreds, of people talking among themselves.
She licked her lips, a sense of dread settling over her without warning. For the first time, she saw a sign, mounted to the ceiling and hanging above their path: Authorized Personnel Only. "The public entrance is on the other side of the theater," Bosch said. "As you can hear, we have a full house today."
"For what?" she asked as they stepped out of the tunnel and into the light. But even as the question left her mouth she knew she needn't have asked it. The creatures in the stands had come to watch a show. And today's episode was an execution. 51
Chapter 8
The room reminded Sara of a movie theater, with stadium seating that looked out onto a large screen. The only difference was the large open space between the first row of seats and the high white wall.
A raised wooden platform dominated that space, and as Sara looked, she saw an unusual contraption with tall posts seeming to extend upward from a mobile base. It wasn't until Bosch had led her farther to the left, though, that she was able to get a clear view-- a guillotine.
She stumbled, her blood suddenly cold. "Sir, is that ...?"
"It is."
She swallowed, keeping her mouth shut and breathing in deep through her nose and trying not to imagine a neck being placed on the curve of wood, the blade falling, and- Oh, God.
She told herself to relax. After all, she'd witnessed executions before--her first only eight months after she'd graduated from law school. The setting, however, had been significantly less theatrical. And there'd been no lopping off of heads. The witnesses also had been behind glass, and other than the families of the defendant and the victims, the witnesses were for the most part officers of the court. Here, though, the crowd seemed to have been pulled from the street, and now they talked among themselves, their chatter filling the room with an expectant buzz. Bosch led her to a cordoned-off section and chose two seats next to a giant of a man with ruddy cheeks, a bulbous nose, and inquisitive eyes, which he promptly aimed at Sara.
"Sara Constantine, Chance McPhee."
Chance held out a beefy hand at least ten times larger than Sara's own. "Come to watch me gloat, have ye?" he asked, his voice accented with a soft burr. "Hard fought, this one, but that just makes the victory all the sweeter."
"I'm not familiar with the case," Sara admitted.
"Sara's new to the team," Bosch explained. "She'll be my second on the Dragos matter."
Chance's eyes widened. "That a fact? You need anything, lass, you let me know."
"Thanks. I'll be sure to take you up on that."
"Not this weekend, though," he added with a wide grin. He hooked a thumb toward Bosch. "Don't tell the boss, but I figure I earned myself a few days away from the office. Going back home, I am. Get a little R and R. I'm the current title holder for the two-ton boulder toss, and my wife'll have me head if I don't win the trophy again this year."
"Where's home?" Sara asked, figuring that was safer than inquiring about boulder tosses.
"Scotland," Chance said.
52
"Chance is a mountain troll," Bosch added.
"Oh." And since she didn't know what else to say to that, she shifted back to look at the guillotine. "So what did the prisoner do?"
"Turned two humans," Chance said. "A female and her wee lass. Couldn't control the daemon, he says. But that's no excuse. Not under the Covenant. Not once he's been through the Holding."
"A blood ritual," Bosch explained. "It calls forth a spirit--a Numen--for strength and assistance in battling the daemon that's released during a vampire's transition."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"You've undoubtedly heard from your human stories that vampires are soulless, evil creatures?"
"Right."
"In fact, their soul does not depart with the transition, but it is subjugated to the power of the daemon that rises when they are made a vampire."
"They're possessed?"
He shook his head. "No, the daemon comes from within. You can think of it as the dark side of the soul. The change frees it, and the daemon seeks to grow, to feed. To become. It wants power, and it feeds on pain. That is why each newly made vampire must undergo the Holding."
"The blood ritual," Sara said, trying to keep it all straight in her head.
"Correct. Through the ritual a vampire is able to suppress the daemon. To wrest control away and restore the prominence of his soul."
"So the daemon completely disappears?"
"Once released, it will never completely be gone. But most vampires can adequately suppress it and are not tormented by the daemon's influence and live almost ordinary lives. Many are bartenders in local clubs. Some night DJs. They blend in. They survive, and even thrive."
"You said most?"
"Some do not prevail at the Holding," Bosch said.
"Those are the rogues," Chance added. "The PEC's got teams that hunt down and kill rogues. Nasty business."
"Is Dragos a rogue?" She had to know, had to understand the man as well as the vampire. "Is that why he killed?"
"Why do humans kill?" Chance asked. "Not every murder can be blamed on the daemon."
Sara licked her lips. "Of course not."
"Dragos is not a rogue," Bosch said. "But I fear that the Holding was not entirely successful with him."
"I don't understand."
"His daemon is exceptionally strong. It seeks release even now, and Lucius Dragos must constantly struggle to keep the daemon at bay."
"But--" She started to ask what exactly that meant, but her questions were cut off by the sudden roar of the crowd. Sara searched for the reason behind the change in the spectators' demeanor. She found it quickly enough--a door had opened in what she thought of as the movie screen, and a woman walked in, her head bowed, carrying a large, square object. She climbed the stairs to the platform, then set the item on an easel 53
that had already been erected in front of a wooden table that Sara hadn't noticed earlier, having been far too interested in the guillotine.
The square was draped in black cloth, and now the woman pulled off the cloth to reveal a portrait of a young girl, about four or five years old. The crowd fell into a respectful silence as the woman stood tall and proud at the front of the theater. "Let us remember Melinda Toureau," she said. "She sleeps now with the angels."
"Melinda," the crowd repeated.
The woman bowed her head, then stepped backward until she was almost pressed against the screen. Once she was still, the door opened again, and this time two men entered. One, the prisoner, wore a black shirt and loose black pants. His hands were crossed behind his back and bound
by metal cuffs. His feet were similarly bound, the chain between the two cuffs sufficient only to allow him to walk in a shuffle. Beside him, the second man was also dressed in black. His outfit, however, was fashioned from leather. And unlike the prisoner, whose proud face looked out at the crowd with absolutely no remorse, the executioner stood anonymous, the black leather hood covering his entire face with the exception of two narrow slits for his eyes. The executioner tugged at a chain attached to a collar around the defendant's neck, and the prisoner followed him up the rickety wooden stairs to the middle of the platform. The crowd began to whisper and shuffle, and Sara realized her own fingernails were cutting into her palms and made an effort to relax.
"Lortag Trevarian!" boomed the executioner's voice. "You have been convicted of two counts of a Class Five felony in violation of the Fifth International Covenant and sentenced to public execution by head or by heart. I ask the prosecutor, is this so?" Beside Sara, Chance rose. "The conviction holds," he bellowed. "The punishment just and good."
As Chance returned to his seat, the executioner turned to Lortag. "Have you any final words?"
The prisoner stood stock-still, his face a mass of fury.
"So be it." The executioner turned his back to the crowd and faced the woman, who now raised a tear-streaked face to meet him. "Evangeline Toureau. Would you avenge the death of your child? Or would you watch the same?"
"I will avenge her," she said, her voice weak but steady.
"What say you, then? Death by stake or by blade?"
"By stake," Evangeline said, her chin lifting. "I would take his life with my own hands."
"So be it," the executioner said as a hush settled over the room. Evangeline followed the executioner to the table near her daughter's portrait. She hesitated only an instant, then turned to the table and chose both a wooden stake and an iron mallet. Then she stood aside as the executioner approached the prisoner and shackled him tightly to a wooden pillar.
"He is yours," the executioner said.