by John Conroe
Tanya said hello, flashing white teeth but no fang, and I took a second to glance at Nika. Her fingers signed quickly through a series of very fast movements. Team sign language. At vampire speed, she pointed to Castille, the fat man, the woman, and the lean guy. She couldn’t read Castille or the lean guy. She could read the girl and the heavy dude.
“Ah, my associate and attorney, Lyle Fierro, my assistant, Sue Olley, and our head of security, John Cuttle,” Castille introduced once he had regained his composure.
“You’ve already met Darion and Nika, so why don’t we all have a seat,” Tanya said, waving a hand toward the chairs, coffee table, and single loveseat. “Can we get you anything to drink?”
Castille almost jerked at her question, his face flashing through microexpressions of fear and disgust . “No, no, we’re all quite fine,” he answered for all of them.
Tanya and I took the loveseat, the others settling into armchairs. Castille sat on the edge of his, and Cuttle looked poised to move.
“So, Reverend, what can we do for you?” Tanya asked.
He frowned, then gave her a sad smile. “Just so that we don’t create any misconceptions, the leadership of the Church of the True have not changed our position on your kind,” he said, the word kind somehow conveying the connotation of something nasty.
“So why are we meeting?” I asked.
“Because the Church demands that you cease destroying the lives of God’s children with your medical experiments,” Lyle Fierro said.
Tanya and I looked at each other, confused. “Destroying lives? Those people who’ve entered the medical trials have all responded well. In fact, the cure rate is astronomical.”
“So it would seem. But we aren’t speaking of the unfortunate citizens of the countries that are hosting your… projects. We are concerned for those US citizens that have been misguided into traveling to foreign lands to receive corruption of their souls,” Castille said, eyes alight with conviction.
“Wait, those Angel Flight kids that have been cured of brain cancer, leukemia, and a half dozen other deseases? Those are the people we have supposedly corrupted? By curing? What kind of god does your church pray to, Reverend?”
“The one you have turned your back on by falling in with these… these false beings,” Castille shot back at me.
Darion held up his hands in a time out gesture.
“Reverend, you admit these children have been cured, yet you claim corruption. What do you base that accusation on?”
“The children appear to be cured, counselor—appear being the key word. Yet most of them have since fallen ill and several have died, with the prognosis for the others being very poor,” Castille said.
“What? Died? What children?” Tanya demanded, coming forward on her seat next to me. John Cuttle tensed at her movement, his eyes watching her like he might a poisonous snake.
Sue Olley leaned over and handed the reverend her tablet, which he promptly turned around. It was opened to news website and the title was Miracle Kid Dies Suddenly. The date was today’s and the child was one of the first to be cured, a beautiful five-year-old girl from Dallas, Texas who had inoperable brain cancer.
“There have been others,” Castille said, swiping the screen with his finger and flicking to another story of a cured boy suddenly on death’s door. The glimpses of both articles had implied a connection to the Demidova drug trials.
Darion reached for the tablet and Castille let him take it.
“So, while your abominable formulas might appear to work, they are corrupting the very bodies and souls of these precious young people,” the reverend said.
Darion looked up from the tablet. “Two other kids are listed in here, but they were both in accidents. What does that have to do with the cure?”
“Don’t you see? No, of course you don’t, since you’ve thrown your immortal soul away to be in their presence,” Castille said with a pitying smile. “It was our Lord’s will that these children were sick in the first place, and when you contaminated their young, pure bodies with your evil mixtures, he called them back to him anyway.”
“There is no proof connecting these deaths to our treatments. The articles even say they died of unrelated illnesses,” Darion said.
“Yet they died. As will, I am certain, any other victims of your vile practices,” Castille said. Suddenly, it was clear. At least to me and, by the taut vibration of tension in my vampire and the thrum of rage in our bond link, it was clear to her as well.
“Are you threatening the patients?” Darion asked.
“Of course not! Don’t be accusing my client of impropriety when it’s your actions that have led to this,” Fierro said, wresting his bulk forward to sit upright.
“The Church of the True demands you cease these abominations you call trials immediately or we will be forced to show the world what you have done,” Castille said.
Grim poked me from inside his cave in my mind. I opened my Sight, noting their auras. The fat man and the girl were the normal blue of standard human. Castille’s was much, much darker—still blue, but a navy so deep, it was almost black. Cuttle’s was dark as well, with a sheen of real black over it. Both men’s auras were twisted on separate parts of their bodies. Castille’s was twisted all around by his left arm, right by the bible he carried. Cuttle’s was twisted on his chest, about where a necklace or amulet would be under his shirt.
“I think we’re done here,” Tanya said, standing up abruptly. It was so fast that, to the humans, it must have appeared to be instant. Instead of following her lead, I pulled my phone and sent two quick texts, typing at vampire speed. Then I too stood, mere moments after Tanya, simultaneously dropping my mental shields to think specific thoughts to Nika, who nodded, stood, and moved to the door.
“Security will see you out,” I said as Nika opened the door to admit Deckert and two of his men.
As fast as they arrived, they left, but Castille paused, turning at the door. “You’ve done God’s work in front of the world, yet you side with them. It must break His heart,” were his parting words to me. I just closed the door in his face. Nika had slipped out as Deckert came in.
“They killed them!” Tanya said. “And they’ll kill more as well. Those children, those beautiful little children.”
She was so far past pissed, it wasn’t even visible in her rearview mirror. She raged internally at the deaths of the kids and my bond told me she was shaken, enraged, deadly determined, and did I mention enraged?
“We have no proof,” Darion said. “But it seemed to be implied, although not in any way that would ever work in our favor.”
“Nika couldn’t read Castille or Cuttle,” I said, moving to Tanya’s desk and touching the control that raised the big screen monitor on the wall of the room. “I could see that each of them had an object of power, something that likely blocked her attempts at reading them,” I said, touching a few more controls.
On the screen, three windows opened, each a different camera viewpoint of the building’s lobby. In one window, the elevator doors opened and the church group came out. Another window showed the guard and reception desk and visitor seating area. A lean young man sat in one of the chairs, looking at his phone, an enormous wolf sitting next to him.
The third view showed the church party passing the young man and wolf as they headed for the door, every member of the party turning to look at the wolf, who chose that moment to stand, stretch, and trot past them to the guard desk. As one, Castille and his group stopped and watched warily as the massive beast moved across their path and started nosing under the desk, where a guard quickly pulled out a massive canine chew toy. The emissaries of the Church of the True completely missed the young man standing and walking behind them, hands in his pockets, appearing nonchalant.
Personally, I think he was overacting a bit, but they didn’t notice him anyway, instead resuming their passage out of the building as quickly as possible.
The kid turned and gave our camera
a thumbs up, a wink, and a grin before turning and walking to the elevators, the wolf catching up before he could push the up button, giant chew toy looking almost delicate in massive jaws.
A minute later, there was a knock on the door. It opened before we could even say ‘Come in.’ Declan and Awasos strolled through, both looking pleased with themselves. ‘Sos dropped to the floor to give the toy proper attention.
“I texted Declan and asked him to observe the reverend and company,” I explained.
“The snake oil salesman and the mercenary guy were both carrying objects of power, as you thought. Dark objects. I don’t know what kind of bible that was, but it wasn’t the King James version, that’s for sure. Sorrow didn’t much care for it, either. The other guy had some kind of amulet,” he said.
“Can you describe it?” Tanya asked, our bond telling me she was very happy with my quick thinking.
“Better. I can show it to you,” our resident kid wonder said, pulling his hand from his pocket. “Sorrow showed me a way to snatch it right out of the guy’s shirt. Almost a teleport thing, but not quite.”
“You took it?” I said, simultaneously appalled and pleased by his audacity.
“Your text said it blocked Nika. I saw her stroll by me, so I thought if I could get at least one of them, she might get something. Couldn’t touch the bible—it’s really strong. And I think maybe demonic,” Declan said.
I thought back to my own impression of the bible and realized that it did have the greasy, queasy feel of something touched by demons. The amulet in the kid’s hand was dark too, but not as bad.
It was a roundish, flat, dull gray metal disc carved with the likeness of a one-legged, one-armed, half man. Flowing Arabic script lined the edges and just under the figure, the disc bulged out like a lump was buried under the metal.
“You stole from one of our visitors?” Darion asked, his tone lawyerly.
Declan turned and tossed him the amulet, which he automatically caught… and immediately dropped, shaking his hand and wiping it on his expensive suit.
“What the fuck?” he said, looking up.
“Nasty, huh?” Declan asked with a grin, bending over to pick it up.
“Nasty? That’s vile,” Darion said.
“And you object to my removing it from that soldier guy?” Declan asked, still grinning.
Darion started to sputter, but I spoke before he could get to words. “Why do you keep calling Cuttle a soldier?”
“Huh?” Declan asked.
“You called him a mercenary and just now a soldier,” Tanya pointed out without looking up from her tablet, where she was typing away.
“Oh,” he said, scratching his head. “He looks like a soldier, or an ex-soldier. Like my friend Levi and virtually all the security guys at Arcane. Something about the way he moves or looks around. Even his haircut. Speaking of Levi, could I send a photo of this thing to him? Bet he’d know something about it.”
“No!” Darion said, immediately looking slightly abashed at how forceful he’d said it. “No electronic trails of stolen items, please.”
“I found it on the floor, Counselor,” Declan suggested. “Needed help figuring out what it was.”
“No, we don’t,” Tanya said, looking up in triumph from her tablet. “The figure on it is a nasnas. A half-human, half-demon of sorts from Arab folklore. I can read most of the words around the edges. This word here is Ahriman, which is a name, I think. The words translate something like Here holds the essence of Ahriman, most powerful, bane of light.”
“Essence? Like there’s a piece of something inside it?” Declan asked, holding the amulet up to his eye to study it.
“How can you touch that thing?” Darion asked, looking a bit disgusted.
“There’s only room in me for one big nasty at a time and Sorrow would eat this thing for breakfast,” Declan said without looking away from the amulet. “It’s pitted a bit here at the top of the bulge. Look, a tiny little opening. Bet you could get a sample out of it.”
“Let’s not and say we did. In fact, let’s find a way to contain it,” I said.
“Easy,” Declan said. He set the amulet down on the coffee table and went into his messenger bag, pulling out an Altoids tin and a torn silk scarf.
The Altoids weren’t all gone, so he popped two in his mouth. Immediately, Darion stuck out a hand and the kid dropped two in his palm. Tanya and I copied Darion, and she got two and I got one plus a small pile of white peppermint powder. Declan grinned at me and shrugged. “She beats me up harder than you,” he said by way of explaining the uneven distribution. I ate the mint and dumped the powder as we watched him tie the amulet into a square he cut from the scarf with his pocketknife.
“You always carry ladies scarves with you?” Darion asked.
“What can I say… they’re always leaving them in my crib,” Declan said with a straight face as he pulled a Sharpie and started putting runes on the inside of the tin.
“Yeah, like you got game?” Darion asked, incredulous.
Declan met his gaze levelly for a few seconds, then grinned. “Okay, so maybe I buy a few in consignment shops to have a cheap source of silk on hand for just this kind of emergency. Silk is a natural insulator of supernatural energy.”
Next, our resident warlock pulled out a little restaurant-sized packet of salt and tore it open, pouring some in the bottom of the tin. He put the little bundle of silk into the tin and poured the rest of the salt on top. Then he closed the tin and tied it shut with another strip of silk.
“That should hold it,” he said.
I looked it over with my Sight. The lines of light were a little fuzzy around it, but none of the blackness was visible. Not bad.
“So the stolen art is now concealed. What next?” Darion asked.
Another knock came at the door and Nika slipped in without waiting for an invite.
She looked first at me and then to Tanya, giving a single sharp nod.
“He did it?” I asked.
“In two cases, yes. In the others, he ordered it done. He has an associate who specializes in hits using medical means like drugs or diseases,” Nika said.
“He’s dead,” Tanya pronounced.
“Hold up there!” Darion said, looking alarmed. Tanya looked determined, unfazed by his objection.
“Actually, Darion’s right,” I said. Her expression changed into a frown.
“The Church of the True is seeking to discredit us. Cured children dying of medical complications will instantly turn the world against us. We’ll be tried and judged in a heartbeat. If the head of their security suddenly dies right after confronting us, the finger of blame will be pointed in our direction, further sealing public opinion against us,” I said. “We need to get the evidence to show that Cuttle killed and ordered children killed at the request of the Church of the True.”
Darion was nodding in agreement even as I mentally sent my mate an image of Cuttle dying immediately after his guilt became public. Despite Darion’s attempts to rein in her vampire instincts, I knew nothing would appease her in this case but his death. She had met every one of those healed children face to face and this was scary personal to her. In fact, she had been warming to children a great deal over the last few months, so to have these that she felt responsible for murdered tripped every predatory switch she had.
“So what’s our plan?” Declan asked.
“Nika, did you get anything that will help?” I asked.
“He covered his tracks very well… at least, he thinks he did. He was gloating over it as they walked out. But I wonder if the electronic traces he left aren’t discoverable to a person of unmatched computer skill?” she suggested, deliberately looking at everyone except Declan.
“That sounds like Simon—just ask him,” Declan said. Nika crossed her arms and gave him an exasperated look. “Okay, okay, stop… you’re embarrassing me,” he deadpanned.
“That Aussie girl is right—you are an arsey one,” Nika said.
> “Enough. Kids died. Let’s bury this guy,” Tanya said, instantly sobering up the brief levity. “Nika and Declan, work on digging up those traces. Chris, my zayka, do you think your private intelligence guy would want a job digging into this medical hitman?”
“You know, as long as it doesn’t involve Anvil, I think he’d be game for most anything,” I said.
“Darion, I want you to look into the Church of the True’s legal structure, documented history, and Castille’s background. Let’s find some dirt to bury them under,” she said.
Darion nodded although he gave her a questioning look. One of Darion’s invaluable talents was judging people. I didn’t think he was fooled by her seeming acceptance of my less bloody idea.