by A. J. Aalto
“Were you there?”
I hadn't been, but I'd met him once, in Portland, when his DaySitter Kathy worked 2nd Floor. I didn't think I wanted to share that with Kill-Notch Batten, so I told him instead, “Immortals don't talk of suicide by daylight. They say, ‘he cast no shadow that morning.’ Harry told me that, the evening after Antony's death.”
He looked away from me. When he spoke, his voice was thick. “Vamps all do this lich-form thing?”
“There's a healthy option: wraith-state, a big feed followed by a long sleep, like a hibernating bear. Their casket is absolutely necessary for this kind of rest, and soil from their rebirthing, the place they were turned. Harry would choose that option, if he felt it necessary to deny himself for a long period, he'd never risk going lich. Besides, Harry clings to long-forgotten tenets. He's an Olympic-grade clinger.”
“Are there many other vampire etiquette rules?”
“How do you not know this? Of course revenants have rules.” I wiggled my fingers towards the water pitcher with a request in my eyes. He obliged, refilling my cup. “Even packs of pink-assed baboons have rules among the members of the troop.”
“Who sets these laws?”
“If I remember high school biology correctly, the baboon with the biggest, pinkest ass.”
He sighed impatiently. I grinned around my straw, sucked frigid water. “The upper echelon. Immortal hierarchy. They have a royal family. You knew that.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay fine, play stupid. Very convincing, by the way. There's the father of the revenant race, the Overlord.”
“He got a name?”
“Yeah, but it's creepy and I don't think it's a good idea to say it while I have open wounds.”
Batten's left eyebrow danced upward as it was prone to do. “What kind of sense does that make?”
“Superstitious nonsensical sense,” I agreed with a shrug. “Everyone's allowed to have shit they won't do because it gives them the willies. Like you and spiders. You pound wood through revenant chest cavities without blinking, but you panic and drop your Fries Supreme in your lap when an itty bitty dangles in front of your face? Seriously, what's the dealio?”
“The Overlord, Baranuik?” Batten urged, putting his elbow on the arm of the chair and resting his chin in his palm. I couldn't not smile at the regret I saw in his face. He'd inadvertently shown me a moment of abject terror, sandwiched between all his macho posturing and genuine badass heroics. In his horror-struck moment, I had quietly reached across the front seat of the unmarked car and pinched the spider between thumb and forefinger, flicking the smudge of remains into a Kleenex, rolling my eyes while he struggled to regain composure. “The Overlord rules from where?”
I side-stepped. “The Overlord leaves the ruling to a king, the First Turned, who also has a name I don't like to say out loud. And then there are those whom the king made first, the four princes.”
He rocketed forward to the edge of his seat. “Just four? Are you sure?”
“So Harry says,” I said cautiously, not liking his sudden eager lean.
“Males, all?”
I frowned in thought. “Harry's never mentioned any females, so I guess so. I'm not sure Harry was even supposed to tell me that much, but sometimes I drink absinthe before feeding him to get him drunk off his ass and probe him for secrets.”
“A whole royal society of the undead, hunh?” he prodded.
“None you'd wanna meet. Creatures so old, they predate human history.”
“How's that possible?” His face had been tuned to dig for dirt, and I expected more vamp-bashing was on the back of his tongue waiting for a change to spring out.
I debated telling him. He always seemed to maintain a detachment from reality. In the face of a demon, I had no doubt that Mark Batten could maintain that he didn't believe in demons. I'm sure when he blew the heads off werewolves with silver bullets, he was sure there were no such things.
So why not tell him that the original revenant, the progenitor of undeath, was a fallen angel who had flanked Satan in the War in Heaven before the Dark Mother rose beside God, her Consort, and backhanded a third of the angelic host from heaven?
Because I didn't need Kill-Notch Batten armed with the knowledge that the ancestral source of Harry's power, passed down blood-to-blood, was actually a demonic, soul-devouring school chum of the devil, that's why. My Wiccan power was blessed and light, but Harry's immortality was hell-wrought; though he avoided using it for evil, it was miles from petunias and puppy tails. Sounded like an opportunity for a messy spiritual debate with a man I would peg as an atheist anyway. How could Batten listen to the truth about immortals, without considering then the possibility of things he'd always shunned? He barely bought the whole Blue Sense/psychic power thing, and I hadn't yet been able to impress him with it, since I couldn't read him at all. He certainly thought my witchcraft was irrational baloney. Now he wanted the history of the primeval powers without me going into the mystical? Impossible.
Batten rubbed his face, looking as tired as I felt. “So who's this Overlord?”
The Overlord's true demon name sprang to the tip of my tongue then; it stung like hot cinnamon candies on Valentine's Day, sweet and excruciating, the kind that make your spit into lava and blister the inside of your cheeks. It niggled the front of my skull, writhed like a maggot preparing to molt. I crammed my eyes shut.
Dear heavens, is He listening? I saw the word forming on the insides of my eyelids, lighting up like a sparkler scrawling in near darkness, capital A, capital S…I forced my mind onto something neutral: macaroni and cheese. There. Thoughts of comfort carbs, the ultimate demon-be-gone.
“Can we talk about it another time, please? These painkillers are making me seriously loopy.”
“Sure. We'll have plenty of time.”
I didn't have time to ask what the hell he meant by that. Harry swept into the room; the sight of my Star Trek thermos in his hand cheered me up; the night was finally looking up.
ELEVEN
Harry was smiling, showing lots of white teeth, no fang. Batten averted his eyes as he always did; I think he was afraid that if he saw fangs he'd have no choice but to face that, no matter how many revenants he'd dusted, he was intimidated by this one. I'm not sure he could live with that. Or maybe he sensed Harry might try to mindfuck him with his unearthly gaze; Batten should know I wouldn't allow that. Not in public, anyway.
As though egged-on by Batten's discomfort, Harry's aura did a cold boil, a visible phenomenon. More than just his otherworldly presence filled the room. As always I could smell menthol cigarettes under his light, clean-smelling 4711 cologne. As he approached the bed with impossible refinement, I knew he was showing off. Harry didn't have to move like that. It was a conscious choice and he was making a point: here comes power infernal and immortal. How could any human compare?
Harry was dressed like he'd been back on his Kawasaki so I guessed it wasn't impounded. Big motorcycle boots, this time the leather as shiny and clean as the buckles. I wondered how long he'd been in the lobby shining the street salt off of them. His mid-length over coat flapped open to reveal black Levis hugging lean powerful legs. Black leather biking gloves looked so startlingly like part of a murderer's kill kit on his death-pale hands that I could all but feel them squeezing my throat. A grey cashmere scarf snaked several times around his neck reflected the battleship grey of his eyes. I wondered where his helmet was. Undead or not, you crack your skull open and sandpaper the road with brain tissue, story time's over.
“Agent Batten. Bon nuit, trou du cul,” Harry greeted, mock-tipping an invisible hat. I couldn't be sure, as my French is not good, but I thought Harry called Batten an asshole. He turned and performed a low, sweeping bow at the bed. “How does my lady?”
“I does spiffy, and you?”
“Apart from being heartily distressed by your atrocious grammar, I do very well indeed. As visiting hours have long flown, I cannot stay long. ‘Tis pure luck
that the nurse let me in at all.”
Luck, my ass. It was more likely terror; it wasn't like Harry was putting any effort into blending in. The poor nurse was probably twisting security's arms to come flush him back out. I wondered if there had ever been a revenant in this hospital before. Or any hospital in Colorado for that matter. Revenant emergencies don't require human doctors.
Harry handed me the thermos, and palmed two round white vitamins into my hand. “Doppio espresso macchiato, dash of cinnamon.”
“And suddenly, life is fabulous.”
“Because of me, or because of the caffeine?” He knew exactly how relieved I was to see that he was one hundred percent intact and healthy.
I humored him anyway, downing my pills then beaming up at him. Having his answer, he put his hand inside his coat and pulled out a jubilant bouquet of tulips in a rainbow of petal pink, spring yellow and the vivid orange of tangerine peels.
“Tulips in January?” I exclaimed.
He laid them beside the bed. “For my beloved pet, most anything is possible. Surely fetching her favorite flower is no great task. Am I…interrupting?” Harry aimed the bristly indictment in Batten's direction.
“Whether you're here or not makes no difference to me, vamp.” Batten propped his elbows on the chair's arms and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth.
“After some examination of the evidence, I should think you'll discover how little I care about your existence as well, young man.”
“Funny,” Batten said with a calm smile. “Got the impression you're threatened by me.”
Harry threw back his head and laughed with gusto. The sound of it rose goose bumps and then rubbed them with velvet. Despite the smiling and laughing, the moment was anything but friendly.
Baboons, I observed. One with a big gun and the other with a big mouth, and both with alpha-sized, flaming pink asses.
“Is there anything left of the cabin, Harry?” I interjected, disconcerted nerves jangling: they were as much Harry's as mine. “Was she there?”
“Our home is perfectly well and good,” he replied. “Unfortunately, fifteen officers of the law trod all over before I could tell if anyone else had been there but for the two of us and your morning visitors.” He aimed another brief accusatory glance at Batten.
“What about inside?” I asked.
“Agent Chapel was the only one brave enough to venture within. He's there now, and shall stay until we are ready to take you home.”
I struggled to sit straighter. A nagging, dull pain was starting in my lower back, right hand side. “He's an FBI agent, not a house sitter. He can't be watching soap operas and watering the orchids.”
Harry put a hand up. “Agent Chapel assures me that you are his top priority at this point in time.”
“That's ridiculous,” I said. “He's got better things to do.”
“Agent Chapel also said if you didn't take my word for it, you could call home,” Harry said, offering me the phone beside the bed. “And he'll tell you as much himself.”
I glared at the phone, and then at my companion. I was no longer charmed by the accent, nor the naked devotion in his eyes, nor the almost-smile on his pale lips.
Harry didn't blink in the face of my glare. “Lay your fair head down. You are not going anywhere until the doctor allows, ducky.”
“Quack.” I turned on Batten. “Tell Harry that you guys have a murder to solve, and it makes no sense for you to be stuck at my house.”
“We're looking at Sherlock for the murder of Kristin Davis,” Batten told me, watching my reaction closely.
I didn't know what to think of that. At first, I couldn't wrap my brain around the barest possibility. I rubbed my left temple. “You think Danika moved to Denver to stalk me, and when that didn't blow up her skirt, she beheaded a twelve-year-old girl, made it look like a revenant kill, so that you'd call GD&C, who would then call her, and she could show up and… what?”
“Lure you to the scene?” Batten suggested. “Maybe she didn't feel confident in her ability to face you with your vampire around.”
“Revenant. And I'm retired. GD & C called her to your crime scene, not me.”
“She counted on the fact that I'd still go to you,” Batten said. “And she was right.”
Hot damn. Heat zinged through my chest and flushed my cheeks. Even though I was not supposed to be lusting after Mark.
“When you came, I sent you away,” I said, trying to imagine Sherlock's thought processes that day, her scheming. “And you peeled out like a maniac with your testicles in a knot.”
Harry coughed to cover a laugh, turning discretely to make a show of checking my vitals on the monitors.
Batten squared his shoulders at me. “She watched me leave,” he supposed.
“She guessed I'd told you no.” I got the momentary willies. Was she looking at me while I shoveled my snow and answered her call? How cringeworthy. “To take Harry, she had to break our Bond first; that meant luring me out and…” I left it hanging, trying not to get a vivid Technicolor flashback.
Inching two fingers to explore the lower back wound out of morbid curiosity was a dumb idea. It throbbed continuously and I wondered how long it would be until I could have more meds. “I touched the knife and got a clear impression.”
“That knife is evidence,” Batten groaned. “It's been bagged and tagged, it's going to have your fingerprints all over it.”
My stitches were under a dressing, and the area seemed a lot smaller length-wise than it felt pain-wise. “My DNA and fingerprints were already smeared all over it. I had to Grope it. Her feelings had re-focused towards Harry: want, need, loneliness, mixed with the belief that she could now take my place. Harry, I need my notebooks. I need to write this down.”
Harry said so quietly I almost didn't hear, “Oh, ducky, whatever for?” He touched the back of my hand with his cool fingertips.
I recalled, “She really did think you were hers, Batten, that I'd stolen you away. And she thought she deserved to have Harry, that I deserved to lose him, that it was fair turnabout. Someone else told her that, someone she trusted. Mixed in all that were confused feelings about her revenant companion, George, missing him, needing him, jealousy. I didn't really get the connection. But her plan was destined to fail. Once Harry knew what she'd done to clear the plate for herself…”
“I'd have torn her in half stem to stern and had her guts for garters,” Harry agreed. “But you didn't hear that, Agent.”
“You think it surprises me?” Batten murmured, but his thoughts were elsewhere, his gaze past the window glass and into the distant night. “You talk of rules and law. You think I don't know you could kill at the drop of a hat?”
“For my DaySitter,” Harry said, staring a hole in Batten's back, and the edge in his voice tingled all along my right arm, where he hovered. “I'd kill for MJ. You really ought not judge me too harshly, lad, for I suspect you'd do the same.”
“And before DaySitters? How many innocent people did you drain dry in those years? A thousand? Ten thousand?”
“This is not the time,” I warned. “I'm trying to connect the dots and you're pointing fingers in each other's faces like a couple of drunk knuckleheads at a bar.”
“There is no doubt in my DaySitter's mind that you have killed more than I, Agent Batten.” Harry dropped his voice, as though he regretted having to point it out. “Ask her which one of us is more a danger to her well-being.”
“Hey, baboons?” I clapped once, hard, to get their attention. “This is truly fascinating in a Discovery Channel sort of way, but I'm switching off now. It's… well, they took my watch, but it's gotta be after midnight. Get out.”
“‘Tis only ten o'clock, love, but surely you must be exhausted after surgery.” Harry motioned to the door at Batten. “I'll have a few minutes alone with my DaySitter now, if you don't mind.”
It was a dismissal. I'd love to say that Harry wasn't doing the big dog thing, marking his territory, but he wasn'
t even trying to be subtle about it. The effect was immediate; I didn't need any psychic powers to read the stiff, hot irritation flashing from across the room.
“I'll be with Chapel at your place, Baranuik.”
Ah, back to Baranuik, just one of the guys. Punishment for Harry's lordly manner, I guessed. I nodded at him mock-formally.
“Very well, Special Agent Batten, sir,” I said crisply, adding a salute. If he got it, he didn't indicate, and like always I couldn't feel anything from his side of the room. “Tell Chapel I'll be home tomorrow.” Both men started to object, Batten with an exasperated exhale, Harry with a ruffled-feather squawk. I cut them off. “I'm not staying here a minute longer than I have to. It's not safe for either of us. Tomorrow, I sign papers and ditch this dump.”
Their voices in unison became a cacophony of objections, all more than a little insulting yet admittedly valid. I closed my eyes and settled back into my pillows so I could ignore it. I yawned, long and loud behind my hand to make my point. Batten stalked out without another word.
When I cracked an eyelid, Harry was pondering my forehead. My favorite pink calfskin gloves lay limp across his palms, stained but newly stitched where Danika's knife had flayed the palm.
“Harry, these are probably evidence. You took these from the crime scene.”
“Perhaps I ought not to have done, only I thought you might want them.”
“You sewed them?” I touched them tentatively, brushing just my fingertips across the leather, waiting for an inevitable influx of residual rage, horror, pain. It didn't come. I examined the tiny, tight stitches. “You can sew?”
Harry sniffed with insult. “Don't be absurd, of course I can. I spent two world wars as a field medic with the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1937…”
Crap. I'd forgotten, and now he was building steam towards his Victoria Cross lecture. I cut him off. “Right! Faithful in Adversity. The Linseed Lancers. I remember.”