"You are doubly fortunate that Karzac wished to repay Lissa in some way by healing those six you infected with vampire blood and ash," Griffin said. "The one who did the research will not fare as well as you have out of this."
"How do you know this?" Tony demanded. "Larry was fine the last I saw of him."
"Don't question Griffin, he knows what he's talking about," Merrill snapped.
"Lissa, I have also come to give you other information," Griffin said. "While I am your father and will protect you as well as I can, I have not been given permission to interfere with any of Saxom's turns or their turns. This seems to be your mission, along with Merrill and the others, here."
"I also will not interfere unless there is no other way; this is a matter for the worlds of light to deal with," Kifirin added.
I looked from one to the other. "Well, then," I said. "I think it's just about time somebody told me who Saxom was."
Griffin looked at Merrill and then Merrill glanced at Wlodek. Wlodek sighed over my head and settled me between Griffin and himself. Griffin placed an arm around me. I blinked up at him, still a bit dazed. I had a father. A real one. No idea how that was going to affect anything, though.
"We must start at the beginning," Griffin said, squeezing me in an effort to comfort. "Saxom was from Orpali, a world far from this one. There, his name was Saxom Melitu, which he later changed to Meletius. It fit the language here; the other name did not."
"He truly came from another world?" René asked.
"Yes. He was chosen as a healer for one of the Saa Thalarr," Griffin nodded. "Lisster served more than thirty thousand years before requesting retirement. Saxom did not wish to go into retirement with him. He asked to stay with the Saa Thalarr in his healer capacity. This request was granted." Merrill stirred uncomfortably at Griffin's explanation. "Kiarra was chosen as Lisster's replacement and she inherited Saxom as her healer. They did not get along very well and as First at the time, I was not paying attention to this. I imagined that things would probably work out—that the two of them only needed to become used to each other. I was wrong. Saxom developed an unhealthy obsession with Kiarra and I failed to see it. He asked her to mate with him and she refused. Her refusal sent him down a dark path. He went looking for the Ra'Ak in order to get what he wanted."
"He was a healer for the Saa Thalarr?" that was alarming news. This sounded like their fuck-up, and now all of us were paying the price.
"You may well be correct, sweetheart," Griffin smiled sadly after reading my thoughts. "We all ignored Saxom. He was only a healer, after all. We had other things on our minds and I never bothered to delve into the matter. Saxom made a deal with the Ra'Ak and three were sent for Kiarra, after Saxom promised to deliver her to them. Of course, he intended to get what he wanted from this, somehow." Griffin sighed, his eyes a bit unfocused at the memory.
"Kiarra managed to kill those that came for her—they never intended her or Saxom to survive. The Powers That Be punished Saxom afterward, but did not require his life—they did this because of the many years of service he'd provided the Saa Thalarr. Instead, they removed his immortality and set him upon the Earth to live out a normal lifespan. Unfortunately, Saxom found a way to become immortal once again—he convinced a vampire to turn him and then made another deal with the enemy when the Ra'Ak came four years ago."
"Is that what Shirley Walker was talking about?" I asked, recalling a conversation with the Corpus Christi Packmaster. "She said something about Unicorns, or something. I saw Dragon become a Dragon. Is Kiarra a Unicorn?" I was almost holding my breath.
"Kiarra is The Unicorn," Merrill smiled at a memory. Okay, that was part of the reason he had the hots for her; I just knew it. Griffin laughed out loud.
"Is that why they call you Griffin?" I looked up at my newly discovered father, ignoring the fact that he'd just read my thoughts.
"It is why they call me Griffin," he nodded, still smiling. "I don't change much anymore—Chessman wanted the Gryphon form and I didn't argue. His is solid black; mine was brown and gold."
"You weren't one of the Elemaiya that could shapeshift?" I asked.
"I never tried," Griffin said. "I was raised by my half-Elemaiyan mother in the Queen's camp. She forced me out when I was sixteen."
"That's what Gabron said about his mother," I offered. "He said she never got over it." I realized then that as a quarter blood, my mother had been culled as an infant. I shook my head slightly to clear away those thoughts.
"They aren't kind about abandoning their children," Kifirin muttered angrily. "Perhaps they should show some sense. A day will come when they will greatly regret the laws they created regarding the dilution of the race."
"I have seen that as well," Griffin agreed. "The Ka'Mirai will not come to them as a result." Kifirin nodded and laughed humorlessly at Griffin's words.
"The Ka'Mirai?" I was curious about that word.
"A legend to the Elemaiya race," Griffin said. "One who can reverse time or events for them—the term means True Mirror. In a mirror's reflection, your left appears to be your right, and vice-versa. One day, the Elemaiya will greatly desire something to be changed, but it will be withheld because the Ka'Mirai will also be a quarter blood. I have seen it." I stared at Griffin's eyes as he made that pronouncement—the well of knowledge within was fathomless and the hazel color had gone pale. It was frightening.
"You should take one of the comesuli with you on your mission, avilepha," Kifirin said, breaking Griffin's spell. As if they'd been summoned, both Roff and Giff walked in.
"Which one of you wants to go?" I twisted around to look at them.
"Are Charles and Rolfe going?" Giff asked brightly.
"No, honey," I said. "I think they're staying here with the Honored One."
"Then I will stay, too," Giff declared. He'd already made friends with Charles and Rolfe, looked like.
"I desire to come, Raona," Roff informed me, bowing his head in my direction. He'd gotten a haircut, as had Giff—Greg and Franklin had probably seen to that when they'd taken both shopping for clothes. Roff's dark hair was now styled neatly, and a smile lit his face.
"Then I guess it's you and me, then," I said. "I think we can find a bag or two so you can pack."
It was getting late, so Franklin and Greg climbed out of the hot tub first, closely followed by the werewolves. Merrill placed compulsion on the wolves not to reveal anything they'd heard. They nodded and went toward their beds.
"Tony, is your father still alive?" I asked, leaning around Griffin to look at him. Kifirin was smiling at me when I asked.
"He is, we just don't talk much," Tony shrugged.
"You got that mindspeech from somebody that was Bright Elemaiya," I said. "I don't think it was your werewolf mother, dude."
"Holy shit," Tony muttered. "Do you think anybody else might know that?"
"I didn't tell anybody, you did," I pointed a finger at Tony. "You told Bill and Dusty and Arthur, at least." He had—he'd blithely announced to those three that his mother was werewolf.
"Larry Frazier knows, too," Tony rubbed his forehead—I could tell he regretted letting that information out. René was suddenly concerned for his newest turn.
"Him again," I snorted. "I should have just dropped him in the ocean and let him drown." That comment forced me to tell Wlodek what happened on the Arabian Sea; he was giving me the look—the one that was silently saying you haven't told me something.
"You should have seen her fight Karl Johnson's Second; that was epic," Tony was back to himself quickly.
"Like you'd know," I huffed. "You weren't there."
"I had somebody hooked up with a camera."
"You are a piece of work, you know that?" I glared at Tony, then turned to René who'd been sitting quietly by, listening to everything and not saying anything. "René, what will you do if I kick his ass?" I jerked my head toward Tony.
"Nothing, as long as you do not inflict permanent harm," René smiled slightly.
"We will not allow a brawl between our two youngest," he declared and settled me back in my seat. "Now, Anthony, where may we find your father and does he have other children?"
* * *
I'd gone to the kitchen with Griffin, after climbing out of the hot tub and shrugging into a wrap; Merrill followed us in and went to the wine fridge, pulling out a bottle of chardonnay. He uncorked it and poured three glasses. Wlodek and Charles had gone back to work in the basement and Rolfe had gone with them. René herded Tony toward Merrill's study to give him another crash course in vampire 101. Gavin had gone with them; René asked Gavin to help teach Tony how to take blood properly from a donor. Tony was about to be bitten by Gavin and I didn't know how that was going to go.
"Lissa, would you like for me to tell you why you were susceptible to compulsion for a year?" Griffin asked unexpectedly.
"Is it going to get me in trouble?" I asked, searching his face. Like Wlodek's, it could be shuttered and unrevealing at times. This wasn't one of those times.
"No, baby. Sergio Velenci placed compulsion to obey him and every other vampire for a year as your heart stopped beating. That is compulsion placed by your sire. The vampires on my home world called that PC—Preliminary Conditioning. It's an old secret, actually. It is also the ultimate compulsion—something a new vampire has to obey for the rest of his life. Your original sire did that to you, Lissa. The moment the year was up, the compulsion dropped away." Griffin paused to sip his wine, giving a nod to Merrill at the vintage.
"Sergio Velenci never expected you to live that long, of course, so he was toying with you just as he'd done with the others he'd turned," Griffin said. "This way, both he and Edward could command the ones they turned. Nyles taught them, I'm sure. Sergio wasn't intelligent enough to tell you to stay put and wait for him instead. Preliminary Conditioning must be placed quickly, in that brief moment before the change begins from human to vampire. Generally, it is only one sentence—that is all the time you have. It makes me grateful that Saxom failed to place it with Jovana, or she might have caused more trouble than she did."
I blinked at Griffin in astonishment. "You mean that if Saxom told her to kill everybody at just the right moment, she'd have carried on after he died?"
"Sadly, it is true, even with a King or Queen Vampire." Merrill lifted his usual eyebrow in alarm at Griffin's statement. "Most vampires do not know of this, and many who do refuse to attempt it. More than once, it has backfired, with disastrous results. Some vampires have been forced to destroy their vampire children, because of misplaced commands."
"Did you ever turn anyone? While you were vampire?" I stared at Griffin. I was still having trouble recognizing him as my father.
"That will come in time," he said softly. "And the answer is no. I did not turn anyone then. Someday, perhaps, I will tell you about my homeworld and what happened there. Someday. Meanwhile, Amara wishes to meet you."
"Amara?" I'd never heard that name before.
"My mate. Your stepmother. We don't feel jealousy—we can't. She isn't upset with your mother. She only wants to meet the child she could never have herself."
I was beginning to feel shaky again. "Sweetheart, she already loves you," Griffin came over and pulled me into his arms. "She just wants to hug you and tell you that you have somebody in your corner, now. Somebody that isn't male."
"Lissa, don't ever be afraid of me." Her voice was musical and she was there, standing beside Griffin when he let me go. She was beautiful, too; one of those women who would always be beautiful—one of those who made me feel as if I were clumsy and gauche beside them, with almond-shaped dark eyes and black hair that hung in a shining river down her back.
"Oh, now, have you looked in a mirror?" Amara touched my cheek lightly and smiled. She read my thoughts as easily as Griffin did.
"I don't think she has," Griffin said.
"Your hair is growing nicely; Brenten said it was," Amara reassured me.
"Brenten?" I blinked at Griffin.
"My given name," he offered a crooked grin. "Even the other Saa Thalarr don't know it."
"She's your daughter, she ought to know," Amara teased Griffin gently. Merrill came over and gave Amara a squeeze. They were old friends, I could tell. I didn’t have any old friends. Not anymore.
"A sad side effect of being vampire," Griffin nodded. "You'll have to settle for new old friends. And new old parents."
"Come to the guesthouse, we'll have wine and talk," Amara invited Merrill and me. Griffin must have moved us; we were in Griffin's guesthouse sitting room in a blink. Roff came in and sat on the sofa beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders.
"Raona, how much do you think I should pack?" he asked.
"Pack for two weeks at least; I hope we can do laundry sometime," I said. He pulled my face around and gave me a light kiss. Griffin passed out glasses of wine and Roff accepted his with a dip of his head.
"This is quite good," he said after tasting it expertly.
"How long have you been making wine?" Amara asked him.
"More than three hundred years," he said. "I am three hundred thirteen and my father began teaching me when I was ten. I was crushing berries and grapes before that, even."
"So winemaking is your family trade?" I leaned against his shoulder; he was very happy with me there.
"Yes. My family has been making wine for generations. My father always insisted that our ancestors were making it for the Queen before Le-Ath Veronis fell."
"You were on the High Demon world?" Amara asked. "How did you like that?"
Roff cleared his throat. Kifirin showed up as if he'd been called. Nexus Echo. Again.
"He will not say because I brought him from the future," Kifirin smiled, showing his beautiful, white teeth. If he were human, I'd have guessed him to be from India or ancient Persia—his skin was darker and quite beautiful. His smile widened at my thoughts and his dark eyes laughed at me. I swear, there's nothing on him that isn't gorgeous and when he smiles, he can create widespread swooning.
"My life for the past forty years has been good," Roff declared, breaking Kifirin's spell.
"Yes, it has," Kifirin acknowledged. "Before that, things were not so good. They call the comesuli common demons on my planet," Kifirin explained. "Many of the High Demons became corrupt and they mistreated the comesuli, though the comesuli tended the crops and herds and made sure the High Demons did not starve."
"They became lovers of themselves," Roff huffed.
"Roff, don't ever think you're a common anything," I said, leaning forward and giving him a smile. He smiled widely back and gave me another kiss before settling me on his shoulder again.
"Roff and his family are most certainly not common," Kifirin said. "They are one of two families that are winged Infilathi. They were always selected to become vampire because they developed wings with the turn. The winged ones were honorable and much admired."
"You have wings?" I sat up and stared at Roff in amazement.
"If I am turned," he nodded solemnly. "My ancestors were all winged vampires and much respected." I was duly impressed. I wanted to see a winged vampire, I think.
"When the High Demons called the comesuli common demons," Kifirin said, "it was an attempt to make the comesuli a part of themselves, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Comesuli are and always have been the young of the vampire race. Unfortunately, it is necessary for a mature vampire to turn them at the proper time in order for them to gain their true majority."
"Tonight has certainly been educational," I said. Roff pulled me back to his shoulder. I was comfortable there. So was he.
* * *
Sixty-nine-year-old Everett Hancock hit the mute button on his television remote; someone was ringing the doorbell of his small, two-bedroom home in Youngstown, Ohio. He wondered if it were his neighbor again, dropping by to ask more questions about his son Anthony and about Tony's death in France.
He'd already talked to Corinne, Tony's mother, shortly after the bombing; the government had declared his son dead. Killed in the line of duty, the vice president said when he called.
Everett had been in the military in his younger days; was retired Army, actually. He'd seen Viet Nam and a few other places. Tony had gone with his mother when they'd divorced; Everett couldn't handle her disappearing one night a month and going off to run with who knew what. Everett had been home on leave when Tony was conceived—Corinne had written to let him know a few months after he'd gone back to Germany where he was stationed. Tony was born while he was away, too, and was four months old when Everett came home.
He and Corinne had done nothing but fight after he gotten home; she'd accused him of ignoring her to stay an extra three months in Germany, and he'd shouted about her stupid werewolf habits. Corinne packed her bags after the last blow-up, taking herself and Tony right out the door. Ran right off and married one of those damned wolves. Everett snorted at the memory as he opened the door.
"What the hell do you want?" Everett didn’t recognize the two men who stood there. They were dressed in nice suits and ties, though. Probably from the church, wanting him to accept salvation or something.
"I am Christopher Townsend," one of the visitors said. "You will come with us." Everett opened his storm door and followed Mr. Townsend right out to a waiting car. The other man who'd been standing next to Christopher Townsend slipped inside the house, grabbed Everett's keys and locked the door behind him as he left. He followed his partner out to the car, where Everett was already sitting in the back seat. Special Agent White was dialing his cell phone as Special Agent Townsend put the car in gear and drove away. The phone rang on the other end and was answered.
"We have him," Special Agent Kenneth White said and hung up.
* * *
Everett looked around curiously, as he was led into a basement—Mr. Townsend and Mr. White had driven him to Pittsburgh and stopped at a house there. Everett still didn't understand why he'd willingly come with them and hadn't attempted to object. It just seemed that whenever Mr. Townsend told Everett to do something, Everett thought it was a good idea.
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