Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions

by Sizemore, Susan

  She’d been the control who’d talked them through the session, so she wasn’t in as bad a shape as the others. There was buoyancy in her attitude that told Falconer she was ready to try again—as soon as the aftereffects wore off. He sighed. He wasn’t as bad off as the rest of them, but there was a lingering sense of disorientation and a dark anger he didn’t understand. Though the very real bruises from the attack were a constant dull ache, his own head was not aching from trying to relive the experience. He knew all the others were suffering various layers of pain and nausea. He could sense the pain without actually going through it, a kind of odd empathy he’d never felt before.

  Michael Falconer had been through many types of testing over the years that confirmed he possessed many forms of psychic talent, but mostly he didn’t give a shit. Having a new talent crop up was the last thing he wanted. All he’d ever really wanted was a career as a soldier, and as a soldier his duty was to serve where his superiors chose to send him—as a leader of loons. He shook his head. Maybe this surge of bitterness was another aftereffect he experienced from Grace’s little experiment gone awry.

  “I threw up,” Jeremy muttered, his gaze fixed firmly in the tabletop. “I don’t throw up—a Walker shouldn’t be physically ill in the performance of his duty.”

  “That wasn’t real walking,” Sela said. “That was—nightmare country.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Grace protested.

  “You were awake, I wasn’t. I know a nightmare when I have one.”

  “Off limits,” Jeremy rambled on. “Unprofessional. We had no authorization . . .”

  Falconer listened to Jeremy’s muttering and sympathized with the time-serving bureaucrat’s outrage at a known procedure being shot to hell. The sour aroma that filled the meeting room where they’d convened to conduct the regression experiment confirmed Jeremy’s reaction to the experience. Donald leaned back limply in his chair, with his eyes closed. Falconer looked away when Donald lifted his hand and began to sign the letters of a word Falconer didn’t want to think about.

  Sela rubbed her temples as she glared at Grace. She pointed to the floor. “I ain’t cleaning that up.”

  Grace ignored this implication. “We need to analyze results.” She reached for the tape recorder they’d used to document their experiences.

  “No,” Falconer said before she could rewind and play the questions and answers she’d posed to each of them on their attempted psychic journey back to his being attacked the night before.

  He leaned forward and snagged the tape recorder from in front of her. He popped out the cassette and put it into his shirt pocket. Grace turned a pleading look on him. Grace Avella had big, brown, expressive eyes, and the emotions she aimed at him were full of intense trust, hope, and curiosity. It was not easy to ignore her.

  “No,” he said again. “We are not analyzing this. We are not going to even listen to it. It was an unauthorized experiment. It didn’t work. We aren’t going to try it again.”

  “But—”

  “We’re wrecked.” Sela cut Grace off. “Mike’s right.” She stood up. “I’m going home. I’m not going back to a park full of—”

  “Nothing but our imaginations.” Falconer cut her off.

  “My imagination is not that sick!” Jeremy protested. He glared at Grace. “You don’t have the training to be a control. You influenced us somehow, made some sort of improper suggestion that led us to impossible conclusions.”

  Grace popped up angrily out of her chair. “I did no such thing! Maybe we picked up on Mike’s subconscious reactions to whoever attacked him. It came out as freaky imagery, but you all went to the same place, witnessed the same event and—”

  “Can it,” Falconer intervened. “Everybody go home. Forget about this. We’ll get back to our real work tomorrow.”

  “It’s weird, but not as weird as this,” Sela said. She helped Jeremy to his feet. Then tapped Donald on the shoulder to get his attention. When he opened his eyes, she pointed to the door. Donald didn’t waste any time before getting out. Sela and Jeremy followed quickly after. Grace lingered for a moment. Falconer frowned sternly and pointed. She flounced out like a disgruntled teenager, but at least she did go without any further argument.

  Chapter 4

  “I HATE TO speak ill of the dead, especially when she’s standing over my shoulder and hasn’t yet had a cup of coffee,” Sara said, without turning from the desk where she was going through a stack of mail. “But there are some things, boss, that it would be better for you to handle.”

  Behind her she heard Olympias yawn, not for the first time since she had come into the office. Sara’d been expecting Olympias’s arrival since she’d heard the shower go on upstairs a little after sunset. Now, here Olympias was, and Sara was prepared for their usual evening briefing, even if Olympias wasn’t quite awake yet. There was also a grunt and heavy breathing behind her, but that came from the huge dog that had crowded into the small room at the back of the house with Olympias. Sara continued sorting envelopes for a few more minutes. When she turned around her long-limbed mistress was seated cross-legged on the office’s hardwood floor. Bitch’s head was in Olympias’s lap, and she was lovingly scratching the ears of the creature that ran her life.

  “You could make me a cup of coffee,” were Olympias’s first words of the night.

  “Have you been in the kitchen?” Sara answered. “The coffeepot has a timer. It started brewing around sunset.”

  “Oh. I always forget.” She pushed Bitch away and stood with a speed that was dizzying to watch. “I hate technology.” She was gone and back with two blue mugs of steaming coffee within the space of a few heartbeats. “Good coffee, though,” she added after handing Sara one of the mugs and taking a sip from her own. “Remember the first time I tasted this stuff. There was this Turkish prince who got himself bit—he introduced me to all sorts of Ottoman decadence while we were hanging out together. I’d been avoiding getting addicted to coffee, even though it was the drug of choice in the underneath since the Arabs brought qahwa from Ethiopia, but Selim looked at me with those big brown eyes of his and smiled an ‘I dare you’ smile—and here I am, hooked to this day.”

  “Fascinating,” Sara said.

  Olympias either didn’t notice the sarcasm, or chose to ignore it as she went on. “I took against coffee early on, when a companion of mine used it as an excuse to divorce her husband. Did you know there was an Islamic law that allowed women to divorce their husbands if they didn’t provide them with a daily allowance of coffee?” Olympias drained her cup and settled back on the floor again.

  “There are chairs,” Sara pointed out. “They’re all covered in paperwork,” she admitted. “But I could move it.” There was a shredder in one corner of the office, and Sara always burned what she’d shredded, and vampires didn’t put a lot of things in writing, but there always seemed to be a lot of paper around.

  Olympias sipped coffee and looked thoughtful for a while. When she spoke, it was with a deep sadness that tore at Sara’s heart. “It was a flimsy excuse, but she hated her marriage long before I came into her life. She wanted out, and more than just to be with me. I could have made arrangements. What’s the use of having a companion if you don’t protect them? But she went to her husband while I was away—on damn Council business. He killed her, killed the mother of his children, rather than let her go.” She shrugged. “Needless to say, he paid for it. I raised the children, but never tasted them.” Another shrug. “Mortality can be a gift, you know.” She sighed. “Damned Council. And why do I keep remembering old companions lately?”

  “Maybe because you’re lonely and could use a new lover?” Sara answered.

  Olympias looked up. “Maybe that was a rhetorical question.”

  Sara attempted to look innocent. “Really? I’ve never been very good at recognizing those.”

  Olympias looked at her sharply. “Uh-huh.” Having finished her coffee, she put the mug down on the floor where Bitch proceed
ed to dip her huge tongue into it to finish up the dregs. “A hellhound with a caffeine buzz, won’t the neighbors love that.”

  Sara didn’t recall any neighbor having actually complained about the huge dog in the five years she’d been living in the house in this very quiet neighborhood. Bitch wasn’t much of a barker and generally only went out at night. She’d terrified a few delivery people with her sheer size and the spooky intelligent look in her eyes when she appeared at the door when Sara opened it, but she’d never done any harm. Okay, she chewed up shoes, shed like mad, and had a name Sara found unpleasant, but human prey didn’t interest the hellhound at all. The neighbors didn’t complain, but there were others . . .

  “Maybe this is a good time to mention the werewolves,” Sara said.

  Olympias sneered.

  “There’s an animal rights convention coming to town next month,” Sara explained. “It seems that there are quite a few lycanthropes that are animal rights activists.”

  Olympias snickered. “I can see that saving the wolves would hold a certain appeal for them, especially during the full moon. There’s going to be werewolves at this conference I take it?”

  “Closeted, of course.”

  “Of course.” Olympias rubbed her hands together. “And housebroken. Please tell me this convention’s during a full moon.”

  Sara could imagine a group of shape-shifters suddenly turning from peaceful demonstrators into truly radical animal rights activists and taking off after members of Congress on all fours. The image certainly held appeal. “Of course not,” she answered. “They’re as careful as vampires not to call attention to themselves.”

  “I know, I know. We never get to have any fun around here.” Olympias made an effort to look serious. “Nor should we. What about the furballs?”

  “I think it might be best if we sent Bitch out of town during that convention. If not, they’d be sure to catch scent of her and there could be trouble.”

  Olympias crossed her arms and showed just a hint of fang. “They could try hunting my dog.”

  “No need to provoke them. As I understand it there’s always been a certain tension in the lycanthrope community over vampires keeping hellhounds—”

  “You mean the furballs kill the dogs every chance they get and have for two thousand years. A compassionate vampire saved their little evolutionary mistake from extinction, and they’ve given us nothing but trouble over it.” Olympias pulled her huge pet to her and threw protective arms around her. “You’re a good girl.”

  “Of course she is,” Sara soothed. “But it would be wiser for her to be elsewhere when the animal rights—”

  “Hypocrites come to town,” Olympias finished for her. “Fine. It’s my job to keep the peace treaties unbroken. I won’t be the one to provoke the fleabags. Bitch and I will go for a long camping trip that week.” She noticed Sara’s frown, and added, “Or you can arrange for someone else to take her if I’m busy.”

  Sara nodded.

  “Right. What else do you have for me tonight?”

  “You know very well what—”

  Olympias held up a hand. “Easy stuff first.” She tilted up a brow ironically. “That’s always how you feed it to me.”

  Sara noted that Olympias looked tired, and instead of being perked up, the vampire had become melancholy with her first cup of coffee. Sara was grateful she’d gotten a reaction from the mention of werewolves. Now that she had her mistress’s attention, she continued the evening’s briefing. “Gerry’s en route to Denver. He’ll have a look around then talk to the Enforcer of the City.”

  “Tell him not to bother,” Olympias replied. “I’m pretty sure Istvan ate whoever caused the trouble in Denver.” She glanced up toward the wall safe tucked away behind a framed picture. “On second thought, tell Gerry to find me a missing coin.”

  Sara was quite puzzled. “No coin’s been reported missing.”

  The safe held an ancient carved wooden box. The box contained a supply of gold coins. Each coin was unique, but each coin portrayed an owl. Each strigoi that became the head of a vampire household, a nest leader, received one of the gold coins from an Enforcer as a symbol of authority within the nest, acceptance within the strigoi hierarchy, and pledge to obey the laws of the Strigoi Council. The Enforcers received the coins from Olympias, and it was her responsibility to know who held each coin. While Olympias swore that she carried all the information about nest leaders in her head, as was traditionally prescribed by the Council, Sara had been working to put the information on all North American vampires into a coded database. Listing nest leaders was easy enough; the tricky part was in trying to find out how many vampires, nestlings, companions, and slaves lived in each nest. Nests were private territories where even Enforcers feared to tread. For a mere slave to attempt to find out such closely held information for the sake of making her mistress’s duties easier to carry out was not safe or wise, perhaps, but Sara was quietly determined. Gerry wasn’t the only one who thought the strigoi needed to be dragged out of the thirteenth century and at least into the middle of the twentieth century. She simply wasn’t so vocal about it.

  Olympias tapped a finger on her forehead. “I’m psychic, you know. Something tells me that a coin is missing and that it’s going to come back to bite my ass eventually. Have Gerry see what he can find out, but it’s not top priority for the moment.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Next.”

  “Maggie’s getting you an invite to a black tie black ops party. Seems like there’s an exclusive little gathering coming up where the spooks and military types will be quietly lobbying for funding for their more esoteric projects. Maggie thought you might be interested in showing up, showing off your legs, and reading a few convoluted minds. You in?”

  Olympias nodded. “Might be fun. Tell her I’m in.” She held up her mug. “More please.”

  “I’ll get you a fresh one.” Sara stepped over the dog lying in front of the door and went into the kitchen. When she came back she found Olympias standing by her desk reading the very formal handwritten letter that had arrived that day. Sara paused in the doorway and studied Olympias’s expression while the head of the Enforcers read. Sara hadn’t been sure what to expect, but when Olympias put the paper back on the desk she looked weary and sad.

  “I wasn’t sure how to approach you with that,” Sara told her. “I’m not quite sure what all of it means and—”

  “Is it the lyrics of the song he put in at the end that you don’t understand?”

  “No. I do. I remember that the song’s used in the opening credits of an old movie.”

  “M*A*S*H* isn’t that old a movie.”

  “It was out before I was born.”

  “Really? How time flies.”

  “But the implication of his adding those lyrics—”

  “Is obvious.”

  “Someone asking you to—”

  “I need a drink.”

  Sara handed her the coffee mug. Bitch came over and butted Olympias in the thigh, getting Olympias to start rubbing her head. Sara supposed insisting on being petted was the dog’s way of offering comfort. Olympias perched on the edge of the desk and sipped coffee, and silence stretched out until Sara couldn’t take it anymore.

  “He is, isn’t he? I didn’t think this sort of thing—you have to apply to—I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean,” she admitted when Olympias’s dark eyes came up to meet hers.

  “This is a magical ritual the man’s asking for.” Olympias shook her head. “I’d say it was good to see someone going through the proper channels, but, as you say, the implication . . .” She shook her head again. “This has happened so rarely in the entire history of our kind. When someone does ask for the ritual we’re supposed to have a very strict process of determining if the person really wants what he is asking for. Rather like the Catholic Church determining if a person should be declared a saint.”

  Sara wasn’t quite sure the analogy comparing vampires to saints
really worked, but didn’t bring it up. Sara sensed that Olympias was very disturbed and unhappy about this development. You’d think an Enforcer would jump at this sort of chance. Sara was glad that the chief of North American Enforcers took such a serious approach to the matter. “Are you going to—do what he seems to want?”

  “Maybe. Since it’s a formal request I have to at least go through the motions of finding out whether or not he’s sincere.” She picked up the letter and handed it to Sara. “Which is where you come in.”

  Sara dropped the piece of paper onto the floor as though it had burned her. She was more than appalled, and just a touch rebellious. “Me?”

  “You’re the best person for this.”

  Sara tried to remember that she was facing an ancient, dangerous creature of magic and myth that owned her body and soul. She tried, but couldn’t keep the petulant annoyance out of her attitude. She pointed a finger at Olympias. “You’re the vampire! You can’t expect me—mere mortal—to decide a strigoi’s fate!”

  “Of course not,” Olympias answered before Sara could get revved up for the tirade that had been building for a while.

  The anger went out of Sara in a whoosh of breath. Her shoulders slumped. “But—”

  “I remember this kid from when he used to live in the area. He was a beatnik musician who was companion to one of the local nest leaders. . .Rosie, I think. He seemed sweet, always had a social conscience, very—liberal.” She touched a finger and thumb delicately to ever-so-slightly extended canines. “I never liked him much. And that means I’m not likely to be as objective as I should be if I rush into talking to him. This is a serious matter. If he’d walked up to me on the street and asked for it, the temptation would be to say, sure, let’s go somewhere for a snack. But he didn’t do that. He’s thought through his options, made a formal request. Chances are he’s having a crisis of conscience. It’s fairly common, and he’s just the type to get all whiny and guilt ridden.”