I sigh and wonder why that comment reminds me of one of my earlier conversations with Garthelle. “Right. At any rate, anything you can find out about its source, where it’s customarily distributed, the dealers, their regular clientele . . . it would be valuable to us.”
“And to our employer,” my sister amends blandly.
Blue stares at her, fingers faltering in the process of tucking the bag into the inner pocket of his jacket. An expression of pure and unadulterated horror plasters his features. “Please don’t tell me someone’s finagled you into taking a pimp.”
Jhez snorts. “No, never. You know better than to even think that.” She waves her hand. “It’s rather complicated at the moment.”
Blue’s gaze flicks over the flat. “Yeah, looks complicated,” he deadpans before returning his attention to the plate of food.
“Did you check into what I asked you about earlier today?”
“Mmm. Indeed I did. And you were right to be worried.” Blue reaches into one of his cargo pockets and sets a few prescription bottles on the coffee table in front of me. “I brought you a cocktail. The chi-boosters and signature dampeners you know, I’m sure. And,” here he pauses and clears his throat, “and a new one I recently encountered on the market. Dampener. It clouds your aura.”
I stare at him. “And what’s the benefit of that?”
Blue shrugs, chewing quickly. “Red mentioned a recent john of yours is still pulling. This might kill it some. I don’t know for sure, though. Like I said, I’m not real familiar with it.” He glances at me, rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, Black. I use it sometimes when I feel like I’m in sensory overload. Gives me a break from all the music for a bit.”
“How much do I owe you?” The three large bottles are crammed with injector capsules; it’s quite a haul in terms of street value.
But he shakes his head. “Pad the boss’s price on this job and we’ll call it even, eh?”
I laugh and reach out to squeeze his shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Anything for my Bruise Brother.” He giggles, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me against his side in another spontaneous display of affection.
“Hey, what am I, recycled sludge?”
I frown and hold Blue possessively to my side. “Well, I guess we could adopt the name Torture Team”—a bit of bright red blood to go with our black and blue—“but the Bruise Brothers will always predate that.” I stick my tongue out at her.
Jhez shakes her head. “That sounds . . . morbid.”
“Morbid, Red, would describe your hair. Your roots are starting to show,” Blue observes somberly. I collapse against his side, laughing.
I’m glad she invited him over. He has that knack for pulling me out of even the deepest funk.
“Great.” Jhez surges from her spot and collects the empty plates. “I’m paying a visit to your sister.” She carries the plates to the kitchen, abandons them, and grabs her jacket. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time to catch the limo with you later.” Jhez pulls the door shut behind her and silence descends.
I look at Blue only to find his somber expression has returned.
“Tell me about this john of yours.”
His words make me flinch. There’s no accusation, no flippancy; only concern and curiosity. Yet telling means I’ll have to relive every last detail. Pulling away from him, I sit back and watch my hands skim the soft texture of the couch.
“That bad?”
I shrug.
“Come on, Black. Get it off your chest, eh?”
“It’s the Monsieur of York.” Blue gazes at me in silence and waits. He’s not a Nightwalker; there’s not much I can say that he’ll understand. I meet his gaze and shake my head. “Jhez already berated me for it without saying a word.”
He reaches out and pulls me into a hug, making me thankful yet again for the physical nature of his emotional expressions. Because right now it’s exactly what I need. Don’t know if I could handle aural tangling.
“You’ve still got your gun for the drugs, right?” he asks softly, chin resting on my shoulder.
I nod, my cheek brushing against the smoothness of his clothing.
“Use them.”
My Bruise Brother, Blue.
I first made Blue’s rather odd acquaintance the same day I lost my “Nightwalker virginity.” He’s the reason that day stands out in my mind.
Because the john was obviously forgettable . . . since I can’t recall but a few vague details of the individual. Lyche.
I can easily recall the unpleasant quality of the experience. It was emotionally akin to being raped. Or at the very least, equivalent to having your first sexual experience with a complete and utter stranger. Swift, painful, brief.
Wham, bam, ciao . . .
I recall shoving futilely on the vehicle’s door as insanity threatened to overwhelm my last shreds of coherent thought, unable to escape until he crammed a filthy-looking finger on the lock release. He dangled the credit chit out in front of my face and laughed, a caustic and raucous sound that grated against my chi, and as soon as I snatched it, his hand slapped down on my shoulder and shoved. I landed hard on the cement of the walkway, disoriented, the breath knocked out of me, a sensation crawling along my skin like a million tiny knives slicing my veins open.
Someone reached down and grabbed me, hauling me to my feet by my upper arms. Something in the touch impressed me more than anything else; I was hardly fourteen at the time, still a kid, still trying to come to terms with the fact that Jhez and I were nothing more than the street urchins we’d been living as for almost two years.
“Gutter shark! Go piss up a rope!” A remarkably small-sounding voice barked the eccentric slurs from behind me.
The filthy john, in his shabby clunker-coupe, made a rude gesture in response before his vehicle shot away from the curb and out into the sporadic stream of traffic.
“If you’re gonna do that, you really should be more selective about which vamps you sell to.” The advice carried an almost amused quality, and I fumbled with my ratty excuse for a jacket, trying to straighten the oversized outerwear on my shoulders as I turned around.
The boy grinned at me from beneath the messiest, most vivid mop of blue hair I’ve ever seen. Blue eyes, the color of a sunny summer day, winked at me.
“Thanks.” I rubbed at my face in an attempt to chase off the disorientation. When I wobbled, the boy steadied me with a firm grip on my forearm. He didn’t manage to avoid the wristband with dull black spikes jutting from it, but it didn’t appear to bother him.
“Whoa, you need to sit down.”
I took his advice and lowered myself to the pavement. More of a controlled fall, but he made no comment, just settled down next to me.
“Name’s Blue,” he said, still grinning.
“Fits you. My sister calls me Black.”
“Well, Black. Hope you don’t take on too many as rough as that one, or you won’t last too long out here.”
I grunted, not really wanting to talk about it. “Do you . . . ?”
“Gaia, no. I’m a dealer. All the ’walkers know me around here.”
“Ah.”
He grabbed my wrist and pushed the sleeve of my jacket up. In one swift, blurred movement, he shot me in the crook of the elbow before I could collect enough coherency to resist.
“Fuck. Ouch. What was that for?”
“Chi-booster. Make you feel like yourself again in no time.”
I opened my eyes and glared at him, at the slim injector gun disappearing back into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Do you usually go around randomly shooting ’walkers?” I sniped, feeling dizzy and lightheaded as the pain receded.
His grin slipped a little, his lips flattening. “Sorry. That was your first, right?”
I sighed and leaned back on the pavement, propping myself up on my elbows. “Yeah.” And it made me feel like the smallest, most worthless piece of gutter trash.
If someone had offered an alter
native at that moment, I would’ve accepted it without question.
“First one is always the worst, even when it’s not as bad as that guy.”
I narrowed my eyes and studied him a little closer, but it was difficult to see past the blueness—hair, brows, eyes, clothes, everything was a shade of blue. Earring, wristbands, even the decorative chain on his baggy pants. “How long you been on the street?”
“Since before the disclosure. All that did was change what I deal. Now it’s mostly prescription stuff, since only they can get it.”
Good point. I stared at the concrete, scuffing one of my shoes over the edges of a crack in the walkway. The friction obliterated the stem of a small weed into a smudge of green goo. The world wasn’t so blurry now. Details were coming into focus, sharpening. I could feel the booster he’d shot into me thickening my aura; it was like a shot of adrenalin after running a marathon.
Second wind. Easy for me to see, in that moment, how a ’walker could get hooked on the stuff. Even easier to see how so many of them killed themselves so fast. Take a john, shoot up, go out for another. I shuddered.
“Cold?” Blue asked with a warm smile. “Come on, I’ll buy you a java. Best place in the metro is only a block or two from here.”
I didn’t correct him, just pushed myself off the chilly sidewalk and offered a smile. “No, this one’s on me. For the boost, ’kay?” I recall fingering that credit chit between my fingertips, hand buried in the deep pocket of my pants, as we walked. I felt rich for the first time in what seemed like forever.
We sat together on an overstuffed loveseat in a back corner of the same java house where Jhez and I met with Garthelle not long ago, sharing the radiant body heat of comfortable closeness and sipping caffeine and cocoa, thankful to be out of the biting wind that whipped down the streets of the Blue District.
We talked about trivial things I can’t recall now. It isn’t the conversation that stands out in my mind even now, but him. In the metro, it’s rare to encounter a person so engaged with life, with simply living. I didn’t want that afternoon to end; I dreaded the somber shadow that would descend over me the moment he walked away. And I dreaded even more not ever seeing him again.
It didn’t matter where he came from, who he was, or even what he did for a living. In the course of my time on the streets, I’d learned quickly about the limits of the individual—and the concessions one makes, one can make, while still holding firm to that measure of ethics and personal morals that defines who we are.
Blue’s aura was soothing, companionable, the calmest hue of that color I’ve ever felt. To sit in his presence was to have it radiate outward and engulf you. It wrapped me in its embrace that afternoon much the same way his arms do on a regular basis still.
I sit on the smooth black leather of Garthelle’s limousine, resenting the stiff, unwelcoming surface. Heavy, rarely used leather has that essence. Panic surges up, threatening to choke off my breath. I’m an oak tree trying to resist a tornado’s raging fury. Jhez manages to look resigned, but I can sense the tension in her where she’s perched on the seat across from me.
Blue shot me up rather nicely before departing. He could tell the pull was too strong for me to manage alone that first time. Double dose of chi-boost and a dampener. I tried to resist the dampener. Came up with any number of reasons why it was a bad idea. And he just stood there and stared at me in silence. Waiting for me to wind down, run out of excuses.
Not all of it was excuses, though. Which is why I’m panicking more the closer we get to the castle. Without the link with Garthelle—whether it was formed inadvertently or deliberately matters little at this point—the vamp no longer has leverage.
We should be free to walk.
And he’s equally free to kill us.
The only card left on the table is the weight of our crimes against the lyche and his desire for assistance in this investigation. I don’t like being manipulated or controlled. The threat of death is there one way or another. Has been all along.
One moment I feel empty. Free. As though I can breathe for the first time in five days. I can relax the grip on my aura without fear I’m opening myself to anyone.
But the next, I’m stressed beyond imagining. All I can think about is what sort of reaction Garthelle is having. No doubt he can feel the change. Feel the void, the lack. Is he upset, concerned I’ve been injured or killed? Does he suspect what I’ve done? If so, I can easily imagine a replay of that barely-tamed rage from our first encounter. Or will he express pleasure, be relieved I’ve taken this measure? I don’t know the vamp well enough to tip the outcome one way or the other.
The limo lurches as it hits a pothole, bringing me back to my surroundings.
Muscle glances at me and then returns to focusing on the seat.
Jhez is staring at me. The concern on her face reminds me of a detailed sand etching on glass. She looks away, out the vehicle’s tinted window, refrains from commenting though I can feel her desire to. Palpable, the throb against my aura.
She wants to offer more empty reassurances, but I’ve no interest in them anymore. I’ve every intention of surviving this, and making sure my twin does too. The limo eases to a stop and then the door opens. I nod in thanks to the driver as I climb out, then glance back. “It’ll be fine, Jhez. If I have to drop an anvil on his head, it will be.”
Her bark of laughter eases the strain of tension a few notches. The vamp’s butler—why have I never heard his name uttered anywhere—glares at me, the chill in his gaze palpable, as he holds the front door open. Garthelle is waiting in the large foyer. Something in his stance, the tension in his shoulders as he clasps his hands behind his back, suggests our arrival interrupted a prolonged bout of pacing.
The Monsieur of York turns slowly, pivoting on the ball of his foot in a precise sort of movement reminiscent of soldiers. It screams of excessive self-discipline. Self-restraint.
He studies us, still as a marble statue draped in black.
Jhez shrugs her pack from her shoulder and holds it in front of her stomach, a crude and impromptu shield against the storm on the verge of erupting. Her movement draws his gaze and he blinks. I wonder if he’s only now registering her presence.
“Red. So good to see you. I collected some documented correlations and was hoping you would review them for me. In my office.” His gaze flicks to the butler standing off to one side, and the man gives a half-bow before motioning my sister to accompany him. “And you.” The tense stillness of his gaze is a reflection of his physical demeanor. “It seems we have a few matters to discuss. Come.”
Jhez’s stride falters as she looks back over her shoulder. I shake my head, a subtle, curt movement. There’s nothing to worry about; I’ll hold my own against him for now. Determined to. Failure isn’t really an option.
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Monsieur.” I search his features for something, anything. The vampire pivots and walks off down the far corridor, certain I’ll heel like the Nightwalker dog I’ve lived as for the greater span of my life. It makes me want to gnash my teeth.
It’s how I survive, but it’s not what I am. It never will be. I follow him despite that.
The room he leads me to is a combination library and study. Here, the natural stone of the ancient castle is hidden behind layers of insulation and plaster. A machine churns in the corner, and I realize that he’s turned the entire room—it’s not small by any measure—into the book equivalent of a humidor. Environment perfectly regulated for the preservation of priceless tomes ensconced in floor-to-ceiling, glass-fronted shelves. I’ve not seen such a collection since before the war. This is a library worthy of the castle that Dragulhaven once was. A smile curls my mouth as I tilt my head and read a few titles. No doubt they’re all first editions, autographed, each one worth a small fortune.
The door gives a soft click behind me and the sound draws me from my scrutiny. When I turn, Garthelle is hovering a breath away, and I flinch back. His brows arch up as if
my reaction is unexpected.
“May I assume,” he begins slowly, his voice a low rumble, “since you’re very much alive and well, that you’ve shot yourself up”—the phrase drips from his lips in a snarl—“with some street drug popular amongst Nightwalkers?”
My brows pull together over the bridge of my nose, and I hate him for inciting such a reaction from me. “More than one, actually. What of it? It negates the unnatural aural connection. And in part, the necessity for your demonstration of restraint.” The phrase seems to hang in the air, almost corporeal. There. I said it. Now it’s his move. Pawn or queen?
He steps forward, cutting away the distance between us. Despite the abrupt nature of his actions, the precise and disciplined ambiance of his behavior, the thread of tension thrumming along the line of his shoulders, his face gives nothing away. Garthelle has certainly mastered the art of discretion.
“Do you think so?” A hint of unreadable emotion taints his whisper. A faint scent, a suggestion of something indistinguishable, tickles my olfactory memories. “Chi-thief. In just a few more days, the week will have expired and my guests will have departed. Yet this investigation will still stand. Our agreement will demand renegotiation. You think to return to the streets? Right now, you’re a hole to me—a void without signature or resonance of any kind. You might be safe.” His gaze flickers as he watches me closely. Too closely. “But can you ensure this state of invisibility in the future? Were I you, I’d be very certain. If you can’t, I may just finish what I started. Less hassle that way. Won’t be anything to stop me.”
Knight, then. Circling He’s outmaneuvered me, aiming straight and true for my greatest weakness: freedom. I have no idea how long it will take the aural sympathy to expire. No idea how long I’d have to mask it. I stare at him, unable to breathe, unable to think, incapable of forming a single sound—let alone a witty and coherent rejoinder. He has me, thoroughly. I know he’s correct and can’t think of a single way around it.
Yet none of that will stop me from shooting up. There’s no way I’m willing to hand him such control. Not without a fight. Perhaps the drugs will encourage the dissipation of whatever is sustaining the pull, through severance and alienation if nothing else, however artificial.
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