Garthelle doesn’t want the castle leveled beneath the force of the Premier’s tantrum. Nor do I, not with Jhez and Blue still beneath his roof, safe in the shelter of the Monsieur of York’s protection. That’s the other reason I don’t resist. And keep my lips firmly closed, tongue clamped between my teeth. If this keeps my sister safe, I’ll submit.
Noire’s chauffeured vehicle is idling at the curb outside. The slanting, late afternoon sun glares off the Hudson River, off the glossed surface of the car. It’s not a limousine, but reminds me more of an old sport utility vehicle. Combined with the sleek, glassy curves of the modern design, the result is more freakish than aesthetically pleasing. The driver waits with the rear door open wide, and Noire releases my arm only to plant his hand in the center of my back and shove me.
“Cooperating here. Rough displays of force and strength are excessive.” I can’t help but glare at him as I right myself on the leather bench seat and watch him settle into the one opposite me. “And unimpressive. You’re twice my size, easily. And a lyche. Score three for you.”
“Three?”
“You got what you were after, right? You don’t look too grief-stricken to me.” The rear compartment of the vehicle pops open with an audible hiss from the hydraulics system. Something large and heavy is tossed rather unceremoniously into the cargo space, and the hatch latches back into place. “What a way to treat your sister. Like a slab of meat from the butcher. Totally grief-stricken.”
“Shut up, or I’ll do it for you.” Noire’s face is devoid of expression, save for the slight quirk at one corner of his mouth. As if he’s daring me to keep babbling and call his bluff.
What was that whole show of submission, anyways? The Monsieur of York has never behaved that way before. Even knowing it’s a feint, it was disturbing to witness. Leonard can track me if need be, thanks to our link or whatever the hell it is, and he has no intention of leaving me to whatever fate Premier Noire has planned. So even though I’m not feeling very cooperative—or brave—I just keep reciting those facts over and over again in my head. And it doesn’t much matter if the Alpha Premier thinks there’s anything strange about my cyclic aural patterns. Because, really. How is a mutt supposed to do squat against a lyche?
The driver door clicks shut and Noire’s car eases away from the curb, down the winding drive toward the distant York metro. I let a few more minutes pass in silence, and then decide to try again. With a slightly less offensive tack.
“Can I ask a question?” My sire glares at me before nodding curtly. “What is it that your . . . pure lyche-get, I assume?” He glares, but nods again. “Right. Your pure get. What is it they’re wanted for that a half-breed mutt makes an acceptable substitution? I assume the alliance you maintain with their mother doesn’t permit for sacrificing your firstborn for personal or professional gain.”
Noire folds his hands in his lap and arches a brow. “Alliance.” He says the word as though it’s derogatory, a concession made by the weak. “You’ve been looking at bloodline charts, I take it. Oldest rule in the history of man. History is written by the winners, not the losers. I wouldn’t have thought you still naïve enough to believe anything of what you read. Especially not if it’s penned by a lyche.”
He holds up a hand as if studying the state of his cuticles, but there’s no way he can see anything through the cloudy, muddied swirl of energy he still holds focused there. Noire glances at me, vivid green eyes the only part of him that move. I know he’s breathing, but I can’t see any evidence of it. No nostril flare, no chest or shoulder movement; the lyche is utterly still, waiting.
I don’t know what a mutt should be capable or incapable of doing. I don’t know that there’s any particular standard. Is it divulging something to him, if he parses out that I can see that thing he calls an aura swirling around his hand? I’ve been kinda staring, despite my best efforts. That shit is nasty looking, and it’s not just that way around his hand. He’s completely shrouded in his own little bubble of smog and . . .
“Why does your aura look that way?”
He preens as though he just won an argument. “What way? You mean the density? How opaque it is? That is the effect of fin tapping a fellow lyche. You won’t see it on anyone but a lyche who feeds that way. The mark of an Alpha.”
And then it sinks in. He was waiting for me to admit I could see his aura, because for him that’s all the necessary proof to substantiate his claim—somehow, it proves to him that I’m not a mutt, after all. That my half-breed heritage is a web of lies. Purported by lyche for personal gain? Someone’s attempt to bury the truth. I’ve no idea who my mother was. I doubt anyone knows. The period of time shortly before and during the lyche disclosure was turbulent, to say the least. Between the global restructuring of societies, the obliteration of governing bodies as defined thus far in human history . . . one person’s lineage would be an easy enough piece of information to falsify.
What makes one lyche, anyways? As opposed to the alternative? I rub absently at the center of my chest, feeling the strain of distance increase with each passing second. My other hand I slide beneath my thigh, clamping it out of sight against the seat to hide the slight tremor. Fear, fed by a steady surge of adrenaline, triggering that primal instinct of fight or flight. It makes it difficult to think clearly. To follow a logical path of thought—or rather, the lyche equivalent of such—to a rational conclusion.
My throat convulses when I try to swallow past the tension. Every muscle in my body feels tight, strained to the breaking point. “What makes your second-generation get more valuable than me?”
“The Monsieur of York isn’t the only one who knows how to play games, son.”
“So . . . who’s orchestrating this one? You? Or the one holding your leash?”
The energy swirling around his hand speeds up, darkens. “What could you possibly know of that?”
“You may have done your damnedest to ensure . . . I was shunned from lyche society,” I stumble over the singular, but see no reason to remind him of my sister’s existence. Though his earlier use of the plural suggests strongly that he’s aware and simply doesn’t care beyond his immediate requirements, I’m not willing to risk Jhez even that much. “But the Monsieur of York has made a credible effort at educating me.”
Noire chuckles, a sharp wave of laughter that hurts my ears. “He knows less than you do. He always was more of a stick in the mud than a free thinker. You do what you have to in order to survive, right? I’m sure you can appreciate that sentiment.” His gaze flicks over me in the heartbeat of silence. “What have you been doing to survive, anyway?”
Misleading a metro full of lyche, from the sounds of it. Especially if Alpha is the only circle that still practices feeding from their fellow lyche outside the bounds of alliances and sex. I give a shrug and smile faintly. Two can play his game. “What’s it matter? I’m alive and hale when you’ve need of me, available to serve your purposes, Premier. That’s the only thing of import, yes?”
The energy encircling his hand darkens further as he glares at me.
“So tell me. Who controls you? Modere to Alpha. That’s quite a drastic shift, to put it mildly. Pardon me if it’s a tad unbelievable.”
“I have an alliance to forge. It requires me to share a feeding from one of my own flesh and blood. And my wife’s get—the second generation, as you call it—have strong bonds and alliances already in place that I cannot afford to fracture.”
“Why threaten Soiphe with death when she would serve the purpose? She’s your flesh and blood, right?”
He barks a laugh. “The Madame of Venice would’ve never voluntarily submitted to a fin tap. A feeding to the death.”
“Oh.” I swallow, hard. “They do that all the time, down in the metro. There’s a club for it. Someone was telling me about it just recently. You can have your pick of humans and suck them dry.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Noire says, one corner of his mouth twitching up. “Most of their men
u is half dead and three-quarters drained already. Not to mention they’re all human. That would never do for this alliance. Kraveons tend to have particular demands.”
“Do tell.”
“Just as Alphas only feed from their fellow lyche, Kraveons prefer to feed from those with whom they’ve some emotional attachment or intimate awareness.”
“I don’t believe I’ve met any Kraveons.” Very carefully worded requisites, those.
“Not surprised. My stipulation was that the Kraveon Premier feed from a lyche. His was that the lyche be someone I have a connection to.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face away, but that only makes my sire laugh harder.
The vehicle winds its way back down into the metro, familiar streets now beginning to glow as the evening sunlight recedes behind the skyline.
Noire sits in silence, save for the occasional chuckle that erupts from him to grate at my ears. I keep my gaze unfocused, my attention turned inward. Right now, my core of chi is greater than most lyche I’ve encountered over my years as a Nightwalker. Probably not enough to overwhelm my sire the cannibal, who only eats his own kind. But this other . . . yeah. I can take that one out easily enough. And on the off chance that they’ve both been fasting in preparation for the gorging to come . . .
It’s a slim chance. But the only straw I’ve got to grasp.
How the hell Jhez and I have lived on the streets for decades without knowing we were pure-blooded lyche? Without anyone else knowing? Without a soul figuring it out? How did our johns never notice? Not a single one?
It can’t be true. It’s impossible. It’s just another lyche game; that’s all it is. Because if it were true, at least one john over the years would have seen fit to mention it. Would have said something, even if only in the thrall that followed feeding. Though it does make me wonder about the long list of regulars both Jhez and I accumulated over the course of our time as Nightwalkers. A few have been coming to us exclusively since our earliest years on the boulevard. And not a single time has one ventured to question our heritage, never mind our longevity.
Lyche are still human, after a fashion. And people only see what they want to, what they expect to. Seems that much hasn’t changed.
That heritage would also go a long way to explaining the . . . whatever this is . . . between me and Leonard. That first night, he unwittingly forged the equivalent of a lyche alliance with me. Given what he’s divulged since, the numerous orgasmic taps—that one on the couch was only the first, there’ve been many more in the past twenty-four hours—have done nothing but reinforce and strengthen that bond. It explains much, but leaves too many things unaccounted for. Like what’s so special about the Monsieur of York to make this happen, when it’s never happened before with any of the other johns I stole from.
Noire’s right about one thing—Leonard seems to know less than I.
When the vehicle comes to a halt, I’ve managed to pool every last drop of my chi into my core. Crammed it into my stomach, pulled my aura tight against my body, close as I can get it. I’ve no idea how to actually make use of it, not the way my sire does, winding it around his hand like a weapon to wield against one’s enemies.
One look out the window has me determined to try something.
Irony of ironies . . . we’re at Blue’s club. Well, it’s not Blue’s. I recall Leonard mentioning it being on embassy grounds in the metro. A slice of Alpha territory. I’m screwed once I set foot inside those ancient ironwork gates that bracket the driveway. Detailed work, beautiful in its own right, though I can’t tell if the artist meant for the winged figures to be angels or demons. A pair of sentinels at the entry to Hell.
Noire’s driver eases around a corner of the building and into an empty parking lot that’s shielded from the public streets. One way in, one way out. The gates clang shut with such force that I feel the vibration of the impact through the body of the car.
The lyche reaches for the door handle and disembarks without waiting for the driver, then leans back in to stare at me. “Move it, I’ve no intention of engraving you an invitation or hauling you around again. Be a good son and do as you’re told.”
I shift forward, and apparently the movement satisfies him, because he disappears around the back of the vehicle. When I stick my head out the door, he reappears with a linen-wrapped bundle cradled in his arms.
Soiphe’s body.
I swallow, hard. “What could you possibly want with her? She was drained, fin tapped. What was so wrong with leaving her to be interred in her home territory?”
A tendon bulges in Noire’s cheek, and the accompanying sound resembles the grinding of teeth. “It’s nothing you need be concerned with.”
What Leonard perceived as worth fighting for in this lyche is beyond me. Surely whatever nugget of decency that remained of the former member of Modere is dead. Crushed beneath the heel of Alpha philosophies long ago.
I spare a glance at the ironwork gate as I hop down out of the car, but Noire gives me a rough nudge in the thigh with his foot.
“Follow me, now.” Condescending. Like one would address a dumb animal being led to slaughter.
I follow, flexing my right hand with each stride. Trying to get a feel for how to channel the energy down my arm in something of a controlled fashion. Noire leads the way down a set of bare concrete steps along the side of the building, through an entrance leading into the basement. The air smells and feels dry, not at all what I expect. But the hallway is lifeless. Just sealed concrete, painted white, with evenly spaced sconces lighting the way. No smell that suggests how many humans die within these walls. Not a smell, but I can still sense death. It taints the energy of this place, gives it the chilled, hollow ambience of a mausoleum.
He stops at the first door and thumps on it with the toe of his boot. “In you go. Farken’s been waiting to meet you.”
Blue’s drug source? What are the odds? I mean, yeah, they’re both Alpha circle, but really . . .
I could make a break for it. I might even have a fighting chance to get a little lead on him, considering he’s bogged down with Soiphe’s lifeless form. But he’d drop her in heartbeat, and then where would I be? Pinned to the ground—or the wall—with two hundred plus pounds of enraged lyche, furious Premier, matured in his powers and fully charged and quite obviously not in complete possession of his mental faculties. He’s carting his sister’s days-dead corpse around, for Gaia’s sake.
“Eager, is he?” I ask the question with false composure while turning the knob, and push the door in a fraction. It makes no sound on the hinges. “How long’s he been waiting?”
“Months, I expect. This alliance is important to him. Get in there. Don’t keep a lyche waiting; thought you would’ve learned that much.” His foot, planted firmly on my ass this time, forcefully encourages my forward momentum.
I close the door behind me and lean against it, listening to the sound of his receding footsteps.
By Gaia’s grace, if you’ve any intention of saving my hide, Leonard, now would be a really good time to do it.
“It seems Noire managed to do something right for once.” The disembodied voice is refined, the tone eloquent, but there’s a hint of a burr in the low register. Is it even possible for a lyche to sustain permanent damage to the vocal cords? Maybe a result of constant smoking, judging by the heavy scent in the air. Either that, or the lyche always sounds that way. Makes my skin crawl, listening to it. Please, stick to the upper registers.
The room is well lit, though it carries the same minimalist quality as everything else I’ve seen in this building. A large area rug covers the center of the floor space, its woven design an intricate Celtic knot. Stark black against vivid red, it feels almost mandala the way it draws my eye and demands my focus.
A lyche—a very tall, willowy looking individual—turns from the sidebar along the left wall to face me, a snifter in one hand and a smoldering pipe in the other. He strolls toward me, his expression neutral, skin so pale
it seems to glow against the dark red silk of his smoking jacket.
“Mesmerizing design, isn’t it,” he acknowledges in a conversational air, motioning to the rug with his pipe before taking a puff. He swirls the amber liquid in his snifter, takes a sip, licks his lips in obvious pleasure. “No doubt you’re his get. You look too much like him.”
This is Blue’s source? The street dealer who loathes lyche couldn’t tell what he was? I don’t believe it for a second. Possibility exists that Blue couldn’t tell because the lyche used its own substance to maintain a veil of anonymity, but Blue claims he doesn’t “sense” them that way. That he can’t. Which means Farken must have been “masking” himself the same way Garthelle did when he approached me on the street that first time. And that absolves Blue of his guilt, in my mind at least.
The connection to my sire is just as baffling. Then again, they’re both Alpha circle. Maybe that’s all the commonality they require to work in tandem.
My brain feels like a mouse in a maze, the scent of cheese strong no matter which way I turn. I need some answers, fast. I need to figure out what’s going on, exactly, and who the players are, if I’m going to have any chance of slipping the noose before it tightens in earnest.
“You’re Farken, then?”
He blinks, and a beat of silence passes before he flashes a toothy smile from thin lips. His gaze narrows a fraction. The details resolve themselves as he steps closer. A sneering, masculine mouth above a soft, feminine chin. Hard, wide-set eyes with a faint almond shape below a brow that’s weak. A sloping forehead with a severely receding hairline. Where Leonard’s duality is perfectly blended, Farken is the exact opposite.
Feeding on energy gives lyche a perpetually youthful appearance. Which means Farken’s just one ugly fucker who’s aged with the grace of a giraffe. A three-legged giraffe.
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