by R. J. Blain
“Hey, Rob?”
“What is it?”
“You were around before the Dawn, right? There’s no way someone so new could forge so many connections in so little time. But you’re a dae, and you’re not one of the ones who was born from a human. How is that possible?”
“I was around. I just carefully chose when I made my appearances. Baltimore isn’t a place I visited until after the Dawn. I have a lot of business here, but it wasn’t a focal point of mine until now. Your refrigerator isn’t the only portal on Earth; it’s just one of the easier ones to access. It’s hard to explain, so I’ll keep it short and simple. I felt the portals open and knew they led to Earth. It wasn’t hard to figure out a new dawning had occurred. I decided to watch and see what would happen. I’m glad I did.”
Rob was as much of a mystery as the vault. “So there are other worlds out there. With intelligent life, I mean.”
“There are. Earth is my favorite, though.”
“Why?”
“I was born here. That’s why.”
“Really? But you know so little about the modern times.”
“I told you I was old. While I have visited Earth, I didn’t stay long—just long enough to conduct choice bits of business. Knowing about Earth’s current culture wasn’t important to me until now. A mistake, it seems. I had others who handled most of my affairs for me so I wouldn’t have to stay on Earth for long. I’m paying for my ignorance now. Still, the company is well worth it.” Rob grinned at me.
I had a pretty good idea of what he wanted, and I’d probably indulge him when we returned to my apartment. He was right about the company, although I had no intentions of letting him know how grateful I was that his ignorance had thrown us together.
Like the storage facility, the library was more of a warehouse than a work of art, but the presence of so many books filled me with childish delight. The vanilla scent of old pages was partnered with the smell of old leather, and I breathed in deep to savor it.
“I love libraries,” I declared, setting the laptop bag down. “Welcome to one of my favorite places on Earth.”
Hundreds of thousands of books filled the room. I could spend my entire life in the cavernous space with no hope of reading every title. In a month, I had barely scratched the surface of the history section, although I had blitzed through most of the place. A podium with a built-in tablet waited by the door, and I tapped in a query for the Bible.
The vault’s library didn’t disappoint. While I expected one copy, I whistled at the assortment of versions. “Hell, there are hundreds of versions, Rob. Which one do you want?”
Rob leaned over my shoulder to glance at the screen, reaching around me to scroll through the list. “This system is designed to let people take books?”
“I didn’t take any with me, but I had noticed the functionality is there.”
Clicking his tongue, Rob browsed through the selection. He tapped his finger on one of them, pulling up an image of a tattered volume. “This one.”
The leather covering the book was so worn, brown patches showed beneath the black, and the pages had long since yellowed with age. I frowned, tilting my head to the side as I considered the book.
I’d seen copies like it in the hands of the faithful heading to or from one of the sanctioned services in the few operating churches in Baltimore. If Rob was hoping to avoid notice with his choice, he’d done a good job picking a volume that wouldn’t draw unwanted attention to himself. I tapped the screen to pull up the book’s location. While I was at it, I followed the prompts to register we were taking the book from the vault.
The system pinged its acceptance of the withdrawal. I glanced at the numbers listed on the sides of the bookcases. “Looks like we have a bit of a hike to pick it up.”
Rob chuckled and led me deep within the library.
While the catalog had included many versions of the Bible, there were far more copies of the book present than I had thought. They took up an entire row of the library, and I whistled at the assortment and variation. Some were so old they were stored in protective glass cases. Others were bound in gold.
Most were thick, heavy volumes. While Rob hunted for the specific one he wanted, I stared at a slender copy nestled between two worn leather copies. It was made of white leather with gold gilding, and its spine was embossed with golden decorative script. I eased it off the shelf.
The odd script repeated on the cover of the book, and I was astonished I didn’t recognize the language. I opened the book to discover the pages were all blank. I had no idea what the book was, but it wasn’t a Bible. I made a thoughtful sound in my throat and tucked the volume under my arm, heading to where Rob was busy searching the shelves.
“No luck?”
“It’s not here,” Rob grumbled, pointing at the case where the book he wanted should have been. “Damn it.”
“There are thousands of versions here, Rob. Will one of the others do?”
“But I wanted that one,” the dae whined.
I laughed at his childish tone, and while I was puzzled at his behavior, I smiled and decided humoring him wouldn’t hurt anyone. “I’ll help you find it. It’s probably just in the wrong spot. Happens in libraries all of the time. For all I know, I might have been the one who moved it. I hit a lot of sections in here.”
“Even religious texts?”
“Forbidden fruit,” I murmured, lifting my chin.
“What do you have there?”
“It’s weird, so I picked it up. A blank journal,” I replied, holding out the volume to Rob, who took it out of my hands. His eyes widened, and he trailed his fingers over the fanciful script. “This is in Hebrew.”
“Hebrew?”
“The language the Bible was originally written in.” Rob flipped the book open and flipped through the pages. “How curious.”
One day, if I found another library with illegal history books, I’d have to find out about Hebrew. How long ago had it been used?
No one mentioned the age of the religion, only that it existed before the reformation. Smart worshipers kept quiet about their religion, and since I didn’t have any interest in it, I hadn’t bothered to learn much about it.
I wondered if my ignorance was a mistake.
“That’s why I picked it up,” I admitted.
“If the government finds that, they’ll destroy it, won’t they?”
I scowled, sighed, and nodded.
The government always destroyed beautiful things they didn’t approve of or understand. Maybe I wasn’t religious by nature, but I could appreciate works of art like the white and gold book.
Taking the volume back from Rob, I returned it to where I found it. “I’ll help you find your Bible.”
“Thanks.”
I started at one end and he started at the other. He found it three cases down from where it was supposed to be, pulling it off the shelf with a triumphant huff. “Got you, you little bugger.”
I laughed and said, “Let’s get out of here before we’re locked in here all day.”
7
“How does this benefit us?”
We made it halfway back to Baltimore when Rob’s cell rang. Sighing, he pulled over, freed his phone from his pocket, and put it to his ear. “Rob.”
Rob’s expression went completely neutral, and he listened for several minutes. I tensed, watching him with wide eyes. While he kept one hand on his cell, he gripped the steering wheel with the other, and his knuckles turned white. “I see. Very well. I will have conditions, and should you violate even one of them, I will hang your exsanguinated corpse from the Ivory Tower. I’ll use your blood to write every last one of your crimes on the skyscraper for the world to see. Am I understood?”
Instead of waiting for a reply, Rob hung up, and I thought he was going to fling his phone through the window. After pocketing his phone, he resumed driving in the direction of Baltimore. “I hate that man so very much.”
“Let me guess. Kenneth want
s me for something.”
“You, Miss Daegberht, are either too damned smart for your own good or psychic. I am uncertain which.”
I snorted a laugh at that. “That’s just common sense, Rob. Little else angers you quite as much as that jackass. What does he want?”
“What else? Your services, of course, just like you guessed. It seems your prediction about him wanting to infiltrate the police was correct. He’s requested a meeting to discuss his proposal this evening. He wants to pursue the connection between Terry Moore and Dean Lewis.”
I groaned and covered my face with my hands. With my doubt regarding Dean Lewis’s involvement, I needed to get my hands dirty, but Kenneth’s involvement would complicate the entire venture. “Why won’t he just go away?”
“I have some theories about that, although I don’t know anything for certain. While he has an externalized dae, it’s probable you’re a source for the pair.” Rob sighed. “And I’m sorry for that. I know how much that bothers you.”
Being a food source for the dae sucked. Accepting Rob’s need for what the unawakened provided had taken time, and I still wasn’t sure what I thought about sustaining his life.
Rob, at least, had been up front and honest about his needs. The way he went about it left me breathless and wanting more. I didn’t know what I would do if he changed his mind and found someone else to sustain him.
I had grown used to having someone I could touch without fear of my skin burning, rashes, or blisters.
“What I don’t understand is why Kenneth would be going after the dean. Assuming the dean is involved, he has to know about the drug; it’s in every one of those murder videos. Assuming he’s not being set up, he must know what the drug does—and that it doesn’t show up on the current tests, which makes it the perfect murder weapon. Kenneth doesn’t know we know why the dean supposedly invoiced Terry Moore.” I clacked my teeth together, drumming my fingers on my knees while staring out the window.
The forests surrounding Baltimore grew so thick I couldn’t see far into their depths.
Rob grunted, but otherwise remained quiet, his attention focused on the road.
“Is it possible Kenneth wants blackmail material on Dean Lewis? The invoices need not be true to accomplish that goal. I could readily believe that. It fits his style pretty well. He’ll kill if necessary, but the death of someone like the dean would cause a huge stir—and potentially draw a lot of attention, attention he doesn’t usually want. Kenneth loves toying with the police and reminding them there’s someone out there they can’t control.” Wrinkling my nose, I shrugged. “There are a lot of reasons Kenneth might want me to sniff out the dean. Kenneth could be playing everybody. But Terry Moore might have been doing the same to Kenneth—or the dean. This stuff happens all of the time.”
“But how does infiltrating the police help him with that?”
Rob’s question was a good one, and I took my time considering the possibilities. Someone from the fringe, the type of person Kenneth could manipulate into serving him, had no hope of becoming a part of the police force—not without special circumstances. Even if I completed my studies and rose in rank, I wouldn’t have been eligible to join the police or the military until now.
Only those born to a higher caste who remained there all of their lives were entitled to serve society.
Having someone with access to the police’s comprehensive databases would allow Kenneth to sniff out his victims without needing so many hounds working for him. If that someone was me, Kenneth would have all of the blackmail material he needed to keep me under his thumb for the rest of my life.
If anyone found out I worked with him, the best I could hope for was a quick execution. Otherwise, I likely faced a lifetime of imprisonment. With the dae vying for food sources like me, I had good reason to fear the consequences of being caught doing the dirty work of Baltimore’s most nefarious—and secret—crime lord.
Without Lily supporting him from the shadows, his business would suffer until he found someone to replace her. A part of me regretted killing the woman, but if I hadn’t, she would have taken advantage of the moment to get rid of me once and for all.
No matter what his intentions, Rob couldn’t protect me from everything. I had to take matters into my own hands or be a victim of someone’s machinations. I narrowed my eyes and clenched my teeth.
If I could infiltrate the police, he wouldn’t need to replace Lily—or keep many of his other hounds.
I swallowed back a lump in my throat and wondered if Kenneth had already eliminated the other hounds as he had tried to eliminate me. “He could clear out his operations and get rid of most of his hounds. If he had a pocket cop, he could get blackmail material on those in the force and then pin other officers under his thumb. If he had someone in the police force, he’d need far fewer people working for him. It would let him hide and consolidate his operations. The databases alone would make it well worth his while.”
The hardest part of sharing my thoughts with Rob was confessing my fears of what would happen if the police found out what I was doing. He listened without speaking a word, though his eyes narrowed as I detailed the possibilities if I was arrested for conspiring with a drug dealer.
“How does this benefit us?” he demanded.
“The databases include pictures and general information on everyone. I could find out the identities of those women and find out what connected them to Kenneth, Terry Moore, and Dean Lewis. Kenneth is high enough in rank the police won’t touch him unless the case against him is significant. Without proof, motivation, and evidence, he gets away with murder.”
“We could just kill Smith and be done with the problem.”
Killing the bastard of an elite appealed to me for different reasons, but I shook my head. “He’s too high of a rank, and there’s no such thing as a perfect murder.”
No one would really care about the fact I had killed Lily; her caste wasn’t high enough to warrant much effort solving the mystery of her death. Even if someone accused me of her murder, the firearm license and a claim she had been carrying an illegal weapon would protect me.
Dean Lewis’s death would result in a frenzy, and someone would take the fall for his death. Not even Rob’s status as an elite would save him from the twisted justice system.
I couldn’t let him be ruined, not like that.
It took me two hours to set up Rob’s laptop, and without the time or materials to disguise the origin of his power cable, I hid it under my couch to deal with later. His battery still held a twelve-hour charge, which I considered to be a technological miracle.
Mine had held a two-hour charge and had gone into its final death throes within a week of acquiring it. With a little luck, one of the spare batteries we’d snagged from the vault would work, but we’d only find out when I had time to install and test them.
Both of my dae companions fell into an exhausted slumber long before I finished installing the software on Rob’s new laptop and making certain the system worked. When I was finished, the only way anyone would know it was illegal would be if they located the charging cable before I had a chance to disguise its plug.
Satisfied with my efforts, I turned my attention to work I should have done weeks ago. With only a few hours before the meeting with Kenneth, I stayed awake, working through the backlog of school work I hadn’t finished.
If the college did reopen, I would be ready.
The ease of the work still disappointed me, although I had gotten a taste of its simplicity before the Dawn of Dae. Mindful of the fact mediocrity and boredom would be my most dangerous enemies, I took my time with the assignments I had missed during my recovery. My worries over what would happen with the education system remained, but until I knew for certain what would happen, all I could do was wait.
“You don’t have an off button, do you?” Rob asked, perching on the arm of the couch.
I looked up from my tablet and stuck my tongue out at him. “I’ve pushed off
schoolwork long enough.”
“It’s boring you out of your mind, isn’t it?” Rob slid onto the cushion beside me until he pressed against my side, peeking at my tablet’s screen. “You really use your tablet for your school work?”
“When I can; I do type things up on my laptop to help me remember, but on assignments like this, it’s just easier to work on the tablet. I’ve been using the college’s laptop as much as possible, though.”
“Makes sense. They haven’t asked for their laptop back?”
I shook my head. “The dean told me to keep it for the duration of my work with him. It’s loaded with every bit of government-issued spyware out there, which works in my favor; if he’s looking into my activities, all he’s going to see is a student doing her work and little else. That said, I did browse the police recruitment pages on it.”
“On purpose?”
I shrugged, saving my work to finish later. “If Kenneth wants me poking around, and I do end up trying to get recruited by the police, I need a paper trail. The pay’s good, and I can probably arrange it around my classes and work with the dean. If the dean is having my records pulled, and he’s trying to go around the system, he’ll likely want to use me in the same way Kenneth wants to use me. As a Bach student, I’ll have no choice in the matter, although I’ll pretend I’m nervous about what I’m doing, which the dean will expect. Who knows? If I play my cards right, he’ll enroll me for my Master’s.”
“That would work exceptionally well for you. He could also try to have you eliminated like those other women.”
The thought had crossed my mind, although I hadn’t dwelled on it for too long. “Possible, but unlikely. And that’s only assuming if he is involved. The more I think about it, the less I’m certain of it. What bothers me is these men are usually more meticulous than this. Which one of them has lost his mind? That is our probable culprit. But Kenneth has more ways to benefit from the dean’s name being on the invoice than the dean does. None of those women were one of Kenneth’s known associates—at least not ones I knew about. I know most of the women Kenneth has working for him. The dean knows Kenneth has an interest in me, so it likely goes against his interests to have me removed from the situation. I think the two have been either working together or competing for a while. The dean seemed familiar with Kenneth’s interferences when I saw him at the college.” I sighed. “I just don’t know, and I have zero solid evidence beyond knowing the invoices exist, the murders happened, and Kenneth is the source of the drug.”