Blacker than Black (16 page)

My mind reels, vision blurring as the questions spin through my mind one after another like bats erupting from their cavern perch at dusk.

With a conscious effort, I force myself away from it, turning my back to face the unadorned wall. And I can breathe. My first breath in what seems like years whooshes from my chest, and my shoulders shake. Lifting my hands, I grip them against my chest, clenching my fists in a battle of wills.

I should not be reacting this way. But I can’t stop it.

Vincent Noire, V.
He gave my name away to someone more worthy. Someone whose blood demanded it. Someone sufficiently acceptable to the vampire community, no doubt.

Wrong. Someone acceptable to the
lyche.

He obliterated our memory, scouring all evidence of us from his mind and his past. Obliterating our very existence, the evidence right there in harsh Indian ink on heavy parchment. As if we never existed. Rage boils up, corroding every coherent thought and emotion, searing along the edges of my vision, dulling the world to shades of black.

Jhez’s hand on my shoulder reinstates a measure of sanity. I know without turning to look that it’s her touch; her energy radiates into me, soothing away the fierce burn of emotion and dulling my discomfort with echoes of her own. Grounding me. After all, she had some time to herself to assimilate the discovery. Some measure of privacy.

No matter how much time has passed since I discarded my birth name and surname in favor of another, they will always remain. A mark set into flesh in my formative years—the vision of what my parents saw in me. That will always haunt me. A specter of my past, a dark shadow leering at me through the feeble fabric of time.

The
lyche
draws my eye. He steps away from the door, cautious in his approach. There’s no chance of him not feeling the emotions radiating from me, even with the drugs blocking energy flow between us.

Yet he ignores it entirely. “One would immediately assume, looking at that, a direct correlation between the Fillun and Noire families. That it exists with such immediacy is profound; it’s common knowledge, though, that if one traces the genealogy of any
lyche
lineage far enough, such correlations can be found between every bloodline.”

“One big happy family, then, eh?” Jhez’s comment is flippant as she tosses the long paper and its reviling content back to the clutter on the desk.

“Far from it.” He skirts the edge of the desk and flips through the layers of paper crammed with fine print. “The notations by the names indicate far more valuable bonds.”

Red brows furl into a scowl. “Thicker than blood.”

The Monsieur of York glances at her. “Many things are, amongst
lyche
.” He holds out a smaller paper populated with a list of vibrantly colored symbols and dark, enigmatic text. “Each refers to an association based on a circle. Which is in no way a linear correlation to ancestry. Occasionally, the two will parallel one another, but it is rare. The Fillun connection with Noire is one such instance, though.”

“Circle.” Jhez utters the word with the same tone she uses when she taste-tests my cooking.

“Thirteen circles exist in
lyche
society.” Garthelle’s mouth twists and he shuffles through the disarray on his desk as if attempting to distract himself. “Thirteen clans, each with their own agendas, operating in complete secrecy. Distinct from political factions, family, or business relations. They’re chronicled there by name; some trace their existence back as far as the most ancient lineages. Others are younger, only formed shortly before the disclosure. I know little about the majority of them, so few details are included in that list. Most of the connections between members are easily identifiable. Not all, though.”

What binds the clans, if it isn’t political or financial interest, and isn’t blood? I’m all but opening my mouth to ask as much when a sharp knock at the door precedes the arrival of Garthelle’s butler. “Monsieur
.
I’ve come to give forewarning of your father’s presence.”

The lack of intonation is odd. The tension in the room increases as Garthelle straightens and swiftly circles the desk, making for the door.

In the doorway, he turns back to study us. “Remain here until I return. Don’t venture
anywhere
.” The door clicks shut, the sound leaving a portentous silence in its wake.

“As if we have a notorious history of being snoops or something.” Jhez twists her mouth into a snarl and makes no effort to curb the volume of her voice.

Offering a smile, I pat her shoulder in passing and move around behind the desk to sit in Garthelle’s chair. “Show me what else you found before we got here.”

The edge in my request makes her stare in consternation before indulging me. “This list of circles. There’s associations between them as well as within them. From what I can make out,” Jhez pauses to tug a chart from deep within the mess and toss it on top, “no circle has associations with more than three others. Some have less.”

“What’s with the different lines?”

“That indicates the strength of the alliance. One’s always strongest between two circles.”

“But that leaves an odd man out.”

“Yes it does. The oldest of the circles, the original.” She taps a finger to the center of the chart, to a circle on the page with no deviating lines at all. “Either it maintains no
identifiable
associations, or it truly does choose to isolate itself.”

“And the Noire family with it?”

“The Filluns, as well. Which would explain their family-circle parallel. From what I can make of this mess, they don’t mix with others very often.”

I snag the lineage map and scan it. “Not all the family members have been aligned with this circle though.”

Jhez’s curt bark of laughter makes me flinch. There’s not a whit of humor in her tone. “You mean aside from us? It’s not unusual. The weakness of familial bonds explains that. It’s actually normal for ensuing generations to align themselves with totally unrelated circles. Look.”

She’s right. The deviations
almost
seem to follow a pattern. “But the Noire family has at least one member of each generation in the oldest circle.”

As Jhez leans forward from her perch on the edge of the desk, her brows and mouth twist into a scowl. “Think it means anything?”

“There’s no such thing as coincidence. But while it’s interesting, none of it points a finger at who’d benefit from the death of Vincent Noire’s sister.” Rifling through the mess, I look for another chart. “Having allies means having enemies.”

“Don’t bother; if he has one, it’s not here.”

My eyebrows arch toward my hairline. “Really?”

“I looked. It occurred to me just as quickly.”

“What’s the purpose of us doing this? Surely he doesn’t need our help.”

“What’s the first question that comes to mind?”

I laugh. “Quite a few pop up. Which circle is Garthelle’s? Does it have a hostile past with the center circle on that chart?” I squint in an effort to make out its label, but the lettering is too small to read without leaning forward again. “If that’s the case, is Garthelle’s sole purpose in this mess to get his hands on the illicit offspring of a rival?”

My sister’s dark eyes harden and she turns away, back stiff. “What’d be the point in that? It wouldn’t give him any leverage.”

“Not that we can see. The fact that Noire’s had children since the war suggests otherwise. That
lyche
society might strongly disapprove of our existence.”

“Black. That’s ridiculous.”

I grin at her. “I know. There’s no way anyone would accept that I am who I say I am, that my
sire
is indeed who I know it to be.” That vamp is not my father; I refuse to call him that. He doesn’t deserve it. “Not when he took such care to give the same exact name to another.”

“He walked away from us then; I doubt he’d acknowledge or associate with us now. So that possibility is insanely unlikely. We’d have no blackmail value, provide no leverage.”

“Yeah? I’d agree with you, except that I don’t believe in coincidences. And wouldn’t you say the most ironic one of all was our aunt found dead in Leonard Garthelle’s home just days after he took us into his employ?”

“You think someone knows who we are.”

I nod slowly. “I might even venture to say someone has proof. I don’t know how these things work, but I imagine someone might be unhappy to discover they’re not the heir, but the spare.”

“But bloodlines don’t carry that kind of weight.”

“Family, perhaps not. Consorting with a ‘lesser species’ though? I don’t know, I’m going on a hunch. They didn’t suddenly decide to hunt us down for chi-theft. Not after a two-decade crime spree. You don’t believe that, do you?” I push out of the chair and snag Jhez’s pack from the floor. Toss the crinkling bags of evidence on top of the chaotic paperwork before sitting back down and abandoning the pack with a negligent flip of my wrist.

“Let’s start with this.” I grab the medallion left at the murder scene, the metal heavy and solid through the plastic. “Is the symbol on the front indicative of family, or circle?”

“Circle.” She taps the corresponding representation on the chart. Not the center one. “But if you’re right and
Le Gross
has ulterior motives in”—she waves her hand, searching for the right word—“acquiring us, why would someone drop a dead member of the Noire family in this gathering?”

Snagging the lineage chart, I drag it back up on top of the pile. “Because our Auntie Soiphe wasn’t a member of the esteemed Noire circle.” Alpha, it’s labeled. “Not Alpha.
She
. . .” I trail off, grabbing the legend listing of symbols, “. . . was a member of this circle here.” I tap a different circle from the one Jhez indicated. The only relational bond between the two circles is four steps removed via the lines of strongest secondary relations.

I stare at the chart, frowning, wondering why it was constructed the way it was. Why put the twelve circles around Alpha like that? There has to be a reason why it would be placed in the center when it demonstrates no direct association with any of the other circles. Why not place it at the top, the bottom, or to one side, out of the way, so that the relationships of the other circles could be more easily visualized?

“Of course there isn’t a second chart.” The revelation hits me with such force that I sit back in the chair, stunned and chilled to the very core. “It’s designed that way for a reason.” Jhez is silent and motionless. I turn to look at her. “Politics,” I whisper, forcing a faint smile. It’s a short-lived expression. She doesn’t respond, waiting for me to explain. “Politics, and negative space. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Together, our gazes return to the chart. The center circle is enemy to all. Ally to none. The strength of hostility toward Alpha defines the bond of friendship between the other circles.

“Oh fuck.” Her voice wavers. “We’re caught in the middle of another war.”

It isn’t a very pleasant realization. “And the enemy of my enemy’s enemy . . .”

The vampire’s return is abrupt. He slides in past the door and leans against it as if his weight is holding off an imminent attack. One arm folds across his chest, the opposite hand resting beneath his clean-shaven chin. His gaze flicks over me lounging rather comfortably in his chair, but I don’t feel the impulse to relocate. Garthelle intimidates me, but I’m not about to let him know it.

The corner of his left eye twitches, and as I let my gaze drift down his form I notice other hints of stress. The vein standing out on his temple, tendons cording in his neck, the stiff posture.

“You’ve uncovered a shred of something disturbing I take it.” His yellow eyes linger on my gaze.

“What makes you think that?” Jhez’s retort is slightly more caustic in tone than I like, given the nature of what we’ve thus far managed to deduce.

The vampire pushes away from the door, arms and shoulders relaxing. Almost as if we radiate sufficient surplus energy that being in our company elicits an improvement in his mental state. Can they feed that way, without actively tapping in to someone’s chi? I have no idea.

“Do you think I can’t feel it? It was obvious enough earlier. Now . . .” He stops a few paces from the desk and clasps his hands at his back. “The energy in here . . . If I didn’t know better, I’d think my younger brother left his pet rabbits in here to breed.”