Blood Redemption (Blood Destiny #9) (20 page)

"No, cheah-mul, not yet," Norian changed in a blink and wrapped his arms around me when I tried to slide off the bed. His arms were warm around me in the chill air of our hotel room—Lendill had set the temperature, so he obviously liked it cooler. He had no way of knowing about Norian's penchant for warmer air.

"Norian, you're naked." I was pointing out the obvious.

"Yes. Isn't it wonderful?" He nuzzled my chin and neck, then wandered toward my mouth.

"I thought we were only petting."

"You are not petting anything at the moment." He lifted himself over my body. "Don't turn me out. I'm begging you."

"You have that begging thing down pretty good," I muttered and misted away. His head was stuck inside my shower minutes later—yeah, he was still naked.

"Norian, you get a kiss. That's it," I said, moving toward him. He settled for that and walked off grinning. His ass is really nice, and I watched it walk out of my bathroom.

* * *

"Grampa, she won't take money or any other kind of compensation." Shadow just wanted to get out of his grandfather's office.

"We can pay for a portion of the gold." Raffian made the suggestion.

"Drake and Drew say that Kifirin pulled that gold from Cloudsong's own veins of ore. They paid for that themselves. Besides, Lissa would just throw it right back at us."

"At least Melida is off our planet," Glendes sighed.

"A suggestion was made to me, and it made sense when it was presented," Raffian went on. Shadow watched his father—Raffian was excited about this idea and wanted Glendes to agree.

"What suggestion is that and who made it?" Glendes turned to Raffian.

"Kyler made it, but I think it may have come from her Larentii." Raffian had a wry smile on his face.

"What is the suggestion, then?" Glendes' daughters, Cleo and Kyler, hadn't been speaking to him lately.

"She suggested that we apply to join the Alliance. We don't do business with any Alliance worlds, because they don't allow outside trade. We'll still be able to work with the worlds that aren't members, because there aren't any laws against grandfathering in current clients, we just have to abide by the rules of trade as set by the Alliance, but we already do that, Dad." Raffian was pitching his case to his father. Glendes lifted an eyebrow at the suggestion.

"What do you think the economic impact will be? I know Le-Ath Veronis pays a percentage of their income," Glendes was intrigued by the idea.

"A small percentage to pay for benefits, and we'd have an entirely new market for our work. We wouldn't have to worry so much over vetting our clients first," Raffian said.

Shadow was watching the exchange between his father and grandfather, without commenting. They'd gotten completely away from the subject, and that had been what to do to lure Lissa back to him. He felt like folding away and working this out on his own—or perhaps with Drake and Drew, but he didn't want to strain the relationship with his father and grandfather more than it already was. Now was the time to make amends with everyone involved and for Shadow, Lissa was first on that list. He breathed a relieved sigh when Glendes turned back to him.

"I know we've wandered away a little," he smiled at his grandson. "We'll do our best to bring Lissa back to you. We just have to figure out how to do it."

* * *

"Here is the information you wanted." Zellar handed a note to Viregruz. Viregruz lifted an eyebrow at his pet warlock as he carefully unfolded the small slip of paper. Only a short, handwritten message was depicted. Viregruz smiled.

"Get the Liffelithi for me—and quickly. I'll be more than happy to hand over most of the money we received from Solar Red and San Gerxon to take her out, just to get this done as swiftly as possible. They'll need a shield, too, to get a ship inside the Alliance. I expect you to provide that shield until our target is hit. You can withdraw it immediately after."

Zellar felt a momentary pang of conscience. The Liffelithi held a weapon that had been outlawed from one end of the universes to the other. If the Alliance suspected they had it, they'd have mobilized their army already and gone after it.

Liffel was a nondescript world and home to several races of dwarves, all of whom fought constantly. The inhabitants' willingness to war with each other was the reason the planet's application to join the Alliance had been rejected on many occasions. One particular faction had gained possession of this weapon when all the others like it had been dismantled and destroyed by the Alliance.

Viregruz had discovered its existence—the ones who held it had contacted him discreetly, letting him know that for a price, it could be
borrowed
. Viregruz was about to see how effective this weapon might be and that concerned Zellar. He shook off the worry, however, and went to do as Viregruz bid.

Viregruz watched Zellar leave, rereading the note one last time before tearing it into tiny bits, which he swept into a waste bin. This was the Queen's fault, if she didn't watch over her population better than this. She should have known that someone close to her would likely pass the information along, not even thinking that it might end in the Queen's death. Viregruz knew where the Queen was, now. All he had to do was pay the Liffelithi and her death would be swift. Viregruz smiled widely and sat back in his seat.

Chapter 9
 

"Lissa Beth, are you good with names?" Norian was now the Director of the ASD and not a lion snake who'd spent the night in my bed. Lendill was standing next to him and they'd cooked something up, I could see it in their eyes.

"I have almost total recall," I said, frowning at Norian.

"Good," he smiled. Norian can certainly turn on the charm when he wants. "We've called a meeting of all our operatives this afternoon," he said. "And I'm depending on you to tell me which ones have taint about them—who might be in on replacing Lendill or anything else that ties my tail in a knot. I'll introduce Lendill as my new assistant, Rych," Norian added.

He'd pronounced the name Rych like "rich." "Is that short for anything?" I asked, crossing arms over my chest.

"Rycharde," Norian was still smiling. "We're thinking about making it permanent."

"Honey, what are you doing? Does Lendill really want this?" I was skeptical, all right.

"It works, at least for the moment," Lendill sighed. "New face, new name, I suppose."

"Then let me do this," I said, and went to Norian, placing my hands on his face and gathering power around me. When I dropped my hands, Norian had mindspeech. "Now you," I did the same thing for Lendill/Rych.

"What did you do?" Norian didn't know, yet. Neither did the newly named Rych.

"Gave you mindspeech, but you can only communicate with me and a few others—you won't be able to do anything with somebody who doesn't have the gift." Norian's eyes went wide in shock. That's how Rych sent first.

Does this really work
? he sent to me.

It really works
, I sent back. Rych laughed—a full laugh that I hadn't heard before. This truly was a gift for him.

Lissa Beth, do you hear me
? Norian finally had his head wrapped around this, I could tell.

Honey, I hear you and you can even communicate like this while you're in snake mode
, I replied.

"This will make things so much easier," Norian muttered. "Come on, let's do a little snooping."

We did some snooping, three blocks away from the Temple of the New Dawn that was under construction. A market district surrounded the new structure and just about anything could be had up and down that street. We got breakfast sausages rolled up in baked dough and we ate first, before Norian began asking questions.

"Have there been any disappearances?" Norian asked a vendor who sold silk scarves.

"Rumors are everywhere, and we all look to the news vids for better information, but there's nothing coming from the news services." The scarf merchant sniffed as if he suspected the news vids weren't accurate. He was right.

"Is there anyone you know who has come up missing?" Norian pressed on.

"A vendor down the way disappeared two eight-days ago," he said. "I didn't know his family, so I haven't made any inquiries about his disappearance. He could be ill or called away on some errand. I don't wish to jump to conclusions." Our vendor wasn't sure what to tell us, exactly, since he didn't know who we were. Therefore, I placed compulsion. Things went smoothly after that.

"Everyone is frightened," the vendor stated, after I ordered him to speak the truth. "We don't know whom to turn to, any longer. The people who are missing—nobody has seen any of them again. Children are missing, too. We don't like it, but the ones who have contacted the journalists also end up missing."

When we got as much from him as we could, I placed compulsion to forget that we'd been there before moving on.
I say we take out the
fuckers now
, I sent to both my companions. My language caused Rych's eyebrows to rise momentarily.

I promised the Twenty that we wouldn't have a repeat of Twylec
, Norian practiced his newly acquired skills of mindspeech.
It's to protect you, Lissa Beth
.

You tell them everything
? That had me stopped dead in the middle of the busy walk, forcing people to move aside all around us since foot traffic flowed continuously.

Only the one
, Norian grumped as he took my arm and we started moving again.
How will it look if you are seen near that sort of thing regularly? Rumors fly about you anyway, breah-mul. We do not wish for more troubles to land on your doorstep
.

"Nobody ever worried about that before," I grumped aloud. Norian pulled me closer to him.

"We worry about it, now," he hissed in my ear.
Refizan certainly remembers a little Vampire Queen. Even though the cameras went dark or fuzzy during the Conclave on Nemizan, do you think they aren't talking about that anyway and speculating wildly? Cheah-mul, you are in enough danger. Let us protect you when we can
.

Norian's words almost made me stop again but he prevented it, keeping a tight grip on my arm and pulling me along with him. Rych had moved to my other side and I walked in step, flanked by both of them. We talked to three more shop owners before taking a break for lunch. I'd had to place compulsion with each of the three in order to learn what Norian wanted to know. It wasn't good—any of it.

"Where are we meeting with your people?" I asked, as we ate at a small table inside a café. Norian was cold, I could tell, and he wanted to eat inside rather than staying outside and ordering from a vendor's cart.

"About six blocks from here, at another hotel," Rych answered. Norian's mouth was full, so he let his assistant take up the slack.

"Do any of them know where we're staying?" I asked.

"They think they do—I've got a suite set up not far from here, under Norian's name." Rych was proud of himself, I could tell. He grinned as he bit into his sandwich.

I nibbled at my food. I was far away, though, in thoughts anyway. All the vendors we'd spoken with had mentioned children disappearing. I didn't like that one bit and wanted to go right to the temple and pull any out that might be there. Norian was doing his best to hold me back.

"We'll take care of business later, when it's dark and we know which of our agents are moles," Norian tapped the edge of my plate, bringing me back to my uneaten food. "Eat your lunch—I don’t need a collapsing Liaison." I sniffed at his words and lifted my sandwich.

* * *

Norian gave an improvised speech, telling twenty-nine operatives that we were making some progress in this case, but it was going slowly and we weren't likely to find anything truly incriminating for a while. I'd gone
Looking
, just to make sure there weren't any cameras or listening devices on any of them, but they probably knew better than that. Nobody had anything. Norian was misleading them, too, putting any moles' fears to rest that we didn't have any solid proof yet. When his speech was over, I mingled with the crowd and told Norian and Rych through mindspeech just who the bad guys were. Six of them were tainted and Norian had their names by the time they walked out the door.

That evening, he placed a call to each of the six operatives, asking them to meet him at our bogus hotel room. Rych answered the door and each of the six were led to a bedroom for a private conference with Norian. I was inside the bedroom with Norian and watched as each one was bitten by a twelve-foot lion snake that leapt at them the moment they walked through the door. All six died of poisoning and all six were transported, courtesy of yours truly, to Tykl. Someone would pick up the bodies later. Rych/Lendill never saw the snake and never asked questions, either. We all knew what was going to happen to those operatives when they were invited to the suite. Perhaps Rych thought I did it—he'd seen me work when Norian and I had come to help him while he was under attack.

"Now, on to other business," Norian shrugged into his coat later. "Lissa Beth, you named every one of the six we suspected," he added. "Rych here," he clapped his assistant on the back, "had already gotten hits on all of them; we just wanted confirmation. Now, feel free to take us to the dungeons of the Brotherhood of the New Dawn." He grinned at me. I turned all of us to mist and got the hell out of there.