Blood & Spirits (8 page)

I pull on the river. I take strength from it. I think I can manage to deal with this Hocker creep now, without losing it and snapping him like a twig.

Idling out from the parking lot into traffic, I punch down on the accelerator slightly and the tires chirp. I actually let myself laugh. I can enjoy the night a bit more than I had been for the next few blocks to the courthouse area.

I pull up outside the jail, lock the car, and head inside smiling. After all, I’m on camera and I need to look my best.

I’m met in the waiting area by Marybeth Pugh. She’s Frank’s in at the jail, and she and I have met a handful of times over the last few years. We make small talk and she leads me back to a tiny little windowless room marked ‘private.’ She tells me to have a seat and that the guards will bring him right down.

Smiling warmly, I thank her, shocked to discover I’m in a good enough mood to be pleasant. I can hardly believe it.

There’s an odd feeling here, like a painful emotional echo. It’s not difficult for me to get a sense of a place, but this one’s essence is murky.

The mechanical clanking of the door opening draws my eyes to Calvin being pushed in toward me. His eyes are glassy and his whole demeanor is kinda sluggish, like he’d been drugged.

He doesn’t even raise his face as he almost limps further into the room and stops. He doesn’t even seem to notice me. The door slams shut and I can hear the lock clank from behind him. No reaction. It’s like he’s not even here.

This is totally wrong. I can’t read any emotion off this guy at all. He only looks up when I call out to him. “Hey there, Calvin. My name’s Veronica. You tried to burn down my house. I think we should talk about that. Don’t you?”

 Not even a twitch from him. No reaction. I point to the chair across from me. “Have a seat.”

He does as he’s told, shuffling slowly to the chair. I call his name again to get him to look up, and I lock his gaze.

I drop down into his mind and it’s very dizzying. Like falling off a cliff and then losing what’s up and down. Falling, but not sure even what direction your headed.

This mind has been removed. Blanked. Like a magnet over a hard drive. He retained memory enough to live and do as he was instructed, but he had no memory of anything else, or ability to think freely on his own. He was a vegetable.

This was incredible and frightening. Someone can actually do this to another’s mind. That inspires awe deep within me. Someone beat me to this guy, and might have done it to keep me unaware. That’s the scariest thought I’ve had in a while; another of my kind actually trying to destroy me. And not a simpleton like Learner, but a person talented and dangerous.

Whoever did this is better at it than I am, and that means they aren’t local. If there’s someone here from outside the area Jacobi should know about it, and if he doesn’t know about it then I need to bring it to his attention.

I have this vegetable taken back to its cell, thank Marybeth for all her help again, and head back out to night air. And I had just been feeling so much better. Damn it!

I get into my car and bring the emerald beauty to roaring life. The miserable side to this is that to get to get a meeting set up with Jacobi, I’ll have to go through Learner. Sometimes I really hate the things I have to put up with.

THE MOON IS OBSCURED BY
a thick blanket of low hanging clouds, making the night more beautifully dark. It looks like rain, I think to myself as I pull up outside the Community Bank Building,

Parking on Broadway isn’t bad for a Saturday night. There are a few people still out roaming the streets by the bar a block up, but fairly quiet for midnight.

I turn the car off but I’m not ready to get out yet. I’m about to walk into the lion’s boardroom, and I know that Learner will be set for blood. I’m not sure how to play this. Jacobi and Jules got along well for a long time, and he’s never been bad to me, but that’s not to say he’s without his flaws. He chose this place for his office because it’s the second tallest building in Pekin. He feels important and likes to overwhelm.

I guess we all play to our strengths in life.

Setting my four inch heel on the sidewalk and standing up out of the car, I catch sight of myself reflected in the window of the building. In the black Gaultier suit Frank picked up for me in New York, I look like one of the exquisite dead things that Jacobi parades through here from the larger cities. I might even pass as refined.

When I set this up with Learner, he was a total prick about it. He tried to make it seem like I had caused a problem, and now he was doing me a favor to help get it fixed. I wish he’d just realize that I’m too smart for him to get one over on, and resign himself to our mutual hatred. Talking out of both sides of your mouth doesn’t work on me, fangs or not.

The doormen know me; they open the door when they see me coming. I can’t help but notice the addition of automatic weapons under their usual uniform coats. I guess we really are all planning for the worst tonight.

I cross the lobby and tap the up button as casually as I can. I’m on security cameras now. There really is no turning back. The ride up in the elevator and the few paces down the hall it takes to reach the door do not provide me nearly enough time.

I put my hand on the knob and take a deep breath before turning it. Stepping inside, I’m in a different world.

The room is obviously as elegantly appointed as I remember, but he’s had it redecorated. It’s darker, and more stylish than it had been. Half of the room is a dark wood toned sitting area, antique mirrors and torch lamp style lighting on the wall, with beautifully preserved Victorian furniture and a rug that could easily cost more than my car. The other half of the room is an executive meeting room. A custom made U-shaped table sits in the center of the room with chairs, tables, and a hand-carved bar against the three surrounding walls. This place is meant to impress and intimidate. It is as successful as its owner.

The room is already occupied, the rest of the council, of course, arrived before me. It’s rare that you have all eight of us in one place. I always stand out in these little meetings when I’m invited. I am the only one like us that has no seat on their little ruling council.

The others are being surface social, but still obviously in their family pods. Jacobi’s family was furthest from the door, his nephew Marcus Learner was standing and blustering to Preston Warner, his cousin. Preston had the style, the money, and the brainpower Learner lacked. He was actually someone to be feared, or would be in time. He was second to none, in this town, for his taste and his cold fickle way of dealing with people.

Standing near enough to them to hold conversation but dividing the room down the middle were Serena Carlson and her nephew Steven Carlisle. Theirs was a house divided, over the issue of support for Jacobi’s rule of the area. Serena was a former lover of Jacobi’s, but it was a relationship based on shared control of assets, not any pretense of emotion. Her silver blonde hair and conservative dress, all in white to match, revealed to a degree how ‘off’ she was. Her penchant for the clandestine secret arts was well known to all of us. She was easily the most perverse of the council, while Carlisle cared only for money and power, and all the trappings of it. Social niceties meant nearly nothing to him.

Closest to the door and talking to Carlisle are Gus Edelmann and his cousin Carson Dwight, not as well dressed, but obviously as wealthy. These were my people. They are too well moneyed for a working girl like me, but they come the closest to understanding what I do, and what it means. They were both working men before being chosen to be one of our kind. They have both aided me several times in the past, but always with the understanding that the council shouldn’t hear about it. I can appreciate that.

Then I see him, his eyes already on me, sitting motionless on the opposite side of the room. Adrian Jacobi is always dressed sharp as a tack, embodying an immaculate corrupting authority. If I were to be seduced by power, I would be his.

He allows me to stand awkwardly in the entryway long enough for all the conversations to die off and everyone to turn and gawk at ‘little orphan V’, before standing and announcing that we’d be going to the council table to sit. I doubt they’d admit it, but I think they all secretly love having me around to look down on.

They all file in around the table, taking their seats as a matter of ritual. Jacobi sits in the center, and has a silver mallet that rests in front of him.

There are no formal rules for how our kind should gather, but being the eldest he has his own dictated procedure that everyone accepts and follows. He’s earned his position by age, by surviving longer than his contemporaries, and that alone commands respect.

I know it’s intentional that, when they do actually consent to my presence, I have a chair that sits a good foot shorter than theirs. I don’t get to sit at their table. Just being in the room is gift enough as far as their concerned. I just keep telling myself that doing this is important, and screw them if they don’t like me. I look good.

Everyone is seated and the room is silent. Jacobi stares into me for a long moment, before banging his toy hammer and rising to speak. “We have all come together because I required it. It has been brought to my attention that Veronica has uncovered some disturbing facts that may well concern us all.”

They hang on his words, even if they do have little more than contempt for me. “Now, Veronica, what is this matter that so urgently requires our attention?”

All eyes are on me as I stand before the closest thing I have to my own species, feeling like an insect to be dissected and studied. Their family lines bind them just as much as their thirst for blood, and I was literally no relation. They would hear me out, because most of them owed me favors, however, none of them would put themselves at any risk for me. I’m crazy, not stupid.

“I believe there is, or has been, another of our kind in the city. One I don’t know.” Watching their faces, reading their emotions, they are all looking to Jacobi for an opinion and he is a stone.

I continue undaunted, explaining. “Calvin Hocker is a criminal who recently tried to burn down my house. When I went to question him and probe his mind for motives, I found that it was missing. His active mind and memories were entirely gone. Now, whatever did that was definitely not a breather. I believe this was done by another of our kind. One I’ve never met. To have the power over the mind that has been displayed would take some training and suggest age. I felt that was an important matter for the Council. Further, I strongly believe that Hocker, before his encounter with the creature I’ve discussed, may have been working with a large alliance of ghosts toward some greater end. I don’t know what it is, but it worries me. I know from my contacts among the spirits that there is a larger than normal amount of activity from unquiet spirits in the area; they are working in larger numbers and are more organized. These are things I’ve discovered or have been brought to my attention. I believe they might all be connected. I felt it was my duty to inform the Council.”

I look at the grandfather clock behind Jacobi when I’ve finished and realize I’ve kept them all quiet and seated for far longer than I had intended. There is an uneasy lull while they all look at one another and to their eldest for his thoughts.

Finally, Learner has had enough and he stands to face me, saying, “And why are we even sitting and wasting the time to listen to your ridiculous speech? It’s nothing more than a request for our help, right? You come here with a hand held out to us asking for us to clean up a mess for you? Spirits are after you? Criminals are trying to burn down your house, and so you scramble their brains and don’t want to be held responsible if we find out? If there really is something going on, how do we know you didn’t cause it? Why don’t we just order you to investigate these matters further and solve your own problem?” Learner blurts it out without considering his own contradiction, or the company he’s in.

He has got to be a disappointment to his uncle. He lacks his family’s rapier wit, common sense, and worst of all by choice, their education. It’s all I can do to hold back a laugh.

“Nephew, you speak out of turn.” His words are soft, but forceful.

“But uncle, this snotty little bitch is probably lying just to set us up, or trick us. She openly admits to consorting with spirits. I’m not going to just be lead around by…”

“Silence!” Jacobi shouts, interrupting his tirade. “I don’t ask that you like what I say. I simply require that you do as I tell you.”

Serena stands and waits to be recognized. When she is she addresses the room, but doesn’t take her eyes off Learner, who is clearly uncomfortable in her gaze. “As much as I don’t want to, I agree slightly with Marcus. She isn’t a part of any of our families. Plotting against us isn’t so ludicrous an idea. However, I too, have noticed oddities of late. Word has been brought to me by the spirits I choose to consort with that leads me to believe there are strange and perhaps dangerous things afoot. I believe looking into these parts of her claims is not without merit.”

Glances are shared around the room and it would seem that about half of them still agreed with Learner. This is why I don’t spend a lot of time around my own kind. At least now, though, I knew they were divided on it. Now I knew that they had heard what was going on, and I wouldn’t be put to death later for withholding information that could harm us all.

Jacobi stands and the murmuring and accusing looks all stop. “I will look into this matter personally, as a favor to you, Veronica. I should hate to put it to a vote of the Council and have you find little support. I do not wish you to lose face here, but I must also advise that you keep a lower profile. Your name keeps coming up in all the wrong places and not just on my nephew’s lips.”

He looks to Serena. “Do you wish to inform me of your findings in this matter as well?”

She nods, and looks at me. She and I both know that this means I owe her. I know my place here, but I will never stop hating it.