Flicker (25 page)

              “Come sit with me,” he invited gently; partly to disguise the slight, residual trembling in her hands, Elise gathered her skirts as she made her way over and sat beside him. He slowly, softly put his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head against his chest, reveling in the instant feeling of safety she found there now. Glancing up, Elise saw Gregory watching them thoughtfully.

              “Elise,” he said softly, as though speaking to a spooked horse. “Can you tell me about Rashid? Everything he said and did, any impression you got from him-- anything you can think of.” When Elise swallowed, thinking hard about how to answer, he continued. “You see, Alexander and I are trying to gauge exactly what he's planning, and you may have made some observations that we didn't.”

              Taking a deep breath, Elise recounted the incident yesterday evening, when Rashid had accosted them in the garden, and then this morning's encounter. This time, she left nothing out, detailing the covetous way he'd looked at her yesterday, the chillingly seductive tone in his voice this morning, and her suspicion that he'd deliberately tried to frighten her on both occasions. She described his casual demonstration of power this morning, adding her opinion that he'd done it with the express purpose of illuminating to her that she was helpless against him, and that she thought he'd engineered it specifically to remind her of her past. Alex had been growing steadily more tense as she spoke, and at this last, he pulled abruptly away to look down at her, and Elise realized belatedly that she hadn't told him about Rashid's blithe reference to her history.

              “What?” Alex demanded, his eyes narrowed. Elise had been composing herself as she spoke, and with her confidence regained, she refused to shrink back from his stunned anger. “You didn't say earlier-- do you mean that Rashid found out about what happened to you?”

              “I guess you weren't the only one who thought to Google my name,” Elise snapped in return, her temper rising to meet his. Alex, who had opened his mouth to say more, froze. Annoyed now, Elise found herself pouring out more of the morning's conversation-- including the allegations Rashid had made about Alex's intentions toward her, and finally the knowledge he'd supplied about the Queen and other omnivores. By the time she finished speaking, she thought Alex's bones might snap from the pressure of his clenched muscles.

              Gregory cut into the tense silence. “Alexander, the computer in my bedroom is open to the file of Rashid's recent movements that I compiled for you this morning. Why don't you go take a look at that?” Alex stood stiffly, without looking at Elise, and stalked into the other room. As soon as he was out of sight, she dropped her face into her hands.

              “I shouldn't have done that, should I?” Elise whispered, mostly to herself, almost forgetting that Gregory could probably hear her. She heard the shift of the other love seat and glanced through her fingers to see him lean forward, his elbows braced on his knees.

              “You know he's terrified, right?” Gregory asked without preamble.

              Elise blinked at him. “Is Rashid really that dangerous?” She asked breathlessly. From the way Alex had talked, she'd gotten the impression that the two of them had butted heads numerous times in their long acquaintance. And Alex's first reaction to seeing his longtime adversary had definitely been anger, not fear; unless she really was that much of a liability for him, she just didn't see him reaching the level of “terrified.”

              But Gregory was already shaking his head. “It isn't Rashid that has him so frightened-- you're correct in that they've spent centuries trying to undermine each other, so this is nothing new.” Gregory smiled at Elise's belated realization that she was forgetting to shield. It seemed rude to start now, however; she decided not to worry about it and just kept listening. Gregory continued, “It's his feelings he's scared of.”

              Elise raised her eyebrows. “His... feelings?”

              Gregory sighed. “You know he's in love with you, right?” Elise nodded, biting her lip guiltily. She felt a great number of complicated things for him, but she hadn't ever actually been in love, and she wasn't sure at this point she even knew how to be. Still, she felt like a terrible person for not immediately saying that she returned his feelings. “It's perfectly understandable for you to have reservations on that count,” Gregory brushed off her thoughts. “But what you perhaps don't understand, and what Rashid very carefully did not tell you, is that Alexander has been in love, and has settled down, before. And given what became of that, it is very reasonable that he would not have tried again for so long-- or that helping you heal might have done the same for him, enough so that he'd be willing to open himself to such risks again.”

              Elise was frowning, unconsciously leaning toward him. “What happened?” She asked softly.

              Gregory's gaze was very direct. “You understand that Alexander is one of my dearest friends, don't you?” Elise nodded. “The information I am about to give you makes his prying into your secrets look like a child's prank. I don't care what he does-- you will not use this against him. Do I make myself clear?” Gregory had seemed kind, mild-mannered, and a little flamboyant-- but suddenly, his intensity was geared to intimidate. Elise had to stop herself from shying away from him before she responded.

              “Perfectly,” she bit off sharply, disliking the threat. Suddenly, he looked tired. Lowering his voice to a near-whisper, he began to speak.

              “Her name was Theresa. She was one of us, and practicing, too, though she hadn't discovered her ability to stop aging. She was only eighteen. Alexander met her in 1848, in Dover. They married and had a son, Peter. Peter was born human; it is rare for two vampires to produce a human child, but it can happen.”

              Elise's eyes widened at Gregory's succinct tale, but she didn't interrupt. He continued to speak quickly, and Elise could tell he wanted this out of the way before Alex came back.

              “Theresa already didn't want immortality the way Alexander did; when Peter was born she convinced Alexander to let himself age normally. He bowed to her desire to raise their son like a human family. He aged two years before both of them admitted that it wasn't worth the mental toll that allowing himself to grow old was having on him; he stopped his aging process once more, but it is the reason he appears almost twenty now. Theresa never even tried to stop herself, and continued to grow older without him.

              “When Peter was six, he drowned. Theresa tried to continue, but coupled with the fact that Alexander would not grow old and die with her, the strain was too much. She took her own life.”

              Elise realized that his terse recounting had brought tears to her eyes, and wiped them away quickly as she heard Alex coming back into the room. When he approached the love seats, Elise reached her hand back, suddenly needing to touch him. She had the presence of mind, however, to push the reason for her sadness deep into her mind; unable to think of any other way to mask it immediately, she began to sing the jingle from a popular commercial for fish-shaped crackers silently to herself. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gregory raise his eyebrows as his mouth quirked into a half-smile. Meanwhile, Alex looked surprised that Elise had reached out for him, but took her hand without hesitation. She used the contact to pull him around the love seat and tug him back down beside her, holding his hand firmly between both of hers. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, looking at her inquisitively, but she just smiled at him.

              “Did you find anything in the file?” She asked him curiously.

              The smile he gave her was a little sad, and made her think that he saw through her attempts to be cheerful. Gently brushing her long hair back from her face with his free hand, he answered. “Not too much, no.” He cast an apologetic glance over his shoulder at Gregory, who shrugged. Alex continued. “Just that he has apparently been in the country for several weeks, but he left all of his cult members back in Armenia.” Elise's eyes widened-- Rashid had a cult?

              Gregory raised his eyebrows. “I hadn't noticed that he left them behind. But assuming he didn't find out about Elise until he got here, it's not surprising that his movements before that point were less than informative. The question is, what do we expect him to do now?”

              Elise spoke up. “He seemed pretty interested in getting me on his side, after a fashion. I mean, he was pushing hard to drive a wedge between Alex and me,” she squeezed his hand gently, nudging his shoulder reassuringly with her own. “And as much as he tried to make you using whatever political power I might have...” she hesitated, uncertain, but at a nod from Alex, continued. “As much as he tried to make that sound like a bad thing, I can't think of another reason he'd propose a 'business arrangement' to me, other than politics.” She paused again, thinking hard-- something about what she'd said wasn't right. She held up a finger, imploring them to wait while she puzzled through what was suddenly bothering her: the disparity between Rashid's words and his manner.

              Finally, she sighed. “This is going to sound vain as hell, but he wants me. He says it's purely business, and maybe that's how he intends it, but on some level he wants more than that.” Throwing her hands up in frustration, she got to her feet, pacing the edge of the gray, abstract-patterned area rug that ran beneath the seating area. “Why is it always like this?” She snapped, at the end of her patience. “Is my only value as some sort of... I don't know, sex object?” Even the whip of her skirts snapping around as she turned sharply didn't satisfy her today.

              A quiet voice from the couch cut through her mounting temper. “I have spent five hundred years now studying our species,” Gregory said mildly. “I am, in fact, considered something of an expert in my field, and routinely correspond with scholars in the Court on the subject. Perhaps I can shed some light on the issue at hand.”

              Elise took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment and consciously relaxing the taut muscles in her shoulders. When she had herself under control once more, she resumed her seat on the love seat next to Alex, though this time she kept a bit more distance between them. She knew he would notice, but right now she wasn't in a mood to touch anyone.

              Once she was settled, Gregory continued. “As a species, we are the pinnacle of human evolution. This is not pride speaking, but scientific fact; contrary to our contrived mythology, there is nothing mystical about our existence. That being said, we have discovered through observing the Court that if we as vampires are the height of human evolution, omnivores are the height of ours. You were born to rule, Elise-- omnivores in general and you in particular; there are too few of you to split hairs. You are a genetic anomaly specifically engineered by nature itself to be the very best of us. And that is an incredibly attractive prospect to the rest of us.”

              Gregory sighed, rubbing his jaw absently as he gazed out the glass wall at the spread of the city. “We are creatures used to power. We innately have power over humans, and even over nature to some degree, as I'm sure you've experienced. Those of us who live longer than human life spans spend much of our time gathering wealth and power to some degree or another. So, habitually speaking, we are not likely to take well to the idea of someone having power over us. As such, you're born with somewhat automatic protection-- a genetic safeguard, it seems, to keep us from reacting to your presence similarly to the way the humans might react to realizing that we exist.”

              Elise was frowning at him. “So you're saying there's some sort of protection built into my DNA to keep you carnivore and herbivore types from getting scared and slaughtering us rare omnivores?”

              Gregory winced a little at her summary. “Yes, that's pretty much it.”

              Elise realized she was perched on the edge of her seat, her hands absently twisting her skirts as she watched him. “So what is it?” She asked when he'd been silent for a few moments.

              “I'm sorry,” he apologized for his distraction, turning to meet her gaze directly. “Simply put, it is attraction, and a desire to protect. You are, to put it in human terms, a princess; as a child, everyone around you would have wanted to protect you-- even more, that is, than one would normally protect a child. You were, and are, a rare treasure, and everyone who came into contact with you would have recognized that on an instinctual level.” His tone was reverent, and Elise had to struggle not to frown as her interest in the subject warred with her distaste for being referred to as an object.

              “So if that's true, what changed? Why...” she didn't need to complete the thought.

              Gregory sighed. “Biology. To be frank, puberty. You grew from the body of a child to the body of a woman, and the instinct to protect was joined by an instinct to possess. It didn't matter to those idiot boys that your mind wasn't ready, or that you might not be theirs to possess to begin with-- biology wants what it will.”

              After a moment, Elise was able to swallow and whisper, “That doesn't sound very effective.”

              Gregory shrugged. “It is, and it isn't. Evolution takes time. You must remember that pairing off as late as twenty and thirty years old is a recent development as far as history is concerned, and that these genetic imperatives have yet to catch up.”