Infernal Affairs (17 page)

“Nah. I just had my break, and I’m jittery as it is. Thanks, though.”

“Should I tell Selena something about the . . . wet powder suspension?”

Cindée grinned. “That’s not necessary. It’s kind of a Byzantine process, if you want to know the truth. Just tell her the fragments are being thoroughly analyzed. Oh—and Linus had a message for her. It’s on a Post-it he left.”

“Damn. I thought I was the only one using Post-its.”

“No, he pretty much invented it.” She pulled the Post-it off the keyboard and handed it to me. It read:

“Really? I get to be the one who gives her this?”

“Just slip it under a file. She’ll notice it after you’ve left.”

“We’re awful employees.”

Cindée shrugged. “She has better things to worry about than a software update. And we don’t really need it tonight. But Linus will feel better if he knows that his request was delivered in due course.”

“You’re good, woman.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve survived this long.” She rapped her knuckles against the counter. “Knock on Pyrex.”

I headed for the break room. As I walked down the hallway, I noticed that the door to Selena’s office was closed. I made sure that nobody was looking, then stuck the Post-it note to her office door. I needed Linus on my side as well.

Derrick was already sitting on the couch, unpacking something that smelled amazing. Patrick and Mia were both with him. When Mia saw me, she instantly rose and grabbed my arm. “Oh, my God, we need to talk right now.”

I followed her back into the hallway.

“Okay. Sorry; this is important.”

“I really just want to sit down and relax. The four of us are hardly ever in the same room anymore.”

“I know—we’re a broken family, et cetera. I don’t care. I’m talking about something far more important.” She lowered her voice. “Patrick got a tattoo.”

I walked past her. “Show it to me,” I said.

Patrick sighed. Then he lifted up his shirt slightly. There was a vampiric rune, red and blue, inked just below his navel.

“It’s my original mark, from the Magnate,” he said. “I just had it filled in, so that it’s more visible.”

“I don’t think you need to be outing yourself as a paranormal right now.”

“That’s kind of self-hating, don’t you think?”

I sat down. “Fine. I have no sensible advice for you. Just do whatever you feel like from now on.”

Derrick handed me a plate of chow mein.

“Is this from Sky Dragon?”

“It is.”

“How did you get them to deliver downtown?”

“I paid them a lot of money. Now, eat your noodles.”

“Mmm. They’re so fat. And there’s so many of them.”

“He got the tattoo at Sacred Heart,” Derrick said.

I stared at Patrick. “You went to a normate tattoo parlor and asked them to touch up your vampire rune?”

“I heard the girl there had really steady hands.”

“You had a crush. Shocking.”

“I chose her based on her reputation.”

“Uh-huh. I absolutely believe that.”

“I’m over eighteen.”

“You are. Which means”—I pointed a fork speared with noodles at him—“you get to make your own dumbass decisions.”

Patrick sat down, grabbing a plate. “Thanks. I think.”

“I think it’s kind of cool,” Mia said. “He’s proud of his heritage. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, right?”

“I just don’t want him to attract too much attention. He can wear his pride on the inside, but it’s quite another thing to brand himself.”

“Isn’t it like getting a rainbow tattoo?”

“Those aren’t especially attractive, either,” Derrick said.

The last thing I wanted to talk about right now was vampire pride. Mia was already curious as hell about Patrick’s “heritage,” as she called it. The problem was that her power and her vampire DNA were inseparable. If we tried to access one, we risked increasing the strength of the vampiric viral plasmids, which meant potentially losing a part of what made Mia who she was.

I could have asked the same thing of Mia that I’d asked of Ru. So much about her life before the last five years was still buried, including the identity of her real parents. That was a secret that both Marcus Tremblay and Sabine Delacroix had taken with them to the grave (and, in Sabine’s case, to whatever alien shore awaited her after undeath).

“Tess?”

I looked at Mia. The expression on her face made my skin go cold.

This is it,
I thought.
She’s really going to say it. “I’m becoming a vampire, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

I swallowed. “What is it?”

“Don’t forget about your Dr Pepper.”

I smiled. “Thanks for remembering.”

“It was Patrick who remembered, actually. But I was the one who remembered that you
didn’t
like the vanilla flavor. Which averted a potential disaster.”

“You’re my hero,” I said. And it was true. “Why are you and Patrick both here, by the way? Did you really want Chinese food that bad?”

Derrick gave me a look. “Okay. Don’t freak. Selena asked Patrick if he’d be willing to examine the Kentauros demon.”

“Examine it how?”

“She wants me to smell it,” Patrick said. “She called it ‘olfactory trace detection.’ Maybe it’ll have some kind of bacteria that I’ll be able to distinguish or something.”

“Maybe it has a specific body odor,” Mia said. “And
you
get to identify that. How lucky does that make you?”

“Shut up.”

Selena popped her head into the break room. “Oh, Patrick, you’re here already. That’s good. Come with me.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere yet.” I turned to Selena. “Are you seriously going to put him in the same room as Basuram?”

“No. We’re putting him in the room next to the demon’s cell. The two of them can communicate by microphone.”

“I should be able to smell it through the walls,” Patrick said. “Modred’s been teaching me how to maximize my sense potential. He’s really nasal at the moment. So we’ve been smelling a lot of things together.”

I glared at Selena. “Were you even going to tell me about this?”

“I sent you two texts about it.”

“When?”

“Forty minutes ago, when I first had the idea.”

I looked down at my phone. It was pretty much a warzone of unanswered text messages, e-mails, and BBMs. I felt like I’d put it down for only a moment, but suddenly, I couldn’t remember when I’d last looked at it. I felt real panic. I’d become so conditioned by its regular updates that I feared missing anything, even a relevant Facebook announcement.

I got up. “Okay. I dropped the ball on that one. I’m still concerned, though. I don’t even like the fact that these two are in the same building, and you want to put them practically in the same cell.”

“In adjoining cells,” she repeated. “Both heavily reinforced. Neither of them are even going to get a look at each other.”

“Are you kidding? You have no idea if the Kentauros demon can see through walls. Can we at least disguise Patrick’s voice?”

“Yes. He’ll have a filter.”

“Like a real informant,” Patrick said. “It’s kind of cool.”

“No. This is not cool. It’s dangerous and unnecessary. And with all due respect, Selena, it pisses me off that you want to use him like this.”

“She’s not using me,” Patrick snapped. “I wanted to help. It also helps me focus my powers, and I need to learn more. It’s good experience.”

“He is right,” Selena said. “Although, touché about me being nasty and going over your head. I understand that Patrick’s old enough to be making his own decisions, but you and Derrick are also an important part of his life. I assure you, I don’t plan to put him in any significant danger. And there’s the real possibility that Basuram might let something slip.”

“I can also take care of myself,” Patrick said.

“Aww.” Mia sighed. “I remember when I used to think that. Then I woke up with my hands tied behind my back, and watched a guy get blown away, right in front of me. Now I just kind of assume that things are going to go south right away.”

“You probably get that from me,” I said.

“For the record,” Selena added, “Derrick already chewed me out about this very issue, twenty minutes ago.”

I looked at him. “Had you had coffee first? What kind of mood were you in?”

“I was curt,” Derrick said. “But respectful. In the end, though, I agreed with all of her points. I don’t think Patrick’s going to be in any immediate danger, and really, there’s no one else with his sensory abilities—at least, no one who’d be willing to work for us. It’s a bit of a win-win.”

“I’d just like to point out,” Mia said, eyes glued to her phone, “that nobody invited me here for anything. I came because I was very bored, and Derrick promised that we’d go to Spartacus Books, after the smelling’s over.”

“You’re picking up a Marxist tract?”

“They have good ’zines. And I know the ‘moment’ of ’zines has already come and gone, or whatever, but I still like them.”

“Are ’zines over? I hadn’t realized.”

“They were pretty much over once you heard about them, Tess.”

“Ouch. You’re in a fine vapor today.”

“Sorry. I guess that was low even for me.”

“We’re going now,” Selena said. “Derrick, you’re not coming near Basuram again, for obvious reasons.”

“Understood,” he said. “I’ll chill with Mia.”

“Oh, can we chill? Like actual thugs?”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

The three of us left and took the elevator down to the level where Basuram had been relocated. It got distinctly colder as we hit the basement level. The lights were dim, and our shoes echoed on the hard floors.

“How many demons are kept down here?” Patrick asked.

“Depends if you’re counting the employees or not,” Selena replied. “Basuram is the only demon currently incarcerated. This facility was only designed for shortterm holding purposes.”

“Should I be nervous about this?” Patrick asked me.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a little nervous. But Selena’s right. The two of you will be segregated. You’ll be able to sense each other without seeing each other, and Basuram won’t ever hear your real voice.”

Linus met us at the cell door. He ushered us in, then retreated. “The audio’s set up. All Patrick has to do is speak into the microphone.”

“Thanks, Linus,” Selena said. “You can lock us in.”

Linus shut the door to the cell. “I’ll be out here recording.”

“You know what to do if something goes awry.”

“Yeah. I’ll get my ass out of here.”

Selena exhaled. “Do at least try to sound the alarm as you’re running in the opposite direction.”

“I will. Don’t worry.”

I sat down next to Patrick. Selena remained standing.

“Should I say something?” Patrick asked.

“Not yet,” Selena said. “Just reach out with your senses. Tell us whatever you manage to pick up.”

Patrick’s expression went distant. I felt nothing.

“It’s old,” Patrick said, his eyes still closed. “Really old. The smell is like”—he frowned—“plaster? It’s strong. It’s making me a little dizzy.”

“Don’t push too hard,” I said.

“It’s fine, Tess. I can do this.”

“Who is that?”

Basuram’s voice echoed through the microphone. We all went silent. Patrick shifted in his seat.

“I’m a vampire,” he said, into the mic. “My sire was the Magnate of this area.”

“Magnate.” Basuram laughed. “Is that vampire middle management? Why would they send you to question me? I have no idea what they think you might glean by sniffing around me like a dog.”

“You’d be surprised what I can pick up on,” Patrick said. “You’ve got bacteria on you that’s not from around here. And I sense that you eat a lot of red meat, which is something I can respect.”

“You’re no closer to me than the rest of them,” Basuram said. “I’ve spent my whole life at war. But I can taste how young you are. You don’t know the first thing about being an immortal.”

“I’m a pretty quick study, though. I’ve been learning how to sniff out memories.”

“You can try. But if you open your senses to me, there’s the chance I’ll move in and make myself right at home in your brain. Is that something you’re willing to risk, vampire? Because once I get control of your central nervous system, I’m going to start breaking necks.”

“My brain’s dead,” Patrick said. “I mean, technically. I’m animated, but my organs are toast. You can’t invade something that has no electrical impulses.”

Basuram seemed to digest this in silence.

“I smell ashes,” Patrick said. “Something made of bones.”

Ash and bones.
That was what Derrick had seen in Basuram’s mind.

“That memory is close to the surface,” the demon replied.

“What does it mean?”

“I’m not about to tell you.”

“Why do the bones feel so smooth? They’re almost like glass.” He made a face. “They taste bitter. I need something to drink.”

Basuram was silent.

“Are you ignoring me now?” Patrick asked. “Is this a sore spot?”

It was quiet for a little while longer. Then a different voice came through the microphone. It was slightly higher in octave. It still sounded like it was coming from Basuram’s throat, but the intonation was entirely different.

“Who am I speaking to?”

Patrick frowned. “We’ve already been introduced.”

“The slave that you spoke with is under my collar. Now we are in direct communication. What is your name?”

He looked at Selena. She nodded slowly.