Sleight of Hand (20 page)

“Something happened, Amber.” He leaned forward. “Something very important happened to you in the army.”

“Maybe. Can’t say.” I had gotten very short on words by this time. There really wasn’t a lot I could say. I had signed all those rights away.

It was as if he read my mind. “They’ve made you sign all kinds of documents, I don’t doubt. I suppose if I’m an American, I had better respect those documents. I suspect you won’t tell me now much more about your past than I already know. You will in time. But there are things I need to know about you, tonight. To know if you can work for me.” He stood up. “How strong are you?”

My stomach lurched. It felt as if someone was squeezing my chest and pressing on my eyes. Gray fingers sank into my skull. I stumbled back. I could sense him
inside
my head. The room had become suffocatingly dark. I wanted to turn and run, but my body wouldn’t obey me. My legs gave out and I slumped down onto my knees. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t tell where he was. He seemed to be everywhere and in my head.

I managed to raise one hand to ward him off. “No, please.” It sounded like someone else talking, far away.

“Time to come home, Amber,” he whispered, startlingly close to my ear. I fell over, trying to move away. “Your Blood calls out to us. You’ve been too long on the path. You’re lost. You’re lonely. We’re waiting for you. Come home to us, where you belong, Amber. You’re so close.”

“You promised no harm,” I gasped. I tried to get my feet under me but they refused to obey me.

“I wish you no harm, Amber. Truly. I can take away the pain and the anger. Don’t you want that?” He was on the other side now. “There’s nothing left for you out there any more.”

“No. No.” I fell again, dizzy. A voice inside my head whispered
no pain, no anger, so easy, just let go
. I screamed and put my hands to my ears but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it because it was part of me and it wanted what he offered. Such sweet longing.
To come home. To rest. To belong.

“So easy,” he sighed. “Such a little step. Just stop fighting. I know you want to. No more fear. Offer me your Blood and I will carry you across so easily.”

Let it go, let him do this and it will stop. There will be no more fighting, no more pain, no more fear.

“NO! NO!” I screamed. I’d faced that lie before. I was sobbing, but I knew that if you had no fear, you might as well be dead. I couldn’t die. I had things I had to do. I had to silence the voice in my head. I couldn’t let the coward inside ever get out again.
Never
. I tried to lash out with my fists, and struck nothing.

As swiftly as it started, it was over.

I could see again, and I was kneeling on the floor and crying onto its cold, unyielding surface. I felt like I had been on the wrong end of a long, hard beating. Every muscle was in agony, every part of me felt bruised.

There was a noise behind me and, faster than I could react, hands lifted me and placed me gently in a chair.

“You bastard,” I choked. My whole body was shaking.

“Yes. But better I test you first than simply send you out and risk another taking you like that. They still could overwhelm you, I suppose, but now I know that you will fight. And you will have a chance.” He returned to the head of the room and sat in the shadows again.

He let me alone for several minutes.

“I have a job for you, Amber,” he said finally.

“Why would I do it, after what you just did?” My lips felt numb and my words slurred, but he understood me.

“Because we will be here for you, when you need us. And you will. I can feel the pull in your Blood.” He stirred in his seat, which made my heart spike again. “Do this for me and you will come to realize that we are much better than the alternative.”

“What is it? Why can’t you do it?” Despite feeling like crap, my curiosity got the better of me.

“Why? Because I need someone who isn’t—quite—Athanate and isn’t House Altau. As to what: for a start, simply attend the McIntire-Harriman Foundation Charity Ball next week, collect a message and report to me afterwards.”

“Just that?”

“Exactly. You will be like a lamp to a moth.” He paused and the room seemed to darken again. “Do not let him turn it around. Do not betray me.”

“Stop it!” I shrank back. It was a good thing I was in a chair, and couldn’t fall over. “Turn what around? What am I trying to find out?”

“Diana will explain.” He stood, and made to leave.

A hidden spark of anger flared in me. “Stop! Dammit, I can’t work if I’m expecting to be bitten all the time.”

He nodded, a movement in the darkness. “I will put a ban on you. None of my House or those sworn to me will attempt to bite you.” He pointed to the far wall. “Go up in the elevator; Diana will take you home.”

The anger flared again at his dismissal and overcame the exhaustion. “What about payment? Am I expected to work for free?”

“Very well. My payment is in information, Amber. It is this: It is
vital
that you attend the ball for the purposes of your other client, Ms. Kingslund.”

He was gone. I staggered to the front of the room and tried to see where he had gone and how, but it was as if he had just become part of the shadows. There was no evidence that he had ever been there. I shuddered.

I walked unsteadily back down the room, pausing to visit the statue of Anubis again. I hadn’t been mistaken. The statue was hard and smooth as rock, but warm as flesh to the touch. It was as disturbing as anything else now that the vampire—the
Athanate
—master had gone. I shuffled to the elevator. I had to get the hell out of this place.

Chapter 25

Diana was waiting where I had left her, a slight frown still marring her features. And the blindfold still held in her hands.

I felt so drained, I didn’t argue the point, even for form’s sake. She led me, blindfolded and stumbling, out to the car and eased me into the back. Someone got in the front. I assumed it was the Vietnamese girl from the lingering smell of her dope and perfume disguise. Under that smell, the scent of copper and faint cinnamon came through clearly in the confines of the car.

I lay back against the seat as we moved off. My thoughts wandered randomly. How the hell did they come to smell of apple pie? I felt heavy, dizzy and nauseous, as if I had a hangover.

“The feeling will pass, Amber,” said Diana. “Skylur was extreme in this test, but it will pass.”

“I am sorry, we haven’t introduced ourselves,” she went on, as if we had just met at a party. “My name is Diana Ionache, and my friend is Bian Hwa Trang.”

I managed a tired smile and caught the demon before it made a remark about Bian’s name. Bian Hwa meant ‘secret flower.’

“You know my name,” I mumbled.

“Yes. I am to brief you about the job that Skylur asked you to do, but I would rather we met during the week.”

“That’s fine by me.” I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to take a brief. “Do you make appointments or just show up?” I rubbed my forehead above the blindfold. “You have no idea how strange this feels, talking to you.”

I felt her hand touch my arm briefly. “I understand,” she said. “I hope it will be less strange in future as you come to know us. We are not your enemies, not you as a human and especially not you as Athanate. For the meeting, I’ll give you a number to call when you’re ready. The ticket to the charity ball will be delivered on Monday.”

“Skylur said you would tell me more about yourself. He said I would need to know about you…to be able to work with you.” It was an effort to say the whole sentence. “He said you were better than the alternative.”

“We are,” said Diana. “There are two groups of Athanate in the world. Think of them as political parties or creeds, if you like. House Altau belongs to the Panethus creed. It is our belief that Athanate and humans should live together symbiotically, with benefit to both.”

“And the others?”

“The Basilikos party believe that humans are cattle, to be farmed,” she said. “The two groups have always been finely balanced. If the Basilikos were to be the sole guiding force for the Athanate, without us to counter them or keep them in check…” Her voice died away.

Run the world. I could fill in the blank. My tired brain tried to grapple with something. There was something I needed to ask about vampires—
Athanate
—something about the numbers. I tried to form a sentence, but what came out was, “Do Athanate have children?”

“No,” said Diana. There was a world of pain in that one word and I shivered. “I will take more time when we come to see you. But, until you are recovered, let’s start with the little things.
Athanate
. You don’t speak Greek, do you? I mean what you call Ancient Greek.”

I shook my head. As if. I had little enough time for reading, let alone learning an ancient language.

“Ah. Pity. It would have helped. They took so many words from us. Their word
athanatos
meant literally ‘not death’ or immortal. It is from our word
athanate
, which means undying. Not as later people would have it, undead. Athanate is the name for us, the people, our language, culture and institutions. Noun and adjective.”

A whole people, with a culture and institutions, hidden among us for thousands of years. My mind reeled. “Is that what the Greeks called you?” I asked. “Athanate?”

I could hear the smile in her voice when she replied. “No, those Greeks that truly knew of us called us
Demos Kryptos
—the Secret People. Not, again, as it has come down, the people of the crypt. No, Amber, Athanate is what we call ourselves.”

“So you don’t die?”

“Athanate can die, Amber. You know very well that we can be killed, and we can die. A stake through the heart will kill us just as it would kill a human. A bullet in the vital organs would do just as well.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “Sunlight and holy water will not. Garlic is only good for cooking.”

Talking wasn’t making me feel better, but I was thinking less about how bad I felt. “How long?” I said. “How long can you live?”

“Perhaps that is for another day. For now, just understand that we live, we are alive, like humans are.” She took my hand gently and placed my fingers against her neck. Her pulse was slow and sure, like waves rushing against a beach. Her skin was warm. She lifted my hand higher and breathed on it, her breath warm and moist, before returning it to me. “And we feel, like humans do,” she said quietly.

I had goosebumps. I had touched vampires—
Athanate
—before, but my mind had been on other things. Her last words had been ambiguous and I wanted to find out how she meant ‘feel.’ Did she mean emotions, or just the sensation of touching?

“Your bracelet is beautiful and strange,” she said, interrupting my scattered thoughts. “May I show Bian?”

I shrugged, and Diana held my arm forward so Bian could see it. I felt Bian’s touch, light as a butterfly, then she spoke to Diana in a language I could not recognize, quick and full of liquid sounds.

“Bian agrees, it is magic. Another word which I don’t like. Is it a protection?”

The bracelet hadn’t tingled once this night. But other than being bullied and terrified into a shaking ball, had anyone done me actual harm?

I sighed. “I don’t know, really.” I put my head back against the seat again. I still felt tired and dizzy. Being blindfolded in a moving car wasn’t helping at all. “It’s difficult talking when I can’t see you.”

Bian and Diana exchanged a couple of sentences in their language.

“You are exhausted, Amber, and hurt from the test. Lie down here. Rest your head on me and I will take the blindfold off.”

I stiffened. Her hand touched my arm again, very gently. “Yes, Athanate drink blood. Your Blood calls out to me. But I honor Skylur’s ban, and even if he hadn’t set a ban, I’m not one who would take what is not freely offered. Neither is Bian. I will not even try to persuade you. Please, lie down.”

There was no feeling of being forced and I was at the end of my strength. Maybe I could rest a while. Warily, I swung my legs around and eased myself down until my head was resting in her lap. She removed the blindfold.

“Your feet are on the path,” she said. “But I will not ask you, however much your Blood calls out. It will be your choice always.”

“Prions,” I muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

I smiled a little in the darkness. “No one ever says ‘beg your pardon’ anymore, Diana. I said prions. Protein strings in the body. They cause the condition. That’s what you’re sensing.” I was rambling. I realized I probably shouldn’t be talking about this. It was so warm, so cozy.

Bian said something to Diana and she shook her head.

“How do you know this?”

“I’ll tell you when I understand the Athanate better. I’ll show you something when you come to brief me.”
If Colonel Laine doesn’t kill me first.

“Very interesting. You are endlessly fascinating, Amber.”

“Why? Other than me just telling you something you didn’t know. Or Skylur wanting me to play secret agent. Why are you interested in me?”

Diana looked down at me and stroked my head as if I were a child. It was absurdly comforting and I felt my eyelids droop. “Amongst other things, you have been bitten,” she said. “Anyone in our mantle, our territory, who has been bitten, is our responsibility, wherever it happened. We are your harbor when you need it, and we will rejoice when you come to us.”

My eyes closed, just for a moment.

“And you smell so freaking tasty, Round-eye,” said Bian from the front, but she was just trying to wind me up. She seemed so far away.

“Hush. True, but not important at the moment. Rest,” whispered Diana, her hand soft on my hair.

No way. I would get up in a second. I couldn’t trust two vampires—
Athanate
—whatever they said. Just a minute more, to gather my strength. Just a minute.

SATURDAY

Chapter 26