Mine, page 16
But she was not going to find any resolution until she saw her own actions.
This time, when she resumed scanning the footage, she was tracking herself. She followed herself around for—how long was it? Hours, for sure, the counters in the corner of the screen ticking by in a blur as she fast-forwarded: There she was, dealing with the fallout of the stabbing in the wait line, handling the police, fielding other issues with her staff—
And then she went here, to her office.
Before she entered, she looked around, as if she didn’t want to be followed. Then she ducked in. And that was that because there weren’t cameras in here.
Three minutes, twenty-one seconds. That was how long she was inside here. When she reemerged in the video, she had her leather jacket on, and she was decisive in her movements. She strode down the hall and out of view—so time to switch feeds to the one that was in the northeast quadrant of the interior’s open area.
Resuming the tracking from another position, Xhex continue to follow herself, noting the way she moved, with head down, shoulders straight, and lower body in a confident, pointed stride. As she made her way through the dwindling number of patrons, there was plenty of space, no reason to pivot around humans in her way… as she closed in on someone.
It was so clear that she had a finish line, her gaze never wavering—and she even ignored T’Marcus when he tried to approach her: The bar. She went to the bar… to a pair of masculine figures, one tall, one short, both with dark hair.
The male who had drugged that woman turned around like Xhex said something to him. And those eyes of his went to the floor and traveled back up her body.
He smiled as if he were ready for another fun time.
Xhex left with the two males a mere four minutes and twelve seconds later.
Sitting back once again, she stared at the footage she’d frozen. It was of that back door by the bathrooms, the one he’d used to take the blond woman out earlier in the evening.
The one she was using to lure the males into the darkness.
She must have killed his friend, too… but where was the other body…?
No one had reported anybody missing yet. Vishous had checked that back at the Pit. But those kinds of things could take a little time to develop, depending on who the shorter male had lived with and what kind of job he had. People weren’t always missed right after they disappeared.
And if Chinless had been left for dead somewhere outside? Even if it was cold, or overcast, a vampire body would go up in flames as soon as daylight arrived, nothing but a scorched spot on the asphalt remaining.
She could always go to the location where Tohr had reported finding the male whose remains were in the morgue. Maybe there was a burn mark somewhere around there. Maybe there wasn’t.
The details weren’t the issue anymore.
The question was… what she did about herself.
TWENTY
UP UPON THE summit of the mountain called Deer, Blade stepped out of the hidden cave. Breathing in deeply, he smelled only pine trees, fresh earth, and a frigid humidity in the air that suggested snow would be coming. The cold was biting, his robing protecting him not by much, and as the gusts coming up the elevation pushed at him, his hair waved back from his visage and his core body temperature was drained.
Not that he minded.
Off in the distance, a howl crested through the night, and after a moment, a reply came from across the valley. Behind him, an animal—likely a deer, given the mountain’s assigned nomenclature—was being quiet about its movements. He tracked the thing nonetheless out of habit. Out of his own nature.
As he considered what he had done on behalf of the wolven, a rare moment of peacefulness settled upon his shoulders and he told himself to enjoy it. The sense of easing would not last, and heeding that truism, he drank the calm in and tried to hold it in his soul. Soon enough his mental torment would return.
Ah, brain chemistry.
The self was the most dangerous deceptor. This was something that symphaths knew to their core, and most others were willfully blind to, and that disconnect was why his kind were so dangerous. Thoughts and feelings were levers to be pulled by words and deeds, and the output was a product of design.
Thus why he had moved out of his quarters at the Colony.
And taken his most precious possessions with him.
Glancing back to the fissure in the rocks, he knew his kind would never find him here. For all the time symphaths spent under the ground, they detested nature. Living here? Out in the wilderness? They could not fathom why anybody of their constitution would volunteer for such a thing, even one who existed on the fringes of their bloodline.
Thus he had packed what mattered upon his body and dematerialized out from one of the Colony’s disguised entrances. The cave, with its natural spring-fed basin, had been the only place he had considered. He was well aware that it was someone’s abode, but the abandonment of the space had been clear the previous time he had been in it, the scent of its wolven occupier faded, dust accumulated on the storage trunks and the bedding platform alike.
Concerning matters of housekeeping, he thought of the finger he had drawn across the bureau in Kurling’s quarters—
Another howl sounded out to the west. And… yes, there was the other answer.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Lydia, and pictured her human-ish incarnation, with her tall, strong body, and her hair with its streaks of blond, and her eyes, those beautiful golden eyes, which were lycan-like even when she was not in that form.
Her nature was dispositive, no matter the skin that clothed her.
As he thought of the ways she had stared at him, over the short course of their vivid association, he reflected that even when she hated him, he relished any moment that her gaze was upon him. And as he considered the way she had looked at him the night before when he had returned her missing friend to her? Yes, he preferred that best, even if shock had tempered her positive regard.
In light of this, he resolved that it would probably be best not to fool himself. For all the valid, survival reasons that this remote location could be chosen by him, the truth behind his decision to camp out here was about her, not him.
He knew in his gut she would find him here. Just as she had done before.
The cognitive dissonance she would be struggling with the now—why had he returned Gus? what had happened during the evacuation? did Blade know who was behind the abduction?—would drive her to him, and she would come here because it was the only lead on his whereabouts that she had. And he would take the audience eagerly, even if it was answers she sought, rather than he himself.
In this fashion, Xhex still could not argue that Blade was seeking the female out. Free will, after all, was the engine that drove everything that was subject to choice. What fault of it was his if the wolven came unto him—
A sudden rustling close upon him spun his attention around—and Blade palmed his gun and pointed it in the direction of the branches that had moved.
This time, it was not a deer.
Given the lack of scent, but the very clear presence, he instantly condemned his reverie. If it was one of those cyborgs—
All around him, as if some cue had gone off, wolves began howling. Not a volley any longer, now it was a chorus of many positions, the calls mixing and harmonizing, the rising and falling of each individual throat getting lost in the music of the clans.
Blocking out the beautiful calls, he trained his ears on a crackling of dry sticks. “Be of care,” he called forth. “I am armed.”
With narrowed eyes, he searched the pine trees, sifting through the fluffy boughs and stout trunks. It was only the sound of an approach, however. No form—which made no sense.
“Halt,” he ordered. “Lest… I…”
Blade’s voice drifted off, his words consumed by the howling that was amplified by the valley’s acoustics.
And then he was no longer alone.
The entity that emerged from the coniferous shadows was made of silver moonlight and mountain mist, though there was none of the former… or the latter, for that matter. The apparition seemed female in nature, though he wasn’t sure that applied; it was more an energy source, floating above the raw earth, yet causing sound as if there was weight upon the feet. Certainly its face was that of an old woman, and her long gray-and-white hair cascaded down her shoulders to dissolve into a translucent, glowing aura of light. For clothing, a buckskin skirt and beautiful beaded shawl hearkened back to the First Nations tradition, and he smelled a fragrance of meadow flowers and fresh water.
“What are you,” he blurted.
“Good evening to you,” the entity said, in a voice that reminded him of a birdcall melody.
Had the wolves stopped? He could not tell. She consumed his focus.
As he lowered the gun, he was not sure whether he was choosing to, or if she was willing his arm down. “And to you as well,” he mumbled.
His knee-jerk polite response struck him as ridiculous. Whatever the purpose of this appearance, he was not mistaking it as wholly benign. As a symphath, his first instinct was always to assess risk, and the way he did so was to read the grid of whoever was before him.
This “harmless old woman” had no grid.
There was nothing to read.
* * *
As Daniel parked the SUV back in its garage berth, he waited where he was behind the wheel as the panels descended. He supposed it was overkill, the whole driving off and talking down by the river. Especially given the threat that was out there. But with all the monitoring equipment around Phalen’s castle, there was no way the call wouldn’t have been recorded.
Nobody needed to know about Rubik.
When things were locked in place, he popped his door open and there was little difference in temperature between the roasty-toasty inside of the Suburban and what he stepped down into. Then again, Phalen had an expensive stable of vehicles.
Nobody wanted their Aventador to get a chill.
Walking by the other Suburbans, then the fleet of Mercedes—and finally that Lamborghini—he stopped when he got to his Harley. Reaching out, he ran his fingertips over the handlebars, and as he closed his eyes, he remembered Lydia leaning back on them and staring up at him… hungry. For him—
An odd pressure at the front of his hips made him look down. But it wasn’t any kind of phoenix-from-the-boxers shit. His hand had moved over his dick and was sitting on the thing like his palm was expecting some kind of high five in return—and God knew that wasn’t going to happen…
But didn’t they have medications for this kind of problem?
It was hard to say when the idle passing thought transformed into action, but the next thing he knew he was underground and walking down the connector to the main house—and when security cleared him to enter the mansion’s basement, he went to the elevator.
He didn’t go up to the living areas. He went down even deeper, into the earth.
When things hit bottom and the doors were retracted by the monitoring folks, he stepped out into a bald white corridor hung with double mirror’d panels. As he plugged his cane into the floor and started forward, he noted the drains that were set every fifteen feet or so—and he imagined the stern-faced men on the other side of the glass, all of whom were training their gun muzzles on him like his ass had a target tattooed on it.
Clearly, the holes in the floor had been installed to make cleanup easier. In case things got bloody.
At the far end, he was cleared one more time, and then he finally got access into the lab. A vault-thick partition slid to the side, and there it was, the open area with all the workstations, the boardroom with its soundproof glass walls off to the left. No reception desk. If you needed someone to help you find your way, you didn’t belong here, and if you didn’t belong here, you wouldn’t have made it this far.
As he headed for the way back, most of the staff was gone, just a couple of researchers staying late, their backs hunched as they arched over microscopes or laptops. He didn’t mean to stop halfway along, but he did. There were five rows of eight workstations, so forty large steel tables were bolted into the concrete floor, the collection of lab stuff like microscopes, test tubes, and monitor screens varying—no doubt depending on what they were working on. A couple even had beakers on hot plates like in some eighties high school movie.
They had produced that Vita-12b here. The miracle drug that might, or might not, save thousands of lives.
And he was supposed to have been the first patient.
Squeezing the head of his cane, he recognized he was using it as a crutch—figuratively, that was. He’d been alarmed at how his energy had faded after the bike ride to Gus’s place, and he’d picked the thing up again on a just-in-case. Fortunately, he was feeling not as shitty now. As Gus had said he would. Immunotherapy was not a benign treatment when it came to side effects—for Daniel, at any rate. And though his cancer was now being allowed to progress at its own pace, the ancillary issues he’d had with the failed treatment were backing off—and it was like leaving a suck-ass destination, driving away.
Save for that collapse after what was for him a Herculean task with that bike on the highway, his strength was coming back, and he was being reminded of who he’d been. Mentally sharp. Physically strong(er). Healthy(er)…
Of course, the resurrection wasn’t going to last.
And that was why he’d come down here, wasn’t it.
Getting back with the walking, he pivoted on one foot and restarted for the patient rooms. Things were going well… until he came up to a closed door that he told himself he should not open.
Did he really want to ask a man in Gus’s kind of shape anything other than “How are you feeling, my guy?” or maybe “What can I get for you?”
So what the fuck was he doing, showing up on the doorstep, looking for—
The door swung open, and a white coat came out with a phlebotomy carrier of tubes filled with Gus’s blood. As the panel began to ease shut, Daniel got a full view of the patient. The man was sitting up in the hospital bed and glanced over.
Daniel lifted his hand in a wave. Like an idiot.
And then things were closed again.
A muffled “Hello?” permeated the divider. After which, more loudly: “So you’re just gonna wave and walk off?”
Cursing, Daniel entered the room. “Sorry.”
“S’all good.”
Over on the bed, the good doctor was staring out through bloodshot eyes, and seemed to be holding his head carefully on the top of his spine as if he were worried if he moved too fast, he was going to lose something. Like maybe his dinner. But his face was settling into a pattern of bruising that wasn’t getting worse, and the swelling did look a little better—
Gus frowned. “You okay?” When Daniel just blinked, the man said, “Listen, if you got bad news, drop the headline right now. I don’t have the energy to wait for the whole article.”
“No, no—it isn’t like that.” Daniel cleared his throat. “And hey, you’re sounding…”
“Good, right? I had a shower. I got fresh scrubs on. I’m ready to run a marathon.”
“Yeah, you do look… good.”
“You lie, but I’ll take it.”
There was a pause, and Daniel glanced around. “Can I get you anything—”
“What’s on your mind, big guy?” When Daniel hesitated, Gus slashed an impatient hand through the air—then winced, like his shoulder had hurt in response to the movement. “You think I can’t read you? Come on, after everything we’ve been through.”
“You got some recovery of your own to do. You don’t need to worry—”
“I’m ready for a distraction. Trust me.”
Daniel opened his mouth. Closed it.
In the silence that followed, Gus crossed his arms over his chest—then grunted a curse and dropped them back to his sides. “What do you want to know?”
Daniel paced around the bed. Made like he was checking the vitals’ monitor—not that he knew shit about the graph of heartbeats or the numbers off to the right. “I, ah… I’m really sorry about what happened to you—”
“Stipulated. I’m really sorry you got cancer. What’s on your mind?”
After a moment, Daniel said, “I have a question about medication.”
“Oh.”
As he put his palms forward, all crap-shit-sorry, the cane clonked on the foot of the bed. “Ouch. I mean, fuck. Now isn’t the time—”
“No, no, I’m glad, actually.” Gus went to push himself up a little higher on the pillows—and then obviously rethought the idea. “I’m ready to think about something else. What we got?”
As Daniel tried on a variety of dip-the-toe-in-the-water responses, he told himself he needed to drop his pride. Like his doctor hadn’t seen him in pretty much every compromising position possible?
“I… want to ask about the little purple pill.”
Gus’s bandaged eyebrow went up. Or tried to. “Prilosec?”
“Is that what it’s called?”
“You having indigestion?”
“No? I mean, no.”
Tilting his head to the side, Gus demanded, “What body part is the problem.”
Daniel took a deep breath. Then pointed to his crotch. “I want to know how to get this working again. And if I have to run the risk of an erection lasting longer than four hours, I will happily take myself to any ER if it happens.”
TWENTY-ONE
UP ON THE mountain that was called Deer, Blade’s eyes remained fixated on the ghostly entity before him. He was not sure how to defend himself. The gun was going to be useless—indeed, bullets only worked against corporeal targets. He could run, but he knew without further information that he was not going to beat whatever it was in a footrace. And dematerializing? He was certain that was not an option without even trying.
