Duel Nature (29 page)

She stood out from the others like she had
sparklers in both hands and one on her head, my vampire sense
telling me she was 860 years if a day. A mental picture of one of
Nika’s cards popped into my head and I realized that I was about to
run head first into one of the contenders for Elder… Mausya.

The two Citadel guards in front of me were
undecided and nervous, so I whispered “Let’s give them room.” All
five of us pushed up against the right side wall, letting the
Russian Patron’s party continue by as if we weren’t there. That
seemed to be what they expected us to do, the entire party giving
off an incredibly arrogant vibe. The three body guards in the front
didn’t even glance our way. The two males and one of the female
assistants maintained haughty expressions, while whispering quietly
to their boss. The other female, a tall blonde, looked at me
curiously for just a moment till her eyes suddenly widened.
Immediately she leaned down and whispered into Mausya’s ear. The
older vampire stopped suddenly, her party freezing in place
directly even with us. Cold dark eyes scanned me from toes to
scalp, finally coming to rest on my own eyes.

“You’re the one. The human that started all
this,” she said. From Nika’s reaction to her I had expected a voice
like Crypt Keeper’s. Instead, it was a warm, a deeper than expected
tone, completely without any accent of her native Russian.

“So I’ve been told,” I replied, immediately
cursing my wiseass mouth.

The ‘aides’ and lackeys all froze for a
moment as if expecting my sudden death. Mausya just stared at me,
her eyes evaluating. The tension was broken by the clicking of
nails on concrete further down the corridor. Awasos in wolf form
came around the corner, stopped at the sight of our strange group
and then plumped his butt down on the floor.

“Were!” one of the dark suited bodyguards
said, pulling a Skorpion machine pistol from under his coat. Part
of me identified it as the 9 millimeter model.

“He’s with me!” I said quickly. The guard
ignored my comment bringing his gun on target, his finger not yet
on the trigger, but indexed alongside it.

“Shall I kill it?” he asked with a heavy
Russian accent.

Mausya was watching me, not the giant wolf, a
cruel little smile on her lips. I was watching the guard’s finger,
and as it started to curl toward the trigger, Grim surged to the
surface, my right arm suddenly wreathed in mono-edge. One more
millimeter of movement and the guard would lose his arm. The
cascade of events that would likely follow flowed through my head,
as Grim ‘war-gamed’ each scenario, catalogued each person’s
position and plotted all their deaths. Part of me sighed
internally. On site for less than twelve hours and I was already
about to create a major incident. That same part noticed a slight
tightening around Mausya’s eyes as her head tilted sideways.

“Nyet,” she said, in a no nonsense voice.

The guard froze. She spoke a few words in
Russian then turned and started to walk away from us. Her whole
party shifted into motion, machine smooth and just as sudden. The
Skorpion disappeared back inside the black suit and within moments
they were gone.

I looked at my security shadows and we all
exchanged confused expressions. Awasos yawned.

***

“You shouldn’t be let out of the nursery!”
Lydia said.

“He was going to shoot my wolf-bear, Lydia!
What else was there to do?”

“Stay put where you belong!” she shouted.
Lydia doesn’t shout much. She was really worked up. Something about
almost precipitating a deadly incident with an Elder candidate
seemed to have done it.

“Quiet you two, I can hardly hear this with
all the yelling,” Tanya said from her position in front of the desk
computer. She was running and re-running the video and audio
footage from the corridor security cameras. My link told me she was
intensely curious about something.

“What’s there to hear?” Lydia asked, shooting
me a glare.

The little punky haired vampire had been run
ragged handling all the details of the Conclave.

“If I heard what I thought, which with all
the noise I can’t be sure, then I think she told the guard ‘No…it’s
not your time to die.’ That’s pretty interesting since she doesn’t
know Chris from Adam, yet she knew the guard would die if he tried
to pull the trigger on ‘Sos,” Tanya said, reaching down to rub the
furry wolf head lying next to her.

“Well, she must have heard stories,” Lydia
said.

“Maybe, but almost to a person the Patrons
have all dismissed Chris and myself as inconsequential. In fact,
look here,” she directed, pointing at the screen. She hit a control
and the video started. The look of dismissive contempt on the older
vampire’s face was glaringly obvious, but it changed suddenly just
before she commanded the guard to stop.

“What were you thinking just at that moment?”
Tanya asked me.

“I thought he was going to shoot ‘Sos, so
Grim slipped up to bat and was ready to take his arm off if he went
for the trigger. Then the rest would react and Grim had multiple
options lined up,” I said, ignoring Lydia’s scowl.

“Look at Mausya,” Tanya said, slowing the
action to a crawl. “You are dirt to her…right up until the moment
Grim appears..here!”

Her finger pointed to my image, tapping me at
the moment my body language changed. I had never seen footage of
myself flipping into Grim mode before. It was decidedly creepy. I
went from a tense posture to a coiled posture in the blink of an
eye. My facial expression went from concerned to serial killer, at
least that’s how it looked to me. At that exact moment, when my
killer alter-ego appeared, the old Russian vampire in front of me
stiffened slightly, did that head tilt thing, then called off the
guard and headed down the hall as if nothing had happened.

“Is she a mind reader?” I asked.

“No, at least we don’t think so. Nobody knows
what other abilities Mausya has, but she has survived every
confrontation, every plot against her and every assassination
attempt. She has an uncanny ability to avoid problems,” Tanya said.
“Your abilities are not secret, but the older vampires discount
most of what they hear from the rank and file as hype. Yes, your
posture and facial expressions change, but even if she realized
that was your combat personality, how would she know to give
credence to the threat?”

“Yeah, it’s like there was a professional
bookie who suddenly changed the betting odds and she cancelled her
bet,” Lydia said with a slight laugh.

“What was that?” Tanya whirled and looked at
her tiny sister-in-fact.

“Oh, nothing. It just reminded me of some
television episode we were watching the other night. The one where
the horse trainer tried to get the odds higher on his horse so he
could cash in big. The change in her expression was like the
trainer’s when he saw the betting boards change.”

Tanya said nothing, just continued to stare
at Lydia, but her eyes were unfocused as she followed some intense
thought. My link told me that Lydia’s comment had triggered a
‘Eureka’ moment in my beautiful vampire’s scary smart brain.

“Let’s go to the library. I need to do some
research,” she said suddenly.

Fifteen minutes later found us in the
Citadel’s library, which housed all the old records and books of
the New York Coven. Most information was digitalized and stored on
the Citadel mainframe, but several hundred years of documents and
printed volumes were carefully maintained in a climate controlled
set of rooms. Thick Turkish rugs covered the concrete floors and
the walls were hung with colorful tapestries that seemed to all run
to a medieval theme.

“Where’s the Steven King stuff?” I asked
Lydia, expecting a glare in return.

“He’s too tame,” she replied without missing
a beat.

Tanya ignored our banter and headed to the
computer terminal that acted as a card catalogue.

“Whatcha looking up?” I asked.

“Well, these documents are all new, only a
couple of centuries old. The libraries in Europe and Asian date
back thousands of years. But I know there used to be some
handwritten histories that came over when this country was first
settled. If I remember right, one of them documented known
talents.”

“And you think Mausya’s is in there?
Something to do with precognition or prophetic reading?” I
guessed.

Lydia froze in mid-stride, then looked at me
in wonder.

“Holy shit Gordon! How did you come up with
that?” she asked.

“Well Tanya reacted to your horse racing
comments and so it makes sense. Being able to see the near future
would explain why she suddenly left and would be a hell of a good
survival skill.”

Tanya shushed me, looking around to see if
any other vampires were nearby. The library appeared disserted.

“Actually, I don’t think it’s precognition at
all,” she said. “If it was, she would have known you would be in
the hallway, instead, her aide had to point you out.”

“Yeah, and she would have known Awasos was
coming around the corner,” Lydia added.

“Then what do you think it is?” I asked.

“I think Lydia was closest when she talked
about horse racing and odds. I think Mausya reads probabilities for
near term events,” Tanya said. “The probability of you staying out
of her way and remaining submissive was extremely high…right up
until her guard pointed his gun at ‘Sos. Then Grim popped up and
the probability went off the chart that her whole day was about to
be ruined.”

“Reading probabilities?” I asked,
confused.

“We all do it to some degree or another.
Think about it…you automatically assess the odds of getting hit by
a car when you’re looking to cross the road, or the probability
that the vendor will accept your low price offer when negotiating a
deal,” Tanya explained. “I think she just has an extra edge, some
other sense that feeds her updated information on each new
situation.”

“Like when Grim prepared to lay waste to her
entire group?” Lydia quipped.

“Exactly. She knew in an instant that all the
odds had changed. She couldn’t really know how dangerous you are,
or if she did, then she was incredibly stupid to brace you in the
hallway and threaten your bear,” Tanya said.

“I don’t really like people to threaten my
bear,” I said with a slight growl, thinking about the gun pointing
at ‘Sos.

“Easy compadre, no bad vampires near your
bear right now,” Lydia said slowly, like I was the village
simpleton.

“Her expression was real; that look of
haughty disdain. Then it changed in a split second and she stopped
her guard and left. Anyway, that’s my theory. And this is the
section where the book is supposed to be,” Tanya said, having lead
us to a book shelf of very old looking books.

I didn’t trust myself to handle the ancient
tomes so I let the two women move forward and scan the shelves.
Tanya found the book she was looking for almost instantly, pulling
the large leather clad volume from the shelf. Lydia was focused on
a slim red book that had caught her eye.

“Three centuries ago a French vampire named
Tristan D’Aramitz compiled everything he could find about known
vampire Talents. He organized his book by groups of like talents,
so I’ll start under what he calls ‘Prophetic powers’.”

I looked over her shoulder but the writing
was all in French so I wandered over to the nearest tapestry
instead. It showed knights on horses charging a line of infantry
holding pikes.

Tanya closed the book, apparently having
finished reading everything it offered on the subject. Her face was
thoughtful and I could feel her thoughts humming with speculation.
Lydia was deeply engrossed in the red book she still held.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yeah, he mentions a Turkish vampire who
could ‘weight the likely actions of others’.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah, but it backs my theory, at least, to
some degree,” she said. “Let’s get back to the room.”

“What did you find, Lyd? Some vampire porn?
Fifty shades of red?” I asked.

She snapped the small book
shut and gave me a smirk. “No it’s an education piece.
How to raise a village idiot
.”

“Then it’s probably dedicated to me,” I said,
feeding her an easy set up.

She frowned and gave me a push toward the
door. Luckily, I was Clinging with my feet or she would have thrown
me across the room. It wasn’t like her to not take a verbal shot at
me. I tried to see the cover of the book, but she tucked it under
her arm and gave me a glare.

“Would you two come on?
Maybe the book ought to be titled
How to
herd morons
and I could read it,” Tanya
said.

“Don’t you dare lump me in with Boy Wonder,”
Lydia said, but took the hint and exited the library before Tanya
could say anything else.

***

“Mom and I are going to the business center
to get some work done. Neither of us is needed right now and I
don’t like being around the Patrons,” Tanya told me a little later.
Dawn was a couple of hours away so they wouldn’t get a whole lot
done, but Galina and Tanya were so sharp that even a little for
them was a lot.

“I’m gonna sack out for a while,” I replied.
“Then I think I’ll get out of Citadel for a while. Maybe catch a
movie.”

Chapter 29

The latest Marvel comic book-turned-movie was
better than I thought it would be the action intense and the
effects world class.

“I like the assassin chick,”
Benson commented to our odd group as we left the theatre and
started down West 54
^th
street. My decision to go to the movies had been,
oddly enough, matched by the better part of the daytime security
group – right down to the choice of movie. Mr. Deckert had said
something about Arkady wanting most of the human staff out of
Citadel while so many older vampires were around. The fact that the
squad of ex-special forces type had ‘felt’ like going with me to
see an action flick would have seemed odd, but I knew my position
as Tanya’s Chosen sort of required Arkady to provide me with
security, despite my abilities.