Embracing the Shadows (26 page)

The door opened, thankfully interrupting our
little chat. Tomasino came in with Riva. All three of the Adepts
left again a few minutes later. I caught another break and avoided
Viggo's questions as Zapada kept him busy with pathetic begging to
bring Le Meur back.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Tomasino
came back in with Barnabus and the Adept emissary Nathan Powell.
They didn't waste any time outlining the problem and discussing
their proper procedure to endorse a new leader. Each emissary had
at least one faction member present to confer with and decide what
was best for their members.

Their mind-numbing chatter reminded me why I
never watched C-SPAN. Olinchenko and I sat over by the desk to keep
an eye on Zapada; we were pretty much bored as hell with the
political bullshit.

Powell, looking like a white-collar
workaholic, nominated himself. Tomasino countered, saying that the
emissary was already busy with running Realm and wouldn't endorse
him. Zapada stood, straightened his clothes, and asked that Le Meur
be reinstated. Unexpectedly, it was Powell who argued against it,
saying that his own faction elder's policies were flawed.

Viggo finally spoke up. "This is how I see
it. Miss Le Meur will not be returning. Mr. Powell has other
priorities, and therefore not endorsed by his own faction member.
Mr. Fletcher, the only elder of the Outsider faction, is far too
volatile to be given power." Zapada nodded his agreement of the
assessment. "I know for a fact," Viggo went on, "that Mr. Merritt
has no desire to claim the throne; he has personally told me so.
Mr. Zapada's objectivity is currently compromised." Everyone nodded
except Zapada.

"Pickings are getting slim," I whispered to
Olinchenko. "Wanna be Doyen?"

"Pardon my parlance," he whispered back, "but
fuck that."

"So, in my unbiased view," Viggo concluded,
"there is only one choice - a good choice, no less." He turned to
Enric Tomasino.

"Me?" the enforcer asked, shocked. I was
pretty surprised myself.

"You have fared admirably in your duties as
enforcer," Viggo explained. "Your only failures were events in
which I was directly involved. And in those encounters, you
displayed courage and honor. I doubt any of your peers could find
fault in that."

"I endorse the Veleti's choice," Barnabus
said to the group. "I formally nominate Mr. Tomasino of the Adept
faction for the seat of Doyen. His many Gifts are noteworthy, his
martial skill is easily up to the task, and I know him to be a
learned daemon. Along with restraint and wisdom, he has noble
character."

Nearly everyone nodded - even Powell, however
reluctantly. Zapada just stared at his own shoes.

"Thank you for the kind words," Tomasino
said, "but I'm not sure I'm comfortable accepting this."

"A good ruler does not rest easy in the seat
of power," Viggo wisely said.

With an unreadable expression, Tomasino
regarded everyone in the office. ". . . Very well," he finally
said, "I humbly accept the position of Doyen."

I followed everyone's lead when they stood
and bowed to him. All hail the sword-wielding wop.

PONDERING

Using every excuse I could think of, I
avoided Viggo for the next few days. He called once or twice and
left a couple messages in the hemo-net, but didn't stop by. The
latter fact led me to believe he knew what was bothering me. Did it
also mean that on some level he knew what he was doing was wrong? I
didn't have a damn clue. Viggo wasn't killing anyone, although some
glitch in his head was saying it was okay to take that whole
blood-binding thing and fucking run with it.

You could make the argument that Viggo has
blood-bound a shitload of humans and that it's not much different.
You might wonder how it's simply accepted. Well, it just is. Argue
and wonder all you want, it's been a part of hemo society for maybe
thousands of years.

Like I said at the start, any given human is
one of three things - ignored, a tool, or dinner. Since I started
stalking them, my perception had changed. Hell, it had to, or I'd
fucking starve to death. Even if I looked normal, I couldn't hang
out with someone like Miss Loretta anymore; too much had changed.
Only other hemos could understand, and the plain truth is that
humans were one peg down now.

My point is that making minions is no big
deal, but blood-bonding a hemo is serious shit.

Sure, I felt sorta bad for Riva and Horn and
whoever else was blood-bound to my sire. The good thing for them
was that they were out making money, getting shit done, and
generally living their lives, un-lives, whatever. They were still
slaves, but it was an 'on-call' type of thing.

The question that kept crawling into my brain
was what about all the others Viggo collected and staked? Where
were they? What was he doing with them, if anything? How could my
sire justify the stealing of their lives? I mean, those poor
bastards were locked in prisons of their own minds, unable to move,
every conceivable freedom taken away. What a fucking nightmare.

Maybe some of the hoarded hemos deserved that
hellish fate. I don't know. I assumed one of Viggo's scions, Wayne,
was in that collected group; he deserved death, not to be trapped
in his own psychotic head. Ragna deserved some sort of penalty for
her actions, but not to be held in an indefinite limbo. Edward
Galloway and Evan Dean, on the other hand . . . They were assholes,
but their punishment didn't fit their crimes. I'm actually
surprised I said that, but there it is.

On the night when Enric Tomasino was voted in
and reluctantly took the title of Doyen, I slipped out while
everyone was still talking. I wasn't ready to have that serious
conversation with Viggo yet, and he would've cornered me at some
point. I needed a fresh perspective, but didn't know who I could
trust.

Wait, I take that back. I trusted Thunder,
and confided in him when I finally got home. The overgrown hairball
was a good listener, but wasn't shit for advice. He silently
expected me to figure things out by myself and then dozed off on
the couch. Sleep - maybe that was the answer. And no, I wasn't
referring to me getting some shut-eye. I wasn't referring to me at
all.

Barnabus also left some messages in the local
hemo-net chat room. He let his fellow K.C. Deviants know that Doyen
Tomasino had called for another Gathering to formalize some shit
and name some hemos for administrative positions. I figured I was
expected to attend, although it wasn't mandatory. Maybe I'd get a
chance to straighten things out with Cordell. It'd also be a safe
place to have the talk with Viggo that I'd been avoiding.

You know that feeling of nervous expectation
- kind of tense, kind of excited, and mostly wanting to get
something over with? Yeah, I fucking hated that feeling.

GATHERING

A week had passed, one damn long week. I
walked around my shabby neighborhood, learning street names and
remembering which little houses were noisy for one reason or
another. I fed a few times, coming away from them with short-lived
beer buzzes or pot highs. Clara stopped by one evening to play with
Thunder; while brushing him, she talked about Ragna's dogs and the
mysterious Mr. Lucida. Viggo called the night before the Gathering
and offered to take me there with him. I respectfully declined.

It was kind of a pain in the ass getting to
Tomasino's first Gathering. It was up in a penthouse apartment at
the top of a luxury high-rise building. That figured. The new Doyen
was basically cool, but he was also an Adept; being flamboyant
every now and then was required.

The choice of entry into the building
initially got under my skin, but I didn't take it personally. Hemos
who didn't have an issue with security cameras were welcomed by
attendants into the elegant lobby (I saw pictures online), where
they were then escorted up in a classy elevator. Those who had a
problem passing for human - meaning most Deviants - got to be met
by nervous guards outside a rear delivery door. Armed with Mac-11s
and thermite grenades, they silently ushered me up a service
elevator to a closed-off floor. From there, they walked me over to
the private lift everyone else got to use.

I stepped out of the elevator and into an
enclosed foyer, where two more guards and Mr. Dupree were waiting.
He was shutting the door behind him, apparently just having let in
another guest. I pulled back the hood of my jacket so he could see
me. Dupree studied me curiously for a couple seconds and then
asked, "Your name and faction, sir?"

Frowning, I answered, "It's me, Leo Beck.
What, you don't recognize me?"

"Leo Beck," he repeated, a little surprised,
"the Veleti's minion?"

"Not anymore, buddy - I'm part of the family
now. Can't you see the resemblance? Don't worry; the new Doyen
already knows about me. Hell, he probably has a dry-cleaning bill
for me to pay off."

Dupree gazed at me for another second, I
assume to use his Discerning Gift thing to make sure I was telling
the truth. Tapping the tiny transmitter in his ear, he said to
whoever was listening, "Mr. Leo Beck, Deviant, no minions." He
listened to a short response, and then tried to smile as he opened
the door.

I stepped into opulence. In front of me and
expanding to my right was the biggest living room I'd ever seen.
Low-lit crystal chandeliers hung over three different sets of
leather furniture. The couches and chairs sat on real fur throw
rugs so they wouldn't scratch the marble floors underneath. On the
far side of the living room was a wall of huge sliding glass doors
that all led to a deep outdoor balcony facing north. Classical
music played through ceiling speakers. Framed art and tapestries
were hung on every wall. The scent in the air was a subtle blend of
vanilla, baby powder and leather. I was so out of place.

A few hemos were sitting. A number more were
out on the balcony. A breeze of cool night air wafted in from the
open doors, carrying murmured conversations. Behind me to my right
was an eat-in kitchen with fancy bar stools at the counter. Out
across from it was an open dining room, although the normal
furniture was replaced with a pool table and more seating. Of
course, the dining room had access to the east side of the
wraparound balcony. What self-respecting penthouse wouldn't?

Between the kitchen and the dining room was a
wide hallway leading back to other rooms. There was another hallway
just like it to my left. I assumed that they connected somewhere
way back behind me, lined with plush carpet and stylish lighting.
The place was fucking huge.

Stepping in from the balcony directly ahead
of me were three hemos, two of which I recognized. Aldo Skala stood
between Tomasino and some hemo I'd never seen before. Skala was
wearing a Stevie Ray Vaughan t-shirt under his blazer, while
Tomasino was in slacks, vest, and dress shirt with the sleeves
rolled up. The stranger - a tall, younger-looking guy with long
blonde hair and a naturally stern face - had on a long blue velvet
jacket with a big sapphire necklace over it. In comparison, I
didn't have one lick of style. If I'd known fashion sense was a
hemo prerequisite, I wouldn't have let Viggo turn me.

The three were talking amongst themselves
when I approached, so I stopped a few polite paces away. They were
talking in German, so it wasn't like I could join in anyway. Facing
my direction, Skala noticed me first and frowned - big surprise.
Besides boots, jeans, and my new hoodie, I had on a pair of heavy
duty work gloves I found in the workshop of my place. Hey, sue me,
I wasn't exactly comfortable with my new looks yet. I returned his
crusty, judgmental glare with one I hoped he saw as, "you're a
dick".

The other two noticed me. Tomasino nodded a
hello and said, "Thank you for attending, Mr. Beck."

"Yeah, uh, sure, no problem," I replied, and
then stepped forward with my hand out. He didn't hesitate to shake
it, but did glance down at the glove. "Rough hands," I mumbled.

"I don't mind," he said pleasantly, and then
turned to introduce me to the stranger. "Leo Beck, allow me to
present elder Adept Dorian Riniker, lately of Vienna. Elder Riniker
has agreed to become part of this city's collective, and shall be
filling a needed position."

I remembered to bow first; he was an elder,
after all. "Well, uh, good to meet you, sir."

Riniker gave a slight bow of his head.
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Herr Beck?" he asked.

"Uh, no, sorry - I still have trouble with
English." The only German I knew was 'nein' and 'gesundheit'.

"Ah, pity," he said in a neutral way that
could've been condescending or just a regular reply. "It seems we
all have a commonality between us. As you and Herr Skala are both
scions of the legendary Veleti, Mr. Tomasino and I are also related
in such a way. He and I are scions of the renowned European Adept
Heinrich Mueller, who was of course key in the establishment of the
Hapsburg Dynasty."

Like I knew what the hell that was. "No shit?
That's impressive," I replied, trying to sound like I meant it.

"Mr. Beck," Tomasino said as he stepped
forward, "I wonder if you and I might have a quick chat."

"Of course, Doyen; how can I help ya?"

"A private chat, if you will," he amended as
he put his hand on my shoulder and led me away. Heading toward the
hallway, we passed a trio of Outsiders - Lexian Grimm, Jade
Clayton, and my former friend Cordell. They all nodded to Tomasino,
but only gave me a passing glance.

Stepping into a small study, Tomasino shut
the door behind us and said something. I didn't catch what he said
because the room smelled strongly of Pledge, which distracted me
for a few seconds. "Is there something wrong, Mr. Beck?" he asked,
getting my attention.

"Uh, no," I answered, turning to him.
"Everything's fine. What can I do for you, sir?"