Sleight of Hand (29 page)

She leaned again on the table, her eyes looking right through me. Her voice dropped and yet still seemed to fill the room. “The commitment goes both ways. This is the gift and the sorrow of the Athanate; to see your loves pass before you like the days of summer while your heart still beats. To keep your vigil in the shadows and rise again with every sun.”

The breath caught in my throat. I was sure she had just quoted something very old, something I had never heard before, possibly something that no one besides Athanate heard, something full of grief. I had a sense of time behind Diana, like a great, dark wheel turning. Bian walked around the table and put a hand on Diana’s shoulder. She shuddered and the room seemed lighter again.

I gave myself a shake and tried to concentrate. In the silence, I spoke. “Is this for Altau, or all Athanate?”

Diana shook her head. “I could have said all Houses like Altau. That is the creed of the Panethus group of Athanate. It is different for Basilikos.”

“Where humans are forced to provide blood?”

Bian nodded. “Basilikos covers a range of beliefs. Milder ones regard humans as pets. The worst, as slaves, or just food. They need their emotional sustenance as well. It’s just that they’ve found fear works too.”

I would need to come back to Basilikos and understand them better, but I needed to concentrate on how Altau behaved for the moment. “So, we are a happy little Athanate in House Altau,” I said, “recently converted and with kin. Nothing to worry about?”

Diana huffed. “You have to work at being Athanate. Especially in the newly converted, there are problems. Close monitoring reduces these, but the possibility of becoming rogue is highest early on. Rogues lose themselves in the sensations of being Athanate, the pleasures we take in our Blood and emotion. Even older Athanate are at risk.” Diana tapped the table in front of Mykayla. “Anything that weakens control at the wrong moment is a danger. This is why we live as a community, a House—to support each other. Caught early enough, the insanity that is being rogue can be reversed.”

“And if not caught early?” I asked.

“We provide a quick and humane death,” said Bian. A chill went through the room again.

“Overall, from human to well-adjusted Athanate, how many do you lose?” I asked.

“About one in fifty,” said Diana.

I sat back. The numbers didn’t add up, as I’d said to David. I wondered if he’d gotten much further down this line, or whether Diana in her communicative mood today was the best bet to answer my questions.

“You’re concerned about something, Amber,” said Diana.

“Yes. Where are all the Athanate in Denver? If you lose only one in fifty in the conversion, then either you’re not converting many or something’s happening.”

She paced over to the window and looked out over the garden and the golf course beyond.

“We lose some when their kin die.” I could hear old memories in her voice again. “We lose some when the deeper skills are taught. But those are not what you’ve asked about. I said I would answer as much as I can, and there are some things I cannot talk about without Skylur’s agreement. I can tell you that there have been Athanate wars which have devastated our people. We’re in a quiet period now, a cold war, between Panethus and Basilikos.”

There was a knock at the door, and Bian went over and spoke briefly with someone outside.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll take Mykayla,” Bian said to me. “I’ll continue to talk to her, as we’ve promised. She’ll be the best-informed person ever when she makes her decision.”

“I’ve made my mind up. It won’t change,” Mykayla said. “But thanks again, Amber.”

They left. Diana continued to stare out the window.

“How bad were the wars against Basilikos?” I asked.

“They reached a peak under the cover of the Spanish flu and the first World War. For a time then, it seemed we’d destroyed ourselves, but slowly the survivors came out of hiding. In the 1930s, the Assembly was set up and has maintained a peace of sorts since then.”

“And you think that peace is at an end?”

Diana nodded.

“What a good time for Panethus to make an alliance with normal humans,” I said.

Diana smiled. “You’re preaching to the converted, but many of the Panethus Assembly representatives are elders that barely survived localized attempts to find an equilibrium with humans before. It’s not straightforward.”

I rocked back. There was a lot to think about just in what she had said and I was sure there was more underneath it all.

“Well, you can’t hide forever in today’s society. Not in the States. What you need is a way to control the discovery.”

“My argument exactly.” Diana moved from the window and leaned over me. I felt the power of her eyes like a weight pressing me into the seat. My heart stuttered. “And you wonder why you’re so interesting to me, Sergeant Farrell?” she whispered.

Chapter 36

I shrank back. My guard had come down with Diana and the shock of her attack on my mind was doubled. She wasn’t brutal like Skylur, but the force of her attack was every bit as powerful. I was pinned to the chair. I couldn’t take my eyes from hers.

She swayed closer and her mouth opened. I realized with horror her gleaming fangs were down. They tapered to points as sharp as needles.

“Banned,” I mumbled. “No.” My mouth was numb and my throat felt dry. But my neck felt warm and loose. My head tilted back and my breath caught. I
wanted
her to bite me. Her fangs grazed my neck and I gasped, arching up to offer myself.

“Gods,” she groaned, and shuddered. “Bian has it exactly right. You will be delicious.”

Her hands grabbed my head and jerked it back upright. Her eyes glittered inches from mine. “Fight it, Amber. You can break it, if you really try.”

Her fangs were inches from my neck. Why hadn’t she bitten me yet?

“Not fear? What’s the key, Amber?” She stroked my cheek. “Where’s the steel in your spine?”

She was playing with me. A spark of anger caught in my belly.

“Ahhh,” she whispered. “Anger. Come on Amber, fight me. I like it when they struggle.”

She slapped me, and just as she intended, the anger exploded in my head. I could feel it pushing at the gray fingers that dug into my mind. For a second or more it held, but I fed the anger and I tore her control loose. I could move again, though I could barely see for the fury that gripped me. My hands whipped up to seize her throat. And she wasn’t there.

She stood calmly on the other side of the table. Her mouth was closed and her eyes weren’t glittering.

“Bitch,” I yelled at her, hyperventilating. She was quicker than me. I couldn’t catch her, and even if I could, she was stronger than me. All I could hit her with were harsh words and furious looks.

“Tell me, Amber,” she said quietly. “When you were in the army, what was the best training you had?”

The question was so oblique, it punctured the anger that had freed me from her control. I sat down and took some deep breaths. She hadn’t hurt me like Skylur had. She’d scared me every bit as much, but she hadn’t bitten me. What she’d really done was teach me that I could break the Athanate mind control, and the key was anger. Well, I had lots of that in reserve.

“The real thing was the best training of all,” I said, proud that I could keep my voice level.

She walked back around and sat beside me, completely unconcerned. “You have just had the best training I can provide, and in less than a half dozen seconds, once you knew what to do, you broke my control.” She looked squarely at me. “You will not find many stronger than that. Congratulations, Amber, I never had so quick a pupil. That anger, however, will need to be watched carefully, during crusis.”

Saying that to someone who’d been as angry as I had just been wouldn’t normally help, but I had twelve years of keeping it under a tight rein, and I was ashamed I’d nearly lost it here.

A polite knock on the door interrupted us, and Diana opened it to allow a waiter to bring in a tray with coffee and cookies. It was so ordinary and everyday that I laughed. What would have happened if he’d barged in five minutes ago?

Diana smiled, sensing the joke herself. She poured the coffee.

“Along with the imperatives that change the way we behave, we have some changes to our perceptions. All the senses are sharpened. You’re more sensitive to flavors, scents, colors, and sounds recently. You’re seeing better in the dark, as well.”

I thought of the taste of rum and Carmen’s cooking, the scent of flowers at Manassah, the color of Jen’s eyes, the sound of her sleeping heartbeat. I stirred uncomfortably.

“And we are strongly attracted by things that are beneficial to us.” She laid my coffee in front of me and sat down with hers. “I know that there will be benefit to us in sharing, because I find your marque so attractive.”

She meant sharing blood.

“The marque is more than that, though. It’s a key to Athanate society. It is subtle telergy, reinforced by pheromones. It holds a House together, like a hive.” She sipped her coffee and changed tack. “Now, Amber, you have something to tell me about these prions,” she said.

“Yes. Skylur was right when he guessed that something happened when I was in the army. You both know I’m part Athanate, so you know what it was.”
And Colonel Laine is going to kill me.
I continued regardless. “The army scientists are monitoring me, and they have identified what causes a person to become Athanate. They’re tiny strings of proteins, called prions. Most prions kill the host. The Athanate prions don’t. Or rather,” I said, taking the tester out of my bag, “if the person survives the initial infection, then I guess the relationship becomes symbiotic. This machine measures levels of prions.”

I strapped it to my arm and hit the start button. There was the familiar feel of the positioning and the tiny stab of the needle. I watched while the readout on top settled to 0.48, the highest reading I had ever had.

“Are you all right, Amber?” I looked up at Diana and nodded. I just felt numb.

“What does the reading mean?” said Diana.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s an index. The scientists say 0.8 would be full Athanate and 1.0 would be a dead host.”

“You’re over halfway then?” she said.

It felt more than over halfway to me, but I nodded again and held the unit towards her. She extended her arm and I strapped it on and hit the button. Her reading was 0.79, so the scientists must have made some progress to accurately predict her reading.

“Interesting,” said Diana. “These machines—”

“I need this one.” I cut her off. “I’m sure they could be made available in some kind of pooling of knowledge.” I returned the tester to my bag.

Diana took a sip of coffee and a delicate bite of cookie with perfectly normal-looking teeth. “I worry about the government’s ability to keep matters secret,” she said.

“I bet that you’ve been trying to find out about my army history from government databases. Have any luck?”

“Point well made.” She paused to finish her cookie. “Well, time to brief you more specifically for the charity ball.”

I settled back.

“The ball is unusual this year, in that Mrs. Harriman and Mr. McIntire decided to add an incentive for local businesspeople to attend. This is in the form of an international trade delegation who are also attending, looking for contacts. The organizers have been delighted at the response to their proposals; far more trade delegates accepted than they expected.” She smiled. “The delegates are all bona fide businesspeople, but the majority of them are also members of the Athanate Assembly. We’re a secretive people and an opportunity like this provides us with an excellent cover to meet, which we’ll do next week.”

Diana resumed her pacing, coffee in hand.

“The Assembly members, the representatives, will be guarded by a neutral group of Athanate drawn from both sides of the Assembly, the Warders. No one else from the Athanate community may approach the Assembly representatives. The only time this surveillance will be allowed to ease is at the ball. House Altau, as the host, and president by the way, must not be in attendance at the event. You’re our secret agent. If you agree.”

I joined her at the window.

“To what, exactly?” I said.

“Most importantly, to be a messenger, and to keep your role secret. Also to listen to what Matlal, the leader of the Basilikos party, might have to say and report it back to us. Skylur is right, Matlal will come to you like a moth to the flame.”

“I take a message to someone?”

“No. Someone among the delegation wishes to pass a message secretly to us in advance of the Assembly meeting. We don’t even know who it’ll be. Simply that it relates to New Mexico. It was decided that this was the least dangerous way to deliver it. All the messenger will know is that you are the woman who’ll be with Jennifer Kingslund.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Don’t have a falling out, please.”

“And I’m doing this in exchange for the advice Skylur gave?”

“For that, and the reasons we gave. We will be your harbor in your need.” Putting her coffee down, Diana turned to me, her face as unreadable as an ancient statue. “And I am begging you.”

I stared at her. “These are really high stakes, aren’t they? I’m not allowed to walk out of here saying no, am I?”

“It’s worse than that, Amber,” she said. “You’re not even allowed to have doubts.”

I could feel her in my head again. I’d realized that House Altau could not afford for this to go wrong. I didn’t doubt Diana would be able to erase all memory of the Athanate from my head if she felt it necessary. And yet she had first shown me the way to stop her mental attack. She was confusing me, but however much she frightened me, I still trusted her, and I was going to do what they asked anyway. She took my hands to steady me as I looked into her eyes, and my head swam.

I didn’t fight it and that made it easier. I could feel her in my head. I could feel her ask the question and my reply came from a level below conscious thought. Immediately, she was out of my head. I knew she had done nothing and looked at nothing else.