Sleight of Hand (39 page)

Bian left and I sat down opposite him. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked that I suddenly recognized him. He had been the man accompanying Diana when I was kidnapped, whose face had disappeared from my memory. He had the kind of looks you might pass over in a crowd as you walked by, dark-haired and handsome, but not exceptional. Until you looked at his eyes—a hard, shocking blue. I hadn’t seen them the first time we’d met. In the parking lot, the light had been bad and in the dungeon, it had been dark and he’d been playing tricks with my head.

“Are you going to screw with my memory again when I leave?” I said.

“
If
you leave, no.” He let that hang in the air.

“What’s so important about keeping this place secret?”

He sighed. “We’re at war, even if it’s officially peacetime. The Basilikos party will not hesitate to attack this house if they discover the location. When we host the Assembly next week, every member will arrive here blindfolded—that’s the level of care we take. The only people who know this location are completely loyal.”

“And you’re saying I’m not. What does it take to prove I won’t give this location away? Diana read my mind.”

“She was looking for a specific thing—that you would go to the ball and get the message for us. Loyalty is a much more complex matter and the answer isn’t yes or no.”

“So how do you know those guards out there are loyal?”

“You’ll understand the kin bonds when you become fully Athanate. When you stop fighting it. Now, my question which you
will
answer. How did you find the address?”

“Let me say first that no one else knows. What’ll you trade for the answer?”

“This isn’t a trade. It would be much easier to just keep you here.” He glared at me.

Fortunately, at that moment, Diana arrived and distracted us. I knew that Skylur was stronger and quicker than me. I suspected he could break through my mental defenses. But something made me keep challenging him.

“Amber, hello. Lovely to see you.”

I got up and remembered the formal Athanate greeting kiss—the neck and not the cheek. We parted and Diana’s lips pressed into a lazy, predatory smile which made me sit down again in a hurry.

“You have the message?” said Diana.

“I want the answer—” Skylur began, but Diana cut him off.

“She’ll tell us when she’s ready. I will vouch for her. And we owe her for putting her in jeopardy.” Skylur looked angry, but didn’t say anything. Diana didn’t play fair. I had a lot more difficulty arguing against her approach than Skylur’s.

“Yes, I have a message from Arvinder Singh.” At the name, both of them started and they exchanged looks.

“This is good news,” said Diana. “If it’s Arvinder who has changed allegiance, then Basilikos has serious internal problems. What’s the message?”

I looked at them blankly. “I don’t know. He put a coded message in my head. Isn’t that how you were expecting it?”

Before I could blink the pair of them were looming over me, holding me down on the chair. My heart stopped and then went flat out. What the hell had I just said? Despite my previous experience trying to fight them, I struggled, which did me no good at all.

Diana was behind my chair, reaching over. Her hands gripped my head like a vise and tilted it back until I was looking up at her.

“Amber, please trust me. Stop struggling,” she said. Her voice was so reasonable, so calm. Her eyes held mine until my heart started to slow and I subsided.

“I can do this because you
do
trust me. This does not mean anyone else can. You can fight Matlal or any other Athanate who tries to overcome you mentally. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

My head twitched in her hands.

“What Arvinder did could be used to do other things, things you wouldn’t even realize. I need to check. You have my word, I will look only where I need to. May I?”

I twitched my head again. I had a feeling she could look whether I wanted it or not, but I did trust her and I relaxed as much as I could. There was a feeling of panic as a gray
otherness
seemed to sink into my head, and she murmured something soothing. My eyes closed. Like a film reel, the charity ball unwound in my head: the feeling while I was walking to the door, Jen’s red dress, the taste of the food and wine, Matlal, the dances, my feet aching, Arvinder, the smell of Alex, Tucker’s rant, the fake doorman.

It stopped and I drifted back to find myself sitting slumped in my chair. Skylur was back in his and Diana sat on the arm of my chair, one hand resting on my shoulder. She and Skylur were speaking in Athanate.

When she saw that I was back, she squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing was done to you,” she said. “It was just a message from Arvinder to us.”

She cleared her throat. “Amber, now that we’ve got the charity ball out of the way, we’re going to have to formally recognize you before the Assembly next Wednesday.”

“What does that mean?”

“Athanate are very concerned about knowing where everyone fits in. Matlal is already lodging complaints that an unregistered Athanate was at the ball. That’s one step from rogue. You need a status that will be understood and will give you a measure of protection against other Athanate Houses. It will also protect us against claims that we are not policing our mantle correctly. There are two alternatives.”

I looked up questioningly.

“One, you become part of House Altau, acknowledging Skylur as your Master. There is a ceremony and an exchange of Blood.” Her hand gently squeezed my shoulder again when I started to protest. “As I felt that this is not something you want yet, there is a second option of alliance. You form House Farrell and swear allegiance to Altau before the Assembly. It’s customary, but not necessary, to go through the exchange of Blood.”

I laughed. “A House of one? Without a physical house either?”

“For the moment,” Diana said.

“This is ridiculous,” Skylur said to Diana. “We go through all this for simple requirements—to protect her and ensure our safety. The easiest way is to keep her here until after the Assembly at least. I’m strongly against establishing another House in Denver. It has no rationale.”

“And it’s your decision,” replied Diana. “But my advice is to proceed this way. It does us no good to keep Amber here, and it may actually harm our interests.”

Skylur leaned back in the chair, and made a dismissive wave with his hand. I took that as his reluctant agreement.

I turned to Diana. “Other than the Blood, what’s the difference between the two options?”

“In protection, nothing. Harm done to you is harm done to Altau. Which won’t keep you safe in itself, but will make Athanate think twice before trying anything. In responsibility, it’s quite complex. As a member of a House, the bond is very close. As an allied House, you’re much more independent unless you break Athanate law, and then discipline and reparations are Altau’s responsibility. You are responsible for your House. Only you at the moment, but that would change. As a member, you wouldn’t be expected to attend the Assembly. As a new House, you must, to give your oath.”

“There’s no way I can understand what I need to in time for the Assembly if you’re expecting me attend. Is there any possibility of an advisor?”

Skylur and Diana looked at each other for a moment and Skylur nodded. Diana turned to me. “Bian will help you. This is not a temporary reassignment; she will remain Altau, but she will advise you.”

I would have preferred Diana, but I guessed I would find a way to make it work.

“Now, tell us how you came to find where this house is,” Diana’s grip on my shoulder added an unvoiced
please
.

“You need to know this for your legitimate security reasons, and I’ll tell you,” I said. “But I need to know things for my legitimate security reasons—how you knew there was going to be an attempt to kill Jennifer Kingslund at the ball.”

“We have a spy in their camp,” said Skylur. “Are you aware of the link between Tucker and Matlal?”

“Tucker’s fiancée works for Matlal. There’s some commercial cooperation.”

Skylur snorted. “Tucker’s fiancée is House Matlal, and looks on him as a future blood slave. And it’s more than cooperation in the businesses. Tucker has crushing financial problems and Matlal is now a shareholder in Tucker Beacon. Tucker’s caught. Just think of him as another commercial arm of Matlal. One that gives Matlal an excuse in front of the Assembly for visiting Denver and interfering in our mantle. Our spy knew that an attempt would be made at the ball. It was Tucker’s last opportunity to get the Kingslund Group and wriggle away from Matlal. That failed and now he’ll never get away.”

I nodded. My sympathy for Tucker’s predicament was very limited. He had tried to recruit me and then to kill me. And if he had recruited me, Jen would have died and it would have become my fault. That, I couldn’t forgive. “Why couldn’t you have said earlier?”

“There was a chance things might have gone differently at the ball. We didn’t want to reveal that we had a spy in their camp,” said Diana. “For that matter, we have been unsure how reliable this spy is. We still don’t know their identity, but this message is genuine.”

This wasn’t proof about Tucker that I could take to Morales, but at least I understood a little more about what was going on. In the meantime, Skylur wanted his answer and I could sense his angry impatience wasn’t going to hold much longer. “I had a GPS system in my old car, the one you used to drive me here. I had it modified a while back to allow it to store coordinates every couple of minutes even if it looked switched off. I pulled the track off the next day.”

“Who else might have seen this information?” asked Diana.

“No one. I did it alone, on Saturday, and the file is encrypted.”

Skylur and Diana did their eerie wordless stare, but they seemed satisfied with the answer. Diana left the armrest and sat in her own chair.

“For the moment, please do not breach our systems any further,” she said. “Don’t find out the names of Athanate here, where they come from, what they do outside—anything. Don’t discuss a word about the Athanate with anybody outside. We need to keep this in place at least till the end of the Assembly this week. Once we’ve got rid of all the Athanate visitors in Denver, then things will change. In fact, I’d like you to conduct some tests on the security and defense systems here.”

I nodded while thinking
what about knowing David?
I decided I needed to warn David first before I told them.

Someone I didn’t know entered the library behind me and Skylur looked over and got up. “I have a call, I must go,” he said. “I’ll amend the Assembly agenda to include the oath, and I’ll see you then, House Farrell.” He strode out. I couldn’t quite tell if he was joking or not with the title.

Diana sat, lost in thought for the moment. I took the time to look around the library and the gardens outside. It was very quiet in the house. It had a feeling of emptiness and I wondered briefly where everyone was.

I decided to use the opportunity of having Diana there to answer questions.

“Can I ask—how much am I a risk to other people?”

Diana looked over at me. “How do you mean?”

“I have Athanate prions in my body. I understand from the scientists that the prions don’t survive outside of the body, but can I infect someone just by kissing them, for example? Or do I have to bite?”

She stirred in her chair and got up. “If kissing were a reliable method, we wouldn’t use fangs,” she said and shrugged. “Once you gain full control of your powers, then you’ll do what you intend to. If you want to turn someone, you’ll turn them, but you would use fangs to be sure. If you want to heal, or bind, that would be different. But at your stage, yes, there is a small risk, even with a kiss.”

I got up too. “So, sex is out for the moment.”

Diana smiled. “Except with Athanate.”

It had been a long day, a long week. My belief in my own humanity and sexuality was being challenged, and Diana just seemed to crystallize it in that one casual comment.

“To hell with the damned Athanate,” I said angrily, getting in her face.

She didn’t reply, she didn’t step back. Her expressionless face turned aside, but not before I caught a glimpse of pain in her eyes. My tantrum evaporated and I realized how stupidly I was behaving.

“I’m sorry, Diana. I’m a complete asshole sometimes. It’s…I…” I thought of all the excuses I could give, all the reasons I had for my hair-trigger temper. They were all crap and I swallowed them. “No excuse,” I forced out.

Diana turned her face back, her expression still unreadable. Her eyes looked huge. They weren’t glittering. They were dark and secret as space; they were great, black moons pulling at my tides. I felt dizzy. She wasn’t even trying and she was mesmerizing me.

“You did a good job bringing me in the first time around,” I said, and made myself go on, steeling myself to stand straight and keep looking into her eyes. “You’ve been careful and patient with me and I pay it all back by getting angry and saying stupid things. Please believe me, it isn’t how I really think. I don’t want to be your enemy. Forgive me.”

I touched her on the shoulder and a little shiver rippled through her, startling me. Moving slowly and deliberately, she gathered my hands between hers and held them between us.

“Forgiven,” she murmured, a hint of fang at the edge of her mouth. “When your time comes, I would be very honored to be your Mentor.”

Fear and excitement tingled up and down my spine. “I don’t want…” I began, but my mouth slowed and stopped. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted at the moment.

“I understand,” she said.

Her eyes flickered to the left and a second later Bian came into the library. She stopped, looking at us. Our hands dropped and I stepped back, my breath easing slightly.

“Did I miss something?” asked Bian slyly, raising her eyebrows.

The demon got my throat. “Darling,” I drawled, “you missed
everything
.”

Bian’s face went closed. Her eyes got a gleam to them, not quite the glitter of blood hunger.