Midnight's Emissary Page 5

  “You going to tell me why I’m here?”

  He sighed. “You’re like a child.”

  Insults. I’d better be getting paid for this.

  “Anything you say, grandpa.”

  His huff sounded almost like a growl this time. I smothered my smile, feeling a small thrill of victory that I was getting to him. He looked so serious. He needed to loosen up a bit, even if it was at his own expense.

  “I’ve called you here to hire you for a job. It’s for a sensitive matter.”

  That wasn’t cryptic or anything.

  “Oh?”

  “There is about to be a conclave for a new leader of these territories.”

  My interest sharpened. This was the first I was hearing about any of this.

  Our primary job was to act as messengers, picking up and delivering what our clients wanted. The other part of the job, the one that didn’t have a formal definition, was to act as news distributers. We were the gossips that held this shadow world together. After all, the news sites weren’t reporting when the dryads and the nyads had a throw down, drag out brawl at Griggs Reservoir or whether the necromancer’s had managed to put down that zombie outbreak in the old graveyard near the river.

  We would have heard news of this magnitude.

  The sound he made was full of frustration as he ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it sticking up. It gave him a slightly rumpled look that would have been adorable if he wasn’t a sanctimonious jerk.

  “This would be so much easier if you knew anything about our world.”

  And whose fault was that? “Sorry that I’m so uninformed. It’s too bad my sire ran off and his stand in took a vacation before he could teach me anything.”

  “I’ve already apologized for that.”

  “And yet you’re holding my lack of knowledge against me when you’re the one who dropped the ball.”

  “If you would just join a clan.”

  “That will not happen. Drop it and move on.”

  I’m sure the glare he shot me had quelled many a more dangerous foe with its subzero temperature, but I just lifted an eyebrow and took another bite of my fry.

  “There are four applicants for the position, all of whom will do anything they can to obtain it. It is the most powerful position in this part of the country and the fifth most powerful in North America. Whoever succeeds in the nomination will have full power over those who live in their territory.”

  Wait up, that sounded like he thought anybody living in the territory would owe fealty or something. Like this was feudal England or something.

  “You mean vampires would have to listen to this person, right?”

  I assumed it was just vampires as I doubted this was a position any supernatural species could apply for.

  “No, everyone— human, supernatural and otherwise would answer to this person.”

  “Does everyone else know this?”

  His words were careful when he said, “It has been brought to their attention in the past.”

  My eyes narrowed. I wondered how many of those people were still alive today and whether their descendants would still agree.

  “Why hold this in Columbus?”

  I loved my city, and it just got better every year. We were considered one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. and were popular with young professionals, but we were no New York or even Chicago for that matter. I could think of a dozen cities not more than six hours from here that would be more attractive for this kind of thing.

  “There are several reasons.”

  My ears perked. Sounded like he was about to teach me something. Finally.

  “The first is that several ley lines run through the city.”

  That was news to me. Mainly because I had no idea what a ley line was.

  “This city has power. Much more than the average city. It’s one of the reasons it has such a strong supernatural population. It’s also located in the heart of the potential applicant’s new territory. It’s customary to hold a selection in the territory in question.”

  “So I’m assuming since this is such a big deal, you’re concerned with selection tampering.”

  He gave a small nod.

  “It has already taken place.”

  “Thought you just announced this conclave thingy recently.”

  “It’s been expected for decades. The former leader made his intention to step down known to many. Some of the applicants took the initiative to start making moves against their competition.”

  How enterprising of them. Sounded like a plot from one of those Renaissance political dramas. The one with the family of the pope.

  Another thought occurred to me. “You’re not expecting me to provide security or something.”

  His scoff of derision stung a little – I had talents that had proven useful in the past – but not much given that these applicants would probably be pretty heavy hitters in the vampire world. I don’t want to say they could squash me like a bug, but it probably wouldn’t be much harder than that.

  “So what do you want from me?” I asked, ignoring the lack of confidence in my security skills.

  “There are several tests an applicant must pass to be chosen. Some are tests that every vampire passes at some point, while others are tailored to the selection.”

  Fascinating stuff, but not what I asked.

  “Perhaps the easiest one to pass is the ability to prove you can sire another vampire.”

  He paused as the waitress stopped by our booth.

  “Can I get you folks anything else?”

  Liam shook his head.

  I propped my chin on my hand and gave her a big smile. “Yes, my friend would like a milkshake, I think chocolate would suit him.”

  “Alrighty then, one chocolate milkshake.”

  She left, leaving him glaring at me.

  “I don’t want a milkshake.”

  I waved away his objection. “Nonsense. You can’t come to a diner and not get something. You’ll stand out.”

  He gave me a dry look. “Somehow I doubt that was your motivation for ordering me one of those things.”

  “So your applicants need to be able to sire a vampire. That doesn’t seem too hard.”

  “It’s not. Once a vampire hits a certain age and obtains a certain level of discipline.”

  I sucked down another sip of the creamy goodness. Somehow I didn’t think he’d brought this topic up for no reason. I was betting it had something to do with what he wanted from me.

  “What’s that have to do with me?” I asked, hoping to speed things along. My milkshake was melting and I wanted to be done with this conversation sometime in the next century.

  “I think one of the applicants was hexed over a century ago to prevent him from siring other vampires.”

  “Again, what does that have to do with me?”

  “I need you to either find the witch who placed the hex or one of the vampire’s descendants.”

  Wait. Hold on.

  “The hexed vampire’s descendants?”

  I received a nod.

  “What makes you think I can do something like that? I know almost zero about investigating.”

  His lips quirked. “Your encounter with the draugr say otherwise.”

  I waved his comment away. “That was mostly luck and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  That and relying on an old friend to do most of the researching. I didn’t plan on telling him about her. He didn’t need any more ammo to take out my vulnerable spots.

  “You also seem to have an established relationship with several witches. Because of your job you have access to people from all parts of the city.”

  In other words, people wouldn’t talk to him because he was a big, bad vampire, the bogey man of this shadow world.

  I smirked at him. “So I guess my being clanless has some use after all.”

  “In very rare instances.”

  Heh.

  The bell over the d
iner door rang and a dark haired man in a light coat stepped inside, looking around before spotting us. He walked our way.

  My gaze landed on his silver gray eyes. I couldn’t look away, the moment feeling like it was happening at a distance. I felt lightheaded, then hot and sweaty. In the next second, I was ice cold, my teeth damn near chattering.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  How did Liam find him?

  I never thought I’d see him again.

  I reached slowly into my messenger bag, my hand closing on the grip of my gun. It was a revolver called the Judge, a .45 caliber long colt with a 410 round. It might stop him, but then again it might not.

  “Thomas,” Liam said, standing. “You’re late.”

  Thomas was a few inches shorter than Liam and just as good looking. He had a strong jaw with stubble shadowing it. His eyes were bright and alert as he nodded at me. I knew those eyes. They haunt me every morning just before the sun sends me into the land of the dead.

  “Is this her, then?”

  Thomas didn’t seem too impressed with what he was seeing. He also didn’t look like he’d ever seen me before. Something I knew to be false.

  I couldn’t react beyond a slight tightening of my finger on the trigger. Under the table, it was now pointed at the two men.

  I wanted to squeeze that trigger so bad. It would take less than six pounds of pressure to fire. It seemed so easy. Just a pop, pop.

  I knew from a previous encounter with Liam and my last hand gun that it might not be as simple as I thought. It was the only thing keeping me from emptying the entire clip into the men in front of me.

  “It is. Thomas, this is Aileen. She is the unclaimed vampire I told you about.”

  I bet he did. And here I was hoping he’d make good on his promise to teach me some things. Maybe show me vampires weren’t so awful.

  “This is your plan?” Thomas asked, arching an eyebrow as he looked me over.

  I was going to need to count back from one hundred to keep from shooting this guy.

  “She’s more resourceful than she looks.”

  A compliment and insult all rolled into one. How lovely.

  “Liam tells me you refuse to join a clan,” Thomas said, finally directing his comment to me.

  I hesitated. Is that all Liam had said? Not knowing what game these two were playing, I gave him a nod.

  “Where’s your sire?”

  Sitting right across from me.

  I clamped down on that thought and shored up my mental defenses, adding tree after tree and boulders and hills. If he was a mind reader, I didn’t want him having access to such dangerous thoughts.

  How could he not recognize me? Or had he attacked so many women in the last year trying to turn one of them that he simply didn’t remember the one he had?

  I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. The werewolves were able to tell if someone was lying. I didn’t want to chance the vampires having the same ability. It wasn’t one I possessed, but then I seemed to be lacking many of the talents associated with my kind.

  “Do you speak?” His tone had an arctic chill to it.

  I narrowed my eyes and grabbed a French fry, dunking it in the milkshake and taking a bite, my teeth clacking together.

  Did I speak? Who did this guy think he was?

  Made me want to be silent for the rest of this meeting just to mess with him.

  “Why is she eating?” he asked, bewilderment in his tone. Then to me, “Why are you eating?”

  Again I shrugged, before taking another bite out of the fry.

  “Stop that.”

  In a blur of movement that I only half caught, my plate and milkshake disappeared. I blinked down at the empty table. In the next moment, the fry I was holding was torn out of my fingers.

  What the hell?

  No, stay calm. Be professional.

  “What the hell?” I asked. “That was mine. Give it back.”

  “She speaks,” Thomas said with sarcasm.

  I scowled at him.

  “Food is toxic to us. It will delay your development.”

  I pointed at my face. “Look at my face. Does it look like I give two nickels about my development? You don’t take other people’s food and do whatever you did to it. It’s just not done. Who does that?”

  I was fixating, a red tinge creeping into the corners of my vision. Deep breath. Deep breath. Don’t try to tear their faces off just because they touched your stuff. Control. I needed control.

  My temper was rising, made worse by the unexpected arrival of my sire and the fact they touched something that was mine. They were both twenty times stronger than me and having a shit fit right now would just endanger myself and everyone around me.

  I took another deep breath and let it out, focusing on the two in front of me.

  “Being territorial is also a vampire trait,” Liam said.

  Thomas grunted. “I see you have a bit of our temper as well.”

  I bared my teeth in a smile that had more in common with a snarl. I didn’t want to hear about vampire traits right now. It just made me want to rip one of their limbs off and beat them with it.

  “You sure have a funny way of asking for a person’s help,” I said when I had myself back under control.

  “But we didn’t ask, did we? You’re our hired help,” Thomas said.

  I snorted. “What is this? The eighteenth century? It doesn’t work like that. I can turn this job down, and right now that’s almost a given.”

  “You do that and the people around you will face the consequences,” Liam said coolly.

  He’d been quiet for the most part, observing the interaction between Thomas and me. I didn’t like that. He was smart and saw way more than I wanted. I didn’t need him drawing any conclusions about Thomas and me.

  “Careful, Liam. Remember what happened the last time you tried to use the people I loved against me.”

  I rolled up the sleeve on my left arm where the sorcerer had left his mark. A stylized lion wrapped in a vine full of thorns stared out at us. It looked like a tattoo, but it wasn’t. At first glance it seemed almost silver but when you looked closer there were specks of purple running through it, almost as if someone had embedded metallic purple thread in the skin.

  It was beautiful and tied me on a metaphysical level to the sorcerer.

  Thomas’s hand flashed out, pinning mine in place as he bent over it to take a closer look. I tugged but couldn’t budge my arm. I doubted Thomas was even aware I was trying to pull away.

  “It’s embedded pretty deep,” he murmured. “Looks like they didn’t really know what they were doing. The magic is creating a feed-back loop between the two of you. It can be reversed, but it’ll take some doing and could wind up killing one or both of them.”

  He seemed almost as if he was speaking to himself, like he had forgotten the two of us were sitting right here.

  He came back to himself and gave me a sharp glance. He reminded me of a sergeant, one who was questioning the level of intelligence in his soldier.

  “What could have possessed you to allow yourself to be marked by a sorcerer, of all people?”

  I looked at Liam. “I don’t know. Why don’t we ask Liam?”

  He unfolded his arms and gave me a cold look. “She did it to get out of her hundred years of service.”

  “And to protect my family from your threats,” I finished.

  The corner of Thomas’ lips turned down. “You’re something of an idiot. The only person you’re hurting is yourself.”

  I gave a shrug. “I’ve never been afraid to cut off my nose to spite my face if it got me what I wanted in the end.”

  “You’ll do the job,” Liam said, leaning forward slightly. “That mark protects you right now, but there are ways to sever the link, even if it leads to your death. Do you really want to push us until we think the cost is worth it?”

  No, I didn’t. Even with all the obstacles that came with being a vampire, I loved life. I didn’t want
to jeopardize it. This was not a battle I was prepared to wage. There would be other times, other battles.

  Seeing the answer on my face, Liam continued, “As I said, we need you to either find the witch who placed the hex or locate Thomas’s descendants.”

  I really wish I had my food right now. A slurp of the sugary goodness that was a milkshake would go a long way to taking the sting from having to play ball with these two.

  “What’s to say the witch you’re looking for is even in this city?” I shot Thomas a skeptical look. “I doubt Thomas has spent his entire life in Columbus. He could have picked up the hex any number of places.”

  “We’ve managed to trace the timing to when he was visiting the city,” Liam said.

  “Seems a little thin,” I observed, noting the tightening around Thomas’s eyes. Neither one answered. I was already hating this job. I asked my next question, “I get why you want the witch, but why locate his descendants?”

  Thomas gave me an arrogant look. “That’s not information you need to know.”

  I opened my mouth to argue and then shut it again. Their faces were closed and guarded. They wouldn’t tell me and pushing might make them do something I might regret. There were other ways to get the information.

  “Let’s just say that his descendants, because of their direct blood link to him, may provide a way to work around the hex,” Liam said.

  “Do you have a place to start?” I asked.

  Thomas reached inside his coat and withdrew a stack of folded paper, setting it on the table. “This is what I have managed to locate. I know two of my descendants relocated to this city in the 1800s, but I lost track of them after the turn of the century. The last page contains a list of witches who had a grudge against me and the talent to perform the hex.”

  I pulled the papers to me and flipped through them quickly. I paused when I saw Miriam’s name on the list of witches.

  “Do you see something?” Liam asked.

  I folded the papers up and stuck them in my messenger bag. “Just checking the information.”

  “The selection takes place in five days. We’ll expect results before then,” Thomas directed.

  Five days? I wasn’t a miracle worker. If his descendants came to this area in the 1800s, there would be an avalanche of data to sift through, not to mention I had almost zero experience in an investigation like this.