Epilogue
Kate stumbled a little and just managed to keep her footing as she threaded her way through the trailer, past her desk and into the bedroom. She dropped onto the unmade bed with a sigh of relief.
Micheil pushed the bunched up sheet and covers onto the floor and sat on one corner.
Roman leaned against the doorjamb. “You’re not in a fit state to talk dirty let alone have sex, so what’s up, Kate? Why did you bring us back here?”
Kate smoothed out a wrinkle in the sheet, then realized she wasn’t improving anything. “I’m compl’ly bombed,” she agreed. “But ev’ryone else will think we’re having sex, which is jus’ fine.” She took a breath. “More truth time.”
They were both looking at her steadily. Simply waiting.
Kate took another breath, this one for control. She spoke as precisely as she could manage after four Bulldogs. “I am a CIA operative, recruited by them when I was fifteen years old, and held under deep cover for mos’ of my life. I replaced the real Kathrine Lindenstream, who died of Cystic Fybrosis during a double lung transplantation. For the last three days I have failed to report into my coordinator and in the next twelve hours I will be considered a rogue agent.”
The silence in the room was almost total.
Kate licked her lips. “You know, you could both look…well, surprised, or something.
Micheil cleared his throat. “It’s truth time, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“I already knew,” he said gently.
Kate drew in a startled breath. “No. How could you? No one knew. I’ve never told…” She swallowed, feeling cold and very, very sober. She looked up at Roman. “You, too?”
He lowered himself onto the bed. “I’ve known right from the start you were more than you were saying and a lot of small things told me it was probably the FBI or the CIA. But you didn’t say anything, so I didn’t.”
“I gave myself away?” She felt sick and it wasn’t just booze.
“Not to any normal human, you didn’t. But we’re not human.” Roman shrugged. Then he pointed to her hip. “You were trained for combat when they took you in, weren’t you? You’ve still got the instinct to reach for your gun on the back of your hip. The first day you met Micheil, in the basement car park when his limousine nearly knocked you over, you reached for it. You turned it into a tug on your bag, but I saw it, anyway.”
Micheil made a tiny sound and rolled his eyes. “That’s why you warned me that Kate wasn’t what she seemed to be.”
Roman grimaced. “I was still trying to figure out what it meant myself. Later on, I decided it didn’t mean a damn, whatever it was. But I kept noticing tiny slips. Then there was the gun and the way you took out MacDonald. They weren’t just slips, they were billboards, declaring yourself to us.” Roman looked at her. “But you’d already failed to report in by then, hadn’t you?”
Kate nodded.
“You’re trying to say you’re…what, Kate?” Micheil asked, his tone still gentle. “Joining up with Nial’s campaign?”
She swallowed. “I guess that’s part of it. I’m joining up with you two. In every way. They sold you out, you know.”
Roman let out a breath. “That’s who told you Micheil was a vampire. Of course you would believe them. They’ve been directing your life since you were a teenager.”
Micheil held up a hand. “Wait, Roman. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Kate, why did they tell you I was a vampire? Was that your assignment? To watch us?”
She shook her head, then halted the movement as the room spun and gasped. When everything was steady once more, she focused on Micheil and Roman once more.
“I love you both more than I can ever explain in words. This…what I’m doing now – it’s a tiny token, but it’s one way I can show to you that I really mean this. You’re right, Roman. They’ve been controlling my life forever. For the last five days, I’ve been mentally telling them to fuck off and considered myself independent, my world to be my own and just like you were saying earlier, I don’t want to give it up now.” She sucked in a breath. “If that means I throw my lot in with Nial and fight his war, then so be it.”
Micheil wiped her cheek, then brushed his damp fingers on his jeans. “You need to report in to your coordinator tomorrow. Give him a very good, very authentic-sounding excuse for being late in reporting in.”
“But—”
“He’s right,” Roman said softly. “You don’t want the CIA on your tail.”
She bit her lip.
“You can have your life, Kate. You just have to negotiate it properly. And that means letting the CIA think you’re still on their side. There’s too many of the Pro Libertatis in power positions throughout the federal government. You can help Nial by staying plugged into the structure.” He smiled. “We’ll know what side you’re really on.”
She sighed and nodded. “I just wanted to make my movie. They came to me after we got back from location shooting and laid out this incredible story about vampires being real and then topped it by telling me I was sleeping with one. And it was all to do with the goddamn stone I brought back from Turkey. They knew about it and they had been monitoring all these people in the government to see who took an interest in it.”
Roman and Micheil became still with the wariness she knew was their vampire natures on high alert. She studied them. “What?” she demanded.
“The ones in the government. They know about the Pro Libertatis,” Roman said, speaking to Micheil.
“They were trying to draw them out with the stone, too,” Micheil finished.
They both looked at her. “This stone,” Roman asked. “You still have it?”
“You’re sitting on it.”
Roman put his hand flat on the sheet, almost reverently. “It’s been here all along?”
She nodded. “I’m not an archaeologist, but I could tell by the ancient script on it that it was something incredibly ancient. I had it crated by an expert I bribed into silence, and because I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t have time to have it identified by experts, I put it where I could keep an eye on it.” She climbed off the bed and tugged at the edge of the mattress. “Up,” she commanded.
They stood up and lifted the mattress from the bed and propped it against the wall. There was a thin liner beneath that Kate tossed aside. Under that lay the base of the bed that the mattress rested upon. It was in two pieces and one had a small thumb hole in it.
“Christos, it’s not even locked!” Roman breathed, sounding distressed.
“Would you think to even look here?” Micheil asked. “Well, of course you wouldn’t. You didn’t.”
Kate hooked her finger in the thumb hole, lifted the sheet up an inch and dragged it over the top of the other and out of the way. Micheil and Roman leaned over and helped her with the cumbersome wood, for it did not have any runners or guides.
It finally dropped over the other base plate and they stood back and looked at the cavity beneath the bed.
It was empty.
“It’s gone!” Kate cried.
The bottom of the rectangular space was lined with the same carpet as the rest of the room, but just a bit more pristine and showroom perfect. Pale creamy white sand and tiny pebbles lay scattered all over the carpet, showing that something had rested there once.
“It’s been taken,” Micheil said.
“Menes Heru,” Roman said bitterly. “The Deadly Moon has the Blood Stone. The gods help us all.”
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