The Eldritch Conspiracy

“Guys, this is Celia Graves. Celia, these are some of the GAs I work with.” He pointed to the scowling blond. “Jan Mortensen,” he said, giving the name the Nordic pronunciation, then continuing the introductions. “This lovely lady is Trudy Cook.” Trudy was pretty and petite, a redhead with a round face and clouds of curly hair that probably drove her crazy, but looked really good. The smile she gave me was a little forced. I didn’t need to be a telepath to figure out she wasn’t happy about Bruno’s reaction to me. It wasn’t just the siren thing, either. No, I’d have bet a fair amount of money that Trudy had a real thing for Bruno DeLuca.



Well, I didn’t blame her, not even a little. After all, Bruno’s tall, dark, handsome, charming as hell, and a powerful mage. The cherry on top is that he has a real sense of joie de vivre. He sings show tunes and cabaret numbers in the shower. He can dance and he knows more dirty jokes than anyone else I know.



A lot of folks are misled by his lighthearted side and his heavy New Jersey accent. They think he must be dim or a bit of a thug. In truth, he’s very smart and absolutely dedicated to his craft. Which was why he’d been accepted into Bayview’s doctoral program … and how he’d convinced Dr. Sloan to be his advisor.



“And this”—Bruno gestured to a smaller black man whose close-cropped hair was going prematurely gray—“is Gary Jefferson.”



“Hi, Celia.” Gary gave me a smile that was a lot warmer and more genuine than Trudy’s. “Bruno’s told us a lot about you. Glad to finally meet you.”



Gary might be glad to meet me and Trudy might be reserving judgment, but Jan, very obviously, was not at all happy. He gave me a frigid look down his patrician nose. While the others were dressed very casually in worn T-shirts and cargo pants or faded jeans, Jan wore an untucked blue-and-white striped dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show just a hint of the tattoo decorating his left forearm. It was obvious that shirt had been pressed and starched and the cuffs adjusted just so. It was a look straight off of the runways, as were the jeans with both knees deliberately torn out. Of course I got the feeling everything about Jan was deliberate.



I decided to ignore Jan and to focus on the others. I turned to Gary. “Thanks. It’s good to meet you, too.”



Gary smiled, then his expression quickly grew serious. “So, I’ve gotta ask, did you really, seriously, face down a greater demon?”



I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. That was one of my worst memories. “Twice. Not by choice.” Bruno’s grip tightened a little, and I could easily guess that the look he was giving Gary was something less than friendly. “I don’t recommend exorcisms. They hurt.”



“Had to be scary,” the GA continued.



“It’s utterly terrifying, and not something anyone who’s been through it wants to talk about,” Emma said from the hallway, cold and hard.



“Right.” Gary squirmed, then decided abruptly that there was someplace else he needed to be. “Look at the time. I’ve gotta run. Later, DeLuca. Guys.” He brushed past Bruno and me, stepped around Emma, and was gone. As Emma edged into the office and made her way to the one desk in the place that wasn’t littered with scattered junk, she spoke very softly, to Bruno. “Just so you know, Professor Sloan was less than a minute behind me.”



“Crap.” Bruno released my waist and stepped over to the nearest wall. Seconds later he’d vanished, replaced by a battered coat tree with a couple of jackets and an umbrella hanging from it.



It’s not that he doesn’t like Dr. Sloan. Bruno thinks he’s great. But the professor had been running him absolutely ragged when I’d left for Mexico. Apparently, he still was.



“DeLuca!” Dr. Sloan’s voice preceded him into the office. “I’ve had a thought about that table. I want you to—” The short, wiry, elderly man appeared in the doorway. Looking around through thick glasses, he found Trudy, Emma, and Jan working hard at their desks and no sign at all of Bruno.



“Hi, Dr. Sloan. How are you doing?” I said.



“Celia.” He smiled broadly and cocked one bushy eyebrow at me. “I’m well. The question is, how are you? Has the curse mark faded?”



“I’m fine. And I can’t tell on the mark. Maybe a little. I’m not sure.” I held out my hand so he could look at my palm.



“Jan, Trudy, come here. You’ll want to see this. It’s not often you get to see a death curse of this quality on a living human being.”



They obediently came over to examine my palm. Dr. Sloan gave them a brief, esoteric lecture about the nature of death curses in general and of mine in particular—the one that kept putting me face-to-face with said greater demon—before releasing my hand and gesturing them back to work with shooing movements of his hands. Then, winking at me, he turned directly to the coat rack. “DeLuca, you may take the rest of the afternoon off to visit with the lovely Ms. Graves. But I expect you in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, without fail. Do I make myself clear?”



The illusion faded, revealing a sheepish-looking Bruno. “Absolutely.”



“Good.” He turned on his heel and left. But his parting shot could be heard from the hall. “Have fun, kids.”



“All right.” Bruno turned to the others. “What did I miss?”



“You’re kidding, right?” Trudy gave a derisive snort. “The illusion was perfect. Your work is always perfect. The doctor must be psychic.”



I shook my head no. He’d missed something. The illusion was not perfect.



Bruno turned to me. “What?”



I gave him a little smile. “Your cologne. He could smell your cologne. It’s very distinctive.”



Jan laughed. “Of course.”



Bruno’s expression darkened. “Hmm. Smell … I’ll have to work on that.” He wandered over to his desk, where there was a hand mirror in a scrolled silver frame lying next to a razor-sharp knife. With a quick, deft movement, he picked up one of the blades and sliced shallowly into his forearm. There was a surge of power as his blood spilled onto the shining glass and was absorbed into it. The cut knit itself closed as I watched. Bruno hadn’t even winced.



“That is just so cool.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. I should be used to it by now. I’ve seen Bruno working often enough. But every time, it just gets to me.



I realized that Jan was glaring at me an instant before he shifted his gaze to the knife and then Bruno’s face. Both men looked stubborn, just short of angry, and I had the feeling I had walked into the middle of an ongoing argument. “I fail to understand why you would do this to yourself for her.” The blond man made a sharp gesture at me. “You yourself said that she allowed one of the knives you created to be ruined.”



“I told you”—Bruno’s eyes locked with Jan’s—“she used the knife to kill the überbat that attacked my brother. It’s not her fault that Lilith had been a spawn before she was turned.”



“She was?” That was news to me, but it explained why her death had been so weird. Normally, to kill a vampire you stake it, cut off its head and take out its heart, then have the parts cremated separately and spread over separate bodies of running water. When I stabbed Lilith with the knife Bruno had made for me, she’d burned to ash, from the inside out. It had been très creepy and totally unexpected.



“I’ve done the research. It’s the only possible explanation for Lilith’s ability to call a priest on holy ground … and for the damage to the knife.”



Um, wow. Okay. I didn’t even know that it was possible for a spawn to be turned. I mean, Spawn are the offspring of a mating between a human and a demon, so they’re already monsters. Wasn’t turning one into a vampire sort of … well … redundant?



“So you’ve said.” Jan obviously didn’t believe him.



“Jan,” Trudy said, sounding martyred, “just stop, will you? You just saw the curse mark, which you claimed couldn’t possibly exist on a living human. You’ve heard the stories about Celia’s fangs, read about her in the magazines. Now here she is … fangs, curse, and in daylight.”



“It isn’t possible for one person—”



“To be that unlucky?” Emma gave a derisive snort. “You don’t know the half of it. If the woman who cursed her wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her myself. Nobody should have to go through the kind of shit Celia puts up with.” She stood and gathered her things. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Celia and I have business.” She looked from me to Bruno and back. “Unless you’re planning on bailing on me?”



I gave a derisive snort. “Of course not.” I turned to Bruno, who was still glaring daggers at Jan. “You coming with?”



Tearing his gaze away from the other man, he turned to me. “Nope. You go see the house. I’ve seen it. We’ll meet at my place for dinner at … seven o’clock? I want to have plenty of time to get things ready.”



“Sounds like a plan to me.” I collected another kiss before I left.



5



I wasn’t sorry to leave. I’d be seeing Bruno later and the tension in that little office had been intense. As we were on our way out of the building, I asked Emma, “What was that all about?”



“If by ‘that’ you mean my snarling at Gary—”



“No. That, I get. He pushed your buttons when he talked about demons. No surprise, considering your history.”



She nodded, her lips pressed in a tight line. “He just won’t leave it alone. Demons fascinate him.”



“And every time he brings the subject up, it chips away at the magical barrier muting your memories. Have you talked to him about it?”



She sighed. “I have. He’s trying to do better. It wasn’t his fault I walked in right then.” She pushed open the door to the outside and held it open for me.