Chapter Twenty-Five
Garrett tapped the window behind the cab driver’s head. “Just pull in there,” he told him, fishing out a fifty dollar note and pushing it through the grill.
Winter yawned and stretched and reached for the door handle. As the only one who really needed human amounts of sleep, she suffered the most for the nocturnal habits of the rest of them.
“What was the room again?” she asked as Garrett stepped out and shut the door.
“The Eckhorn Suite.” He looked up at the hotel. It was a small, non-franchise, exclusive hotel that businessmen might use who knew L.A. well enough to know it was here and were willing to pay for the luxury. He suspected it got by on word of mouth alone. Reputation was everything in the business world. The doorman was already straightening up, paying attention. He wondered if he would be recognized and if that would be an issue tonight.
“I’m slipping into asshole businessman role, Winter,” he murmured.
“Aren’t you always there?” she asked as they walked under the portico into the well-lit area where the glass doors and gleaming brass planters framed the carpet.
His laugh caught even him by surprise.
Winter grinned.
The doorman nodded and opened the door for them. “Mr. Garrett,” he murmured as he opened the door. “A pleasure to have you visit us here tonight.”
Garrett nodded back. So, he’d been recognized. Ah, well.
“Next time I’ll see if I can arrange a more reasonable flight,” Winter told him. “This really is ridiculous. And the luggage, too!”
Garrett played along. “Let’s just get some shut eye and sort it out tomorrow. David should be here by now.”
That gave them the excuse to by-pass the check-in and go straight to the elevators.
He spotted the elevator bank and angled toward it. “You’re very good at extemporizing, for one so young,” he told her, as they waited for a car.
“Sebastian and I used to do it for a living.”
“Doing what?”
“We stole things.” She grinned at him.
“You were good at it, then?”
The elevator chimed and they stepped in. Garrett pressed the top floor button.
“We were never caught. I suppose that defines good. We quit when…well, that’s a long story for another night.”
The elevator rose smoothly and swiftly and deposited them at the top floor. It was silent and muffled there, but as they stepped out, one half of a double-doored suite entrance opened and Sebastian emerged. “I heard the elevator chime. I thought it would be you. We’re waiting.” He beckoned. “Winter, I’ve made coffee.”
“My hero,” she told him. Her pace quickened.
Garrett followed her into the suite.
“Watch your step,” Sebastian murmured as Garrett passed him. When Garrett looked at him, startled, Sebastian raised a brow just enough to add emphasis to his warning.
Garrett didn’t respond. But the warning had been sufficient to put him on alert. He quartered the room with his gaze. To the human eye, it looked like a peaceful, elegant late night after-dinner party. Winter was at the sideboard, pouring herself a coffee from a silver urn. There was a low lamp spreading yellow light across the board and over the group of chairs and a low pair of sofas with tapestried upholstery that made up the rest of the room’s furniture.
A woman sat on one of the sofas, leaning against the arm. She sharply reminded Garret of a 1940’s or ‘50s film star – all glowing beauty and classic style. She would have given Ingrid Bergman a run for her money, if she had been blonde. It was that sort of bone-deep grace that breathed out through the pores. But her pores didn’t work. The only people in the room who weren’t vampire, Garrett estimated, were Sebastian and Winter, judging by their heat signatures, and they weren’t precisely human, either.
From the body language of everyone else in the room and from the way they were focused, the woman was the power holder.
Garrett quickly tabled the rest. There was one other stranger. Tall, dark haired, with a chin-strap beard. He looked to the woman, then.
Nial sat on the chair directly opposite the woman. In defense, or was he opposing her?
Sebastian wasn’t quite next to Nial, but he was closer to him than the woman. And he was on the same side of the room as the stranger. So…Sebastian’s warning was about the stranger, then. That was the danger. Sebastian was going to try and take the stranger out first if anything happened.
Garrett picked the chair that put him closer to the woman and on the opposite side of the room from the stranger. If Sebastian was going to take on the stranger, the least he could do would be to deal with the woman. That would leave Nial to protect Winter.
Nial’s mouth quirked in a quick grin as Garrett sat down. Then it disappeared. He pulled one of the light chairs closer to him and patted it. “Winter,” he said quietly.
She smiled her thanks and settled on it.
Nial caught Garrett’s gaze once more, briefly, then looked at the woman. “Madam, may I present Calum Micheil Garrett of the clan Bruce?”
The woman nodded at him. “You are most welcome, Garrett.” Her accent was very old, with inflections that spoke of ancient roots and times long gone.
“Thank you, madam.”
“I am Khurshid Tabrizi Amirmoez. You have heard of me?”
Garrett kept his face still while his mind raced. Heard of her was a mild understatement. She was one of the unspoken ones, one of the ancient blood that had moved silently down through history. They came from such ancient times, they often found modern humans too taxing. Unable or unwilling to adjust, they found ways of stepping out of the mainstream of life and letting it pass by them, leaving them untouched, while they lived in their own little timeless pockets of existence. Vast compounding streams of wealth certainly helped them to achieve such isolation. So did their powers, which it was rumoured were more extended than the average vampire’s.
“You honour me with your name, Khurshid,” Garrett said carefully. Names were another touchy subject with the unspoken ones. They liked their anonymity.
She gave him a small smile. “It seems my name will be public property all too soon.”
Garrett slid his glance toward Nial. “Then you have been acquainted with Nial’s plans. That is why I am here, then.”
“I see he has a modicum of ability to think.” The dry tone and deep voice issued from the stranger, who stood neatly at equidistance between Nial and Sebastian, his hands loosely held at his sides.
Garrett looked directly at the man, assessing him. Memories stirred and tried to surface. Roman had spoken once about an English lord, who ran with the unspoken ones… Garrett stretched for the memory. It brought to mind a tavern in olde London town, horses’ hooves clinking on cobblestones, a fire built high against chilly winter rain, and stagecoach drivers’ calls outside. Raucous laughter and the smell of cheap beer.
“Cyneric Pæga, the Assassin,” Garrett intoned, remembering even the tone that Roman had used to invoke the man’s name as he’d told his tale over the beer-soaked table.
Cyneric gave a bow so brief it was nearly just a nod of his head. “At your service,” he said, his tone so dry deserts seemed like oceans in comparison.
“But that isn’t why madam Khurshid finds you such a useful companion, is it?” Garrett added.
Cyneric smiled. “She has learned to value true intelligence.”
“And true arrogance,” Sebastian muttered.
“The ability to think – to truly think – always includes the ability to properly self-analyse. It looks like arrogance to those who don’t appreciate clear thinking.” Cyneric didn’t seem offended.
Winter put her cup back in her saucer with an audible clatter. “You despise those of lesser intelligence?” she asked him. Her eyes were narrowed with anger, but she spoke with civil politeness.
“I’m kind to those of lesser intelligence when I recognize they are truly struggling to do their best,” Cyneric amended. “What offends me is someone wasting their natural abilities. Unfortunately, that particular disease is rampant in both humans and the blood so I am often offended.”
Garrett wanted to be pissed at the man for his superiority, but he had spoken with no particular emphasis. The dry tone had been missing completely. He had been stating a simple truth in his view. Garrett had a hard time arguing with it. The depth to which human and vampire stupidity ran sometimes staggered him. Worst, it recycled, over and over. No one learned, no one handed the lessons down, the same stupid shit continued over and over, week after decade after century.
Garrett would shake his head over it, sigh, and get back to work.
Cyneric chose to get offended by it.
Weren’t they simply choosing two different reactions to the same problem?
“You get pissed by it,” Garrett said. “But do you do anything about it, or do you just go around clenching tighter and tighter by the decade?”
Cyneric’s eyes narrowed.
“Enough sparring,” Khurshid declared. “Cyneric, tell them what you told me.”
Cyneric stepped around to the front of the chair he had been hovering behind. He wore an expensive suit. Garrett had been buying business suits for decades and he eyeballed this one’s price tag in the two thousand pounds Sterling range. Definitely English and probably at the extreme end of conservative – Brooks Brothers or Saville Row. But it was a very modern cut, all the same. Slim and fitting, which made the most of Cyneric’s physique, which was good.
The suit was dark, and so was his silk shirt, which was open at the neck.
He unbuttoned the jacket as he sat down. “You say you spent a year leaving rumours around the world. Breadcrumbs that would bring members of the League and the Pro Libertatis to this movie shoot, for you to pry out into the open. Correct?”
Nial nodded.
“And those rumours were that the director of the movie, Kathrine Lindenstream, may have uncovered the mythical Blood Stone when she did her six week research dig in southern Turkey last year.”
Garrett held himself very still. But he couldn’t stop from looking at Nial.
“You didn’t know this, Garrett?” Khurshid demanded.
Damn. “No,” Garrett admitted. “My part of the plan was to spend the year establishing a relationship with Kate, so we would all have a way to get onto the set when filming started. If we were all there in one concentrated place, away from any cities, Nial theorized that would be where everyone would come to find us. And they did. We kept my role completely separate from Nial’s side of things so there could be no trace of wrong-doing or conspiracy, no jarring notes to alert Kate. It was to be as authentic as possible.” He shrugged. “It worked.”
“Indeed,” Cyneric said, the withering note back in his voice. “The best lies are the ones that hew close to the truth.”
Garrett kept his teeth together.
Sebastian swore, pushing his hand through his short dirty-blonde hair. “The stone isn’t a myth?”
“No,” Cyneric said flatly. “Just as Nathaniel has always suspected.”
Nial’s face was expressionless, but as everyone looked at him, he grimaced. “One hears things, from time to time. We’ve all heard of the Blood Stone. We’ve all heard it’s supposed to hold the key to who we are, why we’re here, where we came from. Some of the stories say it’s the key to “curing” us – making us human again. There are all sorts of stories about the powers it holds. Those stories came from somewhere. Just like Robin Hood and King Arthur came from the real thing.”
Khurshid laughed. It was a low, merry sound. “Humans would be so disappointed if they met the men they idolize so much in their movies and television. Arthur was a tyrant and Robin was a scavenging thief…and he had the pox, besides.” She sighed. “But they were real enough.” She reached for a martini glass sitting on a table beside her chair and picked it up. It was nearly empty. With a practised motion, she polished off the rest of the martini.
Garrett stared, astonished.
She licked her bottom lip, relishing the last of the sparkling liquid and put the glass back down.
“Blood means there’s an open vein somewhere,” Winter murmured.
“Smoke means fire, yes,” Nial agreed. “All the stories, as tall as they were, meant that somewhere back in time, there must have been a real Blood Stone. I thought the odds that it was still around were slim.”
“So did we,” Cyneric agreed. “Until you stirred things up.”
“Wait,” Garrett said, holding up his hand. “No one has gone looking for the Blood Stone in all this time? No one has discovered it? In the thousands of years since the Blood Stone was…what? Created? Cast? Whatever. And then lost—”
“Deliberately,” Khurshid said.
They all looked at her.
She folded her hands delicately in her lap. “The Blood Stone, when it was made, was thought to be far too powerful to be left lying around for anyone to find and use. Or worse, destroy. So the old ones, in their wisdom, made three copies of the Blood Stone. Each copy was identical to the real one in all ways, except that the inscriptions were not quite exact. The wording of the invocations was incorrect, here and there. And of course, the power that was bound up in the real stone was missing in the copies.”
“The four stones were spread across the known world, and hidden,” Cyneric continued. “Of course, the known world then was a tiny portion of the world as we know it now. Spreading them across the world means all four stones were somewhere in what we know as southern Turkey.”
“The cradle of civilization,” Nial murmured.
“Then the fakes have been found,” Garrett insisted.
“Two, we believe,” Cyneric said.
“You believe?” Garrett repeated.
“The fake stones have their own invocations,” Khurshid explained. “Destroy them or try to use their power…and pay the price.”
“What price?” Winter asked.
“No one has survived to tell a single soul, living or undead,” Cyneric replied.
“And now you think it’s real because Nial does?” Winter asked.
“They’ve always thought it’s real,” Nial said, his tone distant, as if his thoughts were running a million miles an hour and racing far ahead. “But now they think someone is close to it.”
Garrett leaned forward. “Who?”
“No one we’ve seen so far,” Nial said, in the same remote voice. “Someone they know.” His focus zeroed in on Khurshid. “An unspoken one. One who has been searching for it for a long time. They’ve suddenly begun to move again. Move toward us.”
She smiled. “Very good.”
“Yes, he is rather good, isn’t he?” Cyneric murmured, sounding reluctantly impressed.
“That’s what brought you here,” Garrett said.
“That, plus Nial and Sebastian having their features sprayed across national newspapers, which was alarming enough.”
“So who is this dude zeroing in on us, then?” Sebastian demanded.
Cyneric glanced at Khurshid. It was telling that he hesitated over his answer this one time when he had not paused once since Garrett had walked in the room.
Khurshid pursed her lips. “He goes by many names. As do we all. You will come to know him best as The Deadly Moon.”
* * * * *
Winter was fast asleep, her head on Sebastian’s shoulder, as the taxi drove them through mostly deserted streets, heading back for the studio.
“What do you know about the Blood Stone, Garrett?” Nial asked, breaking the quiet.
Garrett turned his gaze from the window to look at Nial. “Less than you, I imagine. You deliberately kept me out of that side of it. I was caught flat-footed in there tonight. Thanks, by the way.”
Nial raised his brow. “Getting self-righteous about it won’t distract me. You know exactly what I’m talking about. The first time Cyneric mentioned the Blood Stone, your heart jumped.”
Garrett squashed his instinctive response: You heard it? There was no way Nial could possibly have heard his heart beat from across the room. No vampire had hearing that phenomenal, not in a crowded room with people talking, moving and a dozen other different distractions and noises crowding out something as delicate as a heart beating. Nial was fishing, looking for a confirmation that Garret would give if he asked that natural question.
Instead, Garrett took a calming breath. “No, it didn’t.”
Nial smiled. “I don’t know if it did or it didn’t, but it jumped just then, Garrett. And I heard you breathe in to calm it. You’re lying.”
Garrett shrugged. “So?”
“So what are you hiding? You know something about the Blood Stone. You were very quiet when we were discussing it. You were holding back -- and that’s fine. I’m not so happy about handing everything we know over to Cyneric on a golden platter just yet. But you get to come clean with me.”
“I really don’t know anything about the Blood Stone except for all the bullshit everyone has heard. How it’s supposed to cure everything from warts to vampirism. How if it’s ever found and destroyed the proper way, all our Christmases come at once. If you really want to know the seriously sexy stuff about the stone, you need to talk to Roman.”
“Roman?” Sebastian said, sounding dumbfounded.
Garrett shrugged. “Some humans spend their lives looking for the real holy Grail. The actual cup. Well, Roman’s grail is the Blood Stone.”
“And it never occurred to you that is the reason he searched out Kate?” Nial asked.
“If I’d known you were telling the world she’d found the damn thing, I’d have put it together in a nano second, but you didn’t include me in the rumours. Everything had to be authentic.” The grab rail he was clenching gave a metallic groan of protest, and he let it go. There was a decided bend in the rail and he grimaced. He’d been gripping too tight.
Nial let the silence stretch. He pulled out his cellphone and checked the time.
Garrett gave him some kudos. Nial had already picked up the new habit. Garrett was still used to checking his watch for the time, which was the older generation way. He needed to train himself out of the habit.
“There’s time yet,” Nial decided. He looked at Garrett. “Do you have his phone number?”
Garrett shook his head.
“Winter does,” Sebastian volunteered. “As Garrett’s assistant, she got acquainted with Kate’s boyfriend and got his number, so she could head off potential issues if she needed to.”