Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes (14 page)

Redemption. Redemption. Redemption.

I failed Fay. I left her in that house. I did nothing. What if Forsythe—

“Shhh.” Bian kissed my forehead. “You’re done with the therapy.”

For a moment, I didn’t want to be done. I wanted Diana and Bian to scrub my memory.

But I am all the things I’ve ever done, all the things that have ever been done to me.

I had people who were depending on me now. I had to move forward.

“You need to tell the others about this session,” she said. “You owe it to them.”

I shook my head, but she ignored it. “When you tell them, it’ll break your misconception that they’d think any differently of you.”

I would have to tell them face to face. The thought of looking them in the eye and speaking, rather than knowing they were there in a reliving session—it seemed harder.

Bian’s eukori brushed mine. “You have to move on.”

She was dosing me with pacifics; the pheromones were wafting down over me. Not as effective as Diana, but enough to help me relax.

“It’s gotten more complex,” I said. “Not just Forsythe, but I have to do something about Fay.”

My subconscious had been telling me for weeks.

Redemption. Redemption. Redemption.

More important than Forsythe?

What Forsythe had done to me was history. But I’d failed Fay and that lived on. I’d failed by not doing anything, by being too ashamed to do anything, too numb to consider what she’d gone through.

“Ease up.” Bian murmured as my heart struggled against the grip of the pacifics to race again.

“What if Fay’s still suffering? I had the strongbox, and all of you. What if she’s had nothing all this time?”

“Ease up,” she said again, her face devoid of expression. “Here’s the difficult part: I tracked everyone I could from your year at school to try and understand more of what happened. There were a couple I couldn’t find.”

“Fay?”

She nodded. “No record of Fay Daniels after she left South High.”

I frowned.
Nothing?

“People don’t disappear,” I said, “present company excluded. Family? College? Driver’s license? Bank cards?” I licked my lips. “Police reports?”

“I haven’t been able to check every possibility,” Bian said. “I’m no net wizard.”

“Dead?” The word slipped from my mouth.

Pray she hasn’t killed herself.

“No reports of that either. Dead or missing usually gets a report. My gut instinct tells me Forsythe’s the key to finding Fay. And you know…”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s in LA.”

She checked the time. “We’re due for a meeting with Skylur. We can talk more after; make some plans. Decide what it is you’re going to do.”

I could think of several things that wouldn’t take a lot of planning and would be over quickly. If Forsythe had been in the room, I’m not sure whether I’d have changed and torn his face off, or dripped excruciating poisons into his bloodstream.

I didn’t need to tell Bian that. She hated Forsythe with that sort of hate that starts low and burns upwards through your body.

She’d kept her voice neutral when she’d talked about him, but the sort of thing she’d do to him was obvious to me. For her, this was personal too. I didn’t know why. I hoped someday she’d be able to share with me.

In the meantime, what
I
had to do about Forsythe had just gotten more complicated.

Bian was frowning. Her earpiece, discarded on her bag, squawked and I could hear Tom Sherman’s voice, loud in the stairwell. Along with the sound of boots—Altau guards, all of them in a hurry.

They came bursting in moments later. All three had their ugly Herstal P90s out and Tom was wearing an Altau commset.

“Both here,” he said into the mike. “Secured.”

We got to our feet.

“Tom, what the hell?” Bian said.

“We have a situation,” he replied. “Multiple attacks. The worst confirmed so far: a cross-party group meeting off-site to discuss a complaint from the Were in LA and a Basilikos team hit them.”

Alex was out there. And Yelena. Dominé and Dante.

Tom wouldn’t have everything. It’d be confused.

“Casualties?” I asked, keeping it level.

Tom knew why I was asking.

“Nothing on your House I know of. Two fatalities from that meeting. Four, if you count the assassins. I’m hearing a dozen others injured at other places.”

“Who’s dead?” Bian said.

“House Lindberg and the Diakon of House Karamazin.”

Lindberg: the leader for the Swedish Athanate. Karamazin: a Diakon of an old Basilikos House, now Hidden Path. Why had they been targeted? Random, unfocused violence? An accident? Or had Karamazin been contemplating voting for Emergence?

Tom wasn’t finished.

“Here’s the kicker: the Hidden Path are claiming the LA Were are involved. The meeting with Karamazin was only taking place because the Were made the complaint, and the meeting place was chosen by the Were. Everyone’s clammed up behind security until this gets fixed.” Tom checked his watch. “I’ve sent a couple of guys to retrieve the rest of your House from the club.”

Jen was in New York and well out of it at the moment. Julie and Keith were with her and they’d hear the news. They’d know what to do.

“Alex?” I asked.

“He’s out with the patrols.” Tom shrugged. “A Basilikos team would be dumber than they seem to be if they try taking one of those on.”

Regardless of how many were dead in the attack, this was exactly what Basilikos wanted—to disrupt the conference and halt progress to a new Assembly. Skylur had to understand that, so what was he going to do about it?

Tom held up a hand and turned away, pressing the earbud of his commset tighter into his ear.

“Yes, sir,” he said, and turned back to us. “Skylur wants to see both of you, now. Let’s go.”

Tom had a box van outside. From the plain white color you’d have thought it was an ordinary workman’s utility vehicle. Only the slight settling on the suspension would give anyone a clue it was as armored as a SWAT truck.

We crossed to the truck and slipped quickly inside, Bian and me still in our workout gear. I’d managed to grab clothes to change into, and a pair of Sig Sauers in shoulder holsters.

A car with the remainder of the Altau guards was waiting outside and we both headed downtown, with Tom still querying our exact destination on the commset. Someone at the base was paranoid and kept him guessing. I approved.

Bian and I changed clothes in the back of the van, to everyone’s amusement.

As we approached downtown, Tom got a call to take Santa Monica, heading west.

We’d just made the junction when there was an interruption: a burst of quick Athanate—someone speaking hurriedly in a tense situation. I caught the words ‘Albuquerque’ and ‘Vasana’.

Crap.

“The Albuquerque Were are at the club,” Bian confirmed, holding up a hand to keep me quiet. “Standoff.”

“Tom, get the guards to back down,” I said quickly, reaching over to grab his arm. “There’s no threat. Let me talk to them.”

For a moment, I thought he’d refuse. I was pulling a stunt in the middle of his operation. Worst case, someone got killed because of me. His op, his blame.

Tom’s eyes flicked to Bian, and she nodded.

He spoke in Athanate and gave me the commset.

“This is House Farrell,” I said. “It’s urgent I talk to whoever’s there from the Albuquerque pack.”

I didn’t know the Altau voice on the other end. “Okay. Wait one.”

There were background sounds of an argument, then a new voice, angry and waspish: “Yes?”

I sent up a silent prayer. One of them I knew. I could visualize her: close enough to my size that she’d loaned me a pair of leather pants. A woman with long black hair and a face as fierce as a hawk. On the other hand, not a particular friend, especially after Zane, her alpha, made it clear he wanted into those pants she’d loaned me.

“Haz, it’s Amber. Back off and wait for me to get there.”

“Snake,” she said in greeting. “Why the fuck should we?”

At least she knew who it was—she’d called me ‘Snake’ down in Albuquerque. Among other things.

“Because we’re all associated. Your pack’s associated with mine. Altau is associated with me. Dominé’s my House, so she’s my pack as well. We can settle this. I don’t know what you want, but it’s really important that you don’t start a fight with Altau. Really important.”

There was a long moment of silence, but she came back quieter and more in control. “Why?”

“There’s been an attack on Athanate in LA only an hour or so ago. Some factions are blaming the local Were. Doesn’t matter that you’re out of your territory; showing up and fighting us will get you lumped in with them.”

Another silence. I held my breath.

“You close by?”

“No.” I didn’t want to lie, and I wondered how the next part would go down. “I’ve got to see House Altau first. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

I could hear Haz speaking to the others, breathing hard, and angry voices in the background.

“Problem,” Haz said.

“What?”

“Rita’s with me. She’s squaring off against the silver-haired foreigner. They’re not listening to me.”

Yelena.

“Is Zane there?”

“No.”

“Shit! Hand me over to Rita.” There was a snarl in the background. “Please,” I added desperately.

Silence, and then: “What?” in a screech that was halfway cougar.

It wasn’t much, but Rita was talking.

Whatever the Albuquerque pack wanted to think of Rita, the were-cougar when she was angry was borderline rogue, kept in check by Zane’s dominance as her alpha. Zane wouldn’t have sent her to the club if he’d known there would be a complication like this, not without him being there too. I thought I could talk her down face to face, but over the phone?

And if she stopped talking, her eyes would go that green that seemed lit from inside, her body would start to slink and no one would be able to reach her.

“Rita, please talk to me. There doesn’t need to be a fight.”

Silence.

“I’ll be there in a couple of hours,” I said, and hoped I was right. “I really need this. Whatever it is you need from LA, we can work together on it, but these are my people, my pack. Please.”

“Two hours,” Rita said. The cougar overtones in her voice had weakened.

“I owe you,” I said. “I really do. Anything.”

“Bite me.” I wasn’t sure if that was a request or a joke, but Rita had already tossed the commset to Yelena.

“Boss?” Yelena’s voice was tense, the Ukrainian accent strong. She was on the same hair-trigger as Rita.

“Whatever you and Dominé can do to calm it all down and keep it that way for a couple of hours.”

“Understood.”

I heard Haz suggest they wait in their truck outside, and then Vera’s voice. I thought it sounded like an invitation.

My heart felt as if it was knocking in my throat. Mixed in with down-to-earth wisdom and solid common sense, Vera was still prone to saying the occasional completely wacked-out thing. It would be my luck Haz or Rita would take offense.

But before I could check, Tom took the commset out of my hands and began reporting what had gone down back to HQ.

I had to trust my House.

I looked out the front, through the window into the cab, trying to calm myself down. Every meeting with Skylur had the potential for horrendous surprises and danger. I needed to be in complete control of myself. Leave the situation at Club Vasana to Yelena and Dominé. Focus on what Skylur would come up with.

My own needs? They had to wait. Resolution. Redemption. Not now.

Focus.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Ten minutes later, we’d come off Santa Monica and taken Venice into Culver City. The road was lined with the blank backs of businesses, and the facility trucks parked along it gave the hint that this was all LA’s industry.

I had thought the driver was only taking a short cut, but the anonymous studios stopped abruptly, and our little convoy turned right to pass through a pair of elegant wrought-iron gates.

The building we stopped in front of was set back behind a wide expanse of lawn. It was a cool white, the front punctuated by neat ranks of identical gray-shuttered windows. We walked up a double flight of pale stone steps to the grandiose portico that loomed over the front doors.

Tom and the guards had put their weapons away in trendy sports bags. One of the guards hefted an impressive pro movie camera over his shoulder; another carried audio equipment and cables. The rest had clipboards, makeup kits and the obscure, miscellaneous clutter that characterized a film crew.

There was no sign above the entrance to the building, no indication of the business until the doorman approached.

“Welcome to Bembridge Studios,” he said smoothly. “Unfortunately, the whole facility is—”

Tom waved a pass. “Taken. Yup, that’s us. Altau Group Media. Sorry, haven’t had time to organize everyone’s passes or call ahead.”

“Of course, sir.” The man bowed and at the same time, Elizabetta appeared through a set of double doors, beckoning us to hurry on.

I took a deep breath through my nose. The cinnamon and copper base of the Altau marque was evident now that we were inside. It soothed me. Whatever the name of the ‘film company’ that was hiring these studio facilities, it was an Altau headquarters. I guessed if you wanted an excuse for a lot of fit young people with bulky equipment coming and going at all times, demanding privacy and security, making a movie was as good a cover as any.

We walked to the left wing of the studios, the security getting discreetly tighter at every doorway.

Skylur was in a windowless planning room, standing in front of an array of screens displaying the area map from San Fernando in the north all the way down to Mission Viejo in the south.

I didn’t know the symbols, but assuming the red ones were strikes by Basilikos, it was reassuring to see only a few. All the way across the map were dozens of green symbols and a scatter of blue.

Skylur turned and saw me looking.

“Fatal attacks in red. All attackers dead and three fatalities in the delegates and their security teams,” he said somberly and waved at the screens. “Blue attacks repulsed with casualties. Green is good. Every green circle is a House in lockdown behind their own security and realizing what I’ve been saying about our vulnerability is not exaggerated.”

Tarez stood beside him, half listening to a conversation on a commset, his gray-flecked black hair swept back and reminding me again of ravens’ wings. His marque was a blade-sharp, dry contrast to the rich copper and cinnamon of Altau.

“The attack seems to have wound down. We may have overreacted,” he said, wagging his hand to show he didn’t think so, “but it’s emphasized to everyone the capabilities of the Houses remaining in Basilikos.”

Skylur’s eyes hooded.

He didn’t believe the separation of Hidden Path and Basilikos. He suspected Correia leading the Hidden Path was the acceptable political face and Matlal, or whoever ran Basilikos now, was the armed wing of the same organization.

What I’d heard of Correia’s lukewarm condemnation of Basilikos, her constant mentioning of her ‘understanding of the very real alienation of those Houses’ and ‘reaching out to them’, all put me firmly in Skylur’s camp.

But according to Elizabetta, too many of our allies in Panethus seemed inclined to take Correia at face value.

At that moment, Naryn entered the room. As always, he walked with an effortless economy of movement, his body compact and powerful.

His upswept brows pulled into a frown at seeing me. Again, as always.

Skylur gestured for us to follow. Tom, Elizabetta and the guards stayed behind. Only Tarez and Naryn joined Bian and me in the next room, a small office.

The furniture consisted of a single high-backed chair, a sleek black table and a gray carpet which matched the color of the shutters outside. In the precise middle of the table lay two identical rolls of tan paper, bound with blue ribbon and sealed with old-fashioned blood-red wax.

Beside me, Bian inhaled sharply.

What now?

Skylur picked one of the rolls up.

“House Farrell, House Tarez, attend,” Skylur said.

I stiffened. The word,
attend
, in that voice. Whatever it was, I was required to formally witness what was about to happen.

“Ykos Bazhir,” Skylur said.

House Bazhir in Athanate. Naryn’s surname
.

Which meant Naryn was now House Bazhir. Did that mean he was no longer Diakon of House Altau?

If it got him out of my hair, I didn’t care if they made him Grand Poobah, as long as it was at the other end of the country. Fairbanks in Alaska was nice, I’d heard. Maybe not this time of year, but still.

“Ykos Altau,” Naryn replied, his voice calm and deep, hiding emotion. His blunt hands squeezed into fists for a second, then relaxed as Skylur passed him the roll.

What’s the other roll? Bian? It has to be.

“Ykos Trang,” Skylur said. The words seemed to rumble like stones on a wooden floor.

“Ykos Altau,” Bian replied, her quiet voice hiding an inner turmoil she was struggling to contain. He placed the roll in her hands.

“In deference to the witnesses, we should proceed in English,” Skylur went on.

He nodded at Bian, and she broke the seal on her roll. The scroll whispered as she pulled it flat.

It was in Athanate, of course. I couldn’t even read all the letters, let alone the words.

Bian scanned down the document, a conflict of emotions chasing across her face.

Skylur waited in silence. The room seemed to hold its breath.

Bian spoke slowly, translating as she went.

“Under the aegis of the authority invested in you as Master of House Altau, you hereby appoint me Mistress of House Trang, a House fully within the loyalty and domain of Altau. I am required to immediately establish the domain of House Trang in New Mexico, fixing my mantle at such location as I judge best serves this task. I am charged with due dispatch and the full cognizance of the Athanate laws and imperatives, to establish an obedient, loyal and thriving House within the terms and boundaries of my commission. This script shall be my warrant before House and Assembly,” she paused, “or other body of Athanate as may later be lawfully designated to have authority.”

She rolled it back carefully and met his eyes.

“I accept,” she said formally. “I swear, on my Blood, to honor this commission, and to return oath for oath, faith for faith, Blood for Blood, life for life.”

“I grant the position, rights and privileges within my gift and contained in this commission script.”