Blood Legacy (2 page)

No, I had other goals in mind. I believe in Finch and his merry band of Resistance misfits. And I believed there was no better place to learn all of our enemy’s dark secrets than nestled in its very heart.

Chapter One

I clutched the black box
to my chest as the elevator lurched upward. Black wrought ironwork obscured the mirrors on every surface of the elevator—a sick joke on Bressov Industries’ part, I supposed, intended always to remind us of who was human and who was Vampyr. As the digits crawled upward on the display, I tapped one heel in time with the tick of the floors whizzing past. The Vampyr sharing the car beside me twisted her painted lips into a frown and peered at me from the corner of my eyes. When she got off on the fiftieth floor, I let out my breath.

Finch didn’t bat so much as an eye when I told him about my promotion.
Play it cool
, he’d said.
Go to work every day, just like you’ve been doing. You’re doing a great job.
Easy for him to say. At least at the Bressovs’ steel factory on the outskirts of New Sanguinus, I was mostly working among other humans—Laborers working the machinery, fellow Administratives handling the shipping logistics and bulk sales and financial numbers. Every now and then a minor Bressov or one of their allied lesser Families would show up to make sure we weren’t rioting or, Onyx Queen forbid, enjoying our lot in life. But otherwise, we were left alone, to play out our miserable and short lives in peace.

But after four years,
I was offered a promotion. A huge one. I was to become part of Dmitri Bressov’s cadre of administrative assistants in the Executive Chambers. It should have been an honor. But when you’re spying on one of the oldest and most powerful Vampyr Families to help the Resistance, it could easily become a death sentence.

Ninetieth floor. The elevator made me present the back of my hand again
, to prove that yes, I really was allowed here. It conceded my privilege with a chirp, and the doors slid open.

I stepped onto the slate floor and waited for the echo of my steps to fade. And waited.

I’m told that long ago, this Gothic cathedral-style architecture was common throughout the old world for places of worship. The Vampyrs have long since made the style their own, but I’ve never seen an example of it that looked quite like this. Clusters of columns were connected overhead by pointed arcs; gargoyles and other mythical creatures peered down at me from high buttresses and intricate carvings along blank patches of walls. Inlaid onyx wove a fanciful pattern throughout the great hall. My eye followed its swirls down the length of the room until finally I spotted the double doors of chiseled onyx veined with gold. The entrance to Victor Bressov’s office, where doubtless every secret the revolution could possibly care to know was ripe for the taking.

The trick would be getting it out with
out the Vampyrs’ knowledge.

A short olive-skinned woman rounded one pair of columns, studying the tablet in her hand, then looked up at me with a gasp. “Oh!” She turned the tablet off. “I’m sorry, you startled me. You must be Miss Meadows?”

Another perk of being an Administrative—we still merit a last name. “Please, call me Raven.” I shifted the weight of the box to one arm and extended my right hand.

She studied my hand for a moment, forced her smile back to her face, shook with with me, then immediately waved her hands under a dispenser hidden in a nook between columns. “Nothing personal,” she said. “We are very conscientious of germs up here in the stratosphere.” After she’d massaged the foam into her well-manicured hands, she looked back up at me. “I’m Heron
Tanner. I manage Lord Bressov’s schedule, and dole out administrative tasks for the rest of the team. You’re handling financial preparations, yes?”

“So I’m told.”

Heron smoothed her black leather pencil skirt and gave me a crisp nod. Everything was black—black pumps, gauzy black top hinting at her curves beneath, and her black hair set in glossy waves around her shoulders. I’d wrangled mine back into a stodgy chignon, like I always did, but if I could get mine to hold curls like hers, you can bet I’d wear it that way every day. “Excellent! I’m hoping you’re a cut above the usual file-jockey bimbos we get up here. You may not be aware of this, but my team has a lot of turnover. Lord Bressov expects a lot from us, and I expect even more.”

Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed my best secretarial smile. “Well, I aim to please.”

“Let’s hope that’s true.”

Heron ushered me toward her desk. As we moved through the rows of columns, I saw other men and women now, concealed in little alcoves throughout the stonework.
All dressed in dark jewel tones, blacks, silvers—I scarcely noticed them until I looked directly at them, and even then, the shadows seemed to ooze around them, possessive, as if daring me to shed light into this dreary place. I would have to remember how easy it was for one to blend into the darkness around here. I’d hate to think I was safe to gather information for Finch, only to have three sets of eyes watching my every move, ready to report me.

Heron’s desk was positioned just outside the heavy black doors that led to Victor Bressov’s inner lair. From its raised dais, she had about as clear a view as one could have of this labyrinthine suite; the narrow arched window behind her desk exposed a rain-smeared dark gray day in New Sanguinus, the peaks of the other skys
crapers around us laced with mist.

“Your tablet.” She handed me a shiny black rod. I pulled it apart and the screen sprang to life between the halves, crisp white lettering easily readable despite the transparency. “You should have access to all the Bressov Industries financial databases as well as our main internal streams, but let me know if anything looks amiss. I took the liberty of having your account preferences transferred from your worksite at the . . .” She glanced at her mainframe screen with disdain. “Steel plant.”

“Thank you.” I snapped the tablet closed and tucked the rod into the back pocket of my purse.

“That’s your desk right there.” She gestured to the one opposite hers, also flanking Bressov’s intimidating doors.
“You can move your workspace seamlessly between the tablet to your mainframe and back, but you’ll find the tablet most useful for day to day functions. I expect Lord Bressov will need you on call for many of his appointments,” Heron said.

My throat closed up. I was expected to spend hours at a time in proximity of that . . . monster? I hadn’t forgotten that day at my Secondary graduation four years ago, not by a long shot. The cold, soulless stare of his eyes as he squeezed my neck.

I tugged at the strand of fake pearls around my neck and managed a slight nod. “Of course. I’ll plan on it.”

Heron nodded in a way that brooked no dissent. “Excellent. Anything else I can help you with before you get started?”

“Umm.” I shifted my weight on my heels. “Restrooms? Coffee machine?”

Heron stared at me, and the room quieted as several fingers ceased flying across their keys. “You drink coffee?” Heron asked. Then, incredulously: “Regularly?”

“It’s not like we’re Donors,” I said, taking a step back. “I mean, sure, I have to sacrifice other rations for it, but . . .” Man, if this was how she stared at me about coffee, I’d hate to see her stare when I did something really wrong.

Heron sniffed. “Lord Bressov can still smell it on your blood. He encourages us all to follow diets
and practices similar to Donors’, at least while we’re in the office. I’d advise you to do the same. It makes life much more . . . pleasant for us all.”

Thirteen Families. Bressov was not going to make this easy on me, that
much was obvious. “Fine. How do you stay awake on a dreary Monday like this, then?”

Heron slipped back behind her desk and settled into her chair, a smirk on her plum lips. “Fear. Of me, and of our boss. Lord Victor Bressov. What more do you need?”

I gritted my teeth and showed myself to my new desk.

Even with my
Bressov Industries accounts transferred over and all my files in order, it took me far too long to get everything on my mainframe the way I wanted it, and within minutes, Heron was pushing tasks to me through the company’s internal stream. I tried poking through the data storage systems to see where the Bressovs might be hiding their most sensitive files, but it quickly became clear that Heron wasn’t going to give me a moment to catch my breath, much less do any surreptitious snooping. Just as well. I needed to take it slow. No sense tripping any sort of network monitoring program on my first day, even if Finch would get his boxer briefs all in a bunch if I came back empty-handed today.

The Resistance needs you
, he’d plead, leaning in close, his breath thick with coffee and the grain alcohol brewed in the backroom of his favorite Undertown dive. And, if he knew I was tired, if he knew I was vulnerable and lonely and in need of a little push, he’d brush the back of his hand against my face and lean closer.
I need you, too.

It worked more often than I liked to admit.

At the far end of the Executive Chamber, I could barely hear the faint ding of the elevator at the far end of the hall, but every time it went off, it was like an electric current shooting up my spine. From the tasks Heron was shooting me, I guessed that Victor had some kind of big financial presentation this afternoon, and he was bound to strut in sooner or later, possibly with the usual Bressov entourage in tow.

I’d managed to avoid
direct contact with Vampyrs for nearly four years. Minor Bressovs showed up to check on our work at the steel factory, of course, and you’d get the occasional bastard of a bastard of a Vampyr bastard riding the mag lift into Undertown, usually prowling around for illicit Donations or to see how the other half—humanity—lives. But I liked my life away from their prying eyes. All I ever saw of Vampyrs was the evidence of their existence. From our city, New Sanguinus, to the Stream channels, to my monthly Donation, to invisible hand ever pressing down on humankind, reminding us of our place in the pecking order after the Onyx Queen’s death, evidence of the Vampyr rule was everywhere. But I’d be damned if I subjected myself to the sight of the monsters for one second more than I had to.

All that was about to change.

I flicked through screen after screen on my mainframe—had to make my exhaustive hunt of the file directories look accidental, after all—and stumbled across an oddly-named subcompartment. I checked the properties for it, and found that the archive had been created five years ago by Violetta Stregazzi. Well, the Stregazzi and Bressov families had plenty of joint business ventures together, and then the very public drama between Violetta and Victor—

Ding.

I committed the archive’s location to memory and started the hand gesture to close out of the archive.

“What are you
doing
?” Heron hissed at me from her desk. “
Stand up!
”

She’d interrupted my concentration. I had to start the gesture again—

“
Now!
” she whisper-screamed.

Oh, hell. I leapt to my feet,
the open archive glaring back at me as I mirrored Heron’s rigid-backed, simpering posture. Out of the corner of my eye, shadows fluttered and spiraled through the endless arches and columns. When a cluster of Vampyrs enter human establishments in Undertown, they fill the taverns with gaudy giggling and snarky comments and generally sound like a herd of graceless cows stampeding around, heedless of who they bother, but not the Bressov entourage. Even their footsteps, soft as they were, sounded choreographed.

But then Victor Bressov appeared, and my vision swam.

Chapter Two

I’d like to think
it was the irritating lack of caffeine coursing through my system, or my stunted brainpower from the already stressful morning, but when I saw that aquiline nose and gleaming dark blue eyes, I forgot how to breathe for a moment. His dark hair was groomed, but still managed to be a bit rebellious; his suit, while tailored and fully business-savvy, hinted at an old world sense of power that the modern executive’s suit can’t exude. He even
smelled
commanding—cedar and leather, like a warm cabin on a dreary winter’s day.

In my fog-brained state, I even imagined I could hear his immortal heart thrumming after a fresh meal, but thankfully I recognized the thought as ridiculous as soon as it crossed me.

“Good morning, Lord Bressov,” Heron chirped, swooping out from behind her desk and extending one arm with his tablet already loaded with the morning’s reporting. “May I take your coat?”

“No need. It’s what I keep these sycophants around for.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder at his Vampyr entourage. I noticed Violetta missing from their ranks; since Lucio Bressov’s murder, their overall quality seemed to have dropped, as well, as I could only identify the Families of about a third of them. Victor
pitched his suit jacket behind him and one of the parchment-skinned Vampyr girls caught it with a giggle.

Heron
scrolled through the displays on the tablet. “You’ll have a comm with the Burdrak Family heads over in East Drovia in an hour about the possible merger of our Drovian plants. Remember that they’re several hours ahead of us, so you’ll be butting against their feeding time—we can use their irritation to our advantage if we tread carefully. Here’s the financial spread showing potential outcomes of the merger . . .”