Greywalker (32 page)

"Your patron awaits." His voice was crushed glass. His mouth made another jump; then he turned and left me standing on a curve of red carpet. Glances tore me. Quick movement pulled my attention around to Alice, sidling to intercept me. I stepped into the room before she got close. Her glower cut a swath of cold down my back.

I presented an outward cool as I crossed the room, but a sick sense of impending doom writhed in the pit of my stomach. Every figure wore an outline of glowing threads, and shadows crept or stretched everywhere. Pushing back against the tidal swell of Grey was hard. I picked out faces I recognized in the crowd, illuminated by their strange lights. I didn't spot Wygan among them, but I almost stopped and stared when I saw Gwen cringing against a small table in a wash of faded green. She looked more miserable than I felt. I shook myself and completed the long walk to Carlos.

I slid into the seat that faced the door and breathed a moment's relief. Carlos and I sat almost side by side, and I could feel the weight of his darkness press over me.

"Is he here yet?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"Point him out to me when he makes his grand entrance."

"You'll know."

I tried to compose my thoughts, but they were fluttering moths in the lamplight. "What do you think of our chances?" I asked.

"Edward's no fool when it comes to his demesne."

I started to speak again and Carlos flicked his fingers in a warning signal that stroked a cold fire across my cheek.

"Himself," he muttered.

I looked from the corner of my eye toward the door.

He wasn't big like Carlos; he was slight, but his slenderness lent an illusion of height, and the fiery threads around him leapt upward, flaming in every color, tangling like sensual snakes in every other thread they touched. Sarah's James Bond description was apt: thick, dark hair over pale skin and sharp eyes, and a visible cruel streak wide as a door. Most every head in the room turned his way, even if only for a moment, acknowledging the presence of the lord of the city. I didn't allow my own head to turn, nor did Carlos.

Edward moved out of the doorway, breaking the tableau. He cir-cled the room at a stroll, clockwise. Carlos gave a low, cynical chuckle as he watched.

"Doesn't much like this situation, does he?" I observed.

"You never know what Edward thinks until the knife is in," he warned, rising to his feet.

Edward made his way to us at last, pausing within a spreading pool of cold. Carlos glowered at him. Edward flicked a glance over the big-ger vampire as if brushing away a fly.

Carlos stepped aside. "Edward."

The other grudged a tiny nod. "Carlos. Still with us."

"Eternally."

Edward gave a small sound of amused disgust. "Always angry. Such a waste, always living in the past."

"The past and the future are all now, to me."

"As ever.

Carlos spread ripples of fury. His lip curled, showing a glittering, sharp fang.

Edward locked his gaze with Carlos's. A withering, icy electricity raised the hair on my arms. "There will be another time."

Carlos stepped back, then turned on his heel and walked away without looking back. I hoped he would stay close.

Edward slipped into the vacated chair. He looked me over with a glance much warmer than the one he had turned on Carlos. It was as if he had thrown a switch. The combination of eroticism and revulsion I felt was unsettling.

"Ah, the detective. A friend of my unfortunate mistake."

"An employee of Cameron's," I corrected him. "I came to see if I can help you with a problem and repair Cameron's situation at the same time."

An anonymous server presented us with drinks. I had no idea what the little glasses held which gleamed like oil in my sight, and I had no intention of finding out. I let mine sit on the table while Edward picked his up and sipped.

"Help me? I should have wiped the little insect off the face of the earth."

"You missed your chance to kill Cameron and face no conse-quences quite a while ago. There are more immediate problems now, but I know how you can solve them and the issue of Cameron all at once."

One of his eyebrows rose, and he glanced at me over the rim of the glass. I smiled away the sudden thrill of sick sweat and went on.

"Quite a few of your people seem to have axes to grind with you. One tried to persuade me to take you out, but I'm not suicidal or stu-pid. Your community wouldn't benefit and neither would my client. There is an outside threat to all of you, not just you, me, or Cameron. If you dispose of the threat, you save the community, resolidify your leadership position, and undermine your detractors. You also have the opportunity to force your enemies either to support you or so openly defy you that you can dispose of them without fear of reprisal."

He sat back, giving me a piercing look. "You hint at something, but you say nothing. You want me to be majestic, and yet it is you who've stirred up the muck for flinging. I gave you Cameron, but you continued to sniff and dig into my affairs. You expect me to be grateful? I could rip you open and have done with it all, right now."

Ice gripped my insides, but I pushed it back. "You could. But would it be wise in front of this audience, just to quell your own discomfort? Would it be wise to kill a creature as weak as me, who comes to you under the protection of someone they all respect and fear even more than you?" I flicked a finger at the roomful of vampires. "How could they trust you then? I've been told you're no fool, but it would be foolish to kill me under those circumstances. And when I have the solutions to your problems, as well."

"You speak of a crisis upon me, but I see none beyond your annoy-ing pricking."

"Carlos is the only one of your people who could recognize the problem, and I imagine he stopped looking out for your interests after Seville."

He raised a cool eyebrow, though I saw the momentary flicker of his corona.

I smiled a little.

He laid the weight of his gaze on mine and tried to push me. The ache in my chest distracted me enough to wrench my line of sight aside just as he spoke. "Tell me what you know and how you came to know it."

I slipped into a shooter's concentration no wider than a bullet hole at twenty yards. I could not afford to miss this mark, nor slide under his control. "I'll tell you and give you the solution, but only for a price."

Edward ground his teeth. "You defy me? You bargain with me?" Surprise and outrage broke his pressure against me.

I centered my stare back on his and kept my voice low. "I came to help you, so you would help me. This room is filled with your enemies. If you harm me—a defenseless daylighter under Carlos's protection— they will have a cause against you to rally around, a match to the powder of their hatred and fear. They will attack you on every side. If you survive, your cat's-paws and your assistants and supporters at TPM will vanish. You'll lose your ability to control your empire in the daylight world and in the nightside as well. That's the real key to your power. That's why they came here tonight. That's why they helped me and then kept the mud stirred up. They want your head. I can't stop Alice and her cronies, but if you listen to my proposition and let me leave alive and unharmed, anyone who hasn't already made up their mind will have no reason to join her against you, and the rest will back you for their own good. Carlos cannot fight you, but he won't help Alice if you give him no cause. So, are you angry enough to cut your own throat while you cut mine, or do you want to listen a moment longer?"

Edward put his drink down and propped his elbows on the table. He rested his chin on his upraised hands and stared at me. The smolder level went up and so did the albedo of the Grey, thickening to snow-light cut with brilliant neon. Silence hung.

"For a woman, you have the most amazing pair of balls." He stretched one hand toward me and glided the back of his fingers down my arm.

A jolt of something that was not pure revulsion shot through my belly. It fought with the urge to gag, but my disgust was still stronger than his casual manipulations. I twitched my arm away from him and leaned back into my chair. "I'm not on the menu, Edward."

He withdrew his hand and re-propped his chin. "I'm intrigued. So speak your piece. I promise you no harm. Tonight, at least."

I nodded and began. "There is a sort of necromantic battery sitting on top of a nexus of the magic power grid—whatever you choose to call it—in this city, diverting and storing energy. It's become overloaded and unstable as nitroglycerin. Its previous masters are all dead, and it's come back into the possession of its ghost. He's a powerful and vengeful spirit and I know he can't be trusted. He won't be kind in his use of this power, or careful."

"Carlos told you of this?" The temperature around us dropped and the air thickened.

I barked a derisive laugh, though doing so hurt. "I found it myself. I only asked him to identify it. He wants nothing to do with it," I fudged. "But it has to be dismantled—and soon—by others with power, or it will collapse. The sudden release of this power on the creatures of the nightside would be like dumping an unrestrained overload of the Hanford reactor into Seattle's power grid in one blast."

Edward's face was stone. "And we would all burn like Hiroshima." He sat back. "I see. My world has shaken. I sit in the heart of my own domain, yet surrounded by enemies, threatened from within and without and nowhere to run. And I must help you and Carlos or I shall be lord of a blasted domain—if I survive at all."

"That's how I see it. You'll have to quell this bunch tonight with minimum damage. But I don't think you'll find that difficult if you get the right people on your side early. Once you neutralize the threat of the artifact, you're a hero. After that, the few enemies who remain will be anxious to either kiss the ring or fade into the woodwork. Then you mop up as you see fit."

Edward looked down, as if the plan lay on the table, then raised his eyes again. "I mend part of the rift between myself and Carlos and, of course, I solidify my position as a wise and just ruler by returning my protege to the fold—which also repays my debt to you, I suppose."

"It is the sort of gesture that would make you damn near unassailable."

He sighed and sat back in his seat, stretching his legs out. He folded his hands in his lap. Then he chuckled. "I don't know how much of this circumstance you brought to bear and how much you merely took advantage of, but I bow to you. You're a better tutor than Machiavelli."

I sat silent.

"Very well." He shot a glance to the side and I turned my head to see Alice, blazing fury and glaring ice at me. "If I retain my head next week, I will assign Cameron a mentor until he is capable of looking after himself to that mentor's satisfaction. Now, tell me what you require to lay this ghost and his infernal device."

I felt Alice's frozen heat edging closer as Edward listened to what I knew of the organ. Then he turned and speared her with a look.

"Alice, fetch Carlos here."

Boiling cold fury, she stalked off and returned with the necromancer. Edward brushed her aside and turned his attention on Carlos. "Tell me of this artifact."

Carlos remained standing, unresponsive. A cold wall shimmered between them.

Edward glared back a moment. Then he shrugged and sighed, the wall shattering. "Carlos, I have agreed to do this thing, and I humbly request your help. Please. Tell me what you know."

Carlos let loose his unpleasant, feral grin and told him, with a gleam in his eye. I sat back and waited as they worked out their uneasy alliance and laid plans. At last I stood up, noticing that Alice had drawn back a few steps, but not far.

Edward rose to his feet. "I am in your debt for timely warnings. And for delivering my enemies into my hands. I shall do as I've prom-ised, but you should leave now."

I was tired and sore from the twisting and battering of being in their presence. I started to turn away, but he reached out again and caught my wrist. I spun back around, racked by the touch of waking nightmare.

"You could be an asset to me, you know." His thumb stroked over the soft spot on the underside of my wrist. I wanted to pull away, but I didn't dare.

I clamped down on my jellied nerves and managed to keep my feet. "Thank you," I whispered, "but I'm no good without my independence." I eased my hand from his and made my way to the door. Stares, speculation, fury, and curiosity ripped into my flesh as I went. I heard Edward say "Alice..." in a gleaming, razor voice, and I bolted the last few steps to put the door between myself and the swelling pressure of imminent violence.

Outside, a shadow clutched me and dragged me into its darkness. My knees gave. A clawed hand over my mouth stopped me screaming and I gagged as the bleak, ancient depths of the Grey closed in. He spun me into the dark, but the fire-outlined snake shape and bulking horror riding it were plain.

He let me go and loomed. "Lovely performance, Greywalker. You're advancing nicely."

"What do you want, Wygan?" I demanded, keeping myself upright only by clutching the stair rail at my back.

"Just came for the show, for the feast of their rage. Your little curtain-raiser was well done. My gift is serving very well. I'm pleased."