Romani Armada (37 page)

“You could save yourself a penny or two if you took your trouble outside.”

Rhydder knocked back a deep swallow of the rum, tasting the sugar and the bite of the alcohol at the back of his tongue. His throat tightened in reaction and he swallowed the mouthful a bit at a time, letting it coat the back of his throat, which suddenly felt as dry as Demetrios.

Nolly was waiting for an answer.

“You know I never start it. It’s not like I can stick up my finger and ask ‘em to move the fight.”

“Aye, which is why your money is still welcome here,” Nolly agreed. “You’ll be getting a bill for the chairs you busted up. They were kindling, once you were done.”

“I should have used the splinters while I had them to hand,” Rhydder muttered, looking down into the golden liquid.

Nolly grimaced. “They were vamps? How the hell did they weasel their way in here?”

“Two of them were,” Rhydder confirmed. “I guess the two humans with them vouched for them.”

“They must have done some damned fast talking,” Nolly said. He walked away, shaking his head, leaving Rhydder to settle into finishing his first drink.

He was on his third when the door opened, above, letting in a gust of cool air. The rain earlier in the day had kept everything damp and the afternoon breeze had dropped the temperature. It had chilled down since the sun had disappeared.

Rhydder discreetly checked the newcomer, as always. He swore under his breath. It was the fourth one, the one he didn’t know about. Kevin. No, Kieren.

Rhydder waited for the door to open again. When Kieren was halfway down the stairs, walking without using the grab rail, and no one followed him in, Rhydder figured it was safe to assume the man was alone.

Was he coming to see him? That took guts.

Rhydder sat back in his chair and openly watched the man finish his descent. He was a big man. Rhydder put his height at close to his own six foot three, if not a shade over. The man had muscles to go with the tallness, which made him look well-proportioned. His dark blond hair was trimmed almost military short, with some extra length at the top, which defied military tradition.

The controlled and contained way he moved his body spoke of training and discipline.

Security or para-military, Rhydder judged. There might even be military in his background, but he wasn’t formal military anymore.

The man didn’t look around the room when he landed at the bottom of the stairs. He turned and headed straight for Rhydder, which meant he had located him on his way down the stairs. He hadn’t looked around on the way down, which meant he was used to quartering a room discreetly. That added weight to Rhydder’s theory that the man was security or para.

He walked right up to the table and looked down at Rhydder. He glanced at the glass. “Rum,” he judged. “Want another one?”

Rhydder considered the matter. “Why not?” he said and lifted two fingers toward Nolly.

“Does a drink buy me five minutes of your attention?” the man asked.

“Barely,” Rhydder conceded. “But if you’re here to recruit me to the glorious ranks of the Agency, you can take your drink back.”

“Recruiting is not what I had in mind, no.” The man sat down.

Nolly placed the two tall glasses of rum in front of them and moved away without a word. It was his silences that Rhydder appreciated the most. The man knew when to shut up.

“Kieren, right?” Rhydder asked, then drained the last inch of his first glass.

“Correct.” He didn’t pick up his glass. He wouldn’t until Rhydder picked up his fresh one. It was a small thing that Rhydder didn’t want to appreciate.

“No last name,” Rhydder qualified.

“Not yet.”

Rhydder had been reaching for the fresh glass, but paused with his hand in mid-air, hovering over the rim. “Not
yet
?” he repeated. He picked up the glass. “All in all, I’d say you’re ex Uni Wardens. Very recent ex, if you haven’t got around to using your last name yet.”

“I have no intention of using my last name,” Kieren replied. “At least, not the one I was born with.” He picked up the glass. “Cheers.” He knocked back a good two inches of the five that were there, grimaced, and put the glass down again.

“Daddy a bastard, was he?”

“Daddy was not a fixture in my life.” Kieren smiled and it was a hard expression. “I was the bastard.”

“Join the Wardens and all your sins are forgiven.” Rhydder shrugged. “Except those that get you tossed. What happened? Did you screw the wrong asshole?” It was a stab. He’d heard things about the Wardens, about how ‘fraternity’ was taken to the full extent, to the exclusion of anything else. When they said they were a man’s new family, they meant it.

Keiren’s smile was still hard and dry. “No one had any complaints on that score,” he replied.

Rhydder let out an involuntary laugh in reaction. He let himself chuckle some more. The man had surprised him. He lifted his glass toward him. “A useful bastard, then.” He drank.

Kieren sipped at his glass and put it down. “You used to be useful, once. Or so I’m told.”

“
Used
to be?” Rhydder sat up straighter. “I’m not dead yet.”

“But you could be at any minute.” Keiren’s gaze was frank, square and relentless. “You’re human right now. Stasis poisoning could kick in at any moment, and because you’ve been human for so long, it will progress at lightning speed.”

“I heard it all this morning. I wasn’t drunk enough to block it out,” Rhydder muttered. “Are you here to lecture me, then?”

“I’m pointing out a basic truth. While you’re human, you’re a potential liability, and mortal, too.” Kieren shrugged – it was an abbreviated lift of his shoulders. “I don’t have any feelings one way or the other about the morals of what you’re doing. I don’t give a damn. But I do mind the waste of your talent and expertise.”

“My talent and expertise?” Rhydder pursed his lips together, then tossed off the rest of the glass of rum. It burned going down. He wasn’t drunk enough yet. “Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you something about my talent and expertise, as you seem to rate it so highly.”

Kieren looked to his left, toward the bar, and caught Nolly’s eye. He raised two fingers, then pointed at the table top.

Nolly nodded.

“You catch on fast.”

“With most things, I do,” Kieren replied. “But you’re a different kind, aren’t you? You, I’m still working out.” He finished off his drink and hissed through his teeth. “It’s not Centauri brandy, but it kicks.”

“That’s all I need out of it. It’ll do,” Rhydder replied. “What did Christos tell you about me?”

Kieren caught his eye. “You’re Malsinne. So are your men.”

Rhydder drew a breath. “Doesn’t seem to bother you, though.”

“It alarmed Ryan, but I make up my own mind. You being Malsinne might be just what I need.”

“
You
need?” Rhydder sat back and plugged that statement into what he knew of the Agency from his reading. “You’re building a fighting force,” he said slowly. “One that doesn’t get to jump or do any of the fancy shit the Agency likes to show off with.”

“I’m glad to see your mental faculties aren’t completely pickled yet,” Kieren said.

“The night is young,” Rhydder pointed out. “The team you’re building. It’s to deal with Gabriel and his turds?”

“Something like that.” Kieren nodded his thanks at Nolly as the man placed two more glasses of rum on the table, and picked up the three empty glasses.

Rhydder picked up the fresh glass and swirled the contents, making them slosh. “Gabriel is a lunatic of the first water. It sounds like a suicide mission.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re looking for?”

“Is that what you think?”

Kieren raised a brow. “I think it’s the impression you’re happy to let the world have. You hide behind it. No one goes looking for the truth when they think they’re already staring at it.”

Rhydder lifted his glass. “Cheers.” He drank.

“You were going to tell me about your talents and expertise,” Kieren reminded him.

“You put a glass in front of me. That’s not a clever thing to do with a drunk if you want information from him.”

“You’re not a drunk,” Kieren said flatly. “I know something about vampire physiology and I know that when you jump back to your contemporary time, the symbiot rectifies any damage done by the alcohol. You can’t stay human long enough to become a true alcoholic, however much you’d like to be one.”

Rhydder answered by taking another long pull on the glass.

“Stelios says you have a chip on your shoulder. Does that have anything to do with the fact that you’re Malsinne?”

Rhydder sighed, tiredness spreading through him. “You know just enough about vampires to be rated a menace, but you don’t know enough to stay out of trouble.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Anyone ever tell you asking a vampire about his private affairs is a sure way to get yourself drained?”

“I know that much,” Kieren said evenly. “But I can’t evaluate you properly without information.”

“What is this? A job interview?”

“Of sorts. There’s only one candidate I’m interested in. You get the job once I know why you’re hiding out as a human. What’s the deal with the Malsinne?”

Rhydder sighed again. “What if I don’t want the job?”

“You do,” Kieren said evenly. “So tell me, what’s the issue no one wants to tell me about?”

Rhydder stared down into his glass. “You know, they only found out about the casts five years ago. Five years. That’s all it took for the Malsinne to reacquire their infamy.”

“
Reacquire
?” Kieren repeated sharply.

Rhydder pushed his glass away from him, toward the middle of the table. He’d suddenly had enough. “Just how old do you think I am?”

“I have no idea, but you’re about to tell me.”

Rhydder shook his head. “No. But I will tell you this much – I’ve been around long enough that when I was turned, my maker educated me on the disadvantages of the cast I had been made into. Back then, the casts had not been completely forgotten.” He grimaced. “But the rest of the world, even vampires, did forget. Vampires spent so long fighting for their survival – just passing through history without losing your head was a major challenge. In the chaos, basic lessons were passed over. They failed to hand the old wisdom down from maker to child.”

“The information about the casts was lost,” Kieren summarized. “Except that you didn’t forget.”

“Those who learned the old ways…none of us forgot them.” Rhydder considered picking up his glass once more, but didn’t reach for it. “The Malsinne were outcast for a reason.”

“I’ve heard that addiction is a problem for you.”

Rhydder laughed, a long, low chuckle. “
Addiction
!” he breathed and laughed again. “That pathetic word does nothing to describe the reality of it, human. Have you ever seen a vampire when his blood lust is high?”

Kieren sat for a moment, his gaze steady. “Yes,” he said at last.

“Not a pretty sight, huh?” Rhydder said. “And you’ve only seen the upper casts dealing with their hunger. A Malsinne, when he’s hungry, is a danger to everyone around him. It takes control and rages through you.” He swallowed, recalling the pulsing pall, the dark cloud that blinded him to everything but the need for sustenance. “The synthetic stuff doesn’t satisfy us. Not for long. Which is ironic, because once a Malsinne has tasted real blood, direct from a human, he can’t go back. The synthetic blood doesn’t appease him at all.”

“Addiction,” Kieren finished.

Rhydder smiled. “Staying drunk is easier.”

Keiren’s lips parted, the only surprise he showed. His gaze remained steady and his expression neutral. “You stay human to avoid the hunger.”

Rhydder picked up his glass once more. “I do it because I like to drink.”

Kieren leaned forward. “Work for me,” he urged.

“You? Not the Agency?”

“I have wide ranging autonomy. I report directly to Cáel Stelios, not Ryan, so technically, I don’t work for the Agency and neither would you.”

“But I’d be doing the Agency’s work. Their bidding.”

“
My
bidding,” Kieren amended. “Be clear on that, Rhydder. You can do what you want with your men, but you report and are accountable to me for whatever your men and you do.”

“I don’t speak for them,” Rhydder shot back.

“But they will listen to you.”

“And why would I encourage them to join you?”

“Because Gabriel’s people won’t differentiate between the Agency and vampires in general. Because Gabriel doesn’t give a shit about casts, except for how he can use them to shatter vampires.”

“Ah, gods, you’re going to give me a ‘unite or die’ speech.”

Kieren shook his head. “Wrong. I’m going to give you a chance to like yourself once more. You haven’t for years. You hate this cycle you’ve dropped into, but you don’t know how to get out. I can help you out.”

“You’re a human. What is it you think you can do that thousands before you have failed to do?”

“I can give you a job and a reason to stay sober and vampire.”

Rhydder stared at the man. He was serious, that was the problem. He sat there, his gaze steady and Rhydder was amazed to realize he half-believed him just by his resolute manner alone. “We’re the damned, Kieren No-name,” he said gruffly. “The only thing likely to make any of us give a shit is a cure for what pains us.”

“I might have that,” Kieren replied.

Rhydder stared at him, his heart hurting. It was hope that was doing it this time. Not hunger. “How?” he whispered.

With a different sort of control
, Keiren’s voice whispered in his mind, while the man sat motionless on his chair.

“Mind tricks. Any psi can do that.” But it was bravado. Bluff. His hope was soaring despite everything he could do to quash it. He’d had his hopes dashed more than once over the years and decades.

“I’m not psi,” Kieren told him. He nodded his head a fraction of an inch. “You’ve been holding your glass for five minutes now, but you haven’t taken a mouthful. You don’t want it anymore, do you?”

Rhydder looked down into the golden liquid, then up at Kieren. “You did that?”