Blood Knot (32 page)

Sebastian held up his fingers as he ticked off items. “Their sheer numbers, which means they knew your strength. They checked your ID to make sure they had the right man. They know about vampires, about what is coming down the pipe.”

Winter held up another finger. “They didn’t leave any messages for anyone else, warning them to drop the Flatiron job,” Winter said. “They knew you would recover from wounds that would kill a human. The whole mugging thing was aimed at you personally, to make
you
back down.”

Nial’s expression was bleak. “If I’d known in advance they weren’t going to leave a warning, or contact you, I would have known I could reveal myself. I could have used my full strength against them and saved myself a bloody few hours and you two a heart attack each. And we might have learned more about them.”

Winter shivered because she knew what “learning more” would have involved—torture and pain to extract information.

“
They were human,” Sebastian said, “But their masters may not be. It’s still a common practice.”

“
What is?”

“
Vampires sometimes have a human…well, assistant is the nicest noun,” Sebastian told her. “Further back in time, the humans were treated little better than servants or slaves. Sex toys and cannon fodder, or sometimes as pet guards if they had an aptitude for it. These days, some vampires pay salaries and recruit humans for specific skills, but it comes down to the same thing: they’re using them for personal services and consider the humans that serve them as subsidiary creatures.”

Winter already knew that Nial and Sebastian had never used human servants. It would be abhorrent to both of them.

“
Human factions would have every reason to stop us,” Winter pointed out. “That is, if they knew of what we planned. Other vampire factions would stay out of our way and possibly applaud us, wouldn’t they? We’re saving their asses, too.”

Nial sat forward. “What if they
wanted
the democrat to fall?”

“
Politics
?” Sebastian almost spat the word. “We’re juggling with the revelation of a species and they’re out there having a bun fight over petty national politics instead?”

“
Hardly petty. Do you realize how many billions of dollars change hands when a president falls?” Nial replied, his tone mild.

“
This reaches that high?” Winter asked, appalled. “The White House?”

Nial hesitated. “It could,” he said diffidently.

“
Just how close is this Democrat to the President?” Sebastian asked.

Nial shook his head.

“
Best friend?” Winter guessed.

“
Golfing buddy,” Sebastian added.

“
Hell it could even be the Speaker,” Winter said. “He’s a pal of the President’s.”

“
Yes,” Nial said and rubbed his temples.

Winter and Sebastian stared at him.

“
Richard Lowenstein…is a vampire,” Sebastian breathed. He pushed to his feet in a jerky movement. “Christ, Nial, what have you got us into?”

“
He didn’t have a choice, remember?” Winter said softly, watching Nial.

For far from relaxing now they had guessed the biggest part of it, he seemed even more on edge.

Slowly, trying not to draw Nial’s attention, Winter got to her feet as well. Sebastian was jittery enough to keep Nial occupied for the few seconds she needed to float over to Nial’s chair. She laid her hand on the back of Nial’s neck.

She only got a split second before Nial launched himself out of the chair and away from her reach. He spun to look at her. “Don’t,” he said simply.

“
What did you feel?” Sebastian demanded.

“
Fear,” she told him. “Strong fear. But he’s not letting it show.”

Sebastian stepped up behind Nial. “Why fear?” he asked.

Nial turned his head just enough to sight Sebastian over his shoulder. “Winter is wrong.”

“
I think that’s the first time you’ve flat out lied since Ireland, Nial,” Sebastian said softly.

“
Why wouldn’t you show us your fear?” Winter asked.

Nial turned so he was facing them both. He shook his head a little.

“
What, more you can’t share? Or that you don’t care to?” Winter asked.

“
Both,” he said flatly.

She felt her eyes widen in genuine surprise.

Nial shrugged. “I said there were questions that were too dangerous to answer.” He lifted his hands in a strangely helpless gesture. “There’s not much more I can tell you. Except that I think we should hit the Flatiron building tonight.” He glanced at his watch. “Now.”

“
At four in the afternoon? Are you bonkers?” Sebastian demanded.

“
If we start now, it’ll be just after close of business by the time we’re in place. About ten p.m. we can move in.” Nial took a breath. “We can’t wait any longer.”

“
You mean you can’t,” Winter responded.

“
Conditions have changed,” Sebastian said slowly, puzzling it out. “But if your employers gave you a generous deadline and haven’t suddenly squeezed you to hurry up then the only thing that has changed was the attack this morning, when they told you to lay off.”

Winter sucked in her breath. “No…” she breathed. “It wasn’t just ‘lay off’ at all, was it?” She moved the chair aside. “It was ‘lay off or else.’ Wasn’t it?” She stood in front of Nial, her shoulder almost touching Sebastian’s arm. “They threatened you, too. Not just the bodily harm…because they’ve already done that. Something else. Something that has you scared enough to want to pull the job as soon as possible before they recover, and catch them off guard.”

Nial drew in a breath. “Yes,” he breathed out.

“
Fuck.” Sebastian sighed.

Winter looked at him. “You still want me to trust him, Bastian?”

Nial made a sound of surprise and she looked at him. He was staring at Sebastian.

Sebastian pushed his hand through his hair, looking both guilty and embarrassed. He shrugged. “I know how this looks, Tera. But I know Nial. And if he’s scared, then this is
huge
. I trust him. I trust his judgment. If he says jump now and no, he can’t tell us why, then I say we jump. Fast.”

Winter nodded. “Alright then,” she said softly. “Let’s jump.”

And Nial let out a shaky breath of relief, which scared her more than anything he had said or not said since she had sat on the sofa.

“
YOU LOOK GOOD as a blonde, too, by the way,” Sebastian said, pushing her third coffee cup toward her. “And I love the suit.” He sat down at the small, square plastic table, just one of dozens of tables in the food court. “Nial pick it out?”

She nodded. “The skirt is too tight to move freely in, though,” she said.

“
So hike it up around your hips when you need to move. The bad guys will be so dazzled at the sight of lace stocking tops and a garter belt you’ll probably get a three second advantage.”

Sebastian looked pretty good, too, even though he looked nothing like himself. He wore a high quality wig, like her, only his made him dark-haired, well-groomed and lawyer-like. His brows had been darkened to match. The suit he wore was pure Brooks Brothers conservative.

Winter’s silky white blouse was thin to the point of transparency and as soft as a kiss against her skin. The suit jacket and skirt were black pinstripe, but that was the last conservative thing about them. Their cut and style screamed
chic
and sexy and the heels of her court shoes were higher than any she had seen in the building so far.

Her blonde hair curled at the edge of her collar and framed her face in a sleek bob that still managed to be feminine and business-like at the same time.

She had spent ninety minutes pouring over the laptop in front of her, managing to look frantically busy while the food court emptied out and the clock moved around to seven p.m. and Sebastian plied her with coffee from the Starbucks vendor in the corner.

Most of the food vendors had shut up shop a long time ago. Now there were only one or two plying their trade, including the Starbucks store.

Winter glanced at the time on her laptop. “Time to go,” she said and logged off.

“
Time to see if those passes work,” Sebastian said, standing up.

“
Of course they work. They’re the real thing.” She folded up the laptop and slid it into her briefcase. “And I went to a lot of trouble stealing them.”

“
I know, I watched you.” He grinned. “It took you a whole twenty seconds per mark.”

The walk from the food market to the Flatiron building took mere minutes, for the market was the one where many of the workers from the Flatiron went for their meal breaks, including Patty Williams and Greg Everson, two of the junior lawyers working for Rolland, Gold, Pritchard and Grant. Patty Williams happened to be a svelte blonde and Greg Everson a tall dark-haired green-eyed barrister who spent more time around Patty Williams than was natural.

Tonight, the real Patty and Greg were enjoying front row seats at the late Knicks game, that Greg had found on his desk from a grateful client. But that was after Winter had lifted their building and office security passes from them when they had been sitting eating a quick dinner in the food hall, an hour ago.

Then Winter had disappeared into the Ladies washroom and re-emerged thirty minutes later a blonde, close replica of Patty Williams, and settled at the table opposite Sebastian, now a dark-haired substitute for Greg Everson, and handed him Everson’s passes.

They walked into the foyer of the building, Winter carrying her coffee cup and briefcase in plain view, and both of them laughing and talking, their gazes on each other’s faces. They wandered over to the security scanner and Winter dropped her briefcase onto the sliding belt, still chatting about the case she was working on, and what a bitch the discovery phase was going to be.

Both of them unclipped their passes and flashed them at the bored guard, who nodded as they stepped through the scanner one at a time.

Winter picked up her briefcase from the conveyor belt and they headed for the elevator, still chatting.

It was quiet in the building and no one stood waiting for an elevator, so when Sebastian pressed the button to call for a car, the doors immediately opened.

They stepped inside and the doors shut, and Winter took a breath, falling silent. Sebastian pulled out his security pass and slid it into the slot above the floor keys and pressed the button for the second-last floor.

It obligingly lit up and the elevator moved into gear.

Conscious of the security camera in the corner of the car, Winter didn’t look at Sebastian. They were in their roles now. Instead, she sipped her coffee.

The doors opened on their floor and they stepped out, almost running into a cleaning cart piled high with mops, brooms and cleaning supplies. Winter yipped in surprise, jostling her coffee cup.

The cleaner was vacuuming the carpet, his back to them, his hips moving in a steady hip-hop beat in time to silent music.

Winter’s little sound of shock brought a security guard out from the little office next to the elevator.

Sebastian tapped the cleaner on the shoulder. “Hello?”

The cleaner straightened up and pulled an earbud from his ear. He had long, greasy hair that hung in clumps, halfway down his back, and hanging in his eyes despite a dirty red bandana tied around his forehead to hold it back. Three days’ worth of beard shadowed his cheeks and chin. He wore a black tank top underneath a pair of wildly over-sized and filthy coveralls and steel-toed work boots that had seen more than their fair share of use and abuse. The steel was gleaming in one or two places on the toes, where the leather had worn away or peeled back and the heels were run down.

He looked at Sebastian with bored, black eyes. “Man?”

“
Think you can move the cart a little further over? We nearly ran into it when we stepped off the elevator.”

“
Sure, man. Whatever.” He shrugged and dropped the vacuum hose, which was still running, and pushed the cart a few inches further down the corridor and a smidgen closer to the wall.

Then he picked up the vacuum again without waiting to see if Sebastian approved, turned his back and started vacuuming.

Sebastian, staying in character for the security guard’s sake, turned to Winter. “He has to be new. I’m going to talk to Randy in the morning. The insolence!”

“
The cart is just plain dangerous, parked there,” she added, playing along. She leaned closer. “And did you get a whiff of him? He smells like he hasn’t showered in a month!”

Sebastian nodded and looked at his watch. “Anyway, if I’m going to get home at all tonight, I gotta go do some of that work thing.”

“
Me, too,” she agreed. “Thanks for the coffee!”

They each turned and headed in opposite directions down the corridor, Winter sidling past the oblivious cleaner. As she turned the corner to head for Patty William’s office, she saw that the guard had returned to his rabbit-hole, satisfied that they were simply returning to their offices to work back for the night.

There were still a few offices showing lights through the opaque door glass as she passed them. Murmured telephone conversations. Rolland, Gold was still a busy place even at seven-thirty.