Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions (13 page)

Take a deep breath, girl, have some champagne. You’re not here to play games. Too bad.
Maybe she needed to Hunt. She didn’t need to often, but maybe that was it. It was more likely that she was twitchy with boredom from reading the surface secrets of some of the dullest, yet most paranoid minds she’d come across for a while. Maggie had been right about this being the party for Olympias to attend this week. Sara had been right not to let her blow it off just because she had other crises in other parts of the country. The cell phone in her small black evening bag hadn’t rung once, but she didn’t discount that her twitchy nerves were caused by waiting for the phone to ring.

It was a good thing she was here, but the people were so banal and unpleasant, despite smiling faces, polite tones, and nice, but conservative clothes—not unlike ninety percent of the mortal and immortal populations. Her search through the bureaucrats’ heads had turned up a few juicy, useful secrets, but mostly she’d found fear and envy, vice, ambition, and greed, all of it far too career focused. Wouldn’t the world be better off without a few of them?

No Hunting!
she ordered herself.
Be good.

Enforcers always had to be good. It wasn’t fair. It also resulted in one occasionally going quite mad and causing far more trouble than any average vampire could manage. Mad Enforcers were what she had Istvan for. Her smile widened. It might be fun, being Hunted by Istvan. She knew she could outthink him. Could she outfight him?

Olympias shook her head, chasing away the pleasant fantasy that had momentarily replaced her boredom. Boredom was a big problem with vampires, too, and a concentrated dose like this was enough to make one twitchy. She sipped champagne. It was good champagne. Not as good as blood of course, but champagne was for celebrations, blood was for when you were horny. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had anything to celebrate, and she certainly wasn’t—

“Whoa!” She spun around, and the big guy in the dress uniform caught her attention with the force of a shock wave. The strength of his mental energy pulsed for less than a second, powerful shields slipping for a moment and quickly masking his talent once more. No one noticed, no one felt it but her.

Her breath caught, and her drink tumbled from numb fingers, shattering glass and sending a spray of golden wine across the floor and her shoes. People stared, and she swore and walked away from the mess with the disdain of a queen who was used to being cleaned up after. Besides, she had bigger fish to fry than worrying about having just called attention to herself and ruining a four hundred dollar pair of shoes.

He was too far across the crowded room to have noticed her accident, though he might have noticed her noticing his mental slip. She guessed not, since his head and shoulders remained bent as he spoke to a woman much shorter than he was, while Olympias stalked toward him. People moved out of her way, unconsciously recognizing the predator among them.

Falconer had nearly jumped out of his skin when the congresswoman said, “So, you work for the Walker Project.”

The moment of lost composure passed without her noticing. Though the top of his head nearly popped off, his smile stayed in place, and he bent forward to say to her quietly, “That is my current assignment.”

Her eyes took on an eager glitter. “What’s it like?”

Closet New Ager, he decided, or closet hippie who was new enough to Washington to still think she could help save the world. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the project at the moment.”

“I’m new on the appropriations committee, and I know I’m ignoring the pretense. What’s it like? What am I thinking right now?”

“That you really wish you didn’t have to strain your neck to look at me,” Falconer guessed.

“I think she’s thinking she should go to the little girls’ room.”

“Yes,” said the congresswoman in a vacant, faraway voice. “I do. Excuse me.”

Falconer had already forgotten her by the time he turned to face the other woman. It was just as well, as the tall woman he faced was the sort to take up a man’s full attention. She was—

“Tall,” she supplied for him. “At least you won’t have to hunch over to talk to me.” She smiled, it dazzled. There was amusement in it, but not a hint of gentleness. No softness about her ageless, sharp-featured beauty, either. Her dress was simple, severe, showing off a lean body that was utterly female. Black suited her.

“And I can bench press a tank,” she said, guessing his thoughts as he blatantly looked her over.

Was there anyone else in the room? There had been a moment ago, hadn’t there? There was something familiar in her voice. “Who are you?” he asked, giving in to the impulse to touch her. His fingers brushed her shoulder, that was all, but the sensation was electric. She felt it as well, he knew because the expression in her dark eyes shifted, her focus on him sharpening. The intensity was almost painful. She was a dangerous woman. Very dangerous. She made his blood sing. He smiled, no stranger to danger, up for the challenge. “My name’s Mike. Who are you?”

“Do you really want to know?”

He shrugged. “It’s only fair. You know my name.”

The man had magnificent shoulders, wide enough to block out the sun—were it shining. She remembered the fire of the sun. There was an echo of that fire sparking between her and the mortal soldier. “Olympias,” she told him.

He tilted his head to one side, intrigued. “
The
Olympias?” he countered.

“The one and only.”

“I am impressed.”

She touched her throat, coyly. “You’ve heard of me?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve heard of you. Alexander the Great’s mother. Philip of Macedon’s queen.”

He knew his history, but a career officer would know all the battles of two of the most famous generals of the ancient world—her world. He would not know of her battles, but at least he’d heard of her. “Points for not saying ‘wife.’ ” She inclined her head graciously. “Ours was a political arrangement.”

“History records the relationship differently.”

“History lies.”

“Aren’t you a little—”

“Young to be the former queen of Macedon?”

“I was going to say tall.”

“We grew Amazons in Epirus.”

“Really?”

“Yes. That’s something else lost to history, that Amazons were real. I was born in Epirus.”

“I remember reading that in the history books. The historical sources never mentioned you being tall.”

“Alexander took after his Macedonian father, I’m afraid. He was a short little shit.”

“But a magnificent general.”

“I’ve never liked soldiers much.”

She looked him over, from head to toe, taking in the well-tailored uniform on his rangy, wide-shouldered frame, his wide, thin-lipped mouth, the narrow, intense blue eyes. She liked everything she saw but the uniform, and his presence at a party full of black ops personnel. This man would not be here if he weren’t deeply involved in some super secret covert military operation. Not good. Not good at all. There was an air of incredible intelligence about him, a certain scholarly gentleness about him that was belied by the long, slightly crooked nose. He was a warrior, all right, a deceptively calm one. A warrior that thought, a man involved in a highly classified operation, and a powerful psychic. This was a very
dangerous man, and she wanted him badly. There was also something familiar about him.

Where had she seen him before?

“Good goddess,” she murmured an instant later. “It’s the bunny!”

“I’m glad you decided to come.”

Damn! Sara hadn’t meant to say that. Not like that. Not looking into Andrew’s eyes across the short distance of the small round table outside the Dupont Circle coffee shop. The words weren’t meant to sound—needy. Personal.

It was a noisier than usual night in the circle area, mostly because of the ragged guy standing at the entrance of P Street shouting and screaming and begging God for mercy. Drug addicts, crazy people, and drunks acting out were a common enough sight in any big city; one grew numb too quickly to the sights, sounds, and smells of the city’s flotsam. So common, people stopped noticing the effort they made not to see them.

The only people paying the crazy man any attention were the cops trying to herd him into their car. The flashing lights of the squad car parked diagonally across P Street added a certain gritty ambience to the popular area. There were tourists around—there were always tourists around—but Dupont Circle was very much a local hangout. It had been her hangout back when she was just out of school, with a new job, new friends, her first apartment.

Everything was different now, but she still liked to come here, liked the energy of this place at night. She liked to watch the chess players over by the fountain and to shop at Kramerbooks late at night. She could usually count on feeling connected to the above world when she came here—except that she’d made the mistake of asking a vampire to meet her here, which let the spooky world she now lived in bleed into the world where she was no longer quite at home. Odd as it seemed, glancing at
sullen, sad Andrew, she didn’t think the choice of meeting place had been a mistake.

Andrew remained silent, though his gaze never left hers. She took a sip of coffee and decided to start over. “I’m glad you realize that there’s much more I need to learn about you before I can report to my mistress.”
There. That sounded professional. Distanced. This was not a date. This was an interview with a vampire
—oh, lord, she hadn’t thought that, had she?

In an effort to regroup, she picked up the cell phone sitting beside her coffee cup and pressed the button that dialed the stored voice mail number. There weren’t any messages, thank goodness.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Andrew asked when she put the phone back down. “I don’t like those things,” he added. “Doesn’t anyone want to be—out of touch—anymore?”

“These young people and all their gadgets,” Sara added, with a disgusted shake of her head. “Why in my day—what was your day, anyway?” She knew something of his history from Olympias, but wanted to hear it from him. For her report.

“I notice you haven’t answered my question.”

“Are you going to answer mine?”

“Fair enough. You first.”

She spun the phone around with her finger. “I am doing my mistress’s bidding.”

“Always a convenient answer.”

“She’s waiting for an important call.”

“She can’t check her own messages?”

“She doesn’t—” Sara waved away Andrew’s question. She didn’t dare tell even a suicidal vampire that she was out without permission. “I answered you. Now it’s your turn.”

He took a sip of coffee and made a face. “It’s cold. The coffee.” He looked around. “The night. Life.”

Sara rested her elbows on the plastic tabletop. “Are you always so dramatic?”

“I’m attempting to impress you with my—”

“Whining?”

He reached across the table to take her hand. “Whatever irritates you enough to get me killed is fine with me.”

Sara looked around furtively, not sure if she was more worried about his words, or the touch of his fingers grasping hers. He had large, long-fingered hands. She’d noticed that about him the night before. Strong hands. Of course they were strong; he was a vampire. Nobody on the busy street was paying them any attention. There were a lot of couples around, and their attention was intensely focused on each other, being private in a very public place. The crazy guy was still shouting in the middle of the street, and music spilled out of the coffee shop, along with the white noise of many conversations and a great deal of cigarette smoke.

She should take her hand away, but she didn’t. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

He looked puzzled. “I don’t even remember it.”

She glanced at the cell phone lying next to their twined hands, aware that it represented contact with the rest of the world, and her duty to the Nighthawk who owned her. “Why do you—want to be alone?”

Vampires were not hermits; they were psychic creatures, full of all sorts of cravings that required the presence of others to fulfill. Even strigs, the loners that lived outside the nests, sought out contact. Maybe more than other vampires, come to think of it. They Hunted more, feeding on the emotional rush of bringing death; they took more slaves for the pleasure of domination. They weren’t civilized, they risked their immortality by ignoring the Laws, but they weren’t alone. She understood what it was to be alone.

“You have it all,” she said, spilling her thoughts before he could answer. “I have nothing. I stand on the threshold of your world, knowing I can never fully come inside. I press my nose against the glass and see all you have—
power, eternity, community, traditions, history. You are history. You walk through it and own it—”

“We’re above history,” he interrupted. “We do nothing. We aren’t allowed to do anything.”

She might have been more heartened if he’d sounded bitter or disgusted, but he sounded bored. Why did it matter to her that he sounded tired—and that he wanted to die?

“You think you’re the one who is alone, Sara?”

“I think I’m not what you are.”

“I think you’ve made a wise choice not to be what I am. I’m not complaining that I wasn’t given the choice,” he went on. “It’s a little late to complain about that now. My bloodmother was—is—quite nice by our standards. She never put me through the hell some companions endure, didn’t think I needed to pay that price for immortality. Immortality.” He sighed. “I’m about to sound sorry for myself. This is your only warning. Get out now.”