Laws of the Blood 4: Deceptions: Deceptions (7 page)

“Maybe this is a good time to mention the werewolves,” Sara said.

Olympias sneered.

“There’s an animal rights convention coming to town next month,” Sara explained. “It seems that there are quite a few lycanthropes that are animal rights activists.”

Olympias snickered. “I can see that saving the wolves would hold a certain appeal for them, especially during the full moon. There’s going to be werewolves at this conference I take it?”

“Closeted, of course.”

“Of course.” Olympias rubbed her hands together. “And housebroken. Please tell me this convention’s during a full moon.”

Sara could imagine a group of shape-shifters suddenly turning from peaceful demonstrators into truly radical animal rights activists and taking off after members of Congress on all fours. The image certainly held appeal. “Of course not,” she answered. “They’re as careful as vampires not to call attention to themselves.”

“I know, I know. We never get to have any fun around here.” Olympias made an effort to look serious. “Nor should we. What about the furballs?”

“I think it might be best if we sent Bitch out of town during that convention. If not, they’d be sure to catch scent of her and there could be trouble.”

Olympias crossed her arms and showed just a hint of fang. “They could try hunting my dog.”

“No need to provoke them. As I understand it there’s always been a certain tension in the lycanthrope community over vampires keeping hellhounds—”

“You mean the furballs kill the dogs every chance they get and have for two thousand years. A compassionate vampire saved their little evolutionary mistake from extinction, and they’ve given us nothing but trouble over it.” Olympias pulled her huge pet to her and threw protective arms around her. “You’re a good girl.”

“Of course she is,” Sara soothed. “But it would be wiser for her to be elsewhere when the animal rights—”

“Hypocrites come to town,” Olympias finished for her. “Fine. It’s my job to keep the peace treaties unbroken. I won’t be the one to provoke the fleabags. Bitch and I will go for a long camping trip that week.” She noticed
Sara’s frown, and added, “Or you can arrange for someone else to take her if I’m busy.”

Sara nodded.

“Right. What else do you have for me tonight?”

“You know very well what—”

Olympias held up a hand. “Easy stuff first.” She tilted up a brow ironically. “That’s always how you feed it to me.”

Sara noted that Olympias looked tired, and instead of being perked up, the vampire had become melancholy with her first cup of coffee. Sara was grateful she’d gotten a reaction from the mention of werewolves. Now that she had her mistress’s attention, she continued the evening’s briefing. “Gerry’s en route to Denver. He’ll have a look around then talk to the Enforcer of the City.”

“Tell him not to bother,” Olympias replied. “I’m pretty sure Istvan ate whoever caused the trouble in Denver.” She glanced up toward the wall safe tucked away behind a framed picture. “On second thought, tell Gerry to find me a missing coin.”

Sara was quite puzzled. “No coin’s been reported missing.”

The safe held an ancient carved wooden box. The box contained a supply of gold coins. Each coin was unique, but each coin portrayed an owl. Each strigoi that became the head of a vampire household, a nest leader, received one of the gold coins from an Enforcer as a symbol of authority within the nest, acceptance within the strigoi hierarchy, and pledge to obey the laws of the Strigoi Council. The Enforcers received the coins from Olympias, and it was her responsibility to know who held each coin. While Olympias swore that she carried all the information about nest leaders in her head, as was traditionally prescribed by the Council, Sara had been working to put the information on all North American vampires into a coded database. Listing nest leaders was easy enough; the tricky part was in trying to find out how many vampires, nestlings, companions, and slaves lived
in each nest. Nests were private territories where even Enforcers feared to tread. For a mere slave to attempt to find out such closely held information for the sake of making her mistress’s duties easier to carry out was not safe or wise, perhaps, but Sara was quietly determined. Gerry wasn’t the only one who thought the strigoi needed to be dragged out of the thirteenth century and at least into the middle of the twentieth century. She simply wasn’t so vocal about it.

Olympias tapped a finger on her forehead. “I’m psychic, you know. Something tells me that a coin is missing and that it’s going to come back to bite my ass eventually. Have Gerry see what he can find out, but it’s not top priority for the moment.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Next.”

“Maggie’s getting you an invite to a black tie black ops party. Seems like there’s an exclusive little gathering coming up where the spooks and military types will be quietly lobbying for funding for their more esoteric projects. Maggie thought you might be interested in showing up, showing off your legs, and reading a few convoluted minds. You in?”

Olympias nodded. “Might be fun. Tell her I’m in.” She held up her mug. “More please.”

“I’ll get you a fresh one.” Sara stepped over the dog lying in front of the door and went into the kitchen. When she came back she found Olympias standing by her desk reading the very formal handwritten letter that had arrived that day. Sara paused in the doorway and studied Olympias’s expression while the head of the Enforcers read. Sara hadn’t been sure what to expect, but when Olympias put the paper back on the desk she looked weary and sad.

“I wasn’t sure how to approach you with that,” Sara told her. “I’m not quite sure what all of it means and—”

“Is it the lyrics of the song he put in at the end that you don’t understand?”

“No. I do. I remember that the song’s used in the opening credits of an old movie.”

“
M*A*S*H*
isn’t that old a movie.”

“It was out before I was born.”

“Really? How time flies.”

“But the implication of his adding those lyrics—”

“Is obvious.”

“Someone asking you to—”

“I need a drink.”

Sara handed her the coffee mug. Bitch came over and butted Olympias in the thigh, getting Olympias to start rubbing her head. Sara supposed insisting on being petted was the dog’s way of offering comfort. Olympias perched on the edge of the desk and sipped coffee, and silence stretched out until Sara couldn’t take it anymore.

“He is, isn’t he? I didn’t think this sort of thing—you have to apply to—I mean . . . I don’t know what I mean,” she admitted when Olympias’s dark eyes came up to meet hers.

“This is a magical ritual the man’s asking for.” Olympias shook her head. “I’d say it was good to see someone going through the proper channels, but, as you say, the implication . . .” She shook her head again. “This has happened so rarely in the entire history of our kind. When someone does ask for the ritual we’re supposed to have a very strict process of determining if the person really wants what he is asking for. Rather like the Catholic Church determining if a person should be declared a saint.”

Sara wasn’t quite sure the analogy comparing vampires to saints really worked, but didn’t bring it up. Sara sensed that Olympias was very disturbed and unhappy about this development. You’d think an Enforcer would jump at this sort of chance. Sara was glad that the chief of North American Enforcers took such a serious approach to the matter. “Are you going to—do what he seems to want?”

“Maybe. Since it’s a formal request I have to at least go through the motions of finding out whether or not he’s sincere.” She picked up the letter and handed it to Sara. “Which is where you come in.”

Sara dropped the piece of paper onto the floor as though it had burned her. She was more than appalled, and just a touch rebellious. “Me?”

“You’re the best person for this.”

Sara tried to remember that she was facing an ancient, dangerous creature of magic and myth that owned her body and soul. She tried, but couldn’t keep the petulant annoyance out of her attitude. She pointed a finger at Olympias. “You’re the vampire! You can’t expect me—mere mortal—to decide a strigoi’s fate!”

“Of course not,” Olympias answered before Sara could get revved up for the tirade that had been building for a while.

The anger went out of Sara in a whoosh of breath. Her shoulders slumped. “But—”

“I remember this kid from when he used to live in the area. He was a beatnik musician who was companion to one of the local nest leaders. . .Rosie, I think. He seemed sweet, always had a social conscience, very—liberal.” She touched a finger and thumb delicately to ever-so-slightly extended canines. “I never liked him much. And that means I’m not likely to be as objective as I should be if I rush into talking to him. This is a serious matter. If he’d walked up to me on the street and asked for it, the temptation would be to say, sure, let’s go somewhere for a snack. But he didn’t do that. He’s thought through his options, made a formal request. Chances are he’s having a crisis of conscience. It’s fairly common, and he’s just the type to get all whiny and guilt ridden.”

Sara looked long and hard up at her lovely, tall mistress. “And what has this got to do with me?”

“Have a talk with him. Have several. Let me know if you think he needs me to whack him upside the head or
rip his heart out. Actually, I’d rather find someone else to do the counseling. I’m excellent with ripping and rending, but I’ve never been any good at that mothering crap. You could ask my son about that, if he hadn’t been dead for a couple thousand years.”

“But—I—”

“Besides, my evenings are filled with cocktail parties and another local boy I’ve got to vet. While I’m checking out the love bunny, you can talk to the vampire. I can’t do it all.”

If Olympias hadn’t laughed then, Sara didn’t know what frustration might have driven her to. It still took her a couple of seconds to fully digest what her mistress had said. Then, on a dual flash of enthusiasm and jealousy, Sara said, “What local boy? You finally interested in somebody? You’re taking a new companion?”
Am I going to have to move out of the house?
She wondered, while simultaneously, thinking,
It’s about time she found somebody she can love
.

Olympias caught the girl’s thoughts, and threw up a hand in utter consternation. “Hold your horses, sweetheart! You don’t have to empty out your closets. I’m not bringing anybody home.” How could anyone think that she’d be even vaguely—

“But, boss, it’s been years—”

“Decades. Many wonderful, peaceful, contented decades. I’m an old broad, you know.” The mating urge had lain dormant, and, for the most part, Olympias wanted it that way.

Every now and then she’d hear a familiar voice on the other end of a telephone conversation and be reminded of nights of blood and passion and the burning joy of sharing in the chase, sharing the fear and the death that brought the lust they satiated during and after the kill. So many Enforcers out there had come to her as young vampires burning for something more. They’d needed her magic to bring them through the final ritual that brought them birth into the Nighthawk line. Other Nighthawks
had been her mortal companions once. She’d shared her blood and bed with them for as long as she could, then she’d been their bloodmother and seen them born into the underneath world. The Nighthawk blood and magic was strong. Most who came from a Nighthawk parent eventually felt the pull, the overwhelming need to hunt vampires, to climb up one last rung on the foodchain, and become the predators who hunted the predators who hunted the mortals who thought they were masters of all living things.

Actually, mortals were at the top of the food chain. Numbers talked, and they said that strigoi were too few and mortals too many. But it certainly made vampires feel better to cultivate a false sense of superiority.

These days Olympias rarely felt the urge to Hunt, or the urge to love. She took pride and pleasure in knowing many of the Enforcers who held power over the nests on this continent were her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. “Only they never send cards on Mother’s Day,” she murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Sara, who was far too discerning, probably detected a certain amount of wistfulness and yearning, but Olympias had no intention of explaining that her loneliness did not have anything to do with longing for a fresh bed bunny to sink her claws and fangs into. “If this bunny works out, he’s promised to a local girl who came Hunting where she shouldn’t be. He’s a big, strong, smart psychic boy with more mental shields than I’ve encountered in a long while. Too good for the girl who wants him, I think.”

“Good enough for you?” Sara asked eagerly.

It was an eagerness born out of duty, Olympias knew. Sara wanted what was best for her mistress, but what she really wanted was to be a companion herself, not that she would ask. Sara tried to be content with what she was, as it was all she could be to Olympias.

“Is he handsome?” Sara persisted.

“No.” Better than handsome, he was—tough. Olympias fought down a weary yawn. “I spent much of the day trying to get into his head. I don’t know how that vampgirl found him, ’cause he managed to elude me.”

Sara was smiling broadly now. “Oh, good, a challenge. You could use a challenge.”