Nightlord: Orb (34 page)

“I would, but I can’t find my bag.”  Mary’s hands were spread at about waist level, a physical gesture to help her concentration while reaching out with her feathery tendril.  I glanced back the way we’d come, but there was no sign of the bag.  In the ditch, maybe.

“Not a problem,” I decided.  “I’ve got a cab coming even now.”

The cab hummed to a halt and I handed her in.  The computer turned up the heat and the blower because of the weather; it wasn’t a dryer, but it helped.  Those Google programmers think of everything.  Since it needed a destination, I told it to take us to the Gold Dome.

“How’s the arm?” I asked.

“Better.  Give it another hour.”  An idea struck her.  She asked, “Did you break anything?”  She sounded casual.

“No.”

“How long would it take to heal if you did?”

“I’m not sure.  Maybe a minute?  Less, if I help it along.  It’s been a while since I last broke a bone.  Since I last had one of my bones broken, I mean.  But don’t worry about it; you’ll get there eventually.”

“Assuming,” she muttered, darkly.

“So, while we’re headed back into town, is there anything else I should know?”

“Probably,” she admitted, wringing out her hair one-handed and flipping it behind her.  “I don’t know what to do now.”

“Go home?” I suggested.  “I’m the one they’re after.”

“They’ll be displeased with me, too,” she pointed out.  “They’ll assume I’m currying favor, hoping to be gifted with some of your blood and power.  That’s what Tony meant about running forever.”

“So it’s already started—I’m some ancient monster that’s come awake and the vampire civil war is inevitable?”

“I… I don’t know.  Maybe.”

She actually sounded excited.  She tried to hide it, but I think she… she wasn’t looking forward to it, exactly, but if it was coming, then she would do her best to enjoy it.

That kind of attitude explains quite a bit about why she decided to throw caution to the wind and help me.

“Gee, thanks.  I feel much reassured.”

“You want me to lie to you?” she asked.  “Or was there something else I should have done in the car?  Maybe I should have let you walk into a conclave of ten or a dozen vampires, all primed to have you killed out of hand?”

I sighed.  Yep, that does seem to help, at least a little.  Sometimes.

“You are right,” I admitted.  “I was snappish and sarcastic and I should not be.  You may have saved my life. Let it be noted I am officially grateful. I apologize.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, apparently remembering she was talking to an Ancient Evil from the Dawn of Time.  “I didn’t mean to… that is, I should have… I’m sorry for my tone,” she finished.

“Don’t worry about it.  In the meantime, what do we do about this?  I absolutely do not want to have a war—messy things, wars.  I don’t even want to be famous, infamous, or well-known.  Given a preference, I don’t want to throw away everything I’ve established and move, either.  So, since you know the social and political situation better than I do—way better than I do—start thinking.”

She gave me an irritated scowl, at first.  Then her brows drew together as something caught her curiosity.  She reached out with one finger and lightly touched my face, along the cheekbone, near my left ear.  She rubbed the area lightly.

“Your skin…”

“Is my makeup coming off?” I asked.  “It’s supposed to be waterproof.”

“It looks rubbed off.”

“It’s not supposed to do that, either.  Road rash is outside the warrantee, I guess.  Maybe it’s still on the skin I left on the concrete.”  I checked my arms and legs.  Yes, a couple of other patches were showing the dark, charcoal-grey color of my nighttime complexion.  Most of it wasn’t so bad; the rips and rents concealed them.  I fished in my pocket for my makeup compact.  It was still there, but the cover was cracked.  Good enough, though, for a patch job.  I started applying it to the dark patches on my hands.

“Could I trouble you,” I asked, “to help me with my face?”

Wordlessly, she took the compact and touched up my left cheek and a bit of my right forehead, near the hairline.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Where are we going?”

“Where would you like?  I’d be happy to drop you off wherever.”

“I can’t exactly go home,” she pointed out.  “When he gets up, Tony will talk to Horace, and Horace knows where I live.”

“You don’t have a spare lair?” I asked, surprised.  “I thought you’d have at least a fake slot in a mausoleum, somewhere.”

“I’ve never needed anything like that,” she lied.  I could see the lie in the way her spirit glittered.  If she wanted to keep her backup lair or lairs a secret from me, I wasn’t going to push it.  Even asking was probably a
faux pas
on my part.  Come to think of it, maybe I should have a backup lair, too.

“If you expect to get much older, you’ll have to learn this stuff,” I suggested, pretending I believed her.  “Much as I’ll have to learn how to navigate the political waters, it seems.  I’ll make you a deal.  You sort out our political problems, I’ll arrange for someplace to hide.  Is that a deal?”

“At the moment, it’s the best deal I can hope for,” she admitted.  “Only, how do I know I can trust you?”

“I don’t know.  Does it matter that I trusted you?”

“You raise a good point.”  She rested her chin on her palm, tapping her lips with her fingertips.  “All right.  I agree.”

Which threw on me a dilemma.  Take her home?  Or find a spot to hide out?  I could get a hotel room, make sure housekeeping knew the place was off-limits for the day, and so on.  We could get a new hotel every night, pay cash, and go on like that until she figured out a plan to get us out of this mess.  It could work.

But I wanted to go home; there were too many things going on.  Besides, I didn’t feel comfortable letting her out of my sight.  She could patch things up with Horace or Tony or whoever by telling them to come visit her hotel and ambush me in the parking lot.  I didn’t think she
would
, but she
could
.

Of course, she could do that at my house, too, only it would be more difficult.  On the other hand, if a bunch of vampires showed up while I was at home, I’d have a couple of handy power centers for spells, as well as Firebrand and Bronze.  That would be a considerably more favorable arrangement.

I punched instructions for home.

The rain stopped by the time we made it to my street.  We went past it, stopped at the next corner, got out and walked back.  It’s not that I don’t trust Google, but I don’t trust people with power not to abuse Google.  There’s a difference.

Once inside, Mary complimented me on now nice the place was.  I didn’t see it.  Maybe she likes the minimalist look in the living room and the piles of clutter elsewhere—I have to reorganize and get the rest of the cold-tolerant stuff out to the barn.  Maybe she meant the house, itself, rather than the lack of décor.

“What’s with the bags of laundry?” she asked.  “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Charity drive,” I explained.  “A neighbor had a house fire, so the local kids decided to set up shop for donations.  I’m letting them store their loot here.”

“Nice.  Isn’t it awkward, though?  People coming into your house while you sleep?”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” I evaded.  “Do you want the closet in the master bedroom? Or would you prefer the basement?”

“Let me look at them.”

She eventually decided on the basement; the bedroom closet might leak some light.  She didn’t like the diagrams drawn on the basement surfaces, though.

“I don’t know what to make of these,” she admitted, gesturing.  “Are you… um… non-traditionally religious?”

“If I’m older than the current religions, wouldn’t that make them the non-traditional ones?” I joked.

“Huh.  You know, I don’t have a good response to that.”

“It’s not religion.  These are spells,” I told her.  “I’m a wizard.  Now stop looking panicky.  They’re harmless.  Don’t fool with them.”

“What do they do?”

“Arcane stuff.”

“You could just say you don’t want to tell me,” she sniffled, sounding hurt.

“Fine.  They gather in and concentrate magical force for use in other spells.”

“See?  That’s all you had to say.”  She regarded the diagrams without touching them.  “Are they… doing that?”

“Yes.  You can feel them, if you want.  Like I said, it’s harmless.”

She spent a little while running a feathery tendril around and through my basement Ascension Sphere.  Her expression was one of perplexity.

“I feel something,” she agreed.  “It’s odd.  I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Ever touched anything you knew was magical?”

“Knew?  No.  Suspected, yes.”

“Then it’s probably like seeing a new color for the first time.  It was for me.”

“That’s… not quite it, but yes.  That’s close,” she agreed, still regarding the Sphere.  “And weird.”

“You get used to it,” I assured her.  “Meanwhile, may I have your sizes?  I’ll loan you some clothes, for now, but I’ll get someone to fetch back something specifically for you later today.”

“You already have servants?” she asked, surprised.  “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t know about that rule, and you’re powerful enough to work quickly…”

“You know what?  Screw the rules.  We’re outside the rules.  You can explain the whole Emily Post-Vampire Bite later, maybe.  For now, tell me your sizes and I’ll get you some around-the-house stuff.”  She did and I wrote them down.  “Got it.  Are you hungry?  How often do you need to eat?”

“I try to snack a little every night, rather than wait until I get hungry.  Normally, I’d start getting peckish in a couple of days, but my arm, you know.”  She held up her damaged arm.  It looked perfect from the outside; inside, it was almost completely regenerated.  “I could use some blood tonight.  Tomorrow I’ll be famished.”

“Got it.  I’ll see what I can arrange.”

“You’re going to feed me?”

“You keep looking surprised,” I noted.  “Has the idea of hospitality changed so much?  Are you not my guest?”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Please do.  In the meantime, have you thought about how we’re going to get out of our socio-political troubles?”

“Yes.  No ideas, though.”

“Fair enough.  You keep thinking.  I have some concrete panels to lay.  Help yourself to the bathroom and the video.  Let me know if you need anything and don’t open any door that’s locked.  I’ll be out front.”

I left her to clean up while I dug around in the charity collection for some spare jeans, a shirt, and some socks.  A pretty lady can dress in a man’s casual wear and make it work; the belt was vital, though.  Mary’s hips aren’t big enough to hold up jeans sized for Mark.  I also didn’t have any real footwear that would even come close to fitting her, but socks are almost universal.  I left the pile next to the bathroom door and went outside to finish my concrete projects.

Most of the concrete was already poured in the root cellar, covering the dirt floor in a layer of pavement.  It wouldn’t stop me from empowering the concealment spell; the energy would go right through it.  It would drastically slow down anyone with a shovel, though.  Someday, if I stayed, I would probably add something explosive and fragmentary to further deter intruders.  For now, with the concrete nicely set, I laid the old wooden flooring down over it and added a handful or two of dirt, scuffing it into the cracks.  You would never know the floor was anything but a layer of wood over dirt.

The rest of the concrete was already mixed with pigments and cast in thick, one-foot squares, both black and white.  Now that they had cured somewhat, I laid these out on the wet yard.  There was a level area to the left of the walk up to the house.  The pattern would form a giant chessboard—nine concrete squares to each chessboard square, making each space three feet on a side.  That’s a lot of concrete, but handling that many heavy rocks was no harder than assembling it out of cardboard—just tedious.  Nine per square, sixty-four squares… five hundred and seventy-six blocks.  Over three tons of concrete.

Told you Google Vans loved me.

Mary came out on the porch and curled up in a chair to watch.  I noticed she didn’t turn on the porch light.  Probably a good thing.  Maybe Myrna wouldn’t be quizzing me about my houseguest in the morning.  Everyone should have been in bed before we walked up to the house, but you never know for sure.

Eventually, Mary pulled off her socks and came down off the porch, barefoot, to stand next to me in the wet grass.  I appreciated she didn’t get the socks wet and muddy.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Giant chessboard,” I said, stomping a block into place, then jumping up and down on it to set it firmly.  I’m not a pile-driver, but I play one on construction sites.

“Um.  I got that.  How about why?”

“I know people who like to beat each other up with wooden sticks and real armor.  I figure they might like a living chess match.  Assuming we can find thirty-two people who are willing to play, that is.  Sixteen is the minimum, I think.  We could use markers for pawns, I suppose, and assume they’re automatically captured.”