I stared at him, but his unflinching gaze was deep and dark and hid so many layers of power that I knew better than to push it.
“Very well. But, as grateful as we are for the information, if whoever paid you to dig it out becomes a problem in any way, then I’m holding you accountable.”
Carter nodded, a bare dip of the head, and we left. Unsettled, I headed up the stairs first, Camille slowly following behind me. We didn’t speak until we were back in her car, buckled in and ready to go. Then—and only then—we looked at one another.
“What do you think?” I was afraid to admit my hesitance, afraid I’d sound like the old Delilah—all timid and nervous.
But Camille surprised me. “I’m not sure about this. I’ve wanted this for years. Wanted to meet Mother’s family. But it’s always been a pipe dream. The fantasy of what would it be like if we were to find them—with all the long-lost love and family embracing that you see in one of those Lifetime victim-of-the-week movies. But life doesn’t always work like that. Yes, Father and I are mending our fences, but there’s a long way to go before I can fully trust him again. If ever. And how will he feel about this? About us meeting Mother’s relatives?”
I bit my lower lip, chewing on it until I punctured a hole with one of my nonretractable fangs. Another by-product of being a half-breed werecat. “Does he have to know?”
“Of course he has to know. We can’t just not tell him. Can we?” She looked over at me, the question hanging between us.
“What if we don’t tell him until we meet them? Then we’ll know if we should even bother. If they don’t want anything to do with us, we can keep quiet about it. If they want a relationship, then we deal with that when it comes.” It made sense to me. But there was another question we needed to answer first. “My concern is . . . do we want to do this? Do we want to even go there?”
Camille braked sharply as she was pulling out of the spot. She eased the car back next to the curb, disappointing a driver who had been waiting for the spot. He honked, but drove past.
“You think maybe we shouldn’t? I thought you’d be beating down the door.” She put the car in Park and turned to me.
I shrugged, not knowing quite how to phrase my thoughts. “I thought I would be too, but now that we’re facing this as an actual possibility, the prospects of this ending well . . . let’s just say I’m not feeling the rosy scenarios I envisioned all these years. I just don’t want us to have any regrets.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment, staring at the steering wheel. Then, quietly, she put her hand on mine. “Part of me wants to say fuck it. We don’t need them. But we know that Mother never knew she had half brothers and sisters. She never knew we had cousins. She didn’t even know her mother was alive. Don’t we owe it to her memory to find out what we can? To forge a link with her past, if it’s meant to be?”
It made sense when she put it that way. “I suppose. We still have to tell Menolly. She’ll no doubt have an opinion on all of this.”
Camille shuddered. “I’m not sure if I want to hear her opinion, but you’re right. Okay, so what next?”
“What say we drive by the Farantino Building, take a look at it, then go wait for Menolly to come home. We can’t very well call . . . what are their names?”
“Hester and Daniel.”
“We can’t very well call them this late, can we?” I glanced at the clock. It was going on eleven o’clock already, and even though our bedtime was usually well after midnight, that didn’t mean everybody else stayed up as late.
With a silent nod, Camille pulled back out of the parking space, and we were off.
The streets were empty as we eased into another parking space, this time across from the Farantino Building. Brick, it was six stories high from the looks of it. For some reason, I’d expected a skyscraper, tall with chrome and glass, but that wouldn’t make sense if it had been built over a hundred years ago.
The building held a brooding old-world charm, almost gothic in nature. The brick was weathered and in some places had eroded away. A ledge between the fifth and sixth stories sported a circle of gargoyles guarding the building. I gazed at the line of stone statues, wondering if any others besides Astralis and Mithra had been actual Cryptos. Were any of them up there now, watching our car, silently perched there in constant observation?
The thought made me vaguely angry. What we’d been taught about gargoyles didn’t jibe with the reality. I wondered why our father had never seemed concerned. He had to have known about the treatment of the granticular gargoyles, considering he was privy to government intelligence. And he’d always been so antislavery. Turning a blind eye to the enforced servitude of Astralis and his kind was yet another contradiction in our father’s nature.
Camille unfastened her seat belt and slid out the driver’s side. I followed, leaning on the top of the car. We stared at the building, waiting for a sign. For something . . . anything . . . to happen.
Although the Farantino Building was six stories high, who knew how many levels it had underground. The intricate carving around the ledge reminded me of knotwork braided into the stone, beautiful, looking far older than it really was.
Camille shaded her eyes from the rain as she looked up. “The building has a definite energy signature of strength and foundation. Whatever goes on in there, there are some major power players at work.” She folded her arms across her chest and glanced back at me. “It makes me nervous, to be honest. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with but it makes me think of old money and cognac and . . . like Roman, only far more ruthless.”
Roman was ruthless enough. If whatever—or whoever—lurked behind these walls was more dangerous than he, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved. But thanks to Grandmother Coyote, we didn’t have a choice. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“There’s not much we can do now. We might as well drop back to the bar and tell Menolly to get her butt home. We have a lot to tell her. And we need to go through the information Carter gave us about this monolith here.”
As I shivered and climbed back in the car, I glanced up at the building one last time. The Farantino Building loomed over the neighborhood. It felt a whole lot bigger than its six stories. As a hint of Camille’s clairvoyance broke through to me, I realized that the building itself was watching us. The damned thing was sentient, and it knew we were here.
Menolly caught sight of me as I peeked into the bar. It was still packed but the crowds had thinned somewhat. She strode toward me, her stiletto boots tapping hard on the floor over the sound of conversation and laughter. She was light and petite, but each step she took had a tremendous amount of force behind it.
I pulled her off to one side. “We need you to come home. It’s not an emergency but we have . . . there’s no way to explain it here. Carter had some news for us. The three of us have to discuss it—it’s big.”
“Another demon general hit the city?” She narrowed her eyes. “After Gulakah, we know Shadow Wing is going to be sending somebody bigger and badder in, and you can’t get much bigger than a god.”
“Yeah, it’s just a matter of time. But no, this has nothing to do with Shadow Wing. It’s purely personal.” I really didn’t want to go into it here. For one thing, if Menolly reacted badly, it could hurt her business. And I had no clue how she’d feel about the news. There really wasn’t any reason for her to get pissed, but then again, vampires didn’t really need a reason to get angry. And sister or not, Menolly was a vampire.