I put the black-wrapped knife into his hand. His lips curled into his wolf’s grin. Then he flicked the scarf away from the dreadful object and looked at it in the ruddy light from the circle.
He tilted it back and forth, his gaze running over the restored blade like a touch. “Perfect. Now it is mine—of my blood, undying.” His smile was cruel and showed his sharp teeth to the darkness. He turned and slashed the knife through the circle, felling the protective barrier.
He stepped out and I was quick to follow, however ungracefully from my sitting position. I scrambled to my feet as he wiped the blade clean on its wrapping.
“You’ve done excellent work, though I thought you meant to kill me.”
“You trusted me,” I replied. “I don’t betray people.”
“Yes, generally. But you didn’t do as I told you. You changed the path of the blade.”
I started gathering my things, more than ready to be out of his house—forever, I hoped. I didn’t look at him as I moved around, not sure I could stand the sight right now. “If I’d let it come out the way it went in, the tip would have had to travel most of the way through your heart from top to bottom. Once I knew the path was immaterial, that the pieces would take the most direct route to each other, I pulled the blade to the side and shortened the path the tip would take. That’s all.”
“You could see the tip moving through me?”
“Yes. I could see everything. I’d like not to see it again.” I shrugged into my jacket.
He was behind me and I didn’t know how he’d gotten there. “The voices trouble you.”
“Not right now. They were helpful this time, but mostly they wear me down.”
“Do you understand what they are?”
“It’s the grid—the weft, whatever you call it.”
“It is the collective of souls, born and unborn, the consciousness and body of the power. You cannot lie so close to the warp of magic without hearing it. You cannot banish it. It is the material of the Grey, the ghost body, the mind that does not know itself. That is why it requires a Guardian. Or two. You are the Guardian’s hands and eyes on the hard side of the veil. It could not recognize you until you accepted it. You belong to the Grey and it to you.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, turning.
“I owe you for this.” He let the dim light of the room play over the dark blade of the Lâmina.
“You won’t be so pleased when I tell you what Wygan plans to do.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“He’s going to take the Guardian’s place. He means to kill it, according to my father, and become a sort of . . . Anti-Guardian, I guess. ‘The Architect of the Grey,’ Dad said—the creator of a new purpose for all that magical potential. Someone told me the asetem thrive on chaos, pain, terror, and other strong negative emotions. You said the Pharaohn yearns to be like a god again and strengthen his brood. What could be better for that purpose than turning the power of the Grey loose on the world and letting his spawn feed as they like on what would happen after that? No restraint, no Guardian Beast to stop him, and all that power, pouring into the world like the flood from a broken dam. . . .”
Carlos became thoughtful, his gaze wandering to some dread vision as he contemplated my words.
“It would be hell on earth.”
The words rolled on, mine and not mine, unrestrained and cold with truth. “You still want to stop it? Edward has no more hold over you and therefore neither does Wygan. You don’t have to do what he wants, nor do you have to stop him. In fact, you don’t have to do anything for anyone, if it doesn’t please you.” There was the geas between us, but in the gleam off the Lâmina and glow of the grid, it was as fragile as frost flowers.
The glare he turned on me was black and painful. “The warp has turned your mind. What feeds the Pharaohn does not suit me. And I also don’t betray my friends.”
TWENTY-NINE
I didn’t understand what Carlos had meant. I could barely keep myself upright enough to leave and was too exhausted to puzzle around with it for long. Which friends? Me, Cameron, Edward? I felt broken by the long events of the day,the horror, difficulty, and revelation. Not to mention being half crazy and all tired. I longed for the reassuring clutter and familiarity of my condo, with the ferret living up to her name by burrowing in the bookshelves and tossing paperbacks onto the floor—that was the only sort of chaos I desired. After this I might change the furball’s name. . . .
And Quinton. I was surprised that I missed him after only five hours apart. We didn’t live together and I normally didn’t mind my solitude—preferred it in fact—but now I wanted the comfort of his presence, a warm body wrapped around mine, not some cold construct of undead flesh like a cadaver that won’t lie still. I couldn’t understand why normal people fell for the glamour of vampires. Even cloaked in magic, the fact that they were the living dead should make an impression at some point before you shucked your clothes or bared your throat. Shouldn’t the atavistic lizard brain kick in and let you know there’s something deeply wrong with the thing you’re snuggling up to, magic or no? Ugh. . . . Even thinking about it made me queasy and in want of something warmer and more reassuring.
It was nearly three in the morning when I got back down to Edward’s apartment in the TPM basement, but Quinton was still up, pottering around with the computer suite. Some people drink when they’re worried; Quinton tinkers. He got up to let me in since we still couldn’t touch the doors themselves from the outside, but after a brief hug, he dragged me with him back to the monitors embedded in the conference table.
He pulled me onto his lap and reached around me to type. “Look what I found.”
I collapsed against him with only enough energy to mutter, “Oh, rotten, dear. How did your evening go?”
He squeezed me and kissed the side of my neck. “I know. I’m sorry. I know you did hard things and you want to go to bed, but I found something I think is very useful here. Tomorrow’s Monday, so I think we’ll be able to track Solis down and get him to bring the info to the investigators.”
“Huh? Why would we want Solis? Are we having someone arrested?”
“No, not ‘we’ as in you and me. Carol and me. And it’s Goodall we want nabbed. See, this footage should have been wiped, but Goodall’s not an alpha geek: He didn’t completely destroy the image, only the file system information. That’s probably what he was doing down here when you came to see El Jefe Sanquino. Now tell me this doesn’t look like a digital image capture of Renfield Jr. kidnapping Seattle’s favorite bloodsucking entrepreneur.”
Contrary to popular film and fiction, most vampires show up just fine on video, so long as they aren’t making an effort to obscure themselves by hiding in the Grey. They do look a little out of focus most of the time, however. This particular recording did look awful; it hurt my head to try and watch it.
I was so tired I didn’t even pick a fight about Quinton’s going to Solis with Edward’s secretary Carol, and I wasn’t sure the crappy image was due to damage to the electronic file or if it was me. On the center screen, hazy, low-quality video of the bunker’s elevator lobby jerked forward in a storm of digital snow. Goodall was recognizable—his size and bearing were distinctive, even on a video screen where the color was messed up and no Grey auras showed. He put his card on the reader plate while he kept his other hand clenched at his left side and waited for the door to open. Edward stepped into the doorway, holding out both arms to keep the bronze-covered door wide open for his security chief to enter. But Goodall didn’t pass through the door. He took a step forward, swinging his left fist up into Edward’s ribs. It wasn’t a hard blow, but the static bloomed in a white flash where he struck the vampire and Edward collapsed in a heap. Goodall bent down, tossed something behind him onto the foyer floor, and then grabbed Edward under the armpits to drag him out of the doorway. He never touched the door itself and got out of its way as quickly as possible, dragging the downed bloodsucker along the carpet another yard or so before he snatched up the dropped object. Then he crouched, dead-lifted Edward, and flung the unconscious vampire onto his shoulder before he vanished from the scene.