“Karma doesn’t work that way.”
“Doesn’t it?”
This was like braiding thorny branches; every twist had painful possibilities.
“She wasn’t here as a brilliantly white unicorn or a midnight mare,” he said. “She showed Herself to you in the colors of mild tarnish, in the wilder form of a mustang.”
The stream trickled by, the only sound between us for many minutes. I thought Amenemhab would lope off and leave me with that thought, but he didn’t. He sat and watched the play of light on the water, patiently waiting for me to figure it out. Fine.
This was bigger than me, my easily bruised ego, or my karmic future. Still, I did not have to like any of it. And the weight on my shoulders felt impossibly burdensome. How could I be that important? I never stood out anywhere else in my life; I wasn’t ready to think there was any place that I should. So I said the words he probably knew were coming: “I don’t want to be a killer.”
“You’ve already accepted the money. Spent some.”
“I can pay it back.”
“Or you can do the job.”
“A vampire is too much for me.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No.” I paused. “Yes.”
“Fear isn’t weakness, you know.”
I looked at him sharply.
“Giving in to fear is. But then you are not likely to give in to it, because you are not alone.”
Was he dropping notes to Celia? “Neither is my intended target.” The Reverend Kline had said his brother worked for another vampire. I made a face; last year the vampires had come out with another public relations campaign, trying to further soften their image. They thought changing all the “master vampires” into “executive vampires” made them seem less like evil slavers and more like reasonable businessmen.
“You’re right; Goliath is not alone. But you know someone breaking the Rede who is very alone.”
“Vivian.” Of course. “Will she hurt Beverley more to get at me?”
“Do not worry about this. The child is not leverage in her eyes, but a burden she wants to be rid of.”
I frowned at him. “Why would Lorrie have wanted her as Beverley’s guardian anyway?”
“Financially, Lorrie struggled; Vivian doesn’t. What mother doesn’t want to see her child have everything she could want?”
“But it isn’t working out that way!”
“No. Lorrie saw a false side of the high priestess.”
“I’m beginning to think my first meeting with her was the same.” She’d been grumpy with me even then, but I’d given her several reasons. “What’s up with her?”
“You should ponder that.”
“I mean, I get it that she’s using me to clear the path for her entrance to the Elders Council. I’m just a tool to her. And yeah, I hate being used, but achieving something good is worth swallowing my pride a little. Just…is this really ‘something good’?”
“You should ponder that,” Amenemhab insisted.
I gave him a wry look.
He lay down as if settling in for a long rest. “Ponder what you know; the answers to what you don’t know are there. It is an equation you must solve to see.”
Closing my eyes in the meditation, I thought back, reviewing our meeting. What did I know about Vivian? What could I see and add up? Being high priestess equaled knowledge of magic and energy as well as people-management skills. Overdone accessories equaled vanity, money, or just a penchant for diamonds. Neat office equaled neat freak at best and obsessive-compulsive disorder at worst. Spiffy wooden box equaled a carrying case for some cool magical thing. Too much cash for a coffee-shop owner equaled, well, there’s money again. I’d guessed the box held something to do with the business, but I didn’t think she had a goose in it laying golden eggs. What if its contents had nothing to do with the business and everything to do with her?
She was younger than I thought and had been offended at me expecting her to be older. That, as well as her vanity over accessories and perfect makeup, suggested the box could be holding a glamour spell. Perhaps she had charmed, literally, the wings off a fairy. Maybe the WEC induction was as much about vanity to her as everything else. Still, all that money came from somewhere, and fairies weren’t known for their cash supplies. Vampires, however, were notorious for the liquidity of their assets, no pun intended. Wait—
If Vivian was connected to a vampire—some people call it “marked,” but I always say “stained” because it denotes shame, and a vampire’s mark is worse than being forced to wear a scarlet letter—it would make her age more slowly, simply due to supernatural residual effects. I said, “She’s stained by a vampire.”
Amenemhab bowed his head. “See? Equation solved.”
“Solved? Nothing’s solved! This whole thing makes no sense anymore. Wait—”
The jackal grinned.
“She can’t sit on the Council if she bears a stain.”
“And how would she get rid of it?” he asked.
“Kill the vampire who gave it to her…” My eyes went to slits.
“But?”
“But she can’t act against him herself because, as I understand it, the bonds inherent in the binding stain create a kind of compulsive protectiveness and devotion between all those linked. But again, if I’m right, Goliath’s death would hurt her. His pain and grief would seep down to her, maybe even kill her. Why would she do that to herself?”
“I doubt a roundabout suicide is her motive. It’s simply an inherent risk—and one she’s ready to accept, so she’s likely prepared to counter it by some means.”
“She’s getting me to do the dirty work she can’t do, so she can have a shot at being an ‘Elder.’” I was seriously pissed. “I’m just a small part of her plan.”
He gestured with his head in the direction the mustang had gone. “But you’re a big part of Her plan.” He winked. “She may have been there and not here”—he pawed the ground—“but a long time ago, Persephone, in a field of corn, She chose you. You. Take heart, for today, in the midst of your turmoil, She showed Herself to remind you that She is nearby.”
Leaving the meditation, I took up my protective circle, stretched and checked on Theo. Then I returned to the window seat and stared out the window.
Vivian was using me. I knew that. But she was using me more than she wanted me to realize. I had agreed to be used, I thought, in order to protect Beverley and, I had to admit, attain vengeance for Lorrie’s murder. Did Vivian’s further use of me make a difference? Now that Theo had been harmed, did I have more reason to kill? But if I hadn’t agreed to do harm myself, would Theo have been hurt?
I thought of the mustang. Did She have a hand in all this? Was the totem correct? Was I somehow meant to be Her tool?
Whatever I had originally thought, whatever my motivations or Vivian’s, it was time to accept what either my own human foolishness had gotten me into or what the Fates had inexorably willed: I had a vampire to assassinate.
Deep breath. That thought made my shoulders heavy.
My ears detected a knocking sound and I stilled, listening. It didn’t repeat, so I figured it must be something banging around in the dryer. Who knew what kinds of sounds Johnny’s clothes made, with all the studs and zippers and chains. I’d seen him stuffing things into separate mesh laundry bags. It was surreal seeing him washing clothes. At my house.
Then the knocking came again. A quiet, meek knocking. It stopped. But I knew I wasn’t hearing things this time. Going out in the hall, I peered down the stairs. A shadow darkened the window of my front door. A short shadow.
I hurried down and opened the door. Beverley stood there with her face in her hands, her dark hair in crooked ponytails, and her shoulders jerking rapidly in sobs. “Beverley!” I exclaimed, unlocking the screen.