Кейти Макалистер: Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang

“Oh, no, I am not so naive as to fall for that old trick,” I said with a knowing look.

He glanced at the governors, and again I was struck by how nervous he was. “I feel there may be some discussions that are more suited to a private situation.”

Does he seriously think he’s getting me alone?

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was frightened of you.

Of me? That’s silly. I’m no threat to him.

Not as such, perhaps, but I wonder if your theory about him could be correct after all. If he was withholding information from the board of governors, he might fear you would tell them the truth.

About him shooting Denise? A light dawned in the murky depths of my brain. You are the most brilliant man ever. Of course! Rick and Janice said he told everyone a vampire shot Denise. He’s afraid I’m going to spill on him and tell everyone about his plan to get rid of Denise by having her first kill Anniki, then killing her before she tattled. Oh, this is sweet. And here I was thinking he was the big bad boss, and it turned out to be us all along. Ha! Justice at last!

Frederic had been making not very subtle attempts to get me out of the room while Kristoff and I were talking. I let him wind down before saying firmly, “I appreciate the offer of privacy, but right here is fine with me. And for the record, we are more than reasonable. It’s you people who seem to be at the other end.”

I was still suspicious of some sort of trick. But try as I might, I could detect no secret passage through which a Brotherhood army might flow, or axes that might come flinging from the ceiling to chop us to bits, or even the sound of venomous snakes that might be released under the table, trained to attack vampires.

There was just nothing but the three of us, the four of them, and silence.

“The Brotherhood is never unreasonable,” one of the male governors said. “We follow a strict canon of behavior.”

I made a little face at him that had him licking his lips nervously. “You kill vampires.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted, taking a step back as he glanced at the vamps present. “But we do so according to the strictest rules.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Andreas said, scowling at them.

“You kill us, too,” the lone woman in the group piped up. The governor next to her tried to hush her up. “Well, they do,” she told him before turning back to glare at Andreas.

“Only in self-defense,” he answered.

“You tried to kill Kristoff and Alec,” I said, pointing at Frederic.

“Of course I did. It’s what we do. We’re the Brotherhood of the Blessed Light,” he said, just as if that explained things. “I really believe this discussion would be best held in my office-”

I rubbed my forehead where a headache was starting to form. “This is getting us nowhere. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Who told you we were coming?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” a voice said from behind us. We swung around. It was Alec. He stood with a sword in each hand and a smile on his handsome face. He made a little salute with one of the swords, bowing toward us. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”

Kristoff roared in anger, throwing himself toward Alec.

No slouch on the reaction front, Alec spun around and was out the door, Kristoff in hot pursuit.

“Stay here,” I told the others, dashing after him.

Andreas tried to push me aside, but I slapped at his hands, grabbing his wrists and yanking him to a stop. “You have to stay with Frederic and the gang,” I told him.

His scowl was familiar, if not identical to Kristoff’s. “You stay.”

“That’s the man I love out there!” I said, jerking him back.

“He’s my brother!” He grabbed me around the waist, plopping me down in a chair before running for the door.

“Love takes precedence over blood,” I said, tossing up a wall of light in front of him, keeping him from leaving the room.

His glare as I ran through the light should have dropped me dead on the spot, but I simply repeated, “Stay with Frederic!” as I ran off.

Kristoff and Alec were no longer in sight as I raced down the hallway, Andreas’s frustrated curses following me. A door opened as I passed it, Rowan’s eyes visible as he peeked out before fully opening the door.

“Pia? What’s going on?” Magda asked as they emerged from the room. Raymond was clutching his camera in one hand, the Taser in the other. Rowan glanced up and down the hall, doing a double take at Andreas trapped behind a wall of shimmering, glittering silver light.

“Alec is here. He’s betrayed us! Kristoff is after him. Reapers in the room back there with ghosts. No time to talk.” I threw myself forward, slamming right into Mattias, who had evidently come back from escorting the other Zorya out.

“Pia-pooh!” he burbled happily, rubbing his mouth where my forehead had smacked into it. “Smooch?”

“Get out of my way, you giant Viking,” I said, disentangling myself from him in order to run around the corner. I hesitated for a second, unsure which way to go. I was in a reception area, a flight of stairs on my left, while the space to my right was taken up with an empty curved desk, and the typical setup of chairs and small occasional tables bearing what looked like informational pamphlets. Across the wall on the far side of the room was a banner that proclaimed, THE BROTHERHOOD AND YOU! FIVE SIGNS THAT YOU MIGHT BE HAUNTED.

“Wait for us; we’re coming, too,” Magda said as I hurried up the stairs.

“You need me. I go with you,” Mattias told me.

“No! Stay with the reapers, all of you! They could be up to something, and Andreas is alone with them!”

Rowan, who had been about to follow, nodded and disappeared back into the hallway. Magda and Raymond continued on, determined looks on their faces.

“We’re your posse,” Magda declared as we reached the top. I was a bit breathless, but didn’t pause, just charged down the corridor that resembled the one behind us. “You need us.”

“My dear, really, posse?” Raymond asked somewhat wheezily as I opened door after door, searching for the man whose life was woven into mine. “You don’t think that’s a bit dated?”

“I love you!” declared Mattias as he followed them. “I want to be your posse, too!”

“Do you have a better word for it?” Magda asked Raymond somewhat snappishly.

“Well . . . associates.”

“Dammit, Kristoff, where are you?” I muttered, flinging open the door next to me, giving the room a quick once-over, and running to the next one. “Don’t do this to me!”

“I love Kristoff, too.”

“Compatriots,” Raymond suggested.

“That’s just being pedantic,” Magda told him, following me. “‘Compatriot’ is much more dated than ‘posse.’”

“Supporters, then,” he offered.

“We’re her friends, not garter belts!”

The last door opened to reveal an empty room. I stepped inside it, looking around in bewilderment, defeat bowing my shoulders before I realized what that meant.

“Roof!” I shouted, shoving Mattias and Magda out of the way as they both tried to come into the room at the same time.

“Good God, a rooftop fight? I hope I have enough film left for this,” Raymond muttered as we ran en group up the last flight of stairs.

The sunlight was blinding when we emerged from the relative dimness of the offices, the heat already kicking into high gear. The roof held a tiny little garden on one side, with all the big cooling units and communication equipment on the other side. In the center of the small swath of green grass, two men lunged at each other, both clad in coats and hats, the blades of their swords flashing silver in the sun.