Hidden Trump (Bite Back 2) (19 page)

“As for the FBI,” she went on, “we’re not as clueless as it sounds. We don’t use Athanate for phone calls and we don’t discuss Athanate business on unsecured phones. Usually. From what they said, they got this recording from putting traces on a phone you called. A phone here. That can only mean my cell has been used by someone else, because for sure, I haven’t spoken Athanate on it.” She was silent for a while. “It’s what was said that’s the key. And who said it, of course. Is there any chance you could get a copy of this recording?”

I sighed. “I’ll try, Bian, but it’s the freaking FBI, okay?”

“I know. And thanks. I’ll organize some secure comms for you to pick up tomorrow.”

“Okay. I may be a bit late if I have trouble finding how they’re tracking my car.”

“Just deal with it, Round-eye.” We walked in silence for a few yards. “Larry saying they’re planning something big…” she shrugged. “I’m not discounting it, but he’s under a compulsion. They cause damage. He might have been having an induced psychotic episode. Screwing with someone’s head does that a lot.”

“Or they really are planning something.”

“We can’t tell until you get Larry and bring him here.”

We were headed back to the gatehouse, and I was glad of it. Bian kept strange hours, but I liked to sleep nights. At least sometimes, anyway.

She was silent again, deep in thought. Then, “I don’t understand why you won’t just stay here till after the Assembly.” She sounded frustrated, almost disappointed—as if it should be something I would
want
to do. Was this Diakon or Leopard talking? Or a real Bian, who might actually be concerned for me personally? She was so damn hard to read. “It’s what Skylur will want when he hears about Matlal trying to kidnap you,” she added.

Ah. Diakon talking. Purely professional. I didn’t know if I was sorry or relieved.

Stay here with David and Pia. Or back in Denver with Alex and Jen. Here with someone I suspected had betrayed me and Altau. Or back in Denver with Hoben and Matlal bent on imprisoning me for the rest of my life. And Larry
.
I wasn’t going to give Larry up. Not just because he was my route to Hoben; he’d slowed up the pursuit at Cheesman. I might owe him my life.

“I can’t.”

She waited, hoping for elaboration that I didn’t give. She gave a frustrated hiss. I sensed her body going taut like an animal about to spring. “I see.” The silence lengthened. “Wanting to stay out wouldn’t have anything to do with that dreamy wolf, Deauville, would it? Diana says you smelled of wolf this afternoon.” Her tone was teasing, but there was an edge to it. Did she have an issue with Alex? She leaned in and inhaled deeply. “Hmm. You still do.”

Bian never had much respect for personal space, but this was making me uncomfortable. I moved slightly away.

“Alex is out of town at the moment,” I said.

Bian closed the gap again. “Jennifer Kingslund, then?” She slipped an arm around my waist. “Why should blondes have all the fun?” Again there was the edge. Leopard, but not quite. And I felt nervous about digging for the answers to what.

I pushed her away and snorted. “She hasn’t had any fun.”

Bian’s eyes widened. “Amber, honey, you’re so slow,” she drawled in an excellent imitation of Jen. But the humor was missing from the eyes. It was almost a challenge.

“I’m…” I halted, blushing. Annoyed with both of us. “Why the hell am I talking to you about this?”

She looked at me for a long moment, then shrugged and started walking again, quickly. I had to hurry to catch up. Physically and mentally. Why was she so changeable?

“Because Skylur appointed me to teach you Athanate rules and customs,” she said coolly, as if that intensity was all in my head. “Correct little misunderstandings about what’s happening to you. Reassure you about things. Make sure you understand what’s happening at the Assembly. Useful things like that.”

“Huh.” Diakon was back, with a vengeance. “Anyway, I promised no security breaches. I can’t even talk to Jen until the Assembly is over. And even then, I need to be able to tell her what the risks are and we don’t know them yet. I caused an effect in David just with a kiss.”

We were nearly at the gatehouse. “We’ll see,” she said. She was definitely Diakon Bian again. “You want to get back now. Okay, but listen up first, Round-eye. The woman you fought? You’re right. She’d be one of Matlal’s elite people. Now, I can believe he loans people to Hoben just to keep an eye on him, but not that level of person. He’s got some interest in you and the more you frustrate him, the more intent he’ll become.”

Bian turned at a call from the house.

“Hold on,” she said, resting a hand on my arm. A man ran up and they spoke hurriedly in Athanate. Her grip tightened.

“Right,” she said, turning back. “Skylur wants to see you now, and I’ve got another damn emergency.”

We went back to the house, my stomach churning again. I did
not
want to talk to Skylur. Especially if he’d been woken just for this. As we reached it, Bian had three people talking at her at once. “Last room on the left, take the elevator down,” she said to me, startling me with a swift hug. She wasn’t just hard to read, she was downright schizophrenic. “I’ll come back when you’re done and see you out.” She was swept away.

I walked down the hall. The first time I’d been brought here to see Skylur, I’d been blindfolded, but I knew where I was.

I got to the end of the hall. ‘Left’ she’d said. ‘Right’ said my movement memory. I went into the right-hand room, and I was correct; it was the one I’d been taken to the first time. Bian must have been distracted.

I walked over to where the elevator platform was hidden—a circular pattern on the carpet. I stood there, feeling stupid. There was no control panel I could see. How did I get it to descend? I was going to look like an idiot wandering around looking for someone to tell me how to operate the elevator.

No need. Curved glass doors whispered out from the column behind me. The floor dropped away and a few seconds later I was in Skylur’s creepy dungeon.

How deep was I? Sixty feet? Seventy? Five floors beneath the house? Exactly what did he have hidden down here?

The light was the same as I remembered—deep blue and directionless. Even with my improved Athanate eyesight, I had trouble making out details. And it was cold. I hadn’t registered that last time.

Skylur wasn’t here. The statues along the wall were.

They looked different to me now. When I’d been down here before, my eyesight hadn’t been so developed. I’d had to go over and touch a statue to confirm they were warm; flesh warm. Now, I could see the soft haze rising from them in the cold air.

I found myself in front of Anubis again, looking up at the muzzle, the rippling muscles beneath the sun-dark skin, the fathomless eyes. The skin still felt as unyielding and warm as if Anubis himself had just this minute been turned to stone.

No way this was just a statue.

Unlike the last time I was here, I heard Skylur entering behind me.

I turned and was walking towards his throne at the end as he sat. “Good evening, Amber.” His voice was genuinely pleasant when he wanted it to be. It sounded like I wasn’t on his shit list today, but I wasn’t relaxing yet. I’d believe it when he let me go. At least there was nothing of the controlled fury in him today.

“Hello, Skylur. A little late to wish me a good evening.”

Like midnight. I grabbed a chair from the side and sat on it facing him. It was too dark to make out his features.

I strangled the demon in my throat, which was about to say something even more flippant.

Silence.

Shit, was I even supposed to sit in his presence without his permission? He’d specifically ordered me to sit at David’s house. I’d probably pissed him off again. If I couldn’t get little things like this right, what chance did I have with the bigger things?

But his voice was contemplative when he eventually spoke. “You’re an affiliate of House Altau. What do you think that means with regard to my policies and commands?”

Crap. I obviously screwed the pooch again. What was it this time?

I cleared my throat. “I haven’t had time for a full briefing, Skylur. I honestly don’t know. I apologize if—”

“It would be different if I’d taken you into House Altau, but Diana insisted on affiliation, and I trusted her judgment.”

I bowed my head. This was shaping up to be more than a disciplinary hearing. It sounded like he was aiming to make House Farrell the shortest-lived House in the history of the Athanate. There had to be something I could do. I couldn’t have him order me into Haven. I had to be out there.

“I don’t know what I’ve done—”

“It’s not what you’ve done,” he interrupted. “It’s what you’re going to do. Tell me your view of what happened at Cheesman Park.”

I was more unsettled than if he’d been yelling. I started to stumble through what had happened and he stopped me.

“I know the events. I want your interpretation. What’s behind all this?”

I was ready to start gibbering—they were going to grab me and drag me somewhere to…

But he didn’t want my knee-jerk gut reaction. He wanted interpretation. It was as if he’d slapped me. My brain crunched painfully into gear.

Shape up! Think!

“There were too many. Too much effort, too much tech. It was almost…”

He leaned forward as I slowed.

“It was almost as if they were using this as a sort of live fire training exercise.”

“Not about you at all?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Their training and my capture were both objectives.”

If it was, my escape had to have severely pissed them off. Small victory.

He leaned back again in the silence.

“Matlal troops in Denver,” he said dismissively. “What could they possibly be preparing for?”

I swallowed. Thinking of it like an abstract military problem, a frightening possibility leaped out at me. But I was taking a huge jump here. Making myself look like an idiot.

“Pre-emptive strike. If Matlal is about to restart the war against Panethus, what better way to start than taking out the leadership of Panethus while they’re gathered for the Assembly? Over before it begins.”

He snorted, but without being able to see his face, I didn’t know what to make of that.

“Basilikos representatives would call that completely ridiculous,” he said. “Anyway, the Warders are keeping the delegates separate and moving around. There is no single target to strike against, and the first strike gives the whole game away. Not to mention alerting the human population of Denver. No Basilikos wants that. They are fanatically opposed to humans knowing about the existence of the Athanate.”

“Attack here during the Assembly,” I said immediately, warming to the theme. “Maximum target concentrated in a remote and secret location.”

“He doesn’t know where Haven is. Delegates will be brought here ‘securely.’”

Was securely a joke about Jaworski? Nah. Not Skylur, surely?

“He might know where Haven is now.” With security procedures lax enough to let someone use Bian’s cell phone, who knows what had slipped out?

“Oh, he might. And I might have defenses he doesn’t expect, too.” He shifted in the darkness. “But Basilikos have dissenters too, certainly if it came to attacking the Assembly. There would be at least a rumor of it. There’s nothing. Nothing about that, anyway.”

“So what are the rumors saying?” I said.

“Rumors say that an affiliate of Altau has a Blood with remarkable properties. That Altau is seeking to keep this for itself. That Matlal is determined to get hold of this affiliate. For the greater good of the whole Athanate community, of course. That he is hunting her through the streets of Denver.”

That lay like ice in my belly. Just because it’s a rumor and wrapped in lies, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a kernel of truth. Matlal was after me with his top teams. I’d been spouting garbage about attacks, trying to prove my worth, and all I’d achieved was to sound like an idiot. He’d haul me in now out of embarrassment that he had such a stupid affiliate.

“I doubt you underestimate an opponent when you spar, Amber. Apply that caution here.”

I peered into the gloom, trying to make out any clues in his face.

What did he mean? Despite everything, a sliver of excitement tickled me. If I was sparring, I might feint one way and go another.

“The rumors are a feint. He’s not after me at all.”

“Oh, he wants you as well. Never doubt that. You refused him at the ball, in front of Basilikos representatives. Don’t underestimate his pride. And now you’ve escaped him again.”

Skylur stood abruptly, making me jump. “And putting everything else aside, if he catches you, what then?” He stepped down onto the dark granite floor. “Either you have this miracle Blood, in which case he will use it. Or you don’t, in which case he says nothing. And for as long as he can say nothing, every Basilikos dissenter will be failing to dissent on any matter in case they lose out on the benefit. And even Panethus dissenters might cross the divide rather than risk not getting access to this miracle Blood. Oh, he wants you all right.”

I stood as well. Skylur had moved into the vacant senior military commander slot in my reflexes, and I didn’t feel comfortable sitting while he stood. If he noticed, it didn’t show.

“You don’t believe my Blood’s different, do you?” I asked.

“It’s different. No doubt about that at all. Is it a miracle that reduces crusis?” He turned and walked slowly to stand in front of me. I could see a frown on his face now. “I’m not sure I want to believe that,” he murmured, as if talking to himself.

“You could find out,” I said. Shivers went down my spine. He could bite me, and he’d know, somehow. I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t know why.

He swayed closer and my eyes closed. This time there was no Diana to stop him. I could feel his stare, focused on my throat. Part of me wanted him to bite, wanted to submit and become part of Altau. It would be safer. So much easier to belong. The rest of me was trying to push him away.

“Would you like me to?” he whispered.