Shattered Circle (28 page)

T
alto sat in front of a computer. The screen’s light was the only illumination in the room. In the darkness beside her was Liam, who in his late thirties was oddly older than most of his Offerling peers. He was good-looking, but not exactly the heart-stopping kind of gorgeous that was required of most of the second-tier vampire servants. She’d discovered he hadn’t been given the prestigious role for his looks; he was a haven member due to his IQ alone.

She heard a quiet
splat
and turned to see the drool that was running off his chin had dripped to the tile floor.

Not that his IQ is shining so bright right now.

She frowned in disgust. Probing into people’s minds was a nasty thing to do . . . at least the aftermath of it was.

But Liam had been a banker-turned-hacker once. He’d miraculously escaped a police raid on foot, but the hounds were closing in and he literally crossed the path of Menessos, who agreed to save him from a lifetime behind bars in exchange for his services.

In Liam’s mind resided many methods of committing crimes electronically. Menessos had required the man to act within the parameters of the law, but that did not mean Liam didn’t know how to break those laws.

Talto had taken what she’d needed.

Presently, she had set up a series of new bank accounts in various banks in various countries, and had established
a schedule to filter funds from one to another. In a few days, the haven would be reduced to the minimal funding provided by the networks of VEIN, but Menessos’s private and very deep financial pockets would be empty.

She opened her phone and typed the word
NOW
in the body of a text message to Ailo, then hit Send.

•  •  •

Ailo ran across the stage, through the doorway, and crossed the backstage area to pound on the Haven Master’s door. The guard dropped his phone, jumped from his seat, and forcibly restrained her even as she tried the knob and discovered it was locked.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

She twisted in his grip. “I must see the Haven Master immediately! He is still in there, isn’t he?”

“He is, but you can’t barge in like a madwoman.” He noticed her necklace and it seemed he remembered who he was dealing with. He released her immediately, keeping himself between her and the door. “Allow me,” he said, and knocked more politely on the door.

Nothing happened.

“I thought you said he was in there,” she snapped.

“He is.”

“Menessos, too?”

He nodded.

“Is it normal for the door to be locked?”

“They do what they think is fit. Nobody questions them. That includes
you
.”

“And what do you do when they think it is fit to not answer their door and a crisis is occurring?”

They glared at each other for another minute with nothing happening.

Ailo needed to get Menessos to catch Talto in the act. She couldn’t leave her sister sitting there for hours. “Are you certain they are in there?” she pressed, crossing her arms.

“Yes.”

“You get so focused on your stupid phone game, perhaps they have left and you didn’t even notice.”

“Hey. I focus, but that doesn’t mean I’d miss my Haven Master
leaving
.”

The door opened slightly. Goliath stood in near darkness within, his gaunt features rather terrifying. “What do you want?”

The guard pointed at Ailo. “She is rather determined to see you.”

Goliath’s eyes flicked from the guard to Ailo and back. “Get four Beholders in here for feeding. Immediately.” To Ailo he said, “When the Beholders leave, you may enter.”

“But—”

“Not until.”

The door shut.

Her crossed arms fell into fists at her sides.

The guard retrieved his phone and made a call. Seconds later, a quartet of Beholders hurried into the room and entered the Haven Master’s suite.

As she waited, paced, and grumbled to herself, Ailo gazed up at the entry to the Erus Veneficus’s rooms. Behind that heavy door lay the answer to all her hopes and dreams. Freedom. Splendor. Control of her own destiny. She could live anywhere in the world. She could surround herself with anything and everything she wanted.
She’d have vases of the most beautiful flowers in every room. She’d have colorful birds in cages. She would clothe herself in something other than gray. . . .

Maintaining the safety and happiness of the child would be no easy feat, but she could make the child adore her. Fancy gifts would satisfy any child, and when she grew bored of those, Ailo would buy her more. She would spoil the girl so no one else could satisfy her.

The Beholders finally filed out of the Haven Master’s suite, each with gauze pads held compressed to either their necks or their wrists.

Ailo made for the door. The inside remained dark except for a single candle near the door. “Are you here?”

“What do you need, Ailo?”

Menessos’s weary voice emitted from the darkened far side of the room.

She sighed angrily. “Unless your delay has allowed her to complete her scheme, my sister is presently stealing the haven’s money.”

She heard movement instantly. “How?” Goliath demanded.

“She’s been talking to me about trying to find out who manages the finances here. She’s spent the evening stealing touches off people, looking for this information. I saw her following one of the Offerlings. I’m sure she’s mesmerized him, read him.”

“Allow me to handle it, Haven Master. They are both bound to me.” Menessos arrived at the door looking truly dead. Dark circles ringed his eyes. His cheeks were sunken, and a drop of blood lingered at the corner of his mouth. “Where is she?”

Ailo gasped and retreated a step.

He claimed the ground between them without seeming to move at all. His hands gripped her arms like vises. “Where is she?” His voice was low enough to sound demonic.

In her opinion, Menessos needed to feed from a few more Beholders. “I don’t know. I saw her heading up to the first floor with the Offerling. That’s all I know.”

He brushed past her before she finished. “Vinny, get some of the men up to the accounting offices.” He and Goliath were gone in a flash.

With a hidden grin, Ailo followed them.

J
ohnny considered tackling the old man and taking the key by force.

“I’m sure Aurelia a-told you where the locker’s located,” Plympton said. “I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You came to get this key.”

Staring, aware that he couldn’t play off his presence here or pretend he hadn’t known Aurelia was dead, he wondered which of the Omori had leaked details to the
diviza
. Then another thought hit him. “Why did
you
come to get the key?”

Plympton tossed the key up and caught it in his palm, then tucked it back into his pocket and paced to the left again. He scratched thoughtfully at his chin.

Johnny knew he had the ability to kill the old man and take the key, but having the ability to end someone’s life didn’t mean he had the willingness to follow through. And not just because there’d be
another
body to worry about.

What he knew of Plympton wasn’t much: Wærewolf.
Diviza.
Old. Cajun. Enjoyed negotiating. Visited a voodoo priestess who put molten silver inside him. Heard lots of rumors. May never have met Aurelia before today, but she was undoubtedly a source of some rumors he’d heard. She was not, however, his only source.

He asked again, “Why do you care what’s in the locker?”

Plympton spread his arms, posing like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. “For thirty years I’ve haggled
with
wærewolves and
for
wærewolves. I know how they think, how they act and react.” His arms dropped. “I’ve walked the line between our world and the human world so many times that, hell, I know that damn line like the back of my hand.”

Johnny squinted at him, thinking.

“I can see you’re a-running it all through in your head. I’ve achieved a fair amount of rank. Aside from my knowledge of certain sensitive information about the Zvonul, my experience alone makes me a valuable resource.” Plympton stopped and faced Johnny, that one eye scouring him for a moment, then he resumed his seat and continued. “I don’t have a choice now. I have to trust you. I have to believe that when I tell you this, you will live up to your good character . . . and that you will see mine.”

The old man’s dilemma about trust reminded Johnny of his own current difficulty with it. “Tell me.”

“I was approached by a vampire. Over the course of a few months, she repeatedly showed up at various public functions my office was part of . . . then she started showing up at more private functions. Always, there was a hello and a brief, inconsequential chat. Each grew longer, held more questions, offered more details. Then she asked me to provide information about the Zvonul.”

“What made her think you were willing to spy on your own kind for her?”

“I advocate for changes, which means I bitch with style.”

“Did you agree?”

“This is where it gets difficult, John.” He paused. “You see, I contacted the Omori for advice. They wanted me to proceed, pretending to be a traitor. My handler used a voice changer during calls, nothing was done in a manner that was documented. When I tried to record the calls, something about the voice changer scrambled the voice on the recording, so it seems like I’m talking to no one. We never met in person—but I have reason to believe that Aurelia was my handler. Now that she’s dead, my reputation may be at stake.”

“Surely they’ll have a backup plan for situations like this.”

Plympton patted his pocket where the key was. “This is the backup plan.”

Johnny blinked. The information about his son was supposed to be in the locker. Aurelia didn’t mention anything else. “Wait, wait. You think she was your handler, so you’ve come to her rooms, dug through her things to find a locker key, and now you’re certain she’s put info about you in a locker somewhere.”

“I’m a-telling you, this is how my handler operated. Public lockers. When I was given instructions, they were always in a public locker.”

“I thought you said there was no documentation. Written instructions—”

“The paper disintegrated when I touched it. I had to read it in the locker, then touch it to destroy it and leave.” He scratched at his chin again. “I may have been set up. I don’t know. Hell, I’m not even sure it was a representative of the vampires that approached me.”

“You said she was a vamp.”

“Yes. Doesn’t mean she’s on their side.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe she’s working for SSTIX. You’ve heard of them?”

“Specialized Squadron for the Tactical Investigation of Xenocrime. Yeah. I’ve heard of them.” He did not tell Plympton about his run-in with Special Agent Damian Brent and Special Agent Clive Napier over the lines of glass on Lake Erie’s shore—the only traces of a supernatural battle that he and the wærewolves had taken part in. “You mean there’s a vamp out there that you think is not sleeping her day away in a haven?”

“SSTIX is recruiting, John.” He let that sink in for a moment. “They’re a-looking for haters. If they don’t find them, they’ll manufacture them, do you a-understand me?”

“You mean they will have the vamp make more vamps? That’s not supposed to be easily done. . . . ”

“No. I mean they will plant seeds, make their own kind not trust the one they are after until that one is a-ripe for the picking.”

Johnny sat in silence as Plympton stood and took the key out again.

“My handler intercepted information that I was being bribed, that I had been giving out classified information to the vamps. Thing is, that information was selected by my handler for the giving. It was modified data. Spies apparently deal not only in information, but in misinformation to make their enemies reveal themselves. When my so-called contacts tried to use the information against me, to make the Zvonul banish me, then I’d have nowhere to go but to them. Do you see? They are going to use our own against us to bring us down from the inside.”

“And you believe the information in the locker is what your handler intercepted.”

“Yes. I have to get that data. It’s the only thing that can maintain my credibility—and you need me to be credible, to vouch for you when Aurelia’s death is made public.”

Johnny stood. “She told me what was in the locker. She didn’t mention anything about any of this. What if you’re wrong and she wasn’t your handler?”

“I’m certain she was. If she told you there was something in the locker for you, there is. But she meant for us to get it together.”

“How do you know that?”

“She directed some veterinarian to call my number; she’d given him a message for me. It was in code, but it meant that I was to come and get the key from her suitcase, and to wait for the monarch. Here you are. She had to have told you where the locker is. That’s why I was to wait for you.”

Johnny walked across the suite to a dark corner. He pulled out his phone and punched the numbers for Doc Lincoln. That part would be easy to verify.

The doc answered with a voice thick with sleep. Johnny asked, “Did you make a call for Aurelia?”

Silence.

“Doc. Did she give you special instructions before she died?”

“John, it was crazy talk. It made no sense. She said not to tell you.”

“Good enough. Get back to sleep.” Johnny shut his phone and, shoulders squared, returned to Plympton. “I carry the key.”

“I prefer to keep it.”

“If we run into trouble, I can protect it better than you.”

“If we run into trouble, you’re going to change and lose your clothes.”

Good point
. “But I can change parts of me and keep the pants on.”

“Look here, John. If you want to kill me for it, go on and do it, but I am not giving you this key. Show me where it goes, and you can open it with me. There must be something in it for you, you can have that, but I get the documents pertaining to me. That’s all I want. Isn’t that fair enough?”