Chapter Four
Angie
The convo had gone on for an hour, as the three of us had drawn conflicting conclusions (all probably erroneous), addressed possibilities, and realized that, though Walter was likely being hunted, we had nothing.
When dealing with fangheads, my precog was seldom up to the layered intentions, plans, and history of the vampire world, a world where betrayal and violence could lie buried for decades, only to explode at the slightest cause.
And sometimes the glimpses I saw meant something totally different from what the reality became.
This particular knowing had been useless: overlapping images of a snowstorm, a body leaping between buildings, and a large patch of bloody snow covered by body parts.
At eight p.m. I called it a night. My brother might have annoyed me when he told me how I’d spend the rest of the evening, but he had also been right.
I went to my one-bedroom apartment on the floor above the office, fed the cats, and walked out onto the balcony for a half hour of cold-weather yoga to clear my mind.
When I was done, my body was loose and limber but my brain, stimulated by the icy wind, was whirling with possibilities.
Nothing on the sat-vid looked interesting, and I’d been at a stalemate on a new version of the family’s reverse hedge working for months.
I dropped on the sofa, pillows bouncing, and said, “Ojos, camera view, fourth floor.” If the cams hadn’t been set to private, I could at least be entertained by EJ and Walter sparring.
The cats meandered over, tails in the air, looking bored and disinterested and utterly catty.
Aurora jumped on the coffee table and began cleaning her nether regions, one hind leg in the air, like an impossible yoga move; Borealis leaped to the sofa arm and curled into a loose ball of long hair, positioned just out of reach, as if to say, You want to pet me.
I know it. But it will be on my terms. She yawned, to push the point home.
On the screen, where the security cams were still running in the system, Walter walked into the fourth-floor gym, a bottle of red wine in one hand. That was new. He also was still wearing street clothes and slippers, instead of changing into a jujitsu gi.
Interesting. I should make popcorn…or go watch in person.
Walter padded silently across the room, set the wards on the lower three floors to full power, and activated the outer doors on low mode, so the tenants could come and go with their security swipes.
In the stainless steel kitchen, he opened the bottle of red and left it to breathe, before he opened the steel shutters at the front of the building to let in Chattanooga’s night lights.
He stood, gazing out into the darkness. In a human, I might have thought he was feeling pensive, but he was a vamp, so who knows.
He decanted the wine, set out two glasses, and made himself comfortable on the leather sofa facing the doorway and the wall screen.
The invisi-windows—windows that let in light and allowed those inside to see out but obscured everything inside from prying eyes—were to his left and his right.
The workout space with its sparring rings and the wall of practice swords was behind him, and vamp-friendly mirrored walls were here and there where structural needs permitted.
He could see himself in these mirrors, if he wished.
The mirrors were a new invention for vampires, and many of them spent an inordinate amount of time posing in front of them.
Walter glanced at himself once in a while.
He put his slippered feet on the coffee table and crossed his ankles. But he didn’t breathe. His heart didn’t beat. If I touched him, his skin would be ambient room temp.
Walter had dark brown skin, deep brown eyes, an aquiline nose, full lips.
His black hair was styled in stand-up locks, though I had seen pics of him with a headful of wild curls.
Most people wouldn’t consider him beautiful because of the brand on his left cheek.
WY. Burned into him when he was still a human slave child and had tried to run away.
I was careful to remark on little he did or said that might expose that private part of himself.
EJ? EJ liked to poke the bear.
Like all vamps, Walter should look no older now than the day he was turned.
I had seen pics of him as a newish vamp.
He was harder, more chiseled, more insular, and colder now than then.
Then, he’d simply looked terrified. Tonight, he appeared casual, friendly, and pleasant, and not at all as if he was going to spar with EJ.
I studied the brand on his cheek, a small WY, burned into him by his owner. His dossier from the time of his slavery in Jamaica was one page, but all slavery was a particular bit of hell.
He put the game on. The Chargers were playing the Houston Texans—stupid name for a sports team—and the experts were evaluating both teams.
Walter had once informed us that NFL football was nothing compared to the ferocity and brutality of the war games he had played as a young vampire, and even held no comparison to the unprotected violence of rugby.
But the strategy, the emotional manipulation applied by the coaches, and the human players’ reactions and resilience were “worthy of study for anyone who prepares to lead others into any form of battle.” Walter preferred single combat and hand-to-hand fighting, but that was for fun.
Battle strategy was an entirely different game.
Were wine and street clothes a new strategy?
The door opened and EJ walked in, wearing soft, thin sweatpants and a loose sleeveless vest over a tight T-shirt.
He wasn’t wearing a gi either, so he must have checked in with the cam too.
My redheaded brother looked fit and annoyed as he took in Walter and the wine, glanced at the wall screen, noted the game, and stared at the small red light that indicated I was watching.
EJ said, “It occurs to me you could have challenged Willim Yorath to Sangre Duello at the Queen’s reception and killed the man who tortured you.”
“EJ, you’re an idiot,” I said to my brother.
Walter’s voice went hard and quiet. “Yes, Evan Junior. I could have. I chose not to do so at that time.” He took a sip of wine before he continued, almost as if his mouth was dry with unaccustomed emotion.
“Why are you poking the bear now?” I said to the screen. “About this?”
I didn’t bother to shove my feet into slippers.
Ojos was still recording as I raced out the door, barefooted, audio playing on my unicom.
I took the stairs to the fourth floor, setting an obfuscation working, making it hard to notice me, and a silence working, in case this was guy-talk and my physical presence would stop the conversation, and slipped in the door to the gym room.
“Willim was my Mithran sire,” Walter said, sharing something that was redacted in his file. “Willim was the vampire who forced himself upon me for decades until the British Empire freed slaves in 1833.” With a clink, Walter placed a glass on the low table between them.
EJ said, “And he hasn’t seen you since.”
Some small something made me think my brother knew more than that.
“Nor shall he see me ever again, except to die. The next time we meet, I will challenge him to Sangre Duello, and I will take his head. Such a challenge would have been imprudent at the reception for Edmund of Europe.”
“And rude.”
“Rude. Yes. It would have been rude. And bloodied the Dark Queen’s beautiful wooden floors.” His tone was sardonic and dry.
“And Ivyanna Holmes? She’s beautiful,” EJ said. “Did you…know her?”
Meaning did he sleep with her or drink from her or both back when Walter had lived wild and not been shackled to the Everhart-Truebloods through his agreement with the queen? I wanted to swat my brother.
Walter’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Her timeline and mine did not synchronize. I know her only by reputation and research. She was Willim’s blood servant for a year, or so it is said. And though she is beautiful, she is a snake in the grass, the kind of woman who eats men alive.”
With a kip, Walter threw his entire body into the air, spun while horizontal. And kicked my brother in the face. I stopped dead, my back to the door.
I had always known EJ wasn’t as innocent as he pretended, that he harbored secrets as violent as my own, maybe more so.
But EJ made a move that rocked my own head back in shock.
The instant of Walter’s kick, EJ’s face closed down in a flash of something beyond instinct and action/reaction.
In that same fraction of a second, EJ took a single step back, angled his body, and stretched back his head.
The black silk of Walter’s slipper brushed his cheek.
As the foot swished by him, still at an impossible angle, EJ raised his arm and caught Walter’s ankle.
The momentum of the kick pulled EJ into the motion. Closer. He slammed his other fist into Walter’s crotch. Missed. Caught only his inner thigh.
Dropped the ankle. Still using the kick’s momentum, EJ delivered a fist into Walter’s kidney.
I flinched as I heard a rib break.
Walter oofed out a breath. Caught his weight on one hand, arm outstretched. Rolled across it. Kicked to free himself and landed on his feet. Attacked instantly.
EJ blocked twice. Stepped into a kick. EJ grabbed Walter’s thigh in the soft inner tissue. Delivered a fist to Walter’s throat.
“Holy catfight, Batman,” I whispered.
Walter leaped back. “Where in the fires of hell did you learn that one, boy?” he demanded, his face in a dead rictus of a grin. He pressed fingers to his throat. “If I’d been human that would have taken me out.”
EJ said simply, “Uncle Eli taught me that one after the war.”
“A sneaky bastard, Eli is. I like it. Show me again.”