Authors: Kimberly Frost
“I told you! He doesn’t do anything without a reason. He’s gotta be bangin’ her.”
“Well, if he was, it’s over now. He’ll have to make do with a replacement.”
Cato held up a hand as the girl tipped her head to the side and exposed the smooth skin over her carotid artery. “No matter how good she tastes, it won’t be the same. Muse blood is like ventala springwater. I haven’t had a single pang of thirst since I drank from that bitch.”
“Yeah,” Tamberi said. “Me either.”
Merrick took in everything about her in a few seconds. The neck wasn’t as long. The eyes were darker blue. The nose was perfect, but the entire face was a little wider. The tiny dimple in the left cheek when she smiled was missing, and the teeth were different—smaller. The haircut and color was spot-on, but how hard was that to fake?
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Merrick asked.
She widened her eyes and smiled. “It’s Alissa.”
“Sure it is. So, Alissa, whose discovery do you think had the bigger impact on public health, Snow’s or Fleming’s?”
“I— Well, they both made important contributions.”
“Sure. How about this century? Do you expect the most important developments to be electronic or ecological?”
The girl didn’t answer even though Merrick had fed her the exact questions that Alissa North had answered and discussed on multiple occasions. There were hundreds of available sound bites from interviews she’d given over the years. Anyone who’d done any kind of prep work for the role of Alissa North should’ve been able to parrot back Alissa’s answers.
The voice was wrong as well. Too high. The skin was
wrong. It didn’t smell as fresh and the tint wasn’t as pale and creamy as the real thing.
A copy, but not a very good one.
She moved close to him and pressed her palms against his chest. “You don’t actually care about those things, do you? I bet we could find some more interesting topics to talk about. Or not. Talking is overrated.”
He dipped his head so that his mouth was near her ear. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m here on business. Why don’t you run along and let Victor know that I’m leaving in five minutes whether I’ve heard what he has to say or not.”
The girl threw him a wounded look as she strode out of the room.
There were a lot of girls having their faces cut to look like Alissa North’s, but the syndicate wouldn’t invest in creating a ringer as a novelty item. They had a reason. Merrick suspected the Alissa look-alike had been part of their insurance policy. The girl didn’t have muse magic and wasn’t a good enough impersonator to send anywhere as a live copy, which meant they’d intended for her to turn up as a body. If Alissa North were dead, no one would look for her, and Cato Jacobi could have kept her as a pet for as long as he wanted. At that thought, Merrick clenched his jaws and glanced in the direction of the hall. If Cato wandered by, Merrick would cheerfully bust every bone in the asshole’s body.
Don’t get distracted. There’s more to this than just keeping her as a blood whore.
If Jacobi and the syndicate had kept Alissa North prisoner long-term, someone in the Varden would have found out. Rumors would have eventually filtered back to Etherlin Security, who would have certainly investigated. Maybe the syndicate had planned to move Alissa outside the Varden?
Merrick’s thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the head of the ventala syndicate. At five foot six, a hundred and fifty pounds, Victor Jacobi didn’t look like much. Plenty of fools had underestimated him and ended up with their windpipes crushed.
“Merrick, it’s good to see you,” Victor said, briefly clasping
Merrick’s hand between both of his before moving around his desk and sitting.
“And you.”
“Sit,” Victor said with a gesture.
Merrick sat in the large leather chair across from Victor’s desk and waited.
“So here we are,” Victor said. “I remember when you came to see me when you were seventeen. We were having that problem in Puma Park. Five murders and nobody could catch the bastard. You said if I paid you, you’d take care of it for me, and I could be the hero who hired you.” Victor laughed. “Cocky little bastard. So skinny you could’ve fallen through a crack in the sidewalk.”
“That was my secret. I turned sideways, and the quarry couldn’t see me coming.”
Victor barked out another laugh. “You didn’t look like much back then, but the eyes don’t lie, and you had it—that stare the old vampires have.”
Victor knew Merrick wouldn’t consider that a compliment, but Merrick stayed with his back resting casually against the chair.
“I think maybe that’s why you always wear sunglasses around humans. So they don’t see it.”
“What can I do for you, Victor?”
“We go all the way back, Merrick. You’re an asset that I brought into the syndicate. I’m sentimental about that kind of thing.”
Merrick smirked. Snakes were more sentimental than Victor.
“Which is why I’d really hate to kill you.”
Merrick’s expression didn’t change. No need to get agitated when they were just getting started with this dance. If Victor had made up his mind to have Merrick killed, he would never have let Merrick into his office where he’d be too likely to take Victor to hell with him.
“Conversations are like drinking packaged blood: the longer it takes to go down, the worse it tastes,” Merrick said. “If there’s a problem you want me to fix, lay it out.”
“We know you took the girl from Cato’s balcony. You can
deny it, but c’mon, Merrick. Nobody else is that smooth. Get into his territory, put the guards down, get the girl, and get out. Practically blending with the shadows? Plus, there’s the way you move. With such economy, like an animal or a machine. No motion wasted. You probably don’t even know you do it, but it’s your signature as sure as your palm print or that vampire stare most ventala don’t have.”
Merrick waited. Something was coming, but Merrick wasn’t sure what.
“Two things I don’t know. The first is why.” Victor rested his arms on his desk and leaned forward. “Why do it? You’re a stubborn, cocky son-of-a-bitch, but you’re not a troublemaker, Merrick. Not without reason.
“And the second thing is, after you had her, how did you put her back in her house without anybody on her side of the wall finding out?”
“I’m still waiting to hear what you want done.”
Victor sighed. “See, this is why the rest of the syndicate wants to kill you. You never come on board. You’re always out there on your own, keeping secrets, breaking rules like they don’t apply to you. You’ve got this idea that you’re above everyone else and don’t have to answer to anyone. That’s just not true, Merrick. For that to be true, you’d have to kill me and take over everything. But then to run things, you’d have to have meetings and make conversation for more than ten minutes at a time, which is about nine minutes more than you can stand.”
Merrick glanced at the pearl-handled letter opener and wondered if putting it through Victor’s hand would make him get to the point or at least end the meeting. Out of habit from his enforcer days, Merrick followed that line of thinking, speculating on how he’d get out of the secure building after a hit.
Victor would alert security. Guards would take about three minutes to come through the door. Plenty of time for Merrick to create an exit. If he swung the desk chair hard enough at the plate-glass window, he’d shatter it. He’d get to the roof using the cable concealed in his belt. Take out the sniper on the Infi building to get control of his gun. Then shoot—
“Why did you want your own territory, Merrick?”
Idly, Merrick again glanced at the letter opener.
“The more I think about it, the less sense it makes,” Victor continued. “You’ve never wanted roots. You make more money as a boss, but you don’t spend like you need it. Enforcing paid for your suits and then some. There’s power in being a regional boss, but what do you need it for? As an enforcer, you were like a rock star; girls threw themselves at you from sundown to sunrise. So why the hell did you fight for and pay so much for what used to be the most filth-infested piece of the Varden?”
Merrick rested his hands lightly on the arms of the chair and thought about his reason. There were six-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets on all the beds in his apartment because skin as soft as Alissa North’s shouldn’t be wrapped in anything less. The odds of her ever being in his place had been long, but sometimes fortune favors the prepared mind. It was how Fleming had discovered penicillin.
Merrick had wanted a permanent address so she had a place to send her letters. And so that if she’d ever wanted to slip in through an open window, there would be one for her to come through.
“I think you wanted that territory because you found a way in and out of the Etherlin. I think you wanted to seduce and drink the blood of the world’s next crowned muse. You’re just arrogant enough to think you could pull that off. And maybe you did pull it off, because it took you less than two minutes to figure out the girl in this office wasn’t her. How would you know that unless you’ve been up close and personal with the real thing?”
Merrick gave the letter opener serious consideration. If the syndicate started prying into his relationship with Alissa North, she would end things immediately. Of that, Merrick had no doubt. He contemplated ways to divert their attention from her.
“You know her, don’t you? So help me, Merrick. If you hold out on us where a muse is concerned, there will be hell to pay.”
Merrick leveled a stare at Victor, then raised a brow.
“You’re right. I seduced Alissa North. Went right past the Etherlin Security command post, the security cameras, into her house and convinced her to ruin her life and give up her bid for the Wreath that all the muses would kill for.
“Since that night, I smuggle her in and out of the Varden all the time. Nobody from her side ever notices she’s gone. We use the piled-pillows-under-the-covers trick to fool the staff. Works every time. Etherlin Security and the hundreds of people in the club and on the street outside my building never notice her coming or going because no one pays very close attention to what Alissa North does or where she goes.
“As a precaution, sometimes I turn her invisible. Having unlimited power comes in handy. People say it makes me cocky. I don’t see it,” Merrick said. “Since you and I go way back, I’ll confess my identity. I’m the sits-on-high, betrayed-by-my-favorite-angels creator of heaven and earth.” Merrick stared coolly at Victor. “You can call me God for short.”
Victor blinked and then roared with laughter.
Merrick stood and stretched his legs.
“Not so fast.”
“I like you, Victor. Don’t make me smite you.”
“Hey, we’re not done,” Victor said, grabbing Merrick’s arm.
Merrick slammed Victor into his chair, then adjusted his shirt cuffs. He stared Victor down, all humor gone from his voice when he spoke. “We are done. We were done before you asked any questions. You say you know me, but you don’t act like it. If you knew me, you’d have realized something by now.” Merrick paused. “I don’t apologize, and I don’t explain.”
Victor’s face turned to stone. “I know it was you on that balcony.”
Merrick shrugged. “So?”
“Cato and the syndicate have to be compensated or you have to die. That’s what we’re left with, and for the—”
“How much?” Merrick demanded.
“It’s not just the money. You have to return the girl.”
Merrick laughed.
Victor held up a hand. “Don’t answer. I want you to think about it. You can get in there. You’ve done it before.”
“I can get in. Myself, alone. I can’t get her out.”
“Take some time. You’ll think of a way.”
“What is this about? This isn’t about Cato scoring the ultimate blood slave.”
“No, it’s not. The syndicate needs her for something.”
“What?”
Victor shook his head. “Can’t tell you that.”
“She hasn’t won the Wreath yet, so you don’t have to have the lead muse. You could use another muse in her place.”
“She’s the only one without family. All the rest, even if there’s a scandal and the community rejects them, they have family—people who will want them back. She’s the only one who doesn’t have anyone.”
Yes, she fucking does. She has the most dangerous protector of all. Me.
“Her father’s alive.”
“The guy’s lost it. He’s ready for an institution. He won’t be a problem for us afterward. That’s why she’s the right choice. She’s alone. And if you’ve got some connection to her, that just makes it easier. You can lure her here.”
“Tell me what you want her for.”
“Not a chance, but I will offer this. She can stay with you. You’ll keep her until we need her. And afterward, you can have her back.”
Merrick paused, tempted by the thought of having her to himself for good. But of course, he wasn’t going to share her with the syndicate. Not for a day. Not for an hour. Not for a second.
“Think it over. Because if you don’t do it, we’ll kill you, and when we get her without your help, she goes back to Cato.”
Alissa slept for several hours and felt better when she woke, until she remembered that she’d agreed to leave the Etherlin. What if Theo Tobin was luring her outside the wall so that Cato Jacobi could abduct her?
The Sliver was a small stretch of four city blocks that lay between the Varden and the Etherlin. When the wall around the Etherlin had been built, the owner of the Sliver had declined to be enclosed within it, fearing that he would lose control of his property. Later however, as the ventala bought and took control of everything west of him, he regretted being outside the wall. His children and grandchildren had become attorneys and police officers and fought to keep the area ventala free. No Sliver real estate had ever been sold, rented, or leased to the ventala, so it was considered neutral territory where visiting humans from around the world who couldn’t attain access to the Etherlin directly could stay in hopes of gaining the security clearance needed to get inside and meet a muse.
Although ventala weren’t welcomed as residents of the Sliver, they could stay in the hotels and visit the bars there, so it would be possible for Cato Jacobi to lay a trap for her.