Hear Me When the Sun Goes Down (23 page)

“Good,” I sighed, tired, despite the infusion of Rob’s blood.  I wouldn’t last long with the sun rising overhead.  “I don’t think my sister would forgive me if I let you drink my blood.”

“I don’t think she much cares these days,” he muttered, losing the grin.

“She told me you guys split up.  I’m sorry, Mason.  I have to tell you, I did not see this one coming at all.  I thought you guys were making it work.”

“Me too.  One day we’re fine and the next… bam, she hits me right between the eyes.”

“And you hadn’t been fighting or anything at all?”

“No, not fighting.  I mean, I asked her to come away with me and she shot me down, but it wasn’t a fight.  I told her I understood.”  He shook his head and my heart went out to him.  It was plain to see how much he still loved her. 

“Maybe it has something to do with the new guy she’s seeing?”

Mason looked like I’d slapped him across the face, his mouth slack.  “She’s seeing a new guy?”

Frak…
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”  Me and my big mouth.

“No, she said she needed some space
, get back to a regular life again.  She didn’t mention anything about a…”  His face took on a resolved cant, and Mason sat up higher.  “What do we know about him?”

Something about that look made my Spidey senses tingle unpleasantly.  “Why?”

“Relax, I’m not gonna kill him.”

“Um
, good?”  The thought never crossed my mind, but it obviously had crossed his.

“I want to check him out though, to make sure he’s a stand up guy.”

That didn’t sound so bad.  In fact, if I hadn’t been so distracted, I might have thought of that myself.  “All I know is his name is Logan and they’re in Tahiti.”

“Okay… it’s not much, but it’s a start,” he nodded, his eyes lighting with purpose.  “If she’s in another country that means I can flag her passport and chances are
, he’ll be sitting with her on the plane…”

“Or I could call her and ask her about him,” I pointed out. 

“Fuck, I can’t flag anything, our HQ was blown to shit,” he recalled, his head slamming against the post as he looked up in irritation.  His face a mask of frustration, he banged his head against the post again, and again, freaking me out a little. 

“Try and calm down, get some rest.  We’ll figure it out, okay?”

“What?” Mason seemed to realize I was still there and he took a calming breath.  “Yeah, okay.  Look, it’s cool, I know this is what you wanted, a normal life for Hanna all along.”

“I did at first.  But I could see how much she loved you.”

“Not enough to come away with me,” he said miserably.

“A girl doesn’t like to be pressured.”

“And I’m not normally a pressuring type of guy, but you saw what it’s like out there. I wanted to get her away from all of this.  That’s all.”

A sneaking suspicion began to dawn on me.  “Did you um, did you offer to turn her?”  He wouldn’t look at me, his silence speaking volumes.  No wonder she flipped out.  “Oh
, Mason, how could you?  You of all people should know better than to offer something like that off the cuff, you know what the penalties are.”

“I figured you’d finagle the paperwork later, I didn’t think it’d be an issue,” he shrugged.

“She wouldn’t go for it though, huh?”

Mason shook his head, slumping lower. 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t say I’m not glad to see her retain her humanity.  I’m sorry you guys didn’t work out, but it’s true, I never wanted her mixed up in the vampire world.  Especially now when things are so messed up.  I never wanted this,” I gestured to Corazon, who looked like little more than a corpse in her death-like sleep, the wound in her abdomen healed, but still covered in sticky blood.  “I wanted the killing to stop, I didn’t want to paint a target on your backs.”

“Yeah well, people suck,” Mason grunted, his eyes drifting shut.

“I’m going to take care of this, I promise.” 

“I’m gonna hold you to that, sis.”

At least the rift between us had been healed, that was one good thing to come out of all the bloodshed. 

I’d always pictured a war council as something out of a
Lord of the Rings
movie.  A bunch of bearded elders sitting around a huge table, elegant, shining elves on the other side offering counsel, while demure women served steaming mead from mugs made of horn.

All things being equal, I liked my version better.     

We didn’t have elves, and none of us wore a beard, but as I faced the council in my dining room, at least the women present had more to say than
would you like another drink
?

In fact, I’d have to say the women in the room were the most vocal as we went back and forth about
how to stop the growing violence.  Anders didn’t say much throughout the meeting, mostly he stroked his moustache and looked worried.  Or maybe his coffee wasn’t sweet enough, I didn’t know him well enough to read his tells. 

Holt and Powell didn’t think it would do much good to address the public and ask for an end to the terrorist activities.  They argued it was the Order’s problem to deal with as they would. 

“Oh, we are doing something, make no mistake about that,” I snapped, when Powell shot down Cordelia’s idea to put a price on Byrne’s head.  “They blew up the Order, that’s not cool.”

“Is that a precedent we want to set?  We have no direct evidence against him,” Powell insisted.  “I still don’t see how this is our problem.”

“This is
absolutely
our problem.  Like it or not, there isn’t a functioning Order right now, and unless we want Rome sending a swarm of replacements, it’s up to us to take care of it.  That means besides sheltering anyone who needs it, we’ll also need to piggyback onto the official investigation to try and figure out who’s behind this thing.  Now that they’ve made such a public spectacle, we need to make sure no human looks too deeply.”

“I’ll get some people on it right away, boss,” Felix offered and I shot him a grateful smile. 

“Good, talk to Rob, he was going to get started with it last night.”

“I still think this is the Order’s problem, not ours,” Powel
l said, pushing back from the table.

“Good thing for us it’s not up to you,” Cordelia smiled sweetly.  “I can handle the media aspect of the investigation, make sure this story dies a fast death on all the outlets.”

“Great, that’s what I like to hear,” I nodded, glad I had her on my team. 

“What if we didn’t put out an open bounty on Byrne?” Durand suggested, his blue eyes gleaming.  “What if we put trackers on his trail?”  

“I’m listening,” I said, not quite sure what the distinction was. 

“Shifters?” Holt asked.

“Of course.”

We had werewolf trackers at our disposal?  Why hadn’t anyone told me before?  “Okay, that sounds like a good option, but no killing.  I agree, we don’t have any hard evidence on him.  I want him brought in for questioning only.”  Then I could compel him to knock it off, rat out all his accomplices and let him be on his merry way with a song in his heart. 

“I like it, but we still have a big problem looming over our heads,” Cordelia said and I nodded, on the same wavelength with her. 

“Once the door’s been opened, it’s hard to rein the crazy back in.  Especially when we don’t have the means to rein them in.” 

“Right,” Durand nodded.  “Even if we get Byrne off the streets, the faith in the Order’s been compromised.  Without them, we can’t maintain basic vampire law.  Without the law…”

“Chaos reigns,” Holt said, his mouth pressed into a grim line. 

Maybe it was time to bring up an idea that’d been cooking in the back of my brain since before my return from Vetis.  “This is something that came up on a larger scale at the Gathering.  What if we come up with our own Order, so to speak?”

“Our own police force?” Powell turned the idea over in his mind, not quite convinced.

“One we create with our own terms.  No Order looking over our shoulders, but safety and equality and the right to dispense justice as we see fit.”

Durand’s face lit up in excitement.  “This could work.” 

“Not quickly enough to police our streets,” Holt said, and I was inclined to agree with him.

“And not quick enough to save my friends,” I added.  “But we have to start somewhere.”

“It’s a good idea,” Cordelia nodded.  “I think it merits looking into.” 

Thankfully, I saw other murmurs of assent around the table.  Not that I couldn’t have made it a decree, I supposed, but it was better to have the council behind it to make it work.  “Great, you look into it,
and I’ll see what I can do to stop the violence in the meantime.”

“What are you gonna do, boss?” Felix asked after the last of the council had filed out, each armed with specific tasks aimed at damage control.

“What’s the point in having a sugar daddy if I can’t call in a favor when I want one?”

* * *

“You do know where Jakob lives, right?” I asked Gunnar after he swore at the dash mounted GPS for the third time.  With my limited German, it sounded like he hated pig-dogs or something equally ridiculous. 

“Yes, I know the address, but not the machine.  The machine keeps trying to send me on the goose chase,” he shook his head irritably. 

“Turn left at the end of the block, three streets up then another left,” Rob said brusquely, head turned away from me to look out the window.  We hadn’t spoken much since last night’s incident, and apart from a quick check on my guests upstairs and the addition of Frost to the party, I’d been too busy with the council to think much about it.  More than anything I wanted to take him aside and see how he felt about what transpired in the attic, but we didn’t have that luxury, so I kept my head in the game and concentrated on what I’d say to Jakob. 

“That’s it there, the gray building on the corner.” 

Gunnar pulled up in front of the ten story building that occupied the entire corner of Pacific and Laguna. 

“Which one is his?”  I craned my neck to get a better look at it.  Only a few sporadic windows were illuminated except for the top floor that was ablaze with light.  

Rob came around to open my door.  “The whole thing.”

“Holy guacamole…” I gasped.  Why would anyone need so much space?  There had to be room for at least four ginormous apartments or condos on each floor, probably more like six or eight.  “How much do you think a place like this goes for?”

“Couldn’t say for sure,” he shrugged.  “Went for nearly four mil when he bought the place in sixty-nine.”

I stopped in my tracks, making my security team a little antsy.  “Shut the front door.  Four million dollars?”  I gaped up at the building again.  The architectural details over the arched entrance were exquisite.  The place had to be worth twenty times that in today’s market, easy. 

“You could have a place this size if you wanted.”

“What for?”  I could house everyone I knew in it and still have room to open up a bowling alley on the ground floor.  “I prefer our place, it’s so much more cozy and homey.”

“I believe that was Jakob’s thinking when he bought it for you,” Rob pointed out discreetly. 

For us.
  He’d bought it for us to share, and I wouldn’t even invite Jakob in.  Something to consider when I went to see him, hat in hand to beg for help.  I might have to break my own rule to get what I needed for the good of the community. 

Inside the arched doors opened up to a grand entrance with twenty foot ceilings, the polished marble floors in an intricate basket weave pattern of light brown and gold.  A gleaming mahogany desk waited straight ahead, reminding me of a hotel reception counter.  Only instead of a concierge, two heavily armed men waited, their eyes sharp, but not overtly aggressive.  Both vampires.  Neither Rob nor Gunnar looked ill at ease in their presence, so I tried not to feel too nervous with all that firepower on display. 

“Hello, I’m here to see Jakob, please.”

“Chip?”  The one on the right held out a portable scanner and I obliged, offering my left wrist. 

“Anja Gudrun,” he read off.  “Welcome, your grace.  Rob,” he nodded, and then held the scanner up to Gunnar, making a note on the console when he was finished. 

“It’s Anja Evans,” I corrected him.  Jeez, I needed to get that fixed.  “Is he in?”

The guy tapped on the keys, updating my file, or maybe ordering a pizza for all I knew.  “Is he expecting you?”

“
No, not exactly.” 

“Just a moment, please.”  Raising his cuff to his lips, just like in the movies, he held a hushed conversation with another guard deeper in the building.  It was easy enough to hear both sides of the conversation, and I quickly gathered that Jakob was indeed in, and delighted to receive me. 

“We’ll escort you up at once,” the guard smiled more openly now, guiding us to the gilt elevator.  Another guard took over once the doors slid open, conducting us to the top floor and down the hall to an enormous pair of double doors that swung open with a swish of air as we drew close, like those automatic doors at the supermarket.  Cool beans. 

The interior of Jakob’s living quarters were surprisingly modern, with smooth wooden floors stained a deep espresso brown and creamy white walls.  The beams overhead had been treated with a metallic silver, the glow of recessed lighting stretching the entire length of the open concept room in a grid-like pattern.  In contrast, the furniture was plush and overstuffed, in soft buttery leathers and velvets, designed for comfort as well as style. 

Jakob reclined by the gas fireplace, wearing a pair of ancient blue jeans, as supple as the couch he lounged on.  His white button up shirt was open at the throat, exposing an expanse of deeply tanned skin and a kiss of golden hair to match the locks that fell across his shoulders.  His feet were bare, sunk into the deep pile of lambskin that served as a rug.  Despite his casual wear I felt underdressed in my simple black swing dress and kitten heels, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

Instead of rising to greet me, Jakob stayed right where he was, an arm stretched across the back of the sofa.  “This is a pleasant surprise, petal.  Welcome to my home.”

“Thanks for having me,” I smiled back, moving deeper into the living room, noticing for the first time that Gunnar had stayed back in the hallway with the other security guy.  Jakob’s blue eyes flashed with amusement, and I realized he found my response titillating.  “I, um… this is a nice place you have here.”

“It suits my needs,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug.  “Come and sit by the fire with me.”  Jakob patted the seat beside him, and I started forward, Rob taking up a post by one of the many arched windows.  “Rob, you may go,” he added, but Rob stood his ground.

“I don’t leave her side, that’s the rule,” he said stubbornly.  What did he think was going to happen?  It wasn’t like he’d be able to do much if Jakob tried something.

“Very
amusing, Rob,” Jakob chuckled.  “You may find a sense of humor yet.  You may wait in the lounge, I’ll ring for you when I have need of you.”

I nodded in agreement, what I had to talk about would probably go smoother without him present. 

“As you wish.”  Rob gave a half bow, leaving without another word.

“And now,
älskling
, you will tell me what has changed your mind since we last spoke.  Have you come to apologize?”

I bit down on my tongue to keep from saying something suicidal.  Hard.  Smiling against the sting as I tasted my own blood, I nodded, blinking rapidly until the indignant anger faded enough to respond.  I’d been prepared to eat crow on the subject, I just hadn’t expected him to be such a jerkwad about it. 

“Yes,” I nodded.  “Yes, I do apologize.  It was wrong of me to criticize your addition to the ceremony.  I should’ve been honored by your sacrifice.” 
Eewh, eewh, ick!
  Inside I choked over the words, but I delivered them without stumbling. 

“I knew you would come to see it my way,” he flashed white teeth, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to pull me close for a kiss to the temple.  “I forgive you your impertinence.”

“Thank you,” I responded with another thin smile, my teeth clamping down again.  If this kept up, my tongue was going to look like tenderized beef by the time the night was over. 

“I am glad to hear you say these things.  In truth, I do not like it when we fight.” 

“Neither do I.” 
Not a lie.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for us to be friends.” 

His smile dimmed somewhat at the last word.  “Then you have not come to seek a deepening of our friendship to what it was before?”

“Actually, I was hoping to get your advice on a problem that’s come up.  I knew someone of your vast experience would be the best person to come to, and I admit, I’m at the end of my rope.  Without your help, I have no idea how to fix this.”  Okay, so I was laying it on thick, but my morals felt a lot better about flattering him than seducing him to get what I needed. 

Good thing he bought it, his brow creasing with concern.  “You have only to tell me your troubles,
älskling
, and I will move Heaven and Earth to resolve them for you.”