Authors: Michele Drier
“For that matter, I wonder if the Chechens, Mafiosi, gangs or terrorists know who they’re working for.” He turned to Nikoly. “Let’s make sure we ask the one downstairs, and do a little disinformation as well. We’ll tell him that the Huszars never leave any traces of activities. All their ‘employees’ are used for food.”
Nik smiled a smile I wouldn’t want to be the object of. “That may cut down on their recruitment success.”
“You’re wandering off the subject. Was anyone still alive? Did any of our demons get hurt?”
“We didn’t leave anyone alive in the house. We have one Chechen and one Huszar...oh, and Markov, downstairs.”
Markov, where did I know that name from? I had it. Markov was a low-ranking Huszar who’d been recruited by Karoly and was one of the Huszar dissidents.
“I thought Markov was a member of Karoly’s group. Did he go back to following Matthais?”
Nik shook his head. “We’ve been working closely here with him. He’s one of those who tipped us to the probability the Huszars were behind the girls’ disappearance. He gave us a detailed plan of Leonid’s house so we didn’t go in blind.
“And to repay him, he’s the one we took to hold for ransom. That will strengthen his ties with Matthais.”
Sandor tapped at the door. Jean-Louis said ,”Come” and the demon came in followed by two servants carrying trays.
“I know you haven’t eaten since last night,” he said to me, “and I need to take in a lot more to heal quickly. The IVs last night were wonderful, but my body is using energy at a fierce pace. Let’s talk and eat.”
He and Nik had borscht, steak tartre and Bull’s Blood. I got a clear consommé, fish with a delicate lemon sauce and some vegetables. No alcohol, I just wanted water. Last night took more out of me than I realized.
Jean-Louis practically gulped his borscht then slowed down and sipped his Bulls’ Blood. “We got separated with all the shooting. I could hear Nik yelling orders at the demons, then there were some grenade explosions. At this point, I didn’t know who was dead or alive. I’d been hit with a piece of shrapnel and knew my face was bleeding. Nik finally yelled ‘Here. Down here’. I followed his voice and found him and four demons at the head of stairs down to the basement. We flew down and there was another door, steel, guarded by a couple of Chechens who didn’t last long. Before one died, though, he smashed my hand with his gun butt as I was reaching to put some plastique on the door.”
“Jean-Louis has to get every lick in.” Nik’s words were kidding and his tone was reverence and love. These men had been friends, family, comrades-in-arms for many. many years and the affection between them was clear.
“Once the door blew off, we saw that the girls, the young women, had been packed into a small room. There were sets of bunk beds, a single toilet, it looked like a prison cell.”
“Were the women alive?” I was imaging the abject fear and terror they must have felt. I’m not claustrophobic, but being in some place, trapped, with no way to tell where I was gave me the frights.
Both men nodded. “They were alive. That’s about all they were.” Jean-Louis closed his eyes.
“They’d been drugged,” Nik said. “We don’t know with what. A couple of them had marks, bites, on their necks so they’d been food for the Huszars. We don’t think they’ve been turned yet, but we’re keeping an eye on them.”
“Keeping an eye on them? Where are they?”
Jean-Louis smiled as Nik said, “You were out of it last night. Just as well, you didn’t see or hear anything. It keeps you innocent if there’s any blowback.
“When Jean-Louis and I came out the door of Leonid’s, the demons were carrying the girls out the back. They loaded them into the assault vehicle—and I’m glad we didn’t have to use it any more than that—and brought them here.”
“They’re here?”
Nik looked please with himself. “Yes, we have them safe and comfortable in a couple of guest houses. They’ve been checked over by the doctor. No permanent effects, other than a few marks that will fade quickly.”
“But how can you have them here? Won’t they be found? Won’t they tell everyone what happened?”
“No, no one will ever know. We’ve given them a drug that produces selective amnesia. They’ll remember who they are, they’ll remember their families and they’ll have all their memories intact right up to when they were grabbed.”
It sounded like a plausible and sensible plan, until I remembered the inferno.
“What about Leonid’s house? It was lighting up the whole neighborhood when we left. Surely someone saw that fire and called the authorities.”
Boys and their adventures. Jean-Louis smiled. “Well, we lit it and we certainly hoped someone called. That was a big part of our plan. When the firefighters got there, they found the remains of a huge battle between two rival gangs. There were bodies on the grounds, naked and with no identification. We know they were weres. The Ukrainian cops think they were stripped by the Chechens so they couldn’t be ID’d.
“Inside the house, the bodies were badly burned, but one of them was identified as a Chechen chief through tattoos. Voila! A shootout that meant a bunch of gangsters had gotten rid of each other. Everybody’s happy.”
There were just a couple of points I didn’t understand.
“What about Leonid? It’s his house. Was he killed?”
“Oddly enough, he went out of town earlier that day. One of his servants confessed that he was being blackmailed by the Chechens and forced to let them use Leonid’s house for a high-level parlay. Their rivals, probably Russian Mafiosi, got wind of it and laid on an ambush. Which, as we know, went horribly wrong.” Jean-Louis could hardly contain his glee.
I turned to Nik. “You’re the one who has to live here. Won’t there be repercussions? Won’t Leonid be after you?”
“Probably not much more than before. He’s been recalled by Matthais and I’m sure is getting a stern talking to. When he gets back, he’ll be more vigilant but less likely to try something so public again. The Chechens are royally pissed, I imagine, losing so many of their own. Plus having this fight plastered all over the media.”
“The media! I forgot all about the SNAP business card.”
“Hmmmmm. Somebody called the SNAP Bureau Chief, Taras, while the firefight was going on and a crew from SNAP was right behind the firefighters at the scene. If SNAP is remembered in this whole thing, it’s more likely to be as the media that broke the story.”
Chapter Thirty-six
It seemed like Nik and Jean-Louis had handily managed everything. I wrote a mental note not to cross them.
A maid came in quietly to remove the remains of dinner. Jean-Louis was looking better and better. I knew that food and rest were the best remedies for healing but with him, I could almost watch the tissues regrowing and bones knitting.
How did he do that?
He and Nik exchanged a look again and then he smiled at me lazily, like a cat curling up before a fire. “I told you we had benefits.”
“You did it again! You read my thought. That makes me crazy. OK, as long as we’re there, how do you do that.”
“I told you, practice patience, keep yourself open to all forms of communication...”
“No, that that! The healing. I can practically see the cells replicating and you getting stronger. That mark on your face. When you came in tonight, it was a red line, now it’s disappeared. Nobody heals that fast. “
The two vampires all but giggled.
“What’s so funny? I asked you a perfectly civil question.”
Jean-Louis tried to put a sober expression on and failed. “It’s always such a treat to see a regular when they witness this for the first time. We’re not exactly sure how it happens. It just does. We think it has to do with getting nutrients through blood, it allows cells to reproduce quickly. And this.” He held up his right hand and I could see that the bruising was gone and the swelling decreased. “I think that by tomorrow or the next day, the bones will be healed.”
My mind was swimming. Last night I thought he might die. And I was sure that he’d lost all use of his hand. Tonight, he had almost no trace of his horrendous injuries.
“I told you we have benefits. We can come back to them again, if you still have questions.”
Did I have questions? Lord yes, I’d always have questions about this vampire and his life. I was so confused and astounded that most times I couldn’t even articulate what I wanted to know. He
was
an onion. And every time I peeled off a layer, a new one popped up. I’d never get to the core and I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. Part of the allure, the overwhelming charm of this man was his unknowingness, his constant surprises and his otherness.
“Yes, I can come back to them. For now, what’s going to happen next?”
“If you mean with the Huszars, we’re going home and call a war council. The Baron and I, Nik, Francois, Bela, Milos, Pen, Carola, a few more. Maybe it’s time that Stefan and I talked about Felix and what we know. Our plan of assimilation with the dissidents isn’t moving fast enough to keep us out of these skirmishes.”
“I agree.” Nik headed toward the door. “These are just part of a war of attrition, trying to wear us down. We need to take a position of offense, bring this home to Matthais. I’m going down to make sure our guests are ready to leave. The girls will be taken to spots close to their homes. They’ll be found, safe, with no memory of what happened to them. Makov and the other Huszar will get shipped to Hungary tonight. As soon as Jean-Louis gets home, he’ll arrange for talks of reparation.”
When the door closed on Nik’s back, Jean-Louis reached out and stroked my face. “The other thing that’s going to happen next is that I’m going to make love to you for a long, long time. Right now, that’s the best healing tool I can think of.”
As he traced his fingers down my neck and over my breast, I quivered. “Oh my love, I was so afraid I’d lost you.”
“You haven’t and you won’t. Come lie next to me and let me show you how well I’m healing.”
I took care pulling his shirt off and stared at his chest. Last night there were two gaping wounds where the Chechen’s bullets had hit. Tonight there were two red, indented spots. I touched one. “Does that hurt?”
“No, not hurt. It’s tender, like I imagine a bruise would be on you.”
“I tried to tell them not to move you last night but they flipped you over on your stomach. That can’t have been good for you. Do you know why they did that?”
He smiled at me. “I love that you were trying to protect me. It’s standard to look at the back, to see if there are exit wounds. It’s good if there are, it means the bullets passed through. They wouldn’t have to poke around inside looking for one.”
I was resting my head on his chest and lifted up to ask him something that never got said. Instead, his mouth came down on mine so hard it took my breath away. Then my body responded. My mouth fell open to try and absorb all the hunger and desire that was in his kiss, I wrapped my arms around him and he rolled me over on my back. He broke off the kiss, pulled up to look at me and I felt a tremor run through his body.
He nestled his head between my breasts and began kissing me as he worked his way down my body. This time, the tremor was mine and I couldn’t stop it until we both collapsed.
What seemed like hours later, I finally got my thoughts to coalesce around what I wanted to ask.
“You keep telling me that you can’t read minds, that it’s all careful observations and recognition of body language. But I’ve seen you and Nik. You communicate with each other and you both seem to know what’s on my mind, even when I try to keep still.”
His voice said, “I know”. His mouth never moved. Now this was freaky. I knew he had some telekenetic communication skills.
“See, you just did it! And at Leonid’s house, I started to go find you when all the shooting started and your voice said ‘Stay’, but you weren’t around.”
This time he looked at me and smiled. “You’re right. I wanted to wait to tell, or maybe show, you this. As a regular, your mind was closed to much of our knowledge. You wouldn’t have understood, or been able to manage our techniques. Now, you’ve been around us, me, enough to see and learn some things. That command at Leonid’s house was a test. If you’d gone ahead and started toward the house, the demon had orders to pick you up and restrain you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? “
“It’s not all of a piece. When I talked to you about observation, I meant it. We don’t have the ability to just speak to people in our heads. There are certain levels of telekentic communication that we have with certain people and certain types of people. Within the family, we can read, or better is ‘see’, the other’s thoughts when emotions are concerned. We put what we see internally together with what we observe through sight, and understand what the other is saying or feeling.”
I sat up and wrapped part of the duvet around me. He never felt the cold as much as I did.
“What about other people? Regulars?”
He pulled me and duvet down to lie against his shoulder. “We don’t bother trying to read regulars beyond observation. They, you, live in a loud and noisy world where most information comes through hearing. You’ve developed bells and whistles and sirens to tell one another to be careful or to announce danger. We use some of those as well. We also use silent warnings, silent commands. Not only does it keep our physical presence unknown, we can communicate over much longer distances.”
He paused to pull me closer. “It’s easier to just take regulars at their level, far less confusing.”
“Can you teach me? I’m not sure I want to read
your
mind, but I’d like a way to keep some of my thoughts private. Even from you.”
An odd expression flitted across his face, then, “Yes, I can do that. There are two sides to this. One is to be able to understand what someone else is thinking and the other is to shield your mind from showing what you’re thinking. That’s a little harder for regulars, because they give so much away in other ways, like body language.”