Even Nikolai.
“You might be surprised,” Jorge said. “I take it you’re ready to go?”
“I just have to find my coat.” Selene opened her hall closet. Nikolai had hung her camel coat up, neatly, and it was still damp from last night’s running in the rain, desperately trying to reach Danny’s apartment.
She lifted it down, still on the hanger, hung it back up. “Fuck it. I don’t need a coat. I suppose Nikolai sent a car, huh?”
“Of course, Miss Selene.” He set the mug in Selene’s sink, carefully. “Since you don’t have one, he sent one of his. He also sent Bradley to do the driving, and Netley is waiting.”
Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute here. Just what the hell is this? “Netley? You mean Nikolai sent three of this thralls? One of them his chief attorney?” Selene folded her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jorge shrugged again, spreading his hands. “I only know Nikolai ordered the three of us to accompany you today.” The words were careful, but his grim expression spoke volumes.
“He expects trouble?” Selene’s eyebrows drew together. A chill finger touched the base of her spine. Her skin tightened and her nipples hardened, and she was glad she didn’t start blushing.
Goddamn fear. Control yourself!
“I don’t know what he expects, really.” He looked so worried Selene actually believed him. “Sending us with you will make it clear that he intends to find out who killed your brother, and to answer the attack. It will also make it clear that he takes the threat to you very seriously. Or so he said.”
Selene shivered. Hearing Nikolai’s reasons for anything always made her feel like she was playing chess with a very hungry tiger. Chess had rules, and even a tiger could be trained to play, she supposed. But if a tiger gets hungry enough, all the rules in the world wouldn’t stop it from eating you. “Well.” Her throat was dry. “I have to go by the precinct. And I need to…to go by Danny’s apartment. There are some things I want to have.”
Jorge nodded. “I suppose Nikolai expected as much.”
Selene waited. When it became apparent Jorge wasn’t going to say anything further, she looked up at him, letting her eyes open all the way, softening her lips. She’d done this look so many times, and most men had a very hard time concentrating when faced with it.
It wasn’t fair, but neither was Nikolai forcing her to trail around behind two of his shaved gorillas and his head attorney today. “What else did he expect?” And are you going to let me into Danny’s apartment? Or has Nikolai banned me from seeing it?
And what aren’t you telling me?
He shrugged again. Selene blinked, but Jorge’s hazel eyes were steady. He wasn’t even sweating. She would have to do a little more than flutter her eyelashes to drag anything out of him, and that was dangerous. If she touched one of his thralls, Nikolai would know—and he wouldn’t be happy with it. Nosiree, he wouldn’t.
The sour taste of failure scoured her tongue, but she wasn’t beaten yet.
Selene scooped her purse up. “Fine. I get the score. Let’s go.”
Two
It was an uncomfortable, mostly silent ride. Jorge didn’t speak in front of Price Netley, Nikolai’s chief attorney, a short thin man in a dapper dark-blue suit. Netley was blond, bland, and smooth; he stared at Selene’s legs, making no attempt to hide his interest. She began to wish she’d worn a coat—even a coat Nikolai had touched—when Netley transferred his gaze to her chest, and she was actively longing to punch him by the time he coughed and glanced up at her face, realizing she was watching him.
“See something you like?” She wet her lips with her tongue, just to play. The sweet musky perfume of her skin would be filling the car, making it damn hard to think, and the fact that he was Nikolai’s thrall only added to the nasty squirming sense of satisfaction under her breastbone. Go ahead, Netley. Keep staring. It won’t do you any good.
He flushed, and Jorge glanced into the car. He had been watching out the window as the limo pulled away from the curb, the heat of him comforting on her right side. “Selene?” Jorge’s tone was careful, mild, and held just a hint of a grumble.
Selene shrugged, settling back into the seat and crossing her ankles. Netley looked away. She’d made her point. Don’t stare at me like that. I don’t like it.
The black limo was the one Nikolai had sent for her before, one of the new hybrid antigrav-petroleo models, quiet and rolling on a cushion of invisible antifriction instead of tires. Nothing but the best and newest for the prime paranormal Power. A pale leather interior, a dry bar, and smoked glass between the seats and the driver’s section.
The first time she’d ever been in a limo, it ended up wrecked into a flaming ball of twisted metal, and Selene herself had barely escaped.
It had been one hell of a prom night. A couple of pro-Gilead reactionaries had decided to show their disapproval of the refugee camps by disrupting the one party the kids got, since it was “sinful” to dance. Selene still wasn’t sure if they’d picked her group because her Talent had just begun to show. But then, they’d hit the whole line of donated limos, old things that still ran solely on petroleo, and seventeen kids had died. The others. . .well, hospitals in the refugee camps weren’t the best.
She shivered, remembering screams and the smell of burning rubber and scorched metal, and the medallion warmed against her skin. There seemed to be a trickle of Power coming from it, seeping into her skin. That was new. Had she triggered something in it with the Work this morning?
Selene snagged the chain and drew it out from under her shirt, cupping the medallion in her palm. The lion’s head was the same, and the Nichtvren squiggles on the back. She touched the lion’s head, running her fingertip over the curve of the mane, testing the edge of the disc. Smooth and hard, impenetrable.
Just like Nikolai.
Netley made a small sound. Selene looked up at him. He had gone chalky-pale under his expensive blond haircut.
“What?” Her heart lodged in her throat. He looks like he’s about to have a cardiac arrest. “What is it? Netley?”
He didn’t answer, just looked hurriedly out the window. His Adam’s-apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Jorge?”
But he was looking out the window too. A faint sheen of sweat showed on his bald head. Selene sighed.
“Someone will have to tell me what this is all about,” she said to the thick silence. Then she dropped the medallion back down inside her shirt and pulled her purse up onto her lap, hugging it. Maybe she shouldn’t have dressed professionally. Jeans and boots would have served her better, especially if she had to escape.
But if she escaped them, Nikolai would punish Jorge. The thought made Selene’s stomach flip. And that nausea made her skin flush.
I’ve really got to find a way to get out of here. There’s got to be somewhere I can live and not have to sell myself, someplace I can go where I won’t have to be what I am.
Yeah. If she moved out in the country she’d go mad once her charge ran out and her curse had no sex to feed on. That had almost happened before she and Danny had gotten clearance to leave the camp. They’d made it out just in time, right before mandatory Matheson testing became law. Selene might have been scooped up and sent to a parapsychic lab, or forced into one of many government programs meant to figure out just what the Awakening had done and how Power worked now.
As much as Selene hated the city, it kept her alive. At least being Nikolai’s slave left her largely free to do as she pleased—and kept the government from swallowing her for experimentation.
And she liked dressing this way. Nylons had been impossible to get in the camps, and heels? Forget it. Not to mention any decent lipstick.
She stared unseeing out the window, and it wasn’t until Jorge discreetly handed her a crisp white handkerchief that she noticed she was leaking again. Tears rolled down her cheeks, slick and hot.
She was just finished mopping at her face when the limo braked to a
smooth stop in a No Parking zone directly in front of the South Side Precinct house, a concrete rectangle reinforced with chunks of the new plastic-steel stuff that was all over the city these days. Selene started to move, but Jorge’s fingers closed around her wrist. He was between her and the door, anyway.
The medallion suddenly flared with heat, but Jorge didn’t seem to notice anything. “Let me, Selene. Please.”
Selene settled back into the seat. It was pointless to argue.
Jorge got out, then Netley, and she was finally able to slide across the seat and duck out of the limo’s quiet cocoon, taking Jorge’s broad warm hand to steady herself. Heels weren’t the ideal footwear for struggling out of a car.
She set off for the stairs that led up to the front doors of the precinct house, her heels cracking against the pavement. There was a knot of people standing off to one side with a TV van. That was usual, since the cop show was full of excitement these days, with the postwar reconstruction going on and weapons all over. So Selene ignored it—until they caught sight of her.
There was a mad scramble that ended with flashbulbs popping and Jorge pushing through a sudden crowd. Selene, shocked, stumbled behind him, Netley’s hand suddenly around her elbow. They must mistake me for someone else, she thought, and when they finally gained the safety of the doors, she looked over at Netley and tore her arm out of his grip. “What the hell?”
“I was afraid of that,” Netley said grimly. “I’ll tell Bradley to use the parking garage to pick us up. How long will you be, Miss Thompson?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what Jack says.” The precinct was linoleum tile floors and fluorescent lights, cops passing back and forth, people moving like tides. There was a brass statue of Justice tucked into a niche, her eyes covered by the obligatory brass handkerchief, and a carved motto in Latin. Something pretentious about the truth setting you free. “Netley? What’s going on?”
His eyes were dark and troubled. “I’ll come back up every half-hour then,” Netley said. “Jorge?”
Jorge nodded. The attorney plunged back out through the glass door and into the waiting knot of reporters. Selene watched this, mystified. “For Christos’s sake, I know where to go—” she began, but Jorge was already speaking to the desk-sergeant.
The Sarge—a tall plump mustachioed man whose uniform badge said Parker—glanced over Selene, glanced again, licking his lips with a bloodless tongue, and proceeded to stare at her breasts while he told Jorge to go up to the third floor, turn right, and find office 312. Selene suffered this in silence and let Jorge lead her away from the front desk and to the elevators. He punched the ‘up’ button, and Selene glanced back, casually, to see the desk Sarge hook up the phone and talk into it while staring at her ass.
It was so depressingly par for the course that Selene sighed and followed the bald man into the elevator. Her eyes felt hot and grainy from crying. “Jorge, what the hell is going on?”
“Maybe they just liked your looks,” he replied, deadpan.
So he does have a sense of humor. Good for him. Selene bit the inside of her cheek. “Would Nikolai tell me what’s going on?” She reached down, gripping the round handrail at hip-height. Her knuckles were white.
“Probably. You’d have to ask him. I’m sorry, Selene.”
Meaning, I can’t tell you a damn thing, and even if I could I probably wouldn’t. “Me too. I thought you were a decent guy, Jorge.”
He had no snappy comeback for that.
Selene could have told him where Detective Jack Pepper’s office was, but she wasn’t in a mood to play tour guide. Sarge had given Jorge good directions, and it was only a few minutes until she was standing in Jack’s tiny cluttered domain, looking at the familiar eternally-dying plant—a wandering Jew that Jack had been trying to kill for two years now—and the stacks of paperwork.
She looked up at Jorge, whose large hands were folded one over the other in a classic bodyguard pose. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, dully. “Can you go down to the corner and get me a latte, please? I think I’ll need the caffeine.” Coffee had been hard to get after the War, at least for the first few years. It was still worth its weight in flesh or gold out in the camps. Or it had been when Selene left.
He considered this. “Do you promise not to go anywhere else?”
Selene would have been furious if she hadn’t been fighting back more tears. “I give my word.”
The tall bald man nodded. He disappeared, closing the door behind him. Selene stood at the window, looking down at the front steps of the precinct house. The limo pulled away from the curb on its cushion of air, and she was suddenly, powerfully, tempted to run. Her heart leapt, and she rested her forehead against the chilly glass. Condensation spread out from her breath touching the cold slick surface.
The air stirred uneasily. Selene breathed slowly, frustrated. If Nikolai was here—but that’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t be here during the day. And anyway, if he was here he’d only make it worse, trying to order me around.
The sounds of the precinct—murmurs of voices, footsteps, phones ringing, doors slamming—blurred together as Selene glared out the window, not seeing anything except clouds and the street below, empty cardboard people walking through their empty cardboard lives. The lump in her throat crested, and she wished that she was home, curled in her warm bed, watching whatever rain could make it into the alley bead on the window. This was definitely a day for staying in bed and forgetting about the rest of the whole goddamn planet.
Oh, Danny. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there in time. I should never have left you alone. I should have lived with you, I should have found a way.
The door banged open and Jack Pepper stalked in, his mournful hound-dog face drawn up in a grimace under a grim, thinning quarter-inch of brown hair. He saw her and stopped dead, a steaming cup of ash-smelling coffee in his hand. “Ah. Thompson.”
“Hi, Jack.” Selene turned from the window and hopped up to sit on the ledge, crossing her legs. “Mind telling me what the fuck is up? I just got mugged by press vultures.”
“Aw, Christos.” Jack rolled his eyes. “Good morning to you too.”
Selene, settled in the window, just looked at him. He kicked the door closed and got right down to business. “My hands are fucking tied, princess. The word is down from on high that this is a Paranormal Case, and no exceptions. I can’t do a goddamn thing, even on my off-hours.” He stalked over to the desk and shoved aside a stack of paper to make room for his coffee cup. His suit jacket—the same one he’d been wearing early that morning at Danny’s apartment—hung on the wooden chair behind his desk. His shoulder holster snagged on the thinning material of his dress shirt, which was holding up remarkably well. Selene only counted one hole in it, a small cigarette burn on his right cuff.
“Why would this be declared untouchable even if it is a PC, Jack?” Selene asked, reasonably enough. She rubbed at her forehead with her fingertips, feeling the skin move over the bone. The floral musk of her skin filled the office by now. She watched Jack’s shoulders come up and his head drop a little, like a turtle, and her eyes dropped to his pants.
Nothing yet, not even a telltale twitch. Jack was remarkably resistant to her. It was one of the best things about him.
He shot her a withering look. His buzzcut was wilting, lying flat against his head, and that disturbed Selene more than anything else. “‘Cause something’s going on, that’s why. And it’s probably your bloodsucking boyfriend behind it. God knows he’s behind everything else in this fuckin’ town.”
“He’s not my boyfriend—” she began, pitching her voice deliberately low. He’s my owner. Get it straight.
Jack shivered. “Oh, come off it, Lena! Every time you get in trouble, he shows up and bails your ass out.”
Goddamn you. “Jack, I’m warning you.” Her voice was rising. So was his. Jack’s cheeks were flushed and his hands shook. Selene sat bolt-upright on the window sill, her own hands curled into fists. She didn’t gl
ance at his crotch. She was fairly sure he had a hard-on by now. The anger would make him easier to affect.
“Christos, Selene. Don’t start.”
“I need your help,” she said, softly. Come on, Jack. You like me. I’m like your little sister, remember? I babysit your kids. Maureen likes me. You want to help me. “You knew I’d ask, Jack. I need you to help me on this. I want to find him. The fucker that killed my Danny. I want him, you help me.” She folded her arms, her fingers digging into her biceps.
“I can’t lose my job, Lena.” Jack stalked over to the window, looking out over the rain-slick street below. His jaw was working, a muscle twitching high up in his cheek. “I got Maureen and the kids to think about. The word’s out, both officially and off the record—leave the Thompson case alone.”
Selene’s lips compressed into a thin line. She looked down at the street too, turning her face away from him. Silence stretched between them, a thin crystalline quiet full of the things they never said to each other. She could have moved closer to him, brushed against him, but she didn’t.
“Alton Gresham,” she said, finally. “James Darryl Gray.”
“Selene—” Jack took a half step away from her, along the window.
“Tyreese Nottingham. Lee Merrick Jones. Jimmy Dobbs Creech.” Selene’s voice broke. “Jerril Hightower. Allan Bowen. Do I need to go on?” Should I start listing the names of their victims, too?
Jack’s head dropped even further. He looked down at the window ledge. She didn’t move. If she did, he would look at her legs under her skirt. I’m sorry, Jack, I really am.
“You’ve helped me,” he said. “That’s right. You got scumbags off the street—it was the right thing to do.”