Zhan stepped into the room. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about Maxine, about life, and about what you said the other day.”
I gestured for her to join me. “Which part of what I said?”
“That you’d talk to Menessos for me.” She sat across from me. “To ask him if I could go home.”
“You’ll let me ask now?”
She nodded. “But wait until after Pittsburgh. You’ve got enough going on right now.”
“Okay. I’m sure he won’t have a problem with it.” I’d pull rank if I had to.
“Can I take pictures of them, the animals, to show my father?”
“Absolutely.” I stopped. “Oh, and talk to Mountain. If he thinks it would be all right—and if your family can house them—maybe you could take a few of the phoenixes. If your family would like to be charged with their keeping, it might be like a peace offering from you.”
She was stunned. “You would do that for me?”
“Of course.” When I answered, her chin dropped, her mind surely racing with the logistics of getting phoenixes to the West Coast, as well as the family reunion playing out in her imagination. Movement outside caught my attention. Mountain had emerged from the field.
He was hammering in some metal posts to erect a temporary fence across the new driveway to the barns: no need to provide a tempting pathway for our young guests.
Sneakily, I added. “But if you go …”
“What?” She sounded concerned.
“Mountain would miss you.” I pointed through the glass.
She saw him. Her concern converted into guilt. “Don’t tell the Boss.”
“I won’t tell. Why would I?”
“Offerlings and Beholders aren’t supposed to … to …”
“Like I said, I won’t tell.”
“Mountain is good to me,” she said softly, wringing her hands. “He sees me. Other men see … something else.”
“You don’t have to explain, Zhan.”
She had resumed staring at the tabletop.
“Why don’t you go ask Mountain now? Work the plan out.”
She rose from the table, but lingered long enough to say, “Thank you.”
The sun set at five-thirteen and my now-expected connection to Menessos clicked in. It was full dark when Johnny arrived at six o’clock as promised. It felt much later than it truly was. We sat together in the back as Zhan drove us to the haven.
Johnny told me how his afternoon had gone. “Feral didn’t believe I kicked an Omori’s ass, or put the Rege on his knees. I had to conference call Kirk and Todd to corroborate.”
“What did he say then?”
“He grunted, but that was because he was under someone’s sink.”
“Huh?”
“He was on a service call.” Feral’s day job was plumbing. “So I drove out and joined him.”
“Did you help?”
“I fetched him tools. Helped him carry things in and out.”
“Did your labor have a payoff?”
He nodded. “He called Erik, had him meet us at Triv’s restaurant. Over a beer, Feral told Erik what the other guys had told him. And then he says to Erik, ‘I’m telling him.’” Johnny set his jaw momentarily, demonstrating his irritation before he continued. “The Rege had sent Omori to their houses and they were told the band would be breaking up eventually, but if they quit and made the process go smoother, they would be given ‘severance pay.’ They each got an envelope with twenty-five grand.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
“They took it?”
“When the Omori shows up on your doorstep, you comply.”
“You didn’t.”
He smirked. “I’m the Domn Lup.”
It occurred to me that we were talking rather freely about pack stuff in front of Zhan. Johnny had wanted to avoid Maxine’s knowing too much. I took his hand and, concentrating, tried to figure out how to word what I wanted to say.
He squinted at me. “It’s all right,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I could … hear you.”
He gripped my hand tight. Menessos called me. We talked.
His lips hadn’t moved. Yet I’d heard him.
In signum amoris. Menessos had admitted he’d used magic on Johnny and me when we had sex at the haven. He’d claimed it was a link, a shared mental connection by which we’d be able to sense each other’s moods. If the emotions were strong enough, like fear, it might call to the other—a benefit that we might find “as worthwhile as the more physical one.” The vampire had also said Johnny and I had already imprinted on each other, inflaming that physical bond. The in signum amoris made it an emotional bond as well.
And then we shared pieces of our souls, making it spiritual, Johnny added.
“Lord and Lady!” I said aloud.
“Everything all right back there?” Zhan asked.
“We’re fine,” Johnny said and winked at me, adding, Wanna see how she reacts if we make out?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Menessos’s haven was in the lowest levels of the old May Company building on Euclid Avenue, facing Public Square. The eight-story building was beautiful, with white glazed terra cotta tiles framing the nine bays of Chicago-style windows and all of it topped with a scrolled pediment and a Renaissance Revival clock.
Well, it’s beautiful above street level, anyway.
The ground level had a flat industrial-type awning that jutted out. While it provided cover from the elements, it seemed to me that the plainness below that awning detracted from the rest of the building. The restaurant next door to the haven had a strange portico embellished with an old car, neon lights, and tall arborvitae in containers. It didn’t fit with the majesty of the rest of the building.
But then Menessos’s frontage didn’t add any class either, being comprised of plywood walls and a primer gray door. Or it had been on my last trip to the haven. As Zhan rolled to a stop to let us out, I saw a newly refurbished exterior, dazzlingly lit.
The vampire haven’s entry now matched the white glazed tiles and architectural trimmings. There were also sections that encroached just slightly on the sidewalk, like half an octagon, with four six-inch-wide panels of glass separated by narrow strips of white tile.
Two sets of doors were lit from the front and behind; the white of the frosted glass seemed to glow, and was interrupted only with the universal vampire symbol—six gleaming white teeth on a field of black inside a red circle. Of course, the outermost teeth were razory fangs. The word HAVEN was written below in bold lettering.
A foot-wide plastic banner was stretched across the left set of doors. It read OPENING SOON.
Johnny held the door for me. Inside, the cherrywood ticket booth gleamed under soft lighting, and I saw that the entire lobby was finished. A metal security fence separated this from the open space beyond, which was now blocked by plastic sheeting.
“Guess he’s refinishing in there, too.”
“Didn’t he tell you?” Johnny asked. “He’s putting in a nightclub. That’s what those two angled things out front are for.”
So Menessos and Johnny were getting chummy? Not necessarily a bad thing. “Those bay windows indicate this is a nightclub?”
He gave a throaty laugh. “They will when there are scantily clad young women dancing in them.”
I groaned and headed for the stairs, but I saw the elevators were now unbarred. I punched the button. The doors opened and Johnny and I stepped in. He waved up at the corner. Seeing the question on my face, he said, “Always cameras in elevators.”
It must have been true. When the doors opened on the lower level, Risqué was waiting for us in all of her red-eyed, blonde-ringleted glory. She bowed her head toward me and murmured, “Erus Veneficus.” She followed it with a nod at Johnny. “Gorgeous.” She twisted on her clear plastic heel and barked, “This way,” as she strutted off.