“Not tonight, she can’t. The cops took her guns as evidence, remember?” Emma argued. “Bruno can’t get into her office until morning.”
He can’t? Why not? I opened my mouth to ask, but she’d moved a step forward and was pointing a finger at her brother’s nose. “Celia’s staying here until the sun comes up, and that’s final. This is my home and it’s my choice, Kevin. Mine. Not Daddy’s, not yours. Mine.”
“I don’t like it.” He probably meant having me here. Then again, maybe not. Having Emma stand up to him probably wasn’t a happy development in his life.
“You don’t have to.” Emma met his gaze without flinching. Points to Emma. Kevin was maybe a step and a half from going wolfy. His eyes were glowing amber and I swear his teeth looked sharper than normal. He was clenching and unclenching his fingers around the arms of the chair. It might have gone further if Paulie hadn’t placed herself between the two of them and started barking.
Kevin glared at the dog and she sank into a sit. But she didn’t move out of the way, just stared at him with those huge brown eyes: calm, trusting.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
“I’m going to go outside and calm down.”
“Good idea.” Emma’s words were crisp. “Meanwhile, I’ll fix us all something to eat.”
“Come on, Paulie.” Kevin strode through the living area to a side door, the dog at his heels. I couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them. Kevin was not himself. Not at all. Maybe being out in quiet and moonlight would help. I was betting he’d go to the little walled cemetery on the west side of the building. I’d wandered through it when I’d visited before and seen that it really was old, two hundred years at least. Where the stones could be read, they told of the missionaries who founded the church and of their very first converts. They’d probably been such true believers that there wasn’t even a single ghost left to haunt the place. Hopefully the graveyard would be peaceful enough to soothe Kevin’s troubled soul.
I stared at the door for a long moment. “Do you think you should call his Vaso?”
It was Emma’s turn to sigh. “Wish I could. She had to go out of town for a few weeks. Her mom’s dying of cancer.”
Well, hell. “Can we send him to her?” I asked hopefully.
Emma shook her head. “He can’t travel when he’s like this. Certainly not this close to the full moon. Once that’s passed, in a couple of days, he’ll be better. He always is. Now, you settle in and watch the news. You really do need to know what’s going on. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
I checked my watch, then said, “Computer, big screen, channel ten, please.” Since Channel 10’s nightly newscast starts at ten o’clock, I’d be able to catch the beginning of the report.
It didn’t hit me as hard the second time. I sat in the recliner, watching the images on the screen and mentally going over everything I knew and suspected. Which wasn’t much. I needed more information.
I called out to my hostess, who was cooking scrambled eggs in the kitchen. “Emma, do you think Kevin could set up a secure conference call for me?”
“Probably. The question is whether he will.” She came in, carrying a plate that smelled like heaven. The eggs were runny, but there was cheese, and she’d brought along a couple of jars of baby food. “But it’ll have to wait until morning in any event. We don’t have all the equipment he’d need. How many people would be involved?” She handed me the plate. “Eat.”
I ate. When I’d finished, I called Special Agent Albright and got not only the numbers I requested, but an update.
They’d put an aquarium in the queen’s room at Adriana’s suggestion. Her royal majesty was conscious and improving. She was still in intensive care, but the doctors were hopeful. The princess was already on her way back to Serenity. Apparently Chiyoko, the siren queen of the Japanese islands, had managed to scrape up a quorum and had called an emergency meeting of all of the siren queens. Adriana was going to attend on behalf of her mother.
I asked Albright about traveling to Serenity with the princess, but she rejected the idea.
“You have other things to do.” Her voice was calm, but was rough around the edges. People who didn’t know her might think none of this was bothering her. I guessed it was.
“Like what?”
“I need you to convince the other bridesmaids to remain in the wedding. Her majesty’s assistant has scheduled a dinner for the three of you tomorrow evening after their afternoon television interviews have finished.”
Oh goodie. I was going to get to spend time alone with Olga and Natasha. “My job is to protect the princess.” I said it, but I knew I was fighting an uphill battle.
“It was an order, not a request.”
Of course it was. The question was whether or not I was going to obey it. I might technically be a siren—and technically, under Lopaka’s rule—but I was born and raised an American. I am not good at taking royal orders.
Please, Celia. I heard Queen Lopaka’s voice very faintly in my mind. She sounded weak and very tired. I thought about her lying in the hospital bed, maybe still in the ICU, worrying about her daughter, her throne, and the public humiliation she’d face if the wedding didn’t happen, or even if the bridesmaids bailed from fear of the terrorists.
She was my aunt, and she’d said please. “All right, I’ll do it.” And I would. But I wouldn’t be happy about it.
13
I woke to the light patter of rain against glass, the smells of breakfast, and the sounds of familiar voices. I lay in a pool of muted light in a rainbow of colors filtered through stained glass. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. Emma’s guest room, formerly the choir loft. To my right was the door to the stairs that led down to the bathroom and the old foyer. To my right were the floor-to-ceiling drapes that covered the half wall that looked down into the living room. A glance at the clock told me it was ten in the morning. I’d slept longer, and more deeply, than I had in weeks. Just like the night I’d slept at Bruno’s, I hadn’t had any nightmares, so I actually felt rested. It was a nice change. Some of those dreams…
I shuddered.
It felt good to actually get real rest. On the downside, sleeping in meant that it had been a lot of hours since my last meal. I was hungry, and the smell of coffee, bacon, and hash browns wasn’t helping one bit. My stomach growled and my vision started to shift to vampire focus, even though it was morning, not night. Crap.
I wanted to go downstairs and find out what was going on. But I didn’t dare, not like this. I’d gone too long between meals before and wound up having bloodlust. Most of my nightmares lately have been dreams of waking up after too little nutrition and too much exertion and stress, and slaughtering the people I’d been hired to protect. The worst part was, carving those paths of destruction had felt good.
Thing is, there’s no Ensure in the jungle. No baby food in the cramped cellar of an old church or a drug-smuggler’s tunnel. Sometimes I had to eat what I could find that could be squished into a paste and mixed with polluted water from improperly dug wells. I felt hungry almost all the time I was on the job. My nightmares too often felt like they were one tiny step away from my reality.
I recognized the ache in my stomach and the twitching of my muscles. Then I realized that the bands of light decorating my vision weren’t just from the stained glass. I was seeing things as a predator. Crap.