“What’s the asetem?” Michael asked.
“A different type of vampire altogether—”
Before Marsden could get started, my cell phone rang. I’d almost forgotten I had it until it started jiggling around and making my purse rattle on the tile floor. I answered it and let Marsden explain the Egyptian vampires.
It was Quinton. “Hi,” he started, breathless and sounding strained. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you back last time. Things are getting scary here. I’m not at my place; I’m at yours—it’s safer, if that tells you anything.”
“What’s happening? Is it. a vampire thing?”
“Right in one. It hasn’t moved up from the shadows yet, but it’s bad. The dark places are not safe. And there’s a lot of new creeps around making a whole lot of trouble. I’m not sure if it’s better for you to come home right away or stay out of it.”
My heart seemed to be tap dancing and my stomach twisted. “I’ve only been gone. what? Three days? When did this start?”
“Pretty much as soon as you left. It’s like they were waiting for you to be gone.”
“Oh, no,” I said, feeling that sense of doom hanging over me again like the Sword of Damocles. “I think it’s connected to my case here. Or rather, it’s all part of the same thing.”
“Damn it. I was afraid of that. Edward’s in this, isn’t he?”
“Somehow, yeah. But I don’t know exactly how. Keep a very low profile, and especially keep away from Wygan.”
“The DJ?”
“Yeah, that one. He’s not your average bloodsucker. He’s something special and very nasty.” Just thinking of the feast for the asetem that massive destruction and unrest among Seattle’s vampires would provide nauseated me, and from what Marsden had said about Wygan’s known plans, that was just the icing on the cake.
“Oh?” Quinton prompted.
“Yeah. He’s like. ” And I stopped, not sure I could explain it succinctly and still include the shades of suspicion, implication, and intuition that were holding it all together in my mind. “Damn it. It’s complicated. He’s got very big plans that include me and the Grey and something about Edward, too. He’s been pulling strings and causing trouble since I was kid. I still need to find one more big piece of the puzzle and I think I’ll know what I am and what he has in mind.”
“What you are? You’re Harper Blaine. You’re what you make of you, not what some megalomaniac vampire wants.”
I could have reached through the phone and kissed him for that. It reminded me that no matter what Wygan had in mind, the decisions weren’t all his.
I grinned for the first time in days. “Yeah. I’ll give you the whole messy story when I get back, but I have to finish up a few things here first. I’m not sure if Edward is playing me or if he’s really a victim, but whatever else is happening, the local vampires have William Novak and it looks like they’ve been using him to get to me. For Wygan. Why is still a mystery, though.”
The pause grew very long. “Novak. Your ex.”
“Yes.”
“I guess the ghosts were right.”
“Sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.”
“They said it wasn’t what you thought. All this stuff that’s been going on isn’t about the vampires; this is about you.”
“Not all of it. Some of it’s a plan of Wygan’s—”
“That needs you to make it work and needs Edward or something of Edward’s. Whatever’s going on there is all about you. Or they wouldn’t have taken your ex.”
He went on as I fell silent, thinking about what he’d said. “The stuff that’s going on here has the feeling of clearing the decks. It’s dangerous, but it’s not concentrated yet. It started when you left. And I think it’ll shift into higher gear when you get back. Or whenever they find Edward.”
“Every vampire in Seattle knows where to find Edward.”
“No, they don’t and neither do a lot of other people. That’s what I needed to tell you: Edward’s missing. It’s on the news.”
“What?” I hoped that Edward had only pulled back to hide in his bunker if handbaskets were indeed hell bound. If Edward was gone, I might be in a lot of trouble when I got back to Seattle—or even before, if the things I was thinking were true.
“They’re hinting he’s been kidnapped,” Quinton said. “The vampires are going nuts. They’re all over the place and they’re all over each other. The new ones—”
“Creepy white bastards that seem a little. snakelike?”
“Yeah.”
“The asetem-ankh-astet. They’re Wygan’s people. They might be magic users, so stay away from them.”
“I’m already staying away. They resist the stunners and they scare the crap out of me. They seem to scare the other vamps, too. I don’t know if it’ll get worse before you get here, but it’s not pretty now. It might be better if you don’t come home.”
“You don’t want me to come back?”
“I want you, but I think, given what you’ve said, that things will get worse when you do. You don’t have to play whatever game Wygan is up to.”
“I’m afraid I do, but I don’t have to play it his way if I know how to avoid it. And I can’t leave here without getting Will out first. Even if they didn’t try to use him against me again. ”
“No. You can’t leave a friend behind. Not even an ex-boyfriend. I’ll hold on here. Let me know if you’re coming back to Seattle or if I should bail out with Chaos and meet you elsewhere.”
I bit my lip, worried and conflicted. “How—how is the furball?”
“Crazed. She zooms around the floor like she’s chasing things, and she makes that chittering sound and dances around with her mouth open like she’s just killed the biggest rat in history.”
“You getting anything on your detectors?”
“Yes, I am. But without you to confirm it, I’m not sure I’ve got a good calibration. It could be stray cell phone signals or it could be the Loch Ness monster for all I can tell. Harper. God, I wish you were here.”
Something hard knotted up in my throat and made it difficult to talk. “Me, too. I’ll finish up as fast as I can,” I promised.
My companions were both watching me as I disconnected. I swallowed a few times to clear the emotion that choked me. “Change of plan,” I said. “We have to move faster than I’d hoped.”
Marsden pursed his mouth. “So it’s startin’, is it?”
I just nodded. Michael looked grim.
Marsden grinned, a terrifying and feral thing with his yellowed teeth and gouged eye sockets. “Right then. We’ll be after the Primate of St. James tonight.”
“The what?” I queried.
Michael looked startled.
“I don’t mean the Archbishop of Canterbury, boy,” Marsden said. Then he turned back to me. “It’s their little joke, y’see. They’re taking the piss by calling the head of their cabal the ‘Primate’ as if he were the equal of the Archbishop of All England.”
“Seattle’s only got one community of vampires. ” I said, though it appeared that wasn’t strictly true anymore.
“London’s older, more factionalized. Some of the Brothers go back to the founding of the city under the Romans. They’re playing by a different set of rules than what your lot is. You could approach the Primate of St. John and hope to get him on your side, but you haven’t got that time. You’ll have to go straight for St. James.”
“No.”
“And why not, may I ask?”
“St. James is in the Pharaohn’s pocket.”
“Hark at her. The expert!”
Annoyed now, I shook my head and snapped at him, “Listen. Two years ago in Seattle the Pharaohn used another vampire to watch me. Her name was Alice Liddell—”
“Like Alicein Wonderland Alice?” Michael asked, wide-eyed.