| |
Albers believed the problem with having the Guild House in a houseboat, besides the constant maintenance, was that the gentle rocking of the boat on the river made it even harder to stay awake during dreadfully dull Council meetings.
“Chairman,” Williams said smoothly. “Pray tell us about the state of our colony in the south.”
“As we agreed, Walker was sent to relieve Fain of his command,” Holzhausen said. “Since then, we have had no contact whatsoever. Fain will not return or answer phone calls or emails, although our sources indicate he yet lives, which indicates that Norwicki did not carry out his contingency plan.”
“What about you?” Williams asked Albers. “Have you heard from him?”
Albers spread her hands wide and shook her head. “He’s a big boy now.” She did want to know what happened with Fain when he was relieved of command. Fain hadn’t answered any of her phone calls either, and even the Spider had stopped texting updates of what the situation was. And if she didn’t know, did anyone know? She was burning with curiosity. Perhaps Melbourne would know.
“Siang, please give us your presentation on the Guild finances,” Holzhausen said, which was Albers’ cue to stop listening.
Albers was glad that Walker had not succeeded in killing Fain. She hadn’t thought he would be successful. Fain was older than Walker, wiser, and even if the rumors were true that Walker had studied under the same dark warlock that their fearless leader had, Fain wasn’t an idiot.
And what of the rumors that Adamiak had been seen talking to Walker just a few weeks ago? Was Adamiak a threat? He was ambitious. Build him up or bring him down, that was the question. It depended on how amenable he was, how malleable. He was laying down plans, she sensed. Long term plans. He’d spoken to Walker just before Walker was chosen to relieve Fain of command. Coincidence, or did Adamiak know things she herself was not privy to? Walker had some connection with their dear Chairman Holzhausen from long ago, though surely Holzhausen didn’t know Walker drank blood at Glavin’s table on a regular basis? Perhaps he did know, and Glavin wrested the concession of Walker despite that. Or perhaps Walker was lucky enough to have a foot in each camp.
She looked at Williams’ face, wondering if he was as bored as she was. He was handsome in that aristocratic way, with a horsey nose and features solidly Anglo-Saxon. Keynes was also of British make, though as the eldest member of the Council, they had not likely called it Britain back when he saw his last sunset. She wondered how old they were. It was like that silly game where you held a card to your head facing out and tried to decide who in the room had the highest card by other people’s reactions to you. She herself was no spring chicken, but some of the elder vampires got quite coy about their ages. Perhaps he was not the eldest after all. Councilman “Bunny” Stewart was quite powerful, with that hidden core of steel that one got when one had done terrible and necessary things to survive.
And then there was Glavin. If she were to name the next Guild Leader, he was the most likely candidate. Dark haired and brooding, like Heathcliff of the moors, or perhaps like Vlad the Impaler, Glavin would likely campaign on a reactionary platform. Guild members would no longer be punished or exiled for draining hosts, only for being foolish enough to get caught. Guild members would pull out of some of the questionably legal undertakings Holzhausen had so profitably engaged in, because they involved too much interaction with humans. Initiation would no longer be so lightly undertaken and would not be so easily backed out of.
He missed his thralls, he had confessed to her, one night in his cavernous hunting-lodge of a house. He had been a lord once, had servants to do his bidding. Now if he so much as drank blood from the neck of someone under eighteen, nanny-goat Holzhausen chided him about keeping a low profile and legal issues. “If only,” he’d said wistfully, “those assassination attempts had been fruitful. They were untraceable to me. I would have been blameless. The work of a sad, crazed individual, Hall, whom no one would miss. I could have stepped in and taken the helm with no blood on my hands.”
Albers had known better than to bring up the name of the person it was rumored had stopped those assassination attempts. Melbourne’s Guild membership still offended Glavin. A human Guild member. Unthinkable. That it had been a silly, ceremonial offering that Holzhausen used to control Melbourne—and more importantly, Melbourne’s priceless magical bindi—seemed beside the point to Glavin. Surely Holzhausen could merely have ensorcelled her? Albers didn’t quite know the limit of Holzhausen’s abilities, but she knew she herself could only beguile prey for a very short amount of time, perhaps thirty seconds at most, just long enough to entice them not to scream until it was too late. She hadn’t used it in a long time. Perhaps she ought to practice. The Spider was known for that skill, and they said Walker and Holzhausen both knew how to ensorcell a person to reveal secrets and truths. And wouldn’t that be a lovely skill to have?
Albers was trying to stay awake as Siang droned on and on about how the Guild’s investments were going, about the estimated tax burden, dry numbers and percentages and increases and decreases. Siang looked like a tiny girl but sounded like a fascinated robot when she was discussing money. Albers wished she had Siang’s knack for it, but money was never as interesting as people, especially immortal people.
“And finally,” Siang said. “The expatriates in Red Rock have cut off their Guild tithes within the past month, as you can see from the chart of our second quarter income.”
Holzhausen nodded at her silently, either out of thanks for her report or thanks for finally ending.
There was a tap at the door. Holzhausen nodded at Campbell. Campbell opened the door to reveal Granville and Carr standing there. Granville was wearing a camel-colored suit and her usual bland look of self-importance, though all she did was man the door and spread gossip, and not even useful gossip, which Albers found most unforgivable. Carr had a conservative shoulder-length bob and minimal make up, with a forgettable wardrobe, like the least chic member of a group of suburban soccer moms. Like many of the Toronto refugees, Carr had a rabbity nervousness around her, the hunched posture of someone who expects to have to run or dodge at any moment.
“Sorry for the intrusion, Councilmen, Chairman,” Granville said, heavy with dry self-importance. “A box arrived for you by courier just now. It seemed important.”
Holzhausen raised his eyebrows.
“Not a bomb, Chairman,” Carr said. “I had it checked.”
The box was quite large, between the size of a china barrel and a wardrobe box. It was made of plain cardboard and was marked “fragile” and “this end up,” as if it held heavy, complex machinery. But it didn’t smell like oil and metal.
“Open it,” Holzhausen said.
Albers, like the rest of the Council, rose to her feet as Carr opened a box cutter and scored down the side of the box. Inside was a layer of crumpled brown packing paper, but then Granville leaned forward and cleared some of it away. A large, waterproof vinyl sack, tied at the top with a generous spool of packing twine, slumped out of the box, falling onto the floor. Granville knelt and untied the twine. When she untied it completely, she opened the mouth of the sack and peered inside. With a somber expression, she met Carr’s eye.
Carr nodded and grabbed the bottom of the sack. With a few gentle tugs, she yanked the sack off, dumping the body of Walker onto the carpet.
He’d been shot over a dozen times, judging by the blood stains on his clothing. They’d removed his boots and tied his ankles together with twine. They’d also tied his wrists and forearms together with twine, though probably more to keep him compact within the sack than to subdue him. His skin looked shrunken and pale, and his eyelids barely fluttered, even as Carr and Granville sliced through the twine binding him.
Granville found a small envelope held between Walker’s wrists, and she handed it to Holzhausen. He glanced at it and his expression darkened. “Carr, fetch a unit of blood from my office, if you please.”
Carr nodded and left. Glavin stood up and walked closer to Walker’s body, kicking his leg to one side, and then nudging him over with his foot, as if Walker were an interesting specimen of roadkill, though perhaps not as useful a roadkill as others he had seen recently. Albers was sure that Glavin would have had a much different treatment of Walker had Walker succeeded in sending Fain cowed back to Seabingen.
Carr returned and upon Holzhausen’s orders, placed a corner of the bag in Walker’s mouth, using Walker’s own fang to pierce the plastic. He wasn’t so far gone that the taste of blood did not revive him. By the time he finished the unit, he was able to sit up on his own strength.
“Explain,” Holzhausen said.
Walker wiped his face as if trying to loosen up his jaw enough so speak. He coughed a couple of times, spitting up blood, which he licked off his lips again. “They shot me.”
“We can see that,” Holzhausen said dryly. “What did you encounter?”
“Fain’s got his Guild House set up in this little three-bedroom bungalow in some suburban neighborhood.” Walker wasn’t offered a chair, and he didn’t look like he could stand on his own so he remained sitting on the ground. “My first sense something was wrong was that it felt like trespassing. So, we go in and I tell him what you said, that his exile’s up and he’s relieved of duty.”
“Who was there?”
“Kaltenbach, the Spider, and two vampires I don’t know. One’s a tall white guy with a military cut, seemed a little young. The other one’s a light-skinned Hispanic woman who didn’t say much. I tell him I’m there to take over, and he starts shooting.”
“You did not attempt to ensorcell him?”
“Didn’t get the chance. He drew his gun before I’d finished talking.” Walker shifted, opening and closing his fingers as it to reassure himself that his hands still worked. “I got a few shots off though, and I think I hit him.”
Holzhausen’s expression said he either didn’t believe him or didn’t care either way. “Before you were shot, did you notice anything unusual about him?”
“No, sir. Like what?”
“Did he appear fey in any way?”
“Oh, that.” Walker rubbed his wrists. “I’d been distracted by the fact that I was bleeding through an entire clip of bullets. Did Fain seem fey? Yeah, maybe. That would explain why he was prepped, if he has some kind of elf thing going on. Unless someone tipped him off.”
“Where is Damien Norwicki?” Holzhausen asked.
“I saw him standing there when they put me in the sack, but I heard some more gunshots afterward so I guess they shipped him back here.” Walker looked up. “He not show up yet?”
“No,” Holzhausen said. “Are there any other details you can remember?”
“They put up plywood. I noticed that when I fell. They’d put up plywood to protect the drywall.” Walker looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know where Norwicki is, boss. He was alive when they put me in the box.”
“You were meant to depose Fain.”
Walker wiped his mouth and licked the blood off the back of his wrist. His tongue explored his mouth, as if he were missing a tooth or two. “Yeah, well, things didn’t go according to plan.”
“Go feed. Come back when you have healed. I want a full debriefing from you.”
Walker’s eyes flicked infinitesimally towards Glavin, and Glavin gave the merest hint of a nod.
Did anyone else see that? Was that as obvious as it seemed to her? But what did it mean? Had Walker deliberately taken a dive, or had Fain legitimately defeated him? Either way, she was proud of Fain. Her little fledgling, all grown up. It had taken more than a century, but he was finally starting to come into his own.