Miss Me When the Sun Goes Down (18 page)

“Hey
, Rob?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re back, even if you’re not.”

For an instant it looked like I might have knocked through the rigid façade he’d surrounded himself with, but then his jaw tightened.  All he said was, “It’s good to see you again, miss,” his hazel eyes locking with mine for a long moment before he dropped his gaze and got out of the car. 

It didn’t take long to settle into the house at all.  It helped that Maggie and Ellie could fit their entire worldly possessions into the luggage they’d brought on the flight from England (apart from the silver and purple curtains Ellie stole from her old room, insisting she’d die without them).

My stuff took a couple of trips to ferry over, mostly in black garbage bags
since we didn’t have any boxes on hand.  What our neighbors must have thought of us piling into the house at all hours of the night!  The block seemed fairly quiet, and we couldn’t see any of them from the house itself, so I hoped we wouldn’t be disturbing anyone with our nocturnal lifestyle.

There was a minor skirmish as the girls fought over who got to take the first bath and I nearly offered the use of mine, but didn’t want to set the precedent.  Surprisingly Maggie won on that one, proving herself just as stubborn as Ellie when she really wanted something.  It took very little persuading to get the boys to agree to move in with us and they ended up sharing the master, raising an eyebrow from the rest of us as we tried to guess what that meant. 
We had plenty of room for them to take separate spaces, but I didn’t know them well enough to ask why they preferred it that way.  Mostly I was just glad to have us all under one roof.

It was soothing to boot up my favorite classical playlist on Pandora while I found places for my clothes and things.  Mr. Buns got a favored position in a sea of pillows on the bed, and I spread my faerie blanket across the bottom so it would feel more like home. 

I came across Evan’s violin while packing and I was really torn about what to do with it.  I’d found it tucked away in the closet, shoved there by Bridget or possibly the Order when they cleaned up the place following his death.  It was too beautiful an instrument to throw away or donate, and I didn’t know anyone who played the violin who might appreciate it. 

L
ooking at it filled me with a soft sadness, but not the bad kind.  More like when you think back to decorating holiday cookies with your Grandma before she died, or remembering your first kiss.  Those times were gone, but I could still remember them fondly. 

That’s how I thought of Evan.  It still made me sad to think of him dying so young because of Serena’s obsession with me, but at the same time, I remembered the joy in his face when he shared his music with me.  Sometimes I thought I might try to write it all down to preserve it, but for the moment
, every beautiful note of
Anja’s Song
lived on in my memory.        

I decided to keep the violin myself, and Gunnar help
ed me put it up on display in the library as a reminder.  Every human I drew into my sphere of influence stood a risk of ending up like Evan.  It was worth remembering. 

Rob mostly kept to himself in the days that followed, nose buried in a book or the paper whenever we were at home, and yet he insisted on being there whenever I went out.  That left Gunnar and Isak without much to do, but I still brought them with me whenever I went down to the Bleeding Hart or Nightshade, as folks had gotten used to seeing me with an entourage. 

In fact, they’d pretty much come to accept me as this public figure, almost like a celebrity, and now that I had a place to live I didn’t have to be ashamed of anymore, I thought it might be nice to host a reception.  Sort of a ‘hey, I’m the Jarl, check out my swank pad’ kind of party.  Of course, I’d never had to put together one of those types of shindigs before, and once I realized how much work went into it, I almost wanted to cancel the entire thing. 

Maggie proved an invaluable asset, pretty much stepping in and taking care of all the arrangements, leaving me with finding a suitable dress to wear and little else.  I insisted on taking both girls shopping with me for something elegant.  Maggie displayed her good taste as always, choosing an off the shoulder gown in a
bottle green that shimmered when she walked. 

I picked out a deep
, red dress, the color of pomegranates, the bodice liberally seeded with tiny black stitches that made the overall effect a much darker patina.  It was slim fitting, with a simple square neckline and spaghetti straps.  I felt like a movie star when I put it on; all I needed to do was arrange my hair hanging down over one eye, Veronica Lake style.   

Ellie surprised us both by picking a
basic black dress, and I thought she’d finally grasped the concept of elegance until she coupled it with a bright red, velvet bustier with fluffy white marabou trim.  “It’s Christmassy,” she shrugged when Maggie gently suggested she find something less showy. 

I was pretty nervous about inviting people into my home and playing hostess. 
Though I got ready a full hour before the party started, I blew that lead by changing my hairstyle three times.  I kept going back and forth between the long, Hollywood glam look and something upswept and sophisticated.  In the end, my clumsy fingers kept messing up the braids, and Maggie was too busy seeing to last minute details for me to bother her about fixing it.  So, I went with the simpler, loose style, adding a curling wave to the hair falling over one eye. 

I stepped out into the hallway, catching Rob leaving his room as well.  He wore his black suit, the one he’d worn to go out dancing, and he looked pretty sharp all cleaned up.  “I always did like you in that suit,” I smiled, striking a pose so he could get the full effect of my gown.  “What do you think?  Will it do?”

For an instant I thought I saw something in his eyes, approval maybe (it was gone too fast to tell what it was), but then he shuttered it away.  “It’s very nice,” he replied without much inflection.

“I don’t want to look
nice
, I always look like a nice girl.  Just for tonight I want to look as rich and powerful as I’m supposed to be.  You don’t think this dress’ll do it?”

“I’m not the best ju
dge of women’s fashion,” he shrugged, uninterested.  “Don’t worry, you’ll impress,” he smirked, stepping back to let me go up the stairs first. 

Just not him apparently.  “Okay, whatever.”  I gave up, having too many other things to worry about with the first guests due to arrive soon to spend much time on what was stuck in his craw.

I fretted over everything, from whether or not I should serve food to if I should have hired a staff to circulate with drinks rather than just the bartender set up in the front parlor.  There would be humans there no doubt, feeders mostly, or people like Rob who fit into the vampire crowd for their own unique reasons.  When the doorbell first rang, I started forward to answer it out of habit, but Maggie laid a gentle hand on my arm with a slight shake of the head, motioning to Isak to open it. 

“Oh right,” I nodded, smiling faintly.  What was I thinking?  Rich muckety mucks never answered their own doors.  I turned
up the wattage on my smile, prepared to greet the first visitors to my new home repeating the mantra over and over in my head:
You are a strong, confident vampire…  

A rush of people piled in the front door, all eager to get a look at the place.  “
Jeez, did they all take a bus over together?” I murmured to Maggie, standing at the ready to greet them all in an endless procession of faces. 

Once the initial torrent of guests slowed, I left off the front door duty to mingle among the guests, full champagne flute in hand.  I didn’t dare have anything to drink, not yet.  Maybe after I survived the first hour without horribly embarrassing myself, but I didn’t want to tempt fate. 

It felt like everyone I’d invited came, including the magistrate, who I offered a frosty smile to.  I didn’t see Mason anywhere, but that wasn’t surprising.  I hadn’t wanted Hanna to be there, and he spent most of his evenings with her down in San Jose now.  I saw Frost arrive though, sticking out like a sore thumb in his tactical gear. 

“Don’t you own any other clothes?” I asked him, when he came to pay his respects.

“Sure, but you’re not having a luau.” He gave that laid back grin again, but his eyes scanned the room, force of habit I supposed. 

“Next time,” I laughed back.  “But you’re welcome to strip down to your skivvies now if you’d feel more comfortable that way.  I could probably even dig up a pair of flip flops for you.”

“The sign of a first-rate hostess, making everyone feel comfortable in her home,” he chuckled.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I aim to please,” I
said, handing him my still-full glass.  “Why don’t you get started with this and mingle a little?  Let the people get to know you.”

“Oh, I already know most of the people here,” he replied, taking a small sip.  “Same crowd, different decade.  You know how it goes.”

“I do,” I nodded.  I hadn’t realized he was in such familiar territory, and it made me feel like I had less of an advantage over him.  What if he asked me why we’d never run into each other before?  “If you’ll excuse me, I think I see the magistrate over there.  I have some business to discuss with him.”

“Yeah, no problem.  Hey, thanks again for the invite
. I like your place.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, catching Rob’s eye as I headed in Byrne’s direction.  What I wanted to discuss was best done in private, and he’d asked me to give him a heads up whenever I left the main party.

The magistrate was all smiles and handshakes when I approached him, agreeing to speak with me privately as if it was a magnanimous gesture on his part.  I led him to the study, which had been kept closed off from the crowd. 

“
Have you given some thought to what I said the other night?  I really think we could make a great team.” He grinned the instant I got him alone. 

“That’s not why I asked you in here tonight.”

“No?”  His smile turned smarmy and it took everything I had in me not to recoil visibly when he stepped forward, but I was prepared to clock him if he got too close.  Luckily, Rob cleared his throat just then and Byrne noticed him for the first time.  “Oh, hi, Rob.  I didn’t see you there.”  Byrne grew noticeably flustered, springing away from me as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  

“Hullo, Terry,” Rob replied, not so much as moving a muscle, but his presence alone was enough to keep Byrne off balance. 

“You’re back in town, huh?  That’s good to know.”

“Seems that way.  Why don’t you have a seat and listen to what the lady has to say?”

“Sure, of course.  That’s why I’m here, right?” Byrne grinned, sliding into the nearest chair. 

I tossed Rob a quick wink before settling behind the huge walnut desk, reaching for a stack of papers from the top drawer.  “I’ve received some petitions that need forwarding up the chain of command.”   

His hands came up, and his whole body leaned away from the desk.  “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t touch those, not without observing the proper protocols.”

“Which are?”

“You’re new to this arena, I can tell.”  His whole manner took on an even bigger air of condescension.  “It’s alright though, anyone could make the same mistake.  See, there’s a process that’s been established.  I meet with the supplicant directly and weigh the validity of their petition against their particular needs.  The higher the need, the more my personal influence is required to get it processed in time.  Now, I can generally meet any deadline, no matter how tight, but it does take a certain finesse when dealing with the higher ups.” 

I started to see where he was going with this.  The bastard wanted to charge for even touching them.  “And the more of your finesse that’s needed, the more of a fee is collected.”

“It’s less of a fee than a deposit on their future.  Any monies paid are fully refundable if their petition is denied outright.”

“If they haven’t already been put down by the Order for taking matters into their own hands first,” I grumbled. 

“Hey, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, that’s what I always say,” he smirked, fingers lacing together over his belly. 

“So, let me see if I get this straight.  If I were to hand these over to you for review, you would assign a specific cash value depending on criteria based solely on your years of experience.  Then, if I meet that cash price, the results would be nearly guaranteed at an agreed upon time frame?  Does that about sum it up?”

“You’re catching on quick,” he winked.  “I like that.” 

“And if I refuse to pay?”

“Let me reduce it to simpler terms.  No pay, no play.”

“I’ll give you something to play with,” Rob muttered, taking a threatening step towards Byrne, but I stayed him with a hand. 

“No, it’s fine, Rob, I’ve got it.  Mr. Byrne, I think you overestimate your position here.  I asked you to deliver these out of an obviously misguided sense of propriety, and that’s my fault for not anticipating the level of depravity you bring to your position, you gormless weasel.” 

Byrne shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  “Hey now, there’s no need for name calling.”

“Make no mistake, these petitions are going to get the attention they deserve, and without your greedy fingers dipping into it.  Now, you can pass them along to Felix, or I’ll have to go over your head and take care of it myself.  Of course, if I do that, he’ll want to know why I didn’t go through you directly.  I’m thinking… you don’t want that kind of attention, not during your bid for Elder.  It’s one thing for people to look the other way, but it’s quite another for them to ignore corruption when I’m shining a big, fat spotlight on it.”