Authors: Megan Morgan
“There’re two parts to that, isn’t there?” Occam said. “Micha’s test results, and the documentation on the serum.”
“Which I’ve just sent to the FBI, actually, via one of my Paranormal Alliance members. You know, the ones I’m so out of favor with?”
This should have been a smack in the vampire’s smug face. However, after a momentary pause, Occam started laughing. “It wouldn’t happen to be the reporter I saw leaving here earlier, would it?”
“So you’ve been spying on us.” Sam put his hands on his hips. “Not surprised.”
“I love your genius, Sam Haain. You’re almost as smart as you are attractive.”
“You are the foulest creature in this city,” Muse said.
“And your master is the stupidest,” Occam replied. “He’s stuck his foot in it so deep, the alligators will chew his leg off in no time, and he doesn’t even realize it.”
“What are you talking about?” June asked.
Occam turned his attention to her, his eyes blazing and bloodshot. “I told you, Little Red. Vampires observe. We know everything that goes on in this city, every little secret you try to hide from each other.” He looked back at Sam. “Everything the Institute does. Everything your insipid organizations get up to. All the inner machinations you could only wish to know. We’re much older, wiser, and more powerful than any other paranormal being. You should respect us.”
“Are you going to jerk off all over the floor, too?” Sam spread his arms, indicating the glass.
“Always so quick to ridicule, Sam. So quick to jump. We vampires know the value of waiting. We can afford to. Patience is a virtue.” He flashed his fangs. “We will watch you destroy each other. Then we’ll step up and take our rightful spots as owners of this city without ever having to lift a finger.”
“So why are you messing with Micha?” June asked. “That isn’t being neutral.”
“Because he benefits us. That which benefits us is our concern.”
“What he has inside him will shut the Institute down,” June said. “Don’t you want the Institute shut down? Send him back to us and let us do this.”
“I don’t care what happens to the Institute.” He strolled over to her. She took a step back. “In the end, if he won’t do what we want, he’ll become our plaything. We’ve already had some fun with him.” He smirked at her hand, where she was clutching the ring.
“Take me instead,” she pleaded. “I’ll be your insurance policy, until he tells them Rose’s research is fake. I’ll stay with you until it happens.”
Occam tilted his chin up, eyes glittering with interest.
“Please,” she said, lowering her voice. “Take me with you. Send him back.”
“No.” Sam stepped forward. “You’re not going anywhere, June.” He glowered at Occam. “What did you come here for? To kill us? To make me pay for my insolence?”
Occam turned toward him, the movement fluid and creepy. “Why yes, I was going to kill you.”
Muse circled around Occam, her eyes hard little pinpoints as she focused on him. He seemed to be ignoring her.
“But now I’ve decided,” Occam said, “that would be no fun. I wouldn’t get to watch you, and Aaron Jenkins, and the Institute all tear each other to itty-bitty shreds while we lap up the blood. While we sit back and wait for our turn in the spotlight.”
“Always looking out for number one,” Sam said. “And as if you could kill me.”
“Sam.” Occam chuckled. “Do you really think I didn’t bring some friends with me? Even when you think a vampire is alone, we never are. But like I said, I’m not going to kill you, now that I’m clear on what you’ve done. I came here to take you down and found you digging your own grave.”
June’s stomach clenched. Occam’s words from yesterday popped into her head—how he seemed to know where Robbie was, how he claimed Sam’s operatives had been working against him inside the Institute.
“What are you talking about?” June asked. “What do you know?”
Occam turned back to her. “Oh,” he whispered, sounding pleased and reverent. “There we are, finally. I knew you were the smart one.”
“What’s going on?” June held his gaze.
“I wouldn’t be neutral if I told you.”
“Don’t get sucked in, June,” Sam said. “He’s lying.”
The taunting glint in Occam’s eyes and the smile curling his lips said otherwise.
“You should let her go with me,” Occam said, speaking to Sam but still looking at June. “She wants to.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Sam said.
“There are many sides to this,” Occam said to June, “the poor, plighted paranormal people’s side, the Institute’s side, the fanatic’s side. The right side to be on is no side at all. That’s where the smart money is. And I think you’re a woman who likes to invest wisely, aren’t you, June Coffin?”
Maybe Occam had some Siren in him.
“Enough of this.” Sam stepped forward, the glass crunching under his feet. “She’s not going anywhere with you, Occam.”
“I’m not in any hurry.” Occam waved a languid hand. “I still have a few strings I can pull her toward me with. If one doesn’t work, another will. What strings do you have, Sam? You’d better tug hard before you lose her.”
The whisper of metal on metal sounded behind Occam. Muse had drawn her curved blade, the one she’d sliced Robbie’s face with at the press conference.
“How fast do you think the other vampires can get up here?” she asked. “Faster than I can open your throat?”
Occam didn’t move or react. Nor did vampires instantly fill the room. Occam bowed his head, laughing quietly.
“She hasn’t got much time left,” he said, looking sideways at Sam. “What will you do without her, I wonder? But then, you haven’t got much time left, either.”
Occam spun around, jerking his arm out to block Muse’s blow as she brought the knife down in a swift arc. The blade stopped inches from Occam’s throat.
Occam grabbed Muse by the arm, holding the knife, and spun her around, so she ended up behind him, and flung her at Sam. He caught her and she snarled, the two of them stumbling back.
“You’re all doomed.” Occam rushed to the window.
Muse charged after him again, knife lifted.
June yelled, “Stay!” Her power vibrated the air.
Muse stopped in her tracks, wide-eyed, teetering in place. She dropped her arm and gawked at June.
Occam was half out the window, one leg still inside. He paused as June ran over to him.
“Give me your word,” she said, “that you’ll bring Micha back in one piece.”
“Why should I?”
“Why shouldn’t you? Once he’s benefitted you, he’s nothing. Throw him back to us. Let us all eat each other. Don’t get involved in this war.”
Occam stared into her eyes.
“Your word,” June said. “Give it to me, Occam. Please.”
Why was she asking this of a vampire? Why did something inside her whisper to try it, that it might work?
“Occam…”
“Very well,” he said. “In one piece.” He looked her over. “I found something I want more than him, anyway.”
With that, he dropped out of sight.
For a moment, June stared at the blank spot where he’d been. Then she turned to Muse, who was still standing in place.
“You can move now,” June said.
Muse sagged, like a soldier coming out of attention. “What the hell are you doing!” she railed at June.
“Saving our asses. You put that blade in him and fifty vampires would have been up here carving us into bite-sized pieces. Do you think he was bluffing about that?”
Sam gripped Muse’s arm. “You shouldn’t have done that, June.”
“Someone has to do something sensible.” June gnashed her teeth. “Act like the smartest man in the city, and stop taking stupid chances!”
Sam strode over to her. “What the hell was he talking about?” He got in her face. “About me digging my own grave? You seemed to know.”
“I don’t know.” She gestured at Muse. “Read my mind! I’m telling the truth. It’s something about Robbie, I think. He knows where he is. Occam visited me at the clinic and was talking all this cryptic shit about how Robbie is more powerful than we think.”
Sam looked at Muse. She nodded slowly, uncertainty in her eyes. Doubt was a new look for her, and it didn’t suit her.
“We have to be careful,” June said. “I think we’re in danger. But Micha will be all right. Or at least, he’ll come back with everything attached. Occam won’t break his word to me.”
“You trust a promise from a vampire?” Sam asked.
“Yes. He wants my favor.”
Sam turned away. “This is ridiculous.” He walked across the room, kicking at the glass, and stalked into the kitchen.
“Everyone all right?” Trina asked, peeking around the corner from the hallway. She flinched as Sam slammed something in the kitchen.
Muse tucked the knife in her belt. “No.” She turned and stalked off to the kitchen as well.
Trina crept out.
“We should let you go,” June said to her. “Something bad is going to happen, and you shouldn’t have to be involved in it.”
Trina stopped in front of June and looked down at the ring in her hand. “You should come with me.”
June closed her fingers around the ring and swallowed.
“But I understand,” Trina said. “It’s complicated.”
* * * *
June couldn’t sleep—not just because she let Trina have the bed and was curled up in a chair in the corner of the bedroom. She could have been stretched out on the most comfortable bed in the universe, the mattress stuffed with the feathers of angels, and she wouldn’t have slept. Her mind kept pulling out ideas about every horrible thing that could possibly happen to her body, in various ways, at the hands of various people. When it tired of that, it moved on to picturing these things happening to people she cared about.
She got up and walked out to the living room.
A light was on, and Sam sat in a chair by the broken window. He was sprawled, elbows on the arms of the chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin. June padded to the couch and flung herself down on it. She stretched out.
The TV was off, the room silent. The lack of reporter’s voices was refreshing.
“Keeping watch?” she asked.
“I guess.”
Pieces of glass still littered the carpet. Sam had kicked most of it into a pile by the window, but small shards still glinted in the thick weave. One of them could have found a broom and swept it up properly, but housekeeping was low on everyone’s list of priorities.
“Normally,” June said, “I’d tell you to quit worrying and get some sleep, but I think there’s a lot to worry about.”
She twisted Micha’s ring on her finger, too big for anything but her middle finger without it slipping off. She wouldn’t keep it anywhere else, for fear of losing it.
“You’ve actually never told me that,” Sam said.
“What?”
“You said ‘normally’ you’d tell me that. But you’ve never actually said that to me.”
She shrugged. “Seems like something you’re supposed to say in these situations.”
The night outside the broken window was quiet, apart from the distant sound of traffic. Were any vampires lurking out there, watching them? Probably.
“Occam wants you,” Sam said.
“Yes.”
“He wants to make you a vampire.”
She tensed. “You think so?”
“It’s obvious.”
She rolled her head to the side, to look at him. “You’ve known that for a long time, haven’t you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“You and Aaron sent me to talk to the vampires because you knew if they took offense to your begging, they’d have me as a consolation prize. So no skin off your back, either way.”
Sam lowered his hands. “That is not the reason we sent you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Aaron suggested something like that could happen, but it wasn’t a desired outcome for either of us. I never wanted you to be made into a vampire. Neither did he.”
“I was a tactic with a built-in insurance policy.” She sat up. “You sent me to be snacked on.”
“No, I didn’t.” He lurched forward. “If that were the case, I would have let you go into Old Town by yourself. But I went with you, didn’t I?”
“Really? You swear you didn’t send me to be turned into a vampire?”
“I swear to you, June.”
“What do you swear it on?”
He pressed his lips together. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Because right now, I’m not sure I can trust you.”
He stared at her, face sagging. He blinked a few times. “Why do you think you can’t trust me?” He lowered his voice.
“Because you keep telling me you’re the smartest man in the city, but there’s all these things going down, all these things you didn’t notice before, and they’re putting us in danger. You didn’t cover your ass as well as you thought you did.”
“So you don’t trust me because of the situation I’ve been thrust into? Because people are working against me? How the hell is that my fault?”
She swung her legs off the couch. “You missed everything leading up to this. You missed Robbie. He was right under your nose.”
“Yes. A charlatan. A powerful one. Who I didn’t know about because he made sure I didn’t.” He got to his feet. “Stop blaming me for something that was out of my control. Do you think you could have found a snake hiding in the grass? Do you think a man like Robbie lets anyone know what he’s up to before he’s damn good and ready?”
“I just want to believe I’m not expendable to you.”
Sam walked over to the couch. She shrank back as he leaned over her, clamping his hands on the back of the couch on either side of her head. He bent down, his hair sweeping around his face, and stared into her eyes.
“I did not set you up.” He spoke low and succinctly. “I did not send you to the vampires with the idea they could use you as a teething ring if things didn’t work out. That’s why I went to Old Town with you, to make sure you were safe.”
She gazed up at him, plastered to the couch. “You swear it.”
“I swear it on my life.” He paused. “I swear it on Muse’s life.”
She breathed slowly, in and out through her nose.
“And I didn’t use Micha as a bargaining chip,” he said. “He’s the most valuable player in this game.”
She squeezed her right hand into a fist. The ring was cool against her palm.
“I know you care about him.” The corner of his mouth jerked, the way Muse’s did, an involuntary tic. “I’ll do everything in what little power I still have to get him back for you.”