Читать книгу Masked Possession - Alana Delacroix - Страница 12

Chapter 6

Eric stood waiting in the library. He liked this room. Mementoes were scattered around: a collection of medals under a glass-topped curio table, a worn beaded leather belt. The golden morning sun lit the books that lined the walls and Tiffany lamps hung over comfortable leather club chairs. In front of the fireplace, the huge velvet sofa lined with plump pillows caught Eric’s eye and for a brief and dizzying moment he imagined Caro lounging there, naked, with the glow from the flames warming her skin.

“Package, sire.” One of the security guards walked in, breaking his reverie.

Eric turned. “Leave it on the table.”

“Yessir.”

He didn’t remember ordering anything lately, but that wasn’t unusual. Late night online shopping had led to some of his most treasured purchases, such as a room fan shaped like a pineapple. It helped keep some surprises in his life.

Stephan pushed the door open. “It’s almost nine, so Julien D’Aurant will be here shortly,” he said. “Do you think he’ll have something good?”

Eric fell into the one of the chairs and stretched. It had been a long, fitful night of ominous dreams. He’d finally gotten out of bed at four in the morning to go for a run in the hopes of calming himself and restoring order to his increasingly chaotic thoughts. His mental state fluctuated between intense desires to play video games or bake scones or going to networking events—all traits from his masques that should come out only when he was in them. The exercise had helped but he knew time was running short.

Taking on Alex’s masque yesterday had been a mistake.

“As long as it’s fast.” Perhaps Julien would bring Caro. One of Eric’s dreams had featured her straddling him, her face shadowed and eyes shut in ecstasy. That had been the only bright spot of the night.

Stephan walked to the window and gazed out onto the street. “Was it worth it, taking on so many masques that you brought yourself to this point?”

Eric didn’t bother pretending he didn’t understand. Nor could he resent the question. It was valid. He’d wanted to show he could do it, but there was another, darker reason. “It was,” he said simply. “It got me through le vide.”

Le vide. An extra few hundred years of living could pull a number on mental well-being. Masquerada dreaded the touch of that chilling emptiness almost as much as they feared convergence.

Stephan examined him with sharp eyes and nodded. “Okay, then,” he said, and mercifully left the subject alone. “I wish you would consider letting me call in Frieda Hanver.”

“You know how I feel about Frieda.”

“She’s skilled in convergence and owes you allegiance, despite what happened. I think we can trust her.”

“You do?”

“Trust her now,” Stephan amended. “She’s been on excellent behavior since the High Council’s punishment.”

Eric considered this. Frieda. Absolutely she was skilled, one of their best healers. She was also an incredibly talented and manipulative liar.

“She’s been doing a special study of convergence lately,” Stephan said. “There’s no one more knowledgeable in North America.”

Tom pushed open the door, his large hand swamping a delicate porcelain cup. The smell of Darjeeling wafted in.

Eric nodded a greeting. “What do you know about Frieda Hanver’s latest doings?”

“Not hearing much about her, these days,” Tom said immediately. “She’s keeping a low profile, concentrating on her work. She’s well-connected with the old lineages.”

“Trustworthy?” Eric asked.

Tom thought about this. “It depends on what you were trusting her with. She takes her healer vows seriously. She’s good at what she does. You can never guarantee it, but it looks as if the punishment put the fear of God into her. I’ve used her to help injured team members.”

“You have?”

“She fixed Amit’s back when he fell from the wall practicing in the Throne Room recently.”

“You practice in the Throne Room?”

“We do drills everywhere you are on a regular basis.”

Eric glanced at Stephan. “Fine. Keep her in mind and do some background work to see if there’s anything we can get from her research without bringing her in. The fewer people who know about this the better.”

“Understood.”

Eric picked up scissors and began to cut through the tape on the package. Tom frowned and put his teacup down on a shelf lined with books. “What’s that?”

“Not sure. Came this morning.”

“Stop.”

When Tom spoke in that tone, even Eric listened. He paused and glanced up. Tom’s eyes were as steady on the package as a predator’s that had sighted its evening meal.

“Sire. Put the scissors down and move away. Slowly.”

Stephan came to full attention as Eric did as Tom ordered. “What is it?”

Tom didn’t move. “Could be nothing. Could be something. Eric, Stephan, out in the hall.” He followed, then pulled the door shut and barked an order into his phone.

“We’re going to leave and let my team work.” Tom angled his head down the corridor.

“Agreed.” Eric led the way out and down to the main security command room, which was reinforced and protected. On the way they passed a team of hazmat-suited and body-armored masquerada. Tom put out a general order to all the staff to head to the basement. The three men stood silently for a minute when they reached the command room.

“That package had something to do with Iverson?” Eric cursed himself for being careless.

“Might be. There were no courier marks on the package. Better to be cautious. I increased our security. There’s still nothing concrete, but it looks like it’s true that he’s back and active.”

“Assume it’s true.” Eric checked the security video of the library but all he saw was people moving purposefully around. “Even if it’s nothing, there’s something going on in the city under his direction.”

Tom’s phone beeped and he picked it up. “Understood.” His eyes stayed vigilant, but he relaxed somewhat. “Eric, we can go up.”

“Is it safe for the staff?” Stephan said. At Tom’s nod, he sent the all clear signal.

Back in the library, the security team stood in a small knot around the desk, murmuring quietly. They moved aside when the three men entered.

“What the hell is that?” Stephan stared at the open box in astonishment.

“It’s a knife, sir.” Eric thought it might be Mai, but it was hard to tell through the helmet she wore over her head. “A bloodstained knife.”

“Whose blood?” Stephan demanded.

“Iverson’s.” Eric knew this blade, with its familiar notch on the hilt and the engraved E on the pommel.

Stephan’s eyes flickered over it. “Jesus. Don’t tell me.”

“It’s my knife, the one I used to slice his throat.” Eric glanced up at the security team. “Thank you. Take the knife and check it over. I want it back.”

Getting the hint, the team saluted and left the room with the knife and the packaging. Eric waited until the door was closed and lowered his voice when he spoke. “We’ve got a mole. That knife was in a locked box in the throne room. No one should have even known it was there, let alone been able to steal it.”

“Iverson’s not usually this subtle.” Tom picked up his tea again. “I guess he had his ears open in prison.”

Stephan nodded in agreement. “I would have expected more fanfare. But why’d he tip his hand? Now we know he’s up to something.”

“It’s to unsettle us,” Tom said. “He probably thinks now that we know we have a mole, we’ll spend our resources hunting them out. Which I am about to do.”

“What’s he even doing here?” Stephan turned to the others. “Why here? He could give orders from anywhere. That’s what cell phones are for.”

Eric shrugged. “He doesn’t trust anyone. He’d want to be on the spot.” A mole. He couldn’t believe it. Loyalty was the one thing he thought he’d had over Iverson. Not to be able to trust his own people— He looked up to see Tom staring at him.

“No, Eric. Our people are good. He’s messing with us. I’ll still check but I don’t believe it.”

Tom was right. Destruction from within was the worst of all endings. “What was that reporter’s name? The one who broke the story that got Iverson arrested?” The humans had acted so fast the Pharos Council hadn’t even had time to accuse him of breaking the Law.

Stephan gazed up at the ceiling as though the answer was written there. “I think Lynn. Last name started with a B. Babcock? Briar? Why?”

“She might be a good resource. I read her work. It was unbelievable. That woman kept after him like a bulldog. She would have kept an eye on him.”

“Butler,” Tom said quietly. “Lynn Butler. She’s not with the Post anymore.”

“Where did she go? That was Pulitzer-level reporting.”

Tom tapped something into his phone, then looked up. “It seems nowhere. Apparently she was almost killed in an attempted mugging about a year ago. Left the paper.”

“See if we can track her down. She might have some insights.”

Stephan turned from the window where he had been running a finger along the sill. “Forget Iverson for now. It’s almost time for your appointment. Are you sure this is what you want? Whatever it is that Julien brings?”

With difficulty, Eric dragged his mind back to the badly timed, pain-in-ass convergence. “No. I don’t. I don’t have a choice. You warned me and I didn’t listen. I spread myself too thin.”

“We could try something else. Getting rid of one, perhaps.”

“You know it won’t work. All of the masques I am right now—they’re too intertwined in me.” He paused, hesitant to say what the others needed to know and knowing he would never admit it to any but these two men, men who had been with him through battles and blood. “I’m losing my sense of self. My core.” He could feel the masques pressing on his inner thoughts with insidious force and his heart hammered with the knowledge that if he didn’t shed the masques soon, he might shatter the boundary surrounding his core self.

Tom and Stephan only had time to share a concerned glance before a light knock interrupted them. Stephan crossed the room and swung open the paneled door, blocking access to the room with his body. Tom was right behind him. “Ms. Yeats,” Eric heard him say. “Thanks, Mai. We have her.”

“I’m sorry, have we met? Wait…Stephan?” The voice sounded tentative.

Was that Caro? Eric shot to his feet.

“Ah, I apologize. Yes. This is my usual masque. Yesterday you met me as Alex’s assistant. Please come in. Are you here alone?”

Eric stepped forward as Caro walked into the room, trailed closely by Tom. She looked different from the previous day and it took a moment to realize what it was. The fuck-me shoes she’d worn in the office had added about four inches to her height, which had evaporated now that she wore a pair of sneakers. Today she was dressed down in tight jeans and a black sweater. A huge colorful scarf wrapped her throat and her hair was tied in a casual knot. Eric’s heart missed a beat. How was it possible that the woman looked even sexier when she dressed like a college student?

Her eyes traveled to Tom as he came beside her, then widened as she took in his combat fatigues and weapons.

“This is Tom Minor, my chief of security,” Eric said. “Tom, meet Ms. Caro Yeats.”

“A pleasure, ma’am.” After giving her a searching glance, Tom shook her hand briskly and nodded at Eric. “I’ll be in the training room.”

He left with his usual speed, leaving Caro looking nonplussed at the place from where he had, from her perspective, simply disappeared.

“Are we waiting for Mr. D’Aurant?” Hopefully not.

She looked at Eric with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, which remained wary. “I’m sorry, Julien is ill. He asked me to come over to present the plan. We know time is of the essence.”

“I hope nothing too bad?” Eric was pleased that he kept his voice politely disinterested, despite his heart rolling in his chest. Merely looking at Caro made the memory of Iverson and that damn knife recede.

This time Caro smiled for real. “Oh yes, he’ll be fine after some rest.”

* * * *

Caro didn’t mention that Julien had called her at six in the morning, exhausted from a night of illness brought on by food poisoning. Obscurely, he seemed to think it was somehow her fault and she’d reminded him that first, Robert the warlock was the one who could cast spells and second, maybe he would have been better off sticking with the yam tempura instead of wolfing down pounds of raw and apparently contaminated fish for lunch the previous day.

That hadn’t gone over well and she’d held the phone away from her ear to avoid the revolting noises.

Julien’s voice was weak when he returned to the phone. “We can’t cancel Kelton. We’d lose the account and God knows what else he’d do out of spite. You’ll have to go.”

“Of course. I’ll go by the office and get my notes.”

“Bien. Remember we need at least twenty-four hours to deploy the dive team.”

“I remember.” The dive team had been her idea in the first place.

“Dress properly, Caro. In a skirt. Heels.” Julien’s tone had made it clear this was his real concern about her presentation.

Dumbass. She hadn’t bothered to answer.

However, as she stood in the library with Eric and Stephan, she wondered if she should have at least worn a pair of cute flats instead of sneakers. She’d been determined not to dress up and had perversely dressed even more casually than she would normally. The masquerada may be masters of costume and disguise but she would be herself and nothing more, or less.

After noting that Stephan was now a tall hazel-eyed black man with a shaved head and stubble instead of the shorter bald white man who had appeared at the JDPR office, her attention had gone immediately to Eric, who wore a casual outfit of black jeans and a gray T-shirt that seemed molded to his chest. Seeing all that hard, contoured muscle made her hands itch. To touch him…

A hard bite on the tongue brought her back to reality. Get a grip. She was here to present a plan, not get a date. Not like it mattered. The guy was the equivalent of a freaking king. These were men who were used to supermodels and movie stars. Normal women like her wouldn’t even cross their radar and there was no point in trying.

Even if she was interested in Eric Kelton.

Which of course she was not, since he was a masquerada and she wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. It was hard enough to make things work with a regular guy, let alone with a man who had lived for centuries, who had money, power, and could make himself look like an Adonis. She couldn’t trust a person like that and without trust, there could be no relationship worth having. Even if she had a chance. Or wanted a relationship, which again, she didn’t. Sex and love had disappeared from her life the night the knives slid through her.

She gave herself a mental pinch. To work. There were two desks in Eric’s library, one covered with a bank of dark monitors and the other aggressively bare. Caro chose that one, unnerved that both men simply watched her as she padded across the room. Walking suddenly seemed like an awkward thing to do and she cursed herself for forgetting that sneakers made her move like a short sasquatch. She hadn’t felt this ditzy around a man since she was a teenager.

Naturally, one of her shoes squeaked. And the lace was loosening.

She took a firm hold on herself. Estelle had a phrase that she always used when she felt under pressure and it floated through her mind now.

Bitch, I’m fabulous.

That relaxed her. Time to focus on being a good little PR person and get her laptop booted up and the deck on. When Eric came up and looked over her shoulder, she tried not to notice how his arm pressed against hers as he leaned in. His heat radiated through her entire body, making her feel almost drugged. Having him that close made her heart race. She prayed her voice would stay even when she spoke.

“That’s Belize,” he said, looking at the image on her screen. “The Great Blue Hole.”

“That’s your grave,” she said.

He leaned in closer and spoke in a low voice in her ear. “You certainly know how to get a man’s attention. I’m listening.”

Was he flirting with her? She couldn’t deny that he could make her bones melt with a single sentence. Reluctantly, she moved away as Stephan joined them. Concentrating was already difficult but to go through the details with Eric close would be damn near impossible. In ten minutes, she laid out the plan. The Alex masque would be on a yacht for a pitch on a new eco-tourism business venture he was considering. The yacht would sink. Everyone would escape but him. Simple but effective.

Stephan held up a hand. “Then others will be at risk?”

“They’ll actually be our people, a mer dive team. They’ll be fine and they’ll assist the masquerada who is impersonating Alex.”

“Will I physically be involved or on board?” Eric asked.

“No. The goal here is not to have a body that can be found. Too much trouble. We’ll have masquerada impersonate the Alex masque at key points to get the necessary proof. A few photos should do it.”

“Masquerada?” Eric frowned, his dark brows forming wicked peaks. “My people?”

Caro eyed him cautiously, unsure of what he meant. The guy was the Hierarch but she didn’t know what that meant in the day-to-day running of things. This was one of the times she wished Julien was around. The man might be obnoxious, but he was also a master at identifying nuances of power plays that went right over her head. “We have masquerada on this project. They don’t know who the client is, unless they know you are also Alex.”

“No, we keep it tight.”

“It’ll be fine, then. We’ve also set the teams up in cells, so neither will know of the other’s work.” He looked satisfied and she nearly sagged with relief. She’d never been good at the politics.

“You have my permission.”

“That takes care of Alex, but what about the other masques?” Stephan asked.

“Luckily, those are easier to deal with. None of them have tight bonds with neighbors or friends. Family emergencies, new jobs across the country and for the older woman, Alberta, a heart attack in bed.” Caro brought up the next slide in the deck, which outlined the planned disappearances for the other four masques.

Eric watched her with hooded eyes, and she wondered how he felt as she discussed the deaths of the masques he’d invested so much into. Maybe she should try to be a bit more empathetic. Try was the operative word. Generally, she had the sensitivity of a stick.

“A car accident for one of them,” she added. “In a distant city.”

Eric grinned at her, causing long creases to run down his cheeks. “I thought that was too— What was the word you used with Julien? Pedestrian?”

She laughed. “Once he approved the Belize sea trip, I felt generous.”

Some device on Stephan buzzed and he moved away to whisper into it. Taking Eric aside, he muttered something, which Eric sharply negated. Stephan left the room with obvious reluctance, glancing back over his shoulder before finally shutting the door.

Caro felt a surge of nervous exhilaration at being left alone with Eric. Her eyes lingered on the long sofa. When she turned around, she caught Eric’s gaze, his storm-cloud gray eyes lit by the sun streaming through the windows.

“Would you like to take a seat near the fire?” he asked. “I can light it for you.”

“One of the chairs here is fine.” She felt unaccountably flustered, as though he could read the naughty thoughts she had about that comfortable-looking sofa.

After ushering her over politely, he offered some water from the chilled carafe on the side table. “Stephan’s been called out, but we can go over the details of your plan. The bones seem good. What’s the timeline?”

She sipped the water. “We can have it ready in thirty-six hours.”

“That will do. Where do I have to be?”

“Here. Toronto. As Eric Kelton you’re not associated with any of the masques so you should continue with your usual schedule. Do you have an assistant?”

“Stephan takes care of it with his team.”

“We’ll work out the logistics with him.” Caro congratulated herself for handling the conversation, if not well, at least without embarrassment.

“Excellent, I can…” he stopped and a strange look came over his face. He stood.

Alarm filled Caro. “Eric? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He wasn’t fine, Caro realized. She rose to her feet as he collapsed. It took only a second for her to reach him and she gasped in horror to see the parade of features flash across his face. She recognized some—Alexander figured prominently—but there were countless others. My God, are these the masques he’s been over the years? There must be dozens. More. Hundreds.

Even as the thought occurred to her, Eric’s back arched and he groaned in agony. His eyes flickered—black, blue, brown. “Convergence,” he whispered.

“Oh my God, what do I do?” Caro prided herself on being able to cope with most emergency situations, but a masquerada entering a convergence state was not something that had been covered in basic first aid classes. “Stephan, help!” She yelled it as loud as she could, not wanting to risk leaving Eric’s side to find a phone.

Then, as suddenly as the attack began, it was over. Eric lay still and Caro was appalled to see that the ghostly features of his other masques remained imprinted on his face. He was cold to her touch.

Even worse, he wasn’t breathing.