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dreamed about the first time I kissed a woman Elyas, a fellow operative in the
OIA. I dreamed about becoming a priestess in the Sisterhood of the Ancients, a
hope that died when I got my first moon blood and became a woman. I dreamed
about movement and patterns and fractals, about dance and music and poetry.
And after particularly stressful nights, I dreamed about Dredge. Unfortunately
I no longer had the luxury other people have of waking from their nightmares.
Once I was asleep, if the memories came to visit, there was no other option
than to ride them out, to relive the torture and rape and eventually my own
blessed death. Over and over again I dreamed about my transformation. Sisyphus
reborn, only instead of trickery against the gods, I was guilty of stealing
secrets from a very nasty tempered vampire and his crew. For that, I earned my
eternal punishment, damned to walk among the undead until the day I'm ready to
let go and die the final death.
I never told Camille and Delilah about the nightmares. There was no need. Why
should we all carry such dark memories? There's nothing they could do to
change my destiny, and I refused to weigh them down with the knowledge of just
how vicious people, whether living or dead, can be. Though they'd rapidly been
discovering that savage truth for themselves, with our battle against the
demons.
I put away my book and slowly removed my jeans and turtleneck. Thinking about
Dredge had brought up too many memories. I glanced down at my body. No use
looking in a mirror, not anymore. My reflection was never there to look back
at me. And yet every time I undressed and saw the scars, how could I help but
remember?
Their meeting was almost over&
A few more minutes and I could creep out, free and clear and with the
information we needed. I took a long, slow breath as I held myself steady,
clinging to the precarious handholds that kept me aloft in the higher reaches
of the cave. At this distance, the Elwing Blood Clan couldn't sense the heat
my body gave off, but my ultrasensitive hearing would catch what they were
saying. Another perk of my mixed blood. I could hear the soft fall of a
footstep in the next room.
Satisfied, I merely had to wait them out a little longer. As of five minutes
ago, I'd collected enough information to take them down. Dredge was brilliant,
but he didn't seem to comprehend that someone, somewhere, might be plotting
against him. Nobody else but the OIA would be daring or foolhardy enough to
spy on the Elwing Blood Clan. That's where I came in.
Now all I had to do was wait until they left the cave. They always dispersed
for feeding after they'd had their meeting. I'd been here three times before,
and each time, I had easily slipped away. This was my last assignment on the
mission. I had what we needed. I'd found out for sure what the OIA had
suspected: Dredge and his cronies were plotting to start up their own Court
with Dredge as their king. Vampire courts were outlawed in Otherworld by an
agreement among all of the Fae governments. They were allowed to form nests
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with a maximum of thirteen members before hiving off a new enclave.
Dredge had already broken that rule I'd counted twenty-three members of the
Elwing Clan. And he was out to rule far more than his turf here. He wanted to
set himself up to be a vampiric lord and we suspected he planned on trying to
muscle in on the money flowing through the thieves' and assassins' guilds. And
if he had his way, he'd be in a position to slake his sadistic thirsts without
worrying about reprisals. People would be too afraid to fight back if he ruled
a Court instead of a nest.
With the knowledge I'd discovered, by tomorrow morning the OIA would be able
to send a team in to stake every last bloodsucker in the rogue clan of vamps.
Threatening to exile them to the Sub Realms hadn't proved all that effective
when they escaped capture every time.
Just hang on, keep quiet as they filed out, and I'd be home free. I might even
get a promotion for my work a first for the D'Artigo girls. In fact, the way
things were looking with our track records, it would take a promotion to
prevent the OIA from assigning us to some lowlife town down south to watch
over the riffraff. We weren't lazy& just a little unlucky at times.
I shivered as a cold draft blew by, even though I was in a spider-silk body
suit. My hair was pulled tightly into a bun, to keep it out of my face. I'd
made sure to stretch out before coming on duty, but now every muscle in my
body hurt and all I could think about was going home and taking a long hot
bath. Camille and I had plans to head out for a party at midnight. There was
an opium bash at the Collequia, and Camille wanted me to meet someone there,
some guy she'd hooked up with a few weeks back. His name was Trillian or
something like that. The fact that she wouldn't tell us anything about him
made me know right off that there had to be something wrong with him. Camille
had a taste for bad boys.
A ripple of pain washed down my left arm. Damn it, what was taking the vamps
so long to clear out? I squinted, trying to make out what was going on below.
From where I was sequestered, I couldn't see them very well. On the plus side,
they couldn't see me, either.
Ten more minutes, I thought. Just ten minutes. I forced myself to ignore my
burning muscles and tried to focus on something else. Father had promised we'd
take a vacation before the next full moon to go visit relatives in the
Windwillow Valley, or maybe spend a few days in Aladril, the City of Seers.
Either way, we all needed a holiday. All four of us had been working hard
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