Kira mentally groaned as she heard Frank's voice cut through the usual cadence of sounds in the office. Next to her, Lily gave Kira a sympathetic glance.
"At it early today, isn't he?" Lily muttered.
"Where's Graceling?" Frank called out.
Before Kira had a chance to reply, Frank came through the door. She plastered a limp version of a smile on her face, bracing for whatever had made him seek her out before nine in the morning.
"I'm caught up on the reports from last week and I should be done with the new ones by the end of today," Kira said, heading Frank off before he could bark out a demand for her status.
Frank dropped something onto Kira's desk that for once wasn't a stack of papers.
She looked at the car keys in confusion.
"Did I leave those here? I thought I had them in my bag . . ."
"They're my set of keys for the company car," Frank said. He beamed. "I'm giving it to you. You deserve it."
Kira's mouth fell open even as she heard Lily drop something that sounded like her coffee cup. "You're giving it to me?" she repeated, glancing at the calendar. No, it wasn't April Fool's Day - unless Frank was getting his prank in a couple weeks late.
"Plus, I'm giving you a raise," Frank went on. "And I want you out of the office by six o'clock every night that you're not on surveillance. You work too hard." One extravagantly good deed from Frank, Kira could chalk up to his trying to balance his bad karma or something. Three extravagantly good deeds . . . either he was high, or this was his idea of a joke.
"I'm waiting for the punch line," Kira said cautiously.
Frank laughed, loud and hearty, confirming her guess that he'd been joking. She wanted to smack him. That man had a real sick sense of humor.
Then Frank slapped an envelope on her desk. "Open it."
Kira broke the seal, glancing once at Lily for moral support before she pulled out the contents.
It contained two pieces of paper. One was the title for the company car, signed by Frank and made out to her as the new owner. A check for two thousand dollars, also made out to her, was the other piece of paper.
"I made your raise retroactive," Frank said, still in the same cheerful tone she'd only ever heard him use with clients. "Good job, Graceling."
Kira just stared as Frank walked away. She was too stunned to even say thank you.
"What the hell just happened?" Lily whispered. "I mean, you do deserve all that, but Frank's so cheap, I can't believe he did it!"
Neither could Kira. Frank must've been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future or something. Otherwise, his abrupt transformation from miserly Scrooge employer to gleeful generous benefactor was nothing short of miraculous.
Miraculous.
"Oh my God," Kira whispered.
"What?" Lily asked.
"I . . . nothing."
Kira swiveled her chair around, taking in several deep, uneven breaths. Frank hadn't experienced a miraculous change of heart after a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future. No, he must have experienced something just as unusual - a visit from a mind-controlling vampire sometime between yesterday and today.
Mencheres. Her heart began to hammer. What are you doing?
Kira put another stack of folders in the trunk of Frank's car - make that her car - and paused to wave at Lily across the parking lot.
"What're you doing with all those, girl? You're not supposed to leave at a decent hour just so you can work all night at home," Lily called out.
"These are for, um, a side project," Kira stammered. A very side project.
"Some people call dating a side project, too. You should try that instead," Lily cackled.
Kira almost flushed. If Lily only knew . . .
"Good night, see you tomorrow," was what she said with another wave.
It took about the same amount of time to get to the West Loop by car as it did by walking and taking the Green Line, as Kira found out. Still, it was infinitely nicer not to heft that heavy backpack around, or to tense at every shadowy patch along the streets she walked when she worked late. She'd just have to get a treadmil or a gym membership for her exercise from now on.
Once she pulled inside the garage of her apartment building, Kira couldn't help but look around. Was Mencheres nearby? The thought sent a thril of excitement through her.
Or had he mesmerized Frank at the office without anyone's noticing him? It was possible. Mencheres moved so quickly, he could have been in and out without Kira, or anyone else, seeing him.
And why did he do it? Whimsy? Boredom? Or as a hint that he wanted her to find him?
Mencheres knew she worked for a private investigator. He knew she'd had cases where clients spoke of strange happenings that she'd previously dismissed . . . but now realized might have been true. If mesmerizing her boss into giving her a car and cash was Mencheres's way of dropping bread crumbs to see if Kira followed them, it worked.
The chance to see him again, not as his captive, but as a woman, made more slivers of exhilaration course through her. She had a thousand good reasons why seeing him would be a mistake, but instinct overruled those whenever she thought of him. All right, Mencheres. I'm taking the bait.
Two trips from her car to her apartment later and she had all the boxes of files spread out in her living room. Each case contained some sort of occurrence that might be paranormal in nature, be it outrageous witness testimony, odd evidence left at the scene, or rumors of involvement in something freakier than the occult. Kira intended to go through all of them until she found a common denominator. Mencheres might have stayed in his house most of the time that she'd been with him, but she had a feeling being homebound wasn't his normal pattern - or the pattern of most vampires.
Time to follow those gut feelings. With luck, somewhere in these files, she'd find something that would lead her to Mencheres. If that didn't work, she'd search the Internet next.
Or she could always tape a bat image to her apartment window right above a Welcome sign, but Kira thought that might be pushing it.
She picked up the first folder. Follow the bread crumbs.
Gorgon appeared in the bedroom doorway, but Mencheres didn't bother to open his eyes. He knew who Gorgon had come to announce. He'd heard him arrive.
"Tell him I'll be down momentarily," Mencheres said.
"Yes, sire," Gorgon replied.
Mencheres opened his eyes once Gorgon shut the door. He stared at the ceiling for several long seconds, not seeing its pale patterns but trying to see into the future, hoping something had changed. Perhaps the new vigor for life Kira had somehow wrought in him would alter the vision of the future he'd seen before.
His power reached out, piercing the veil that separated now from later, but instead of images of people, places, or happenings, all Mencheres saw was a blanket of ebony as vast and fathomless as the universe.
The underworld of Duat, waiting for him. Just as before.
Mencheres got up from the bed. His fate was still death, but instead of the acceptance he'd felt when he first saw that looming endless void, now it angered him. Death had become a bitter defeat instead of a coolly logical way to thwart Radjedef while releasing the burdens he'd long carried, and it was all because of Kira.
He clenched his jaw. How cruel the gods were to send her into his life. She made him want to live when he had no time left.
And even less time for complaining about his fate, Mencheres reminded himself. He took the manila envelope from his nightstand before he swept out of the room. Some things he still had control over, even if his future wasn't one of them.
Mencheres went downstairs to the front hall. A vampire stood near the door, his dark curly hair cut close and his lean frame encased in casual black pants and a fitted pull over shirt. For a moment, Mencheres stared at him. My co-ruler. My heir.
And his wife's murderer.
"Bones," he said in greeting. "Thank you for coming."
Dark brown eyes met his with a coolness that still stung even though Mencheres knew he had earned it. "You said it was urgent," Bones replied, a British accent coloring his words even after centuries.
"I don't trust this to be passed even through members of our line," Mencheres said, not bothering with any formal pleasantries. Bones had always preferred getting right to business. He held out the manila folder that contained all of Kira's personal information.
"Put this with my other Legacy items."
Bones arched a brow as he took the folder that was meant to be opened only in the event of Mencheres's death. He didn't know it, but by taking it, Bones had just assumed responsibility for Kira once Mencheres was gone.
"still think you're soon to be shriveled, grandsire?" Bones asked with a hint of a scoff.
"Vision impotence doesn't necessarily mean impending death. It might only be a temporary loss."
Bones knew that Mencheres's visions of the future were gone, but Mencheres hadn't told his co-ruler that the one thing he did see ahead of him was darkness. He also hadn't told Bones that his cold war with Radjedef was heating up. Bones would feel obligated to act on both pieces of information, and Mencheres didn't want that. He'd settle his own affairs in the time he had left.
"It is foolish not to be prepared for any eventuality," Mencheres said with a shrug.
"Indeed. Speaking of preparing for any eventuality, we might have a problem with some ghouls. I've heard reports that Masterless vampires have gone missing in recent weeks, with ghoul gangs as the primary suspects."
Mencheres hid a grim smile as he thought back to the morning of the warehouse. "I've heard the same thing."
"Could be nothing more than a few sods needing to be taught a lesson," Bones went on. "But it also could be Apol yon stirring things up with more of his rot about my wife's being a threat to the ghoul nation. I'll be checking into it. Thought you'd want to know." Another reason why Mencheres was frustrated by his impending death. Bones would be left to handle this threat without him if he was right, and Apol yon was involved. His death meant he'd be leaving his co-ruler when Bones needed him the most. Once again, Mencheres cursed the looming darkness in his visions.
"How fares Cat?" he asked, forcing back his anger at his fate.
"Quite well," Bones replied. His lip curled. "She said to send her regrets for not coming today."
Mencheres gave Bones a dry smile. "Yes, I'm sure she deeply regrets not seeing me."
"You erased her memory of a vampire who kidnapped her and coerced her into marriage when she was only sixteen," Bones said softly. His eyes glinted green. "And then you didn't bother to tell either of us about it until that vampire came after her again a dozen years later, or tell us the reason why he wanted her so badly. That sort of betrayal tends to linger."
"Walk with me," Mencheres replied, not addressing that. He went out into the garden, stopping by the small reflecting pool, waiting until Bones was next to him before he spoke again.
"The future is like water. All our actions ripple over it, changing its reflection. If I had told either you or Cat what was to come, you would have altered your actions, making the reflections of who you are different than who you were meant to be. We would all like to change our future to the simplest path, the straightest line, the road of least regrets"
- Mencheres paused to smile sardonically - "but then the final outcome wouldn't be the same."
"Easy to say when you're the bloke who could see that final outcome in advance," Bones replied with an edge to his tone. "The rest of us had to wonder if those we loved would suffer or die because of our actions."
"We all wonder," Mencheres said quietly. "Even if we know, we still wonder." Bones didn't say anything. Then he picked up a small pebble and absently threw it into the reflecting pool.
"Something I've wanted to ask you, grandsire. You said you'd seen before I was even born that I'd be the one you'd share your power with. Why didn't you change me into a vampire yourself, then? You were there that night. Yet you let Ian sire me instead."
"To keep you safe. Patra searched my people for the one I'd prophesied would murder her. My wife thought it would be someone I had sired myself. You were unusually strong, Bones, even as a young vampire. If I'd changed you over, you would have been even stronger - too strong to stay unnoticed by Patra for as long as you did. So I let Ian change you. You were still of my bloodline that way, as I made Ian; but it gave you a chance to grow without rousing Patra's lethal interest until you were ready to defeat her.
As I said" - Mencheres gestured at the water in the reflecting pool, which still vibrated from the pebble Bones had thrown into it - "the smallest ripple can change everything." Bones gave Mencheres a look he couldn't decipher. "The power you shared with me increased my strength and gave me the ability to read humans' minds, all in the first night. It's been almost a year and a half since then. Haven't you wondered if anything else has popped up in the interim?"
Mencheres stared at Bones, unblinking. "I would think if you manifested more of my powers, you would tell me."
A smile ghosted across Bones's lips. "Perhaps. Unless, of course, it might cause a problematic ripple in future events."
Had Bones begun to manifest the power of visions? That was how it had started with Mencheres when he was not much older than Bones; he'd caught tiny, indistinct flashes that he'd first dismissed as imaginings and only later realized were slivers of the future.
Then again, it was also a possibility that Bones was just trifling with him. Bones knew that Mencheres's loss of visions disturbed him, and the cold part of Bones might think it was a fitting revenge to have Mencheres believe Bones knew something about the future but wouldn't reveal it to Mencheres.
Just as Mencheres hadn't told him what he knew about Bones and Cat.
But if Bones wasn't just attempting to trifle with him . . . "Then I can only trust in the blood vow we made when we merged our lines," Mencheres said, his tone hardening.
"Despite what happened in the past, I kept my vow to do everything that was best for you and for our line."
Boned nodded once at the reflecting pool before he turned away. "I don't intend to betray the vow I made when we forged our all iance. But mind those ripples, mate. They might surprise you with what they bring."
