Part 25 (1/2)
”What kind of tests?” Miranda wanted to know.
”He finally got a full a.n.a.lysis back on the poison and wants to see if the a.s.sa.s.sin also used it on Jake and Denise.”
”Do you think she did?” Faith asked.
”Yes and no,” David said, reaching under the car for his discarded wrench and returning it to the cart. ”If she'd poisoned Denise, there wouldn't have been nearly so much blood at the crime scene-Denise put up a h.e.l.l of a fight for a human, and that toxin would have killed her before she could even struggle. But she might have poisoned Jake to bring him down before cutting off his hand. That's Novotny's theory, anyway. But he wanted to run the list of parameters by me first.”
Miranda leaned her hip against the car, one hand trailing over its glossy finish. ”I hate that we're stuck waiting for this b.i.t.c.h to make the next move, David. Something has to give.”
”I know, beloved. I'm hoping that decreasing the network's cycle time from five seconds to three will give us something.”
”What about the raw sensor data?” she asked. ”How far back does it go?”
”Ninety days,” he replied. ”Why?”
”What if you compared the readings at the time of each attack and looked for blips?”
”You said there were no blips,” Faith pointed out.
David nodded. ”There weren't on the network itself. But when something moves past a sensor, it records an array of information. The network is calibrated to collect more than two dozen parameters, but only the important ones-height, weight, temperature, and speed-are a.n.a.lyzed, and then the system displays only combinations of readings that indicate a vampire's presence. If something corresponds to, say, a toddler or a German shepherd, it doesn't show up on the grid. But all the raw data is dumped every ten minutes into the backup server. There's a vast amount of data, so it overwrites every ninety days, otherwise we wouldn't have nearly enough drive s.p.a.ce to store it all. Most of it is just noise.”
Faith nodded. ”Based on observations from you, Prime Deven, and Kat, our killer is totally average for a vampire, although she is d.a.m.ned fast.”
Miranda said, ”Something about her keeps her from showing on the grid. But the sensors might have picked up something else, something nonvampiric.”
”Maybe she's a werewolf,” Faith said, grinning at the dirty looks they both shot her. ”Kidding.”
”I did a search on the raw data right after Jake went missing and got nothing,” David mused, ”but once I get the upgrade done, the enhanced sensitivity and processing speed may produce something. I'll try it again. It certainly can't hurt at this point.”
”I can't believe that with all the technology we have and all the brain power working on the problem, we can't find a single d.a.m.n thing,” said Faith irritably. ”Who the h.e.l.l is this woman? What could she have that makes her harder to find than the Blackthorn?”
”It could be magic,” Miranda said.
David laughed. ”Of course. She's a magical werewolf. Why didn't I see it before?”
”Don't laugh,” Miranda admonished him. ”You don't know how everything in this world works.”
”Beloved, there's no such thing as magic.”
She gave him a look that Faith almost laughed at. Few people ever seemed to think that David was capable of saying something stupid.
Miranda pointed wordlessly at her Signet.
The Prime considered that for a second. ”I don't think it's magic. I think there's some technology to it that we simply don't understand yet. That's what magic is, in the end.”
Again, Miranda gave him that look. ”So you think that a glowing ruby that has the power to pick out your soul mate has a tiny little hamster on a wheel inside it? What about our psychic abilities, or Misting, or the fact that if one half of a Pair dies, the other does, too? What is that if it's not magic?”
He shrugged. ”Physics is a mysterious thing, but it's not mystical.”
Miranda shot Faith an amused glance, then said to her husband, ”Whatever you say, dear.” She leaned down and kissed the top of his head, earning a sweet smile. ”I'm off to learn the Bada.s.s-asana.”
After she had gone, David asked Faith, ”Was she mocking me just now?”
Faith grinned. ”I think it was more a case of humoring you than mocking you.”
The Prime didn't seem bothered by that; in fact, quite the opposite. He looked relieved. ”That's a good sign . . . isn't it?”
Faith stood out of the way while he rolled the tool cart and the flat thing he'd been lying on-a creeper, she thought it was called-over to the next car on the row. There were eight vehicles in the garage right now as a nasty autumn storm was supposed to move in sometime after two that morning. Faith's little red hybrid was at the far end, parked next to Miranda's Prius. There were two vans present of the three that shuttled patrol teams to and from the city; those, she guessed, were the ones David needed to work on next. The Town Car that Harlan drove was the Prime's ride of choice, but there was also a limo, a Rolls, and a Bentley, the three of which were rarely used as David hadn't converted them to solar yet. The two vans were gas/electric hybrids.
It had never really occurred to Faith before coming to serve the South that vampires should have an interest in the environment, but David had wisely decided that immortality would be far less pleasant on a burned-out husk of a planet, so one of the first things he had done upon taking the Signet was to put the entire Haven complex on solar power. Aside from the ecological impact, it helped keep the Haven concealed; they were completely off the city power grid, a self-contained village of vampires out in the Hill Country. If they could have grown their own blood, David would probably have the place running like the world's weirdest hippie commune.
”I think so,” Faith responded, not sure what Miranda's comment was a sign of, exactly, but wanting to be supportive.
David moved on to the first of the two black vans, settling himself on the creeper again. Faith did as Miranda had done, leaning on the side of the van watching wrenches float from the cart to the Prime, who dragged a plastic tub underneath the van and set to uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g something-the oil filter? Faith cheerfully admitted she didn't know a thing about cars.
”You shouldn't be so hard on yourself,” Faith heard herself say before she could stop.
He rolled back out and looked at her. ”Yes, I should. What I did was indefensible.”
”But you didn't hide it from her; you stepped up and accepted the consequences. Believe me, a lot of men wouldn't. You could have blamed it on Deven-there'd be no love lost there. But you took responsibility and you're doing everything you can to make it right. There's only so much good that hair s.h.i.+rt is going to do you, Sire, before you just have to stop castigating yourself and move on.”
He frowned. ”Are you saying that it's . . . no big deal?”
”No. You f.u.c.ked up big-time.”
”Good. As long as we're on the same page.”
”I'm just saying that if the woman you love doesn't hate you for what you did, then you shouldn't either.”
He half smiled. ”I'll take that under advis.e.m.e.nt, Second.”
Faith rolled her eyes and started to leave the garage, but David said, ”Thank you, Faith,” and she turned back to him one more time.
”I appreciate that you've stood by me,” he went on. ”By both of us. I'm sure you were angry at me for a while, too, but it didn't interfere with our working relations.h.i.+p, and for that I'm grateful.”
Faith nodded, bowed. ”Just don't do it again,” she told the Prime, ”or I'll have to castrate you with a seven-sixteenths ratchet wrench.”
The Prime looked at the tool in his hand and laughed, arching an eyebrow. ”Seven-sixteenths wouldn't be nearly big enough.”
Faith snorted. ”Too much information, Sire. I'll take my leave now unless you need anything else.”
”Nothing further. Dismissed.”
He disappeared back underneath the van, and Faith left him to it, heading out to an advanced combat training session with several of the newer Elite.
Outside, she looked up at the lowering black sky where thick storm clouds hung amid the expectant, electric feel of an oncoming torrent. The wind had kicked up and was whirling leaves all over the gardens. Faith could smell the rain and the lightning and hoped the servants had all the windows shut; they'd been opening some of the groundfloor panes at night to let the fresh, crisp air in between cold fronts, to keep the Haven from feeling stuffy with so many fireplaces going.
A chill crawled over her skin. The weather had been building toward this storm for days . . . and as the first few drops began to fall, she hurried from the garage to the training building, hoping to avoid the worst of the rain.
Cora was more than one hundred years old and had spent all but eighteen of them trying very hard to divorce herself from her body, teaching herself to run away inside her mind so that she was distant, safe from Hart's perversions. The thought that she might one day want to reclaim her violated flesh and learn to live in it, or perhaps even enjoy physical sensation or, G.o.d forbid, sensuality had always been depressingly laughable.