Part 4 (1/2)

Marc hid a smile. ”Something on your mind, Hawk?”

Nighthawk cast a meaningful glance in Heather's direction. When it became obvious Marc had no intention of telling her to go, he nodded reluctantly. ”Yeah, actually, there is.”

”Come on then.” Marc waved them both over to his new seating area. He seated himself on the couch, not at all surprised when Heather hurried over to cuddle beside him, slipping quickly past the larger feral to ensure he didn't get there first. ”Sit,” Marc urged, waving Nighthawk toward the armchair facing him. ”Tell me what's going on.”

”I just wanted to ask if you'd thought at all about choosing lictors yet,” Nighthawk said.

Marc's eyebrows rose. ”Lictors?”

”Yeah. You know, like what they had back in Roman times? They're kinda like-”

”I know what they are,” Marc a.s.sured him. Whatever arguments he might have with Conrad and Damian, he could certainly never accuse them of neglecting his education.

”I don't,” Heather protested. ”What are they?”

”'Lictors were a cla.s.s of...of bodyguards, I guess you'd say,” Marc explained. ”Sort of like aides or personal a.s.sistants, only more prestigious. They attended high-ranking public officials and other people of importance, ran interference for them, carried out their orders, things like that.”

”Oh. Cool.”

”Yeah. Exactly.” Nighthawk gazed expectantly at him. ”So, have you thought about it?”

Marc frowned. ”What exactly am I supposed to be thinking about?”

”Who're you gonna pick, of course.”

”You want me to pick...lictors? What, you mean like people to follow me around and stuff?”

Nighthawk nodded. ”Yeah, like what you just said, to carry out orders and do things for you. Make sure you have what you need. Back you up in a fight. Whatever.”

Heather had perked up. ”I want to be a lictor,” she said.

Marc sighed. Bodyguards, attendants, more people to trip over-yeah, that was just what he needed. And who the h.e.l.l had said anything about fighting? ”Look, guys, it's a nice idea, but I don't really think I...” His voice trailed away as he caught sight of their crestfallen expressions. He hated disappointing them. And what would it hurt? ”I don't really think I need more than two, wouldn't you say? Like, perhaps, the two of you?”

Nighthawk shrugged. ”Yeah. Sure. Two's a'ight. It'll do for a start, anyways.” The quick look he shot at Heather suggested he didn't think much of her as a choice, but at least he was too smart to voice his objection.

”And maybe we can see if we can't come up with a more modern term for it, all right? Like aide or adjutant or something along those lines.”

”Oh.” Nighthawk shrugged. ”Well, that's okay. We could do that.”

”Good. Now why don't you two go someplace and talk about it, okay? No arguing though. Once you've come up with a list of t.i.tles and duties and stuff, we can discuss it more in-depth. But later, okay? 'Cause right now, I've got some work to do.”

After the others left, Marc crossed to the door that led to his office. He unlocked the bottom drawer of the old wooden file cabinet and took out the bag of scrolls Heather had found during her search of the warehouse. He really needed to find a better hiding place for them. If Georgia ever learned of their existence, he wouldn't put it past her to try and talk Conrad into forcing Marc to turn them over. He wouldn't put it past her to send someone in here to steal them from him either, if it came to that. But he wasn't about to let that happen. Not until he'd had the chance to go over everything, figure out what he had and-at the very least-scan them into his computer.

He had the feeling they were important. Why else would Audrey have hidden them here? He wasn't sure how exactly, but it was possible they could be the key to finding her, or to finding Elise, to figuring out what was really going on. They could be the key to a lot of things. Most of all, they gave him an edge. He didn't want to lose that.

So, while the ferals had been busy these last few days with setting his rooms up, Marc had not been idle either. He'd been holed up in his office, struggling with his rusty knowledge of Latin, studying the scrolls for hours at a time in an effort to puzzle out what Audrey had been up to. The scrolls had a lot to say about vampires-even his kind, the Infragilis. They had a lot to say about a whole lot of topics, including quite a few that neither Conrad nor Damian had ever thought to share with the twins. In the past few days, Marc had learned more about what it meant to be a vampire than he'd known his whole life.

Some of the scrolls talked about Vesco Inedia, the so-called blood plague-a deadly disease reputedly created by alchemists during the Middle Ages as part of an attempt to eliminate vampires. No cure for it had ever been discovered and, as far as he could tell, the plan had very nearly succeeded. In the section that explained how the epidemic was halted and the plague eradicated, Marc got his first glimpse of Conrad's darker side. Unless there'd been another vampire of the same name, it was he, apparently, who'd come up with a way to end the plague-by ordering the deaths of everyone who'd become infected, and then carrying out those death sentences, mostly by himself. It had done the trick, but the cost had been high and Marc couldn't help but shudder at the thought.

Another scroll seemingly described in detail how vampire venom could be used to create a powerful tranquilizing drug. After piecing together what Nighthawk had told him about Audrey's activities, along with Conrad's own admission that he'd been drugged by her, Marc had no doubt that was part of what she'd been doing here. It also eliminated the last shreds of doubt about who had left the scrolls behind. It had clearly been Audrey who had done so. That made the deciphering of them even more important.

Marc had thought briefly of giving that particular scroll to Conrad, just to ensure it didn't fall into the wrong hands. In the end, however, he decided it could wait. If he admitted the existence of one scroll, he could hardly claim ignorance of the rest. Not without looking Conrad square in the eye and lying to his face. Marc wasn't ready to do that. He wasn't sure he even could. He wasn't sure he actually wanted to. He owed his grandfather so much. And he loved him so much. Once he started down the road of trying to deceive him...

No, it was best to say nothing yet.

Besides, he still didn't know what Audrey was up to-not entirely. Conrad had claimed she'd been trying to create more Invitus, and he might even believe that was the case, but so far Marc hadn't seen anything to support that supposition. As far as anyone knew, all she'd been trying to accomplish was to strengthen her own position after the fall of her sire's House. Not that he approved of her methods but, in a way, it was the same thing he was trying to do. And not that Conrad's House was in any danger of collapsing either, of course, but overall their situations were not that different.

All Marc wanted to do was establish his own House, protect his people and consolidate his position. If there was something hidden in these scrolls that might have helped Audrey do any of those things, maybe they could do the same for him.

Then again, Audrey was a maniac, violent and insane, so the odds were just as good the scrolls would be of no use to him at all. But until he knew for sure he was definitely holding onto them.

That left him with just one problem. He could decipher the scrolls easily enough, but he still needed to talk to someone who could help him put all this information into perspective, someone more knowledgeable than he about this stuff. Talking meant confiding in someone, however, and that carried a certain amount of risk. Unless he planned on following the time-honored practice of killing his informants after he'd wrung them dry of all useful information, something he had no intention of doing, he would have to be very careful who he picked. He would have to pick someone he could reasonably trust.

And just where did he think he could find someone like that?

Conrad was out, for obvious reasons, as was Damian. Julie didn't even know as much as he did about these subjects now, and Heather knew even less than that. Elise had helped him before but she was missing, and as for Nighthawk, he was too much of a wildcard. He might be a good source of information and Marc didn't think he'd intentionally betray or mislead him, but could he trust him to keep his mouth shut? That wasn't something he'd want to bet his life on.

In fact, Marc could think of only two people who might be in a position to help him, but probably not willingly. Which meant he would likely have to resort to either bribery or blackmail. Or intimidation. Or even all three.

After Brennan left for work, Julie cleared away the dishes from the breakfast she'd made him. Then she went back to bed. She lay for a while among the rumpled sheets gazing pensively at the room around her. She had never been one to linger in bed very long after dark, although she'd certainly been happy enough to make exceptions these past few months, when the bed in question had been Brennan's, and when he was in it with her. Tonight, even with him gone, she was still in no rush to get up and leave. Once she did, she wouldn't be coming back.

She'd made her decision. It hadn't been easy reaching it, and having been the recipient of so much unlooked-for advice really hadn't helped. It was always annoying being told what to do, being treated as though she hadn't had a clue. Because really, when it came right down to it, this situation she found herself in wasn't anything new, was it? Brennan was hardly the first boyfriend she'd had. She and Marc had both had their share of human lovers over the past couple of decades, and especially in the ten years or so after Conrad and Damian had gone back to San Francisco without them.

They'd had no jobs, no real friends, no one but each other to talk to. What else did they have to do with their time? But lovers were temporary, that was something they'd always understood. Only family was forever.

So, yes, despite what Armand, and even Damian, seemed to think, she knew what had to be done. It was just that doing it, actually putting her plan into action, was harder than antic.i.p.ated. It always hurt to say good-bye, and putting it off never made anything easier, but Brennan had worked his way deeper into her heart than any of her previous boyfriends. Maybe because he was the first one who knew her nature and wanted her anyway.

She'd toyed with the idea of just backing off a little, cooling things down between them in hopes that nature might take its course and they'd simply drift apart. Tonight, she'd gotten her first good look at what that had led to. Don't make me force you to come back here. Don't make me compel you to give me what I want. That wasn't the kind of thing either of them wanted.

She could no longer pretend things were getting better, or that she was getting over him, that they were finding their way. It was time to bring things to an end, time to set them both free before someone got hurt. And what better time could there be for a new beginning than the start of a whole new year?

Resolutely, she got out of bed and tugged the comforter into place, making the bed quickly before she could change her mind and dive back in. She spent a few minutes collecting her things, the scant handful of belongings she'd allowed to acc.u.mulate here in the past few months. Then she went to the closet and unearthed the suitcase she'd hidden there weeks earlier-her mother's suitcase, the same suitcase Armand was always after her to return.

As she ran her hands over its scarred surface, she felt a sense of peace. As usual, thoughts and images filled her mind, faces and places-some familiar, but mostly not. She knew it wasn't anything more than imagination, but she felt so close to her mother when she touched her things, almost as though she knew her. Of course, Armand really had known her, which gave his claim to the suitcase some merit. But Conrad had known her too and he'd said Julie could keep the suitcase and its contents. So who was Armand to demand she let them go?

It had been a stroke of genius hiding the suitcase in Brennan's closet, someplace no one else had any business being. Someplace no one could claim to have stumbled upon by accident. Someplace no one else would even dare to go, since to do so meant defying Conrad's explicit orders to leave Brennan alone. Now, however, she'd have to try and find another hiding place for it. Just as she'd have to find another way to keep Brennan safe, as well.

Julie's heart was heavy as she left Brennan's apartment for the very last time. She couldn't help sniffling just a little as she thought of all she'd be missing. She was so preoccupied with her grief she didn't even notice her usual shadow until he stepped directly into her path.

”What's wrong now?”

Armand again. Julie's heart lurched. She wasn't sure what feeling predominated. She was relieved that it was him. Touched by his concern. Anxious to avoid another confrontation over the suitcase she was carrying. She blew out a frustrated breath and settled on annoyed. Why was he here? Was he stalking her? ”Why is it every time I turn around I'm running into you? Don't you have anything better to do than follow me around?”

Armand's eyebrows rose. ”What makes you think I'm doing anything of the sort? We live in the same house, cherie. Is it really so surprising for us to run in to each other now and then?”

”Maybe not,” she said, not really believing him, half-hoping there was more to it than that. And how dumb did that make her?

”Now, are you ever going to answer my question? What happened? Why are you crying?”

”It's nothing,” Julie replied, taking care to keep the suitcase on the far side of her body as she edged past him. ”I...stubbed my toe. If you'll excuse me, I'm just on my way back to the house.”