"Why are they insisting on this?" The President lowered his hands but his gaze remained fixed on Director Jennings' face. "She could do so many things if we could just get her over there to work with our field agents."
"Mr. President, the information I have gathered I am not supposed to know. In fact, if her superiors knew that I hold such information, my life might be in jeopardy."
"What information is that, Director?"
"That there are only a handful of female vampires. They are nearly impossible to turn, as I understand it. And Lissa, well, she isn't like any of the others. You've seen a little of what she can do. They have a name for what she is, Mr. President."
"And what is that?"
"They call her Queen, sir."
* * *
We didn't speak, Gavin and I. We just sat on the roof of a mansion in Nichols Hills, Gavin staring at the Oklahoma City skyline while I examined the toes of my athletic shoes. I shivered now and then, though I wasn't cold. All at once, it had happened. One blow after another. Experiencing one of those moments in my life when I might have given just about anything to crawl out of my skin and into someone else's, in order to leave the suffering behind until it reached a more bearable level. My forehead was against my knees and Gavin, wisely, didn't touch or speak.
* * *
"He's gone." The doctor and a nurse stood before Franklin as Merrill slipped an arm around his shoulders. Franklin turned, placed both arms around Merrill's neck and wept. Greg had left him; only the machines had kept his body alive until Franklin gave permission to turn them off. That had been bare moments earlier. Greg had taken three breaths after the ventilator was shut off, each slower than the last until there were no more.
"Leave us," Merrill commanded and the doctor and nurse left the room quickly. "Child," Merrill held Franklin away from him gently, "we must say goodbye to Greg. If there is anything else you wish to say to him, then now is the time."
"I love you, Greg," Franklin's voice was agonized. Merrill led him to the bed, and Franklin collapsed against it, holding Greg's hand one last time.
* * *
Kansas City always looks so green to me, with trees everywhere. Oklahoma City generally turns brown toward the end of summer. Don and I used to go to Kansas City now and then—they have nice museums there to visit and we could get there in five or six hours. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art was one of my favorites. There would be no museum visit on this trip.
"Gavin, do you ever go to art museums?" I asked as he drove our rental toward a hotel. It was Sunday night—the twenty-sixth of September.
"If there are any open late enough for me to visit. I have been to the Louvre several times, as well as the Rijksmuseum. I am glad you kept the Vermeer, cara. Of all the works collected by Sergio, that would have been the one I would have kept as well."
"Yeah. Someday, I want to hang it in my own home, Gavin."
"Cara, that is the first time you have said such a thing to me." Gavin turned to study my face. "I know my apartments are not suitable, even if they were updated. I have never taken the opportunity nor held the desire to change my address for a very long time. When your five years of training are over, love, I will buy any home you want and we will hang your painting in a place of honor."
"All right," I leaned back in my seat with a sigh. René and Tony sat in the back seat, listening to us. Michael had been willing to come, but Gavin told Wlodek he didn't think it was necessary, so the werewolf made his call to Director Bill. He'd be leaving in three days for D.C. and an interview. I hoped things worked out for him.
I missed Roff and I missed Winkler. Why hadn't Kifirin stayed to explain why Roff had to leave, or at least given me a chance to hug him before he left? Winkler called just before dawn after he left, saying that William Wayne Winkler, Jr. and Wynter Willow Winkler had come into the world, both beautiful and exercising their lungs. Winkler had even sent photos through his cell. I'd shown them to Gavin, who smiled.
"How did you get a Vermeer?" Tony's curiosity got the better of him and his question pulled me away from my thoughts.
"Lissa's original sire, now deceased, had quite an art collection," René said. Neither Gavin nor I wanted to talk about that.
I asked Gavin if I could borrow his laptop when we got to the hotel, but he informed me that he had work to do so I left it and flipped through the titles on my e-reader, searching for a good book to read. I'd intended to email Franklin and Greg—I was worried since I hadn't heard from either of them in several weeks. I hoped everything was all right, but I figured Merrill would let me know if they weren't. Maybe they'd gone to Monte Carlo, this time; they seemed to enjoy the gambling in Vegas. I sure hoped somebody somewhere was having a good time.
I hadn't truly felt good, either, since Larry Frazier shot me twice in the chest, but I didn't want to tell Gavin. There wasn't any way to gauge what his reaction would be. Honestly, I just wanted to go home and realized that England was home. With Franklin and Greg. And Merrill, when he wasn't making me crazy. I wanted to have a sit-down with Griffin, too, and ask a lot of questions. About his side of the family. He'd said he was more than a hundred thousand years old—surely, he had family somewhere. I wanted to know about them. Who they were, where they lived, what they did. So far, he hadn't offered anything, other than the information that he was my father and that he'd been punished and kept from seeing me. I wanted that explained fully.
Gavin packed up his laptop around dawn and hauled me off to bed without even letting me finish a chapter in the mystery I was reading. And I had another dream—the first one in weeks, I think.
I was standing in a small clearing, thinking I recognized it somehow—as if I'd seen it before. Trees surrounded me on all sides and it was dark beneath their withering leaves. The air inside the clearing began to shimmer and I realized, even though I was dreaming, that this was another gate—just like the one I'd seen before when a young Xenides and others had walked through it. Only this time, I was close enough to feel the power of the gate—to feel the pull it exerted on me.
I stepped closer and heard conversation—laughter even—as the Elemaiya came through. The energy of the gate whispered through me, luring me, coaxing me. Telling me what I needed to know to walk through it and go anywhere I wished to go. Anywhere. As long as a gate existed there, I was free to travel. That fascinated me. Called to me. Offered itself to me.
I had to borrow a couple dollars from Gavin's money clip. I hadn't replenished my cash since I'd handed what I had to Winston Byrnett and his female companion. Hadn't needed any cash, either—someone else always paid or I used my credit card. Now here I was, up again during the day and standing in front of the hotel's soda machine. An orange soda had my name on it if I could get one of my dollars to straighten up and go through the machine properly.