Crimson City Part 21

"You're surprised to see me," he said, his voice low. If he hated her as much as he once had, it didn't show.

"I didn't think it would be this easy to get an audience."

"Who says it's easy?" Hayden shrugged. "But I don't think you've ever sent for me before."

"No, I haven't. But then, I haven't been leading the a.s.sembly for long."

He smiled slightly. "No, you haven't."

Fleur looked keenly at him. "And perhaps that's what makes the difference."

"Perhaps," he agreed. "What can I do for you?"

"And what can I do for you, I suppose."

"Right," he said. He spread his arms, palms up. "You got me. I'd like for you to owe me."

Fleur couldn't help herself. Bitterly, she said, "I thought I'd already taken more from you than can ever be repaid."

Hayden's eyes narrowed. "Don't patronize me. I'm not here for personal reasons. We both know what I am. It's what I've always been-an informant, a mercenary, a trader of secrets. If you pay me for knowledge, you'll get the truth. I only sell the truth and I only kill if somebody deserves to die. So, let's get on the same page. I'm not here to make you feel better about yourself. I'm not here for you. I'm here for business. Period. And the currency being traded is that you'll owe me a chit. h.e.l.l, the vampire world will owe me a big chit. Do you understand? I'm trading on the future, and if I ever come to you, I'm going to expect to get what I ask for. Is that understood?"

Fleur nodded. "The truth? Okay. Have you ever been paid to lie?"

Hayden looked surprised, then laughed darkly. "Tell me what you want from me, Fleur Dumont, and then I'm going to walk away."

"Who should I be worrying about, Hayden? You've worked with some of the same people in the human Battlefield Operations division that I'm working with now. Who killed my brothers? Why is anyone trying to end the peace? Is it the obvious? Or is it something else?"

"There are no real surprises here. Just a plan long in the making whose rime has finally arrived." Hayden leaned forward. "It's the humans, Fleur. It's the same as it's always been. And no matter how many times a truce is called, one of you is going to give into temptation and try to wipe out the other."

"Do you know which human sent the mech?" she asked, just to test his information.

He shrugged. "I don't think it matters. The bottom line is the same. Whether he sent the mech or not, every human wants everyone else gone. Peace between the species is a laugh. It's a nice thought, but for humans, the only thing better would be not having any other species to worry about at all. If I were you, I'd start negotiating with the dogs."

Fleur sighed and shook her head. "We're so far gone, are we?"

"Why don't you ask Dain Reston?"

Fleur whipped her head around and stared. Hayden laughed.

"I'm a professional informant, Fleur. All I do is watch, listen, and trade information. Half the people in town make money this way. And everyone knows you two have a thing. You seem to like the taste of mortals," he added bitterly.

"Next question," Fleur said, steering the conversation away from Dain and wishing she could read Hayden's mind. "Are rogues responsible for murdering the vampires we've been finding dead in the streets? They're all primaries. Are you involved? Or is there a connection between the killings and the mech?"

"You're barking up the wrong tree," Hayden said with a grin. "Those sound like werewolf murders to me. But I haven't seen the evidence."

"Part of the problem is an evidence dump," Fleur said. "Someone-or something-is purposely contaminating the bodies with conflicting DNA. If it's not the rogues, why are you giving us so much trouble?"

"What you don't understand about us rogues is a lot. We rogues aren't trying to bring you down," he said, giving a c.o.c.ky grin. "We're trying to bring everybody down. But there's really no 'we.' It's still everyone for his or her self. Sort of like whoever sent that mech. Except, we didn't."

She remembered his signature bravado well. He was fond of grandiose statements, loved developing an aura of power. She knew that a small part of him was teasing her. A small part of him wasn't.

"Seriously, you need to stop thinking of us as evil, Fleur, and start thinking of us as... simply different. Do you understand? I don't control any rogues the way you control the members of your Primary a.s.sembly. Some of us just like to come together for a little fun now and then-but we're not the kind of organized mob you are. We have no real leaders; we come together as we like, and part as we like. There's no misplaced loyalty to deal with and no annoying codes of honor to stop us from doing as we wish. It's much simpler... and much more fun. If we had any interest in following instructions and attending tea parties, we'd have joined your silly a.s.sembly. Of course, some of us weren't given the choice."

Fleur grimaced. "If you're such equal opportunity terrorists, why go to such lengths now to make yourselves known?. As your brethren, we're least likely to bring you down without direct provocation."

"We're in play for two reasons. To check out the strength of the new a.s.sembly leadership, and to have a little fun at the expense of those who made us what we are."

"All that? All those rogues popping in and fighting me... you're telling me that was just 'to test out the new leader?' To have a little fun?"

Hayden shrugged. "Would you believe we're just not organized enough to pull off an actual coup?" he asked.

"I don't believe you for a second," Fleur said calmly. "Implying that you're disorganized and unfocused-it's to your disadvantage to have us underestimate you. I don't buy your line, and we'll be ready for anything you try." But she did buy it. It made sense. There was a reason those rogue attacks had seemed personal; they were personal. But they hadn't been part of anything larger. The rogues weren't behind the mech, and they weren't up to launching a full-scale revolution. Not yet anyway.

Hayden lifted an eyebrow and, after a few seconds of silence, said, "Believe what you want. But you primaries harbor a dirty little secret of your own. Your trained executioners... they are basically rogues on a leash. So don't look at me with disdain. If I weren't out on my own, I'd probably be one of your leashed made rogues by now."

"That's not true and you know it. If you'd stayed, I would have spent my life trying to make you happy."

"I'm not interested in would-have-could-have-should-have, Fleur. I'll never reconcile what you did to me, and I wouldn't have no matter how long I stayed with you."

"Listen, Hayden," Fleur said softly, her hand on his shoulder. "It's not too late to come in out of the cold.Your business is a lonely one."

He flung her hand away. "It's the same d.a.m.n temperature wherever I go, and it's much, much too late."

"I suppose it was too late the moment I made you," Fleur noted sadly. "Oh, Hayden. Was it just you ? Was it something special that I didn't know enough to see? What makes others adapt and you so unhappy?"

Hayden stared at her. "Don't pretend, Fleur. For G.o.d's sake, don't pretend to such naivete. It makes me sick."

Fleur shook her head, tongue-tied, trying to figure out how to arrange her next words, hyperaware of the silence ticking away between them. There was so much she wanted to ask, so much she needed him to know.

Hayden studied her in the silence. His eyes searched hers. "Is the other stuff really why we're here? To talk politics? Or was there something else?"

She said nothing, the question dancing on the tip of her tongue.

"Oh, Fleur." Hayden's expression changed to one of incredulity. "Oh, Fleur. Say it isn't so. Are you in love again?"

"I wasn't in love the first time," she snapped.

And as she stood there, she sensed a brutality come into him. "Such a lie. That's why we're really here. You want my permission to do it again. You're looking for forgiveness."

"You don't even try to make peace with what you've become," she said. "What you made me," he corrected. "And no, I don't. I don't accept it. Still." "Is there nothing you will allow yourself to enjoy?" His grim expression softened into a smile, but the expression made her shiver. "There is one thing. I enjoy not having a conscience."

Fleur couldn't take any more. "That's something you choose, not something inherent to our kind."

"Is it?" he asked.

"You disgust me," Fleur spat. "I don't know how I ever thought I loved you."

"I can be quite charming when I choose. Don't you remember?"

She remained silent. It was true. She did remember.

"Come on, Fleur, don't you? I remember how you longed for me. My touch sent you into a thousand

pieces. And you'd do anything for me. Except tell me no when you should have." He lost some of his rakish nonchalance and grabbed her by the throat. "You should have said no."

"You begged me to make you a vampire," she gasped out. "You begged, Hayden. You wanted it." "I didn't know what it meant! I didn't know! Why did you let me become... this? Why did you do this tome? I can hardly stand it. I'm an animall"

He crowded her up to the metal bars of a closed newsstand, pressing his body against her, practically crawling onto her. "You made me into an animal, Fleur Dumont. If you loved me, you should have had the strength to give me up. Your kind doesn't deserve to know love."

"But you still draw me, Fleur," he said, grinding his pelvis into her. "You could lure anybody, anytime you wanted. You're like a siren, an invisible web of seduction. I hate that more than anything, that I still want you."

"Get off me, Hayden," she said grimly. "You've had your fun." But she didn't force him away. "Why do you let me touch you like this?" he asked. "Why do you let me press my body into yours when you're here to ask permission to take another?" He chuckled softly, angrily. "It can only be guilt. You know you were wrong." She stuck to the truth. "I wasn't wrong. You made me believe it would make you happy." "But you knew better," he murmured, rocking against her. "As you know now, about Dain Reston. Do you think he would like to see you like this? If you've come here for permission, you aren't going to get it.

Maybe I should just kill him and save the poor guy the misery of what you'd like to do to him." Fleur froze for a moment, then she put her hands on Hayden's shoulders and kneed him in the gut. He flew backward and fell to his knees, gasping for air.

"Look at me, Hayden. Number one, I'm not the same girl you once knew-got that? Number two..." She leaned over, lifted his chin and stared directly into his glittering, hateful eyes. "If you so much as touch him, I will find a way to make your immortal life that much more miserable."

Hayden seemed to find her words tremendously amusing. "As if that were possible. And so history repeats. I don't know this Dain Reston, but I know I was like him once."

"You were never like him," Fleur ground out. "Never."

He laughed. "Who would have guessed? The Fleur I knew was someone else," he joked. A mix of emotions flitted over his face, and Fleur knew he still remembered what had been between them. It was as close to a compliment as she was ever likely to hear cross his lips.

He turned to go and Fleur blurted, "You really don't forgive me, do you?"

Hayden stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder. Turning fully around he came back to her, raising his hand to her face and softly stroking her cheek. "No. I don't forgive you," he said. Then spun and walked away for good.

Chapter Twenty-seven.

Jill Cooper hesitated for a moment, which was unusual. But there was a peculiar niggling feeling inside her that just wouldn't go away.

It had been a "Big Scoop" day for her, and she should have been jazzed; she'd actually snapped proof of the alleged affair between Dain Reston and Fleur Dumont. She'd raced to the scene of the story after receiving a tip-off, and had made it into the bar just in time to get in on the action. Coming in the back door, she'd carried a concealed camera that she'd pointed at them for a full five minutes of hand-holding a la Romeo and Juliet. They'd never noticed as she captured the moment at which they'd kissed; they were completely and totally focused on each other. As a matter of fact, at one point, Jill had found herself staring at them wistfully, wondering what it would be like to have a man look at her like Dain did Fleur.

Now, standing at the front desk of the processing counter, she was beginning to feel a little ill.

The attendant took her stick as she logged in the roll. "No backlog. I'll get this processed ASAP and throw it on the server for you."

"Thanks, man." Jill tossed the touch pen back on the desk and went to her miniscule home away from home, her dump of a cubicle with its sleeping bag and floor pad under the desk. She checked her computer and tried to focus on e-mail. But the peculiar feeling in her gut wouldn't go away.

She'd been so psyched about getting such a juicy scoop. She counted lots of public figures as friends, but the understanding was always that Jill made no promises. If she got scoop, she was going to run scoop. Dain knew that, they had an understanding, and the bottom line was that a kiss between vampires and humans of their rank was bona fide, Grade A, capital S "Scoop." If Dain had wanted to keep it on the down low, he should've stayed at home and kissed Fleur under the covers. Dain keeping his job wasn't Jill's responsibility and everyone in the know was clear that he'd been chasing vampire skirt since the case started. Unfortunately, Jill was sure that as soon as her pictures were placed on the server, B-Ops would be notified-the paper got sued enough as it was.

The computer chimed and Jill pressed print, waiting for her desk printer to start production.

There was a little pause and then a message popped up on screen: WOULD YOU LIKE TO PRINT THE AUDIO TRANSCRIPT OF THESE EVENTS?.

The buzz in Jill's brain grew louder as she realized what she'd done. Very few reporters took audio, either because they were photographing something too far away to pick up, or because it was considered unlawful bugging. She'd either hit the switch or forgot to reset it from last time. She couldn't even remember what she'd been photographing last time...

Her index finger hovered above the enter key as Jill tried to decide what to do. The files might already be saved on the network in duplicate-and because of the photos, B-Ops was going to get access.

Maybe Dain and Fleur had just talked about how much they adored each other. Maybe they just talked about sports or the weather.

Jill pressed enter and waited.

Photos spewed out of the printer in sheets of nine, each printed with the computer's best guess of dialogue underneath. First was the couple holding themselves away from each other. Then they were moving in close... away... close... holding hands... kissing- Jill grabbed the other sheets as they came out of the printer and squinted down at the tiny print. And the niggling feeling in her gut upgraded to sheer horror.

Dain was talking to Fleur about mechs. There were mechs in Crimson City. And humans had sent them to kill vampires. Her heart beating madly, Jill reread the printouts very carefully, examining the contexts in which he said things and the expressions on his face when he said them.

Jill Cooper freely admitted she'd snapped photos and, yes, captured audio, of just about everything under the sun in her days as a reporter. She had folders full of pictures that ran the gamut from people in the throes of death agony to those in the throes of ecstasy. Such came with the territory.

But this information wasn't the stuff to make the denizens of Crimson City snicker with delight; this was information that could get a person killed. And the most likely candidate was a decent person whom she knew and liked, and who didn't deserve to die.

The single best thing about working for a tabloid was not having to answer to anyone about what she chose to run and what she chose to bury. Jill looked around, a.s.saulted by paranoia, stuck the photo sheets in the shredder, and while she was pressing the on b.u.t.ton with her left hand, used her right hand to maneuver the folder of processed photo files into the garbage can on her computer. She pressed delete. Once the shots winked away she pressed delete once more, almost convulsively slamming her index finger against the key. Maybe, just maybe, pressing it this time, would make it disappear faster or better.

She took a deep breath and sprinted the obstacle course back to the lab counter. "I need that memory stick back."

The guy looked up in surprise, then slapped a new chip on the counter. "Have a clean one. I haven't erased yours yet."

"No, I need the original." Her voice sounded squeaky. Just calm down, Jill.

The guy's brow wrinkled in confusion. "But the files are on the network. Didn't you get them?"

Jill plowed through the swinging door and came behind the desk, crowding behind the technician's back. "Can you show me where?"

Fl.u.s.tered, the kid tapped a few things out on his keyboard and the network originals popped up. Jill reached over his shoulder and hit delete.

"What the... ?"

Jill grabbed the box next to the keyboard. It was filled with memory sticks. "Which one is mine? I need it."

His eyes suddenly narrowed. "What's the emergency?"

She looked up and caught his suspicion. "There's a virus on it. A bad one."

"Uh-huh. Well, I'll be erasing it eventu-" His words were drowned out as Jill grabbed him by the collar. Then, realizing she was totally out of line, she immediately let go and laughed. "Oh, wow. I'm sorry. I bought some of that black market cold medicine everyone's been talking about and, well, geez, I'm thinking I won't be using that again." She picked up the entire box of memory sticks and headed backwards out the swinging door. "Hey, no hard feelings, man. I owe you one. Boy, next time I'll just drink some orange juice!" She laughed again, amazed how well she could sound like a lunatic, and took off. The box of memory sticks in one hand, she raced by her cubicle to grab her coat and bag and left the office.

She headed down to the Venice ca.n.a.ls, shivering from stress and the cold. Placing the box on the ledge of one of the ca.n.a.ls, she systematically began breaking each memory stick against the cement and tossing its parts into the water below.

Her fingers were sc.r.a.ped and bleeding after just ten, and there were three times that many to go. Unfortunately, she was running out of time. She held the box behind her back and turned around, leaning against the bridge as she saw JB and Trask from B-Ops headed up the slope. She considered tossing the box into the water, but the d.a.m.n things might still work if they were whole, even after they sank. They needed to be smashed. And there was no way she was going to let these two have them.