Woman King

CHAPTER 30

The sun, it seemed, was taking its time to set, driving me crazy as I waited for dusk to arrive. Only when it was dark could our group assemble at the Council’s offices and review the videos of the robbery. Unlike the two days before, when time had passed at the speed of light, today had dragged on.

The only bright spot in my long, restless day was reviewing the positive media coverage we continued to receive following our press conference. My instincts and my ability to read people had paid off. Earlier in the day, our campaign pollster had phoned with news that Levi was widening his lead against Lacy. Even JP had surprised me. His story hadn’t betrayed any of his venom; he’d played it straight.

Finally, as the foghorns began to wail and dusk crept into the city, I called upstairs to Elsa and asked her to walk with me to the museum. She had gone up to take a nap earlier, something I’d never seen her do before. She complained of being tired, which was understandable given that we’d all been working at a fast pace for weeks.

On the way to the museum, we spoke very little, too wrapped up in our own thoughts, I suppose. We walked around to the side door and I placed my palm on the copper, waiting for the sensors to recognize my fingerprints and open the door. Once inside, as we approached the main bay of cubicles, I saw William seated, speaking with Aidan. Their discussion, whatever the topic, looked serious and I sensed that I was being mentioned in some context. Gabriel was there too, nodding solemnly. Perhaps William was simply recounting last night’s finale, which were details I had yet to tell the team.

“Hello,” I said, breaking into their conversation. “How is everyone tonight?”

“Olivia,” Gabriel said standing to take my hand in his for a moment. “William is telling us about Halbert’s threat against you. He tells us you handled them well, but I am still concerned. This Halbert, he is about to enter a lost place, we have an expression au diable vert, a place that is inadvisable.”

“It was his choice,” I said. “He chose the dark side. But I wonder what will happen if he loses the election. How will he and his entourage take the loss?”

“Indeed, that’s a good question,” Gabriel said, a glint in his eyes. “You have come through all of this a changed woman, Olivia. You seem more…composed.”

“My newfound responsibilities are growing on me,” I said earnestly. “Thanks to Elsa and the rest of my training, I don’t feel as vulnerable. I feel more in control of my destiny.”

“From what I have been told, you’re more than comfortable, Olivia,” Aidan said, joining the conversation. “You’re becoming a leader.”

I blushed, feeling suddenly shy at the compliment. I looked over at Elsa to see if she was happy, but her face gave away no hint of any emotion. I found it curious, but let it pass. I knew she was tired and surmised that perhaps she was not feeling well.

“Can we watch the videos?” I asked, giving Gabriel an imploring look.

“The room is set up now; we can go in,” Aidan said, gesturing toward the closed door of a nearby conference room—a structure whose size and shape seemed not at all to correspond to the actual footprint of the building.

Once again, I marveled at how the building always seemed to have a conference room available when we needed it. I hoped one day to be shown the spell required for making whole rooms out of nothing, but in the meantime, I enjoyed the trick, and the privacy it offered.

A large flat-screen television was mounted on the wall inside, and there was an iPad, a keyboard, and a tray with a pitcher of water and several glasses. Aidan and Elsa sat down in chairs at the head of the table and began speaking. Gabriel did not join us.

“We believe we’ve reviewed all of the videos that popped up on YouTube in the first two days after the robbery. Here is a montage of what’s out there.”

I cringed as I watched the first images of the car crashing into the building. I remembered how it felt to fall on my shoulder when the car jumped the curb, the pain in my eyes as I tried to peer through the windows of the jewelry store. I watched one video, then the next. My memory of the crime was so much different from the images I was looking at. My recollection was that there were very few people on the street, but as I watched now, I saw that there were actually dozens more than I remembered.

“Did you see me in any of these images?” I asked.

“Surprisingly, no,” Elsa said. “There were smart phones filming the robbery from almost every angle, but so far, you have not shown up in a single frame. It’s almost as if you became invisible.”

“That’s the second time I’ve seemed to become invisible,” I said, remembering Lily’s comments at dinner. “Obviously, that’s impossible, so there must be another explanation.”

The images on the TV continued to whirl by, when suddenly something caught my eye.

“Wait, stop, hold that frame for a moment,” I said, squinting at the face of a man I recognized. “I know him.”

“What do you mean, you know him?” Aidan asked.

I pointed at the screen. “I don’t know him, but I recognize him. I saw him, here, in this building.”

A shot of dread ran up my spine and it wasn’t my own. The collective reaction of the group was grim.

“Where did you see him?” Aidan asked, walking briskly to close the door to the conference room. Elsa followed him, closing the metal blinds in the room completely. I shut my eyes to get the memory straight, so much having happened in the last few days.

“It was here,” I said slowly. “Gabriel and I were having dinner together that night, and I was waiting for him to get his coat. This man was pacing outside Nikola’s office. I remembered him because I thought at the time he looked like a soldier, or an athlete of some kind. He was very tense. He was waiting, and pacing, and then the door opened and he went inside. I mentioned it to Gabriel.”

“What did he say?” Aidan asked, coming to sit next to me.

I massaged my finger against my forehead for a moment as I thought back to our conversation. “He said something like, ‘Yes, Nikola knows a lot of Serbs from the Balkan war and some do look quite grim.’ ”

William, who had been lingering in the back corner of the room, came to stand next to me, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“This man?” he asked. “Did he see you watching him?”

I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. I was standing in the shadows, waiting for Gabriel. It was only when he arrived that I stepped into the light to greet him and by then, this man had gone inside Nicola’s office.”

The group’s concern was growing more palpable by the second, so I said to no one in particular, “You know, I can feel your worry. Is someone going to tell me what they think this means? Do you think Nikola had something to do with the robbery?”

“We don’t have enough information to make that connection,” Aidan said quickly, ever the cautious diplomat. “It could be nothing but a coincidence. The Serbian community is very small in San Francisco. His visit could have been about something totally unrelated.”

“Are we going to check it out?”

William and Aidan exchanged glances that told me all I needed to know. This was off limits to me.

“Olivia, I will look into this,” Aidan said sternly. “The Council is a fragile organization, made up of many competing interests. Certain protocols must be maintained. It would not be appropriate for you to ask Nikola about this.”

Elsa peered out through the blinds, checking, I guessed, to see who was working in the main bay. “We can’t discuss this outside of our group,” she said.

“What about Gabriel?” I asked, unsure if she included him in this discussion.

“Yes, of course,” Aidan said, “But always in private, never in open rooms, hallways or elevators. Understood?”

His question was posed to all of us, but I got the feeling his directive was mostly aimed at me. “Understood,” I said, nodding my head.

The meeting ended on a somewhat subdued tone, with Aidan clearly distressed about this new wrinkle. I knew from our previous conversations that he was no fan of the Eastern bloc delegation. Now he would have to seek them out to discuss something uncomfortable, possibly illegal.

William and I remained silent as we stepped into the elevator to leave. As the doors opened on the main floor, we ran straight into Nikola. I couldn’t have imagined worse luck, considering Aidan’s last words to us.

“Olivia,” Nikola said. “How are you? We heard that you were injured recently.”

William squeezed my hand, a subtle warning not to pick a fight. I nodded, smiling warmly. “Yes, but I am feeling better. How did you find out?”

“Gabriel, of course,” he said. “It’s standard for the Council to issue a report when a staff member is injured under unusual circumstances. In our line of work, that kind of information can be important.”

“Well, I’m fine now,” I said. “I’m not sure what happened. One minute I was walking down the street, the next I was knocked down by a piercing pain in my head.”

“What a shame,” he said, although I knew he was not even remotely sorry. “Do you know anything about the robbers?”

“I heard they might be Serbian,” I said.

Nikola smiled, his perfect vampire teeth gleaming back at me. “Yes, of course I have seen the news reports, but who knows what the truth is? Western media love to blame everything on Serbs. We are the perfect villains for the twenty-first century.”

“You would know better than I about these sorts of things,” I said innocently. “I’ve been so busy with my campaign work that I haven’t given the robbery a thought.”

Nikola doubted me; I could feel it. But I knew I had gone as far as I could with this conversation, so I changed the subject. “Nikola, I apologize for my poor manners. Let me introduce my close friend, William.”

They eyed one another coolly, vampire to vampire. I suspected this was not the first time they had met.

“You are full of surprises, Olivia,” Nikola purred. “You become the first human to work for the Council, and then you take a vampire for a lover. You certainly like to live dangerously.”

“Indeed, Nikola, I’ve surprised myself sometimes with my choices,” I said. “I hardly know what I will do next.” At that William dug his finger into my palm.

Nikola tossed back his head and laughed, clearly amused at my insolence. “How exciting,” he said. “I must remember to keep a closer eye on you in the future.”

With that, Nikola nodded curtly at the two of us, and walked into an open elevator. After the elevator doors had closed and we were alone, William regarded me with a look that was one part amusement, two parts fury.

“You can’t do that, darlin. You’re not prepared physically or mentally to pick a fight with a thousand-year-old vampire.” he said. “He is more cunning and far more ruthless than you.”

“Maybe I will surprise you,” I said, feeling prickly, but William stopped me from speaking further.

“If you want to pick a fight, then you need to be prepared to see it through. Now let’s get out of here before we get ourselves into trouble.”

We walked through the park toward my house in silence. I was feeling sullen, like a small child told to mind her manners. I wasn’t allowed to ask questions, I mustn’t speak in the hallways, and I couldn’t pick fights with vampires who were older than me. It was petty, but I felt chided and hemmed in, so I walked in silence, feeling a bit sorry for myself. William strolled beside me, listening, I knew, to my thoughts as they whizzed by. Wisely, he stayed out of the conversation.

Despite my grey mood, I turned to William to ask if he would come in. It was Friday night and the next two days were clear, the campaign staff on duty more than able to manage the few volunteer events we had scheduled during the weekend.

“You’re not going to kick me out in the middle of the night again, are you?”

I thought back to the night of the robbery and about how different things were now. Our lives were linked, and by more than the copper bands he’d placed on my finger.

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “I may never let you leave.”