Six vampires could depopulate Atlanta in a week. Six vampires piloted by navigators would do it in three days. A vampire telepathically guided by the navigator was a precision instrument with the destruction potential of a small nuclear bomb.
“It’s a precaution,” I said. “Ghastek isn’t about to jeopardize his rise to the top.”
The most skilled navigators were known as Masters of the Dead. There were seven of them in Atlanta, and two of them, Ghastek and Mulradin Grant, were currently scheming and plotting, trying to gain control of the chapter. My money was on Ghastek. We had cooperated before out of necessity. He was smart, calculating, and ruthless, but he was also reasonable. It was his turn to attend the Conclave.
“Maybe a war with the Pack is exactly what he wants,” Jim said. “I don’t want to take chances. Hold on.” He peered at the far end of the hallway.
A man with pure-white hair turned the corner and sped toward us. Stick-thin, he moved at a near run, holding a stack of books to his chest. His jeans sagged on him, and his turtleneck, which would’ve been tight on most people, had a lot of spare fabric. Christopher occasionally forgot to eat. Sooner or later Barabas caught it and made him consume three meals a day, but Christopher never seemed to put any meat on his bones.
Jim turned and watched him close in. No love lost there. Jim viewed Christopher as a puzzle box. It could open to reveal a treasure or a bomb, and Jim didn’t like not knowing which it was.
“Remember all those bodyguarding jobs we used to run?” Jim asked.
“I remember. Are you trying to tell me I’m being a difficult body to guard?”
“Something like that.”
Christopher reached us. His blue eyes were opened wide. Some days they were like a clear summer sky, not a thought in sight, but right now they were focused with a single-mindedness bordering on obsession. Some idea had grabbed hold of him and driven him off a cliff. He probably didn’t even know he was carrying books.
“Mistress!”
I had given up on telling him to call me Kate. He always ignored it. “Yes?”
“You can’t go!”
Jim’s eyebrows came together.
“Go where, Christopher?” I asked.
“To that place.” Words came tumbling out of him. “I’ve been trying to be in my right mind.”
“Aha.” When in doubt, stick to simple words.
“I know what I used to be, but I cannot be that anymore. I try. I try so hard. But my mind is unraveled and the threads, they’re too tangled. There are pieces of me floating. I’m shattered. He broke me.”
“Who broke you?” Jim asked.
Christopher looked at him. His voice was a mere whisper. “The Builder.”
My father. The Builder of Towers. Anger spiked inside me. I wished I could reach across time and space and punch Roland in the face.
Christopher turned to me. “If I had known what it was like to be shattered, I would’ve rather died.”
Oy. “Don’t say that,” I said.
“It’s the truth.”
“Christopher, you matter to me. Shattered or not. You are my friend.”
Christopher opened his arms. The books fell to the floor. He clutched at me, long fingers gripping my shoulders. “Don’t go. Don’t go to that terrible place, or he will shatter you and then you’ll be alone. You will be like me. Don’t go, Mistress.”
Jim moved, but I shook my head.
“What terrible place?” I asked, keeping my voice soothing.
He shook his head and whispered, “Don’t go . . . Don’t leave.”
“I won’t,” I promised him. “I won’t go, but you have to tell me the name of the place.”
“You don’t understand.” Christopher looked at me, and in his blue eyes I saw pure panic. “You don’t understand. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, but not there. I cannot go there again.”
I wouldn’t go there either, if I knew where “there” was. “It’s okay. Just tell me . . .”
He shook his head. “No. No. It’s not.”
“It will be okay.”
He reached out, touched the strand of my hair that had slipped out of my braid, and yanked it, ripping some hair out.
Ow.
Jim lunged at Christopher, knocking him back. The thin man fell on the floor. I rammed Jim with my shoulder. “No!”
Christopher scrambled to his feet, wild-eyed, a few strands of my hair in his hand. “Don’t trust the wolf!”
He turned and fled down the hallway.
“What the hell?” Jim growled. “I’m going to have him sedated.”
“He knows something,” I told him. “I don’t know if he had a vision or someone told him something, but it freaked him out and he can’t explain it. Let’s see what he does with the hair. I might be able to figure it out from there.”
Hair, like body fluids, retained the magic of its owner once removed from the body. A year ago I would’ve killed Christopher to retrieve the hair, because studying it would reveal all my secrets. But my secrets were about to burst into the open anyway. Hugh knew the truth, Roland probably knew as well, and sooner or later everyone would know. I had come to terms with it.
“If someone told him something, it has to be either someone in the Pack or divination magic,” I thought out loud.
Even now the Keep held at least two hundred shapeshifters, and strangers weren’t welcome. Christopher never left the Keep and the grounds.
Jim growled. “I’ll put a guard on him. Someone discreet. If he’s getting his information from some apparition that manifests in his bedroom at night, I don’t want him sharing your hair with it.”
I looked at him. “What wolf do you think Christopher was talking about?”
“Beats me.”
There were more than six hundred of them and I didn’t have many fans among them.
“And you say I’m paranoid.” Jim pointed in the direction of Christopher’s escape. “What about him?”
“He’s shattered. What’s your excuse?”
“I have to work with your ass. You’ve driven me crazy.”
I sighed. I could overrule Jim and go to the Conclave on my terms. But Jim and I had to work together. I could tell by the line of his jaw that he would die on this bridge if he had to. Going along with him cost me nothing, except a small chunk of pride, and pride was one of the things I didn’t mind sacrificing.