Keeper of the Moon. Harley Jane Kozak

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ snorted. It was an insult, suggesting that a Keeper couldn’t recognize Elven, or, for that matter, vampire, pixie or were. Shapeshifters, by their nature, were trickier and took longer for her to figure out, but except for them, Sailor found it hard to believe her fellow humans were unaware of Others living among them. It was like being unable to distinguish cats from dogs. She said, “I could spot Elven characteristics since I was a toddler. Gina Santoro and Charlotte Messenger? Flamboyantly Elven. The sitcom star? Not. I don’t know about the two. I only saw Facebook photos.” Elven charisma was hard to discern in a still photograph.

      “What tribe?” he asked, challenging her.

      Who was this guy? “Gina was Rath,” she said. “Obviously. Charlotte looked multiracial. Déithe, of course. Maybe Cyffarwydd, as well. Hard to say, with all her plastic surgery. And I’m not just talking ears.” Softening ear tips was a practice as common as earpiercing for Elven children. “Why, is this a test?”

      “Everything’s a test for a Keeper as new as you,” Vernon said. “And looking like a high school cheerleader isn’t going to help your cause.”

      Was that a compliment? Was he flirting? “I don’t have a cause. And I don’t have to make my case, because I was born a Keeper. It’s not a job I’m auditioning for or even one I particularly want, but I’m a Gryffald, so I’ll be good at it. And I don’t know what your interest is in this as a stockbroker, but if you’re used to judging people by their faces—”

      “It’s not your face I was judging.”

      He was flirting. How crazy was this? Sailor was about to respond, but Vernon’s face wavered, suddenly becoming younger. Darker. Handsome. Light shimmered around it. She blinked several times. Okay, the attack had somehow affected her eyesight. That was scary.

      Then he went back to being plain again. Homely. Nonshimmering. Her vision was fine. That was a relief.

      “Back to the issue at hand,” Alessande said, coming back into the room. She carried a plate of gingersnaps, and Sailor could hear the teakettle on the burner in the kitchen. “The so-called Celebrity Virus is what my tribe is calling the Scarlet Pathogen. It’s only affecting the Elven. Except that now here you are, an Elven Keeper, exhibiting one of its key symptoms. Whatever attacked you? It infected you. You’re not bleeding much, thank God. With the others, there were rumors of excessive bleeding.”

      “But—” Sailor’s mind was reeling. How could she have a disease? An hour earlier she’d been on a seven-mile run. “Wait, wait, wait. None of this is true. First, that sitcom girl wasn’t Elven. She was completely mortal. And not very talented, I’m sorry to say, because I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. And second—”

      “The sitcom girl didn’t have the disease,” Alessande replied. “She overdosed on meth. One of our people took the 9-1-1 call and leaked misinformation to the press.”

      “Why?”

      “To draw attention away from the Elven. Standard procedure. Mortals see patterns, even where they can’t understand them. The human girl disrupts the pattern.”

      Sailor glanced at Vernon. Despite Alessande’s assurances, it unnerved her to speak of mortals this way in front of one. “But—okay, you said I have the symptom, but then you said I’m not bleeding abnormally. So what symptom are you talking about?”

      The teakettle whistled. Alessande gave a nod to Vernon, then went to the kitchen. He crossed to the front entryway and lifted a mirror off the wall.

      Sailor watched him walk toward her with the mirror and grew fearful, her hands reaching up to her face, her mind racing with images of what had been done to it when she was unconscious. She didn’t consider herself excessively vain, but she was an actress, after all, and fairly pretty, and so …

      The man handed her the mirror. She looked at herself …

      … and gulped. Her eyes were no longer green, but a deep shade of scarlet.

      Don’t freak, she told herself. Keep it together. Could be worse. She took a deep breath, then turned her gaze resolutely to Vernon. “Okay, what does it mean?”

      He looked directly at her, and because she had a fair amount of the Elven telepathic abilities, she could read his thought: Good. You didn’t panic. “We don’t know what it means,” he said. “Yet. We’ll find out.”

      “You don’t know? So I could be going blind, or—”

      “How’s your eyesight now?”

      “Fine. Great.”

      He nodded. “I wouldn’t worry, then.”

      “They’re not your eyes,” she pointed out. “So, wait.” She spotted the other woman reentering the room. “Alessande, you can catch it from me?”

      “We don’t know,” the Elven woman replied. “But so far, so good.”

      “So what’s the cure?”

      Alessande brought in a tray of tea. “We’ve yet to find out. It’s not like we can send out a press release and confer with the CDC.”

      True enough, Sailor thought. When times were good, the Others lived easily under the radar among humans, blending in with little effort. It was during crises that the mandate for secrecy created problems.

      Alessande handed Sailor an earthenware mug, steaming-hot and filled with roots and leaves. “Sip. Don’t burn yourself, but keep on sipping.”

      “What is it?”

      “Síúlacht. You picked the right hillside to tumble down,” Alessande said. “Not too many of us can make a good batch of síúlacht. I’m one of them.”

      The scent arising from the mug evoked a memory, but the memory refused to coalesce. Sailor took a sip and shuddered. The bitterness was intense, but so was the effect. Her senses sharpened, her sinuses cleared and she felt energy return to her.

      “It’s a delicate situation,” Alessande said. “On one hand, we need to study the disease, find out whether other cities have experienced it, but on the other hand, we need to downplay it. So far, only the Elven community knows, along with some high-ranking vamps and shifters. And werewolves—Antony Brandt, the coroner, and others with inside jobs, who can control the flow of information.”

      “But not the Elven Keepers?” Sailor asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

      Alessande and Vernon looked at one another.

      “Well, shit,” Sailor said, intercepting the look. “So the other Keepers do know. Everyone knows but me.”

      “Probably the Antelope Valley Keepers don’t know,” Alessande said reassuringly. “And San Pedro. That guy’s clueless. Bakersfield, too.”

      “The San Pedro Keeper died last month,” Vernon said.

      “Great,” Sailor said. “So except for my colleagues out in the sticks, and the dead ones, I’m the only one the Council doesn’t bother to inform? I’m the Canyon Keeper, for God’s sake.”

      “If СКАЧАТЬ