The sidewalk in front of the Carlyle was swarming with Red Bloods. As Mimi walked through the crowd she heard whispers of “bomb threat” and “evacuation.” She flashed her Conclave badge to the security team and entered the newly emptied lobby. Oliver was standing with a group of Venators, who had cleared the area by the elevator.
“Sorry about Parsifal. It’s my favorite opera,” he said as a greeting.
“Where is she?” Mimi snapped. She didn’t have time for Oliver’s clever little commentary right now.
“We think in the penthouse. It’s been rented for the month to some actor, but it’s been empty for weeks, according to the hotel manager.”
“How do you know she’s here?”
“We don’t. We’re just guessing.” Oliver pressed the elevator button for the top floor. “I know the Venators are concentrating on those subliminal images, but I thought maybe we should take a closer look at the main video itself. I watched it frame by frame and found something in the shadows. I had tech magnify part of the screen.”
He showed her the image on his phone.
“What am I looking at here, exactly?” Mimi asked. It looked like a bunch of squiggles and nothing to get excited about. Certainly not enough to clear an entire hotel lobby and disrupt an evening at the prestigious hotel. Wendell Randolph, the Blue Blood tycoon who owned the Carlyle, was surely going to get annoyed. Mimi saw that she had several messages from him already.
“That’s from the wallpaper behind her head. The shine from the Venator rope illuminates it a bit. It’s called Cabbage and Vine. It’s a famous William Morris design, which went out of production in the 1880s. But when this hotel was built in the 1930s, they had the same textile factory produce it for the hotel. After the renovation last year, only a few rooms kept the original wallpaper. We’ve already checked the other two. This is the last one.”
“We’re here because of wallpaper?” Mimi asked. “You guys cleared an entire hotel—used a massive compulsion on all those Red Bloods—because of some wallpaper?” She tried not to sound too incredulous.
“It’s all we’ve got,” Oliver said apologetically. “You said no one dies on your watch. We have to try everything, don’t we?”
The elevator door opened, and Mimi saw Sam and Ted take position in front of a door to the suite. The rest of the team were arranged in the hallway.
“We have a green?” Ted asked.
Mimi didn’t know what to say. At this point they had acted without consulting her, so why adhere to protocol now? It was too late to back out. Maybe it was just courtesy since she had arrived on the scene. It was better than Helen Archibald’s rudeness. She would humor her Venators. “Affirmative.” She nodded. “Go.”
The strike force burst into the room, swarming into the space, setting off glom bombs, their swords held aloft and gleaming.
There was a girl tied up in a chair.
Alas, it was not Victoria.
They had surprised the actor, a movie star, who’d returned the night before with his new girlfriend. At the sight of the black-clad, armored Venators, he dropped a magnum of champagne
and fainted.
TWENTY-THREE
The Pub
After the failure and embarrassment of the Carlyle raid—which Mimi placed directly on Oliver’s shoulders to stave off criticism of her Venators—she met the Lennox brothers at their usual pub the next evening. The night was black, and in less than twenty-four hours the crescent moon would appear in the sky. They were almost out of time. She knew the boys wouldn’t appreciate what she was about to tell them, but she had no choice. She was Regent now; it was her call. She was not about to lose one of their own. She hoped they had good news for her.
The pub had been a speakeasy during the Prohibition, when the Blue Bloods were the only purveyors of alcohol in the city. The place still had its original double doors, the keyhole to peek out, sawdust on the floor, knotted pine benches scarred with the names of friends and enemies.
Venators of all stripes—jolly veterans with worn faces and cigarettes hanging from their bottom lips, and slim new recruits straight out of Langley (the CIA had been founded by a Venator; the original Blue Bloods training center was located in the same area) jostled at tables next to the odd NYU students who’d wandered in and had no idea they were surrounded by the vampire secret police. There was a pool table and dartboard, and a chalkboard behind the bar for recording rounds.
Mimi found Sam sitting in the back booth surrounded by empties, and took a seat across from him. “It’s my shout,” Ted announced, bringing back three pints of dark bitter ale topped with a gold lager. Black and Tans they called them. Mimi didn’t usually like the taste of beer—she preferred martinis or wine—but she also did not feel like making a fuss. She took a sip. Not too bad, really. Not as tangy as blood—she remembered the taste of Kingsley’s blood: sweet and sharp. Her throat constricted and her eyes watered, and for a moment she felt as if she would lose it. But she held herself together.
“First off, take it easy on that Conduit. Hazard-Perry means well,” Sam said. “It was as good a guess as any. The kid hasn’t slept in days. He works harder than anybody.”
“Maybe, but that pompous windbag Wendell Randolph wants my seat for ‘abuse of the police force.’ He said he’s going to call a White Vote at the next meeting.”
“He won’t. He’s all bluster,” Ted said with a dismissive wave. “You’re all they’ve got and they know it.”
“Maybe. Look guys, this is hard for me to say.” Mimi took a deep breath. “I know we’ve all worked really hard this last week, and I appreciate all your efforts, but I have no choice: if we don’t find her by tomorrow night, I’m taking the wards off the Coven. I don’t want to, but it’s my only option. I can’t have her burn, not online, not anywhere. At least with the wards down we’ll know exactly where she is and we’ll be able to get her out.”
The Venators took the news with sober faces. “That’s a huge risk. You know we’d be sitting ducks if the Silver Bloods pulled a stunt at the same time,” Ted warned.