Revelations, page 20
He shook his head. “We need to get to the dining room.”
Being led to the guest room earlier had felt like going back in time to my first night in Belle Morte, so there was something jarring about leaving it and seeing polished wooden floors instead of thick carpets. Paintings still hung on the walls, like they did in Belle Morte, but they weren’t the paintings I was used to. Instead of the occasional Belle Morte statue, Fiaigh had suits of armor, and the wall space between pictures was occupied by mounted swords and daggers.
I’d been keen to get out of Belle Morte as soon as I’d found out what had happened to June, and I’d never thought that I’d come to think of the place as home—I still wasn’t sure I did, but I did miss it.
Belle Morte was where I’d lost my sister, and where I’d lost my own life, but it was also where I’d met Roux and Jason, and where I’d fallen in love with Edmond.
Caoimhe led us down two floors to the dining room. The space was as big as Belle Morte’s dining hall but the ceilings were higher, crossed here and there by rafters, and the walls were lined with sideboards, each one topped with a vase of flowers, some antique pottery, or a piece of armor. Rather than featuring a long trestle table, the room was occupied by six smaller tables, each edged with hammered copper and surrounded by chairs with padded velvet seats. One of the farthest tables was covered with photos and old newspapers.
Caoimhe pulled out a seat at the nearest table and pushed Tadhg into it. He sat, shoulders slumped, his heartbeat thundering in my ears.
“I assume you’re going to tell us what’s going on?” Ysanne said to Caoimhe, taking a seat opposite Tadhg.
Caoimhe placed Eoghan’s knife on the table. “One of my vampires attempted to assassinate Edmond in his sleep. At the same time, Tadhg was supposed to assassinate me.”
Tadhg winced.
“You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?” Edmond said, his eyes still locked on Caoimhe.
I tensed, looking around the room to see how many exits there were. If Caoimhe had betrayed us, then we needed to run. As if he knew what as I was thinking, Edmond’s hand brushed mine, a silent reassurance.
“Not for certain,” Caoimhe said.
“But you suspected,” Edmond pushed.
“Yes.”
Sparks of red danced in Edmond’s eyes, and Ysanne’s hands curled into fists.
“I do hope that I’m misinterpreting this, Caoimhe,” she said, her voice as sharp as a broken icicle.
Caoimhe spread her palms. “Will you let me explain?”
Ysanne gave a curt nod.
Caoimhe gestured to the chairs around the table, but I stayed standing. I no longer trusted her. Edmond and Ludovic didn’t sit down, either, and the tension in the room was thick enough to carve with Eoghan’s knife.
“There were a few things that didn’t make sense to me when the Council gathered at Belle Morte to discuss June Mayfield and the attack on the house. But with the revelation of Jemima’s treachery and everything that Renie had learned from her and Etienne, we now know that they wanted to take control of all the Vampire Houses in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. As the Lady of Nox, Jemima already has control of that House. If the plan to assassinate the Council had been successful and Jemima had been the only survivor, then she would have had the right to appoint someone to run Bel e Morte.”
“Etienne,” I said.
Caoimhe shook her head, blond curls bouncing. “I don’t think so.
Even though you couldn’t prove any of your allegations against him, putting him in charge of Belle Morte could have been too suspicious.
But she and Etienne have planned this carefully, and they would have made sure that they had supporters to step into the Council’s shoes.”
“There are other Belle Morte vampires involved with this,” I realized, my stomach turning over.
“I believe Jemima and Etienne have been planning this for longer than any of us realized,” Caoimhe replied. “Eric Wilson from Midnight died during that first attack, and Henry had no idea that he’d been in Belle Morte. Since Henry clearly wasn’t helping Etienne and Jemima, it seems likely that Eric was, which means they’ve built support in Belle Morte, Nox, Midnight and probably Lamia, without anyone knowing. Ever since Renie told us what she’d learned, I’ve suspected that Fiaigh was probably compromised too.”
“Then why the hell did you make us come here?” I burst out.
“Because you, Edmond, and Ysanne were injured and you needed blood and time to rest. The humans among us were exhausted. We couldn’t have gone on much longer.”
“So you decided to bring us to a place you knew wasn’t safe.
Brilliant.” I slumped into a chair and folded my arms.
“I decided to draw out any traitors that may have been under my roof.”
“By using us as bait,” I snapped.
Caoimhe didn’t deny it. I wanted to kick a chair at her face.
“You gambled with Renie’s life,” Edmond said, in a low, dangerous voice.
“No, I didn’t. Renie is no threat to Etienne or Jemima. Ysanne’s hopes that Renie might have some influence over June have proved entirely fruitless, so Etienne doesn’t have to worry that Renie can subvert the training he’s put June through. She cannot match him or Jemima for strength or speed, and she doesn’t know the other Houses and their inhabitants. Etienne and Jemima need me and Ysanne out of the way, both because we’re Council members and because we’re strong enough to be a physical threat to them. You, Edmond, are older than Jemima, and Etienne will especially want you out of the way because of what Etienne has done to June and Renie. Therefore, it stood to reason that if anyone was going to attempt to help Etienne by assassinating his enemies, they’d go after the ones who were actually a threat to him.”
“You gambled with Edmond’s life then,” I snapped.
“Even after a decade in the lap of luxury, I trusted that his survival instincts were finely honed enough that no would-be assassin would be able to sneak up on him,” Caoimhe said.
“You had no right to make that decision.”
She offered a graceful shrug. “Perhaps not, but I can’t change it now.” Seamus came quietly into the room, offered Caoimhe a small nod, then leaned against the nearest wall.
“Can we go back a few steps?” Ludovic asked. “You didn’t know for sure that Etienne had supporters in Fiaigh?”
“No,” Caoimhe said.
“Then how did you know they’d attempt to kill anyone rather than contacting Etienne and betraying us?”
“I made an educated guess,” Caoimhe said. “Even if anyone in Fiaigh managed to contact Etienne or Jemima, they’re still in England, while we’re in Ireland. They may hold England’s four Houses now, but their grip is tenuous and I don’t believe they’d jeopardize their position by leaving Belle Morte and Nox and traveling all the way out here. Even if they did, they couldn’t breach Fiaigh without us knowing about it in advance. They can’t take all their newly turned vampires on a ferry, can they? One sniff of something like that and the media would be al over them. Therefore, I concluded that if Fiaigh was home to traitors, they’d either contact Etienne and Jemima, who’d probably tell them to kill as many of us as they could, or they’d kill us and tell Etienne and Jemima about it afterward.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions to make,” Ludovic said.
“Educated guesses,” said Caoimhe again. “I expected there’d most likely be an attack on myself or Ysanne, or both. That’s why I returned to my own room rather than joining you in the guests’ quarters—I was trying to make myself seem accessible to anyone who might want me dead.”
“And this is the person who came for you,” Ysanne said, pinning Tadhg with an icy glare.
“Actually, no. Tadhg did come to my room, but to confess his treachery, rather than continue with it.”
“Why?” I said, suspiciously eyeing Tadhg.
“Jemima promised she’d make me a vampire,” Tadhg said. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I thought that working security at a Vampire House was the closest I’d ever get to it. Eoghan knew I was a Vladdict, and he recruited me a year ago. Jemima and Etienne hadn’t yet started turning new vampires, but Jemima promised to turn me when the time came.”
“You knew they were planning to kill people and you helped them anyway,” I said, disgusted.
Shame colored Tadhg’s face. “Yes,” he admitted. “I became Etienne’s main point of contact inside Fiaigh. He has Belle Morte guards in his pocket who relayed his instructions to me and relayed anything from me back to him.”
“His main point of contact or his only one?” Caoimhe asked.
“His main point.”
“So you and Eoghan aren’t the only traitors under my roof. Who else?”
“Siobhan,” Tadhg said. From the low noise Seamus made, I guessed that Siobhan was another guard.
Caoimhe glanced at him, her face steely. “She’s not working tonight, is she?”
Definitely a guard, then.
“No, her next shift starts tomorrow evening. Should we send someone to her house?” Seamus asked.
Caoimhe mulled it over, then shook her head. “That’ll attract too much attention. As long as she doesn’t know what’s happened here, she’s no real threat to us. But I want her in handcuffs the second she arrives tomorrow.”
“Consider it done.”
“What exactly was your role here?” I asked Tadhg. “What did Etienne want you to do?”
“I was supposed to find out which vampires and guards could be persuaded to join Etienne, and to be ready to act when Etienne eventually came for Fiaigh,” Tadhg said.
“And by that, you mean assassinating anyone he wanted you to,”
said Caoimhe.
“I don’t know. My instructions were to wait until Etienne had contacted me, and then he would relay the next step.”
“Whose idea was it to try to kill me?” Edmond said.
“Eoghan’s,” Tadhg said.
I still wasn’t sure I could tell if a human was lying, but none of the older vampires reacted, so I assumed Tadhg was telling the truth.
“When you arrived here, he wanted to prove himself by taking out Etienne’s opponents,” the guard continued.
“Let me guess, Eoghan was hoping that Etienne would name him Lord of Fiaigh after Caoimhe’s death,” I sneered.
Tadhg’s silence was answer enough.
“Why didn’t you go through with it?” Ludovic asked.
Tadhg darted a look at Caoimhe, then swallowed, licked his lips, and swallowed again.
“I couldn’t. I want to live forever, but not at the cost of Caoimhe’s life,” he said.
“You’re in love with her,” Ysanne said.
Tadhg gave Caoimhe another look, desperate and full of longing.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Humans and vampires aren’t allowed to be with each other, but I thought I might have a chance when I became a vampire. But I could never hurt her. When she returned here this evening and told us what had happened, I realized that I couldn’t be a part of this.”
My throat felt ragged, like I’d swallowed something sharp. Etienne had manipulated Tadhg, just as he’d manipulated June, playing on their love to turn them into weapons that he could wield. Tadhg had realized when things had gone too far, and he’d chosen to give himself up. June hadn’t.
“Just to clarify, Etienne and Jemima still don’t know we’re here, do they?” Ludovic said.
Tadhg shook his head. “I told Eoghan that I’d reach out to my main Belle Morte contact to see if Etienne had instructions for us, but I never did.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before Eoghan tried to kill me?”
Edmond asked.
Tadhg gave a shuddery sigh, and tears glinted in his eyes. “I was scared. I hoped I’d have more time to decide what to do, but then Eoghan told me his plan, and I realized I’d run out of time.”
“Do you know who else is helping Etienne and Jemima?” Edmond asked.
“I know some names, but I’m not sure if Etienne told me all of them.”
“Tell me the ones you do know,” Ysanne commanded.
Tadhg sighed again. “Kenneth, Pat, and Brinda.”
“Which of them is your main contact?”
There was a noticeable pause.
“None of them,” Tadhg admitted.
Ysanne leaned forward. “Then tell me who is.”
Tadhg scrubbed his hands over his face and softly groaned.
“What’ll happen to her?”
“That’s no longer your concern. Give me her name.”
There was another pause.
“Susan Harcourt,” Tadhg said.
The name meant nothing to me, but Edmond and Ludovic both reacted, and Ysanne’s nostrils flared. Her lips were thin and pale.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Susan’s been with Belle Morte almost from the beginning. Only Dexter worked there longer,” Edmond said.
Ysanne had probably trusted her above newer staff members then, which explained why she looked so murderous. Betrayal after betrayal.
“Why do I get the feeling that Susan Harcourt is also the guard who was prepared to testify on Etienne’s behalf and frame Isabeau for June’s murder?” Ludovic said.
Edmond finally took a seat in front of Tadhg. “Why is Susan helping them? Did they promise to turn her too?”
“Yeah. I don’t think you understand how many people want what vampires have, and what they’re willing to do to get it,” Tadhg said.
June flashed through my mind again, and my chest knotted. I might never come to terms with the role she’d played in this.
“Susan was responsible for helping Etienne find people to turn,”
Tadhg said.
“How many people?” Ysanne said.
“I don’t know. Susan recruited people online then brought them to a location in Winchester so Etienne could turn them. He knew the rotation of guard patrols at Belle Morte so it was easy for him to avoid them and sneak over the wall every now and then.”
“The walls of Belle Morte were supposed to keep intruders out. I never imagined they’d keep traitors in,” Ysanne muttered.
“Susan lured people to somewhere in Winchester, Etienne turned them, and then what? He stashed them away until he was ready to use them?” I said.
“Yes,” Tadhg said.
“How did he manage to hide away so many vampires without anyone knowing?” I demanded. “This smells like bullshit.”
“He hid them at Bushfield,” Tadhg said, like that meant anything to me.
“Which is?”
“It’s an abandoned army camp about two miles outside Winchester,”
Ysanne supplied.
“So . . . plenty of space for Etienne to hide his minions,” I realized.
“Why were so many people willing to help him?” Ludovic asked.
“Because people don’t understand the reality of being a vampire,”
I said, thinking of June sitting on the floor of our little bedroom, surrounded by glossy vampire magazines. “They don’t think about having to watch the people you love turn to dust or drinking blood every day. They only see the fame and the glamor and the mystery.
Some people have dreamed of becoming a vampire ever since you guys revealed yourselves to the world. Some people have dreamed of it even before they knew vampires really existed. Etienne offered to make that dream a reality.”
The room was silent for a couple of minutes.
“There’s something that Etienne doesn’t know,” Tadhg said.
“What?” Ysanne said.
“Susan has worked hard to recruit people for him to turn. She’s been loyal to him since long before he even knew the names of those people, but most of them have become vampires and she hasn’t.”
“Presumably because Etienne still needs her inside Belle Morte,”
Ysanne said.
“I guess so.” Tadhg shoved his fingers through his hair. “Look, I didn’t think things would go this far, and I can’t change it now, but I might be able to help you stop it from going any further.”
“How?”
“First, I want to know what you’re planning on doing with me,”
Tadhg said.
I looked around at the older vampires, but they all had their blank masks on. For the first time I really considered how vampire law worked alongside human law. If vampires were subject to the same laws as humans, then Etienne had murdered June and killed everyone that he’d turned, and Tadhg and Susan were accomplices to that.
But if most of those people had chosen to become vampires, was it still considered murder? Was it legally considered killing at all, considering that Etienne’s victims were still living, even if not technically alive? None of these questions had ever been addressed before, because nothing like this had ever happened.
If Ysanne had her way, then Etienne and Jemima would be subject to whatever punishment was appropriate according to vampire law, but what would happen to Susan and Tadhg and any other corrupt guards in other Houses?
Ysanne tilted her head, like a cat sizing up a mouse, trying to decide if it was worth killing. “What do you think?”
“You probably want to kill me,” Tadhg said.
Nobody denied it.
Tadhg nodded. “If I help you, I want guaranteed immunity. I can’t stay at Fiaigh, I get that. I’ll move, get another job, and none of you ever have to see me again, but I want your word that I can walk away from this unscathed.”
“Do you know how many deaths are on Etienne’s hands? You knew he was killing and turning people and you knew he was planning to take over the other Houses. You could have stopped this a long time ago but instead you helped cover it up and now you think you can walk away?” I said, my voice shaking.
“I have information that you can use against Etienne, something he doesn’t know about. If you want that information, the price is my guaranteed safety,” Tadhg said, but he couldn’t meet my eyes.
Anger boiled inside me. This wasn’t right. Tadhg had helped to destroy so many lives and he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. But if we didn’t make a deal with him, then Etienne would get away with it.
