The Season of Risks

Chapter Twenty-one

After we were dismissed, we stood in the carpeted corridor outside the suite. Inside, the council was discussing the case we'd made. We'd been asked to wait, in case they had any additional questions.
I asked, "Where's Dr. Cho?" I'd been too nervous before to even think of her.
"Her plane was late." My father, elegant in a charcoal-colored suit, leaned against the embossed wallpaper. "She left a message for me this morning. I didn't mention it, because I didn't want to make you any more anxious. She'll give her testimony this afternoon."
Dr. Cho would corroborate that I was the real Ariella Montero and that I'd talked with her about Septimal. "Will we get to see her?"
"Tonight," he said. "At dinner."
I hoped she wouldn't have lipstick on. Mae would be sure to ask.
"Do you think it went well?" I asked him.
"As well as it could. I don't know some of the newer councilors. The fellow named Truckler seemed set against us before we said a word."
"What happens now?"
"I expect it will go like this: When the council has heard from Dr. Cho, it will move to investigate Roche or to dismiss our case. A team may be sent to Miami to look into CIN's operations. Its report will determine whether or not Roche is called to defend himself. Ultimately, he may be censured. And if he is, he will be finished. Whatever reputation he has in the vampire community will be ruined."
I ran my hand across the velvety wallpaper. "I don't understand. How can his reputation be hurt if the proceedings are kept confidential?"
He stood away from the wall then, put his hands in his pockets. "COVE's decisions are sent out to the international vampire community via thoughts, the same way we let each other know about collective threats. We're all part of a connected network, even the independents. The councilors never disclose how they arrived at a decision. They don't have to. A COVE dictum carries enormous weight. Since the very early history of vampires, the council has acted to protect our interests." He sighed. "COVE endorsed your friend Cameron, early on. That's one reason they agreed to hear our case."
"Why didn't I know about that?"
"Because you're half-human, Ari. You're not part of the network."
I slumped against the wall. Half-breed.
My father put his hand under my chin, raised it, and met my eyes with his. "It's a mark of great respect that COVE agreed to hear your testimony. Not once, but twice."
The same man who had led us into the Moore Suite came out and told us that we were free to leave. My father asked what I'd like to do: Sightseeing? Shopping? Touring the National Gallery?
I said it didn't matter, and he chided me. We ended up at the National Gallery, looking at an exhibit of portraits.
As we moved through the room, I barely glanced at the paintings, still deep in my own self-pity. Then one sketch made me gasp. It showed a young man with tousled hair, a high-bridged nose, large, dark eyes, and a beautifully curved mouth. He looked exactly like my father.
The wall placard said the sketch was of William Butler Yeats in his youth. John Singer Sargent had drawn it.
"Yes, apparently there's a close resemblance." My father seemed embarrassed. "I've been told that for years. It explains the way people stare at me sometimes. Haven't you noticed?"
I had noticed, but I didn't think the Yeats resemblance was necessarily the reason they stared.
That night in the hotel oyster bar, Dr. Cho wore crimson lipstick and a dark red silk sheath with matching jacket. Her long black hair fell loose, and it shone in the candlelight. She greeted us with hugs.
"How did it go?" I asked.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Let's order first," my father said. He turned to Dr. Cho. "I particularly recommend the oysters from Galway Bay."
Even the server seemed impressed by the quantity we ordered.
After the doctor had sampled six or so, she said, "All right. That's how it went. Just all right. I answered their questions, most of which were perfectly reasonable. That Sanguinist rep, Anook Sharma, seemed exceptionally nice. Then that independent guy, Truckler, went after me as if I'd defamed his mother. How could I disparage the sterling character of Dr. Roche? And the illustrious Xavier Prize, which I pointed out is the concoction of the pharmaceutical company holding the patent on Septimal?
"Truckler suggested that the whole case is based on professional jealousy, yours and mine," she said to my father. "Who is he, anyway?"
"I made a few inquiries this afternoon, but I didn't find out much. Apparently he practices law in the States." My father refilled our wineglasses. "William Truckler. Goes by the name of Billy."
"Down with Billy." She raised her wineglass and waited. He looked rueful as he raised his. She clinked his glass, then mine.
Was she flirting with him? I thought so. Just a little. Was he flirting back? No. My father was equally charming with everyone.
"Of course I said this was a matter of professional ethics, not jealousy." Dr. Cho took a sip and set down her glass.
"Do you think the council was convinced?" I asked.
"I can't tell. All those men around the table had blocked their thoughts. Incidentally, what's that about? Why aren't there any women members?"
My father said he supposed COVE was something of an old-boys' network. "I agree with you, Sandra. It's high time a woman took a seat."
"Maybe one day I'll see if I can be nominated." Dr. Cho lifted another oyster shell to her lips and drained it. "Or maybe Ari here will do it."
The idea of joining the group of men at the conference table appealed to me about as much as the thought of having to tell my mother how beautiful the doctor looked. Maybe my spotty memory would excuse me from doing either.
When we'd finished the food, my father and Dr. Cho began talking science. They were deep into the merits of gene-replacement therapy using viral vectors when I said good night. I told them I felt tired.
In fact, I had restless energy in abundance, thanks to a day spent mostly sitting and listening to others talk. As I walked through the lobby toward the elevator, a young bellman said to me, "Surely you'll not be hitting the hay so early as this? It's Bloomsday, after all."
I hesitated. Who knew if I'd ever be in Dublin on June 16 again?
Then someone walked past me, talking rapidly into his cell phone: "No, that should do it. That should take care of the whole thing. I'm on my way now to pick it up." The red hair and nasal voice identified him: Billy Truckler.
I followed him down the stairs and into the street, eavesdropping.
"What's the name of the place?" he said. "Okay. Must be a classy hotel if it doesn't have a name. Oh, apartments. Yeah. Okay, Godfried, I'll be there in five minutes."
How many Godfrieds might there be? That's when I decided to turn invisible.
But my concentration was interrupted, first by the street noise, then by a memory of my father's voice saying, Use invisibility wisely, if at all. Only when it's absolutely necessary.
Surely this circumstance met his criteria, I thought. If Truckler was working with Dr. Roche, we needed to know what they were up to.
Invisibility always brings me a rush of exhilaration, a great sense of freedom. Of all the vampire's special talents, it's my favorite.
I moved lightly along O'Connell Street, which was crowded with Bloomsday revelers who didn't seem to notice when they brushed by me. We passed boisterous pubs. From three of them came amplified voices reading portions of Ulysses. In passing, I must have heard Molly Bloom say yes a hundred times.
Coming toward me, a blind man navigated the crowd, tapping a white cane from side to side as he walked. He wore a dark suit, dark glasses, and a fedora hat. I'd seen him before. He was my harbinger, my shadow man. Like Dashay's black bird, he showed up when a major change loomed ahead for me. He'd also appeared to my father. I dreaded the sight of him.
As I hesitated, Truckler began to walk faster. I made myself keep moving. The blind man drew nearer. I tried not to look, but as he passed me, I did. His lips curved into a smile.
Was he really blind? My mother had told me that harbingers represent what we most fear. For me, that meant someone with an absence of vision and an abundance of malice. I walked faster and returned my concentration to staying invisible.
Half a block ahead, a man singing on a street corner jostled Truckler, who flung out his elbow and kept moving. At the next corner he turned off the busy main road in to a narrow side street, and stopped to study the numbers on the buildings. I hovered near the curb, waiting.
Truckler scanned the street, looking twice at the spot where I stood. The hardest part of staying invisible is maintaining concentration when someone stares at you, but I managed it. He shook his head and turned away.
He entered a red-brick Georgian building through a green-painted door, and I slipped inside behind him. Up a flight of stairs we went in tandem, me grateful for the crepe soles on my shoes. When he stopped on the landing, I nearly ran into him. Finally we arrived at a white door with a brass number 3 on it. He knocked.
The door opened. A woman with long blond hair said, "Welcome. My husband has been expecting you. My name is Elizabeth Roche."
She had a voluptuous body and perfectly symmetrical features. How had Godfried Roche managed to attract someone like that?
I stood near the door as they went into an adjoining room, wondering if I should follow them. Then someone made the decision for me. Another knock sounded at the door, and out from another room walked another Elizabeth. She opened the door and said, in the same syrupy voice, "Welcome. My husband has been expecting you. My name is Elizabeth Roche."
"Delighted, I'm sure." I knew that voice.
Malcolm walked inside.
There were three Elizabeths altogether.
The third one carried in a tray of dark red drinks. We were all in a kind of sitting room now, me close to the wall near the doorway, the men sitting on leather chairs, the Elizabeths standing in a row like patient attendants.
Dr. Roche looked plump and birdlike, wearing a black shirt with zippers that ran diagonally. He sat like a king on a throne, his beaklike nose high in the air, introducing his wives.
"Elizabeth I is the nurturer and social organizer." He gestured toward the woman standing closest to me. "She's a marvelous cook and an immaculate housekeeper. Elizabeth II is the brainy one. She handles the accounting, and I can talk to her about work. And Elizabeth III is all about passion. Need I say more?"
All three Elizabeths wore identical low-cut black dresses that clung to their curves, and black stiletto heels. They stood still as mannequins, glossy blond curls cascading past their shoulders, their eyes opaque. When I tried to hear their thoughts, I heard only static.
Malcolm slouched in his chair, his elbows bent, hands pressed together. "You've outdone yourself, Godfried."
Truckler looked confused. "Why did you make three?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm a very important man. No one model could take care of my needs. While Elizabeth I is planning dinner, Elizabeth II is investing my money, and Elizabeth III is in bed with me."
Truckler said, "The perfect marriage. But why did you make them all look alike?"
Roche's mouth spread into a grin. "I'm something of a connoisseur of the feminine physique. I've studied beauty through the ages. I used the golden ratio to create a model of the perfect woman. Besides, I've always loved blondes." He laughed, and the other men joined him. The Elizabeths smiled dutifully.
The sickeningly sweet smell of stargazer lilies in a vase behind me seemed appropriate to Roche's little kingdom of the grotesque. Clearly he'd never heard of wabi-sabi-if he had, he must have considered it a poor joke.
Truckler said, "But when you travel, don't people stare?"
"No more than they would at any set of triplets." Here or elsewhere, Roche clearly didn't mind being the center of attention-he relished it. "I don't call them my harem, except when we're at home. I'm building a new house for us in Miami, nearly twenty thousand square feet. Each Elizabeth will have her own wing."
As if on cue, they simultaneously nodded and smiled.
Malcolm watched them closely. "When you made them, where did you find the S factor?"
"I had an old friend who spent many years in India and learned how to communicate with the dead. He summoned my first wife." Roche turned to Truckler, who still looked confused. "The S factor animates simbos."
"Supplied by real spirits!" Malcolm said.
"It's a very complicated process." Roche crossed his arms over his protruding stomach, as if it were a giant egg that needed protection.
"Yes, there were some problems with the last one." Malcolm sipped from his glass.
"She was almost a perfect replica." Roche sounded defensive. "She had a few vestigial memories and personality traits that I couldn't quite erase. She liked the limelight a little too much. And I couldn't translate the prototype's synesthesia or ability to hear thoughts-those traits are triggered by brain activities incompatible with eidolons." He looked at Truckler. "That means ghosts."
"So when you said spirits, you meant actual ghosts?" Truckler's face was more ugly when incredulous than it had been earlier, in anger. Nasty little man.
"Think of it as the transmigration of souls," Malcolm said. "Or, as Joyce called it, metempsychosis."
"Malcolm handles that aspect, now that my old friend is gone," Roche said. "Which allows me to focus on the real work: making the bodies and building the brains."
Malcolm shrugged, as if he disagreed but wouldn't debate the issue. "Like Godfried, I take pleasure in my work. Particularly in the last one, as it happens. It allowed me to correct a mistake, in a way. She died too young. I brought her back, gave her the chance to experience being grown up, the way she wanted to be."
"We gave her the chance." Roche didn't like Malcolm, I could tell.
What they were saying confused me less than it did Truckler. I knew they were talking about Kathleen.
The men were on their third round of drinks, and the purpose of their meeting still wasn't clear. Roche and Malcolm traded boasts of the "simbos" they'd made. Some of them were well-known Hollywood actors.
Movie directors prefer simbos to humans, they said. They named a star less known for her acting than for her perfect appearance and tendency to seduce all her leading men, whether they were married or single. Like most vampires, I didn't go to movies-only humans are drawn to theaters, to savor the rare experience of feeling safe in the dark-but even I had heard of that notorious star. She made me wonder how many other modern-day femmes fatales had been manufactured by CIN.
And I hadn't known until now that vampires worked in the film industry. But the conversation didn't end there. Malcolm said Nebulists ran two social networking sites: Facebook and NetFriend. Roche talked about sports and music. CIN-created simulations headed two successful rock bands and were active on several athletic teams, in particular the New York Yankees. Humans and even most vampires couldn't compete with them, he said.
Truckler listened to all of this with nearly as much surprise as I did. "What about crime?" he said.
"Colonists run the vampire mafia, and it still controls most of the human criminal world," Malcolm said. "Which is as it should be. As for simbos, they're employed in minor roles, but they don't head up the mob families. They make excellent hit men and women."
"I created a simbo last week to assassinate the president of Mexico." Roche flinched at the look Malcolm shot him, telling him he shouldn't have revealed that. But he went on. "My simbos hold important roles in the courts, the banks and brokerage houses, dot-coms, organized religion, and politics. They'll be invaluable to us when the next war comes."
His words sickened me as much as the smell of the lilies. Like most humans, and most vampires for that matter, I'd lived my life never suspecting the machinations and manipulations of power going on all around me. What I'd just heard reminded me of Sloan's landscape and of my father's remarks about evil in the details.
Roche said, "The work is far too valuable to be interrupted by trivial annoyances like a COVE hearing."
"I agree totally." Truckler drained his wineglass, and an Elizabeth came to refill it. "I want you to know, I made a lot of noise during the vote last week to call you to Dublin. But some councilors are pretty upset about what happened to Cameron. And that guy Montero is well respected. Even the Colonists are scared of him."
How fitting that Truckler equated fear and respect, I thought. So my father's scenario had been wrong-COVE had summoned Roche even before we gave our testimony. Why, then, did Roche seem not worried in the least about their decision?