Deryn let Tony out of the car so he could follow the two men discreetly. They both looked in their sixties, Tony thought. He made another phone call as he watched them check in, discovering his quarry was traveling to Las Vegas. He also saw that one of them carried a bag Lissa had used. Tony was going to give up the search, but not before he misdirected Hafer.
"Get me a ticket to Las Vegas," he told his agent on the phone. Hafer would have the information almost as soon as the ticket was booked, Tony figured. Then, when he knew that Hafer would also be traveling to Las Vegas on an alternate flight, he would leave the airport, have Deryn pick him up and they'd drive straight back to Luddesdown.
* * *
The woman was terrified when she was brought in. Wlodek might have felt some sympathy for her—she couldn't be more than twenty-five, if that, but she did have connections to Xenides. Gavin and Merrill had managed to pick her up, along with Llewellyn, a long-time thorn in Wlodek's side. Llewellyn was nearly as old as Merrill and was a holdout for the old ways. He'd refused, time and again, to acknowledge that the Council served any useful purpose at all and had scoffed repeatedly at the laws created to govern the race. Wlodek suspected Llewellyn of killing humans upon occasion while drinking from them; he was also a holdout on the bagged blood issue. Wlodek lost contact with him for the past century and only now had the rogue resurfaced.
"It was a fluke," Gavin explained as the girl was directed to one of the cells inside the high security prison complex maintained by the Council. "Merrill and I heard a rumor that someone died outside a pub only recently, their throat slashed. The authorities said the man bled to death. Of course we went to investigate, in case Xenides might have had a hand in it."
Throats were often slashed to hide the fact that blood had been removed from the victim before they died. If a pint or two was missing, who might go looking for it amid all the other blood that was in the alley or on the carpet?
"Explain, please, before we question the girl," Wlodek nodded to Gavin and Merrill, taking a seat behind the desk in the office.
"We didn't find evidence of vampire involvement in the murder," Merrill said. "Gavin and I went inside anyway, to ask a few questions. Gavin went to speak with the bartender while I sat down to wait."
"That does not explain how you captured these two," Wlodek observed. "How was this accomplished?"
"With this." Gavin held up his money clip, handing it over to Wlodek when the Head of the Council reached for it.
"What are you doing with Llewellyn's money clip?" Wlodek asked, examining the gold clip that had two rows of round diamonds on the end. It also had the initials LLM engraved on it, for Llewellyn Leroyce Millard.
"It's not Llewellyn's," Gavin coughed a little. Vampires didn't embarrass easily, especially old vampires, but this, well…
"Then whose is it?" Wlodek's dark eyes studied Gavin. Merrill almost snickered.
"Mine," Gavin confessed. "Lissa bought it and had it engraved for me."
"It's because he keeps asking her if she loves him," Merrill did chuckle, now. He'd listened in on enough of Lissa's phone calls to know. "She had this made up for him. The initials mean Lissa Loves Me."
"And this is how you managed to collar a vampire I've been hunting for more than two hundred years, along with Xenides' human toy?"
"That pretty much sums it up," Gavin nodded. "Xenides instructed the girl to meet Llewellyn at the pub; he was going to be carrying something with his initials. I bought a pint for myself and Merrill so we'd fit in after questioning the bartender; the girl saw the money clip when I pulled it from my pocket to pay for the pints."
"Of course Gavin didn't know what the hell she was talking about when she called him Llewellyn, but I overheard from the table we'd taken. When Llewellyn walked in thirty seconds later, I had him under compulsion immediately. Gavin grabbed the girl, placed compulsion and here we are." Merrill wanted to laugh; it was absurd in the extreme and couldn't have been more perfect. He might have collared Llewellyn when he spotted him, but the girl was a bonus. Neither he nor Gavin would have known to take her if she hadn't thought Gavin was Llewellyn.
"Quite fortuitous," Wlodek wanted to smile a little too, but held back. "I will ask Flavio and Susila to come in and sit with me while we question the girl. Llewellyn will be questioned and then brought before the Council. I will try to arrange this so Lissa may attend." Merrill nodded; he knew Wlodek wanted to use Lissa's nose in this matter; there were no records on Llewellyn's sire and he wanted to know if Llewellyn had Saxom's taint about him.
Merrill pondered that for a few moments. Lissa could smell Saxom's taint. His eyes flew wide and he gasped. Wlodek turned quickly to him. "What is it?" he asked.
"Our little girl has been holding out on us," Merrill was smiling again. "Because she's afraid, more than likely."
"How have we frightened her this time?" Wlodek steepled his fingers.
"Because we're all male," Gavin interrupted, causing Merrill to gape, almost. Gavin gave Merrill a level look. "It's true," he said. "She has no reason to trust any male. I have been thinking about this for some time, now. Her father—well, the one listed as her father, nearly killed her, after killing her mother. What have any of us done to earn her trust?"
"She doesn't trust vampires in general," Merrill offered.
"I wish to go back to the point Merrill was making," Wlodek turned back to his eldest child.
"Lissa doesn't just smell the taint from Saxom's get. If Saxom stood in front of her, she'd recognize him. She can smell the blood, Honored One. More than likely she could tell you who your vampire children are, even if you'd never told her."
Wlodek raised an eyebrow at Merrill. He and Merrill knew exactly what that meant—that Lissa knew that Wlodek had turned Merrill. He swore softly. "Do you mean to tell me that all these turns that we suspect are someone else's—that she might be able to give us the truth of the matter?"
"I think so," Merrill nodded. Wlodek swore again, a little louder, this time.
"I beg you not to punish her for withholding this information," Gavin said.
"We will not," Wlodek huffed. "But this information is not to leave the room. Just as she can tell the ages of vampires, that information remains with us as well."
"Agreed," Merrill was smiling. Gavin nodded.
"We just have to find a way to let her know that we know, without frightening her or making her fear that she will be punished for this," Wlodek toyed with a pen on the desk. It was a simple ballpoint—not the gold fountain pen of which he was so fond. "Will you attend the questioning of the girl tomorrow evening?" Wlodek asked Merrill and Gavin. They both agreed on ten as the appointed time.