"How did you meet Mencheres?" Kira settled on asking.
Selene shrugged. "I was turning tricks for meth back in 'Frisco several years ago when Mencheres rolled up on my pimp knocking me around. He drank him, then asked me if I wanted a new life. I did. So Mencheres took me with him, got me off the drugs, and here I am."
Kira had heard far-more-sordid tales as a P.I., but she almost gaped at how casually Selene relayed a tale of drug addiction, prostitution, and murder to a complete stranger.
Before she could even say anything, Sam spoke up.
"I was a Legacy. Used to belong to Tick Tock, but he died in the war over a year ago.
Mencheres was Tick Tock's Master, so he inherited all his property when Tick Tock died, me included."
"Master? Mencheres considers you his slave?" Kira blurted, aghast.
Sam gave her a look. "Not Master like that, lady. Master of the line of vampires Tick Tock came from. If you're a human who belongs to a vamp, you're considered their property, but I can walk away from this anytime I want to. I'm no one's damn slave, got it?"
"I'm more like you, Kira," Kurt said, breaking up the tense moment. "Didn't know about vampires until I stumbled across some by accident, but I decided to stay because they were safer than the gang I ran with."
Kira's mind spun with this new information. Selene, Sam, and Kurt knew exactly what Mencheres was, yet they all stayed with him willingly. Or did they? Had Mencheres manipulated their minds to make them think they'd chosen to be here? Was he waiting to do the same thing with her? What if she were thinking Mencheres's ability to erase her memory was her ticket home, but in reality, she was giving him the ability to lock her up forever?
It was such an ugly thought that Kira felt bile rise in her throat. Her instincts, which had been her flawless compass for the past dozen years, might not be trustworthy when it came to Mencheres. If vampires could manipulate minds, then it stood to reason they could alter someone's gut reaction to them, too.
Kira looked around at the kitchen and the three people seated in it. On the surface, everything was the picture of normalcy, but scratch the surface, and all of that disappeared.
Just like her trust in the instincts that assured her Mencheres meant it when he said he'd let her go.
Kira stood up, barely managing to keep her hands from shaking. "Nice to meet all of you," she got out.
Then she quickly left the kitchen to go into the garden, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her.
Mencheres strolled past the pool toward the garden, drawn toward Kira's heartbeat as if it were a beacon. She was on the far edge of the garden, sitting in the lower branches of a tree, of all things. A breeze carried her scent to him, that lemony fragrance tainted with fear, confusion, and anger.
He sat on a concrete bench at the opposite side of the small garden, wondering what caused Kira's sudden shift in mood. She'd seemed fine this morning as he listened to her move about her room. Then nothing in the conversation he'd overheard between her and the others in the kitchen should have alarmed her, but Kira had gone straight into the garden afterward and stayed there the past three hours. Was it normal chafing at the circumstances that necessitated her being here? Or was it something else?
He shouldn't care. It was utter madness that he'd come out here to sit on this bench in the hopes that Kira would tell him what was bothering her. After all, if he were being logical, he'd concern himself with crucial matters instead of with a woman who would soon not remember him.
That breeze lifted her scent to him again, tantalizing him with the invisible caress of her on his senses. Then again, what was the harm in a little pleasant madness? Mencheres decided, breathing in Kira's fragrance. At this point in his life, hadn't he earned the right not to make every last decision based on cold, unfeeling logic?
His attention snapped away from Kira when something else swept over Mencheres's senses. Something old, strong, and vindictive. He straightened, already coiling his emotions back into their familiar, impermeable shell by the time he heard Gorgon answer the door.
"I am here to see Mencheres," an all-too-familiar voice stated.
"Guardian," Gorgon replied, with the proper amount of respect his enemy's station warranted. "I shal let him know you're here."
Laughter rolled from Radjedef like quiet thunder. "He knows, boy."
Mencheres kept the anger that flickered in him tamped down to undetectable levels.
Radjedef could only guess that his derisive treatment of his people angered him; if Mencheres gave him proof, the Law Guardian would increase his insulting behavior.
Radjedef knew the protections his status gave him and exploited every one of them when it came to Mencheres.
If he wouldn't have been the very first suspect in Radjedef's disappearance, Mencheres would have done away with his old enemy thousands of years ago. But that was the problem. Their history went back so far, everyone knew about it.
And if Radjedef were anything except a Law Guardian, Mencheres would have risked it regardless.
Gorgon came into the garden. Radjedef, as expected, followed after him instead of waiting to be announced.
"Sire, you have a visitor," Gorgon said.
"Thank you," Mencheres replied. Gorgon turned around, heading back to the house before the Law Guardian could bark at him to leave. This wasn't the first time Gorgon had dealt with Radjedef.
"Menkaure," Radjedef said, calling Mencheres by the name he'd been born with. "I am surprised you didn't try to hide your location from me."
"I weary of our games, Radje," Mencheres said, using the abbreviated name Radjedef had hated as a boy.
His enemy's lip twitched so subtly, no one else might have caught it. But Mencheres did, and he gave an inward smile. After four and a half mill ennia, Radjedef still couldn't quite let go of his childhood insecurities. If he had, they might have met today as friends instead of adversaries.
"No one delights in games as much as you," Radjedef replied coolly, taking a seat next to Mencheres without invitation. His hand swept in the direction of the house. "Such squalid accommodations. Are you doing some form of penance by staying here?" Mencheres lifted a bored brow. "Even you would not come merely to mock my current residence."
Radjedef smiled. "I have been speaking to many sources, my old friend. Such terrible things they say about you. Repeated theft of property. Murder. Imprisonment. Witchcraft.
How many laws do you think you've broken this year alone?"
"If you had credible sources, you would be asking me this in front of the council of Guardians, not by yourself," Mencheres replied in an even tone. "You cannot prove any of this. You never could. Find a new pastime, Radje. I hear Wii is extremely entertaining."