Face Off lb-2 Page 7

  Saffin picked up the papers in the desk out-box. “I’m going for a mani and a pedi. Be back in an hour.”

  “Should you be telling me you’re running personal errands on company time?” Laura said.

  Saffin grinned as she walked out the door. “It’s for the reception. That makes it work-related and a tax write-off. Is this a groovy country or isn’t it?”

  Laura chuckled. If there was one thing she could count on, it was Saffin Corrill not missing a detail. She spent a few minutes reviewing the folders and making notes. She checked her watch. She wanted to be gone before Saffin returned because she wasn’t, in reality, going to be gone. Despite Saffin’s knowing about her InterSec life, she didn’t want to become nonchalant about it.

  She retrieved her handbag from under the desk and opened the closet door behind her. Pushing aside the coat and spare outfits, a warding spell keyed to Laura’s body signature made the back of the closet appear to be solid. Laura stepped through the wall and disappeared from her office.

  CHAPTER10

  ON THE OPPOSITE side of the closet from her office, Laura dropped her bag on the bed of her private room. A work space occupied one wall. Ranks of storage boxes lined the surfaces of two tables. Jewelry-making tools were scattered over the work spaces, everything she needed to make a glamour. Over the years, the wall above the tables had become covered with photographs—some of herself under glamour, some as reference for creating new ones. Her unmade bed filled most of the room, the remaining space crammed with a bewildering array of outfits, hats, and footwear. Throughout the city, various apartments held the clothes only for individual personas—like the nearby corporate suite for Mariel Tate or her condo in Alexandria.

  The hidden room, though, was a refuge. No one else entered. Terryn had arranged for the office behind her own to “disappear” from the building’s floor plan. The only other person who knew about it was Cress, and that was on the off chance Laura had an emergency. Not even Saffin knew, or at least Laura thought she didn’t. But Saffin always surprised her with the things she picked up on.

  Laura slipped into the chair at the worktable and opened a drawer in a small storage container. A collection of rubies shifted against each other, some polished enough to catch the light with a deep red wink, some dulled by long disuse. The storage container held dozens of gems, mostly rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. They worked well for persona templates and were common enough gemstones that they didn’t attract curiosity when she wore them. The dollar value of the collection was not something she thought about. InterSec had paid for some, but others, like the emerald for Mariel Tate, were her own. As with most fey, money became less of an issue as time went on.

  She trailed her finger through the pile of rubies, pushing most to the back of the drawer before deciding on a quarter-carat stone. She dropped it on the tabletop, then retrieved it with tweezers to examine it through a jeweler’s loupe. Minor blemishing marked the stone, and the soft shapes of trapped air bubbles marred it here and there. She recognized the patterning from having used the stone years ago. She liked it, not too flawed and small enough in size not to raise eyebrows if someone noticed it. The advantage of her skill was that she did not always need large stones to make realistic glamours but stones that enhanced what she intended.

  From another drawer, she sorted through empty pendant bezels. Resetting the stone in the same bezel it had been in once before would save time. Pleased at her luck, she found the piece and placed it next to the ruby on the table. Lowering the ruby into the bezel, she used her stone pliers to crimp the prongs into place little by little, turning the setting with each pass. Retrieving the loupe, she examined the gem again, checking for any gaps. She gave a prong another firm press for good measure, then threaded the bezel onto a thin gold chain. Sliding her hands beneath her hair, she clasped the necklace around her neck.

  From a small plastic envelope, she retrieved a few strands of wheat blond hair. Cress had collected them from Fallon Moor’s cell while Laura had been interrogating her. Holding them up to the light, she coiled the strands around her fingers. She pictured Fallon Moor as she scanned the hair for the faint traces of her body signature.

  Everyone and everything generated essence. Body signatures were unique to individuals, with an underlying resonance of their species type. Brownies—like Saffin or Moor—were Celtic fey, who moved in and out of stories like far-flung cousins stopping by for a visit. No one disliked brownies in particular. They weren’t powerful like the Danann or Inverni fairies. They didn’t have ancient political rivalries with other species. They had little interest in politics and less patience for class distinctions. What they were, thought Laura, were brilliant organizers with a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder who had no patience with sloth. When brownies became interested in something, they absorbed everything they could about the subject.

  She found the hint of Moor’s signature, too subtle for most druids to trace. With practiced skill, she infused a mental image of the brownie’s face with her own essence, bound it to Moor’s body signature, and pushed the result into the ruby. The essence bonded to the structure of the stone, forming a template to build an entire persona upon. In the mirror over the worktable, Laura’s reflection shimmered and settled into a rudimentary version of Moor. Her skin tone darkened to a warm fawn color, hair shifted to a warm blond, and her features flattened. With the framework in place, she turned to the real work of building the glamour.

  The first order of business was the eyes. Laura’s natural green eyes blazed against the dark skin, but with a few nudges in the essence pattern, the color darkened to a hazelnut with a touch of red. She rounded her cheekbones and chin, turned the nose up a bit, and pushed the eyebrows higher on her forehead. The process worked liked sculpting, refining the essence here and there to bring out a natural form that would fool the sharpest eye. With a slight dampening, she softened her voice. Moor wasn’t a loud talker. With the image complete, she added the final touch—dropping almost a foot off her frame. Watching the effect amused her, as if she were a character in some child’s story caught in a spell. She leaned back and appraised the result. For all intents and purposes, Fallon Moor, a moderately attractive brownie, looked back at her.

  The time she spent creating a glamour always surprised her. Hours flew like minutes while she threw herself into the process, focused on producing the perfect image. She took a break with some fruit juice, staring at the reflection with a critical eye. She liked the Moor image—self-assured without being aggressive, competent without being arrogant. Thinner than her usual preferences, but most brownies were. With a few tweaks to disguise the original source, she thought she might be able to use this particular glamour again.

  With a final swig of her drink, she set out on the final level of imaging. She needed a boggart version of Moor in case a stressful situation arose, and she had to play the role. Since she had observed considerable self-control in Moor, she decided to create a more measured boggart, one that didn’t devolve into complete savagery. Weaving in among the essence pattern in the stone, she layered aspects of Moor’s physical characteristics that she could activate if necessary. Like an inventory of spare parts, she added alternatives to bulge her eye ridges, widen her mouth, sharpen her teeth, and elongate her limbs. With luck, she would need only to project the threat of going boggart to get her point across. If she needed to produce a full transformation, having the full template at hand would save her time and energy.

  With a final infusion, Laura finished the template and slipped off the necklace. She left an essence reserve in the stone, enough to power the glamour on its own by wearing it. She could always reabsorb it if she needed the energy, but given her schedule, she didn’t think that necessary. She had plenty of time to sleep and recharge her body essence naturally.

  Tired, she stretched up and out of the chair. She checked her watch. After midnight. Driving to the Laura Blackstone condo in Alexandria didn’t appeal to her. It wasn’t like sh
e needed anything there. Her workroom served her needs more than any of her apartments, and she had plenty of clothes to choose from. She propped pillows against the wall, curled up on the bed, and turned on the television.

  She wasn’t a big fan of TV. Given her day-to-day life, dramas didn’t interest her, and the humor of sitcoms was often lost on her. She liked to watch with the sound off, trying to parse the emotions from the visuals. After a while, her attention wandered, and she thought of Sinclair.

  He intrigued her. Working through her interest in him seemed a lot like the way she watched TV, as if she were her own voyeur. She didn’t have daily interactions with people and didn’t seek them out. At some point, she had stopped having any, pushing a personal life onto a dusty back shelf while she committed herself full-time to work. Then Sinclair showed up, tangled in her work and life. At first she felt obligated to help him succeed at InterSec because he had ended up there because of her. Now, though, she wanted to help because she . . . because she wanted to, she admitted. On gut instinct, she felt a level of trust in him she hadn’t felt with anyone in a long time.

  He said he liked her. The cautious side of her, the side she had spent most of her recent life cultivating, was always suspicious of someone taking too much interest in her. Someone taking interest was someone who might expose her. That was her work brain thinking. Her attraction to him worried her. Laura Blackstone didn’t trust anyone, she thought.

  That was a lie right there. She trusted Terryn macCullen. She had meant it when she said that to Sinclair. She trusted Cress, no matter her nature. Maybe a few others.

  She pursed her lips. More lies.

  She trusted those people to do their jobs. Trusted them to be there when she needed them to protect her. Trusted them to do the right thing—or even the wrong thing—for the right reason. What she didn’t do was trust them with Laura Blackstone—the real Laura Blackstone. The person. The soul behind the image.

  She murmured a laugh to herself. Laura Blackstone wasn’t even her birth name. It was the best name she had for who she was today. She had become so proficient at protecting herself, she had nothing to protect anymore. Who was Laura Blackstone? Who was she when she left the Guildhouse or InterSec or this hidden room?

  An agent. A cipher for a human being. No one.

  She didn’t think she had given him a reason to pursue her, but he had. At least, she thought she hadn’t encouraged him. Maybe that was it. Maybe Sinclair was interpreting her joking and dismissiveness differently than she intended. Maybe Sinclair took it all as a playful challenge.

  She sighed. More lies.

  Trying to convince herself that what she was doing was something other than signaling to Sinclair that she was interested was another example of denying who she was. Lately, she wanted more out of her life than her work. She needed something more. She knew that. The constant forward motion of her jobs chafed at her, and her recent vacation in the Caribbean hadn’t alleviated it. Sinclair was opening her eyes to the fact that there was more to life than hiding behind a mask.

  Her gaze wandered to the worktable, trailed over the neat boxes of gemstones, the reference photographs tacked to the wall, the tools she used to create glamours. From where she stood, she couldn’t see her reflection in the mirror, only the empty space of the room aglow from the silent television. That space, that small space in a hidden room, was the definition of who she had become.

  Her chest felt heavy as she realized that it was a problem. Sinclair made her want to let it go. She rolled onto her side—away from the empty mirror—and settled herself. She smiled at the memory of Sinclair sleeping in the seat next to her in the car and the impulse she had to touch him. He was making her care again, and that wasn’t a bad thing.

  CHAPTER 11

  EARLY THE NEXT afternoon, Laura entered the small restaurant a few blocks from the Guildhouse. She paused near the hostess station, letting her eyes adjust to the dark room after the bright light outside. Given the circumstances, she had decided to appear as Mariel. Since she was going to make her first foray into the Legacy offices later, she decided to wear a physical outfit for Moor’s appearance and produce a glamoured one for Mariel, a warm taupe woven business suit over a cream blouse. A little softer than what Mariel usually wore, but the lunch was not business.

  She spotted Cress near the back of the room and left the vestibule without waiting for the hostess to return. Sensing Laura’s arrival, Cress looked up, and brief disappointment flitted across her face. The expression made Laura curious as she slipped into her chair. “Hi, were you waiting long?”

  Cress forced a smile. “Not long. A few minutes.”

  “What’s wrong? I thought you had an odd look on your face when I came in.”

  She shrugged. “For some reason, I was expecting you to look like yourself.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’re in public.” Cress’s face fell, and Laura immediately regretted what she’d said. “Cress, that sounded so wrong. You know what I meant.”

  Leaning back, Cress focused on the surface of the table. “I know. I understand that Laura Blackstone can’t be seen talking to the demon fey over breadsticks and butter.”

  “Okay, not fair. You know I don’t think that about you.”

  Cress sighed. “On a day-to-day basis, sure. But when I healed you, Laura, I felt what you felt.”

  Weeks earlier, Laura’s body essence had been poisoned. The only way to save her life was to let Cress merge their body essences. The process Cress used to absorb the poison was raw and intimate, and not only on a physical level. For a moment, Cress and Laura had been aware of each other’s thoughts. Laura wasn’t proud that Cress learned of her fears about the leanansidhe, a fear that was ingrained in all the fey. A leanansidhe was difficult to fight since its ability was to drain essence—which was what the fey used to protect themselves. An attack by a leanansidhe meant death for all but the most powerful fey, and even those powerful enough had a challenge confronting them. Even given that, Laura felt that Cress had to recognize her determination to confront those fears. “Still not fair, Cress. I didn’t know what was happening. I most certainly didn’t think you were a demon fey. My essence was being invaded. I was panicked. I think anybody would have been.”

  Cress played with the wrapper from her straw. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  They sat in awkward silence as a busser filled their water glasses. Laura shifted her chair closer to the table. “This got real heavy, real fast. I asked to have lunch with you because I thought you were upset about something and needed to talk. Is it me, or is it something else?”

  Cress pressed her lips together. “It’s not you. I’m hearing rumblings that the Guildmaster is trying to boot me out of InterSec.”

  “He can’t. InterSec is a multinational agency. It’s not under Guild authority,” Laura said.

  Cress wasn’t convinced. “True, but he does control the Guildhouse. If he bans me from the Guild property, it amounts to the same thing.”

  She had a point. A Guildhouse was sovereign territory of the High Queen, which allowed a Guildmaster to do what he or she wanted in the name of security. “The only reason he’d have for doing that is because you’re a leanansidhe, Cress. That’s racist, and everyone would recognize it.”

  A cynical smirk curled on her face. “Just because I’m fey doesn’t mean I’m the right kind of fey. The fey are probably more racist than humans.”

  “Maybe. But Rhys would still have to prove there’s something fundamentally dangerous about you, and that he can’t do. Not after your years of service, and especially not after the Archives.”

  That few people talked about Cress’s success against the terrorist attack at the National Archives frustrated Laura. Cress had been largely responsible for minimizing the number of lives lost. She used her ability to absorb an explosion of lethal essence that could have killed several hundred people. Instead, fewer than thirty died, and that was because of damage that the bomb caused. The effort a
lmost cost Cress her life, yet the only thing people talked about was whether she was dangerous to be around.

  Cress smiled, not convinced, perhaps, but she saw a glimmer of hope. “The fact that I might have to defend myself is galling, though. It’s the last thing I need right now.”

  Laura paused as the server placed their lunches on the table. “What do you mean? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Completely recovered.”

  Laura arched an eyebrow. “Completely? You almost died, Cress.”

  She speared a shrimp off her salad. “I’ve been able to replenish what I lost.”

  Despite her defense of Cress, Laura resisted the urge to shudder. Leanansidhe survived by absorbing essence, the basic life force of everything. What made them such feared beings was their preferred source of nourishment: people. When a leanansidhe absorbed essence from someone, that person wasn’t likely to survive the experience. Cress had made a choice not to absorb essence from anyone without invitation. As far as Laura knew, Terryn was the only one who trusted her enough to allow it.

  Laura wondered if that aspect of their relationship was the cause of Cress’s turmoil. Cress and Terryn weren’t simply work colleagues. They were lovers—a relationship that pre-dated Laura’s life at InterSec. Despite their different natures, Laura saw a relationship of deep commitment. It baffled her, in a way. She had enough trouble trying to figure out if she should allow herself a personal life without complicating matters by being worried that a significant other might accidentally kill her. “Terryn seems—distracted.”

  Cress tilted her head. Her whiteless eyes appeared to stare and made people feel self-conscious. They bothered Laura, too, but she felt it had nothing to do with her being a leanansidhe but with normal social interaction. “He’s under pressure.”