Mile High with a Vampire by Lynsay Sands
Eleven
“What is the Brass Circle?” Jet asked. “And what does it matter if a couple of their members were spotted in Italy?” His gaze slid from Dante to Mortimer as he waited for an answer, because the man hadn’t dragged them out to the garage/jail cell at the back of the property to show them anything. He’d wanted to talk to them away from the women and tell them the latest developments that had come to light about the plane crash and the bombs that had caused it.
At least, that’s what he’d told them he was going to do as they’d finished talking to the pilot, Syd, and headed to the Jeep where the women had been waiting. However, he’d started this conversation with the announcement that members of the Brass Circle had been spotted in Italy, and Jet had no idea who the hell they were or what it had to do with bombs on a plane.
“The Brass Circle are a group of rogues in China,” Mortimer explained quietly.
“But they aren’t like other rogues,” Dante put in. “They’re not insane and running around turning or killing mortals willy-nilly. They’re in it for money and power, and they’re organized and deadly. They operate like a mortal crime syndicate, but where a mortal syndicate might run an underground trade in sex slaves, they run something similar with mortals to be used as cattle to feed from. Things like that.”
“And you guys haven’t done anything about it?” Jet asked with amazement. “I thought you were Enforcers and that taking care of stuff like that was your job?” He addressed the question to Mortimer because Dante wasn’t really an Enforcer. His official job was with the Notte Construction company, but he occasionally helped out if the Enforcers needed a hand. Mortimer, however, was supposed to be the head of the Immortal Enforcers in North America.
“Did you miss the part about it being a group in China?” Mortimer asked dryly. “We don’t have any more right to go over and take care of the Brass Circle than the mortal police could send cops over to take care of the mob in Italy.” He scowled at him briefly, and then admitted, “Lucian and a couple of the other Council heads from Europe have offered to help out to eradicate the Brass Circle, but the head of the Council in China refused their offer.”
“Why?” Jet asked at once. He thought they’d want to be rid of a group like that by any means possible.
“They say because it would start a dangerous precedent. But we suspect it’s really because members of the Council over there are paid off, or blackmailed into letting the Brass Circle do what they want.”
“Hmm,” Jet muttered, thinking, Didn’t that figure? He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that there might be corruption among immortal governing officials just as there was with mortal ones. Immortals were just humans with long lives. They suffered under the same greed and flaws as mortals.
Sighing, he pushed those thoughts away and said, “Okay, so what does a couple of their members being spotted in Italy have to do with my plane crashing?”
Jet glanced at Dante first, but he shook his head, apparently having no idea.
When Jet then turned to Mortimer, the man hesitated, but finally said, “Well, Pet and Quinn’s mother and stepfather were murdered by the Brass Circle when they were children.”
“Shit, what?” Jet asked with amazement.
Mortimer nodded. “It’s why they were sent to live with the Stones in America. Mrs. Stone was their mother’s best friend since school, and was their godmother, but they still did have family in China on their mother’s side who could have raised them. However, the Enforcers on their case thought it would be safer for them to disappear.”
“Why?” Jet asked at once. “And why were their mother and stepfather killed?”
“Their stepfather was an Enforcer who was pursuing the Brass Circle and—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Jet interrupted. “Quinn and Pet were mortal until four years ago or so, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” Mortimer verified. “But their stepfather was immortal. And their mother was his life mate. So, while the children were still mortal, he had turned their mother and adopted the children.”
“Oh,” Jet said with surprise.
“Anyway, as I was saying, the stepfather was trying to uncover the higher-ups in the Brass Circle. Actually, he was part of a task force of Enforcers trying to unravel the group. But the story is someone was passing information about the task force to the Brass Circle. Members were being identified and killed off one after the other, and their families were killed along with them as brutally as possible as a warning to others to leave the organization alone. I gather the stepfather was taking steps to protect his family. His wife wouldn’t leave him, but he convinced her to arrange for the children to go to America to stay with her dear friend, Mrs. Stone, for a while. The Stones flew over to collect the girls and take them back to America, but they arrived the morning after the murders. They were the ones to find the charred remains in the courtyard and Pet and Quinn hiding in a closet inside the house.”
“Hell,” Jet breathed, imagining a sweet-faced little Quinn cowering in a closet, listening to the screams of her parents being murdered. Taking a deep breath to clear the thought from his head, he asked, “So, the Enforcers were worried the Brass Circle might try to kill Quinn and Pet if they stayed in China? A couple of little girls? Why would they bother?”
“Because it would scare the hell out of the other Enforcers,” Mortimer said simply.
Jet supposed that was true enough. Still—“Okay, but they’d hardly come after them now, all these years later, would they? And how would they even know who and where they were?”
“How did they know who the Enforcers were that were chasing them?” Mortimer asked with a shrug, and then answered the question himself. “By paying for the information, probably.” He was silent for a minute and then added, “As for their coming after them now, after all these years . . .” He shrugged. “They’re known to be vengeful and to have long memories.”
“And they were spotted in Italy?” Jet asked with a frown.
Mortimer nodded.
“When?”
“Santo noticed some men watching Pet and Quinn at the airport and recognized that they were immortals. He couldn’t read them, but he didn’t like the way they were watching them. He said it was predatory.”
“Santo’s pretty old,” Jet pointed out with concern.
“Very old,” Dante agreed. “He was born in 965 b.c.”
Jet took a second to absorb that and then said, “Well, hell, if he couldn’t read these guys—”
“They must be older,” Mortimer finished for him.
“Right,” he breathed, and then shook his head. “Okay, so Santo sees some old immortals watching the girls . . . and?”
“And he was starting to get twitchy about it, but then the men left and he forgot about it. He didn’t think of it when he heard about the plane being missing, but he did when he found out about the bombs on the plane,” Mortimer explained. “He immediately went to the airport and got pictures of them from security footage and took it to the main Enforcer base in Italy. One of their people was able to identify them as Yun Xiang and Ziying Liang, although they’d say it the other way around in China: Xiang Yun and Liang Ziying. They say the last name first over there,” he explained, and then went on. “Both men are apparently suspected of being members of the Brass Circle.”
“Did the Council put protection on Pet?” Dante asked with concern.
Mortimer nodded. “Pet, Parker, and Santo were immediately taken into protection.”
Jet had been listening silently, but now said, “I still don’t understand how the Brass Circle tracked down Quinn and Pet after all this time. You don’t have some kind of file on them listing their history or something, do you?”
“No,” Mortimer assured him, and then grimaced and added, “I wish we had. Then we might have thought to have Quinn pick a different name for the new Canadian ID and bank accounts that were set up for her last week when she arranged to come here.”
Jet glanced at him with surprise. “She changed her name?”
Mortimer nodded, and then said, “Finally. We’ve been trying to get her to pick a new name and birth date ever since she was turned, but she refused. Since she was going to be in Italy where no one was likely to know the name Quinn Peters, we didn’t push it. But Lucian insisted she had to if she wished to come back to ‘this side of the pond,’ as he put it.”
“Why?” Jet asked.
Mortimer shrugged. “I suspect it was just his way to make her finally choose a new name and birth date. Greg thinks doing that often helps a person adjust to their new circumstances.”
“Greg Hewitt? Marguerite’s son-in-law, the psychologist?” Jet asked, and when Mortimer nodded, he asked, “So what is her new name?”
“She’s Quinn Feiyan Meng now on her paperwork, and Parker is Parker Meng.”
Jet liked it. He thought Feiyan was a beautiful name. But he didn’t understand why it would have made her a target.
Mortimer seemed to realize that because he said, “Quinn and Pet’s mother was Feiyan Meng after she married Tian Meng, her life mate. Quinn probably took her mother’s name to honor her, but—”
“But it’s brought the Brass Circle down on them,” Jet breathed with realization.
“She probably didn’t think it would matter this long after her parents’ deaths,” Dante murmured, but Mortimer shook his head.
“She doesn’t know it would matter anyway. According to Pet, Quinn doesn’t remember anything from their past in China. As far as she’s concerned, their mother and stepfather died in a car accident and the Stones adopted them.”
“How is that possible?” Jet asked with disbelief. “You said they were found hiding in a closet? I assumed they witnessed the murders, or at least heard them. Otherwise, why were they hiding?”
“They witnessed them,” Mortimer assured him. “Pet remembers it all, but I guess Quinn blocked it from her memory. She came away not remembering any of it, and when she asked where their mother was, Mrs. Stone said she’d been in a car accident, and Quinn believed her and has believed it ever since.” He shrugged. “Pet apparently tried to tell her the truth when they were still kids, but Quinn didn’t believe her and got angry at her for trying to scare her with what she called monster stories. Pet never tried again.”
“Which is why you’re telling us all of this out here,” Jet realized.
“Lucian doesn’t want her told,” Mortimer admitted solemnly. “At least not by us. He wants it left to whoever counsels her to handle it. To get her to remember on her own to avoid any more damage being done to her psyche.”
Jet’s eyebrows rose slightly. Lucian Argeneau had always been square with him. He was the one who actually gave him his job as a pilot with Argeneau Enterprises. But he knew the man had a rep as a total hard-ass among the immortals, so was somewhat surprised by his handling this so sensitively.
“Don’t be too impressed,” Dante said with amusement. “Lucian just doesn’t like having to put down lame immortals and is hoping to avoid it.”
Jet glanced at him sharply. “Put down? He wouldn’t kill Quinn?”
Dante hesitated, and then said, “It won’t be an issue. We won’t tell her, and risk her going crazy. She’ll dig it up naturally in counseling and be fine.”
“We don’t even know yet if the Brass Circle planted the bombs,” Mortimer pointed out before Jet could pursue the matter of Quinn’s possibly being put down. “The two men Santo saw might have just been looking at the girls because they’re attractive.”
Dante scowled. “I’m surprised Santo didn’t get the security footage of the plane while he was getting the pictures of—”
“He did,” Mortimer interrupted. “Apparently, they’re being viewed now. But there are hours of tape from several different cameras to look at. They’ll contact us if they find anything.”
Dante nodded and then commented, “Well, at least Basha and Marcus won’t have to make a trip to Italy to get them.”
“Yes, and Bastien won’t have to scramble to find a pilot to take them,” he pointed out unhappily, and told Jet, “Bastien is going to be very happy if it turns out that the Brass Circle are behind this and you can be released from protective custody. He’s going crazy trying to cover all the flights out there right now. He’s down two pilots with Jeff dead and you in lockdown.”
“Yeah, well, if it turns out that the Brass Circle is behind this and they’re gunning for Quinn, he can forget about my going back to work until it’s resolved. I’m not leaving her side until this is over and she’s safe.”
“Hmm. Sounds to me like Jet’s feeling hurt and ultimately rejected,” Marguerite decided when Quinn finished telling them about what had happened on the plane.
“I haven’t rejected him,” Quinn protested at once.
“Dear girl, you’ve told him you are not ready for a life mate,” Marguerite pointed out.
“Yes, but we could still have sex and—”
“Make him a booty call?” Marguerite suggested.
Quinn flushed at the gentle accusation. Marguerite made it sound so tawdry. What was wrong with taking him as a lover rather than this life mate business?
“Maybe he’s hoping she’ll decide she’s ready for a life mate, after all, if it’s the only way she can have sex with him,” Sam suggested into the silence that followed.
“That’s possible,” Marguerite agreed, and then glanced at Mary. “What do you think? You are the psychologist. Hurt feelings, or blackmailing her into accepting him in exchange for sex?”
“My diagnosis would be extreme sexual frustration, and feeling out of control, combined with a fear of losing her,” Mary said slowly.
“Feeling out of control?” Quinn asked with surprise.
Mary raised one eyebrow. “Do you feel like you have any control over your desires or body when he’s around? Because I know I didn’t with Dante . . . and good Lord, it was awful,” she admitted without embarrassment. “I was a retired old widow, and Dante looked like he was younger than my own children. I felt like a dirty old woman lusting after a baby, and lectured myself repeatedly to behave, but all he had to do was touch me and I went up in flames and tried to climb him like some young hotsy-totsy. Still do,” she admitted with a grin.
As the women chuckled softly, she continued. “The desire spurred between life mates is irresistible and leaves the couple feeling out of control. It can be most alarming. And for Jet, that’s compounded by the fact that for him it started four years ago.”
“What?” Quinn asked with amazement. She had a vague recollection of Jet mentioning that he’d been attracted to her since first meeting her, but that had been in the dream. Besides, being attracted to her was far away from the madness that overcame them every time they touched one another.
“He’s felt this uncontrollable attraction for you since welcoming you to his plane the night he flew you, Marguerite, and Julius back to Toronto from Albany four years ago,” Mary explained. “Every woman he’s dated and had relations with since then has worn your face when he closed his eyes, and he’s sought out information about you at every turn, feeling like a stalker even as he did it, but unable to stop himself. He was starting to worry that there was something wrong with him psychologically and he should seek help.”
“But if we’re life mates, why didn’t I feel that way?” Quinn asked with concern. “I don’t even remember him . . . or the flight even, really.”
“You were not in a good place then,” Marguerite said solemnly. “You weren’t aware of much of anything. Your mind was having trouble accepting what had happened and kind of shut down for a bit to allow you to adjust. That’s why we didn’t drive back in the RV as we’d planned, but flew you back to Toronto.”
There was silence for a minute and then Sam muttered, “Poor bastard. It must be hell for him right now. I mean, if he thought he was going crazy before even touching you, now that he knows what he’d be missing, the possibility of losing you must make him bonkers.”
“He’s afraid that if Quinn refuses him as a life mate as part of her self-punishment, he’d turn into a crazy Renfield, eating bugs and following her around like a lapdog,” Mary told them.
“What?” Quinn turned on her with horror.
“That’s the fear uppermost in his mind,” Mary assured her.
“But that wouldn’t happen, would it?” she asked with concern.
“Why?” Mary asked, arching one eyebrow. “Are you planning on using him as part of your self-flagellation as he fears? Having sex with him when the urge strikes you, but never claiming him and allowing a proper relationship?”
Quinn scowled. “What’s wrong with that? It’s not like this is the nineteenth century. People take lovers all the time. Why do I have to claim him? What does that even mean? Marriage?” She shook her head. “Marriage is an antiquated institution, and I don’t plan to have any more children, so why can’t we just be lovers and enjoy each other?”
“How thoroughly modern of you, Quinn,” Marguerite said with amusement, and then explained, “Claiming him has nothing to do with marriage. It means turning him, and accepting him into your life as a partner. It’s a lifetime commitment. There is no divorce with immortals. Once you fully bond, it is for life.”
Quinn winced at those words, her mouth tightening at the thought of doing to Jet what her husband had done to her. She hated Patrick for turning her. How could she then do that to someone else? And how would Jet feel if she turned him into a monster like she had become?
“Wow, now I think my feelings are hurt,” Sam said wryly, and when Quinn glanced at her in question, explained, “Well, it’s never nice to know someone sees you as a monster.”
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” Quinn said wearily, and then scowled. “Besides, it’s your own fault for reading my mind.”
“Fascinating,” Marguerite murmured.
Mary nodded. “Her reasoning mind doesn’t think we are monsters just because we are immortals, but her subconscious, what Freud called the id, does. That suggests a phobia. Perhaps her subconscious is reacting to a past experience.” She narrowed her eyes on Quinn and asked, “Have you encountered immortals before, Quinn?”
“What?” she asked with a start, and automatically shook her head, though a flicker of memory tried to rise up in her that she almost habitually pushed back down.
Mary’s eyes narrowed further and she asked, “Are you sure? You’d never even heard of immortals before Patrick attacked and turned you?”
Quinn hesitated, recalling Pet trying to tell her some story about their parents at one time. But the memory was a whisper she couldn’t quite hear, and finally, she shook her head again. “No.”
“Couldn’t Patrick’s attack be at fault?” Sam asked. “I mean, that must have been traumatic. I hear he was crazy-looking and his clothing was filthy, torn, and covered with blood. And then he ripped his wrist open and nearly drowned her making her swallow his blood. That could give anyone a phobia. Heck, the turn was traumatic for me and I knew what to expect. Quinn didn’t.”
“Hmm,” Mary murmured, but she was looking at Quinn in a way that made her terribly uncomfortable.
“Well,” Marguerite sighed. “You’ll have to work on that with her, Mary.”
“But what if she can’t help Quinn get past her phobia?” Sam asked with a frown. “We just leave poor Jet to be her Renfield?”
Quinn scowled at the suggestion. Jet wouldn’t be her Renfield. They could be lovers and friends and—
“No, of course not,” Marguerite said. “He deserves a chance at a life with a partner who can love him as he deserves. If Quinn can’t move past this phobia of hers, we will wipe his memory and let him go find a mortal woman who can give him love and children and a happy mortal life,” she announced.
Quinn stared at her with dismay at this news, and then the woman added, “Or perhaps I can find him another immortal who he might be a life mate to.”
While Quinn gasped over that, Sam asked dubiously, “Is that likely? Life mates are pretty rare.”
“It’s happened before that a mortal was a possible life mate for more than one immortal,” Marguerite said with a shrug, and then grimaced and added, “It might mean Julius and I having to travel around quite a bit to find one, but he wants to travel more anyway. We haven’t got out much since our RV trip was derailed.”
“But he—I—You can’t—” Quinn stammered, unable to get her protests out.
“We cannot stop you from punishing yourself, Quinn,” Marguerite said gently. “Only you can decide to move past this self-destructive urge. But we cannot allow you to punish Jet along with yourself. He deserves to be happy.” She let her think about that for a moment, and then added, “But this probably isn’t a worry anyway. You’re going to be working with Mary to clear up your issues. I’m sure everything will turn out fine.”
Apparently done with the conversation then, Marguerite turned to Sam and asked, “How are your sisters, dear? I haven’t seen Jo and Alex in a while. Everyone is always so busy with their lives nowadays.”
Quinn didn’t hear the other woman’s answer. She was caught up in her thoughts and a sense of resentment at what she was being threatened with. Basically, unless she “accepted” Jet, which apparently translated to her turning him, and making a lifetime commitment to him, they would take him away from her.
Aside from the whole turning him into a monster issue she had, commitment was anathema to Quinn at the moment as well. She’d been married once, and that was enough. She’d watched it fall apart and suffered the ultimate betrayal when Patrick had basically killed her by turning her. Oh, sure, she was still alive physically, but she wasn’t human anymore and Quinn Peters was dead. She was the immortal Quinn Feiyan Meng now and had to start a new life. She’d lost everything that mattered to her.
Well, not everything, she acknowledged. She still had Parker and Pet and she was grateful for that, but Quinn had gone to school and trained for sixteen years to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Closer to thirty years of her life, really, if you included kindergarten to grade twelve. The majority of her life had been put toward her career, and then in one moment of selfish cruelty, Patrick, the man who had vowed before God and man to love and cherish her, had ripped it all away. Only a fool would risk trusting another man enough to let him into her life after something like that. Taking Jet as a lover was one thing, but committing to him? And turning him? She’d rather go back to her dull, empty existence in her cottage in Italy, avoiding people both mortal and immortal, and just let time sweep by until she was fortunate enough to die.
Quinn winced at the thought. Even she knew it wasn’t a healthy one. And what about Parker? What kind of mother could she be to him like that? Sure, Pet would step in and help, but it was the equivalent of Jet’s mother crawling into a bottle and leaving him to be raised by Abigail’s mom, only in Parker’s case it would be his aunt taking up the slack rather than just some neighbor lady.
So, what should she do?
Obviously, she needed the counseling she’d come here for, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. Quinn knew it would take a while—many sessions and hard work and all that crap. She wished there was just a pill they could give her. Or that they could erase her memories of Patrick, and being turned and whatnot. Maybe they could make her think she’d always been immortal and that she was content to be one. That would be nice, but nothing was ever that easy and she suspected that would be the case here.
Quinn scrubbed her face with frustration. She was so tired of being angry and confused. The only time she didn’t feel like that was when Jet was with her. Then she felt alive and excited and like there was some hope in the world. But when he wasn’t nearby, all these worries and fears crowded in and exhaustion settled over her like a smothering blanket. She wished she could just go to bed and forget everything for a while, but she had no idea where she was supposed to sleep, so she stood abruptly and muttered, “I’m going out to get some air.”
When no one protested, she moved away from the table and headed out of the kitchen. Quinn wasn’t aware that Bailey had followed until she got to the front door and the dog bumped against her side. She glanced at her briefly, and then called, “Mary, is it okay if Bailey comes out with me?”
“Sure. She probably needs to go potty anyway,” Mary answered.
“Potty, huh?” Quinn asked the dog, and smiled crookedly when the German shepherd wagged her tail wildly and barked.
“Potty, it is,” she said wryly, and opened the door.