Vikram Read online

  5.

  CASSIE

  Cassie woke the next morning with a pounding headache and dark bags under her eyes. She’d not been able to settle down, which had led to the pouring of more whiskey, and the eventual passing out into a fitful sleep. Now, she snapped at her alarm to shut the fuck up and squinted against the light pouring in through the windows. She was going to have to take a look at the contraption which filtered the glass and get it to stay dark for a lot more hours in the morning.

  Beside her sat the panic button that would call Vikram, and she groaned, everything coming back in a rush.

  The thought of getting out of bed and dealing with the day made her bury her head under the covers and nap for another hour.

  Eventually, though, she checked her phone and decided she had to make something of the day. She sent Vikram a text telling him she was awake, intending to get up, but then became distracted by the endless news articles about Archie’s death. Some of the less reputable papers were running sensationalist articles spreading straight-up defamation about possible causes for his death all over the headlines. Far too many were speculating about the state of his marriage. She was sure the foundation would be instigating lawsuits against some of them, they were so appalling.

  Some were touching, though. One—a cause-sympathetic paper that had always been a friend of the foundation—had given him a two-page spread detailing all the massive achievements he’d accomplished in his lifetime. They’d quoted some of her speech at the end, and she found tears in her eyes as she read it.

  Vikram came in then, and she struggled to pull herself together. “I was intending to have gotten up and put some coffee on by the time you got here. Then I got an alert about all these stupid news stories. Well, some of them are nice.” She handed her phone to him. “That’s a good one, if you were interested in knowing more about him.”

  He took it, looking surprised that she’d handed her phone over, and read while she got up and put a pot of coffee on. “Did you eat already?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Feeling like anything in particular?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine. Thank you.”

  She hummed and ordered him the biggest thing on the menu instead. He was definitely too muscled to be satisfied with a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.

  Then she loaded up her laptop and was hit by the sheer number of people that could have been responsible for Archie’s death. There was everyone at the conference and then some. He’d been involved in every major conflict of the past forty years, and there had been a lot of them. Anyone could have taken this opportunity to wreak their revenge.

  Vikram handed her back her phone. “He was an impressive man.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  “And you were his second for most of these things? You must have seen a lot.”

  “Only the last six years or so. But, yeah, we did. We accomplished a lot, too. It was all worth it.”

  “Impressive,” he said again.

  Their food came and he thanked her for it. They ate in silence, Cassie absorbed in flicking through the attendees at the conference and making a list of all the possible suspects. There was always the chance he was just a lone assassin, but she didn’t think it was likely. Someone would need help to get that far into the IU’s headquarters. The Agalaxians were an obvious suspect: they were the foundation’s biggest opponents and, without the trick she had up her sleeve, very likely to get their way. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to kill Archie, though. It was more likely to make him into a martyr and bring people to their side of the debate than anything. The only reason Prince Qugrom could have wanted to kill Archie for was if he knew what was on the memory card, and they’d been so careful there was almost no chance of that being true.

  She kept a question mark next to them on the list, but wasn’t convinced they were responsible.

  The word martyr stuck in her head and she was forced to add people on their side of the debate to her list. It was possible someone had decided they could create a stir big enough to win them the argument if they could use Archie as a martyr. She didn’t think it was true, but that was just wishful thinking talking, so she kept them on the list.

  It was when she was going down the smaller parties that a name stuck out.

  The Tevisians.

  They were a small planet that had been torn apart by a bloody civil war nearly a decade ago. A rebellion was in full swing to try and overthrow an authoritarian government. The Foundation had stepped in to help with civilian casualties, but it had required going to one side or the other for protection. The rebels had been unwilling to provide that protection, so they’d gone in on the side of the government. They provided medical support only, but the government ended up crushing the rebellion and staying in power for another five years before the rebellion began again and the head of state was taken out. By an assassin.

  It was the leader of the rebellion that ran the planet now, and they were the ones at the conference.

  She put a star next to them.

  They would have some serious animosity towards Archie—he’d been the public face of the foundation’s operations on Tevis. He’d been the one at all the interviews, spouting the politically correct line that they were a neutral party, refusing to take a side.

  And the Tevisians were on their side at this debate—advocating against the use of torture—they would have both motives covered. The creation of a martyr and the personal revenge.

  The lilac eyes of the assassin burned in her vision.

  The lilac eyes of a Tevisian.

  She stood up abruptly, only half her breakfast eaten. “I need your help,” she said.

  Vikram had already wolfed his down. “With what?”

  “Investigating.”

  He frowned. “I thought you were going to focus on the conference.”

  “No you didn’t. I know who did this. Now I need proof.”

  “If you know who did this then so will the police.”

  “That’s not good enough for me.”

  “Why not? What will you even do when you get proof? You’ll take it to the police.”

  “They haven’t even been to speak to me yet,” she said, crossing her arms. “I was right there, beside him. I almost got shot myself, and they haven’t even come to interview me yet. That tells you how competent the police are.”

  “It’s a politically tense climate and they’ve got a lot on their hands.”

  “Right. There’s a lot of political bullshit going on that they have to pander to. It’s slowing them down. What’s going to happen when the conference is over and everyone goes back to their own systems, weeks travel away from each other? It’ll never be solved. It needs sorting now, while the conference is going on. I can help.”

  He was easier to read than he thought he was. He dithered on his response, shaking his head. “The police will do their job. They’re qualified and capable and they know what they’re doing.” The implication that she had no idea how to be an investigator wasn’t subtle.

  It stung that he was right.

  “I have to,” was her only argument. “I just have to. For me. For my piece of mind. I’d never forgive myself if someone got away with this.”

  “Give it a couple of days, then. Go to the police and see what they’ll tell you. Don’t just go bounding in there.”

  “Why are you even arguing? You’ve got to come with me if I decide to go anyway. You don’t have any choice in the matter as long as you’re my bodyguard.”

  “I won’t be an active part of helping you put yourself in danger. My job isn’t to act on your personal whims, it’s to keep you safe. You going and hanging around the people you think want to kill you isn’t going to keep you safe. Me allowing it to happen isn’t me doing my job.”

  She was ready to scream. “I don’t want to make your job harder, but I have to do this. I just… I have to. I’m sure it’s the Tevisians. I’m positive. I can feel it.”

 
He leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face. “I brought all these safety procedures for us to go through this morning. I may as well delete them.”

  “I’m not saying I want to run in there screaming I think you did it, you bastards, and I intend to prove it. I just want to know more.”

  “And how exactly are you planning to know more? To ask them?”

  “They’re on my side of the debate. Saying I want to go and compare notes isn’t that strange of a tactic.”

  “And when you’re there, then what?”

  “I don’t know. I go through their notes, or try and steal their hard drive or something.”

  “You’ve watched a lot of crime dramas then, have you?”

  She scowled. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve been stationed in the middle of war zones for years. I know how to deal with conflict.”

  “Dealing with open conflict is different from dealing with political games. You know that.”

  And she believed he knew what he was talking about. He’d already said he’d worked with politicians. They were always embroiled in covert games and power plays with each other. He’d have had an intimate glimpse into all of it.

  She couldn’t just give up like that, though. “I’m not going to be silly about it, I promise,” she said, almost falling automatically into the default role she’d played yesterday to get the policemen to escort her to the morgue. It was one of the things Archie had taught her: this society might be sexist, but sometimes it could be used to her advantage.

  And Vikram was a man. Trying to woo him into agreeing with her was almost instinct.

  She didn’t, though. She wasn’t interested in tricking him, she wanted him to really agree. She wanted his endorsement of her plan.

  “Like you said, I can’t stop you going in there if that’s what you want to do.”

  “I want your help.”

  He dithered again. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?”

  “It goes against all the training I’ve ever had. I refuse to put you in more danger.”

  She sighed, but nodded, feeling bad for having pushed it so hard. Archie was more important than pushing the boundaries of a man she’d just met, though. “Okay. I am going to go and see them, though, even if you’re not going to steal their hard drive for me,” she teased. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’d just rather you were locked in your room where there was no chance of anyone getting in.”

  “Don’t worry. Most of the week is going to be that. You’re going to have to listen to a lot of bitching about people from the conference and poor attempts at research and planning speeches, though.”

  “I can live with that.”

  As the tension between them faded for the moment, Cassie decided she could probably live with that, too.

  6.

  CASSIE

  All the investigating Cassie wanted to do on the Tevisians didn’t need to be done in person. There was a wealth of information she could gain from the internet, too, and it was a good place to start.

  She sent Vikram back to his room after dinner, feeling bad keeping him cooped up in her room listening to her attempts at speeches and giving her critique. They might have had some laughs in between it, but she knew he must have been bored to tears.

  The feeling of constantly being watched was beginning to bug her, too. She was quite a solitary person—she was used to spending lots of time on her own, reading or watching movies, just being alone. Having Vikram there was draining her. She couldn’t just kick her feet up and relax because she was a little bit self-conscious around him. She wanted to make sure her hair was always perfect, that she always looked good.

  He always looked perfect.

  Now that she was alone she changed into some scraggly pajamas she’d had forever and poured herself a small glass of scotch, ready to start her investigations.

  On the official conference list were the names of the two main delegates. A quick look into them didn’t suggest anything awry, though. They’d not been heavily involved in the rebellion, or the assassination, and seemed to have been civilians caught up in the regime and tortured for information rather than being active participants in the conflict, which was why they were here advocating for the universal rights legislation.

  Cassie wasn’t deterred, though. They would still have aides working with them. The foundation was traveling light with just Miranda because of the sensitive information they had on the memory cards—they didn’t want more people than was absolutely necessary having access to it—but the Tevisians likely had at least four other people with their delegation. They just weren’t listed on the conference attendees.

  She’d have to find that out by visiting them, and then she could start looking up what their roles in the rebellion were.

  The assassins had never been tried for killing the Tevisian president. They were still out there somewhere. Maybe even on the space station right now.

  She downed her scotch and was itching to go and confront people. She wanted to storm down there and demand answers, even though it was the most stupid idea.

  It was all taking so long. She wanted to know, now. She wanted closure.

  To try and calm herself down she had a look at the room service’s dessert menu. Everything was on the house for the entire conference, and she planned to take complete advantage of that. A big bowl of ice cream sounded like exactly what she needed right now.

  She placed the order and resisted pouring another drink. She didn’t want to end up in the same state as the night before—she actually had to get up tomorrow morning. Though that thought made the bottle call to her again.

  Tomorrow the conference began.

  Tomorrow she had to be Archie, and it terrified her.

  He’d given her a few days over the years where she was the one standing up and being part of the debate. Normally, though, she sat beside him scribbling notes and searching for responses for him. She was more of a clerk than a participant. Now Miranda was going to have to do that for her, something which she’d never really done before.

  It was a mess.

  But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the memory card. No one would be listening to her in the debates much anyway, she was just a small pressure group that had been invited out of courtesy. She wasn’t going to make or break the situation in the conference room. It was the back alley political games she planned to win at.

  There was a knock on the door and she grinned. Ice cream time. A good substitute for scotch.

  She took a look through the peep hole and a woman stood outside with a large bowl of ice cream, wearing the IU hotel’s uniform.

  She opened the door. “Hi! I hope I’m not the only one miserable enough to be ordering midnight—”

  She didn’t get to finish her sentence. The woman was suddenly stepping forward and trying to slam her in the side of the head with the tray the ice cream was on. It clattered to the floor and Cassie barely managed to jump backward and avoid the blow to the head.

  She’d had basic combat training. They had to—for health and safety reasons—when they were about to be sent into a combat zone. But it was nothing compared to the skills of the woman who was coming after her now. She didn’t pull a gun, but there were knives in each of her hands now that she’d ditched the tray.

  Cassie jumped backward, searching for a weapon and finding nothing but her laptop, which she pulled up to defend herself from a slashing attack. The knife slammed against the keyboard, and keys clattered to the floor. “Who are you?” she asked. This was how it worked in the movies. You distracted them by talking to them.

  There was no response other than another slash from the knives. This time one sliced into an arm she automatically raised to defend herself.

  Her training in this situation was to run, but the assassin was blocking the door and she had no way out.

  She lunged for the panic button still on her pillow instead, and
slammed her hand onto it just barely before rolling out of the way of another attack and ending up on the other side of the bed.

  The bed was in between them, and now she had a clear path to the door. She bolted for it, the assassin sprinting after her. They were matched evenly for speed, at least, and she went full pelt down the corridor, her heart pounding so loud in her ears she barely heard the opening and slamming of a door.

  And then there was a roar.

  She dared to look over her shoulder and saw Vikram had emerged from his room, and had caught up the assassin in just a few steps.

  At least, she thought it was Vikram. He looked different. Taller and more muscled. His teeth were bared and he had fangs now. His skin had changed color—he was dark red, the cracks in his leathery skin were wider and burgundy. His eyes were slitted and red.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she stopped running, watching in equal parts horror and fascination as the half-Vikram, half-beast slammed her assassin into the glass wall of the corridor. It was reinforced and didn’t break, but her head slammed backward and she groaned at the force of it.

  “Don’t kill her!” Cassie screamed as Vikram held the woman up to the wall with one hand at her throat, and reached for a knife with the other.

  It was like she hadn’t even spoken, though. He slammed the knife up through the ribs and into the heart.

  It was an instant death. She watched the life drain from the woman’s eyes and her body go slack.

  “I said don’t kill her!” Cassie cried again, jogging back to where they stood. Vikram was slowly going back to its normal. His skin faded back its normal tan hue, and he shrank a little, his muscles no longer straining against his shirt quite so much. His fangs retracted and when he turned to look at her, his eyes were deep brown again.

  He dropped the woman, wiping his hands against his shirt and curling his lip so much she thought he might actually spit on her corpse.