The colour of truth is grey.
(André Gide, French novelist)
Cape Canaveral AFS, Florida.
The heavily scented air from the ocean filled Alia's lungs while the nocturnal humidity made her flight suit stick to her skin like a badly healed scab. The noise from the nearby launch pads quite above her tolerance, even with protective earplugs. At the same time excited and worried she waited on the open vehicle, with part of the crew, their turn to reach the assigned launch pad and board their shuttle. It was her first flight beyond Earth atmosphere.
Space Life Foundation owned the private facilities annexed to the air force station, which managed most of the commercial and non-military research space flights for the Americas. The shuttle they were to fly with to Earth One was also owned by a company under the SLF wings, and rented for this journey by the king of Colorado.
Alia looked at Leonard, quietly huffing at her side. His mild annoyance at being surrounded by vampires was greatly overwhelmed by his fear for the imminent flight. During their week-long training to get the space-traveler certificate, which allowed them to board a space aircraft and stay in grade II orbiting stations, Leonard had incessantly asked about Diantha. Her favourite food and pastimes, her friends and, specifically, her lack of boyfriend. His attention to safety measures and rules of behaviour in space environments had been lazy at times and patchy for the rest. Alia had to instil some favourable thoughts in the mind of the officer appointed to assess their flight readiness and there, to her annoyance, Leonard's concentration had shot to attention and he had stared at her with an inquisitive look.
Without thinking much of it, Alia had mentally soothed his curiosity and diverted his attention to more factual matters, like quenching his thirst and visiting a toilet. The trick had worked beautifully and Leonard had never asked a question about the officer's sudden pliability or, for that matter, thought again about the all incident. Alia had felt elated and terribly embarrassed. So easy, so powerful. She was afraid to admit even to herself how much she had enjoyed that kind of control. But she did.
Earth One, known as EOne, had been built in the late twenties of the century as a replacement for the International Space Station. After that, technology had leapt ahead with vigorous strides and ETwo and EThree had followed quite soon. Now Moon Station was almost completed and settlements on Mars were being discussed in close detail. Therefore, EOne had lost any strategical interest and had been left to the greedy hands of civilian enterprises, most notably a large international consortium of vampire companies. Though, this specific knowledge remained hidden to the general population.
The flight to the space station was uneventful, but for the utterly astonishment at the sight of the planet from above the atmosphere and of the space beyond it. It was so overwhelming and entirely unexpected she opened up her mind as if to absorb all the beauty and perfection of the vision.
And it happened again.
Emotions like fumes of exhaust spewed by old cars assailed her awareness: rapture laced with fear. Then, little bubbles of disconnected thoughts. I'm meant to be here… humans are weaker than ever here… such beauty is… space is vampire… gods…
Alia felt distinctly two minds, both vampire's, and located their vessels right in the front seat row. Colorado's retinue. She spent the rest of the flight considering the circumstance that these unrequested insight from vampire minds might become a stable tool in her hands. She was not satisfied at the prospect, though. The sterile room represented by vampire minds had served as refuge and cleansing experience. A way to recharge and fortify her mind. That had been the case since meeting the first vampire and it had been the reason she never lifted her shields around them. In a way, she had liked to find unreadable beings. Now, she was less thrilled to find that she could get some thoughts, feelings from them. At the same time, she was pleased. There was embarrassment, too.
She shrugged off the experience, appointing a mental note to review it at a later time, and focused on her assignment requirements.
From then on her time in EOne station went by evenly, until Alia found herself in a most difficult conundrum and no one to discuss it with.
The king of Colorado, the handsome Chinese who had so highly praised her a few months earlier, had asked Alia's services to find out who had purposefully blamed one of his most valued economical advisors, a young vampire, of a breach of confidentiality related to a multi-billion dollar contract which, in turn, had caused him the loss of all those multi-billion dollars involved. Regrettably, Xu had immediately ended the unfaithful consultant to discover, by chance and only the following month, that the young vampire had indeed been framed and the royal money loss was nowhere to be traced back to his supposedly disloyal conduct. Hu Ke Xu had to ask a favour to cover his huge loss, and that favour would have costed him greatly in the not far future.
Therefore, now Xu craved blood, possibly of the right individual. And Alia had to deliver it to the king's fury.
To that goal the king had reunited all the parties originally aware of the said confidential matter in the space station module reserved for classified business, and let in Cataliades' golden girl.
Alia's dilemma presented itself on the third day of the four allotted for the matter settlement. The telepaths had scanned all the humans involved in the drafting and negotiations of the contract and had found two heavily glamoured humans, a man and a woman. The fact of being glamoured did not pointed out unambiguously to responsibility in the breach, but reasonably marked a possibility and an opportunity.
Then Alia caught a conversation, in whispers and thoughts, between a man verging on full blown anxiety and a scheming vampire.
"I told you how to deceive the telepath," said the vampire. Duchebag… kill…
"Yes, sir, I did, I did." The man's voice trembled. Bloodsucker. Fuck you.
"So, why didn't she see what she had to see?"
"I did… I'll try harder. But maybe she's not that good, after all." The man tried to placate the vampire. Fuck you, leech, only I know how is it to be under her stare. Fuck you, fuck you.
"Try harder, burn in your mind Northman's face and think of money."
"I will, sir, I will." Bloodsucker, I had to stab you when I had the chance. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
"Disappear, now," the vampire said, then the sound of a hatch being opened and closed.
Alia relaxed trying to keep her mind free and focused. Only her short breath betrayed her emotions. She waited in the head until the minds in the passageway moved on, and went to her quarters, a small cabin she shared with Leonard. Two modules on the left, and three modules up from there.
The space station was an old concept structure made of interconnected modules, patched together in all direction and remodelled through the years depending on the required uses. Each module, a ten-metre long parallelepiped with a square base of five metres per side, usually contained a few cabins and a shared head. Getting confused with directions was easy enough. Alia reached her cabin after several minutes and closed the door behind her.
Even if what she had gathered was an isolated piece of information, meaningful and leading to a potential different threat in itself, it also changed the connotation of all the findings amassed in the previous days. And possibly the way she should pry into the affair that had led to the contract infringement.
The real inquiring work was done outside the official gatherings, but the latter helped to make people think about the contract and its unfortunate consequences for Colorado. And about all the other details they were supposed not to think at all. Human brains, in fact, worked along well rutted path and repeated the same circuit over and over. It was simply not possible to avoid thinking of something by sheer will. The mere action of thinking not to think led exactly to the censured thought.
Daemons, with their superior mental strength, could do it. Fairies, at least those enough sensitive, could divert the reader attention with a light touch or cloud their own thoughts to some extent.
When a vampire glamoured an individual, though, he left a permanent mark that spoke of it, making the glamouring detectable and, therefore, less effective for the goal it had to reach, because it read as a blurred memory. Yet, what the vampire had suggested could be effective to a certain degree. If a human could think intensely and unwavering of a certain idea, action, word, it could be hard for the reader to understand if it were a memory, a wish, a plan or else. Alia suspected what could really do the trick, but she had never told anyone, not even Rhiannon.
And now it seemed that someone had studied those matters and was trying to fool her.
… set up for good, that asshole (image of Northman's face) is getting too big for his boots… time…
Alia's eyes shot open as the stray red thoughts rolled again in her mind like distant lightning. Her guts tightened in a knot and all the other thoughts clouded, leaving exposed the double game someone was trying to feed her.
Though, she had seen a face in the man's head and a mindprint to chase.
"Telepath," Xu's voice matched his gaze in coldness. "I'm running out of patience."
EOne, being considered old technology, had not been upgraded with gravity enhancers and its modules, though large and well equipped, had not spin to create it. They were in one of the largest units and Alia had to hook a foot under a security support and hold a handle protruding from a side partition. She was upside down with respect to the vampire facing her, and he was not bothered the least by his own free floating. All his annoyance, in fact, was directed to the fae who had requested a private meeting.
"What I mean, sir," Alia tried again to sum up her investigation results, "is that those humans were deeply glamoured and I could not see what was covered by it. What I saw and felt clearly is the man's strong fear to disappoint a vampire, a living one." She could not tell the king anything about the fake memory cheat the human was trying to sell her as genuine, or about the identity of the vampire, without explaining how she had gotten to it.
"And what do you suggest exactly to round the obstacle?"
"We can try to pit one against the other, and see if anything comes up in their minds," Alia concluded.
"Why haven't you already done so?"
"Human minds are fidgety and fickle, and if I delve too deeply into them I can damage beyond repair their brain. Do you want to waste two collaborators who may be unrelated to the… incident?"
"I don't care," Xu replied turning to face the fae in an upright position.
"Majesty." She had never used such title and it felt awkward. "If we were alone, just the four of us, and they were led to believe that you know they're innocent and you'll protect them from whoever is trying to force them…"
"…they would think of when they have been glamoured and you'll read them…" wrapped up the king, unconvinced.
"Something like that," Alia confirmed. "Once I was able to have a quick glimpse of the vampire before the glamour took hold."
Hu Ke Xu stared at the fae with a black gaze, pouting his lips.
"I'm paying you liberally for your services, and you ask me to play at good cop bad cop?"
"Article eight of our agreement states that my check is halved if no result comes up from the investigation," Alia tried to keep a low tone. "I'm just trying to earn my full check. In any way."
A long pause stretched longer that she deemed healthy. "I'm to leave with the next shuttle. Within four hours," Alia added finally.
"Let them in." The vampire was visibly doing an effort not to drop fangs, and the fae could smell his spicy scent. Too close for her taste.
The humans entered the module and positioned themselves at the fairy's side. She was smiling at them in the most reassuring way. As much as she could pretend, at least. But it did not seem much, by the look of their faces.
Alia spoke softly and took their hands to help her reading. She talked to them and intruded their mind. Softly.
The man got easily out of control and his glamouring really wavered under his fear while the woman appeared unconcerned. It was this latter who, with a light prodding from the fae, asked the man what had he been doing with the biker and their counsellor two months earlier. Alia had picked up that memory from many the woman was reviewing in the back of her mind, just to keep busy the man and dig deeper into his head.
"I never met anyone, why do you ask?" The man was sweating profusely, but the question was uttered calmly, real bewilderment in it. Just the word counsellor elicited an expansion of his pupils.
"Dark eyes and hair, tanned or dark skinned, partially pockmarked on the right side," listed Alia as the image loomed in the man's mind. She was whispering at the vampire's ear. "The other one is… muddy… glamoured."
Xu blinked once, then retrieved his handheld device and typed a message. The station intranet allowed communication through personal tablets but the king had restricted their use for the time being. Obviously, rules did not apply to himself.
Then everything went down so fast she was not able to understand what had really triggered the vampire's wrath. Or why it was lashed out against one of his underlings.
A hatch opened and a vampire floated inside, positioned himself upright respect to the others and did not have time to say anything. Xu was on him with a graceful leap and broke his neck with a snap that echoed in the silent module as an owl call in the night.
Alia stilled. Without a conscious decision she unhooked her foot and took hold of the knife sheathed inside her boot, considering the scene like an unknown in a mathematical equation. The vampire was not dark eyed and haired and his face had not marks. The oddest part, however, was the fact that the vampire with the neck twisted in an improbable position was not dead. Xu hunched on him with a knife on his hand, whispering to his ear like a father reprimanding a kid in public. Time moved slowly, or her mind could process it only in little chunks. Then, Xu thrusted his elbow up and down, a syncopated rhythm to it, and blood spilled out in tiny drops and droplets, forming an expanding cloud of red drifting in the air.
A gurgling sound broke the scene and Xu's arm stopped. Alia, crouched on a bulkhead, tried to fence off her mind, but a part of it was working on its own. The seconds ticked away and the red drizzle floated her way. It was when Xu bit the vampire's throat, tearing his flesh and spitting a piece of it sideways, that Alia pushed her body toward a hatch and left the module. It had not been a conscious decision. More an automated backup programme kicking in.
Only when the door of her cabin irised closed behind her, she caught a breath and felt her muscles twitching. She stood there, floating and breathing and watching the weird furniture bolted to what was either ceiling or floor or wall. Her heart regained its regular speed and she noticed red specks on her jacket. Slowly, a notion of time came back to her and an alarm got off. Her tablet reminding her it was time to leave
She was in the docking lounge, an area of soft seatings and small windows facing the approaching route of incoming spacecraft, when she became aware of the mental yell of the dying vampire. It was a shrill scratching the bottom of her head, and it had followed her as a rabid dog.
Some part of her noticed Leonard offering her a bulb of water, trying to clean her jacket with a wet towel, maybe speaking. Though, the single thought in her mind was the dying vampire and his last breath, his yell to the unknown. She had to hear him out and understand.
It was not the first time she had met death and, specifically, a vampire's death. But it was the first time she was paying attention to it.
She had always considered them different from humans. Now, though, she was not sure any more. Something was missing. Regret and guilt filled her chest, like what she had not yet understood was important.
Eric's good looks had crossed centuries without failing to gather a large crowd of admirers in every place. His tall, muscled frame crowned with an exquisitely chiselled face, fair complexion, dark blue eyes and blond hair had always been fashionable and welcomed. His handsomeness had been the reason for his turning and the wicked use his maker had forced on him.
Likely for these same motives Eric, while shamelessly using his beauty to his ends, was ambivalent toward it and never gave it more importance than the results it allowed him to reach. Which were mainly feeding and fucking.
Since he had become king, the personal donors at his New Orleans palace had satisfied both his needs, but from time to time he called for something different. Something that was not a compliant animal paid to offer her blood. Even if the sexual part was never included in the monthly salary (lest to be accused of pimping) and represented a free choice of the individual, no one had ever failed to offer it even if not asked.
Tonight Eric, dressing in a casual, lowly way, headed to the downtown club district. His guards, Xeres and a vampire, knew the kind of night that laid ahead of them. One of waiting at the far fringe of the king's personal area in a crowded nightclub and then outside a flat in a working class neighbourhood. It did not happen very often, roughly once per month or less, but the fact was that the blond vampire was never really happy afterward. More than one wondered why he bothered to.
The first one to approach Eric was a tall, blond girl with a tight jumpsuit that wrung out her phoney breasts like a dollop of toothpaste. It was not the only counterfeit element in her appearance. He declined her invitation.
Others came. After an hour of screening and skimming, Eric was tired and chose two girls who worked in tandem, or so they said. He asked them to show him and watched as they pleasured themselves. It was a mild exciting display from Eric's perspective. At a certain point one girl wore a strap-on dildo and began to pound heavily the other woman, front and back, watching Eric as to show him what to do next. The vampire, facing the couch where the two girls played their game, got closer and crouched beside the girl who was reaching her climax.
Eric watched her coming, a moderate criticism in his eyes, then bit her and drank. The girl goggled realising their guest was a vampire but relaxed at once, both from orgasming and relishing the bite. Eric let go of her and reached out to the other woman, leading her head to his bulging crotch. His release came after a long time, without satisfaction.
Even those short escapades had reached their bottom, thought Eric leaving the girls' flat. His pleasant and comfortable life seemed less congenial lately, and he struggled to regain his former reasonable enjoyment at those little romps in town.
But life was like that, he kept telling himself, ups and downs. Maybe it was just the cycle repeating itself and after a decade of ups it was the downs turn now.
When he woke up the next night, he moved through his life with a different state of mind. The same routines but an offbeat taste to them. A sparring session with Xeres, a long swim, a shower that did not cleanse his mood. When he entered his study and switched on the monitor, he set aside his musings and plunged into everyday work. It was a distraction. Something he welcomed.
His wife had already left two messages. He called her back. Her voice was familiar and soothing.
"And your sweet telepath?" asked Rehema.
Eric was caught off guard as they were discussing some further necessary moves in their clan politics, but did not correct her. She was intentionally teasing him and he did not give her the pleasure to take the bait.
"She's currently working for Colorado."
As a resident in his kingdom, he had agreed with Cataliades that the telepath would require his authorisation to work for other vampire kingdoms.
"Mmm, Colorado? And do you trust him?"
"Certainly not, but Adrianne asked a favour…"
"Ah!" Rehema's little smile passed quickly over her lips, then the queen's head moved outside the screen and when she sat back in front of the camera her face was tense. "Colorado. Wyoming should better contain her… friend."
"She says she holds his balls. What's the matter?"
"Nothing too substantial, yet. But there are rumours from his country," said Rehema. "But I meant what about you and the telepath."
"She's working a lot. If you want details you should ask Pam and Karin."
"Eric," Rehema shook her head, "are you doing your best to avoid her?"
"Rehema," mirrored Eric, "you know we have a resident telepath for our current affairs. Sookie is handling different assignments and Karin or Pam are always with her."
"Oh Eric, Hunter is not as talented as Sookie. She's working for vampires, fairies and daemons, and rumours say she is very… strong. But this is not the point, again. You and her. Did you two—"
"There's not much to say," he interjected. "A lot of time passed by, we… we moved on."
"You don't seem to have moved much farther," Rehema stated. "And, if she has not brought this up either, it means she's in the very same position. It's been four months since her arrival. It's time to face the issue. For your own good."
Eric was quiet, looking at her wife's image on the screen.
"Do you enjoy harassing me?" Eric asked finally.
"Greatly. And I won't stop till—"
"Yes, I suspected so."
"I have a long life, Eric, yet not as long as your stalling implies," Rehema said. "And I need a strong ally, now. You should decide what to do and do it. At the moment you're… just waiting and being distracted."
"I don't know, Rehema," Eric started after a while. "I simply don't know what to do, but maybe I know what I don't want."
"Which would be?"
"I don't want to fall into the same scheme we were when we were married," he said. "I had always to convince her to do what was necessary, but she rarely paid attention or did what was required. I had to justify myself to her all the time. To justify my being vampire. The society, the shadow society we lived in. She never really accepted it." Then he was silent.
"Then don't. Anyway, I think circumstances are very different now and you cannot reproduce… the same pattern," his wife noted. "She comes as a fae, now. You are at the apex of that society and don't have to follow orders. She lives in the same shadow society and understands more of its laws. Should I carry on?"
"So, we both are very different and maybe don't have much to say to each other."
"Possible," replied Rehema. "But she's still in your mind and hinders you. That's reason enough to go and see what's in there for you. Maybe nothing, maybe something you don't want. Maybe something different from what you think and that you—"
"Lots of maybes. Maybe I don't need to check to know I don't need that."
She paused, sipped from a glass and laid it down somewhere outside of the screen area. "What do you fear, Eric?"
Eric sat at his desk, a large rosewood table where the screen would slid down once switched off. The vampire was tempted to do just that, and smiled at the idea. The vampiress would have called right back and pestered him to no end for his childish behaviour. It would not have bothered him, though. He reached out to his glass and sipped some water.
It was less than half an hour to sunset and the sky had already veered to a warm shade of light blue and rose. The east windows were open and let in dank smells from the lake's still waters.
"She fought me every step. She wanted me but fought me all the time on most things. It's true it was a time fraught with dangers and unpredictable events, but she rarely was at my side without fighting it. She just followed her friends' words and… I don't want this again."
"Would you want her without the quarrelling bit, and see if there's something… for you?" Rehema looked at Eric's face, trying to read him through his too determined blankness. He was silent, his jaw tight.
When he finally spoke his tone was just disappointed.
"I'd like her to want me and show it in every move. Fight for me and not against me," he said. "I won't try to convince her of anything. She has to find for herself what she wants and why."
Rehema nodded. "Let her know that, then."
Eric shook his head pursing his lips. "No, Rehema. It's something she has to find for herself. If she has it inside, that is."
A week had passed by since her return from EOne and Alia still sensed the red flare of the dying vampire's scream in her head. The distant echo of that cry accompanied her like an itching that no scratch could appease.
Alia had never thought of vampires as weak creatures or beings fearful of dying. Their physical strength and the forcefulness of their lives made them unafraid and scary, but it seemed that did not mean that they dreaded death less. That cry conveyed the all too human fear of the unknown lifeless darkness. Vampires came out so vulnerable and human that Alia felt ashamed to have valued their life less than human's.
That week she had also been conflicted about telling what she had heard. The fact was that Alia did not want to meet Eric again, at least not in private, and did not want to disclose the way she had gained that information. At the same time, she wanted to see him and tell him everything. Then, after some more pondering, she did not want to see Eric at all. Then, again, she wanted.
It was an exhausting and contradictory time, her will swinging back and forth and failing to choose a side. Until the following week when Alia went to Shreveport and met Pamela at one of the boutiques in the Area Five building she lived in. Alia was looking at a piece of dark red lingerie, considering if trying or discarding it.
"Let me see it on you," an amused voice said behind her, "and I'll tell you if to buy it or not."
"Pam," exclaimed Alia turning.
"Sookie," Pamela smiled. "Who's the lucky one who will see you through that lace?"
"No one really. At least, no one I know of now," quipped Alia setting the teddy aside on the counter.
"Then, I offer to be the one to take it off you, fae."
"Or we can go out to see if I find a more suitable one to take it off me," Alia continued.
"Now you offend me."
"Didn't mean it, Pam. But you lack something to…"
"Sookie, you disappoint me. Do you really need bat and balls to have fun? It's reductive and short-sighted." The vampiress helped with some bags while heading to the lift. "Give me the chance to show what you might be missing."
"Pam, it's your tits… I don't know what to do with them!"
"Can't believe that! You can squeeze them, lick, bite, suck, scratch, pull, swallow them, you can press your—"
"Maybe I'm not thrilled at the idea, you know."
"And I thought you became a full fae!" Pamela said. "I'm sure in Faery have a Fae and Boobs course and that it's compulsory for any decent fairy."
They had reached Alia's flat entry and the door had just opened with her iris recognition. "Pam, I have to tell you something…"
"You missed the course, didn't you? I can supply a crash course in less—"
"Seriously, Pam," Alia said inviting the vampiress to follow her inside. "It's important and delicate."
"Just for you to know, I was fucking serious," Pamela closed the door, let the shopping bags on the floor and followed the fae.
"I heard something," Alia was at the kitchen counter preparing something to drink. "Something about… your maker."
They sat in the living room and Alia stalled for time. Laid down a tray on the side table and took a seat on the sofa. Then sipped at her glass.
"I heard some thoughts, not very friendly thoughts, about him."
Pamela's attention was focused on Alia's lips.
"Tennessee and Colorado people are involved."
The vampiress' eyes darted from Alia's lips to the fae's breasts.
"Pam, stop that! I'm fucking serious!"
"I don't doubt you are… but you're drinking from my glass, and some blood leaked over your right boob."
"Cool down, Pam," Alia noticed both glasses contained blood and set hers back on the tray. "Did you hear me? Some vampires are up to something against the king."
"There's always someone plotting against him, it's a royal prerogative. What about that drop?"
"Leave it there and listen to me."
Alia reported all she had heard omitting sources and circumstances, and began to suspect that Pamela was not so playful when offering to introduce her to sapphic entertainment.