Walter entered with a frown and said, “That is unwise. Your door should be latched and warded at all times.”
“Yes, sir. Wine? And I think you like this brand of cheese?”
Walter shot him a glance and frowned. Picked up the wine bottle, sat in the chair indicated, and said, “Very nice vintage. And yes to both. It’s good to see that Saxelby’s is back in production. The goat Tomme was always a favorite. Thank you.” He placed the bottle back in EJ’s hand.
EJ judged the breathing time was nearly acceptable for such a young wine, added an aerator to the spout just in case, and splashed some into the glasses. He had conducted many interviews in the war, in the States and abroad. In Europe, cheese and wine or tea were always acceptable icebreakers, but this was different. This interview was personal in ways he had never experienced. He needed to be nosy. Personally nosy, into private issues. EJ stared at his wine, sniffing it, swirling it.
Walter smiled as if he knew what was in EJ’s head, dark-skinned fingers swirling his wine, watching the legs trail. Mildly he said, “I’d say I don’t bite, boy, but we both know that isn’t true.”
EJ chuckled silently, little huffs of breath. “What gave me away?”
“Scent. Not meeting my eyes even in a glance. And you have a tell.”
EJ’s head reared back. “I do not.”
“Of course you do. You are still standing.”
EJ blew out an irritated huff, and sat. “I have questions.”
Still in that mild tone Walter said, “It’s about time.”
EJ placed his glass on the table with a snap before herealized that Walter knew just how to push his buttons. And the bodyguard had never used that knowledge before now. Or had he, and EJ hadn’t noticed?
Walter spoke before he could. “Let me tell you what you want to know and provide the answers to what would be a protracted and uncomfortable conversation. And don’t frown so hard, boy. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that your face would stick that way?”
EJ, momentarily feeling like a child, tried to smooth out his features. Yeah. Button-pushing time.
Walter sipped the wine, nodded approvingly, and scooped up a bit of the goat Tomme onto a buckwheat crispbread. He ate, crunching, and closed his eyes, nodding as he chewed. “Delightful texture. Semifirm, thick and succulent. It has that melty mouth feel, like a cheese from the Pyrenees, perhaps a Pyrenees Brebis or P’tit Basque. Distinctly goaty, slightly musky. I especially like the delicious herbal, piney, floral notes in the scent.” He sipped. “Lovely, with the bright, light wine and the harsh, crispy crackers.”
Frustrated, EJ ate. Sipped. Walter was right. It was excellent. And both his social skills and his use of the Revised Reid Interrogation Techniques were badly out of practice. He had given himself away by everything he did. Suddenly, EJ grinned and said in a fair British accent, “I do believe the term you’re looking for is ‘sublime.’ ”
“Indeed. However, your accent is dreadful. Learned Lancastrian, perhaps?”
EJ lifted his head, nose in the air, and said, “The King’s English.”
“Not hardly, boy.”
EJ dropped the accent and grinned. “The cheese is pretty good.”
“Never doubt yourself. It is indeedsublime.” Walter licked his fingers and said, “You should record this conversation for your sister. She is far too blood-drunk to absorb it at this time.”
EJ was too surprised to react. Walter said, “Ojos, record: audio and video. For Angelina’s eyes only.”
“Record on,” the system said.
He looked at EJ. “You want to know why I agreed to work for the queen, why I agreed to align myself with her and your grandfather when I have refused to be a scion to anyone for near a century. Also, why I chose you and Angelina as guardian assignment. And you want to know why you were allowed to live here, away from clan and coven and the queen—the real reason, if there is one. And what the queen’s banner atop your apartment building means. What hold Nyoka has on me. And how all this pieces together.”
That was a great deal more than EJ would have asked for, but he sipped his wine. Pondering. “Yes. If you’re willing.”
“I told you much of this earlier. We will start with Nyoka.” His words slowed, as if he pulled them from the deep recesses of his mind and assembled them like a child’s blocks. “Nyokais the Swahili word for ‘snake,’ a name she chose when she was freed. Like me, she was born of a slave woman who had been raped by her master, but unlike me she was born with power, the daughter of a formidable medicine woman, what would have been recognized as a witch by today’s standards. We were turned, survived the devoveo decade of madness, and were taken to England. When all UK slaves were freed in 1833, Willim imprisoned me in his dungeon, on the outskirts of London.”
Walter was staring at his wine, bright in the bell-shaped glass. He turned the glass, his long fingers sliding across the smooth surface, his nails slick and thick, but human, not the talons that would slide atop them if he had to fight.
“Nyoka broke in and freed me, leaving Willim dead, or so we thought. Even to this day I do not know how he survived. Willim disappeared.
“But I wasfree.” Walter’s eyes lit with joy, a joy EJ had never seen before. “Free for the first time in my life.
“Nyoka and I spent near a century cavorting and hunting across Europe before we parted. After Nyoka left me, she aligned herself with others.”
