Karhi Emelyn

CW on attempted murder via poison, and vomiting blood

Karhi would refer to Faren as a great and terrible beauty. 

He always had a slight smile on his lips, his eyes dancing as if someone had just made a joke that only he heard.  Karhi had always found it slightly unnerving.  Though he found most everything unnerving about Faren.  He was so beautiful that there was something off about it.

His skin reminded Karhi of that light sienna one only found on seashells.  His hair was dark and styled with the top curling just above his eyes and the sides shaved into a fade.  He had a neatly trimmed beard that dusted across his jaw, thick on his chin and where it met his moustache.   He had cheekbones that cut across his face and light, lined eyes with feather duster eyelashes. 

He cut a great figure in a charcoal grey suit with a jade green shirt unbuttoned at the top.  Karhi had never seen the man wearing anything less than slacks and a button-up.

Well, technically, he had seen him in less.  But seeing Faren naked didn’t count. 

When Faren entered the room, he immediately bowed to Hazel and Matadi.  “Your majesties,” he said.  His voice was a rich baritone that made Karhi think of chocolate and almonds.

Keep it in your pants, Christ.

Karhi jumped, shooting a glare at Mira.  She wasn’t looking at him, instead studying Faren.

“General Faren, there’s no need for formalities right now,” Hazel said.

Faren straightened up, cocking his head at Hazel with mild interest.

They had moved from the queen and king’s quarters to a room a few doors down the hall.  It was a small, private library.  Shelves lined the walls, almost all of them written in Irish.  A metal spiral staircase in the corner led up to a balcony that went along two walls with yet more shelves and books.

There were two armchairs crowded around a small table by the door.  A bay window next to the chairs overlooked the dark forest.  In one corner, there was a small desk with a leather blotter and some documents stacked on it.  They listed Cyly’s name.  Since Cyly lived in the castle full time, it probably wasn’t too far a leap to guess that this was his study.

Hazel had collected Matadi, Aoife, and Mira before they went to Cyly’s study.  Matadi leaned against the desk while Hazel sat behind it.  Mira sat in one of the chairs next to the door, and Aoife and Karhi stood next to the bay window.  Mira had secured a brace for her ankle.

Faren looked from Hazel to Mira.  The ghost of a smile stayed around his mouth, but Karhi could tell that Mira made him pause.  He sized Mira up, looking her up and down.  Mira didn’t react, her gaze soft and impersonal.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Faren said, holding out his hand to Mira.  He moved with a lithe grace that was unnatural even for a vampire.

“I’m Mira,” she said.  “I’m going to opt out of touching you because I don’t think either of us would like it.”

Karhi hadn’t thought of that, but she was probably right.  Mira’s abilities intensified with physical touch, and Faren could manipulate other people’s emotions.  That combination couldn’t be pleasant when combined.

Faren’s curious expression clouded with confusion.  The hint of a smile on his lips didn’t leave, but the sparkle in his eyes did dull.  “What do you mean?”

“Faren, this is the White Psychic,” Hazel cut in.

Faren’s eyebrows went high up on his head, and he actually smiled.  “A neuropath that outmatches Savita.”  He bowed to her.  “A pleasure to meet you.”

His charm did nothing for Mira.  She just nodded.

Faren’s gaze fell on Karhi, and the smile turned back into a smirk.  “Karhi.”

There were few people who could fluster Karhi.  Faren was one of them, but it always felt like cheating.  He was an incubus, meaning it was his job to ooze sex appeal. 

Karhi cleared his throat.  “Faren.”

Faren maintained eye contact with Karhi for a split second longer before he nodded to Aoife.  “Wonderful to see you back, Aoife Mór.”

“Faren,” she replied.

Mór was a rare term that Karhi hadn’t heard in years.  Faren was older than Karhi, and he still kept to certain traditions.  Mór was an honorific of sorts.  It used to be a title that was given to the head of an Irish family.  Heads weren’t determined by lineage in some Irish traditions.  They were determined by traditions that identified someone who was the most deserving of respect in a family.  It had been the name of many kings in Ireland over the centuries.  Faren’s usage of it was important; Aoife wasn’t a queen, but she was held in high regard by all and deserved the respect she was given.

Faren looked back at Hazel and Matadi.  “Is this about the attempt on my life?”

“Yes,” Hazel answered.  “We discussed it, but I wanted Mira and Karhi to hear the story from you before I started reinterviewing the people who were both here and in Ireland for Nastia’s murder.”

The smile disappeared altogether, replaced with a set jaw and a hard, angry look.  The swift change from lightly amused to fury was like a bucket of ice water over the room.  It actually felt darker for a moment.

Vampires who could manipulate emotions were terrifying.

“Nastia,” Faren said, his voice steady.  “So, you do believe it was related.”

“We always believed it was related,” Hazel said.

“Then why has it taken you so long to begin interrogations?”

“I knew we would have Karhi and Mira here at this point in time, and I wanted them to be involved.”  While Faren’s tone was hostile and angry, Hazel’s was even. 

Karhi couldn’t think of a time, in recent memory, where Hazel had ever risen to anyone’s anger.  Most of her subjects didn’t show her any sort of disobedience, but when they did, Hazel never bristled and never asserted her authority.  She accepted resistance and even welcomed it.

That quality was important here.  Trying to assert her authority over the person who arguably had the most power in her house besides herself, Matadi, Aoife, and her children had to be a crap shoot.  The succubae and incubi, or the ‘bae, as they were more often called, were the most powerful vampires in Hazel’s army.  They were juggernauts, feeding on both blood and energy, giving them power reserves that far outmatched a regular vampire, either living or human.

“What have you been doing, then?” Faren challenged.

“Fortifying our defences, doubling patrols and watches, and reviewing every entry and exit into our castle with extra care.  My children are here, and as you can see, I recalled Aoife.”

“In preparation for another attempt?”

“In preparation for whatever may come.  This castle is one of our homes, but it is not nearly as well-fortified as our home in Ireland.  I want to make sure that everyone is taken care of.”

Faren’s gaze on Hazel was intense and calculating.  She met it with no problem, neither rising to, nor balking at, his assessment.

Finally, Faren nodded, looking to Karhi and Mira.  “I guess that means that I’m to recount my experience, then.”  He crossed over to the seat across from Mira and sat down, crossing one leg over the other.  “Should I describe it for you or project it?” he asked.

Mira’s eyebrows rose in surprise.  “You can project?”

“It is a hazard of being an incubus,” he nodded.  He glanced at Karhi before looking at Mira.  “I won’t presume to tell you how to use your abilities, but I’m guessing it would probably be best if you were to be touching Karhi to loop him in?”

Mira agreed with him, and Karhi stepped closer to Mira, standing just behind her.  He tried not to loom over her, but her shoulders were at his hips.  It was difficult.

It didn’t seem to bother Mira.  She propped one elbow on the arm of the chair closest to Karhi and opened her hand for him to take.  Tentatively he put his hand over hers.  She closed her fingers as much as she could across his palm.  His hands were huge compared to hers.  Like tarantulas versus those small jumping spiders.

He felt her mind against his, like air currents from the fluttering of wings brushing against his thoughts.  Her touch was light, but present.

“Ready?” Faren asked.

“Yes.”

The journey from reality into Faren’s memories wasn’t nearly as jolting as Karhi expected.  He had expected to be thrown into chaos until he could figure out which way was up.  That’s what it had been like with Ilona and the few neuropaths with whom he had worked in the past.

But here, when Faren and Mira connected, the scene before him morphed seamlessly.  He blinked, and he was in a different room entirely.

They traded Cyly’s study for another study with less books and more furniture.  Faren sat at an enormous glossy wooden desk in the shape of a U with a hutch that towered over him.  In one corner under the hutch was a closed laptop, a light on one corner slowly flashing on and off to show it was charging.

The rest of the desk was covered almost entirely in paper.  They were all in neat, organized stacks, but Karhi only caught glimpses of the deep brown of the desk between the columns of paper.  Mingled amongst the stacks were post-its, pens, highlighters, and even a quill and inkwell in one corner. 

Faren sat in a dark brown leather desk chair with a high back that almost obscured him from behind.  His eyes were on the double-spaced type of some document Karhi couldn’t identify, a sheaf of loose paper next to him with red ink all over the one page that Karhi could see.  Faren held a red pen in his hand and was marking on the paper in front of him.  Whatever he was reading, he only had a few pages left.

Karhi had been in people’s minds before when they were reliving something to pass a memory on.  But it had always been through the eyes of the person to whom the memory belonged.  He had never stood outside of the person reliving the memory.  Most people couldn’t hold a picture of themselves and how they looked.

Was this because of Mira?  Or Faren?  Or both?

The door opened, interrupting Karhi’s awe.  Karhi looked up to see a short man with wispy brown hair and a large forehead.  He wore jeans and a long-sleeved green sweater.  He was a living vampire, but not an incubus. 

In one hand was a large stainless steel thermos.  He stopped at the arm of the desk facing the door. 

“Conchobar,” Faren said, looking up from the papers in front of him.

“I thought you may not have eaten yet, sir.”  Conchobar wasted no time taking the top off the thermos and taking a sip.  He was taking a sip of the blood to prove that it wasn’t poisoned with dead man’s blood.  Karhi had seen it when the king and queen were eating in mixed company.  He hadn’t ever seen it when it was just two people one-on-one, but Faren was unpopular.  Karhi could see him having to look over his shoulder.

Conchobar replaced the top and set the thermos down on the desk.

Faren smirked at Conchobar.  Karhi could feel the incubus’s thoughts and emotions.  Conchobar spoke like he was just guessing, but Faren knew that his valet brought him blood because he knew Faren had lost track of time and forgotten to eat.  “Thank you,” he said, reaching for the thermos and placing it next to where he was writing.

“Please make sure that you finish that, sir.  You have a meeting with his Highness Prince Saeran, and you will need your strength.”

Karhi felt Faren’s annoyance at the thought of the prince.  “Yes, thank you Conchobar.  I will be there.”

“Sir,” Conchobar said, nodding to him before leaving.

The next thirty minutes are uninteresting.  It was Faren’s voice in Karhi’s head.  I’m skipping ahead.

Karhi watched the stack of papers in front of Faren fade, the pile next to his hand growing.  He set the red pen on top of the pile and opened a drawer next to him.  He pulled a cell phone out of it and called someone.

“Hello?”  Karhi heard Alice Costa’s voice like it was in his own ear.

“Your Highness, it’s Faren Kildare.”

“Yes, Faren.  For the hundredth time, you don’t have to call me Highness or tell me your last name.  I have caller ID.  Your number is saved in my phone.”

“It is rude not to announce your first and last name when you disturb someone,” Faren replied.  “And it is rude not to use your title.”

“If we want to be technical about it, I don’t yet have a title, and I should likely be calling you, sir.”

Faren frowned.  Karhi felt his dislike of that idea.  “No,” he said.  Faren sat back in his chair.  As he moved, he remembered the blood in the thermos.  He reached over and picked it up, taking a long drink.  The blood was still warm.  And a little sour.  Greer must have been experimenting with the taste of the blood again.

“Then knock it off.  Did you finish reading my proposal?”

Faren smiled.  Not a smirk, but a full smile.  Karhi felt his fondness for Alice as he spoke.  “I did.  It’s rough and we do need to change some wording and discuss some nuances that I think you may have missed, but it’s good.  I’ve never seen someone put together such a thoughtful proposal.  Especially not for someone like myself.”

Alice made a dismissive noise.  “I need you to stop talking about yourself like that.  Do you think it will be something we can present to the king and queen?”

“I do,” he said.    “Tell me, how did you come up with your housing proposal?”  He took another long drink from the thermos.  It was already half gone.

“My final project for my master’s was putting together a community for homeless Native American veterans,” she explained.  “I took some of the things I did there to put together the proposal for how to handle the ‘bae’s housing.  Obviously, I had to tweak it for . . .”

Faren didn’t catch what she had had to tweak.  Her voice faded out.

The next bit, Karhi heard twofold.  He heard what Faren intended to say.  “I apologize, can you repeat that?”  He also heard what actually came out of his mouth, which was a slur of jumbled sounds that just barely had the outlines of his intended words.

“Excuse me?”

Karhi felt Faren’s realization hit him like a freight train, and fear like acid burned the back of his throat.  He stood up suddenly, knocking his chair over as he did.  “Alice,” he said, desperation tinting his words.  “Help.”  But the words were barely understandable.  He tried to repeat himself, but it wasn’t any more intelligible.

“Faren?” Alice’s voice had risen with concern.  “Faren?”

Faren dropped to the floor on all fours, and his phone clattered away.  His vision lurched, his head spinning.  Panic gripped Faren, but he fought against it, trying to keep a level head.  His legs and arms were shaking beneath his weight, his strength waning.

Emesis.  Emesis.  Emesis.  He shoved his hand into his mouth, hitting the back of his throat as hard as he could even as he felt himself getting weaker.

He retched, his throat constricting.  Some blood came up with it, but it was mostly saliva.  He tried again, but all he succeeded in getting was more retching and saliva.  There was no more blood to come up.

Fuck fuck fuck.

The door behind him slammed open, and he just had time to see feet coming towards him before he blacked out.

And then Karhi was back in Cyly’s study, Mira letting go of Karhi’s hand.  Faren still looked just as composed as he had.  If Karhi hadn’t just been in his head, experiencing his panic and fear, he could almost believe the Faren was unfazed by what he had just shown them.

“What happened after that?” Karhi asked.

“I woke up in the infirmary.  Alice had notified someone immediately, and they just barely saved my life.”

“That guy,” Mira said.  “Conchobar.  He tasted your blood?  Like they used to do for poison way back when?”

Faren nodded.  “We have had incidents of poisoning in the past.  Someone introducing dead man’s blood into our drinks as a way to incapacitate or kill us.”

“What happens to your valet if someone tried to poison them?”

“A complete infusion.”

Mira’s brow furrowed, and Aoife cut in to explain.

“Dead man’s blood is fatal to us in small doses.  If we drink a little, maybe a teaspoon or so, we can survive on our own.  Anything more than that, and we need a complete transfusion of fresh blood—we use artificial kidneys like what is used for advanced kidney failure in humans.  The old blood is pulled out, and new blood is pulled in.  It can take several cycles to fix, depending on the amount ingested.”

“The throwing up didn’t work?” she asked.

“We do induce vomiting, but our body absorbs blood quickly.  It takes us five minutes to absorb a litre.  Faren had maybe eight ounces.  It was already mostly absorbed by the time he threw up.”

Mira grimaced. “And does it always come on that fast?”

“Yes.”

“So, somehow,” Karhi said, “between Conchobar drinking the blood and Faren drinking the blood, it became tainted.”  He paused.  “I’m assuming Conchobar is still alive.”

“He is,” Faren confirmed.  “He is the one who told me of the summons to come here, in fact.”

Karhi nodded pensively.  “Can I see your study?”

Faren stood up.  “Of course.”

The king and queen bowed out of accompanying them to start getting the overlapping people from the Irish and American castles rounded up, sending Aoife with Karhi, Mira, and Faren.  Mira limped along but when Karhi had offered to help, she glared at him.

Faren brought them into the room they’d seen in his head, his study.  It was mostly unchanged from the memory, except all of the papers that had been everywhere were now stacked in one pile in the corner of the hutch opposite the charging laptop.

Karhi studied the room.  There was the giant desk and the leather chair.  In one corner, there were two filing cabinets.  The wall opposite the door had a window that took up half the wall, looking out over the courtyard of the castle.

There was a couch in one corner with a coffee table and a papasan opposite it.  The floor was carpeted with cheap industrial carpet and the walls had impersonal art like a black-and-white photo of a seashell and something by Keith Haring with brightly coloured people outlines.

Karhi worked best if he wasn’t looking for anything.  He let his eyes unfocus, drifting into the room.  He trailed his fingers over the wood of the desk, feeling the grain against his skin. 

He moved slowly through the room, letting himself bounce off of furniture and walls as he came to them.  He would stop when something caught his attention.  He pushed aside the art mounted on the walls—nothing but nails to hang the frames.

He moved the filing cabinets, opening them all the way out to see anything in the back of each drawer.  He lifted up the couch, checking underneath it.  He flipped the couch over.  He flipped the table over.  He even pulled the cushion out of the papasan.

“What is he doing?” Mira whispered.

“Waiting for something to come to him,” Aoife whispered back.

Karhi continued through the room.  He climbed under the desk, brushing his fingers along the underside of it.  Nothing snagged and he didn’t come across anything that looked like it could be a secret part of the desk.

He climbed out from under the desk.  As he stood, looking up, he noticed a grate in the ceiling for the first time.

“Has anyone checked the duct?” Karhi asked, pointing to the air outlet above him.

“Yes,” Aoife said as Karhi climbed on top of the desk and reached up for the grate.  He had to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the ceiling.

“I would really appreciate if people would stop opening that vent over my desk,” Faren muttered.

“Move your desk, Faren,” Karhi shot back.  “Do you have a screwdriver?  I don’t want to rip this out.”  The grate was connected with screws to the ceiling.  It had a layer of grime in the gridding, but there were spots where someone had touched it already.  The other times it had been removed and examined, if Faren’s complaint was anything to go by.

Faren made a noise of annoyance, but he crossed the room to reach into one of the drawers in the desk.  He pulled out a flat-head screwdriver and passed it to Karhi.

Karhi made quick work of opening up the vent, pulling it out of the ceiling and setting it on the desk.  He popped his head into the vent and looked around.

There was enough space to get his head in, his mouth coming up flush with the bottom of the vent.  He had maybe six inches above his head maybe sixteen inches on either side.  The vent continued for a yard or so on either side of his head before turning at a ninety-degree angle. 

The duct was far too small for an adult to crawl through.  Maybe a child could.  But even if someone had gotten up here, Faren had never heard or seen anything.  It would have been in the memory if he had.

Karhi ducked back down, picking up the grate and examining it.  There was nothing on it.  “Did you test this for traces of blood?” Karhi asked, looking at Aoife.

Aoife’s brow furrowed.  “No, why would we?”

“Karhi, this isn’t a fucking James Bond movie,” Mira said, rolling her eyes.  “Someone didn’t drip dead man’s blood down a wire into his drink.”

Faren pointed to where the blood had been sitting.  “It was under the hutch, anyway.  Out of range of the vent.”  He arched an eyebrow at Karhi.  “I like to think I would have heard someone in my vents.”

Karhi shrugged one shoulder.  “Doesn’t hurt to check everything.” 

He was grasping at straws, and he knew it.  It didn’t stop him from handing the grate to Aoife.  She gave him an annoyed look, but otherwise she took it.  “I’ll be back,” she said and left with the grate.

With Aoife gone, Karhi surveyed the room.  He looked over the desk and seeing the stack of papers at the corner of the hutch nudged his memory.  “You were working on a proposal with the princess consort?  What about?”  He couldn’t imagine the ‘bae general speaking with a human who wasn’t even part of the royal family yet.

Faren’s responding smile was chilly.  “Re-evaluating how the ‘bae are treated.”

Karhi frowned thoughtfully.  Succubae and incubi weren’t allowed to leave the castle, either this one, or the one in Ireland.  Faren was the only one with free reign to do as he pleased, and that was because he was almost seven hundred years old and a general.

The ‘bae had been energivores as humans—humans who gained energy from other people.  They were usually the type of people who thrived in crowds, like musical artists or theatre actors or comedians.  They fed off the energy that happy, excited crowds exuded.  It wasn’t necessary for their survival, but it did help them thrive and live longer.

Once turned into a vampire, energivores needed both blood and energy to survive.  And controlling the hunger for energy was much more difficult than controlling the thirst for blood, was Karhi’s understanding.  On top of that, they were the only vampires that could gain sustenance from other vampires. 

The ‘bae’s strength and hunger were one thing but adding in that they could feed from other vampires made them ripe targets.  For centuries, the ‘bae were killed the moment they were found out.  It had been bad enough that children born to living vampires that wound up being energivores chose never to turn themselves. 

It wasn’t until Hazel’s rise to power that they were given even a bit of a chance. 

They were her heavy artillery, used only in times of war.  They were fed on a heavy diet of bagged human blood and human volunteers Karhi was pretty sure Hazel picked up in goth and vampire-fetish clubs.  She allowed the ‘bae to live, as long as they stayed within the confines of the castle or had an escort out into the world.

Karhi had never really thought about it until now, but the ‘bae had a shitty fucking deal.

“I imagine that’s going over well,” Karhi finally said in response.  “You mentioned housing.  How is it being re-evaluated?”

“At its core, Alice wants to us to have freedom.  She uses a lot of weird words like ‘occupational therapy’ and ‘pilot program’.  You heard about her masters’ on homeless human housing.  She’s applying those designs to the ‘bae.”

“So, she wants to pull them off house arrest and have them live freely?” Mira asked.  Her tone was even, betraying neither approval nor disapproval.

Faren apparently took it as an accusation.  “We are not the monsters that everyone thinks we are,” he snarled, his dark eyes flashing a pale, shiny white.  Karhi felt his anger like an oppressive heat wave against him.  “We—”

“Calm it down, Cujo,” Mira interrupted him.  Her voice cut through the heat wave, and the room returned to its normal ambient temperature. 

Faren hesitated, waiting for Mira to continue.  His expression was guarded, waiting for something bad.

“I have a general distrust of vampires as a whole.  Not any singular species.  And considering I spend a lot of time with halfshifters who have no rep in any court?”  She shook her head.  “No, I get it.  Keeping people caged up because they’re different is fucked up.  It’s cool that she’s working with you to do that.”

Faren’s hackles finally dropped.  He was still guarded, but the anger that had filled the air was gone.  “Yes . . . it is.  Alice has a lot of initiatives she wants to push through.”  His tone was careful, probing.

“Dude, you don’t have to be scared of me.  I’m poor as shit surrounded by foster runaways who are regular target practice for cops.  Fuck the dickheads in power.”

Faren peered at Mira curiously.

Karhi, on the other hand, was not at all surprised by Mira’s reaction.  And he had more questions.  “I imagine people aren’t taking this initiative well?” he prompted.

Faren tore his eyes from Mira to look at Karhi.  His expression had turned guarded again.  “They have not.  It’s going as well as it did when her Majesty enacted laws around halfvampires.”

“What’s that?” Mira asked, looking between them.

Karhi left it to Faren since he was a living vampire.

“Her Highness Princess Cailean is a halfblood vampire,” Faren said.  Mira nodded along with him, and he continued.  “Before her, halfvampires had no courts to call their own.  Like halfshifters and paramortals and anthroshifters.  But having a daughter who was halfblood changed things.  It was a long process that took fifty years, but Hazel was able to push through protections for living vampires under her house.  For the past three hundred years, halfblood living vampires have rights like fullblood vampires.”

“Ah, halfblood civil rights.  And it was all fixed once the laws got passed right?  Like racism was fixed when the Civil Rights Act went through?” Mira asked.

Faren’s smile was bitter.  “Exactly.  The prejudice has not left the general population, and there is a lot of anger that halfbloods are treated as ‘special’.  Intentional misunderstandings of the difference between equity and equality and all of that.”

“That’s depressing as fuck.”

Faren shrugged one shoulder.  “It is what it is.”

Karhi cut in.  “Do you think this could be a result of that?”

“No,” Faren shook his head.  “The other lieutenant that was killed, Kern, was staunchly opposed to all of this.  In fact, they initially thought it was one of the ‘bae that killed him.  But then Nastia died the same way.”  He just barely kept the growl out of his voice saying that.

There was a knock on the doorjamb.  Karhi looked up to see one of Hazel’s valets, a tall, gangly teenager, standing in the doorway.

“The king and queen are ready for you when you’re finished in here,” he said.

“Guess that’s our cue,” Mira said.