The Cat Burglar - 10. Master Caspian's Collection

“Kav?”

“Hmm.”

“Have you ever tried shifter blood?”

I briefly looked up from the screen, even though I was currently fighting a very nasty zombie. “Not yet. I tried horse blood once—shit! The fucker just offed me.”

While Nathan was happily building the new lab with Doc, Rylan and I were a little bored by now. Sitting in our admittedly luxurious full-service apartment playing Dying Light 2 all day was getting old.

Rylan scrunched his nose. “Horse blood?” He was coming from his room, scrolling through the blood order list on his tablet. “I’m curious to try some, shifter blood, not horse blood, but I don’t want to order an entire bag when I might hate it.”

“We could visit The Tavern as soon as we can leave the Silver Tower again. They serve all kinds of blood. You can ask for a small glass to check if it’s to your taste.”

“That would be great. How long do you think will they keep us here? To be honest, I’m starting to feel a little cooped up by now.”

“Me too. Emil said with the Delacours being infuriated that Henri’s trial is still pending, and the other species not being all too happy with the vampires right now, it’s better the younger ones stay in, or, if we absolutely need to go out, we’re to be accompanied by soldiers. I don’t want a chaperone, if I’m honest.”

“Yeah, me neither. My favorite blood is yours and Konstantin’s anyway.”

“That’s to be expected. I’m your sire and Konstantin helped with the feeding.”

Ry threw himself beside me on the couch. “How are you two doing? Did you feed and make up?”

I snorted. “It’s getting better, still a little strained, but we’re getting there.”

Ry’s tablet dinged. “It’s a message from Eli.” Ry grinned after reading the text. “He says he’s one of Caspian’s personal guards, and he invites us to train with them. Are you game?”

I threw the controller on the table. “Absolutely! I’ll get my sword and knives.”

From then on, we trained with Eli’s group and some other soldiers every day. Finally, we had something to do.

Everything was a little larger, grander, and fancier at the Silver Tower. The training facilities, the room service, the food, and the number of people living here, of course.

One day, I was fighting with one of the guards, when he suddenly stopped mid-strike and stared at the door behind me. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Legate Christmas Tree watching us.

“Do you need anything, Legate?” my sparring partner asked, eager to please his superior.

Gideon waved me over. “Master Caspian wants to talk to Kavan.”

“Uh-oh, what did you do?”

I rolled my eyes at the grinning soldier in front of me, as if Gideon didn’t hear him whispering at me.

To confirm my perception, he said, “Kavan didn’t do anything, yet.”

Ugh.

Once again, I was invited to visit Caspian’s sacred halls on the top floor, this time accompanied by Legate Grumpy Pants.

The city Master wore dark red jeans and a bright green sweater that day. He really liked colorful clothes. Smiling, he pointed at one of the yellow sofas for me to sit on. “Kavan, did you settle in well?”

I tried not to stumble over my own feet while navigating the narrow space between the coffee table and the couch. Not knowing where to put my hands, I crossed my arms over my chest, only to remember Mom said it makes me look insecure and or defiant. In the end, I put them on my thighs, reminding myself not to drum my fingers. I felt like a moron.

Caspian chose the loveseat across from me, while grumpy scowled at me from beside the window.

“Kavan, I’d like you to start specialist training.”

I bent forward, forgetting all about where-do-I-put-whatever-limbs. “Specialist training? As a what?”

“Right to the point. I like this.” Caspian smiled at me, a little too sardonically for my taste. “You are a shadow melder, a very rare gift.” He didn’t ask; he just stated the fact.

I could do that too. “Not so rare that you wouldn’t already have another one of us among your clan members, so I’ve heard.” I leaned back, trying to appear calm and composed.

“You’ve heard that?” He looked over to Gideon, whose scowl had deepened.

“Yup.”

“I see. The decision is entirely yours, your sire insisted on this, there will be no disadvantage for you if you decline the offer.”

“Depending on which kind of specialist I’d train for, I think it could be interesting.”

“Before you can start with the training, my other shadow melder is going to test you.” Was he mocking me? “If they deem you good enough for the task, and you agree, they will train you.”

“So, this training will involve my er… talent?”

“Yes, it’s mandatory.”

I had a feeling he did all this clandestine shit on purpose. “Okay...I’d be training to be what, exactly?”

“That will be revealed after you pass the test.”

I was extremely proud of myself that I didn’t snort or roll my eyes. “Mysterious. When are we doing this?”

“Right now, or do you have something better to do?” Gideon snarled.

Oops, someone was getting pissed. I lifted my hands. “Nope, I’m game.” I got up from the sofa, ready to go wherever to get tested.

Gideon went to the door and growled. “Are you coming?”

“Wait! You are going to test me? You’re the other shadow melder...” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And somehow you knew the whole time that it’s my gift too.”

“Not the entire time.”

“This is the reason you’re always so bitchy.”

Caspian raised his eyebrows at his first legate. “You were bitchy?”

I nodded. “All the time. He’s probably pissed that he isn’t the only one here anymore.” With that I followed Gideon into the elevator to the training facilities, where he opened a door that had always been closed when I had been there. We stood in the foyer of a house, a fake house like in a movie set. On the right was a wooden staircase leading to the upper floors. Gideon opened some kind of fuse box and flipped a few switches.

“We don’t need any traps today. Just go up and hide from me as long as you can. I’ll call out when I follow you.”

I stopped myself from inhaling deeply before I tipped my finger at a nonexistent hat, and set my foot on the first step. I really didn’t need any snotty lectures about how vampires didn’t need to breathe or me needing to get rid of my human habits.

First, I oriented myself after I reached the landing. On the right was a closed door, and in front of me a dimly-lit corridor. At its end was a second door.

I instinctively wanted to follow the corridor, but then, in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I opened the door on the right. Gideon was still downstairs, probably trying to find out which direction I took by straining his heightened hearing sense. If I didn’t use the door, he’d immediately know I left it aside, so I opened it and then closed it, pretending I was trying to be quiet by doing everything super slowly, then immediately opened it again in the hope I could slip out unnoticed on my way back. I found a small bedroom and yet another door. I crossed the room and opened the other door and found a bathroom with a window. I opened it and found a friggin’ fire escape ladder. As I was already laying false tracks, I swung myself outside and climbed the ladder, all the while making as little noise as I could, knowing very well he probably heard me anyway. He still hadn’t called out. The fuck?

I crept back into the bathroom through the still open window and leaned it as closed as I could. I almost locked it, but then I remembered one couldn’t lock a window from outside. It would have revealed I was laying a fake trail.

Back on the landing again, I entered the corridor.

“Quickly hide, little mouse!”

My dead heart nearly jumped out of my chest. The asshole.

He stomped upstairs.

Really? Did he mean to scare me with this shit? As I’d hoped, he only looked briefly into the corridor. Good thing I had moved into the shadow of a fake archway.

He turned to the bedroom and slowly entered it. Perfect. Now I only had to find a better hiding place. Always staying in the shadows, I reached the door at the end. Something told me I better not try opening it though. Desperate, I looked around. Gideon would be out of the other room any minute. There was some kind of vintage wardrobe I hadn’t noticed before. At first, I wanted to hide inside, but I didn’t. If he discovered me in there I would be trapped, a big tactical mistake. I mean I knew he would find me eventually, he knew the premises better than me, but I planned on making this as hard for him as I could. I had just climbed on top of the wardrobe, when Gideon sauntered out of the room with a confident smile. “The little mouse is a sneaky one, very promising.”

I pressed my body against the wall behind me and melted with the shadows as best as I could.

Gideon went to the door I hadn’t opened. He touched its handle, and a blaring alarm went off.

Speaking of switching off the traps, he really was an asshole.

Gideon turned on his heel. “So, where are you hiding now, my baby shadow melder?”

I had to swallow a growl every time he opened his fucking, condescending trap. It was really difficult to keep my mouth shut.

He moved the brass key and pulled the doors of the wardrobe wide open and put his head inside. “No one trapped themselves here. You managed to surprise me, little shadow mouse, which isn’t a small feature.”

I knew he would do something unexpected next and, for a brief moment, I was tempted to slip into the other plane so he wouldn’t find me, whatever he had in store, but it would have been the wrong move. Risking revealing my second gift out of wounded vanity was stupid. Then the smug bastard lifted his hand and the entire corridor was bathed in gleaming light. I almost yelped.

Show-off. I instantly jumped down and landed beside him. “Congratulations, you found me.”

“Congratulations, you passed.”

When we returned to Caspian, the man was sitting at his desk and frowned at something on the computer screen. He immediately looked up when he heard us. “Well?”

“He passed.” Gideon had gotten in parade rest position behind me, his hands clasped behind his back. It was really difficult to not roll my eyes. Someday he would cause me painful eye cramps.

Caspian quickly got up, pushing his chair away. “Konstantin said he would.” He turned to me. “I’m sure you have many questions.”

“Yes. Does he really have to train me?”

“Yes. Any more questions? Maybe more reasonable this time.” Well, damn.

“You didn’t tell me what kind of specialist I’d become.”

“That’s better.” Caspian rounded his desk, leaned against it, and faced me. “To use an old-fashioned expression I’ve always been fond of...you’d learn to be a cat burglar.”

I was stunned. Mom had loved this old movie To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, and it was all that came to mind. “You want me to train as a thief?” Here was I thinking of something grand, a weapons specialist, or what did I know—a spy, but a mere thief?

“And why would you need a thief?” I pointed at Gideon. “Or even a second thief? Can’t you just buy anything you need? I mean, it looks as if you have more than enough money.”

“I am a collector.”

“A collector? Of what?”

“Master—”

Caspian looked irritated at his legate. “Gideon?”

The man looked at the floor, but then lifted his eyes defiantly. “I don’t think you should trust h—”

“Konstantin said I can trust him.”

“He is standing right here, by the way, and wants to know what’s going on.”

Caspian picked up a blue stone from its wooden stand on his desk, tossed it up in the air, and caught it again. “I collect rare gems. This, for example, is a sapphire from Kashmir.”

“Master—”

“Gideon, enough. We need him. You need him.” For a long moment, Caspian looked at me as if he wanted to analyze my soul. Then he seemed to have come to a decision. Whatever he learned by scrutinizing me must have answered his questions. “Please, follow me. He stepped aside and walked right into a mirror. I reluctantly followed, Gideon right behind me. We ended up in some kind of workroom with two heavy, wooden tables. Some of the spots on one of them looked like burn marks. Sheets of paper were scattered all over the other table.

“Where are we?” I wanted to touch one of the colorful spots on the table but Gideon caught my wrist. “Don’t touch it! Gods, you’re like a toddler. Do you put everything in your mouth too?”

I looked him up and down and let my gaze linger for a very brief moment on the zipper of his pants. “Not everything.”

Caspian ignored our bickering. He touched some hidden panels and a huge oval mirror, dotted with what looked to me like egg cups made of glass appeared, each holding a different gem.

I lifted my hand, ready to run my finger over an especially sparkly pink crystal, but then I remembered Gideon’s words and stopped mid-motion.

“There’s hope, after all. He listens and reflects.”

One of these days I would kill Gideon, I was sure. “Did you steal all of these?”

Caspian snorted. “No, of course not. I started my collection at a young age with exactly the pink sapphire you were just so fascinated by. My mother gave it to me when I was five. Later, I inherited her collection.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So, collecting gems is a family trait?”

“More of an occupational hazard, I guess. She was a chromatic witch.”

“A chromatic witch?”

“Chromatic witches get their power through the light color of gems.”

“And because it’s a family tradition, you continue to collect them even though you can’t use their power?”

“That and because I need them for my experiments. The grimoire has been in my family for centuries and contains old charms that require gems which are very difficult to come by these days. When a witch owns such a rarity, they usually don’t want to part from them, even for all the money in the world.”

“Wait, you’re using these gems for experiments? As in witchcraft?”

“Yes, I combine different light colors and see what effect it has on various materials.”

“But you’re a vampire—”

“He’s very sharp master....”

Clenching my jaw, I pretended the nuisance was elsewhere. “I read witches can’t be turned into vampires because their blood is poisonous for the future sire.”

Caspian pulled a white cotton glove over his right hand before he picked up the pink sapphire. “That’s not entirely true. The vampire who attempts to turn a witch usually dies, that’s right. Even when he or she survives imbibing the large amount of witch blood a turning requires, their potential childe doesn’t. Witch genetics fight the vampire genetics hard, and their sire is usually not able to feed them through this because they die.”

“But here you are.”

“But here I am.” Caspian put the gem back and picked another. “My sire is an extremely old and powerful vampire, and let’s say, very stubborn. She doesn’t—” he stopped mid-sentence “—didn’t like to accept ‘usuallys’ her entire life. She loved challenges. So, when she met me, I piqued her interest, and she turned me against all odds. I barely survived. I was between my first and my second death for months. Three of her childre nursed me to live as she wasn’t able to do it. She had this theory that this might work because their blood was similar to hers. Me standing here before you proves her theory was right. My sire survived too by pure willpower and determination I guess, but she paid a steep price: her personality totally changed. So, on principle you’re right; until today I don’t know of any other successful turnings of a witch but mine.”

I watched him lovingly handling his gems. He was a chromatic witch-vampire. This might explain the weird changing in his eye color I observed when we first met and probably his fondness of colorful clothes too.

“You understand that if this knowledge would get out, it would be very dangerous for all of us. If other vampires learned about my heritage, they would fear us even more, and call it an unjust accumulation of power. It could be the one thing that unites discordant, egotistical, self-serving beings like us.”

I frowned. “Fear can do that.”

He fixed his swirling eyes on me. “Exactly. We have to do everything to avoid this.”

“Maybe it could even unite species who usually don’t get along well, like witches and vampires?”

“An interesting thought,” Gideon murmured.

“The real meaning of witch hunt, right? With witches doing the hunting of a witch.”

Caspian threw thoughtful look at me. “Fact is, there are only four people who know about this. Gideon, your sire, mine, and now you. Let’s keep it that way.”

“And now comes the part where you tell me why you shared this well-kept secret with me, right? Do you want me and the legate to go on some gem heists together?”

Caspian’s eyes became unfocused. “There are some gems I’d like to include in my collection, that’s right.”

“And their owners insist on keeping them, I assume. Gideon has helped solve these kind of problems in the past?”

“You’re correct.”

I waved at the man beside me. “So, why can’t he do this anymore?”

“Organizing material I needed for my experiments was meant to be a side job, the idea born from the special talent Gideon has. Being the legate for a large vampire clan is demanding and time-consuming.”

“In other words, he has other things to do.”

“Usually yes, but some jobs are better done by two people, so you might have to learn to work together.”

“How convenient that the Night Clan got disbanded. Now you have two legates and two shadow melders.”

Gideon growled through his extended fangs. “I hope you’re not hinting at foul play—"

He was seriously furious. I’d stepped into it with both feet with my remark, and I hurried to apologize. “I am truly sorry, Master Caspian. I was way out of line.”

“Gideon will show you the ropes. The training starts tomorrow.” With these words, I was dismissed.