Free Solomon's Sieve by Victoria Danann Page A

you inside this ‘highly secret organization’…”
    “Are you mocking me?”
    Huber looked sheepish. “Just a little. Are you sensitive? You don’t look sensitive.” Sol glared at him. “So? Can you keep a secret?”
    “Yes.”
    “Very well. Good boy.” Huber started to leave. “Um. As you were.” He vanished.
     
     
    While Huber was gone, Heralda called the other available Council members together. She would have rather had lashes than admit to her six peers that there’d been an unfortunate and undesirable side effect to her prize creation, the vampire. But she knew it was useless to try and hide the mistake now that Ragnal knew about it. The only thing stopping him from broadcasting the news throughout the multiverse was that they were in the project together. If one made a mess, so far as Overseer Pierce was concerned, the mess belonged to the whole group.
    The only logical play for her was to get out in front of the story and confess the error in a contrite show of character and humility.
    So she called a meeting and did exactly that. The others seemed to take it well. Heralda interpreted that to mean that they had their own little missteps they’d just as soon keep under wraps.
    “Send him back in a new body?” It was technically a question, but not one that Theasophie expected to be answered. “That’s risky business. If it gets out, it will create an explosion of religious fads. Every human will want a new young body when the old one ages out.”
    “Like hitting a reset button,” Ming added.
    The doors opened and Huber floated in.
    “Well, Huber. What do you think? Does the human strike you as someone who could keep that sort of secret?”
    “He’s a grouchy sort, but he’s all about the duty and the honor, blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
    “If we agree to helping you out of this bind,” Ming said, “you’ll owe us.”
    “Oh here we go.” Heralda suspected the negotiation was coming.

CHAPTER 7

    Rio de Janeiro
     
    Rev Farthing walked with as much stealth as possible on the old and unevenly worn brick alleyway in the old Colonial part of the city. His team had just split into pairs to try and head off a couple of vampire pulling at a young girl who, judging by her dress, was part of the Samba School Parade.
    If being a vampire hunter wasn’t already a nightmare, try adding Carnival week to the mix. Anything within blocks of the Sambadrome was an all-you-can-eat vamp buffet and the crowds of dancers, tourists, and revelers were too thick to do anything about it. They unwittingly provided both bountiful feast and perfect cover for vampire for one week every year.
    Every night when he went out on patrol he told himself the same story. That if he died that night, it wouldn’t be a tragedy because he’d lived a lot in his thirty-one years. He’d seen a lot more of what the world had to offer, good and bad, than most. He’d also given the past sixteen years to the service of humanity through an outfit called The Order of the Black Swan.
    He’d spent his childhood in England, but his father had been appointed British ambassador to Portugal when he was ten. By the time he was recruited by Black Swan, he spoke perfect Portuguese, which was why he was sent back to Brazil after he was inducted into knighthood.
    There was no one to grieve for him. His parents and older brother had been killed in a sailing accident off the Spanish coast near Barcelona and there was no other family that would recognize him as an adult without being told who he was. No wife. No steady girlfriend. Not many regrets. Like the Native Americans supposedly said, it was a good day to die. That was what he told himself every night when he went out to hunt.
    He was moving as quickly as he could, keeping to one side of the alley. He wore dark clothes and was glued to the shadows on the wall while his partner mirrored his actions on the other side. He was so intent on reaching the girl in time, that he never saw the