Page 35 of Overexposed

“Charlie? What the fuck?”

“I had much the same reaction,” Auris said.

Charlie was wearing all black as well, but where the priests gave off more of a hunting party vibe, at least to me, he was… more polished somehow. He was still extremely thin, but what he was wearing, the layers -- armor? -- hid that pretty well.

As I locked eyes with Charlie, he bared his teeth and jerked forward in his chair. I jumped back. His arms were behind his back, tied to the chair.

“I had to use tape on him,” Auris said. “He’s rare, or he’s learned how to avoid entrancement. I find both options very curious and worth my special interest.”

Charlie growled, foaming at the mouth. “Wait. But you did entrance him?”

Auris shrugged. “Not completely. I’m not sure he would be worth the effort to force his will into total submission.”

I shook my head while Auris led me to another table and pulled out a chair, pushed me into it. “Wait. But earlier. Not two fucking weeks ago, for fuck’s sake. You said he was under an entrancement then?”

Charlie growled, then spoke, which seemingly cost him every shred of willpower he had. His jaw muscles trembled, and his face was shiny. “Can’t -- com…pelllll -- me.”

“But I did,” Auris said, then to me, “Yes, he was under an entrancement. We are going to have to find out how that was done. And who did it.”

“He calls it compulsion. Right. I noticed that when he said it. Is that meaningful?” And then I thought, fuck, what if they are working with another vampire. “Auris, can you tell if there’s another like you here?”

“Yes. I thought that too, but no, there isn’t.” Auris walked over to the counter. “Charlie did call it compulsion rather than entrancement, but I assumed it had come from Jonathan, who might not exist at all. It’s conceivable that younger vampires who come from more modern traditions would use different terms. Maybe the church just calls it a compulsion. We will attempt to find out.”

Auris rummaged around until he found what he’d been looking for, which apparently was a server’s notepad and a selection of pens with the National Museum logo on them. I had an odd little moment where I thought he would go around and ask the priests and Charlie what they wanted to drink.

“You told me to get away. You told me to leave Auris,” I said to the irate Charlie, who was glaring for all he was worth.

“That may have been a move to divide and conquer rather than an act of concern and kindness,” Auris said as he settled in at the table I was sitting at. He wrote down today’s date, then a list of names, Charlie’s in quotes. Then he pulled his phone out and placed a call. I could hear it ring, but there was no answer.

“What?” I asked.

“I told you about the PI I hired to follow Charlie here. He’s not picking up his phone, and the last communication I received from him is from eight days ago.”

“Oh.”

Auris picked up his pen again. “Ivan,” he said, and one of the priestly group turned toward us. “Who is the British man with you?”

“He’s Irish,” the priest, Ivan, said, his eyes glassy. He had a strong accent, reminding me of Jan. “We know him as Brother Christian of the Gladius Brotherhood.”

That made me wonder why Charlie -- Christian -- sounded so damn British. Maybe he’d lied to the priests, and not being fluent, they’d believed him. Also --

“And what is the Gladius Brotherhood?” Auris asked what was on my mind, speaking calmly while Charlie -- Christian -- looked as if he were about to have an aneurysm.

Ivan’s mouth opened and closed once before he spoke. “They study demons. They seek to understand them so that they can fight them. Their existence is a secret we must guard with our lives.”

“Where are they based?” Auris asked as he wrote. Unless I was mistaken, he knew stenography, which impressed me a lot, for some reason. Something about seeing his long fingers make the pen glide over the paper was borderline sexy.

“We have only had contact with Brother Christian and one other, a man we know as Murmillo,” Ivan said.

Auris wrote, then asked, “Why was Brother Christian in Kutna Hora, at the ossuary?”

Ivan swallowed. “He was hunting. We heard a group of ours went missing in America. They had been told -- like all who hunt -- about the demon we killed in Kutna Hora.”

Auris tapped his notepad, black eyes boring into Ivan’s, who didn’t flinch, couldn’t flinch. “Did you really kill a demon at the ossuary, Ivan?” Auris asked.

Ivan swallowed. “Yes, but a long, long time ago. Its bones are to be bait now, Brother Christian said.”

“Oh,” I said. “Fuck. You are saying you lied to your own people, giving them this story, so that in case they failed and ended up giving information away, you’d still get some use out of them?”

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