Revelation

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

                Viceroy was happy to see Sunna, although Darius wished they could have met under better circumstances. He really had planned on spending more time with Erik, but shortly after their meeting at Erik’s house, Senator Rheingold had them back to work as usual, which meant they spent a lot of time traveling. When Rheingold called everyone together for a meeting, Erik sent Darius a message saying Sunna would be there, and Darius took that to mean he should bring Viceroy, not that he usually left her at home.

                As soon as they caught sight of each other, the two felines were near inseparable as they walked down the stairway into the meeting room together and then found some empty space on the floor where they could sit next to each other. Darius and Erik weren’t the only ones who brought their fylgjas; Ruslan brought Kazumi, but she seemed content to stay at Ruslan’s side.

                “This is getting ridiculous,” Tin said to the three others before Rheingold arrived. “You’ve got to stop parading your fylgjas around. It draws too much attention. Especially for you Laporte. You’re supposed to be dead and a snow leopard is rather recognizable.”

                “Go fuck yourself,” Erik said before Darius could express the same sentiment. “You’re just pissy about it because you have a lame fylgja. Not our fault we all have something that’s not a mouse.”

                “He’s not…” Tin didn’t finish that thought, as Rheingold had just entered the room. Tin knew better than to start an argument in front of him, and he actually cared enough to behave himself.

                “I thought we already discussed this matter privately, Tin,” Rheingold said as he made his way to his seat. “You’re more than welcome to bring your fylgja with you as well. If you choose not to, that’s no reason to tell your colleagues they can’t bring theirs.”

                “I think he’s in a good mood today,” Ruslan said in Darius’ head. “Usually he just agrees with Tinny when he’s in a bad mood.”

                Ever since he and Erik and told him their secret, Ruslan had included Darius in any telepathic commentary he wanted to add to a conversation. While it could be amusing, Darius usually just found it irritating, mostly because Ruslan never shut up.

                “I apologize, sir,” Tin said. “I just think they may become overly attached to their fylgja.”

                Erik snorted and said, “I think that’s the point of having a fylgja.”

                “He’s just jealous,” Ruslan said. “Right, Darius? He’s upset ‘cause we have super bad ass fylgjas and he just has a little tiny mouse.”

                “Yeah, sure,” Darius agreed. He didn’t really care to tease Tin as Erik and Ruslan seemed to enjoy. It wasn’t that he liked Tin, but he simply saw no point. He’d also never even seen Tin’s fylgja but only heard Erik and Ruslan say he was some kind of rodent.

                “Don’t worry about sparing Tinny’s feelings,” Ruslan said. “Make fun of him! See if we can make him cry!”

                “Enough,” Rheingold said. “It’d be a much better use of our time to discuss why almost all of our recent plans have failed.”

                Everyone fell silent, and Darius felt a little uneasy. He knew exactly why they hadn’t succeeded in eliminating any of their targets. He’d been too enthusiastic about helping the Anitreh, and when only one target had actually been killed since he started giving information to Barton, he knew that he’d probably screwed up and made it too obvious that someone was feeding information, and given the timing, it would also be obvious who that someone was. He felt that Erik and Ruslan might not say anything, but Tin and Rheingold were both more than capable of figuring out the pattern.