Conclave (Hypernaturals 3)

We are Having Sex So Often

I smiled "Toilet paper works pretty well, I have to say."

"It is so elegant too!"

I turned us to a new topic. "So, what did you do today to try and find William?"

Morgan leaned back in the tub. Water sloshed. "It's like I said earlier. I contacted Helen's friend over at the Sheriff's department. When she found out what happened, she promised to leave no stone unturned. Travis County Sheriff's Department reports are going to all go through her, and she is looking for everything that might relate. If anything comes up out of the ordinary Sasha will let us know."

My ears pricked up a bit. "Sasha is Helen's friend's name?"

Morgan paused a bit. "Yeah. Not sure I was supposed to say that. Still, you are sleeping with her now and then, so I'm pretty sure she does not care if you know these kinds of things."

I did not want Morgan in any trouble with Helen. "I'll try not to let it slip I know her name, just to be safe. Helen plays a lot of things very close to the chest. I only know what she wants me to know. I think part of it is that I am a male and she has at her core a distrust of all things Y chromosome."

Morgan agreed with a tone in her voice that said she would not treat me like that. "I won't say you are wrong. It is odd, given that you are closer to her than any man ever has been. Perhaps that is part of the problem now that I think about it. I am sure she has no idea how to deal with that turn of events."

Morgan started ticking off things, pulling down a second finger "Rachel's resources from her world as a reporter as well as a Councilwoman are going to finding out how he got into the country. Backtracking. Passenger manifest and airport videos are not normally something I have access to for your run of the mill investigation, but I do for this one. They keep that stuff dark because they do not want you to know how much of it there is. In any case, I know when he arrived. What flight, and from where. Jumping back, I know he changed planes in Chicago and further back in Toronto. From there he came from Iceland. From there he came from Heathrow. Working on the one before that now."

I went for the joke. "He either has the worst travel agent in history, or he was making it as hard as possible to backtrack him."

Morgan is reporting so she ignored the weak humor. "The latter I would think. His name changes as he transitions along the route. William has multiple identities he still maintains. Since no one in the Vampire world knew who he is, he still has .. Had... Access to all of the various Geos travel programs and identity shops. Some of these identities are from outside Vampire resources as well. He is never William anything on this trip. In Heathrow, he was Nathaniel Cleese. In Iceland, he boarded as Frazier Crane..."

I interrupted. "Really? Frazier Crane?"

Morgan shrugged "It is a real name: Not only the name of a character from a TV program. Unless he watched American television, he might have chosen it without knowing. In any case, the names he used are not important. What is important is that he has access to a number of them, and I now have all the ones he created through Vampiric resources around the world. Every Geo has been amazingly cooperative. A measure of how seriously this is being taken by all the Councils."

Morgan leaned forward to reach for a beer. I ignored that she is now closer to me. The good news is that her scent of sexual interest has dissipated somewhat. She is focused on the case at hand. She smells like Morgan, however, so I could not relent on the internal control for even a second. If I caused her to go under my influence, even unintentionally, I do not know what I would do, other than having a new, third lover. 

I'd have Morgan going 'Huh: never thought that would happen' and Helen going 'You are done for now.'

Morgan put her elbows on her knees and sipped the beer and looked distantly away at something.