Read Online Department 57: Rubies of Fire by Lynne Connolly - Free Book Online Page A

her heels. This man was a human with awesome powers. He would live a mortal lifespan, but it was hard to believe that power that strong would last longer than seventy years without burning out the body that held it. Control must be incredibly difficult.
    “Yes, it is.” The voice whispered into the depths of her mind, and she knew she couldn’t hold any barriers against this man. She’d find it pointless to try.
    So she smiled, as if accustomed to being in the presence of such legendary creatures, and turned her attention to the girl.
    Who wasn’t paying her any attention at all. The girl’s smile broadened, and she launched herself forward into Andreas’s waiting arms. Suppressing her pang of jealousy with difficulty, Roz watched the encounter.
    Clearly Andreas saw this girl as a sister or a daughter, even. And Andreas must be young, if Cristos found him at fourteen. A younger lover tickled her fancy. Not for the first time, either.
    Andreas patted the girl’s back, chuckling, and eased her away so he could look down into her face. “How have you been, Ellie?”
    “Peachy,” she answered. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with Sexy grrl emblazoned on the front, she looked like any healthy teenager Roz could have passed in the street. Except she wouldn’t be here if that were the case. Pretty, with a slim figure verging on skinny, short, dark hair, and brown eyes, Ellie seemed bursting with life and happiness.
    Andreas drew her away and glanced at Roz, an edge of anxiety in his expression. It warmed her, that slight worry, as though her opinion really mattered to him. “This is Ellie,” he said, rather unnecessarily. “She’s under my care for the time being. The same thing happened to her that happened to me.”
    A world of understanding passed between them, all in one sentence. Ellie was a vampire, then, and one with no sigil. To be certain, Roz looked in the place where she’d expect to find the sigil in a vampire’s brain. Nothing, just a blank wall. Not even a scar.
    “Laurie found her on the streets. That’s Laurie Friedland. A European soccer star.” Ah yes, she recalled now from the pictures Knox had shown them. The last footballer she’d taken any notice of was Stanley Matthews, a lifetime ago. Oh yes, and the gorgeous David Beckham. Dredging her memory, she remembered another good-looking blond man whose posters had been all over the newsstands recently. His name, Laurie Friedland. Yes, that was it. She had heard of him after all. “He’s a Talent?”
    “Yes, he is.”
    So Ellie was another vampire orphan. Before she’d met Andreas, she hadn’t known they existed. Now she’d met two. “Ellie Smith,” Andreas said, stepping back. “Meet Roz Templeton.”
    “Vampire,” Roz added, naming her Talent for the newcomers. “Pleased to meet you, Ellie.”
    Ellie regarded her frankly, studying her with interest, so Roz noticed when the shadow fell over her eyes. Precisely at the moment when Andreas moved closer and touched Roz’s hand, murmuring, “You okay?”
    “Fine,” she managed, maintaining her smile.
    Ellie’s smile didn’t waver, but her gaze sharpened. “Hey, you coming to Jenna’s exhibition tonight?”
    When Andreas raised his brow, she flung her hands in the air in a gesture of exasperation. “You know, my friend Jenna! We work at the same gallery.”
    Andreas frowned. “You work? What about school?”
    “Part-time, you idiot!” Ellie didn’t seem to have the respect for Andreas she should have for a father figure. Perhaps she saw him more as an elder brother. “It’s Jenna’s first exhibition tonight. The gallery finally took a chance on her. Oh, you have to come, please!”
    “Of course I will.” He glanced down at Roz. “Do you want to come?”
    She’d rather have him to herself, but she couldn’t come between Andreas and this girl. Ellie obviously cared for him a great deal, and she could feel the warmth in Andreas’s mind when he thought of her. No, she