Bloodfever

“The door closes at midnight.” His lips brushed my ear and I shivered, which seemed to amuse him. “Anyone not inside by then doesn’t get in. There are always a couple of last-minute stragglers.”

I glanced at his watch. There were three and a half minutes to go and still half a dozen seats to fill. During the next minute, five were taken, leaving one empty up front. Though I craned my neck, studying every face, Barrons stared straight ahead. You must be more than my OOP detector tonight, Ms. Lane, he’d told me on the plane, you must be my eyes and ears. I want you to analyze everyone, listen to everything. I want to know who betrays excitement over what item, who wins worriedly, who loses badly.

Why? You always notice way more than me.

Where we’re going tonight, noticing anyone other than yourself is considered a sign of uncertainty, weakness. You must notice for me.

Who noticed for you in the past? Fiona?

Barrons just ignores me when he doesn’t feel like answering.

And so I was the green one, looking around. It wasn’t as bad as I expected because no one would look back at me. Some of their gazes flickered a little, as if they resented being studied when the nature of the game being played prevented them from returning the stare.

I found it silly that they all dressed up so much just to come sit in metal chairs in a dusty bomb shelter, but with people this wealthy, money wasn’t something they had, it was who they were, and they would wear it to their graves.

There were twenty-six men and eleven women. They ranged in age from early thirties all the way up to a white-haired man who was ninety-five if a day, in a wheelchair, accompanied by an oxygen tank and bodyguards. His sallow skin was so thin and translucent I could see the network of veins behind his face. He was sick with something that was eating him alive. He was the only one that looked directly back at me. He had scary eyes. I wondered what a man so close to death wanted so badly. I hope when I’m ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.

Most of the conversation was about the inconvenience of their current location, the mud damage the short jaunt through the woods had done to their shoes, the dismal state of current political affairs, and the even more dismal weather. No one mentioned the items about to be auctioned, as if they couldn’t have cared less about what was up for grabs. The entire time they pretended not to be interested in anyone or anything around them, they snatched greedy little glimpses by fabricating actions to justify movement. Two women withdrew jeweled compacts and checked their lipstick, but it wasn’t their mouths they examined in those clever mirrors. Four people dropped various items from their laps for an excuse to move about and retrieve them. It was kind of funny in a sad way how many people dove for the goods, trying to use it as their own excuse.

Seven people got up and tried to go to the bathroom. The armed henchmen declined their requests, but at least they got a good look around.

I have never seen a more avaricious, paranoid assortment of people. Barrons didn’t fit in any more than I did. If I was a minnow and they were sharks, he was one of those yet undiscovered fish that lurk in the deepest, darkest reaches of the ocean where sunlight and man never go.

A distinguished-looking gentleman with silver hair and a neatly trimmed beard entered the room and I thought for a moment he was the final attendee, but he headed straight for the podium. On the way there, he greeted many warmly and by name, with a clipped British accent and sparkling eyes.

When he arrived at the podium, he welcomed us, recounted a short list of conditions to which we’d all agreed to abide by by the mere virtue of our presence, and said that any could leave now that so chose (I wondered darkly if they would be permitted to live if they did). He then detailed accepted methods of payment, and just as the auction was about to begin, a very famous man you would recognize—you see him on TV all the time—slipped into the final seat.

The bidding opened with a Monet and grew more surreal to me from there. I learned that night that some of the finest art and artifacts in the world will never be seen by common man, but will continue to pass down through the ages via a hidden network of the uber-wealthy.

I saw paintings the world didn’t know had been painted, artifacts I couldn’t believe had survived the ages, the hand-penned copy of a play that has never been and will never be performed, much to our disastrous loss. I learned there are people that will pay a fortune to possess something that is one of a kind, for the sheer pleasure of possessing it and having a handful of their peers envy them the possession.

The bids were mind-boggling. A woman paid twenty-four million dollars for a painting the size of my hand. Another woman bought a brooch the size of a walnut for three point two million. The famous man bought the Klimt for eighty-nine million. There were jewels that had once belonged to queens, weapons owned by some of history’s most notorious villains, even an Italian estate on the block, complete with a private jet and classic car collection.

Barrons acquired two ancient weapons and a journal written by a Grand Master of a secret society. I sat on my hands to keep myself from fidgeting and waited in breathless anticipation, as each treasure was unveiled, taking great pains not to move my head, which is considerably more difficult than it sounds. The urge to flip a curl of hair from my face that had escaped my sleek ’do became nearly debilitating. Until now I’d had no idea how frequently my body betrayed my thoughts until I repeatedly caught myself on the verge of shrugging, shaking, or nodding my head. It was no wonder Barrons read me so easily. It was not a comfortable night, but it was an unforgettable one. When the OOP was finally uncovered, I had no idea what it was, but Barrons knew—and he wanted it badly. I’ve learned to read him, too.

It was a jeweled amulet the approximate size of my fist—I have small hands—fashioned of gold, silver, sapphires, and onyx, and according to the information sheet, several unidentifiable alloys and equally mysterious gems. The amulet’s lavish gilt casing housed an enormous translucent stone of unknown composition, and was suspended on a long, thick chain. It had a colorful history, dating farther back than it possibly could according to what we understood of Homo sapiens’ development, and had been crafted for the coveted concubine of a mythical king known as Cruz.

Each auction participant was given a folder, detailing the item’s provenance, a chain of custody that had my eyes popping out of my head when I read it over Barrons’ shoulder. Every owner of the amulet down through time figured prominently in history or mythology—even I who’d slept through most of my history classes recognized them. Some had been heroically good, others epically bad. All had been immensely powerful.