Solomon's Sieve by Victoria Danann Page A

together in an expression that was familiar to Storm and unique, or heretofore unique, to Sol. It would have been impossible for Storm and Glen to recount their history with the job without memorializing Sol in the process. He sat back and looked amused while they chuckled over Sol stories.
    After dinner he withdrew a small box of pencil thin black cigars from his pocket and offered them to Storm and Glen. Glen shook his head, but Storm quietly took one and waited to see what would happen next. Storm thought that it would be a curiosity of synchronicity if two people attracted to the J.U. Sovereign position happened to smoke the same brand - the same obscure brand - of imported Turkish cigars.
    While Storm was mulling that over, the new Sovereign reached into the same shirt pocket and produced an old-fashioned lighter, the kind that requires lighter fluid. He noticed Storm eyeing the lighter. He looked down at it and said, “Found this in the Sovereign’s apartment. I guess it belonged to the former resident. Would you like to have it? As a memento?”
    “No. He’d probably enjoy knowing it was being used. Not many people want to fool with them these days.”
    Sol was pleased with the cover. He lit Storm’s cigar before lighting his own, then placed the lighter on the table and proceeded to give it lazy quarter turns, exactly as Sol had done when he was alive. It caused goose bumps to rise on Storm’s skin.
    As they talked, understanding began to settle around Sol like an unwelcome shroud. It didn’t take long for him to deduce that neither Storm nor Glen had been apprised of the information which he’d come by when called to Edinburgh in the middle of his holiday. Before he died. Which meant unit personnel were way, way, way behind in making preparations for the massive overhaul needed to get J.U. ready for a swarm of new or returning residents.
    What was worse, if Storm and Glen didn’t know, that meant that Farnsworth didn’t know either and she would be ninety-nine percent of the reason for the success or failure of relocating a steady stream of Black Swan immigrants. Sol couldn’t believe that something so big could have fallen through the normally sealed shut Black Swan cracks. He supposed that between the sudden and unexpected need to replace him as Sovereign and the immediate crisis of a viral mutation, the briefing had just gotten lost in the stampede.
    Maybe Simon Tvelgar had thought he’d had a chance to pass on the intel before he passed. He took a drag on his little cigar while thoughts whizzed through his brain at Mach one. Instead of weeks to get ready, they had days. Truthfully, in his opinion, Storm and Glen were not prepared to implement far-reaching changes of that scope. And after all, wasn’t that exactly why he’d fought so hard to get back there? Because he honestly believed that nobody else was as passionate about walking the tight-rope dichotomy of ridding the world of vampire while trying to take care of Black Swan knights at the same time.
    Unfortunately acting on that information meant making some of the people that he most cared for very unhappy.
    Sol thanked his temporary replacements for the informal briefing and, before they parted for the night, told Glen he would like to see him in the office the next day at ten o’clock. Storm received a similar instruction, but he was given a time of three o’clock instead.
    Storm agreed, but added that he would be making himself scarce now that a suitable replacement had been found.
    Sol gave no reply, but turned and walked away.
     
     

CHAPTER 9

     
    The first decision Sol made as the new head of Jefferson Unit was to put his old identity to rest in his own head. He needed to stop thinking of himself as Sol and begin thinking of himself as Rev Farthing, Sovereign on probation who took over for the late Sol Nememiah. On the first night of residence in a comfortably familiar apartment, he held a memorial for his first incarnation with a