Chapter Ten - Author's note: Okay, so as I have mentioned in various messages, I am holding a fanfiction competition (with prizes!) for those who write a fic about Inamorata/Immortality. Interested? All the information is on my profile in a story titled The (Great) Inamorata Fanfic Competition! Here is a link to the info: http://www.wattpad.com/68889670-the-great-inamorata-fanfic-competition I would love it if I got hundreds of fics! Ask me if you have any questions.

Nightingale, despite the length of time Detective McCrae had been explaining the case - in all its intimate detail - did not find her mind wandering. She was as keenly focused at that moment as she had been at the beginning. Leaning forward with her forearms resting on the table, her eyes fixed on Detective McCrae, she listened intently.

"Amartya will be your handler, Agent Brightley," Detective McCrae explained, waving his hand toward Agent Rasal. His warm eyes caught hers and he inclined his head in what looked like modest deference. "He's the one who's the handler for the asset who can set him up undercover as an Inamorata dealer. A contact within the black market."

"And what contact is that?" asked Nightingale. She'd had experience in the past with enemies turned friends in the service of a case. Hank was a testament to that.

"I have no idea, actually," said Agent Rasal. He had supplied information several times before this point but once again Nightingale admired the smooth lilt of his voice in comparison to Detective McCrae's rougher rasp. "Calls himself Renatus. We communicate through coded messages. Handwritten. Very secretive. He could be anyone within the business, but he must have at least some sway with the triumvirate because he arranged for me to meet them."

"So this mole has given you a cover?" It was Caroline who spoke this time, and Agent Rasal acknowledged three people this time when he replied - Nightingale, to whom he spoke directly, Caroline, who had posed the question, and David, whose face Nightingale could not see.

"Yes," he said. He inclined his head again. "And I've been working for the past year on creating a new identity that will hold up to scrutiny if they inspect it. I'll be posing as Arun Tijare, salesman in illegal Inamoratas."

"And I'll be a Nightingale copy?" asked Nightingale. She flinched nearly imperceptibly when she said it and hated herself for that. David's hand, which was lying by hers, brushed her skin for the briefest of moments.

"Yes. The best one. When they get a look at you they won't be able to resist you."

The offhanded manner with which Agent Rasal said it - took for granted that she would simply once again become the whore that everyone had liked so much - made the bile rise in Nightingale's throat. She clenched her teeth against it before she spoke.

"What if I'm too convincing and they suspect me of being the real Nightingale?"

"That's where Sorcha comes in," said Agent Rasal, gesturing to the woman who was currently sitting with both hands folded before her on the table, staring intently at Nightingale. When Nightingale saw that her own position was precisely the same, she immediately shifted. "She's a chameleon with a specialty in mimicry."

Nightingale lifted her gaze to meet the searching one of Agent Brennan and found the woman staring back at her. "So she'll-"

"Pose as you, Agent Brightley," said Agent Brennan. It was the first time Nightingale had heard her voice. It was a handsome thing, but with an odd cadence. Her accent was impossible to trace. "I will need to spend some time studying you."

"And you'll then be able to convincingly pass yourself off as me?" said Nightingale, trying to keep the fact that she was scoffing at Agent Brennan hidden. "There's a resemblance between us, but you're not-"

"As beautiful as you?" she said. It was not what Nightingale had been about to say. But since Agent Brennan smiled so very shyly, Nightingale did not protest. "No. But when Mr. Brightley and I appear in public to stave off suspicion we'll do it in areas where no one will get close to me-"

"You're getting Robin involved? No. No, I don't want that," Nightingale began. She was utterly disgusted and completely overwhelmed by the idea of her sweet, gentle husband being a part of this sordid affair. She was fast becoming the Nightingale of the bordello, who flared instantly at provocation when she allowed herself, not the more tempered Nightingale who sought to be calm in any situation. "Does he know? Did you even ask him?"

"When I told him yesterday I asked him for this favour," said David. He turned his head toward her, a sideways incline of his jaw and though he did not look at her, his words were meant for no one else. "He said he had suspected he would have to do something like this. He consented wholeheartedly."

Nightingale didn't thank him. She supposed her grateful silence - instead of her leaping over the table and ripping whoever was responsible for involving Robin limb from fucking limb - would be taken as thanks. She bowed her head and cast her eyes toward the profile of David's face.

When she looked up again, Agent Brennan was staring between the two of them with those bright, keen eyes.

"Shall we break for a few minutes?" asked Detective McCrae. He was looking at his watch.

David nodded curtly, evidently neither used to nor particularly happy with someone giving him orders, even when they were only friendly suggestions from Detective McCrae.

Dr. Oshiwa immediately got up from the table, and beckoned to Caroline, who followed her. Detective McCrae rose next and he and David engaged one another in conversation at the other side of the room. Agent Brennan went with Detective McCrae, standing so close to him that she was hanging off his elbow.

Agents Rasal and Collier stood as well and stretched their long limbs. This left Nightingale alone at the table with Pierce and Nicholas.

"How are you this morning, Nightingale?" asked Nicholas.

"Fine. Sort of. I guess. Actually really fucking panicked, but that's nothing I've not experienced before," replied Nightingale, her bitterness souring her words especially at the end of the phrase.

"Clearly," muttered Nicholas, eyeing her as though afraid she would bite him if came too close.

After a moment of silence, both he and Pierce seemed braver. Pierce got a sly, mischievous look in his face that Nightingale did not like. 

"Nightingale..." he said, and let his voice trail off.

"Yes?" she challenged with her eyes narrowed, daring him to whatever caper he had the idea to carry out. 

"This does mean...that Agent Brennan's going to be acting like his wife, you know," said Pierce in an undertone.

Nightingale gave him a withering look. She was both somewhat distracted from her unhappiness and irritated by Pierce's comment. She suspected both those things had been his attention. "This is one of our most important cases and you're focusing on the fact that I could be jealous."

"It'll be hysterically funny," Nicholas pointed out. He was grinning in a sidelong fashion at Pierce, the two of them thick as thieves.

"Grow up, you two," Nightingale admonished them. So sure was she in Robin's fidelity, and so beyond petty envy that she had not even considered the possibility of jealousy.

"They're not the only two thinking about it," chimed in a new voice. This time, it was the low, handsome purr of Agent Collier. "You are going to go absolutely fucking insane when she-"

"Agent Collier," Nightingale said, holding up her hand. "I am not a violent woman, but I swear by all that is holy if I hear one more word come out of your mouth you'll be picking your teeth out of your eyeballs."

Agent Collier laughed but when Pierce's and Nicholas's laughter became nervous, took a step back. Nightingale wanted to throttle all three for their mockery.

"I mean only that Sorcha is a highly gifted mimic, and an excellent actress," said Agent Collier. His tone became more serious as he went on. "She will make you believe she is you; worse still, she will make you believe she's married to Robin."

"Quite the opinion you have of me - that I'm so very petty it will matter to me what is done in the cause of this case," retorted Nightingale.

"Daniel - leave her be," came the command from behind Agent Collier. The tall man, his head instantly bowed, stepped aside to reveal Agent Rasal.

Nicholas and Pierce instantly sprang from their seats and, with Pierce leading the other two off to where Detective McCrae stood in conversation wtith David. Nightingale noted that Agent Brennan still clung to his arm, a mute being in a state between a lifeless statue and a fearful prey animal.

"I'm sorry, Agent Brightley," said Agent Rasal. Coming to stand by her side, he crossed his arms and jerked his chin to where Agent Collier was alternating between bowing his head in deference to his boss and sending curious looks at David with those crystalline blue eyes. "It's his way."

"His way?" scoffed Nightingale.

"For a very long time I think he had only what he considers his charm going for him," explained Agent Rasal. "His charm and his beauty. It is why he admires you."

"He has a funny way of showing it," Nightingale retorted. On any other day she might have tried to see Agent Collier's behaviour from his perspective. Today her nerves were raw and she couldn't stop herself from growling.

"I agree. But don't judge him too harshly," said Agent Rasal. Seeing Nightingale's expression darken at the impudence of admonishing her, he went on. "I believe he has found kindred spirits in both Agent Castleman and Agent Jacobsen."

"But not a kindred spirit in you?" asked Nightingale. She continued to watch Agent Collier but found herself instead in David's searching gaze. Again she let her eyes drop and again, when she raised them, found Agent Brennan eyeing her.

"Not in that way," said Agent Rasal, his tone implying that they were kindred spirits in other ways. "I pride myself on more tact than that. As do you, I'm sure."

"I'm not tactful." That much was true. Seductive, yes, when she had to be, and charming. But tact was not Nightingale's strongest point.

"Says the woman so charming she has every person she meets in love with her?" Agent Rasal gave a scornful laugh that somehow managed to please Nightingale instead of making her glare. "I doubt it. And no, I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm only telling the truth."

Nightingale wondered whether she was going to like Agent Rasal very much. But with her eyes narrowed, she challenged his assertion. "People love me because I'm beautiful."

"You have a low opinion of humanity, then," he said, waving his hand. "To think that all that matters to us is beauty."

"Isn't it?" she asked. She noted the way he used the word "us". She wondered if she was included in that grouping, or whether Agent Rasal somehow held her apart from humanity. It would not be the first time (nor the last, she assumed) that someone had done that.

"Certainly not," he said, and frowned. He shook his head and went on. "What draws people to you is your sheer magnetism. And I don't mean your sexual appeal. I mean you have a force of will, a certain power and a certain magnificence that make you completely alluring."

"And you say you're not trying to flatter me?" she said. She let the disdain in her expression curdle any of the genuine pleasure that could be deciphered in her voice.

"Certainly not," he repeated, and gave her a disdainful look of his own. "I have less than no interest in anything except your trust and your friendship, Agent Brightley."

It made Nightingale grin with satisfaction and decide definitively that she liked Agent Rasal. "Call me Nightingale, please."

"With pleasure," he said, and bowed his head. "If you will call me Amartya."

The two of them shared a smile. After a moment of silence, Amartya spoke.

"You're looking at Sorcha, I see," he said, gesturing to the young woman with a fond smile.

"She's looking at me," Nightingale countered.

"Because she's studying you," Amartya explained. "It's how she works. When we say she's a chameleon, we mean it. When she imitates you it'll astonish you."

Nightingale nodded once, a short jerk of her chin that she had realized some years ago she had learned from David. "She's a little...odd, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is," said Amartya. He smiled at Agent Brennan, who gave a small smile in return.

"It'd be rude of me to ask why, wouldn't it?" Nightingale let her eyes drift from the woman to Amartya.

"It would," he conceded. Turning to Nightingale, he gestured back the way he had been looking. "But you're supposedly skilled in perception - so read in Sorcha what it is that makes her that way."

Nightingale stared hard at Agent Brennan. She couldn't make her out, not properly. There was something otherwordly about her, about her entire being, face and figure; something in the cast of her eyes and the smoothness of her skin, something in the grace of her person that gave Nightingale the impression of diaphanous, ethereal beauty. But then that impression was gone as quickly as it had come. An accidental clumsy movement sent fleeing the idea suggested by her bewitiching eyes of extraordinary loveliness. The woman was beautiful, yes, but Nightingale would only have to glance in a mirror to see a superior to Agent Brennan's looks.

Then Nightingale saw it for what it was - the reminder of her own beauty. It was present in Agent Brennan, that impossible loveliness Nightingale saw in her sisters but for which she was famed above all others. It was not so strong, and it was tempered with human flaw Nightingale could never hope to have. Yet it was there all the same.

One more look at her told Nightingale what she was, or what she had been.

"Inamorata," she said.

Amartya sighed. "Not quite," she said. "The daughter of one. She's only half-Inamorata. Her father was a natural-born man."

"But how-" began Nightingale, her voice softer than she would have liked it. It made sense now - the human imperfection of her father's influence softening the eerie beauty of her mother's face and frame.

"That is something you should ask her. I think she would tell you," said Amartya. "But keep in mind that the abolition of the bordellos in the Britannic Federation happened after it happened in the Western Continent - you were freed twelve years ago, your British brothers and sisters ten. Sorcha is older than ten."

"So her mother was enslaved when she had her," said Nightingale. Her tone was flat and as full of pain as she had once been. She imagined it for a moment. Did Agent Brennan's mother love her? Hate her? Who was her father? Had her birth been an accident, or was she bred by a man like Bobby to be part of a new generation of Inamoratas?

"Yes," said Amartya. Then he sighed. "I've said too much."

"No. You haven't," said Nightingale.

Amartya ducked his head and smiled. "I think I see Rory waving for me - excuse me."

And then he was gone. Nightingale stood alone for a moment before David - proving once again that he was the only person who tread silently enough to ever sneak up on Nightingale - materialized at her shoulder.

"You've been hearing about Sorcha, haven't you?" he accused.

"I have," replied Nightingale. She noticed that David used Agent Brennan's first name as opposed to her title.

David nodded. "Then you know what she is."

"A half-Inamorata. I didn't think it was possible," said Nightingale. "But I suppose anything is possible, really."

"One can only hope," he said.

Nightingale gave a short laugh. "Poetic," she said.

David glowered at her through the tiniest of smiles.