Generation V

by M. L. Brennan

  I walked over to some swings and crouched down under the pretext of tying my shoe. People were really jumpy, and I didn’t want to risk having some mother dial 911 to report a suspicious single man if I sat on a park bench, not when I was carrying a concealed gun filled with bear-killing bullets, so I let my hands fiddle around with my shoelace on autopilot while I reached back to that quiet place in my head and felt for vampires.

  For the first time all day, something responded to me. There was that buzzing I’d been looking for—so faint that I almost couldn’t pick it up, but when I gave that little line a tug, it tugged back and gave me a direction. I got up and followed it.

  It led me out of the park and down the street, past tidy little houses. If there were kids playing in yards, parents were always out with them. There were a lot of fliers posted, some with Jessica’s and Amy’s photos on them, but most with just Amy’s. I concentrated on that tugging, feeling it grow just a little stronger with every step I took. Just like back at the mansion, feeling for Luca was different than trying to locate my family. If I stopped concentrating and specifically looking for it, it dropped away immediately and I had to fumble to find it again. Which was lucky, since unless Luca was looking for me in the same way, he wouldn’t feel me approach.

  It pulled me down a one-way street, where the distance between the properties widened and the houses got more expensive. These lawns weren’t tended with old push mowers from the garage; these were the product of professional care. The sidewalks here weren’t concrete anymore; they were the older brick kind, the kind that cities hate maintaining and replace whenever they have the chance. The tug led me to a small Tudor house, set back from the street and partially obscured by a large and well-pruned hedge. The low-level buzz was like a bee rattling around in the back of my skull when I concentrated on it, and I knew that Luca was inside. I just hoped that Amy was still with him.

  I circled around the property, hunching down slightly to stay below the old-fashioned gabled windows. I really hoped that no one in the neighborhood was keeping an eye on me, because everything about my actions was screaming prowler. All of the windows had modern turn blinds, all of which were, obviously, turned. I made my way around to the back of the house. There was a tall wooden privacy fence, and the gate was locked, but a landscaper had left a wheelbarrow and a few bags of lime next to it. Maybe he’d gotten called away in the middle of a job, or maybe the new renter hadn’t liked having service personnel around and had told him to drop everything and get off the property until he was told to come back. Either way, I wasn’t going to waste this stroke of luck. By turning over the wheelbarrow and stacking up the lime bags, I gave myself just barely enough added height that I could hop up and snag the top of the fence, then haul myself over. My landing on the other side wasn’t very graceful, but I’d spent enough time trying to run away from Madeline’s mansion that it was quiet, and I managed not to break any limbs on the way down.

  With so much space between the house and the street, there wasn’t much room in the back. Most of it was a large stone patio, but Luca had let the tall fence lull him, and the glass patio doors were open to let in the afternoon breezes, leaving the closed screen doors with thick privacy mesh as the only barrier to the outside. I crept up the patio as quietly as I could, then peeked inside. It was hard to see through the dark mesh, but after a second for my eyes to adjust I could see that at some point an owner had decided that their Tudor house needed an open floor plan—probably the reason it was now rented out to roaming European assholes. From the door I could see a kitchen nook, a lot of recently waxed hardwood floors, the kind of generic furniture that you see decorating time-shares, and one of those spiral staircases that invite death going up to a dark loft area.

  I didn’t see Luca, which was a good thing, but I also couldn’t see Amy. The odds of having her waiting next to the door for me had been pretty low, but I had been hoping that for once Fortune would have smiled on me.

  I wiggled the screen door push knob. It was one of those with the little latch on the inside that is marketed as a lock, and that owners seem to place a great deal of trust in, but Jill and Brian had had one on the back door of their house that was about the same age as this one, and I remembered from the many times that I’d accidentally been locked in the backyard that to open it you just had to try hard. It would stay locked against a normal attempt to open it, but the manufacturers clearly hadn’t intended to keep out young boys who had no appreciation for how much their foster parents had just spent on a new screen door.

  I pushed the handle in, and the lock engaged right where it was supposed to. This was the part where the wicked intruder was clearly intended to give up and go burgle elsewhere, but I kept applying steady pressure to the handle, increasing it slowly. The locking mechanism was just a tiny stick of metal that held against the door frame, and the more pressure I put, the more it bent. I could feel it starting to wiggle, and then with one last push, it gave way with a soft but startling bang. I waited, holding my breath, but I couldn’t hear anyone moving, and I slowly opened the door just enough for me to sneak inside.

  My eyes adjusted fast to the dim afternoon light that seeped around the edges of the blinds and gave everything a twilight look. There was nothing in this main open area, but I could see a partially open door along one wall that I hadn’t been able to see from the patio. I could just barely make out the corner of a bed inside it. The spiral stairs led to one of those half-loft areas popular among people who have no children or any need for privacy. I knew that Luca was in the house, and given the time of day and that he hadn’t come to investigate the sound of the lock breaking, he was probably sleeping. There were two possibilities in front of me.

  I looked from one to the other. I could see a few skylights in the ceiling above the half loft, but they’d all been blacked out, probably with towels and masking tape. The bedroom on the main floor probably just had closed blinds, because it had the same low level of light seepage as where I was standing. It was brighter than the loft, which was shrouded in inky shadows, so I crossed my fingers and made my way over to it. I crept along the wall, mincing along and shuddering at every scuffing sound my boots made against the floor and silently cursing whatever deranged owner had decided on wooden floors instead of carpet. At the door, I took two deep breaths to try to slow my racing heart, then peeked inside.

  The bed took up almost all of the room—a huge, frothy concoction with white sheets, fluffy pillows, and even a kind of open-lace canopy that was stretched between tall honey-colored wooden posters. Unlit candles covered every surface, tall white tapers and shorter, squatter red ones, and red and pink rose petals had been scattered across the sheets.

  I’d thought that I’d discovered a new benchmark of disgusting when Suzume had ordered me to stamp on Phillip’s severed heart, but clearly I’d been very wrong. Luca’s lair of pedophilic romance was going to haunt my dreams for a long time—assuming I got out of here again.

  That’s when I heard breathing, high and fast, from somewhere farther in the room. I followed the sound, and when I rounded the far side of that high bed, I found Amy Grann.

  She’d been locked in one of those portable metal wire dog crates, the kind for Labradors and poodles, and the ceiling was low enough that she had to stay seated. She was dressed in a blue teacup dress, with a snowy white apron and white tights. I knew from the photos that her hair was always in a ponytail, but now it was brushed out and fell down her back, and there was a shiny black ribbon tied in a bow right where most little girls wore a headband. If it was Halloween, every door she knocked on would know at a glance that she was Alice in Wonderland. My stomach churned, but I knelt down to put myself on her level. I couldn’t see any marks on her, none of the awful bite marks that had disfigured Maria and her sister, but Amy’s blue eyes were wide and glassy, and it didn’t look like anyone was home.

  “Amy,” I whispered as I got closer to the cage. The cage was locked from the outside, but just
with a little chain and a pin. It was easy to undo, so easy that she could’ve done it from inside, and I hated to think about why she hadn’t. She hadn’t responded to my whisper, and I tried again. “Amy Grann,” I repeated, and something flickered in those dull, dull eyes. I eased the door open, wincing at each squeak of the metal. Now the door was completely open, but she was sitting at the back of the cage and not making any moves.

  “Amy,” I tried again. “My name is Fort. I’ve come to take you home.”

  She blinked, then shook her head slowly. “Can’t go home,” she said, that little voice hoarse and barely audible, so low that I had to strain to hear her. “The monster killed Mommy and Daddy.”

  “I know,” I said, creeping closer, trying to see if I could fit my shoulders into the opening of the cage. I couldn’t risk the time it would take to coax this broken little girl out on her own, but if I startled her and she screamed…I whispered to her again. “Amy, I’ll take you away from the monster.”

  She shook her head again, and her lower lip trembled. “Can’t go,” she said. “The monster will hurt Jessie if I don’t stay here. I have to stay here.”

  My throat tightened. No wonder she hadn’t tried to open her cage—she thought that her sister’s safety depended on her. She didn’t know that Jessica was already dead. I could’ve lied to her then, and I thought about doing just that, saying that Jessica was already safe, and that I was going to bring her to see her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “Amy.” I reached my arm into the cage but stopped just short of touching her. I couldn’t imagine how this little girl would react to being touched. “Amy, the monster lied to you. Jessica is dead.” The words were like acid, but I forced them out. I couldn’t let her believe that lie.

  I could see the shock go through her, and that eerie stillness started to break as she shook. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  “Amy, please,” I whispered urgently. “I need to take you away from the monster.”

  She gave a jerky nod, then leaned forward onto her knees to start crawling out. Relief flooded through me, and I scooted back to give her room. But just before the cage door, she froze again.

  “It’s okay, Amy,” I said, my hands itching to just reach in and grab her and then run like hell. “I’ll keep you safe. Come out.”

  She wasn’t looking at me anymore, though. Her eyes were fixed at the door, and a high, terrified noise came out of her throat, the sound a trapped rabbit would make. A cold knowledge slithered up my spine, and I slowly turned to look.

  Luca was leaning against the door frame. He must have just gotten out of bed, because his feet were bare and he was wearing a pair of loose black satin pants, like a genie from a shitty ’sixties movie, with a red silk shirt tossed on but left completely unbuttoned. Euro-trash pajamas.

  “Why, Fortitude,” he said. “What an unexpected visit.”

  Chapter 11

  Luca was not pleased to find that I had broken into his house at such an inconvenient time, and was not hesitating to let me know about it. Under normal circumstances I might’ve found something inherently amusing in having a man dressed in such ridiculous clothing launch into a scolding lecture that would’ve been better suited to a high school principal, but with Amy frozen in place and my bladder under only very questionable control, there wasn’t anything funny to be found in the situation.

  Plan A—grab girl and run—had failed miserably. I now had to fall back on plan B—bluff Luca into giving up girl.

  “I am really shocked at your behavior, Fortitude,” Luca was saying. “I can only imagine that it was some incredible failure on the part of your mother and older siblings that gave you the idea that it was somehow acceptable to interfere with another vampire’s hunt. Perhaps they have been lenient enough to let you take prey that you have not hunted yourself, but I am no mother cat to drag an injured mouse home for a kitten.”

  I’d practiced this argument a few times in the car, trying to draw back on the lessons I learned during those halcyon days as the second alternate on the high school debate team. The most important lesson that had been emphasized over and over to us was the importance of knowing the audience we were addressing. That had put anything that relied on appeals to inherent decency and moral behavior entirely in the trash can. What I’d ended up relying on was the one thing he did seem to value: manners. Well, vampire manners. I don’t think that Miss Manners had any sections on the proper etiquette for kidnapping.

  “Amy Grann is part of my mother’s territory,” I said, trying to push down my revulsion and pretend that I was talking about a head of cabbage. Here was a moment to regret joining the Film Club rather than the Drama Club. “Removing her would be poaching, and my family will not allow you to do that.” In for a penny, in for a pound. I only hoped that if he decided to verify my story, Chivalry was the one who would answer the phone. My brother has stretched the truth to the breaking point for me before.

  Luca had been pacing by the doorway, but now he stopped. His eyes narrowed. “I was granted hospitality,” he said. “Hospitality grants me the right to hunt, the same right that you and your siblings enjoy.”

  “You have made excessive use of that right,” I said, feeling like I was heading down the right track. “You’ve been in my mother’s territory since Wednesday, and you’ve already killed three people.” No indignation, no outrage, I reminded myself over and over. I was discussing cabbages and a rude guest; that was how I had to force myself to look at this. “That’s more than my sister kills in a year.” Well, I couldn’t be sure about that, but I could certainly hope so. And to my direct knowledge, so far this year she’d only killed Desiree. That was just one person. Cabbages, cabbages, cabbages. Luca was looking unconvinced, and I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a thick rolled stack of printed-out articles and newspaper clippings that I’d prepared beforehand. I threw it down on the bed, where it lay in bizarre contrast to the rose petals. “Do you have any understanding of how utterly sloppy you’ve been?” I pressed. “This is just a tiny sampling of the kind of coverage that your activities are receiving. The local press is hysterical, and you’ve left behind a mess that we will be dealing with for a long time. Hospitality might give you the same rights as we enjoy, but it also demands the same restrictions, and my mother is very displeased with your actions.” I really hoped that that last part was true.

  Luca looked a little less certain now. “These matters are handled somewhat differently in Italy,” he admitted. He frowned a little. “I had assumed that your mother had more control over the police, and that she would’ve directed them to some kind of arrest by now.”

  “My mother’s control over the police is entirely sufficient in normal, restrained circumstances,” I said, making my voice as cold and disapproving as possible. “But an unidentified dumped body, followed by a bloody home invasion coupled with two abductions and a subsequent murder? People are talking about a serial murderer, and there are calls for the FBI to get involved. Your actions have been utterly unacceptable.”

  Luca looked outright nervous now. “I had not considered it that way.”

  “A mistake any traveler could make,” I assured him. “Now I’ll just retrieve the girl and be on my way, and I’ll make sure that my mother knows that you were doing your best to act in good faith.”

  His eyes narrowed at the reference to Amy, and he gave me a very sharp look. I kicked myself for bringing her up too soon. “It is unnecessary to concern yourself with my bit of baggage,” he said smoothly. “What is out of sight will soon be out of mind, and it would be easiest for me to simply take her with me to where no one will ever recognize her. I am of course deeply apologetic for the difficulty that my actions have caused for your family, but I would never expect your mother to have to take the trouble to dispose of my little Amy herself.”

  “A missing child will bring in too much attention,” I countered desperately. I could feel plan B circling the toilet, and I knew that I wa
s grasping at straws now to save it. “And you have no chance of getting her out of the country. They put out an AMBER Alert this morning—there are people in every airport looking for her.”

  Luca gave a superior little chuckle, and all signs of concern were erased from his face. “If that is your mother’s concern, then assure her that it is nothing. I have already acquired the paperwork that will say that she is my daughter, along with the drugs to keep her quiet and cooperative while I am traveling. And if I am questioned, well, my father has the police well under control in Naples. One phone call will confirm that all is well, and your mother’s problem will be swept under the rug. This one has no family left, and soon enough attention will turn to other tragedies, and my little pet will be utterly forgotten.”

  He was certain now, confident, and began to walk closer to me. I stepped back, automatically putting myself between him and Amy. I couldn’t think of any other lies that could save her; all I could do was blurt out, “No.”

  Luca arched one debonair eyebrow. “No?”

  “No,” I repeated. There was no going back from this, and I took a deep breath. “You can’t take her.”

  Luca’s expression was past suspicious. “Why has your mother sent the least among her children to creep into my home like a thief?” he asked slowly, his eyes never leaving my face. There was a pause, one that I didn’t dare fill; then he nodded, certain now. “Your mother does not know you are here, does she?”

  “You aren’t taking Amy anywhere,” I said, not moving.

  “This is ridiculous and I do not have time for your playacting,” he said impatiently. “I have a number of activities planned for this evening, and if you continue to interfere in my business I will not hesitate to administer the discipline that your mother has obviously neglected.”