Jack was on the phone to Kingsley every few minutes, pacing their room and barking out questions and instructions.
“Check the ports as well,” he shouted, his free hand clenched. “What about the heli pads on the East Side? What the hell are all those Venators doing?”
They couldn’t say anything to Pernilla and Lukas: that had been an easy decision, taken as soon as Jack broke the terrible news.
“We don’t know who we can trust,” Jack told her. “We don’t know if they’re in league with Catherine, or helping her in some way.”
“If they are, I’ll burn this house down.” Schuyler was livid.
The threat of arson gave Jack a useful idea: he told Pernilla that their vineyard was burning in a wildfire, and they were terribly upset and concerned. Schuyler was sobbing, he said, though this was untrue: she was too angry to weep – not yet. Jack explained to Pernilla that they didn’t want to spoil the lunch party in the garden by running in and out to make calls “to the police and our lawyers,” as Jack put it.
Pernilla looked crushed, as she’d probably been looking forward to showing off their distinguished guests. But she said she understood, and would have some lunch sent to their room. Lukas didn’t seem to care at all. Clearly he was most concerned with having the perfect Midsummer event for all his local Blue Blood friends, some of the wealthiest and best-connected people in Sweden.
“The latest,” said Jack, putting down his phone, “is that Catherine and Lily may have left the country in a private plane last night. The air field was north of the city, and the plane took off about ninety minutes after Mimi and Kingsley had left the apartment.”
The timing worked out, Schuyler thought, shredding a tissue and wishing it were Catherine’s head. Jack was waiting on information about where the plane was headed, and if it connected with another private flight elsewhere, to throw them off the scent.
But what about the child she’d heard laughing in the forest that morning, when she saw – or thought she saw – Finn? Could that be Lily? Could their daughter be here somewhere already?
“She knows Finn,” Schuyler told Jack, the puzzle pieces swarming into place in her mind.
“They only met once, maybe twice, in all of Lily’s life.”
“Sure, but it’s enough. Finn could have reminded Lily that she’s her aunt. She could say lots of nice, fake things about us, and say how she and I are sisters. Lily wouldn’t be suspicious of her. “
“But Schuyler,” Jack said, his phone practically crushed in his hand. She hadn’t seen him look this devastated and helpless in years. In all the years they’d been married, in fact. “It can’t have been Lily. Think about it. I’ve been counting out the time difference with New York. How could they have reached Stockholm – let alone Dalmarna – by the time you were out in the forest?”
Schuyler’s head was swimming with calculations and what-ifs, with the sound of the child laughing in the forest, with the memory of that apparition of Finn before her, in floaty white dress and flowers, looking like some pale pagan goddess from another era.
“Let me take you there,” she said to Jack, her voice pleading, and eventually he agreed, after she pointed out that staying locked in their bedroom wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
They took the servants’ staircase down into the mansion’s lowest floor, half-submerged below ground, where the kitchen and wine cellar were housed. There they slipped through the swarms of caterers, and wriggled up the back stairs where goods were delivered. Schuyler pointed the way that avoided the lunch party, set up on the other side of the formal gardens by the lake, a Swedish flag on a tall pole marking the spot. It was a long way to get to the forest, slithering through the marshy land that skirted the pond, but they were able to keep out of sight.
“No phone service, though,” Jack pointed out, just as they reached the cool shadows of the woods, pine-needle softness underfoot, and no flapping geese or swampy ground to slow them down.
“Just half an hour, I promise,” said Schuyler. She could hear her own heart thumping, as though the forest was ringing with a drum beat, menacing and steady. There was a thickness to the atmosphere, a palpable danger. Jack was quiet, walking a few paces away, his eyes darting everywhere – over every fallen, moss-covered log, every leafy gully, every still mound. This place could be crawling with their enemies. Finn could be here, with the Silver Blood army who wanted her installed as their demonic queen. Lily could be here, afraid and captive, some kind of pawn in this terrible game. That such a beautiful place, at the highest point of summer, should feel like a trap – it was against nature, Schuyler thought. It suggested the perversion of Lucifer and the way he wanted to corrupt the world. There would be no beauty anymore, or serenity. The rustle of these trees would be a warning sound, like the hiss of a snake, spooling from its lair, fangs bared.
They walked for much longer than half an hour, circling back and forth until Schuyler felt certain she’d found the place where she’d heard the child’s laughter. This time there was no one to see or hear, and no trace of anyone’s footsteps. No debris: they picked over the ground, hoping something might have been dropped or discarded. Anything, Schuyler thought: please, may there just be something, however small. She bent over a craggy boulder, feeling around its low curves for anything more than pine cones and decomposing leaves.
“We’ve already looked,” said a woman’s voice, sounding both bored and critical, and Schuyler leapt to her feet. In the distance, two people were padding towards them. Not people, actually: wolves. Edon Marrok she recognized. His face was set in a permanent frown these days, but she was relieved to see him. He was the great hunter, the Golden Wolf they’d relied on so many times. He was older now, and no longer quite so glossy and golden, maybe. But he could still sniff out demons and tear them to pieces. Schuyler’s drumming heart told her that he may be doing that very thing within hours, if not sooner.
While they approached, Jack faced them, gun in hand, as on edge as she was. He only pocketed it when they were close, and Edon introduced the other wolf as Mina.
“She’s an old hand at fighting,” he said, to Mina’s evident displeasure. “Her claws could fell this entire forest.”
“That’s more like it,” she said with a sniff. “And, as I said, we’ve already picked over this entire area. We’ve been casing this place for hours. No clues, no scents, no sightings.”
Schuyler took a deep breath. If the wolves hadn’t found Lily, she wasn’t here.
Unless she’d already been dragged underground, to some pit halfway between earth and hell …
Jack’s arm was around her, and Schuyler realized she was crying. His face was red too, and his eyes wet. The strain of not knowing where Lily might be was unbearable. Maybe this whole Swedish misadventure was a wild goose chase, and they’d been misdirected here with false intelligence, to get them out of the way of the real invasion.
The four of them walked together through the trees to the lake, where there was a small clearing and a short pier jutting into the sparkling waters. Marrok stood pointing out the scope of the Regis’s lands to them, the wide swing of his arm suggesting how much territory needed to be covered, and how vast the task that faced them. The other wolf, Mina, crouched sniffing the ground in a way that Schuyler found disconcerting. She was out of the habit of consorting with wolves. She’d thought, foolishly, that the war was over.
A jet boat fizzed into sight, roaring around a bend in the lake heading straight for their small pier.
“It’s Axel,” Marrok told them without even looking around. Maybe he could smell the boat, or recognize its buzz. “Not sure why he’s coming here now.”
The Venator chief. Schuyler hadn’t met him yet, because she hadn’t gone to the HQ with Jack.
“He’s supposed to be at the fancy lunch today,” Mina said, standing up and dusting off her hands. She did have very long and curving nails, Schuyler noticed. They looked as sharp as scalpels. “At the Regis’ house.”
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“Maybe he’s been sent to get us,” Jack muttered to Schuyler. They were both paranoid, she thought, and convinced they were being followed. Maybe Pernilla had checked on them in their room, or the caterers had tattled …
“Hello!” Axel shouted. He was very tall, so tall the boat looked like a child’s toy he’d commandeered. Marrok helped him tie up, and Axel strode forward to shake Jack’s hand and to meet Schuyler.
“Sorry that this has happened,” he said, his face grim. “A twist we didn’t expect or want.”
They stood in a huddle where the grass verge turned sandy at the edge of the lake. He told them that he’d been on his way to the Regis’ house for Midsummer lunch when he got a piece of news from one of his Venators.
“I came straight here from Dalmarna, hoping to find you,” he said, squinting because the sun was so bright. “A couple of hours ago, a private plane arrived at a field near Stockholm. It had flown from New York, I was told. A woman and a child were seen getting into a helicopter. We can’t be entirely sure, but their descriptions match the description of Catherine Denham and … your daughter.”
“And where did the helicopter go? You’re tracking it?” Jack demanded. Axel looked down at the ground, hands on hips. His black clothes looked out of place in such an isolated spot in the country, on such a sunny day.
“I don’t know anymore, I’m sorry. I drove to the airfield right away. But …”
“But what?” Schuyler wanted to grab him and shake him. “But what?”
“I don’t know anymore because the Venator who called me stopped speaking mid-sentence. The line went dead. I drove there right away with another team, but by the time we got there the Air control room was empty.”
A wave of nausea coursed through Schuyler. So Lily was here, still kidnapped, still untracked.
“And the Venator who’d called me,” Axel continued. “She was dead. Dead and drained. Just a husk – it was disgusting. Silver Bloods.”
Chapter 26: Round Midnight
To Edon, today really did feel like the longest day of the year. It might be summer, but there was something rotting and corrupt in this forest. He could smell evil here, sense it all around. When he and Mina had come across Jack Force and Schuyler Van Alen among the trees, shafts of light picking them out, searching under every fallen branch and mound of leaves, Edon knew they could sense it as well. There was nothing to go on now but his gut, and the instincts of the Fallen, because there was no evidence of anything right now apart from a still swathe of forest with birds chirping and the lightest of summer breezes.
But clearly Axel, the Venator Chief, was suspicious too. It meant something, him coming straight to this patch of forest from Dalmarna, without calling in on the Regis or even filling him in on this latest development. Nobody in this Coven trusted each other. Nobody talked to each other. A Venator had been killed and left as a warning, body sucked dry of its blood, its eternal life destroyed. That meant Silver Bloods, ones who were bold enough to cause public havoc. All the air control staff gone, just like everyone working and drinking in the Bank’s rooftop bar. Someone killed, other people disappeared. This wasn’t underground activity by small bands of guerillas. These were statements. And they’d managed to get hold of the young daughter of two of the most powerful, symbolic Blue Bloods in the world. They were the ones making sure Lily’s entry to Sweden, and her continued journey who-knows-where, was uninterrupted. They controlled her. Right now, they were in charge of the game.
Edon hated it when someone else picked the rules of the game.
It was evening now, and Axel’s boat was still tied at the pier. They had to stay in the forest now, he said, the few of them that could be trusted. He had his twelve best Venator teams on the job, the ones he knew were utterly loyal to him. Intelligence told them that something big was going down at the rave sponsored by the Regis in the heart of his private forest. That’s where they’d all converge.
For now, Edon and Mina were prowling the edge of the lake, observing the hordes arriving at a flat sandy stretch near the party site. People were arriving in boats of all sizes, some rowing, some kayaking, some sailing in and anchoring nearby, some roaring up and making waves. A group of singing young people even floated up in a raft, one guy in baggy surf shorts standing at the back clinging to a makeshift pole and guiding them into shore.
He raised his eyebrows at Mina, and she made a face.
“Lots of happy drunk people,” she said in a low voice, pressing closer than was necessary. He wished it was Ara with him now. Not that Mina wasn’t good at this work. But Ara, when she was at her best and not causing trouble for no reason, had the sharpest instincts and quickest reactions he’d ever seen.
People clanked by with fistfuls of bottles; some people carried baskets or shopping bags of food. Weird Swedish food, Edon decided, with a derisive sniff. The smell of pickled herrings was overwhelming him. It would be hard to pick out a Silver Blood when his senses were drowned in fish.
Every hipster in Sweden seemed to be here – no, make that every hipster in Northern Europe. He’d never seen so many men with beards, designer tattoos and trousers rolled just above the ankles. Some of the women were dressed for swimming; some were dressed for a Pagan re-enactment or Druid reunion; and others looked prepared for a night out at a club, with bottles of water, fluorescent wrist bands and tiny cut-off tops.
In the clearing nearby there was a lot of activity around a giant maypole, tall and white and decorated with dozens of dangling ribbons. New arrivals were adding ribbons, girls hoisted onto the shoulders of tall young men to tie on additional streamers. A stage loomed in the distance, colored lights already flashing, a DJ in headphones still setting up. In the strange light of endless evening, the trees looked silver and the sky’s pale blue seemed chalky and surreal. The forest went on forever. The lake stretched into infinity. Tonight would never end.
“Hey!” Mina nudged him. “Look who’s here.”
Ara. That was Edon’s first thought. Somehow she’d managed to elude her deportation order and turn up here. But he couldn’t see or smell her in the latest wave of new arrivals, and Mina had to nudge him again.
A small speedboat had pulled up to the tiniest available space on one of the stretching wooden piers, and three guys were clambering off it. Edon narrowed his eyes, trying to ignore the grit in them, the dryness, the exhaustion that kept sweeping through him today. He was getting long-in-the-tooth; that’s what Ara would say if she were here.
But she wasn’t here. The only people getting off the speedboat Mina was all over were men.
And one of them was Oliver Hazard-Perry.
Mina’s body tensed, and he had to grip her arm to hold him back.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” she said. Her eyes glowed yellow, the way they always did when she sensed a kill. He used to find that attractive, once upon a time. “You move right. I’ll cut him off.”
“No.” The strength in his own voice surprised Edon. “We’re not here to take him. We need to follow him.”
Mina inhaled, loud and deep, as though she was trying to control her own savage instincts. She understood what he was saying, Edon knew. Oliver Hazard-Perry was officially public enemy number one, but the orders from New York had changed. He was just another hunter, possibly with better information than they had. Following him could mean being led to a much bigger prey – Finn Chase.
It had to be close to midnight by now. The forest, so hauntingly quiet earlier in the day, echoed with the shouts and laughter of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of young revelers. The music from the makeshift stage was pounding, the lights flickering and transforming the trees into lurid pillars of color. The area leading up a gentle slope from the lake looked like a chaotic outdoor nightclub, the pagan maypole looming at its center.
Oliver didn’t head for the center of things, to Edon’s relief. He looped around the crowds, keeping on the edge of things and peering in. They followed, close enough to keep his scent, bu
t not so close he could spot them. He wasn’t a true member of the Fallen, not by the kind of arcane definitions the Blue Bloods seemed obsessed with, but as a human-turned-vampire he should have enough wit to know two wolves when he saw them.
He looked rough, Edon thought. He’d seen the former New York Regis at the swank events over which he’d presided, and he’d always looked so smooth and groomed – a pretty boy, Edon had always thought, who’d taken on too much responsibility too soon. He wasn’t looking so pretty these days. He was gaunt and unshaven, and so thin his clothes hung on him like shapeless sacks. That Mina had recognized him at all was incredible, a tribute to her skills as a tracker. Edon wasn’t sure that he would have done the same.
Edon brushed the fingers of his right hand against the axe he was carrying with him today, hidden in a pocket – though in this dippy crowd he could be brandishing it above his head and everyone would think it was some cool Viking prop. The blade was sharp and smooth. If Oliver made a break for it, Edon was ready to attack. Not kill, but wound. No way was this guy getting away – not when he could lead them to their real prey.
As well as looking a scruffy shadow of his former self, Oliver also seemed aimless. He was wandering and then pausing, wandering and pausing. Sometimes he just stood for a few moments, zoning out. Was he lost? Mina shot an enquiring glance at Edon: there seemed no urgency to Oliver’s quest, no desperation. But he kept moving on at regular intervals, so it was likely he didn’t have a fixed meeting point.
That’s when it hit Edon. Oliver was the hunter who offered himself up as prey. He was making himself visible, waiting to be found. And not by Venators or wolves, Edon realized –by Finn Chase. He was hoping that if his crazed, corrupted beloved was somewhere in this excited crowd, she would see Oliver and seek him out. Did he really think a romantic reconciliation was on the cards? Edon couldn’t believe that. It was much more likely that Finn would have one of her Silver Blood consort kill him. He was just an irritation now – a vampire without power, a man who’d lost his heart and his head.
White Nights: A Vampires of Manhattan Novel Page 16
