by Sara Beaman
“Yes, Mother. You did.”
“I would like to give you the opportunity to re-evaluate your answer,” she says. “Not many get the chance. So I ask you a second time: do you give your will to the House of Mnemosyne?”
“Yes,” he says in a desperate tone, without consideration. “My answer is yes.”
Mnemosyne smiles.
“Very well,” Mnemosyne says. “Katherine?”
“Yeah?”
“Your answer?”
Adam looks at me. His eyes are serious as death.
“All right,” I say. “Yeah. Sure. House of Mnemosyne.”
“Your sincerity is underwhelming,” she says. “How can I be sure I can rely on your support?”
“I said yes,” I say, trying to dull my tone. “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
Mnemosyne gives me a tight smile through the double’s lips.
“Over a century ago I lost something dear to me,” she says. “That is to say, I lent it to someone who never returned it.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“An amulet,” she says. “I want you to find it and return it to me.”
“That’s it?” I frown. “What about Mirabel? What about the Wardens?”
“What could someone with your profound lack of experience hope to do about either of those things?” She shakes her head. “No. You have your assignment.”
“All right, but, I mean… how do you expect me to find this thing?” I ask.
“I have reason to believe that Aya has it,” she explains.
“Okay,” I say. “Wait—how am I supposed to find her? She’s some kind of shapeshifter, isn’t she?”
“Believe me,” Mnemosyne says. “I feel you are up to the task.”
I shrug listlessly. “Whatever you say.”
“This amulet,” Adam says. “What does it look like?”
“A golden disc on a golden chain,” Mnemosyne says. “Were it visible, that is.”
“It’s not?” I ask.
“No, not at the moment.” She turns back to me. “Listen, child. I left your body resting on the floor of Desmond Schuster’s crypt. His sister, Guenevere—excuse me, Jennifer—and your brother Julian will soon be there to rescue you.”
“Jennifer Schuster?” Adam asks.
“Yes,” Mnemosyne says. “Katherine sent her a text message.”
Adam’s lips part slightly.
“You can trust Jennifer with the details of your mission,” Mnemosyne continues.
“Okay,” I say, too overwhelmed to ask why. “What about Haruko?”
Mnemosyne shrugs. “It’s possible her assistance can be bought.”
“What about Julian?”
“No,” she says. “Tell him nothing.”
“So should I try to ditch him, or what?”
“No. Keep him with you. He may prove instrumental in finding Aya.”
“Okay,” I say. “I know this amulet thing is important, but—hear me out—shouldn’t we take Adam to a healer or something? Just look at his head—“
“You needn’t worry about that,” Mnemosyne says. “I will take care of it.”
“What?” I say.
“I’ve taken his body,” she explains. “We have a different task for him.”
“Wait,” Adam says. “We do?”
“Yes,” says Mnemosyne.
“But Kate and I work well together—“
“I don’t doubt that, but I need you elsewhere,” Mnemosyne says in a clipped tone. “Which brings me to why I’ve asked Richard to be here this evening.”
A brief frown travels across Richard's face.
“Adam, you are taking over Richard's assignment,” Mnemosyne says.
“The one with Mirabel?” Adam asks.
“And his position within the House,” Mnemosyne adds.
“What!” Richard says.
Adam looks sick. “Are you sure that’s—“
“I’m quite sure,” Mnemosyne says. “Not to worry. You will still see Katherine, albeit only in dreams. How else will she learn to manifest?”
Adam looks confused. “But she and I only share one strain…”
“Richard will see to the rest of her training,” Mnemosyne says.
My eyes flit around the room. Richard is staring at Adam, his rage barely concealed under a flat smirk. Mirabel-Mnemosyne stands with her arms folded, smiling slightly, seeming amused.
“So what… strains do I have?” I ask no one in particular.
“Illusion. Compulsion. And Dream,” Mnemosyne says. Her gaze flickers upward. “Well. It seems we’re out of time. Katherine, your ride is here.”
Sanguine
“You’re sure this is her?”
Julian’s voice.
“It must be,” a girl replies.
Cool, dry fingertips press against my neck, right below my jaw.
“We’re too late,” Julian says. “She’s dead.”
“Well,” the girl says with a sigh, “at least we found Haruko.”
I breathe in, flex my fingers, arch my spine. Julian jerks his hand away. I open my eyes to see two forms looming above me in the near-blackness—Julian and a smaller figure, a girl. I can’t see her face in the dim light, and I can just barely make out her carrot-red hair, but regardless, I know who she is. She’s Jennifer Schuster, alias Conspiracy Theory, the teenager I met online back when I was working at SpiraCom, the one I gave that illicit video footage to. The same one I texted just minutes ago, looking for help, while Desmond had me trapped in his panic room.
“PageSlave?” she asks, using my old alias.
“Yeah?” I groan.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I sit up. “You found Haruko?”
“Yes,” she says.
“But where is Aya?” Julian asks. “Where is Adam?”
“Aya turned on us and ran away,” I tell him. “Adam—“
Mnemosyne’s voice vibrates at the back of my skull. Lie. Tell him he’s up in the panic room where you left him.
“I left him up in Desmond’s panic room,” I say before I can stop myself. “You know. The one in his office.”
Julian lets out a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“Is he okay?” Jennifer asks.
“He’s unconscious,” I say. “But I think he’ll be all right.”
“Thank God,” Julian says.
Jennifer reaches down and helps me to my feet.
“Thanks,” I tell her. “And thanks for your help before, with the… the text messages.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says, extending her right hand for me to shake. “My name is Jennifer, by the way. Jennifer Schuster. I’m Haruko’s mother.”
I slowly connect the dots: Jennifer isn’t just Haruko’s mother, she’s also Desmond’s sister. And I kind of ate Desmond’s heart a few hours ago. And left his body in pieces all over his office floor. I wonder what she’ll have to say about that.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Katherine Avery,” I say. “I go by Kate.”
Julian offers me a tense smile and holds out his hand.
“Julian Radcliffe,” he says. “I’m Adam’s father.”
I smile at Julian and shake his hand, trying to pretend I’m meeting him for the first time. There’s no way he could know how familiar he is to me, and honestly, I think it’s safer if I keep him in the dark about that.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Radcliffe,” I say.
“What on earth happened here?” he asks.
Only tell him what you have to.
“Well, um… a lot happened, and there’s… uh… a lot to explain,” I say.
“Julian, look at her. She’s been through hell,” Jennifer says.
“I’m sure of it,” he says.
“At least give her a few minutes to get her bearings,” Jennifer says. “We can interview her later.”
Julian nods, frowning. I give Jennifer a grateful smile.
“Besides. I don’t want to stick around here any longer than we have to,” Jennifer continues. “Sooner or later the WotA will figure out what happened. Who knows—they might already know. I don’t want to be here when their recon team shows up.”
Jennifer leads Julian and I to the door out of the crypt. Haruko lies on the floor there, her body limp. Julian stoops to pick her up and throws her over his shoulder. I catch just a glimpse of her wounded eye before averting my gaze. It’s just an open cavity now. I shudder, recalling the image of Aya sending her pickaxe into the socket.
“How did this happen to her?” Jennifer asks.
“Aya did it,” I say. “Like I said, she turned on us, and—“
“Aya did this?” Jennifer interjects, incredulous. “Julian’s Aya?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Jennifer looks to Julian.
“I can’t say I’m entirely surprised,” he tells her.
“I’ve been away for too long,” Jennifer says, shaking her head.
***
We step out onto the brightly-lit ramps leading up to the main level of the compound. Now I can see Julian and Jennifer more clearly. They both look so young. Jennifer seems to be in her early teens, and her skinny jeans, oversized t-shirt and canvas backpack certainly don’t make her look any older. Even Julian looks younger than me—twenty or so, maybe. Despite how thin he is, his pale face has a youthful softness. He’s wearing a disheveled suit that looks like something from a thrift store, a little too long for his limbs.
We pass random puddles of blood as we walk up the ramps. Once we reach the main level of the complex, Jennifer leads the way to Desmond’s office. The sight of his office door, reduced now to splinters, sparks a vivid memory of the bullet he sent through Adam’s head, the blood and grey matter spraying through the air. Adam’s glasses lie on the concrete floor perhaps a yard away, lenses shattered, wire frames bent out of shape. I stoop down and pick them up.
Jennifer peers through the broken office door. She frowns, apparently unable to make sense of what she’s seeing. Then her eyes widen with recognition and shock. She covers her mouth.
Julian looks over her shoulder. “Dear God. Is that Desmond?”
“It must be,” Jennifer says. “There’s his head…”
“What kind of creature could do this?” Julian wonders aloud. “His chest is torn to shreds.”
You had nothing to do with it, Mnemosyne instructs me. The ghouls did it on their own.
“Mirabel had, like, a pack of zombies, and they, uh, ate him,” I say.
“Mirabel was here?” Julian asks, panicked.
“Well, no, not in the flesh,” I say. “But she had a double here, and she was controlling the zombies.”
Julian frowns. “How did you know that was the case?”
“It’s kind of what she does,” I say. “Makes people into zombies and controls them.”
Jennifer takes a deep breath and steps through the door. Julian and I follow her, gingerly wading through Desmond’s remains.
“There’s a security camera up in the corner over there,” Jennifer says, her voice shaking. “I’ll get the tape out. You two figure out how to open the panic room.”
“That won’t be a problem. Haruko told me the code,” I lie.
“Right, then,” Julian says. “After you.”
Jennifer grabs the chair from behind Desmond’s desk, drags it to the corner, and places it beneath an inconspicuous little camera mounted near the ceiling. Over at the door to the panic room, I punch the numbers one-eight-three-nine into the keypad on the wall. It beeps. A sound like a gunshot rings out as the locking mechanism fires. Julian pushes the door open.
Sure enough, Adam is gone. All that remains is a pool of blood and the empty box that once held Mnemosyne’s head.
Act surprised.
“What?” I exclaim. “But I left him right here! I shut the door! And by then Desmond was dead…”
Julian gives me a sideways look.
“I left Adam right here,” I insist. “That blood smear? That’s his blood. Desmond shot him through the head, and then—“
“What about the box?” he asks.
I try to act confused. “The box…?”
Jennifer says, “Wait. Desmond did what?”
“The box is empty,” Julian says. “Where is the head?”
“The head is…” I trail off, waiting for a command from Mnemosyne, but nothing comes. Jennifer jumps down from the chair, holding a tiny cassette in one hand, a screwdriver in the other. She puts both into her backpack. I guess if she has the footage of everything that went on here, there’s not much point in lying.
“Mnemosyne forced me to take her head to the crypt,” I tell Julian. “She made me open the, uh, sarcophagus thing—the one with the bowl on the lid—and then—“
“You woke her up?” Julian says, enraged.
I back up a step, afraid he might hit me. This isn’t the same polite, reserved Julian I remember from Adam’s memories. Adam told me he’d changed—gotten ‘erratic’, he put it—but it seems like he might have been putting things lightly.
Jennifer puts a hand on his bicep. “Julian, it wasn’t her fault. You know Mnemosyne.”
Julian fumes silently.
“Kate, did you say that Desmond shot Adam?” Jennifer asks.
I nod, grimacing.
She looks at the floor. “Why would he…?”
“He wanted to destroy Mnemosyne,” I explain. “And Aya wanted to help him. But Adam and Haruko didn’t want to let them do it, so, uh… things went south.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Julian says.
“Is that why Aya attacked Haruko?” Jennifer asks.
I nod.
“And now Adam is gone,” she says. “Kate, did Aya know the entry code to the panic room?”
Yes.
“I think so,” I say.
“You think she took Adam?” Jennifer asks Julian.
“Perhaps,” Julian says. “Or perhaps Mnemosyne took him.”
“All right. Let’s get out of this place,” Jennifer says. “We can get the surveillance tapes from the security room and try to piece together what happened on the way back to Savannah.”
Julian nods. “After you.”
***
We leave Desmond’s office and walk through a sequence of hallways set at odd angles, heading towards the elevator to the surface. Julian carries Haruko. I carry Adam’s glasses. I wish he was here. As much as he irritated me, I felt like I could trust him. I guess I still do—even though I know he’s a liar.
The doors to the elevator open as we approach. Inside the elevator, I find myself face-to-face with Haruko. Her skin and hair are covered in blood. I can’t tell if her eye is missing or just mutilated beyond recognition. Can vampires regrow eyes? If not, I guess she’s screwed. Healers like Tara—mutators or mutatrixes or whatever they’re called—can’t help Haruko. She’s a Warden. Her Wardenness would just absorb all the vampire magic, or something.
“What time is it?” I ask, just to fill the dead air.
Jennifer glances at her wristwatch. “About ten A.M.”
I frown. “How are we going to leave, then?”
“We’ve got a lightfast vehicle and a driver waiting for us in the auxiliary garage,” she says. “It’s on the same level as the security room.”
Moments later, the elevator stops. We step out into a hallway with a low ceiling. The doors to the elevator slide closed behind us, and a heavy steel door rolls down on top of them. No turning back now, I guess.
Jennifer stops at a reinforced door on the side of the hallway and digs a key out of her backpack.
“You two go on to the car,” she says. “I’ll catch up in a second.”
Julian and I walk down to the end of the hallway, through a set of swinging double doors and into a tiny parking garage. A conversion van waits just a few yards away, its engine running.
Even over the sound of the engine, I can hear the driv
er’s heartbeat, pounding like a bass drum in my ear. I can see him through the windshield. He’s a white guy with dirty blond hair and the face of a jock. Healthy-looking. Sanguine. Suddenly my chest feels like it’s imploding and exploding at once. My teeth sharpen. Everything accelerates. Reality is clearer somehow, its resolution enhanced, and the path forward is the clearest thing of all.
I rush to the driver’s side door and pull it open. The driver is too surprised to react. I lunge for his throat teeth-first and bite down hard into his neck. His blood flows into my mouth. It tastes like life, like oxygen, like I’m breathing it in, like I’ll die if I stop drinking. He shoves me, almost manages to push me off him and out of the car, but I compel him to stop. Silently, like when I had no voice: Hold still, little deer.
Someone grabs my shoulders from behind, but my grasp on my prey doesn’t falter. I realize now that he’s screaming, but I don’t care. Soon it won’t matter—
“Katherine, let go! Let him go!”
Julian’s command pulls me back like a leash. I release the driver and stagger out of the car, sucking in air in ragged gasps, but it’s nothing, it’s empty, it’s useless. I need more blood. I swallow the last of what I got from the driver, but it isn’t nearly enough. I lock eyes with him, considering a second attempt. He reaches into the glove compartment, pulls out a handgun and points the barrel at my chest.
“Hold still, Katherine,” Julian says. “Matthew, put the gun down.”
You don’t understand, I think to myself, still gasping for air. You’re killing me. But I comply with his command. The choice isn’t mine.
Julian slides the back door of the van open. “Get in,” he commands me. “Now.”
I trip as I climb inside and fall, hard, side-first into the bristly carpeting. Julian slams the door shut behind me, sealing me in pitch blackness. I lie on the floor, doing something like hyperventilating though the air does nothing. I bring my hands to my mouth and will myself to stop, to calm down, to pull myself together.
The bloodlust and the panic slowly fade away, and as they do, the reality of the situation comes into focus. I just nearly killed a stranger. I forced myself on him. I have no idea if he’ll survive what I did to him.
I start sobbing. I bite down on my knuckles, trying to stop, but I can’t. I’m a monster. I’m no better than Gabriel. I didn’t want any of this—I just didn’t want to let Adam and Haruko die. I thought I didn’t want to die either, but now—now I’ve become just like the people I hate most in this world.
