As he spoke the words, he exited the highway, driving them into a tree-lined suburb.
“A cemetery,” Jill said, thinking about the clues.
It is here that you shall find comfort, having found none in the mirror.
She laughed. “The clue is telling us our only comfort is death?”
“You got it,” Tarin said. “It’s a classic taunt from an immortal. You and everyone else in your class will grow old and ugly, and will become so depressed about it you’d rather be dead. That’s the message in the first Rose Ransom clue. While an immortal laughs at death, a human is so miserable that eventually, death is a welcome escape.”
“Disgusting,” said Jill, shaking her head.
“But typical,” said Tarin. “Renata is the most twisted of all the immortals. She, more than any of them, is in love with power. She crafted this first clue as a reminder of the ultimate power she has as an immortal.”
“The power to cheat death,” Jill said.
“Precisely.”
“What cemetery are we going to?”
“Meadowlark Memorial,” Tarin said. “The preferred burial ground for DC’s elite, where a rich human can pay tens of thousands of dollars to ensure their eternal resting place is among dead celebrities, politicians, and business tycoons.”
“And you think the second clue is in that cemetery.”
“I know it is, because I know Renata.”
A few minutes later, Tarin pulled through the front gates, which, strangely, were wide open even at this late hour of the night. He parked on the edge of the grass and they stepped out near a gaudy tombstone for someone named Frederick Gallagher.
There was a single rose sitting atop his plot.
“Is this it?” Jill said. “Look at the rose.”
She bent down to pick it up.
“Don’t bother with that,” Tarin said. “There’s nothing special about this grave.”
“But the rose—if you’re so sure the answer is in this cemetery, don’t you think there might be something significant about this rose?”
“Look around you, Jill. You haven’t seen the big picture yet.”
Look around me? Jill stood up and scanned the surrounding area. It was so dark she didn’t noticed anything at first. A huge plot of land. Tall trees casting shadows in the moonlight. Damp grass and fallen leaves stretching for acres in all directions. Thousands of tombstones in orderly rows.
And then she saw it. It was like her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness, needed to take it all in, before she could see what was happening here.
She walked to the next grave over, bent down, and picked up the rose sitting in front of the tombstone.
“They’re on every grave,” she said. “A single rose on every one. What’s going on here?”
“It’s just like in the story,” Tarin said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two small flashlights. He gave one to Jill. “There are many roses in the kingdom. We have to find the reddest one.”
“No,” Jill said. “There must be a thousand graves here.”
Tarin clicked on his flashlight, and aimed a bright, concentrated beam at the rose in front of the grave.
“If there are a thousand graves, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine have roses that look just like this one,” he said. “One has the rose we’re looking for. It will be easy to spot.”
“How will we know? Is the flower a deeper shade of red? Is it something we can see in the dark?”
“It will look nothing like these roses. Believe me, you’ll know it when you see it. You start right here at this grave and work your way across the cemetery. I’ll start at the other end. One of us will find it.”
Jill turned on her flashlight and aimed it at the rose.
“This is crazy,” she muttered. “So completely nuts.”
She looked up. Tarin was already gone.
“What the….where did he…?”
It was like he had vanished. No sound of his footsteps running away. No sign of him anywhere. Jill shone her flashlight across the graveyard, looking for him, and saw nothing but tombstones.
Tombstones and roses, she thought. A creepy old cemetery in the middle of the night, and now I’m by myself.
She walked to the next grave and aimed her light at the rose. Nothing special about it. A plain, ordinary flower sitting in front of a tombstone for Lonnie McBride, 1907 – 1988. A normal rose was sitting on the next grave too, and the next. She went down the entire row, reading the names of the deceased, inspecting the roses on their graves. The grass was damp under her feet. Piles of wet leaves collected between the graves. A mist was forming in the air as they were now in the coldest part of the night.
She found nothing special in the first row she checked, or the second. The roses all looked the same; the tombstones were nothing more than simple markers of death.
Of lives that came to an end.
By the third row, she found her mind drifting to her friends that had died. Gia, Dante, and Kendall. Three humans who gave everything to their cause, and died anonymous deaths. There would be no tombstones for them. Their ashes were mixed with those of the slaves who were cremated every night in Renata’s mansion, and tossed out with the garbage.
She made it to the fourth row, still having seen nothing unusual. She had passed hundreds of roses now, the beam from her flashlight picking them out and then abandoning them to the darkness.
She thought of Nicky and Ryan. She was here tonight for them. She was looking for the clue in hopes that there was still a chance for a miracle. Were they still alive? Were they actually being held at the end of this trail of clues, waiting for someone to rescue him? Or was it all a ruse? A clever game the immortals put together for their own amusement, like everything else in the Coronation contest.
Jill had no doubt that Renata enjoyed watching the senior class wander about in frustration, unable to solve the clues, Nicky and Ryan’s friends powerless to save them.
The roses were beginning to wilt. The petals were limp. The stems, soft. That’s part of her game, Jill thought. These roses are dead, just like the people underneath them. Decaying in front of my eyes.
She knew what she was looking for now. The one rose in the cemetery that was different—the reddest rose—would be preserved somehow. Eternally young, like a vampire. One rose that lived forever, a thousand roses surrounding it that were already dead.
The names on the tombstones were part of the game as well. Renata put the clue here so students could ponder their own imminent demise. The names on every grave had once represented a living person, a young person.
Emma Golden, 1922 – 2001.
Charles Vox, 1945 – 2013.
Estevan Atencio, 1910 – 1999
Jill imagined the lives of these people, now gone. She thought about where they might have been during their senior year of high school.
Emma Golden whose seventeenth birthday was at the height of the Great Depression. Charles Vox, who turned seventeen in 1962, right when the Samarin clan was beginning to flex its muscles. Estevan Atencio, who was a teenager during the roaring twenties, when Daciana Samarin was a new arrival on American shores and there was no oppressive vampire clan in Washington.
First kisses, high school graduations, children, grandchildren, maybe great grandchildren, and then you’re buried in the ground. Did they ever wonder about their place in all of it? Did they worry about leaving their mark?
She was onto the next row now, still having seen nothing but plain roses at every grave. She was letting her light flash on the tombstones, but wasn’t reading the names. She couldn’t. There was more death in here than she cared to think about. More death all around her than she could bear.
She could sense the phantoms. The dead beneath the ground, their spirits floating in the mist.
You’re exhausted, Jill. You’re traumatized. You’re broken. Just get through this night. Just find the rose and be done.
She heard a rustle in the bushes at the en
d of the row, and aimed her flashlight in the direction of the noise. She half-expected to see Gia standing there.
There was no one.
“The wind,” she said aloud. Nothing but the wind. She aimed her flashlight down and got back to work. Another grave, another rose, another grave…
She heard Ryan’s voice, echoing in her mind.
I feel like this is all that matters, it said. It was a memory from freshman year, from a few magical weeks when she and Ryan were in love and nobody was bothering them. They were standing on the edge of the river. Ryan had kissed her. He was looking in her eyes, telling her there was no one else in the world.
She looked at another grave, another rose. Kim Renwick entered her mind.
You’re nothing but a lapdog, just like that panting, decrepit bitch you call mother.
“Fuck you, Kim Renwick,” she whispered, not hearing her own voice as she said the words, but rather, Nicky’s. The Homecoming Masquerade, the first words out of Nicky’s mouth. The look on Kim’s face as Nicky said it, like her head was about to explode.
You are the bastard child of the most fucked up family I’ve ever met.
Funny, when Kim said that line to Jill, it left a scratch. But now, as Jill wandered alone in a cemetery in the middle of the night, thinking about the brevity of life and the friends who were already gone, Kim’s words cut deep.
Your mother is a mindless robot who obeys everything your prick of a father tells her to do.
“It’s not her fault,” Jill whispered. “None of it is her fault.”
You’re a fraud, Jill Wentworth.
“I am not a fraud. I’m trying to choose what’s right.”
A fraud!
Another rustle in the bushes. Jill was so on edge she couldn’t control herself, and her arm flew up to point the flashlight in the direction of the sound.
This time she saw something. A shadow. It looked like a person, ducking into the trees ahead of her.
“Hello?” she said. “Tarin?”
For a few horrible seconds, she stood in place, hearing nothing but her own racing heart. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and she shrieked.
“Shhh...it’s me,” Tarin whispered.
“Don’t do that!” Jill hissed. “You scared the heck out of me!”
Tarin grabbed her arm with his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.
His grip, or was it his voice—Jill couldn’t say, but something about him took away all the anxiety of the moment. Instantly, she felt herself growing more calm.
What was it about this guy? He had a presence to him, an energy, that could just take charge of the moment. Jill understood now why the Network trusted him for an assignment as dangerous as going undercover in Renata’s mansion. He had so much command that you felt at ease when he was around.
“I heard something in the bushes,” Jill said.
“I know, I heard it too,” said Tarin. “Probably a squirrel or something.”
“I don’t know, Tarin. I aimed my flashlight over there. I thought I saw…”
“What? What did you see?
A ghost? Could she tell him that? Because that’s what she thought was over there. The ghost of Gia, or Kendall, or Dante, or all three of them. The ghost of any one of these thousand people buried underground.
You’re being ridiculous, Jill. You’re sleep-deprived and frightened, and you’re starting to lose it.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“I’ll go check it out,” Tarin said. “You keep looking. Start on this row and double back that way.”
“But I haven’t finished looking down this row yet.”
“I’ll get the rest of this row. I’ve already checked the rest of the cemetery.”
“Really?” Jill said, looking out at the acres of open space behind them. “You’ve checked all that?”
“The rose we’re looking for isn’t there,” Tarin said. “But we’re getting close. It has to be somewhere in this back corner.”
Jill shone her flashlight where Tarin was pointing. There were maybe a hundred graves in that section. God, she hoped he was right. She really wanted to find the clue and get out of here.
“Okay, I’ll get to work on this spot,” she said.
She turned and Tarin was gone again, running so fast towards the bushes she could hardly see him. What a strange man he was. He didn’t have his flashlight on. He was sprinting to the bushes in total darkness.
And then he was gone, what little Jill could see of him swallowed in the foliage where she saw a ghost.
There was rustling in the bushes, but Jill couldn’t see anything. Why didn’t he have his flashlight on? What was he doing back there?
She aimed her own flashlight at the bushes, and for an instant, she thought she saw the silhouettes of two people, a man and a woman, but then they were gone.
“Tarin?”
She heard the wind, blowing through the trees. She heard leaves falling to the ground. In the distance, she heard a car drive by.
“Tarin? Did you find anything?”
There was more rustling in the bushes, then a sound that frightened her so much she dropped her flashlight.
A scream.
Now she wanted to run. But she didn’t. She held her feet in place for the sake of Nicky and Ryan. I choose to do what’s right. She bent down and reached for her flashlight. As she neared the ground, she saw something shiny in the flashlight’s beam. It was wild and golden—a gleaming light from the ground. In her stupor, she almost thought she saw a rose.
A rose that was on fire.
Ignore it, Jill. Your mind is playing tricks on you.
“Tarin?” she yelled as she picked up the flashlight. “Tarin!”
She began running towards the bushes, her legs begging her to stop and go back the other way, her mind reminding her that she saw a ghost. Not one ghost, but two. A man and a woman.
It’s not true, she told herself, forcing her legs forward. There are no ghosts. You choose to do what’s right. You choose to run into those bushes and find the other agent on this mission.
“Tarin!” she yelled. “Tarin, are you back there?”
There was rustling now, movement in the bushes, and she stopped where she was. Something was coming out. Her feet were backing up. They begged for her to turn and run.
I will not run away, she thought. If Tarin is in trouble back there, no one can help him but me.
She aimed her flashlight at the bushes. She saw something coming out. Arms and legs and a head—was it him? She could swear it wasn’t him. It seemed too short. There was hair…too much hair.
And then he stepped into the beam of her flashlight and smiled at her.
“Nothing back there,” Tarin said.
Jill felt weak in the knees and plopped down in the grass.
“Jill?”
Tarin ran up to her. “Are you alright?”
“I heard something,” she said. She was panting. Her whole body was shaking. She felt like she couldn’t catch her breath. “I thought I heard somebody scream.”
“You’re frightened,” Tarin said. “This is a bit much for you tonight, isn’t it?”
“I’m kind of freaking out a little,” she said. She took a deep breath. Then another. “Are you sure nobody was back there? I could swear I heard somebody scream.”
Tarin put his hand on Jill’s chin and turned her face toward his. Even in the darkness, she could see his eyes clearly. She allowed herself to get lost in them.
“You can relax, Jill,” he said. “There was nothing back there.”
“I…but I….”
“Nothing, Jill. What you heard must have been the wind.”
Yes, the wind. She could hear it whispering in her ears now. Nothing but the wind.
“I was losing it there for a minute,” she said.
“It was just the wind,” said Tarin.
“That was so crazy,” Jill said. “I must have had a full-on hallucination. I s
aw silhouettes behind those bushes. I heard a scream. I…”
I saw a rose on fire.
“What is it Jill?”
“I think I know where to find the clue.”
Chapter 29
Tributes to kings
Both born and elected
Join their inspirations in dust
Despite 657 claims to the eternal
Kim looked at the clue that was etched on a tombstone at Meadowlark Memorial cemetery. She was so angry she could scream.
She wasn’t angry that they found Emmitt’s body in the bushes. Yes, Emmitt had been a good friend to the family for many years and she’d known him since before she could remember, but she didn’t really care. Emmitt had been assigned the most important job of all, and he’d failed. As far as Kim was concerned, he deserved to die.
And she wasn’t angry that this second clue was even more obscure than the first. Tributes to kings…born and elected…657 claims to the eternal…whatever. It wasn’t like Kim needed to solve this clue. The harder and stranger it was, the better for her. The more she read the clue, the more certain she was that Renata didn’t want anyone to win the Ransom this year. How could anybody even begin to solve this mess?
Of course, she thought the same thing about the last clue, but here they were. Kim and her father, having come to Meadowlark Memorial because Emmitt filed a report late in the night that Jill Wentworth was here.
That was why she was angry. That was why she wanted to tilt her head back to the sky, open her mouth as wide as it could go, and curse Jill’s name to the heavens above.
Jill Wentworth had solved the clue. Not only that, she had solved the clue, discovered that Emmitt was watching her, and killed him, leaving his corpse in the bushes at the far end of the cemetery.
“Come here, I want to show you something,” yelled Galen Renwick from across the graveyard.
“No!” Kim shouted. “You come over here! I’ve found the second clue!”
Her daddy was such a dunce. As far as Kim was concerned, Galen was just as useless as Emmitt and deserved the same fate at this point. So many mistakes last night. So many unforgivable screw-ups.
First was that horrible phone call with Jill, where Jill was able to use the mistakes of Kim’s daddy against her, again. How many times would Galen Renwick’s screw-ups come back to haunt Kim? How much harder could he have made it for her to win this contest?
The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) Page 24
