“Aside from protecting the interests of shades, Rainer’s biggest priority was protecting his family line. Shades can theoretically live forever, but he knew that eventually he would be killed, or the shade population would require additional leadership. At the very least, he’d wish to retire. So he kept his family line safe, and every few generations, he turned one or two of his descendants. Dynasties were very important back then, and he was creating a small cabinet of family members with absolute loyalty, you see?”
Alex nodded. “I met him once,” she said, her face warming at the memory, “when I was a child. He was very kind to me. He seemed impossibly strong and capable—but there was a terrible weight to him. You know how the people who become president seem to age at a faster rate, due to the pressures of the office? Imagine having that pressure for two hundred years. Rainer was practically bowed over by it.
“Anyway.” Her face clouded over. “Although King Rainer’s line flourished, the Visigothic Kingdom began to die, as invading Arabs carved it away an inch at a time. The last Visigoth king, Ardo, begged King Rainer to rally the shades behind the Visigoths, but Rainer’s primary loyalties were no longer with the humans. His concerns extended to thousands and thousands of shades who could live forever. He was heartsick for the end of the Visigoths, but he made the decision not to come to Ardo’s aid.”
She took a deep breath, and hugged her arms about herself. “So in revenge, Ardo gathered the last of his forces, and he sent them after Rainer’s line. Which included me and my brothers and sisters.”
Chapter 12
Interstate 80
Saturday afternoon
LINDY’S EYES WERE FAR AWAY, lost in an old horror. “But you and Hector survived?” Alex said, more to bring her back to the story than anything else.
She nodded. “Ardo’s men attacked in the middle of the day, when Hector and I were out riding our horses. We were nineteen, and everything was a competition between us. While we were gone Ardo’s men slaughtered everyone in the castle, including my mother, my little sisters, and my baby brother.
“My father was a new shade then, only transmuted a few weeks earlier. They dragged him out into the sunshine and left him to die.” She shook her head. “He shouldn’t even have been able to stay conscious during the day, but he managed to crawl into the stables, out of the sunlight. He was strong.” She looked away for a moment, blinking, and Alex made himself wait for her. “Hector and I were racing back from the forest. I won, and I was laughing as I jumped down and led the horse into the stable. Then I saw Papa . . .” Her voice caught.
“And your father transmuted you,” Alex supplied. He knew that the method of turning humans into shades had been risky and traumatic before modern medical equipment. He didn’t need to make her relive that.
Lindy nodded, looking a little grateful. “And then Hector, right afterward. Papa died changing us into shades.”
“Was that what you wanted?”
Lindy looked genuinely surprised at the question. “I . . .” She straightened up in her seat and pushed the hair behind her ears. “I did. When we were children, Hector was”—a tiny smile crossed her face—“the thinker. I was the better fighter, better fencer, better rider, but Hector was the superior strategist.”
“So he was the brain, and you were the muscle,” Alex said without thinking.
“I suppose so.” Any good humor faded from her face as the meaning sunk in for her. “Anyway. Hector never wanted to be a shade, at least not then. It would have been our little brother, probably, or one of my sons, if I’d had any. But I longed to become immortal. I saw myself fighting alongside my great-great-great-grandfather and all his men, galloping around the continent to solve the problems of our people. Only it was never a possibility for women then. Rainer only made male soldiers.”
Alex took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “Just because you got your wish doesn’t mean you’re glad it happened that way.”
She smiled at him, but she was still blinking away tears.
“Why did Hector agree to become a shade?” Alex asked.
“To avenge our family,” she said simply. “If he had been first into the barn, Father would have turned him and left me to carry on the family line. But I arrived first, and by the time Father realized Hector had also survived, the process was already begun for me.” She rolled her eyes. “And of course, he couldn’t not transmute his last surviving male heir.”
“So you’re the last of your line,” Alex concluded. “And you really are the queen of vampires.”
“Oh, please.” Lindy dabbed at her nose with her sleeve, a very human gesture. “The oldest among us still see it that way, and the younger generations—well, most of them are like that girl Reagan. They yearn for any leadership. But I always thought the shade monarchy, whatever there was of it, died with Rainer.”
“Did Ardo’s men kill him, too?”
“Yes. It took twelve of his best guards, though,” she added, looking a little proud. “In broad daylight.” She shook her head a little. “I can’t believe I’m older now than he ever got to be. It’s such a strange thought.”
“What did you and Hector do after that?”
“We ran away together.” She smiled. “That sounds like the beginning of a children’s story, doesn’t it, as though we joined the circus or something. But we were scared, and neither of us knew who we could trust. And we were brand-new shades. By the time we adjusted to our abilities and returned for revenge, Ardo had long since been killed in a different war.” She shrugged. “So we traveled around. Hector studied science and math, and I learned languages, which was more appropriate for a woman. But we always kept an eye on Hilda’s children and grandchildren—not just Roza. If any of them had a bad harvest, a financial gift would appear on their doorstep. That kind of thing.” She looked out the window. “For a long time, we were content with that life. Then Hector began to have . . . ambitions.”
“He wanted to be king,” Alex guessed.
“More like he believed he was king,” she corrected. “As Rainer’s last male heir, he saw himself as a tragically exiled monarch, and he wanted to return to his throne.”
“What about you?”
“I thought it was bullshit.”
Alex chuckled. “Is that when you two parted ways?”
“More or less. For a long time, I think we both tried not to recognize that we were growing apart. Looking back, I was pretending not to see what Hector was, what he was becoming. At some point, he had stopped seeing humans as anything more than useful and occasionally entertaining cattle.” She rolled her eyes. “And then that damned Abraham Stoker heard some vague rumors and published Dracula, and my brother became downright insufferable. He started to believe in the vampire legends, and began obsessing over the humans’ reproduction rates and their effect on the planet.
“I tried to break away, but he was always finding me, urging me to rule with him. I don’t think he really wanted that—he didn’t want to share power. But he wanted me to see him ruling. By then, mine was the only opinion that mattered to him. Once in a while he would get aggressive about it, and I would remind him who was the better fighter.”
Alex chuckled. “I can totally see that.”
“Then Roza figured out how to shield me from him, and it was like being released from a tether. I owe her a lot.”
“Did Hector at least leave you alone after that?”
Her faced darkened. “No. As more women became world leaders, Hector must have realized that my claim to the so-called vampire throne was equal to his own. It didn’t matter whether or not I wanted it. He couldn’t find me, so he began focusing on making sure I stayed as isolated as possible.”
Alex remembered something she’d said at the Switch Creek police station. Had that really been only the day before? “He killed your fledglings.”
She nodded. “I never had many, but now and then I would grow close to a human and transmu
te them. The last one was in New York, thirty-four years ago. Rhys.” Alex had seen that distant expression on the faces of many FBI agents, including his mother. Lindy was seeing him die again.
“You cared for him,” he stated.
It seemed to snap Lindy out of her reverie. She drew a great, shuddering breath, and turned to Alex. “I loved him,” she said simply. “And that was all Hector needed to decide Rhys had to die.”
Alex understood now why she’d been so hesitant to get the pod involved with Hector. And why Bartell’s death had hurt her so much. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Alex said, hoping to lighten the mood, “but your brother sounds nuts.”
She didn’t laugh. “You’re not wrong. He’s spent hundreds of years thinking I stole his birthright, because I beat him in a horse race when we were nineteen. But being crazy isn’t the same as being harmless.”
The rest of the drive was quiet.
Chapter 13
Apartment just outside Aurora, Illinois
Saturday afternoon
ROZA LIVED IN A basement apartment in a surprisingly large and modern building. Alex watched as Lindy pulled her foldable hat and sunglasses out of her purse and put them on, peering at the road in front of the structure. There weren’t any cars parked on the road, but that didn’t mean much.
“What are the odds that Hector’s in there waiting for us?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Slim to none. He would have attacked Camp Vamp in person, I’m sure of it. He would have wanted them to know he could.” She checked her watch. “That was six hours ago, so I suppose there’s a tiny chance he got right on a plane and got back here, but I truly doubt it.”
Alex nodded, but he still checked his weapon, making sure there was a round in the chamber. It wasn’t going to do much against Hector, but it could hopefully slow him down or surprise him enough for Lindy to attack. “Do you have your blades?” he asked.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Stupid question,” he acknowledged. Lindy had a special back harness for her twin push daggers, and her sundress was more than loose enough to hide it. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Lindy knocked and rang the bell, but when there was no answer she took a firm grip on the doorknob and started to twist hard, preparing to break the jamb. Instead, the knob turned easily in her hand.
That was when Alex suspected Roza was dead. From the grim look on Lindy’s face, she did too.
They stepped inside, and the smell of old blood hit Alex’s nostrils. It was everywhere: splashed on the cream carpeting and walls, dried along the lamps and framed art, congealing in a puddle on the coffee table. It looked like someone had set off a paint grenade filled with blood.
“She fought him,” Lindy said softly. She crouched down near a particularly large puddle, and as Alex stepped sideways he could see that it was vaguely human-shaped. “But she died. Here.”
Alex glanced around, noticing a security camera in the corner, and another pointing at the hallway. “Where’s the body?”
Lindy stood up. “He would have taken it. Even Hector wouldn’t leave a shade body around to be dissected.”
Alex looked carefully at the bloodstain on the lamp. “I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes,” he said. “This happened a while ago. A week, maybe?”
“Closer to ten days.”
“How do you know?” he asked, again without thinking.
Because that’s what the blood is telling me, she answered in his head.
Right.
“There are security cameras,” he pointed out. “There’s footage of this somewhere.”
She shook her head. “I would bet every penny in my considerable portfolio that he took it along. Come on.”
Alex followed Lindy down the short hallway to a large back bedroom, which had been converted into a sort of clinic room, with a hospital bed, IV stands, a wastebasket, and several tables of equipment. A cheap disposable phone sat in the middle of the bed, but Lindy ignored it and went to look inside the wastebasket.
Just then, the phone let out an old-fashioned, pealing ring that made Alex jump. The screen said “BLOCKED NUMBER.” “It’s him,” Lindy said with dull certainty.
Alex would love to trace the call, but how? Palmer might have given him a pass, but that didn’t mean Alex had actual resources at his disposal right now.
Before he could decide, Lindy answered the phone on speaker.
“You didn’t have to kill her,” she said by way of hello.
Hector didn’t miss a beat. “No, I didn’t,” he said smoothly. “But I had no reason not to, either.”
Now Lindy looked angry. “You petulant child,” Lindy said, her voice like a hiss of pressurized air. “She did nothing to you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hector replied. “She performed the same treatment on me that she has on you—with some of my people watching over her, of course. So you get what you want, Sieglinde. I’m out of your head. At least . . . in a literal sense.” He chuckled. “Am I getting to you, sister?”
“Where are you?” Lindy demanded. She turned around in the room, as though he might somehow be hiding in a corner. “Still in Washington?”
“Now, why would I tell you that?”
“Because isn’t that what you want?” she retorted. “You can’t win the game if I don’t show up to play.”
“I’ve already won,” he snapped. “You see what the humans are doing today? They’re protesting us in the streets, Sieglinde. They are finally awake. And finally afraid.”
“So, what, now you step forward and claim responsibility? They’ll throw you right back into Camp Vamp.”
“Responsibility? For what?” Hector sounded injured. “Aside from the consumption of human blood, which I admit to, I’ve committed no crimes.”
“Bullshit.” Her voice had risen.
“Oh, Lindy,” Hector said in a pitying tone. “Don’t get hysterical. I’m calling to make a deal.”
“What deal?”
“Run away.” His voice was light now, soothing. “Run away from Chicago, from your little BPI friends. You can try to find me, if that’s really what you want, or you can disappear again. Off to play with your languages and your kitty cat.”
Lindy didn’t immediately respond, so Hector pushed on, sounding a little annoyed. “If you leave Chicago, I promise you, I won’t come there. I won’t kill Alex McKenna, Jill Hadley, Gabriel Ruiz, and my little buddy Chase. You’ve already destroyed their careers, little sister. Why not leave them their lives? Especially yours, Agent McKenna,” he added.
Alex turned around and saw the camera above the doorway. Lindy followed his gaze, and her scowl deepened.
“Don’t grind your teeth, Sieglinde,” Hector said. “Good to see you again, Alex. That scar is really healing nicely.”
Alex smiled at the camera and then raised his middle finger. Don’t antagonize him, Lindy thought at him, but she was practically radiating anger.
“Has she slept with you yet, Alex?” Hector asked conversationally.
Alex tried to keep his face neutral, but he must have given something away. Hector laughed. “Oh, good for you! My sister can be a bit of a slut. I’m so happy you got to enjoy the spoils before you die.”
Alex was about to respond—something childish—but Lindy picked up the cell phone first. Alex expected her to yell, but instead she said in a remarkably dry voice, “Hey, Hector? You’re boring.”
She hung up the phone, and Alex followed her out of the room.
* * *
When they were back in Noelle’s Prius, Alex just sat for a minute without starting it. “That will piss him off, right?”
She smiled. “Oh, yeah. Hector does not like people hanging up on him.”
“Good.” He eyed her for a moment. “You’re not going to run, are you?”
“I’m tempted,” she admitted. “Not to hide, but to go face him head-on.”
“It’s not just that, though, is it? You want to keep u
s—the pod—out of it.”
“Yes.” She looked away, out her window. “What’s left of you.”
“Bartell wasn’t your fault,” Alex insisted. “And what happened to not playing into Hector’s hand?”
She sighed. “I know.” She leaned her head against the seat so she could look at him. “Let me ask you something,” she said. “Say we do get Hector. I’d prefer to have him sent to Camp Vamp, but I accept that we may need to kill him. After that, though . . . what happens then?”
“Do you mean, like . . . us?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean. Yes, I’m curious about our relationship, if we still have one—”
“If we still have one?” he echoed. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Because you”—she lifted a hand to touch his cheek—“are a federal agent. And I am currently a federal fugitive. We’re like a bad prime-time drama.”
“If it’s any consolation,” he offered, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be fired.”
She shook her head. “You’ll get your job back. Or they’ll put you in the mail room at the FBI, and you’ll work your way back.” She hesitated for a second, then added, “I read the ‘Legacy Agent’ article.”
“Before or after you slept with me?” he said instantly. He was mostly kidding.
She laughed. “What I mean is, they’ll take you back. It’s who you are. But where does that leave me? How do you see this going?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I wish I did. But I really like you.”
She made a gentle scoffing sound. “Okay, fine,” Alex said, grinning. “That came out a little high school.”
“A little?” Lindy smiled back, but she still looked troubled. He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Hector. He’s always been better at strategy than me. Our father used to say that Hector thinks in layers. I don’t know how to find him, much less how to beat him. And we’re running out of time.”
“I think if we can figure out the right draw, we might be able to get Hector to come to us,” Alex said. “But is that really what’s bothering you?”
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