She felt the now-familiar stirrings of bloodlust in his presence, but his shy smile invoked a different reaction as well, one that went deeper than the impulse to drink his blood. “It’s not even morning yet,” she said as she stuffed her files into her book bag. She realized that her heart hurt a little, knowing that after today she would probably never see him again. Once she found Stuart, and she was certain she would, her assignment would be complete and she would leave the country.
It was a pity, since she felt something for Paul, a queasy mixture of desire and affection that she could not figure out. And it scared her because her life until now had been about order and discipline. Her feelings for him were a distraction. They would only cloud her judgment, if they hadn’t already. The best Venators were unencumbered by emotion, and Deming strove to be the best.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I’m used to it. What brings you here so early?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep,” she told him.
“Maybe we can catch up later? When we’re both awake?”
She was about to shake her head when it occurred to her that maybe instead of running away from her feelings she should see where this was going so she could completely shut it down. “I’d like that. How about this time tomorrow? A sunrise breakfast?”
Paul gave her a dazzling smile that made Deming momentarily forget she had asked him to meet her only so she could crush any romantic ideas he might harbor about the two of them.
Only when he left did she realize she had forgotten to ask him about what he’d told her about Victoria, Bryce, and Piper. She wanted to know where he had heard that piece of false information.
* * *
The House of Records was located in the midtown headquarters, in a restricted section of the Repository. The clerk stared balefully at the black-clad Venator as he handed over a yellowing stack of paper. “Regent sign the warrant?”
“I have it right here,” Deming said, handing over the certificate with Mimi’s flowery signature. The Regent had agreed to open the file just for this instance.
“Privileged information, this is. Not just anything everyone should know,” the walleyed clerk grumbled.
“I understand that. That’s why I have a warrant,” Deming said patiently.
“Take the fourth cubicle.”
“Thank you.”
Deming settled into her desk and began to page through the cycle birth records for Victoria Taylor and Stuart Rhodes. Looking into an immortal’s past cycles was verboten in the Coven. The Code of the Vampires decreed that each vampire come into the knowledge of past lifetimes on their own, through the Blood Manifest—not through looking up files and records in a library. Lawrence Van Alen had been instrumental in preaching that identities came from within—that even if you had lived an immortal life, recorded diligently by scribes since the dawn of time, it was still your duty to discover your destiny on your own rather than have your past handed to you on typewritten sheets.
STUART RHODES
Birth Name: Hollis Stuart Cobden Rhodes
Known Past Lives: Piero d’Argento (Florence)
VICTORIA TAYLOR
Birth Name: Victoria Alexandra Forbes Taylor
Known Past Lives: Stefana Granacci (Florence)
That was interesting. Both Victoria Taylor and Stuart Rhodes were last in cycle in the same place and during the same time period. So even if they did not know each other in the present, there was a distinct possibility they had known each other in the past. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
In any event, once she was in the glom she would find Stuart, apprehend his abductors, and she would finally have her answers.
Deming left the Repository, her head bowed low. The Lennox boys were meeting her back at Venator headquarters in an hour, and she would have a little time to get herself ready before they arrived. She went through a checklist in her head; she would have to remember to wear something warm. The last time she had woken up from the procedure, she had been shaking with cold.
She would call her twin. She wanted to hear Dehua’s voice, and not just in the glom. Just another superstition, like the green turtle she held in her hand. Other than that, there was nothing else; she was ready to walk into the valley of the shadow.
As she waited for the light to change, she recognized a car parked across the street. It was the same one that had taken her home Saturday evening. Paul was at the wheel. She was about to wave to him when she saw he wasn’t alone. There was a girl with him.
There was something familiar about the girl getting out of the car.
Then Deming realized.
She was Victoria Taylor.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Confessions
For a moment Deming was too stunned to move, but recovered quickly so that in a flash she was not only in Paul’s car, she had a hand on the wheel. “Pull over,” she demanded.
Paul jumped. He looked terrified to see her appear out of nowhere. “How did you—?” he asked, barely missing hitting a speeding taxicab. Deming turned the wheel toward the curb, and the car came to a crashing stop.
“That girl you were with. Who was she?” Deming did not have time for any more lies and nonsense. She wanted to get to the bottom of this. Now. She’d had a choice between following the girl and confronting Paul, and she chose to hear the truth from him.
“What girl?”
“The girl who got out of your car back there. Victoria Taylor.” It was Victoria, she was sure. Deming had studied her photograph numerous times and had memorized the girl’s face. She would know Victoria anywhere.
Paul scoffed. “Victoria? Isn’t she in like, Switzerland or something?”
“You’re lying. You’ve been lying since the beginning,” she said softly. She didn’t need to interrogate him to know. “That whole thing with Piper and Bryce and Victoria was a huge lie.”
Paul slumped against the wheel. “Okay, fine, I lied about that. But if you want me to tell the truth, you’ll have to do the same.”
Deming raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”
“I know what you are. You don’t have to keep your secret from me. I know you’re one of them.”
“One of who?”
He looked into her eyes. “I know the Committee’s just a cover. That there are people in this world who don’t die, who keep coming back every hundred years.”
“You’re insane. I have no idea what you are talking about.” My God, had they been this sloppy? How was it that he knew their secrets? Talk about a security breach. Paul was neither a Conduit nor a familiar. How did he know?
Paul cleared his throat and looked out the window, and answered as if he had heard her question. “I’ve been a student at Duchesne for a couple of years now. I’ve seen things. I’ve heard things. Guys like Bryce Cutting are pretty careless. I know most of the kids at school are blind, but I’m not. I know what you are. And it’s okay.”
Deming shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said evenly. “What I do want to talk about is why Victoria Taylor was in your car just now.”
“It’s a stalemate then,” Paul said amiably. “You want me to tell you the truth, but then you won’t give me the courtesy of doing the same.”
Suddenly, Deming remembered the words from the video. Vampires are real. Open your eyes. They are all around us. Do not believe the lies they tell.
Then Paul’s words: People who don’t know I exist. It’s demeaning. She had dismissed his attitude as the usual resentment against the popular crowd, but it was more than that. He had a key to the school, and Victoria had been hidden in the attic. Then with a start she realized two things had been bothering since she’d learned of Stuart Rhodes’s kidnapping. One, that at Rufus’s party, Stuart had been standing next to Paul Rayburn. They were friends. Two, that it was a tasting party. The only humans invited were familiars and those who were about to become familiars. And yet Paul Rayburn had left the party unchosen. No bite marks. That
was not supposed to happen. Committee rules forbade such a thing. Paul had seen too much—he should have been marked.
Deming had another epiphany. Jamie Kip’s party was closed as well—only vampires and Conduits, familiars or about-to-be-familiars. Evan Howe had entered the party an ordinary boy and had left as Victoria Taylor’s familiar. Deming would bet that Paul Rayburn had been at Jamie Kip’s party—who knows how many parties—and had left unchanged. Unclaimed. Here was a human who did not feel any loyalty to the vampires, and yet was privy to their secrets.
Then she saw it as she looked into his bright blue eyes—the memory that had eluded her so far. The night of Jamie’s party, Victoria was arguing with Piper, and had stormed off. She had made it as far as the hallway, when Paul had come out of the shadows and placed a black bag over her head and dragged her back inside. He had waited until the changing of the Wardens at dawn to slip away with his hostage. That way no one had seen them. No records. No eyewitnesses.
Deming felt a sense of horror at her discovery. Paul meant something to her. When she’d bumped into him that morning she knew it was more than just bloodlust. She’d felt something for him she hadn’t before, in centuries of being alive. Attraction. Affection. Respect. Admiration. Love? Maybe. It could have been. But now they would never know.
“Why, Paul?” Deming asked.
He smiled. “I’d suspected there was something going on for a long time, but I wanted to know for sure. Especially when my pal Stuart was tapped to be part of this ‘Committee’ and I wasn’t. It didn’t make sense that he would get in and I wouldn’t. So one afternoon I hid in the library during one of their meetings and I saw and heard everything. I confronted Stuart—told him I knew, that I shot some video too, and I was going to put it up on the Internet, show everyone the truth.
“The whole world should know what you guys are. You run the place and no one even knows. It’s not fair. You’re not gods.”
“No, we aren’t,” Deming agreed softly, thinking of that ancient battle in Heaven. “We aren’t gods.” They had certainly learned that the hard way.
“Why are you looking at me that way? You think I did something wrong? No way. It was all Victoria’s idea to play hostage. Do you even think a human could overcome a vampire? Be serious. Anyway, I told Stuart what I was going to do, and he told her. She came to me and asked me not to post the video yet. She had something better in mind. She said that she and Stuart were in love, and they wanted to leave the Coven because they weren’t allowed to be together.
“They were ‘bonded’ to other people. But if these other people found out, Stuart and Victoria would burn. They were scared of the—what do you guys call her—the Regent? They talked about Jack Force—about how what was planned for him would happen to them if anyone found out. So Victoria came up with this hostage thing. She said if we could make it seem like they’d died, no one would ever come looking for them. She said she knew how to fool even the Venators.
“She gave me detailed instructions. She was really concerned about timing. She said they were being watched all the time.”
Deming nodded. How would Paul have known about the Wardens otherwise? She hadn’t paid much attention to his affectus before, when he’d told her that fanciful tale about Victoria and Piper, but she was paying attention now. Everything she was reading indicated that he was telling the truth.
“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me. I heard about you. Stuart told me. His dad is on the Conclave. You’re some kind of super-vampire sleuth or something.”
“What else did Stuart tell you?”
“That Victoria’s waiting for him. See, she’s been in the city the entire time. They’re leaving for the European Coven. By tomorrow everyone would believe Stuart was dead, and they were free to go.”
So if everything he was telling her was true, and his affectus seemed to prove it, plus the fact that Victoria, a vampire, could never have been subdued by a human against her will, then it was all a prank—a silly prank made by vampires who were in love with the wrong people and wanted to leave the Coven, and a human boy who wanted in on a big secret. Maybe the biggest secret of all.
“Listen, I know what you’re thinking: you want to wipe my memory or something, right? Stuart and Victoria wanted to as well, but I managed to talk them out of it. Please don’t.”
Deming fiddled with the chopsticks in her hair. “No, a memory wipe won’t take care of it. You know too much. If I did it, you could have . . . brain damage.”
Paul glanced at the locked car door. “Then you’re going to do the other thing. But maybe there’s another way. I don’t want that. Maybe I can be one of those human . . . what do you call it . . . Conduits or something.”
“Conduits are born, not made. It’s not an open position. The Coven would never allow it. I’m sorry. There’s only one way.” She knew what she had to do. Something that should have been done by someone a long time ago. Maybe that’s why she had been so attracted to him, because she knew in the end, she would have to do this.
“Don’t,” Paul said, holding her hand. “Don’t make me lesser than you. Treat me as an equal, as you have been. I’m just human, but it’s our blood that keeps you alive. Without us, you are nothing.”
He put a soft hand to her cheek. “Meet me on my own terms. Share yourself with me as a person. I know about the Sacred Kiss. I know what it does. What it will do to me.”
His affectus pulsated with the blue of the open sea and of the endless sky. Blue was the color of truth. He loved her. That was why she’d felt her stomach churn when she’d seen Victoria Taylor in his car. She had trusted him and he had lied to her. But he had only lied to protect his friends. He was so heartbreakingly lovely, she could weep. Deming touched his neck and whispered, “I love you too.”
THIRTY-NINE
Puppetmaster
Just as Paul had said, it was all a big fake. That evening the Venator team swarmed his small bedroom. Sam was searching the glom memory while Ted and a tech aide worked on the computer.
“Take a look,” Ted called, pointing to the screen.
Deming leaned over and read the e-mail. It was from Victoria Taylor.
Paul, Thank you for everything. The European Coven has agreed to take us. I cannot wait until Stuart and I are together again. You are a true friend. —Victoria
Everything had been staged as meticulously as a small theatrical production. Victoria had procured a corpse from the morgue. That was the body of the girl who had burned in Newport. There were dozens and dozens of e-mails from Stuart and Victoria. They had planned to leave the country the day of Stuart’s alleged burning. The whole thing was a hoax, an escape plan hidden within a conspiracy threat.
Luckily, it had all worked out for the best. No vampires had been harmed. Everyone thought Suck was a movie. The Red Bloods were still in the dark.
“You guys picking up Victoria and Stuart?” Deming asked.
“According to this they’re meeting at JFK in an hour. We’ll be there,” replied Ted.
“The attic?”
“Checked out. His fingerprints were all over the computer, and fibers from the trunk of the car matched Stuart’s DNA.”
Deming realized Stuart had likely been in the trunk the night they had left Rufus King’s party. So that was why Paul had looked so nervous when she’d asked him for a ride.
Sam Lennox returned from the glom. “Nothing here but boredom and loneliness,” he said. “No sign of any violence or agitation. Looks like the kid was telling the truth.”
It was just as she’d thought. Deming nibbled on her cuticles. Unlike the pretty story Paul had told her about Piper, in this one, everything had been as he’d described.
Deming felt relieved. She had gotten to the truth this time. Or had she? A nagging doubt remained. Everything fit too well, too simply . . . whether it was because it was the truth or because Paul had prepared another elaborate lie, she just wasn’t sure. She had to cover all her bases.
&nbs
p; “It’s too easy,” she muttered.
“What are you thinking?” Sam asked.
“Look, you guys kept those ashes from that burning, right? Have the bloodline checked. Just confirm that it wasn’t Victoria.”
“Done.” Ted nodded and called into the Venator team back at the Repository to order the test.
“Keep a team on Rayburn,” Deming ordered. “He’ll be waking up soon enough. Then when you guys are done here, meet me back at Bleecker. I want to take another look at those masking spells. Make sure everything checks out.”
FORTY
DeathWalk
Then the Lennox brothers met Deming back at Venator quarters, one look at their drawn faces told her all she had to know. Sam sunk into the nearest battered armchair. “You were right. The bloodline is unmistakable. Victoria Taylor is dead. She’s been dead for weeks.”
“And we checked the bond records,” Ted added. “Victoria didn’t have a bondmate in this cycle. Stuart didn’t either. They were free agents. At least in this lifetime. But in any event, they weren’t together, and they never were. It was all a lie. All the e-mails were faked.”
Deming kept her calm, but her hands were shaking. “Stuart Rhodes?”
Sam shook his head. “The only thing we found at the airport terminal was an urn with remains. The lab’s going through it now, but I have a hunch it’s Stuart. Looks like the body’s been dead for three days. The video was a lie. There was no saving him from the beginning.”
“Where’s Paul?” she asked.
If it were possible to look more desolate, Ted Lennox managed it. “The team lost him a few hours ago. He slipped away; they don’t know how. Look, whoever or whatever this guy is, he’s dangerous. He’s not one of us, and he’s killed two vampires already. He’s able to conjure a doppelgänger. That’s real dark magic right there.” The Venators had found no trace of the girl in Paul’s car in the glom memory, which meant she had never existed.