I hadn't said we suspected someone inside the Cabal. No one had said that. When I looked at Bryce's face, tight with worry, eyes fixed a half-inch to the right of mine, I saw guilt.
He did it.
No, not Bryce.
Why not Bryce? Because you don't want it to be him?
I remembered Davis saying the job had clearly been the work of an amateur. Someone young, with a high position at the Cabal, who could get the access to pull off the job, but didn't have the experience to do it right. Someone who might know Sean's password with the Dahls.
I thought of all the times Sean had confided in me about Bryce.
He's so angry, Savannah. Not just at you. At everything and everyone. With me, he just hides it better. But there's so much anger and resentment. He's not cut out for legal work and he hates it. He tries so hard to find his place at the Cabal, and then he looks over and sees me breezing through and he loves me, but in a way, he hates me, too.
If Giles and his group wanted a high-level Cabal recruit, one with plenty of frustrated ambition, they wouldn't have to look any further than Bryce.
“Savannah?”
“I don't know what Lucas has, if anything. He just asked me to come here and check out your bodyguard's apartment.”
“You didn't ask what he had?”
“I'm a junior investigator. Hell, two weeks ago I was just the receptionist. No one tells me anythingâ”
“But they could.”
Don't ask me, Bryce. Please don't ask me.
“You could find out what he's got, right?” He smiled, struggling to make nice, as painful as it was. “Give your brother a chance to defend himself.”
That was the first time he'd ever acknowledged any relationship. He was playing me. And it hurt. It hurt so much because I wanted it so bad.
“He won't tell me,” I said. “But whatever it is, we're still in the early stages of an investigation, and we're a lot more interested in getting Larsen back than punishing his kidnapper. If he was just, you know,
returned
, that would be the end of it. Lucas would stop investigating and we'd turn our attention back to this group and forget all about the kidnapping.”
Any doubts about his involvement vanished when I saw the look in his eyes. It wasn't the look of a guy who'd inherited our grandfather's merciless brutality or even our father's ruthlessness. It was the look of a kid who'd gotten in way over his head, trying to be something he wasn't, something he thought others expected. It was a look of terror and regret and a desperate plea for help. And it vanished in a blink.
“Are you suggesting I
did
have something to do with this?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I'm just saying . . . you know . . . if anyone else here knows who did it, even if he wasn't involved, maybe he could pass along a message.”
I shot a not-so-discreet look at Salas. Bryce studied me, and in that unexpectedly piercing look, I saw a flash of our father.
“It's not too late,” I said. “This can be fixed.”
Hope flickered in his face, but it didn't last. He'd made a mistake and he wanted an exit strategy, but he didn't trust me to provide one. He didn't believe it was that easy to fix this. He could tell I didn't believe it either.
“I'm not going to complain to the Cabal about this break-in,” he said. “But I'd ask you to pass along a message to Lucas. Now that he's working for his father, he can't do things like this and claim impartiality. He should think very, very hard before he decides to investigate a member of another Cabal family.” He looked at Salas. “Let's go. I'm sure Savannah will lock up when she leaves.”
He was going to run. I could tell by the way his hands trembled as he fussed with his jacket. He was going to run, and he was testing to see if I'd let him leave.
If I thought he was guilty and I thought he was going to bolt, then I should stop him. Had it been anyone else, I would have. I wanted to. But I just stood there, dumbly, watching him.
He made it as far as the door, then looked back. “Savannah . . .”
“I can fix it,” I said. “I really can.”
A wistful smile. A lost little boy smile. Then he hitched up his jacket and said, “There's nothing to fix,” and opened the door.
He took one step and bumped into Cassandra. She stared up at Bryce, then over at Salas, then at me.
“Everything's fine,” I said.
Salas closed the door and their footsteps echoed down the hall.
“Good thing I decided to check up on you,” she said. “They didn't come through the parking lot. I believe I suggested that wasn't the best place for me.”
“I know. I was wrong.”
“Yes, well, if everything's fine, thenâ” She peered at me. “It's not fine, is it? What happened?”
“It's Bryce,” I said. “He took Larsen and the Dahls.”
“What? Did you findâ?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I didn't find anything and he didn't say anything, but I could tell. He was behind the kidnapping, and I can't let him leave or he'll run.”
I reached for the door handle, but it was like moving in slow motion, the door a million miles away, the knob refusing to turn.
Cassandra grasped my hand. “They're gone, Savannah. And even if they aren't, you can't stop him. We can't stop him. Not with that brute of a bodyguard. And not when you don't have proof. Call Lucas and tell him what happened. If Bryce is innocent, then he'll head back to the Cabal and this can all be sorted. And if he runs . . . ?” Her hand wrapped around my arm. “Then he runs, and you did the best you could.”
But, I hadn't. And we both knew it.
thirty
I
told Lucas my suspicions. He didn't ask why I'd let Bryce go, just told me to get out of the apartment and he'd meet up with me later.
“You can hang up now,” Cassandra said. “I believe Lucas disconnected at least a minute ago.”
“Oh, right. I was justâ”
“In need of tea. And fresh air.”
“What?”
She put a hand against my back and propelled me to the door. “I noticed a park nearby and I'm sure there's a coffee shop on the corner. There always is out here. A tea. A park bench. A story. That's what you need.”
“A story?”
“About this Giles man. You do want to hear about him, don't you?”
“In other words, I look like I need a distraction.”
“Desperately.”
She opened the apartment door and ushered me out.
Â
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I'm a coffee drinker. Tea is much too sedate for me, unless I'm stressed out, and Paige decides “sedate” is exactly what the doctor ordered. I'm sure Cassandra has been around when Paige has made me tea, and as usual, she'd been paying attention. She bought me a chamomile tea and a slice of lemon coffee cake, settled me on a secluded park bench, and gave me a story.
“His real name is Gilles de Rais,” she began. Then she studied my face. “You don't recognize the name?”
“Should I?”
“Do you know the legend of Elizabeth Báthory?”
“Sure. She's one of the sources for Dracula. Killed hundreds of peasants and bathed in their blood, thinking it would keep her eternally young. She was tried, convicted, and walled up. That's the human legend. The supernatural one says that she was a vampire. Also an immortalityâ”
I stopped. “It was rumored that she wasn't satisfied with a vampire's semi-immortality. She was conducting experiments to extend that. In other words, she was an immortality quester. There's a connection, isn't there? To Anita Barrington.”
“Perhaps. What else do you know?”
“That her fellow vampires condemned her for killing so many people, and they're the ones who walled her up, then created the story of her death. The legend is that she'd found the cure for mortality, meaning she's still walled up today. Only no one knows where, because every vampire who put her there has passed on. So who's Gilles de Rais? A follower of Báthory?”
“The other way around,” Cassandra said. “De Rais predates Báthory by nearly a century. He was a French knight who fought with Joan of Arc. Legend says he killed hundreds of children. While some claimed it was occult sacrifice on behalf of a demon, trial records indicate he was closer to a modern serial killer, murdering children for sexual pleasure.”
I thought of the man I'd met, remembered talking to him, listening to him orate, admiring his skill. I felt sick.
“That's the human story,” Cassandra continued. “As with the Báthory legend, there's another one for supernaturals.”
“Claiming he was an immortality quester, I bet.”
“A successful one. Records show that he was hanged for his crimes. Our stories say that he survived.”
“And ours are right?”
“No one knows,” Cassandra said. “Some say he assisted Báthory in her crimes, and helped her achieve immortality. Others said she was simply following his example, that she'd procured notes from his estate. For the past four hundred years, supernaturals have claimed to see Gilles de Rais alive. Claimed to have spoken to him. Claimed to have collaborated with him. While there are many reports, none can be substantiated.”
“But you've met him, right? You recognized him in the photo.”
“I have met the man in the photograph,” she said carefully. “He called himself Gilles de Rais. I was skeptical then. I still am. But whether he is de Rais or has merely claimed his identity, I can't say. The point is moot. What matters is that whoever this man is, he hasn't aged since I met him over sixty years ago. He was not a vampire then and, if you are correct, he is not a vampire now.”
“Which means de Rais or not, he's discovered the cure for mortality.”
“It would appear so.”
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Cassandra had met Giles during the Second World War, investigating a story about vanished soldiers. I vaguely recalled reading it in the council archives. A small group of American soldiers had been on the move through occupied France right at the end of the war. Ten went to sleep in a barn one night. When one awoke the next morning, he was alone, and found no trace of his comrades, except smears of blood in the hay.
When questioned, the soldier admitted that he hadn't been in the barn all night. See, the farmer had this daughter and, well, we all know how that goes. He'd snuck off to meet her. She'd brought a bottle of wine, and when he stumbled back into the barn, he was exhausted, happy, and drunk. He'd set up his kit near the door, so he could sneak in and out, and had fallen asleep without noticing whether anyone else was there.
Presumably, then, people came while he was gone, killed the soldiers, and dragged them away. As unlikely as it seemed, if that had been the end of the story, it would have been the only conclusion. But it wasn't the end.
For months afterward, local farmers complained of cattle killed and drained of blood. Then came the forest sightings of men in tattered American uniforms, gaunt and hollow-eyed. In most accounts, the soldiers ran as soon as they were spotted. In a few, though, they attacked. Some witnesses managed to fend them off. Others woke hours later on the forest floor, weak, with puncture wounds on their necks. Some never woke, and were found drained of blood, just like the cattle.
Word made it to the American council. The war had ended, but their European counterpart was still in shambles and no one could reach them for comment. So because the soldiers were American, the council sent Cassandra to investigate.
“I didn't want to go,” she said. “A recently occupied war zone? Do I look like a Green Beret? And the story was just as ridiculous. If those dead men were anything, they were clearly zombies, and the blood-draining a separate incident. If the council felt the need to send anyone, it should be a necromancer. But, no, I know the language and I'd made the mistake of admitting I was familiar with the region, so they chose me.”
The council had offered to send another delegate to accompany Cassandra, but she'd refused. She was French, invulnerable to bullets, and able to knock out attackers with her bite. The gravest danger she'd face was having to forgo hot baths and clean clothes.
So off she went.
“Despite my misgivings, I soon came to believe we did indeed have a vampire. I found two living victims and both had healed bite wounds on their necks. Both had been in the forest. Both had seen a man in an American uniform. Having heard the rumors, they ran. The soldier gave chase and brought them down. He bit their necks. They struggled. Eventually, they weakened and passed out.”
“Sounds similar to a vampire attack, but it's not quite right,” I said.
“Exactly. Which is what troubled me about both accounts. The vampire's saliva should have induced a quick lack of consciousness and mild retrograde amnesia.”
That meant they'd pass out fast, and wake up forgetting the attack.
She continued. “That didn't happen here. Moreover, what they described sounded more like a zombie than a vampire. The soldiers were dressed in filthy and ragged uniforms. Their skin was gray and they smelled of decomposing flesh.”
“Maybe an earlier evolutionary form of vampires,” I said. “Like those Shifters the werewolves found in Alaska. There could be a pocket of early vampires in that region, and they infected the soldiers. That would explain human legends about vampirism being transmitted by a bite. Plus, if they really are rotting, it would explain why outside supernaturals didn't know about them. Instead of being semi-immortal, they actually rot and die fast.”