Overbite (14 page)

“Holtzman.” Alaric stood in the hallway outside the exhibition, the phone pressed to his ear. Between the static, the faint connection, and the frantic tone in his boss’s voice, he could barely hear a word he was saying. “Where are you?”

More static. Then, “ . . . Jersey. You were right. You were right about everything. We found the bodies. And it’s worse than you could ever imag—” More static.

Alaric, thrilled as he was to have his boss tell him he’d been right about something, was more concerned about his well-being, and that of the rest of the team.

“Abraham, can you hear me?
Where
in New Jersey are you?” Alaric asked desperately. “We’ve got people there looking for you now. For some reason we can’t pick up your GPS locators. Abraham? Are you—”

“Oh no,” Holtzman said, coming in loud and clear all of a sudden. “Of course you can’t. That would be on account of—”

And then the static grew so thick, it turned into a whine that seemed nearly to pierce Alaric’s eardrum.

Then the line went dead.

“Abraham,” Alaric cried into the phone. “Abraham?”

But it was no good. He was gone.

Alaric quickly dialed headquarters. Amazingly, though he let it ring ten times, no one picked up.

Unbelievable. He understood that everyone was out looking for his boss—or attending this function. But at the very least someone ought to have been manning the computers. What was happening to his workplace?

He hung up and redialed, this time the IT department in the main office in Rome. It was staffed round the clock, so even though day was just dawning there, he knew someone would pick up.

“What do you want, Wulf?” a woman’s voice asked him crankily in Italian.

“The GPS location of Abraham Holtzman’s cell phone in America,” Alaric said.

“It’s gone.” He recognized the voice as belonging to Johanna, a brilliant computer tech who’d helped him on previous cases, sometimes against the wishes of her superiors. But she rarely left the office, which could make her moody at times. “The satellite can’t find it. And you know all your cell phones are equipped with indestructible state-of-the-art ultrathin real-time GPS trackers with motion sensors that give ten-second updates on your locations that are accurate by up to seven inches. So if the satellite can’t find Abraham, that can only mean one thing.” Then, seeming to remember Abraham was not only Alaric’s boss, but also his friend, she added, “Sorry, Wulf.”

“The satellite is wrong,” Alaric said, trying to keep his voice calm. There was no use taking out his frustrations on blameless Johanna. “Because Holtzman called me from his cell phone not one minute ago. The connection was terrible, but he said he’s still in New Jersey—”

“What?”
Johanna sounded much more awake. Also alarmed. And angry. “But that’s not possible. The data I’m getting from the satellite is telling me there’s no sign whatsoever of—”

“I don’t care what the data you’re getting from the satellite is telling you,” Alaric interrupted. “I’m telling you I just got a call from Abraham. So find out where it came from, pinpoint a location for Holtzman and the rest of his team, then notify the search party in New Jersey of their whereabouts and get them out of there. Do you understand me?”

He could actually hear Johanna typing. “Absolutely. It may take me a few minutes, but—”

“Whatever it takes. And be sure to call me, too, as soon as you have any information whatsoever.”

“Of course,” Johanna said. “Alaric?”

“What?”

“What is
going on
over there?” she whispered. “Is it . . . you know.
Him?
The dark prince?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But as soon as I find out, I’ll let you know.”

Alaric hung up.

What had Holtzman meant, that they’d found the bodies? And that it was more horrible than Alaric could imagine?

Alaric could imagine quite a bit.

What he could
not
imagine was that the organization he worked for would ever have its priorities so misplaced that it would send all its most skilled employees to a cocktail party, while others were obviously still alive—and apparently in some danger—in the field . . .

And then failed to have anyone manning the desks at its local headquarters while the search for them was under way.

Fuming, he went back into the art gallery, scanning it for any sign of someone—anyone—in some position of power at the Palatine.

Instead, all he saw was Genevieve Fox coming back toward him, steered by Father Henrique. A photographer followed in their wake.

“Come,” Father Henrique was saying. “Miss Genevieve, I want you to meet my old friend Alaric Wulf. He knew me from my very early days in Rio. And now he lives in New York City.”

Jesus Christ,
Alaric thought.
Not now.
But he could see no way to escape without seeming rude. Besides, there was no one else in the room whom he recognized, aside from the archbishop.

“Well, Alaric Wulf,” Genevieve purred, snaking out a well-manicured hand. The gold bangles draping her wrist jangled. She smelled of expensive perfume. “How is it that we’ve never met before?”

“I don’t know,” Alaric said. Her fingers felt like tiny twigs. Only they were alive.

“And what do you do?” Genevieve asked.

“Security,” Alaric said. He looked over one of her bare, bony shoulders and saw Sister Gertrude emerge from the ladies’ room. She met his gaze, gave him a wink, and waved, indicating that Meena was still inside, and all right. So, that was fine. He would give her another few minutes to compose herself. She was hardly likely to be attacked by Lucien Antonescu—if he was anywhere around—in the ladies’ room.

And Sister Gertrude was always fully armed, anyway.

“Security,” Genevieve purred. “You know, I could use some security.”

“Yes,” Alaric said, turning his gaze back toward her appraisingly. “I’m sure you could.”

Genevieve threw back her head and laughed. “You’re naughty.”

“No,” Alaric said. “I am not. Not tonight.” Naughty was the last thing he was feeling. Angry, maybe. Frustrated, definitely. Perhaps even vengeful.

But not naughty.

Genevieve stopped laughing.

“Well,” she said, “aren’t you a party pooper.”

“I thought you were a serious reporter,” he said. His mind had begun to work furiously. Television. Journalist. Missing people. “Not a party girl.”

“I guess you’ll never know,” Genevieve said, with a wink. “Will you?” She looked at her photographer. “Come on, Manny. Let’s get this over with.”

Then she stepped between Alaric and Father Henrique, immediately assuming a model stance, putting on a dazzling smile for the camera, and sucking in her stomach. He didn’t know why such a slender woman would feel it necessary to make her already flat stomach look even flatter.

But then, her job was to look good on television.

Where she reported the news.

“Say ‘cheese,’ boys,” she said. “This one is going onto the website.”

Flashes started going off. Alaric was blinded, but Genevieve and Father Henrique seemed unaffected, perhaps because they posed for photos so often.

“Please e-mail me one,” Father Henrique said. “Alaric Wulf and I are old friends. I would very much like a picture to remember this night.”

“Certainly,” Genevieve said, releasing them both. “Manny, get the priest’s info.” She looked up at Alaric. “What about you? Would you very much like to remember this night?”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

She smiled and tucked her business card into the front pocket of his tuxedo. “Anything I can do to change your mind about that?”

He thought about Holtzman’s phone call. He had never heard such panic before in his boss’s voice, and they’d been in some pretty tight spots in the past.

You were right,
Holtzman had said.
You were right about everything. And it’s worse than you could ever imagine
.

“Actually,” Alaric said to Genevieve. “I think maybe there is something you can do.”

“Well,” she said, with a smile. “Looks like we both might find something to remember about this night after all.”

Chapter Nineteen

M
eena rested her forehead against the side of the toilet stall. The metal felt cool against her skin. She no longer felt like crying.

But she didn’t want to leave the stall. If she did, it would mean she’d have to go back out into that crowd of people, and she really didn’t want to do that. She still couldn’t figure out why she had been invited to this event, except as the Palatine’s pet freak. Why would she be on the guest list to what she’d heard Genevieve Fox reporting as “the star-studded social event of the year”? She’d already shaken hands with one of Jonathan’s favorite rock-and-roll stars, a former mayor of New York, and, of course, the wife-murdering athlete.

It didn’t help that she’d just started crying in front of all of them. Not that they’d noticed.

Still, she wasn’t eager to go back out there. She couldn’t do any more readings. Not that that’s what she’d been doing, really. Half the people who’d asked for them she’d lied to.

Someone tapped on the door to her stall.

“Meena?” It was Sister Gertrude. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Oh,” Meena replied, “I’m fine.”

It was probably wrong to be lying to a nun. But it was only a small lie.

“Oh, good,” Sister Gertrude said. “I’m just going outside to wait, then.”

“Okay,” Meena said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Take your time,” Sister Gertrude said.

Meena heard the nun’s shoes clicking on the marble floor. A few seconds later, there were no sounds at all in the bathroom. She was alone.

She sighed with relief, then reached up to feel the newest addition to her wardrobe. It had been hanging, heavy as an anvil, at her throat all night.

Let’s try to keep it professional, shall we?
Alaric had said in the cab.

She fingered the smooth outline of the cross, wondering why he’d given it to her in the first place, if he hated her so much.

He probably just didn’t want to bother with the paperwork that he would inevitably have to fill out if she was killed while under his protection.

She was stupid, she realized, not to have thought of wearing a cross before. Although truthfully, it seemed a bit simplistic as far as self-defense techniques went.

But remembering the story Father Henrique had been telling of how he and Alaric had met, she wondered. Certainly Alaric seemed to believe that if the priest hadn’t fled the way he had, the two of them might have been able to help that poor little girl.

Maybe there
was
power in ancient symbols, and the people who wielded them.

The necklace obviously couldn’t hurt.

There was a tap on her stall door.

“Just a minute,” Meena said. “I’ll be right out—”

She couldn’t stay in a bathroom stall forever, she realized. She had to face reality sometime.

She stood up and opened the door.

And found herself standing in front of Mary Lou Antonescu.

Chapter Twenty

M
eena. How are you, hon?”

Mary Lou reached out to give her a friendly hug hello . . . then paused, eyeing the cross at her throat.

“Oh,” she said, her smile fading slightly. “How . . . pretty.”

“Mary Lou.” Meena looked quickly up and down the bathroom. No one else appeared to be in any of the stalls.

But that didn’t mean anything. Sister Gertrude could be back at any moment.

“Are you insane?” Meena whispered. “This place is crawling with Alpha Level Palatine Guards. If any of them recognizes you, they’ll stake you.”

“Oh, hon,” Mary Lou said. “Are you talking about that nun who was in here with you a minute ago? Don’t worry. I just gave her a little ol’ mental push toward the kitchens. She’ll be in there looking for more salmon for hours.”

Meena stared at the tall, elegant blonde. She was wearing a dark brown evening gown in a filmy material that hung from a jeweled dog collar all the way down to her ankles, a deep red layer of lipstick, and a pair of sky-high Louboutins. She looked exactly the way Meena had always pictured the famous spy Mata Hari.

“Mary Lou,” Meena said, exasperated and yet oddly touched. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m supposed to be giving you a message,” Mary Lou said. She waved a heavily ringed hand. “It’s from Lucien, as if you hadn’t already guessed. You know, he’s just crazy for you.”

“I think I need to sit down,” Meena said faintly.

“Oh.” Mary Lou looked around. “Well, look at that, there’s a couch over here. It’s nice to know all that money Emil and I have been donating to this place over the years has gone to something worthwhile. How many paintings of suffering saints do they have to have in one museum, anyway? Here, come sit.”

Meena sank onto the couch. It was vinyl covered and clearly meant for mothers with nursing babies, but she didn’t care.

“Where is Lucien?” she asked Mary Lou. “He isn’t
here,
is he? In the museum? Please say no.”

“Of course he is.” Mary Lou was standing, admiring her own reflection in the mirrors. Gone were the days when vampires couldn’t see themselves in mirrors or on film. Now that the world had gone digital, vampires could be caught on film—as well as admiring themselves in mirrors that weren’t silver-backed—just like everyone else. “He said he’d meet you in your favorite place. I have no idea what that means, and I didn’t ask. I’m nosy, but not that nosy. I assumed it was a little secret between y’all.”

Meena knew exactly where Lucien meant.

She hadn’t visited the painting of Saint Joan since the last time she’d seen it—that night Lucien had claimed to have special privileges to the Met and slipped her inside after visiting hours.

Of course his only privileges had been the kind all vampires had everywhere they went . . . the kind they abused with their powers of mental telepathy and ability to transmogrify into mist and, in Lucien’s case, fly.

Visiting the painting of Saint Joan was too painful for Meena now, even though it was still her favorite.

“Mary Lou,” Meena said. “You have to tell him to leave. The Vatican has issued a worldwide security alert, and Alaric thinks it’s about him, like somehow they knew he was coming There are guards everywhere, just waiting for him to show up. He’s going to get caught.” Her voice strained to continue. “He’s going to get killed.”

Mary Lou stopped doing her eyes and stared at Meena’s reflection in the mirror.

“Hon,” she said, “it’s the
prince
. No one is going to catch him, let alone kill him. But I’d take that thing off your neck before you go meet him. Not that he has anything against believers. It’s just that, as far as accessories go, it isn’t doing much for you.”

Meena reached up to touch the necklace Alaric had given her. The metal felt warm from her skin.

“Mary Lou,” she said. Her eyes had filled with tears again. “I mean it. This is
crazy
. And Alaric is here guarding me, by the way. How am I supposed to walk out of this party and go meet Lucien on another floor of the museum without Alaric noticing I’m gone?”

“Oh, honey,” Mary Lou said. “You think I wouldn’t create a diversion? Give me some credit. I can be very distracting when I want to be.”

“Lucien asked you to do that?” Meena shook her head. “That’s just . . . Mary Lou, you could be killed. How could Lucien be so selfish?”

“Selfish?” Mary Lou seemed surprised. “I don’t think he’s being selfish. I told you, he’s crazy about you. He wants to see you, and this is where you are. If asking me to help him do that is selfish, well, then maybe it is, but if you think about it, this whole thing is my fault in the first place, like I was telling him earlier. I mean, I was the one who introduced y’all—”

“But I think it’s more than that,” Meena interrupted. “More than him just being crazy about me. Mary Lou, I’m worried. I think there’s something wrong with him. I tried to get him to talk about it last night, but he wouldn’t.”

“Oh.” Mary Lou paused while dabbing some lip gloss onto her mouth.
“That.”

Meena stared at her. “You know what I mean? You know what I’m talking about?”

“Oh, I know
exactly
what you’re talking about. But good luck trying to get him to open up about it. I was after them both all day about it—him
and
Emil. I mean, why is the prince of darkness living in a
cave
? That’s all I wanted to know. But would either of them tell me? No way.”

“A cave?” Meena was more than just perplexed. She was shocked. “Lucien is living in a
cave
?”

“You got that right. But will anyone tell me why? Lord, no. Men never want to talk, do they? Unless it’s about themselves. Then it’s talk, talk, talk, all day long. They can be such babies, can’t they? They think everything is about them. You know what Lucien thinks is about him?”

Meena got up and went to the sink to stand beside her. “What?”

“This show,” Mary Lou said. “Can you believe it? The entire show. Apparently, the Vatican put it together to lure him here so they could capture him.”

Meena stared at Mary Lou’s reflection in the mirror. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, there’s some old book out there that Emil says used to belong to Lucien’s mother. And of course he
has
to have it back. For the life of me, I don’t know why. I went and had a look at it. It’s on a little display pedestal. You probably walked right past it. I did, too, at first. It’s a tiny little thing. I told Emil, couldn’t Lucien just buy himself a nice Gutenberg Bible, or something, if he wants one so badly—though why he would, I can’t imagine—and not go to all this trouble? But no, it has to be
this
book, because it was his mom’s, apparently. Well, you know how men are about their mothers. Don’t even get me started about Emil’s. Good thing she died before I was ever born. And it’s even worse with Lucien’s mother, you know, because she—”

“Killed herself,” Meena murmured.

She suddenly felt as if someone had poured a very cold drink down her back, something that actually used to happen to her with some frequency when she was a teenager and had been an unpopular guest at parties thanks to her dire warnings on the hazards of drinking and driving . . . warnings that generally came true.

“Oh, I know, I heard,” Mary Lou said. “Wasn’t that just awful? Jumped out the palace window when she heard the Turks were invading. Well, you know, if I heard some Turks were invading, I’d jump out the window, too, because let me tell you, they did some not very nice things to lady prisoners back in those days. Emil’s told me some stories . . . trust me, you do
not
want to know. Still, Lucien never quite got over his mother’s death. And neither did his father, apparently. Emil said Lucien’s mother was a princess, and a very special lady. People even said she was—”

“An angel,” Meena finished for her, sitting back down again.

This was her fault. All of it.

Because if it was true—and it had to be—who had put in the request to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana for the book, alerting them to its presence in their catalog in the first place?

She had.

Oh
God.

And now Lucien was here to get his mother’s book back.

But so was Alaric . . . as well as every Alpha Level guard in the Palatine.

“Well, yes!” Mary Lou looked pleased that Meena was so knowledgeable about the subject. “An angel! Though that can’t
literally
be true, of course. Because first of all, there’s no such thing as angels. And second of all, how could an
angel
be married to Dracula? Let alone give birth to his son. Still, she was supposed to have been just the nicest, sweetest thing. That’s why Lucien’s father, Vlad Tepes, went off his rocker when he found out she was dead, and became ‘Vladimir the Impaler’—” Mary Lou made little quotation marks in the air. “And then eventually
that
wasn’t enough either, so he traded his soul to the devil so he could live forever and become—ta-da—Dracula . . . ”

Meena let her head sink into her hands. But still, Mary Lou’s voice droned on.

“ . . . and then he passed down the title to Lucien . . . though if you ask me, Lucien’s never been very committed to the role. I think he would rather have had this book of hours. It was the only thing he had left of his mom, but I guess it fell into enemy hands after Poenari Castle was taken by the Turks. Lucien thought it was lost forever. But what do you know? It turned out the Vatican had it all these years. And now it’s here in New York, and Lucien’s just itching to get it back, in addition to you . . . Meena? Meena! Where did you go?”