Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) (5 page)

“I’ll do it,” I repeated. “You shouldn’t have to make this phone call more than once.”

“And you can stay calm, cool, and collected when you tell them.”

I was pretty sure there was a hint of censure in those words, but I chose to ignore it. I was never going to be as open and demonstrative as Steph was, and I refused to apologize for it.

“Why don’t you come over when we get off the phone,” I suggested. “Neither one of us is going to get any more sleep tonight. We have several industrial-sized tubs of ice cream in the freezer. Maybe you and I can demolish one together.”

Steph thought about it briefly, then let out a shuddering sigh. “Okay. I’ll be there in about forty minutes.”

Dreading what I had to do next, I hung up the phone.

The phone call with the Glasses was every bit as
excruciating as I expected. My adoptive mother’s heartbroken sobs would haunt me for a long time. I wished I could give her a hug, but she was halfway around the world, and I wouldn’t be hugging her anytime soon. At least Mr. Glass was there so she could cry on his shoulder. He’s the stereotypical stoic male, and though the news had to have hit him hard, he kept himself together. I hoped that when he and Mrs. Glass were alone together and he didn’t feel like
he had to put up a brave front for me, he would take comfort from her as well as give it.

“I don’t know how soon we’ll be able to get home,” he said. There was just a hint of hoarseness in his voice, betraying the emotions he was trying to repress. “Even if we get on the next flight, it’ll take a couple of days.”

“There’s no need for you to cut your trip short,” I said, and my motives in saying so weren’t entirely pure. No, I didn’t want them to miss out on whatever exciting destinations were still on their itinerary, but I also hadn’t yet figured out what the hell I was going to tell them about what was going on in my life. I’d talked to them a couple of times since I’d become
Liberi,
but I hadn’t told them much of anything. How I was going to explain that I was now living in a mansion with seven other people was beyond me. Especially when I insisted on holding on to the condo the Glasses had bought for me. (They’d bought it for me as a gift, but I insisted on paying rent. My baggage made it hard for me to accept money or gifts from them.)

“Steph and I can take care of anything that needs doing until you get back,” I continued, crossing my fingers that he’d find my argument sound.

Mr. Glass sighed heavily. “We’re not going to be in any mood for sightseeing or even relaxing after this. We might as well come home.”

I had to agree that I wouldn’t feel much like being on vacation, either. However, that didn’t mean I had to concede the point. “I know you’re not in the
mood, but it might be nice to have something to take your mind off your troubles for a while. As far as I know, there’s nothing you have to do that can’t wait until you get back.” Not that I knew much of anything about what needed to be done. There would be insurance company wrangling for sure, and heaven only knew what would be involved in getting the ruins cleaned up and a new house built. Surely Steph and I could take care of
some
of that on their behalf.

“At least take a little time to think about it,” I urged. “If you decide to stay on the cruise, you can always change your mind and come home, but vice versa doesn’t work. Steph and I will find you a nice rental so you don’t have to stay in a hotel or anything. And we’ll start the ball rolling on insurance and stuff. There’s no need to make a bad situation worse by losing out on the rest of your cruise.”

He let out another heavy sigh. “When did you get so smart?”

I smiled at the affection in his tone. “Guess someone just raised me right.”

“All right. Your mother and I will talk it over before we make any hasty decisions. But you call us if there are any updates, or if there’s anything we need to do.”

“I promise.”

“We’ll call you tomorrow to let you know what we’ve decided.”

“Okay.”

I suspected from the tone of his voice that he was still leaning toward coming home immediately, and I
couldn’t blame him. Probably I’d have done the same in his shoes. But at least I’d bought a little bit of time.

Of course, if I hadn’t been able to figure out how to explain my current circumstances over the course of the last few weeks, a couple of extra days probably weren’t going to help all that much.

For those of you who might be tempted, I wouldn’t
recommend downing a tub of chocolate ice cream at four in the morning, even if you have just learned your childhood home burned to the ground. Steph and I had had help—she’d called Blake while I was on the phone with the Glasses, and he’d met me at the bottom of the stairs when I went to let Steph in. I felt like the third wheel all of a sudden, but that didn’t stop me from shoveling down the ice cream until my stomach felt queasy. The sugar high buoyed me for a while, but when the crash came, I decided it was safest to leave Steph and Blake to their own devices. I felt sick enough from overeating without getting myself all worked up about their relationship.

I excused myself and went back to my suite to brood in quiet solitude. I was trying to hold on to hope that the fire had been the result of faulty wiring or some other legitimate accidental cause. I’d brought enough hardship down on my adoptive family since the fateful day my car had slammed into Emmitt Cartwright and killed him, making me a
Liberi
. The last thing I wanted to do was be the cause of more pain and heartache.

I might have lived on in blissful ignorance for at least another few hours if I hadn’t decided to check my email.

I wasn’t getting a whole lot of email lately, not since I’d temporarily closed up my business as a private investigator. There was never anything important in my in-box, so mostly when I checked email, it was to delete the spam that had gotten through the filter. I was happily deleting away when my cursor hit a message that chilled my blood.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
, screamed the subject line, and the name in the From column said Konstantin.

Dreading what I would see, I opened the email and held my breath.

Dear Nikki,

I hope this letter finds you well.

Actually, no, I don’t. I hope it finds you miserable and guilt stricken.

I’ve put a lot of time and thought into my current situation. I have been forced to step down as king of the Olympians, a position I’ve held for several centuries and to which I had become accustomed. I have been exiled from my people, forced to live in hiding for fear that the more predatory amongst them might want to ensure my permanent removal. I have been forced to abandon a magnificent home and watch as my worthless son attempts to destroy from within everything I’ve built over my long, long life.

All of these indignities I’ve been forced to face, I can trace back to one person: you.

If you had joined the Olympians when I invited you, none of this would have happened. You and I could have lived harmoniously together, and we could have hunted down Justin Kerner without all the fuss and fireworks. Maybe if I hadn’t had to ask for Anderson’s help to stop Kerner, we could have captured and neutralized him before he killed Phoebe. Certainly we could have taken care of him quietly, in such a way that no one untrustworthy had to know about my lapse in judgment.

But you
didn’t
join us. Instead, you set yourself up in opposition, and you went out of your way to reveal every detail of what had happened. You cost me everything I hold dear, and I plan to pay you back in kind.

This morning’s little surprise was nothing more than a warning shot across the bow. I have much, much more in store for you. I know you’ll be hunting for me, and maybe you think you’ll catch me before I can fully realize my revenge. But I didn’t manage to become king of the Olympians and lead them for centuries without having an impressive bag of tricks at hand. I’m betting I can break you before you get to me. And if you think you can invoke your silly little treaty and get Cyrus to control me, you are gravely mistaken. I will do nothing to harm you or your family. Nothing that will officially break the treaty. Hurting you without breaking the treaty will be quite the
enjoyable test to my creativity. And believe me, I am highly creative.

Be afraid, Nikki Glass. I am coming for you.

Yours, Konstantin

I read the email twice, hardly believing what I was reading. Konstantin blamed
me
for all his troubles? That was nuts.

I’ll admit, I’d certainly had a hand in his downfall. It was I who’d unraveled the mystery and found out why Justin Kerner was hunting the D.C. area. I’d discovered that his death magic combined with the taint of supernatural madness made him capable of killing
Liberi,
and that he wanted to kill them all—starting with Konstantin—for having forced him to take the tainted seed in the first place. I’d uncovered the fact that all of the Olympians could have been killed because Konstantin made a mistake, and that was what caused him to lose power. But that didn’t mean it was my
fault
.

I rubbed my eyes, which ached with a combination of weariness and lingering grief over my family’s pain. Why did every
Liberi
blame
me
when things went wrong in their lives? Jamaal had originally blamed me for killing Emmitt. Emma blamed me for the dissolution of her marriage, which I believed she was 100 percent responsible for herself. And now Konstantin was blaming me for his own screwup.

I had only met Konstantin once, and though he’d chilled me to the bone with his coldness and malice, I had never once suspected he was
insane
. But a
vendetta of this magnitude did not speak of a man of sound mind. Maybe losing his place at the top of the totem pole had cost him his sanity as well as his power.

Whatever the reason, he was one hell of a dangerous enemy. And if he was coming after me, my life was going to get a lot more difficult very soon.

It was still oh-God
o’clock, and the sun hadn’t even begun to peek up over the horizon yet, but I was so wired on stress and chocolate ice cream that I didn’t put much consideration into other people’s comfort and routine.

I forwarded the threatening email to Leo, our resident computer expert. He was a descendant of Hermes, and had a Midas touch where money was concerned. He’d first started learning about computers so he could keep in constant touch with the stock market, but he’d taken to them like a duck to water, and his hacking skills were sometimes downright scary.

Leo’s rooms were down the hall from mine, and after I hit send, I scurried to his door and knocked. I figured the email I just forwarded needed an explanation, and it wasn’t until I’d knocked a second time without an answer that I realized what time it was,
and that I was probably the only person in the house awake at this hour, other than Blake and Steph, if they were still up. I was badly rattled and wanted to get a start on finding Konstantin
now,
but as urgent as it felt to me, I knew it wasn’t reasonable to be waking anybody up before six. Whatever Konstantin had planned for me, it would take days, weeks, maybe even months to develop, and letting Leo get another couple hours of sleep wouldn’t endanger anyone.

I was just turning to go back to my room when the door behind me opened.

When I first caught sight of Leo, I was sure I’d rousted him out of bed. He was wearing a fluffy white bathrobe over blue and white striped pajamas. A second glance showed me that his mousy brown hair was slightly damp and his cheeks were freshly shaven. He smelled of drugstore aftershave and Listerine, and I came to the inevitable conclusion that I hadn’t woken him up after all. His eyes widened when he saw me.

“Nikki?” he said. “What are you doing here?” He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, shoving them onto his face in a gesture that looked almost nervous. I realized I’d never seen him without the glasses before.

I think Leo has a good heart, or he wouldn’t be working for Anderson, but he’s about as socially awkward an individual as I’ve ever met. He has an obvious aversion to eye contact, and he always seems a bit nervous and distracted, like only a fraction of his attention is actually focused on whoever he’s talking
to. I suspect when he heard the knock on his door, he assumed it was Anderson, and finding me there threw him for a bit of a loop. His shoulders hunched as if he were expecting a blow, and his gaze dropped to the floor.

He was nervous with everyone, but more so with me, the newcomer to the house. I wondered if I should have explained what was going on via email instead of coming to his suite, but it was too late now.

“Hi, Leo. I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning. I hope I didn’t wake you.” I knew I hadn’t, but it seemed like the polite thing to say, and I found Leo’s nerves and awkwardness contagious.

“I was awake,” he told my left shoulder. “The European markets start opening at four.”

Geez, and I’d thought
I
was an early riser. I’d never known anyone else in the house was up at this hour, which I guessed meant Leo didn’t venture out of his rooms in the morning. Actually, Leo didn’t venture out of his rooms much at all. Sometimes he had to be reminded to step away from his computers and eat. It didn’t seem like much of a life to me, but what do I know?

With anyone else, I probably would have tried a little small talk before launching into my request, but I figured Leo wouldn’t blame me—hell, he probably wouldn’t even notice—if I skipped the social niceties.

“I forwarded you an email,” I told him. “It’s supposedly from Konstantin. I wonder if you’d be able to trace it or something.” I honestly didn’t think Konstantin was stupid enough to send me a trail of bread
crumbs that would lead right to him, but I figured it would be foolish not to at least check it out. Not to mention that Konstantin was centuries old and might not be as computer literate as a modern man.