Next to her, Oliver was handsome in a bartender’s uniform, a tuxedo with a black silk bow tie and silver shirt studs. But he was pale beneath his butterfly collar, his shoulders tense under a jacket that was a little too big. His clear hazel eyes were clouded, looking more gray than green. Oliver’s face did not display the same blank, bored look as the others. He was alert, ready for a fight or flight. Anyone who looked at him long enough could see it.
We shouldn’t be here, Schuyler thought. What were we thinking? The risk is too great. They’re going to find us and separate us . . . and then . . . well, the rest was too horrible to contemplate.
She was sweating under her starched shirt. The air-conditioning wasn’t working, and the bus was packed. She leaned her head against the windowpane. Lawrence had been dead for over a year now. Four hundred forty-five days. Schuyler kept count, thinking that maybe once she hit a magical number, it would stop hurting.
This was no game, although sometimes it felt like a horrid, surreal version of cat and mouse. Oliver put a hand on top of hers to try and stop her hands from shaking. The tremors had begun a few months ago, just a slight twitching, but soon she realized she had to concentrate whenever she did something as simple as pick up a fork or open an envelope. She knew what it was, and there was nothing she could do about it. Dr. Pat had told her the first time she visited her office: she was the only one of her kind, Dimidium Cognato, the first half-blood, and there was no telling how her human body would react to the transformation into immortal; there would be side effects, obstacles particular to her case. Still, she felt better once Oliver held her hand in his. He always knew what to do. She depended on him for so much, and her love for him had only deepened in the year they had spent together. She squeezed his hand, intertwined her fingers around his. It was his blood that ran through her veins, his quick thinking that had secured her freedom.
As for everyone and everything they had left behind in New York, Schuyler did not dwell on it anymore. All of that was in the past. She had made her choice and was at peace with it. She had accepted her life for what it was. Once in a while she missed her friend Bliss very keenly, and more than once wanted to get in touch with her, but that was out of the question. No one could know where they were. No one. Not even Bliss.
Maybe they would be lucky tonight. Their luck had held so far. Oh, there had been a few close calls here and there, that one evening in Cologne when she’d abruptly run from a woman who had asked for directions to the cathedral. Illuminata had given the agent away. Schuyler had caught that soft imperceptible glow in the twilight before booking as fast as she could. Disguises only went so far. At some point, your true nature revealed itself.
Wasn’t that what the Inquisitor had argued during the official investigation into the events in Rio? That maybe Schuyler wasn’t who she was supposed to be?
Outlaw. Fugitive. That’s what she was now. Certainly not Lawrence Van Alen’s grieving granddaughter.
No.
According to the Conclave, she was his killer.
CHAPTER 2
Mimi
Oh, gross! She’d stepped in something icky. Beyond icky. It squished beneath her foot, a wet, gasping sound. Whatever it was, it was sure to ruin her pony-hair boots. What was she doing wearing pony-hair boots to a reconnaissance mission anyway? Mimi Force lifted her heel and assessed the damage. The zebra pattern was stained with something brown and leaky.
Beer? Whiskey? A combination of all the bottom-shelf alcohol they served in this place? Who knew? For the umpteenth time this year, she wondered why on earth she’d ever signed up for this assignment. It was the last week of August. By all rights she should be on a beach in Capri, working on her tan and her fifth limoncello. Not creeping around some honky-tonk bar in the middle of the country. Somewhere between the dust bowl and the rust belt, or was it the rust bowl and the dust belt? Wherever they were, it was a sleepy, sad little place, and Mimi couldn’t wait to leave it.
“What’s wrong?” Kingsley Martin nudged her. ‘shoes too tight again?”
“Will you leave me alone?” she sighed, moving away from him, making it clear she found the alcove they were hiding in too close quarters. She was tired of his teasing. Especially since, to her complete and utter horror, she discovered she was starting to like it. That was simply unacceptable. She hated Kingsley Martin. After everything that he’d done to her, she couldn’t see how she could feel otherwise.
“But where’s the fun in that?” He winked. The most infuriating thing about Kingsley, other than the fact that he had once tried to bring about her demise, was that somewhere between chasing down leads on the beaches of Punta del Este or through the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, Mimi had started to find him . . . attractive. It was enough to make her stomach turn.
“C’mon, Force, lighten up. You know you want me,” he said with a smug smile.
“Oh my god!” she huffed, turning around so that her long blond hair whipped over her shoulder and hit him square in the face. “As if!”
He might be faster and stronger than she was, the big man on the Venator team, and for all intents and purposes her boss, but really she should be the one leading them, as she outranked him in the Conclave hierarchy. If you could call that sorry group of cowards a Conclave.
Kingsley Martin had another think coming if he thought he had any chance with her. He might be too cute for words (damn those rock-star looks), but it didn’t matter one iota. She was not interested, no matter how much her pulse quickened whenever he was near. She was bound to another.
“Mmm. Nice. You don’t use the hotel shampoo from the airport Hilton, do you? This is the good stuff,” he purred. “But is it the conditioner that makes it so soft and silky?”
“Shut up . . . just?”
“Hold on. Save your speech for the after-party. I see our guy. You ready?” Kingsley interrupted, his voice serious now, controlled.
“Like a shot.” Mimi nodded, all business as well. She saw their witness, the reason they were a few miles outside of Lincoln, Nebraska (that was it! She remembered now) in the first place. A former frat boy, probably just shy of thirty, with a baby beer gut and the beginnings of middle-age “carb face” He was the type of guy who looked like he’d played cornerback in high school, but whose pounds of muscle had turned to fat after a few years behind a desk.
“Good, because this is not going to be easy,” Kingsley warned. “Okay, the boys will bring him to that corner booth and we’ll follow. Square him off and then go. No one will notice as long as we don’t get up. Waitress won’t even bother to come around.”