It must’ve shown on my face, because Julie focused on me. “It means something, doesn’t it? What does it mean, Kate? I saw you. You were in my dream. Did you see me, too?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not here and not now. In fact, I didn’t want to have it at all.
“Tell me, please! I have to know.”
I wasn’t planning on going to my funeral, but one never plans to die. If something happened to me, Julie would be left without answers. She had to know something at least. In her place, I would want to know.
“Kate, please . . .”
“Hush, please.”
The need to hide had been hammered into me since I could understand words. The number of people knowing my secret had gone up from one to five in the past year, and thinking about it shot me right off the beaten path into an irrational place where I contemplated killing those who knew. I couldn’t kill them—they were my friends and my chosen family—but breaking a lifetime of conditioning was a bitch.
If I didn’t tell her and I died, she would make mistakes. Roland would find her and use her. She didn’t realize it yet, but she was a weapon. Like me. I had created her, and I had a responsibility to keep her safe and to keep others safe from her.
“What I’m about to tell you can’t be repeated. Don’t write it in your diary, don’t tell your best friend, don’t react if you hear about it. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“There are people who would kill you if they knew about you. I’m very serious, Julie. This is a life-and-death conversation.”
“I understand,” Julie said.
“You’ve learned in school about the theory of the First Shift?”
“Sure.” Julie nodded. “Thousands of years ago magic and technology existed in a balance. Then people began working the magic, making it stronger and stronger, until the imbalance became too great and the technology flooded the world in waves, which was the First Shift. The magic civilizations collapsed. Now the same thing is happening, but we get magic waves instead of technological ones. Some people think that it’s a cycle and it just keeps happening over and over.”
Good. She knew the basics, so this would be easier. “You heard me talk about Voron.”
“Your dad,” Julie said.
“Voron wasn’t my biological father. My father, my real father, walked the planet thousands of years ago, when the magic flowed full force. Back then he was a king, a conqueror, and a wizard. He was very powerful and he had some radical ideas about how a society should be structured, so he and some of his siblings built a huge army and rampaged back and forth across what’s now known as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and eastern Egypt. The world was a different place then geologically, and my dad, the wizard-king, had a large fertile area in which to build his kingdom. His magic kept him alive for hundreds of years, and he succeeded in creating an empire as advanced as our civilization. And wherever he went, he built towers.”
Julie blinked. “But . . .”
“Wait until I finish, please.” The words stuck in my throat and I had to strain to push them out. “When the First Shift came, the technology began to overwhelm magic. The magical cities crumbled. My father saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time for a long nap. He sealed himself away, how or where nobody knows, and fell asleep. A tiny trickle of magic still remained in the world, and it was enough to keep him alive. He slept until the Shift, our apocalypse, woke him up. He got up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and immediately started to rebuild his empire. He can’t stop, Julie. It’s what gives his existence meaning. This time he started with the undead.”
“The People,” Julie said, understanding in her eyes.
“Exactly. My father chose to call himself Roland and started gathering individuals with the ability to navigate vampires. He organized them into the People.”
The People were a cross between a corporation and a research institute. Professional and brutally efficient, they maintained large stables of vampires and had a chapter in every major city.
“Nobody ever talks about Roland,” I told her. “Most people don’t know he exists. And almost nobody, not even the navigators, know that shortly after he awoke, Roland fell in love. Her name was Kalina and she also had powerful magic. She could make anyone love her. Kalina wanted a baby, so Roland decided to give her one. I was that baby.”
Julie opened her mouth. I raised my hand. If she interrupted me, I might not get through this.
“My father always had issues with his children. They turned out powerful and smart, and as soon as they wised up, they tried to nuke him. Roland changed his mind and decided I’d be better off not being born. My mother knew that to save me she had to run away. She needed a protector, and Roland’s warlord, Voron, seemed like a good choice. Voron was bound to Roland by a blood ritual, and my mother had to use every bit of her power to make Voron love her, so much so that she made Voron slightly insane.”
“So she basically used him,” Julie said.
“You got it. Together they ran away. My mother gave birth to me, but Roland was closing in on them. She knew that Voron was better suited to keeping the baby alive and Roland would never stop chasing her, so she stayed behind to buy Voron time. Roland caught up with her and killed her. Voron ran with me and then spent every moment of his life training me so one day I could kill my own father.”
Julie turned pale.
I waited for her to digest all of it.
“Do you want to kill him?”
That was a complicated question. “I will if I have to, but I won’t go out looking for him. I have Curran and you. All I want to do right now is keep both of you safe. But if Roland ever finds me, he will confront me, Julie, and I’m not sure I would survive. Remember the picture of a man I showed you? Hugh d’Ambray?”
I’d given it to her a few weeks ago and told her that he was an enemy. At the time I wasn’t ready for long explanations.
“Yes.”
“Hugh is Voron’s replacement. He’s Roland’s new warlord. Not many people know about the lost baby, but he does. He stumbled across me and now he’s very interested.”
Now came the hard part. “When you were turning loup, I couldn’t heal you. Nobody could heal you. So I . . .” Robbed you of your free will. “. . . cleaned your blood with mine to burn off the Lyc-V. It was the only choice. Without it, I would’ve had to kill you.”
Julie stared at me.
“We’re bound now. Some of my magic is yours. My blood contaminated you. I dreamed tonight. I saw a plain, a sunset, and towers. And I saw you and called you.”
“What does it mean?” Julie whispered. “Does that mean Roland is in our heads?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re seeing the past or the future or if it’s my father messing with our minds from several states away. Whatever the hell it is, it isn’t good. You have to take precautions. Don’t leave your blood where it can be found. If you bleed, burn the bandages. If you bleed a lot, set the scene on fire or dump bleach on it. Hide your magic as much as you can. I’m not planning on dying. I will come back and I will help you sort this out. But if something happens to us, Jim knows. You can trust him.”
A door swung open behind us. Doolittle stepped into the room.
“Doolittle knows, too.” I told her. “There are some books in my room. I’ll make you a list of what you need to read . . .”
Maddie stirred. A bulge rolled across her chest, like a tennis ball sliding just under her skin.
“Involuntary movements,” Doolittle said. “Nothing to worry about.”
I realized my hand was holding Slayer’s hilt and let go. If Maddie went loup and lunged out of that tank at Julie, I would cut her down with no hesitation. That thought made my insides churn.
Julie’s eyes were huge on her face.
“It will be okay,” I told her.
“I don’t think it will,” Julie said. “Nothing is okay. Nothing will be okay.”
She stood up.
“Julie . . .”
I watched her walk out. The door clanged shut. That didn’t go the way I’d wanted it to. I wanted a do-over, but in life you rarely get those.
Doolittle was looking at me. “It’s good you told her.”
It didn’t feel good. It felt downright crappy. “I need a favor.”
“If it is within my power,” he said.
“Curran and I have both written our wills. If I don’t come back, Meredith will take care of Julie. I’ve already spoken to her. But if I don’t come back, at some point, Julie may come to you for answers. I’d like you to have my blood. Studying it might help.” He’d already done some analysis on it once. He would be the best person to study it more.
Doolittle rubbed his face, hesitated—as if deciding—and finally said, “This trip is a foolish endeavor.”
“There is a chance we will succeed.”
“A very small chance. We can’t trust these people. They don’t intend to honor their promises.”
“I’ll force them to honor them, if I have to. I can’t sit by Maddie and watch her die a little bit every day. It’s not in me, Doc.”
“It is not in me either,” he said. “I’m afraid we’re drawing it out. Delaying the inevitable only leads to more suffering. That’s why death must be quick and painless.”
“You told me once that we don’t have a choice in what we are. We do have a choice in who we are. I’m the person who must get on that boat or I won’t be able to ever look Maddie’s mother in the eye. Will you please draw my blood?”
Doolittle sighed. “Of course I will.”