“A masking spell, maybe?” Mimi ventured.
“We’ve tried all the counter spells to an oris, but if it is a masking spell it’s one we’ve never seen before,” Ted said, looking wary, slouched against the doorway. “If it is a masking spell, whoever did this isn’t going to take chances with moving her around. You’ve got to take off the mask to move a body. Our guess is she’s still in the same room where the video was filmed, so if we can figure where that is, we can find her. We’ve run the video dozens of times to see if we can find anything in it that’ll help us zero in on her location.”
“Anything?”
Ted shook his head and tossed a crumpled piece of paper into a nearby trash can. “Not yet. But we did catch something interesting. Remember all that hoopla about subliminal messages back in the fifties? No? You weren’t in cycle then? But you’ve heard about it, right? What we found is sort of like that, except no one is selling Coke or popcorn in this one. Show her, Sam. It’s right in the beginning.”
Sam fired it up on his desktop screen, and the three of them crowded around the computer to watch. He played the video on super-slow motion, one three-hundredth of a frame per second. Mimi watched as the black darkness filled the screen, and then, in a blink, there was an image of a lion mounting its mate.
Okaay ...
“There’s more,” Sam said, hitting fast-forward. The next image appeared in the middle of the party shot. It showed a ram’s head on a stake, dead eyes open and unblinking, tongue lolling, flies circling the carcass. The final image appeared a second before the video ended: a king cobra, coiled and ready to strike.
“So?” asked Mimi impatiently, shaking the handcuffs so they made a loud clicking sound as she pulled them apart. They were looking for a missing girl and her strike team was showing her photos from National Geographic.
“We think it’s some sort of code, a message of some kind. We’re having Renfield take a look. See if the Repository can cough up an explanation,” Ted replied.
“All right. Not sure how that helps us find Victoria, but what could it hurt.” Mimi pushed off the desk and faced the boys. She would always think of them as boys, since technically, as Azrael, one of the First Born, she was centuries older, even if they were Enmortals and senior Venators to boot. “Anything else?”
“Yep,” Sam said, straightening in his chair and springing forward. “We found Evan Howe. Or at least, we know where he is.”
Mimi put down the handcuffs. “Does he know where Victoria could be?”
“Doubtful. But since you wanted us to check on him—we did. Figured he’d show up sooner or later, after recovering from the Caerimonia. You know first bite’s always the hardest.” Sam winced.
“And?”
Ted removed a business card from his pocket. “Witness saw him take a cab out to Newark.”
“Newark? What would he be doing there?” Mimi scoffed. What would a pampered prince from the Upper East Side be doing out in some crime-ridden New Jersey township? “There’s nothing for someone like Evan in Newark!”
“Nothing but abandoned buildings and a blood house.” Ted handed the card to Mimi.
“No way.” Mimi shuddered, reading the card. The Familiars’ Club, it read, in fancy red lettering.
“It’s the only logical place he could be. I’m sorry,” Sam said.
“I didn’t know him. I’m not . . . It’s just . . .” Mimi sputtered. A blood house? Evan Howe? That nice-looking boy with the dimples? He was sixteen years old . . . He was so young. . . .
“You wanted to know.” Ted shrugged. “So that’s where he is. But take it from us, you don’t want to go there. Not worth it. This human kid’s got nothing to do with whoever took Victoria. Familiars aren’t made that way, you know that. And if you go out there you won’t find anything but the same old story. Old as Rome.”
TWENTY
The Blood House
Newark was across the river just a quick shot through the tunnel and lately enjoying something of a revitalized image, but as a rule, Mimi, like many Manhattanites, avoided going to New Jersey unless it was to the airport (and thus on the way to somewhere else). Even then, she only went to Teterboro. She had left the Venator station a few hours earlier and made no comment as the car drove past the charming waterfront neighborhoods and took them deeper and deeper into a gritty industrial section. She was just glad she wasn’t alone that evening.
“Right here,” Oliver told his driver. “You can drop us off in front.” He had been silent during the forty-minute trip, and had not appeared too surprised when she told him where they were going to look for Evan.
After she’d left the Venators, Mimi had picked him up at the Repository, where he had been since yesterday afternoon, reviewing the video over and over again, searching for clues. She told him about the three images the brothers had found.