More of them? I memorized dates and locations, a sick suspicion growing under my heart. Humans have hunted us before, piecemeal and never very successfully. They usually focus on Prometheans.
But this group hunted Preservers. Or their helpless charges. Not utterly helpless, but there is no reason for a ward to learn combat or hunting. It is the Preserver’s function to learn those things, so the ward may focus on his or her art, whatever that art is.
Somehow, incredibly, these humans found Preserver houses in cities. Was it the Sensitives? I would have sensed human surveillance; I have moved my charges many times, when notice or war seems likely. Still, what could—
I opened another file, this one red and marked CLASSIFIED . Gasped, shock blurring through me.
Pictures. Of my house. Of Amelie in the garden, her heart-shaped face turned up as she studied the oleander tree. A blurred shot of Zhen through the windows of his dance studio, arms out and face set in a habitual half-smile. Virginia at the piano, her head down and her long dark braids tied carelessly back. Peter, standing on the front step with his mouth half open, caught in the act of laughing, probably at one of Amelie’s artless sallies. No picture of me—of course, I was more careful, out of habit. But there was something else.
A heavy cream-colored card, with the address of our house written in rusty ink, a fountain pen’s scratching at the surface of the paper. Ancient, spiky calligraphy, but still readable enough. It reeked of him, the perfume of a Kin.
Dear gods.
I closed the file. Brought it to my chest and hugged hard, the heavy paper crinkling.
Wolf whined low in his throat.
In a few moments, I had the other information I needed. Three locations, one of which was certain to hold this captain of theirs.
There was enough of the night left to accomplish that part of my revenge before I found the traitor who had given pictures of my family to these monsters. And I would make him pay , no matter how old, powerful … or Promethean.
I stared at the petrol canisters for a long moment before shelving my rage once more. There was work to be done.
When the house was aflame, we left.
*
The first location—an anonymous ranch house in the suburbs—was empty, but I found evidence of their presence. It was the second, a slumping tenement in the worst sink of the city, that held the prize. The entire place smelled of despair, urine, fried food, and the burning metal of poverty and danger.
I had rescued my Amelie from a place such as this. My hands made fists, loosened, made fists again.
I slid down the hall, crushing the cheap stained carpet under my fouled boots. My hair reeked of smoke again, and my fingers stung with splashed petrol. Wolf padded behind me, his head down. He would need more food before dawn, and a safe place to sleep.
Soon. Very soon.
We rounded the corner, and I saw the door, number 613. It was open a crack, spilling a sword of golden light into the dimness. I halted, and Wolf almost walked into me. He stopped, and tension sprang up between us.
A soft growl, far back in his throat. “Vrykolakas.”
Even through the slurring, I had no trouble deciphering the word. I did not know whether to be saddened or relieved. My own answer was a whisper. “As I am.”
For I sensed him too.
I pushed the door open with tented fingers. Stepped inside. Had he wanted to kill me, I would never have scented him. I would never have heard his strong, ageless pulse.
The apartment began as a tiny hall, a filthy kitchen to the right, a foul bathroom to the left. At the end of the hall, a single room with only a bed and a chair crouching on the colorless carpet.
The narrow bed held the captain’s body, facedown. The dried, shriveled things hanging outside the slits between his ribs were his lungs. It is an old torture—the suffocation is drawn-out and excruciating. His wrists and ankles were lashed to the bed with cords, probably from the cheap blinds covering the window. Or brought to this place, because a careful killer is a successful killer.