"That is the question," I said.
"It's a list of names and places." He pointed to one of the photocopies. "This looks like the type of thing found in old family bibles. I remember my father recording births and deaths in ours. This looks like the same thing."
I pulled that piece of paper off the wall, looking closely at the names. "I recognize some of these."
"From where?"
"From when I was researching Thomas’s descendants. These names are the same."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yeah. I mean, a few are new, but Thomas, Martha and Elijah Bennet—all of these names popped up in my research." I looked up from the paper and gazed at the rest of the documents. "Why would Theo have all this?"
"Maybe he planned on helping Thomas find his descendants." Nathan sounded just as troubled at this revelation as I was.
"How would he have known about Thomas’s curse and its fix?" I asked.
"It’s no big secret. Most of us realized something was wrong. You don't become a vampire of Thomas’s power and standing and not have yearlings to shore up your power base. Maybe he talked to a witch and came up with a solution in the hopes that Thomas would offer him the kiss," Nathan proposed, not sounding entirely convinced of his reasoning.
"He wanted to be a vampire?" I asked.
Nathan rolled his eyes. "They all want to be vampires. They enjoy the pleasure of the bite and the perks of our lifestyle, but make no mistake, they're here for their chance at the kiss."
"I thought one of the perks of being your companion was an extended life."
"Extended, not eternal—or as close to one as a human is going to get. Not to mention a companion is always a second-class citizen, even under the most attentive of masters." He looked over at me with a quirked eyebrow. "How many of your generation are satisfied with such a classification?"
Fair enough.
"Wait, hold on. Baby vampires have as little power or status as companions." And do for a long time from what I can gather. "Why would they sign up for that?"
"I doubt they realize that. All they see are the big players and think they can be that after the change."
"Even if it means their death?" I asked, because that was the most likely outcome given how much difficulty the vamps had in turning one of their yearlings.
"They all think they're the ones to beat the odds," Nathan said. "They're actually kind of vicious competing for the slots. Anything goes."
"Their masters don't stop it?" I asked.
Nathan lifted one shoulder. "No reason to and many believe you need a certain level of grit to survive the change."
I pulled a face before turning back to the wall. The companion relationship sounded kind of depressing—for both parties. Not exactly what they'd tried to sell me when I first turned up in the mansion.
A pair of names near the bottom caught my eye. They were half-hidden behind another page. I bent and pulled both pieces off the wall.
"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Nathan asked.
"What makes you say that?"
"I don't know. Maybe there was a rhyme and reason to the way he had this arranged." Nathan moved one hand in a circle encompassing all the chaos.
I looked back at the wall. He had a point, but I didn't understand the method to Theo's madness. That made all this organization pointless. Might as well look at it in a way that made sense to me.
I turned my attention back to the two pieces of paper I held, one a drawing of some type of sigil. The other two names with photos under them.
"That's Theo," Nathan said, pointing at the photo on the left. He was right. Theo was younger, his eyes almost feral and his hair a different color, but it was definitely him.
"And this is Lisa," I said in a soft voice, looking at the photo on the right. Again, it was a younger version with different hair and a fierce expression at odds with the cheery bubble-head I'd interviewed earlier, but it was her. "Her name's different here."
Alissa Benedict. Theo's last name on this was the same. Looking closer, the two seemed to share a resemblance. It was there around the eyes and mouth. Sister and brother, maybe? Cousins?
"I think they're related," I said. The wall held Thomas’s descendants. The upper half paralleled my own research as far as I'd been able to track them. That must mean the lower half contained the missing link—the one Caroline said she'd found shortly before her abduction. It made sense that they would change their last name Bennet to Benedict if they thought someone was hunting them.
I looked back down at the papers in my hand. "That would mean these are Thomas’s descendants. Caroline said they were in Columbus."
What sort of coincidence would have led Theo here right under Thomas’s nose when he most needed him? Too big of one. There was more to this.
There was a thump next to me as Nathan slumped to the floor, blood flowing out from a wound on his back. Theo stood over his body, his head tilted and a sinister smile on his face. "Good job. You put it all together. I'd say congratulations were in order."
I took a step back. How? What? Dead man walking. Why did these things always happen to me?
I started to shout for help. He raised his hand, an unrecognizable object in it. Black flooded out then I dropped to the ground too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MY SHOULDERS SENT lancing pain through my body, my hands suspended overhead, and my feet barely brushing a dirt floor. I jerked, coming awake with a start. I was in a barn or maybe a shed. Dim light filtered in from the outside. It was quiet—the kind of quiet that said I was far from civilization.
Caught and strung up like a deer carcass. My head pounded from whatever he'd used to make me unconscious. "This is really becoming an unwelcome habit," I muttered.
"You often wake up in the secret lairs of your enemies?" Caroline asked in a tired voice from a few feet away.
I craned my neck, twisting so I could look over my shoulder at her, surprised to find someone else sharing the murder shack with me. A thin, ragged-looking Caroline glared back, a worn and weary expression on her face. Locked in a cage just big enough that she could sit upright, but not stand, she looked like she'd gone a few days without sleep or a bath. She was curled in a ball, her naked limbs wrapped around herself, protecting her modesty.
"What're you doing here?" I asked.
She made a small noise of disbelief. "Same as you I'd imagine. Our lovely hosts captured me, stuffed me in this cage, then showed up with you half an hour ago."
My shoulder throbbed where she'd bitten me as if the wound knew its maker was near. "How did they get you? Theo's human, and last I saw, you were more than a match for any human."
Caroline's laugh was raw and tired sounding. "You'd think so. Werewolves tend to fall unconscious after a shift—even demon-tainted ones. He knew where to look. I never had a chance. Next thing I knew, I woke up naked in this cage."