The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) Read online

  But that was only part of what made the interaction so odd. Even more strange was what happened when Renata asked the girl if she worked for Falkon Dillinger.

  The girl’s eyes twitched at the question. It was a movement so subtle Renata missed it, but Falkon didn’t. Her pupils wanted to aim at Falkon. The girl knew where to look when she heard his name.

  How does this girl know who I am?

  And why is she lying to immortals?

  First Melissa Mayhew, who became convinced the girl worked for Falkon. Now Renata, who was getting an entirely different story.

  No, I do not know who Falkon Dillinger is, the girl said.

  No, I never told Melissa Mayhew I work for Falkon Dillinger.

  No, I have never spoken to Melissa Mayhew.

  No, I did not come to Thorndike to spy on anyone. I am here to win the Coronation contest. I am here to become an immortal.

  Lies! All of them lies, and Renata didn’t recognize it!

  This girl, this familiar, fascinating girl...what was her story? She spent the better part of the week in an Addonox-induced slumber, she woke up in darkness, spent days in solitary confinement, and yet she had the strength to resist an immortal and the guts to lie to her.

  Falkon was utterly intrigued, and wished Renata wasn’t here. He wanted to talk to the girl alone.

  “Then why are you here, Nicky Bloom?” Renata demanded. “If you don’t work for Falkon, why did you come to Italy?”

  “I’ve always dreamed of a romantic getaway to Italy,” Nicky said.

  Renata turned to Falkon. “Well isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?”

  Falkon suppressed a laugh. “Are we done here?” he said.

  “Yes. Clearly, Melissa was lying to me. This girl isn’t working for you or anyone else. She’s just another spoiled rich brat.”

  “Are we to let her go then?” Falkon said.

  “No, I had an idea last night,” Renata said. “These kids you picked up can still be useful to us.”

  “Kids? We’re keeping all of them?”

  “Show me where you’re holding the Jenson boy,” Renata said. “I want to talk to him next.”

  Chapter 15

  Falkon took Renata to the village below the mountain where they each caught someone for dinner. Renata chose an overweight boy who was just on the edge of being overripe. Falkon went for a young girl with red hair.

  When they were done, and had thrown the bodies into the forest for the wolves to finish, they went back to Falkon’s house and sat on the front porch.

  “Are you satisfied now that you’ve spoken with Nicky Bloom?” Falkon asked.

  He was flipping through the research file Renata brought from the Farm.

  “I’m more confused than ever,” Renata said. “What was going on in the Bloom mansion that night I found Melissa there?”

  Falkon was reading a page in the binder that had, “Hemoglobin Trials in Immature Host Bodies,” written at the top.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” he muttered.

  Renata wondered if this was her future. Sitting outside with Falkon like an old married couple, talking to each other not because they wanted to, but because there was no one else to talk to.

  Falkon reached into a flap on the inside panel of the binder, pulling out some sort of silver medallion.

  “What’s that?” Renata asked.

  “Removable storage,” Falkon said. “More results from the hemoglobin study are stored on here.”

  “What? It looks like a piece of jewelry,” said Renata.

  “That, my friend, is exactly the point.”

  The silver piece in his hand had a black stone in its center with eight lines of engraving in a sunburst pattern.

  “I had these made for Hank and his wife so they could sneak data in and out of secure research facilities,” said Falkon. “Hank wore this one as a belt buckle. His wife had a matching version she wore as a necklace.”

  Falkon pressed onto the stone in the center of the medallion. A USB port popped out on the bottom.

  “How cute!” Renata said.

  “Cute and quite handy,” said Falkon. “Sadly, only one of the drives is in here.”

  “You’re not saying something is missing, are you?”

  “Nothing we can’t live without,” said Falkon. “Hank was using this drive to store test results. His wife was storing the genetic sequence on hers.”

  “And hers didn’t make it into the file, did it?”

  “It was probably in the safe at their house,” said Falkon. “Melissa didn’t know to take it.”

  “But do we need it?”

  “Not particularly. With the data on this drive and the software in my computing stack, we can recreate the genetic sequence here. It will take a few weeks at the most. When I have time, I’ll go down to Rio and get the other drive out of the safe at the Evans house. We can use it as a backup.”

  “As long as I don’t have to go back to the Farm again, I’m happy,” said Renata. “Would you like to hear how I intend to get us the money we need?”

  Falkon closed the binder in his lap and gave Renata his full attention. “I would love to,” he said.

  “The Rose Ransom is next week,” said Renata. “I get to abduct one girl from the senior class and hide her away somewhere.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “It’s a lot of fun. My favorite game of the year, in fact. It’s also a fundraiser. Some years we raise fifty million or more.”

  “Am I to take it that somehow you can route the funds from this game to our work?”

  “That’s right. After the girl is abducted, her family puts up a big reward for her safe return. We call that reward the ransom, and we give it to whichever student finds her first.”

  “Doesn’t seem like a good fundraiser if you’re just giving the money away.”

  “The student is expected to donate all of it back to the pot on behalf of one of the girls wearing black.”

  “People are giving money, you’re giving it back, they’re giving it back to you—why can’t we just take what we need?”

  “We will! That’s the beauty of it. If the princess is never found, the regents get to decide what to do with the reward money. Guess who is chair of the board of regents?”

  “Ah….now I see. Nicky Bloom will be your princess, and you will make sure she is never found.”

  “I can make the clues exceptionally hard,” Renata said. She was getting excited just thinking about it. She loved everything about the Rose Ransom, and always thought it could be better than it was. Now that Daciana was out of the picture, Renata could finally do it properly.

  “Don’t make the clues hard,” said Falkon. “Make them impossible.”

  “No, they’ve got to be real clues,” Renata said. “It’s no fun otherwise. They’ve got to lead somewhere.”

  Potential clues were coming to her as they spoke. She could write them as poems. Yes! The clues this year would be poems. Poems with a theme. Something instructive for those little brats at school.

  She would make this year’s Rose Ransom one for the ages.

  “So how much money are we talking about?” Falkon said.

  “That’s the other thing that’s so perfect,” said Renata. “It’s the families who have to put up the money. If I abduct Nicky Bloom, her parents have to provide the Ransom.”

  “Do you know her parents? Are they rich?”

  “No, I don’t know them at all. But I know the Jensons quite well, and they are the richest people in Washington.”

  Falkon grinned. “So you’re abducting two of them now?”

  “Why not? I mean—this is the 21st century! Why should it always be just a girl who gets abducted? Why not a princess and a prince?”

  “What about tradition?”

  “Screw tradition! Daciana is gone. This is my clan now! This is my contest! We’re going to have a prince and a princess this year. Everyone is going to be shocked when I announce it
, and the Jensons are going to fork over a sum of money so huge we won’t know what to do with ourselves! Oh this is going to be so much fun!”

  “I’m glad you’ve found a way to amuse yourself,” said Falkon. “When do we get the money?”

  “December,” said Renata. “The students get until the end of the semester to try and solve the clues.”

  “Can’t you move that deadline up a bit?” said Falkon.

  “No! I can’t move it up! What’s the fun in that? Falkon, this will probably be my last Rose Ransom ever. It has to be perfect!”

  “It’s just that we could use some cash now.”

  “And I will get you some. There are other ways to fill the coffers. You worry about that research file in your hands and leave the money to me.”

  *****

  While Renata and Falkon chatted on the porch, Nicky cowered in the corner of her prison cell. Strange as it was, she enjoyed it when Renata came in to question her. Talking to a vampire was better than living the nightmare. Now that Nicky was alone in the darkness again, the vision came back, starting over at the beginning.

  She was in the courtyard, looking at her mother.

  Slow it down, Nicky, she thought. Don’t be a slave to your own mind.

  In the vision, she took a moment to look around, to try and gather her bearings. Nothing about this world was a surprise to her anymore. The position of the moon in the sky. The blanket of stars overhead. The sounds of crickets and buzzing beetles in the surrounding forest.

  What did it all mean? Why was she here?

  You haven’t forgotten what happened here. In the end, we never really forget anything.

  Those were Sergio’s words, ringing out in her memory. It was an encounter with Sergio before the Date Auction that set her on the path to Italy. Sergio told her she had to learn the truth of this memory, that she had to bring it into her conscious mind where she could control it, or it would consume her.

  The scene of your memory is in the Italian Alps, Sergio said. You are standing in front of a building I know quite well.

  Trapped in the vision, she heard Sergio’s voice as if it were a whisper on the wind.

  Something happened here. Something so ugly your mind tried to bury it where you would never find it again.

  A horde of snarling sick people came running out from the building behind her mother.

  “Run, Nicky! Run!”

  This time, when Nicky turned to run, she saw someone new. Someone who had never been in the vision before.

  It was her father, looking past Nicky, his eyes open wide with panic.

  Now she knew what she had to do. She ran for her father. She ran as fast as she could, but her legs were short—she was only five years old—and it took a long time to reach him.

  Behind her, she heard something terrible happening. She turned to see the monsters with the gray faces, the yellowed teeth, bearing down on her mother.

  She wanted to run back. She wanted to help her mother. From behind her, her father’s strong arm scooped her up and pulled her away. Together, they ran into the forest. They moved as fast as they could. Nicky focused on the sounds of her feet crunching in the snow, allowing everything else to drift away. The scene of her mother, those gray-faced monsters, the sounds of their snarls…

  It was too much for her mind to handle. Rather than think of what happened behind her, she thought of her feet. She let the sound of her footsteps wipe everything else away. Who she was, where she was, what she was doing….it faded into the past with every step. She ran away from all of it. The mountain, the monsters, the sculpture, her memory…

  That night, Nicky forgot everything she knew, except that she had to run.

  The door to her prison cell flew open and the vision stopped.

  Falkon Dillinger stood on the other side.

  “Good evening, Nicky,” he said.

  He had an accent that Nicky couldn’t place. Was it Russian? Ukrainian? Czech? Why did she feel like she’d heard it before? Probably some mix of many accents—vampires lived so long they sometimes blended accents together, creating a manner of speech entirely their own.

  “Who are you?” Nicky said.

  He extended his hand. “Come, we will talk.”

  He was trying to command her, looking directly at her with his deep, blue eyes. Nicky stood up as quickly as she could, thinking it probably wasn’t wise to let him know he had no effect on her. But she was too slow.

  “My words do nothing for you, do they?” he said.

  Sweeping into the cell with startling speed, Falkon wrapped his hand around the back of Nicky’s head and held her face close to his.

  “What is behind those eyes, Nicky Bloom?” he whispered. “Why couldn’t Renata see beyond them?”

  Nicky looked right at him, letting him stare as deeply as he wished. He had blonde hair and a perfectly chiseled face. He was pretty, in the way all of them were.

  “Closed,” he whispered. “Your mind is a locked door. I wonder what key we could use to open it.”

  “There is no key,” Nicky said.

  Still examining her face, he said, “You speak as if you are experienced in the matter.”

  “Melissa Mayhew tried three times to get in my mind,” Nicky said. “She never could.”

  “And if the great Melissa Mayhew couldn’t see inside, then I shouldn’t even try, right? That is what you are saying to me.”

  “I don’t know who you are or why I’m here.”

  He let go of her hair and walked back to the doorway.

  “You do so know who I am. When Renata said my name, you glanced in my direction.”

  Nicky said nothing.

  “You told Melissa Mayhew that you worked for me, that I enslaved you and sent you to spy on the vampires in Washington. Why did you do that?”

  It was a good question, one that was fascinating to Nicky. Her lie to Melissa was nothing more than a bit of improvisation. Locked in the back seat of a limo after the Masquerade, with Melissa threatening to break her fingers, one at a time, Nicky threw out Falkon’s Dillinger’s name in a desperate attempt to save her own skin.

  Now she was on the other side of the world, and Falkon Dillinger was standing right in front of her. A big smile came across his face.

  “Come out,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  Falkon walked away, leaving Nicky alone in the cell. Slowly, she stepped forward, peeking her head out the door before she stepped through.

  She found herself in a huge space with high walls and large windows. No, not windows. Cells. Every window was the front of a prison cell just like hers.

  “Do you see anything familiar, Nicky?” Falkon said. He stood a few feet down the way from her, the walls on either side making a wide corridor around them both.

  Nicky shook her head.

  “You know, I have a theory about why we can’t see in your mind,” Falkon said. His accent was like a word stuck on the tip of the tongue. It was from a memory, but she didn’t know which one. “If my theory is correct, you do recognize your surroundings, or you will. You have the sense that you have been here before.”

  Nicky stood silently, looking through the glass of the cell ahead of her. There was someone back there. Someone standing in the corner, hunched over, breathing slowly. In the darkness, the figure in this cell was no more than a shadow.

  “There was someone with me on the airplane,” Nicky said. “Where is he?”

  Without warning, the shadow at the back of the cell leapt at the glass, snarling with a mouth full of sharp, yellow teeth. Nicky jumped back so quickly she stumbled, and would have fallen on her back had Falkon not rushed to catch her.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Falkon whispered in her ear. “He can’t get through the cage, and even if he could, I don’t think he would hurt you.”

  The prisoner’s face was right up against the glass, and even in the darkness, Nicky could tell that the skin on his face was a pale shade of gray.

 
It was one of the monsters from her dream.

  “I think he likes you,” Falkon said. “I think they all do. Just as they liked your mother.”

  “My mother? What do you know about my mother?”

  Falkon laughed. “You look just like her, you know.”

  “Tell me where I am,” Nicky said. “Tell me what this is about.”

  “You sound like her too. She was fearless. I admired that about her. Yes, I think it is certain. You are the daughter of Celeste Nicole Allen, and after many years away, you have come back home.”

  Chapter 16

  Falkon took Nicky to his house. He sat her down at a long table.

  “You are going to tell me what you are really doing here,” he said.

  “I’ve already told you. I’m a student at Thorndike. I’m a girl wearing black. At the Date Auction--”

  “Stop. I have no interest in your games. I knew another human once whose mind was closed to me. I made her behave and I will do the same with you.”

  Falkon held up his hand and snapped his fingers. A servant came into the room, dragging Ryan Jenson across the floor.

  “What have you done to him?” Nicky yelled.

  Ryan’s eyes were distant. His face was pale. He was thrashing left and right, trying to escape the servant’s grip.

  Nicky jumped up from her chair ran for Ryan. Falkon stepped in her way

  “You may comfort your friend after you’ve told me the truth,” he said.

  “You’ve tortured him,” said Nicky. “What did you do?”

  “I put him in a prison cell no different than yours. Sadly, Mr. Jenson doesn’t share your ability to keep vampires out of his mind, and the two of you were sharing space with sixteen of the most rabid, crazy vampires I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine what horrors he saw when he was down there.”