I slept well that night. And it was heaven to wake up in my own bed, to follow my own routine in the morning, surrounded by my own house, my own belongings. No fresh bread to make toast, of course, but I had some frozen English muffins on hand, and I put those in the toaster oven as I savored my morning coffee, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to deal with Lucius Montfort for a good nine hours.
And although I couldn’t do much with the information, I also felt heartened that I’d been able to locate the gula compound. Did Lucius know where it was? Probably; their home base really hadn’t been all that difficult to find online. However, I guessed that none of the vampires would go near the place, simply because they would be greatly outnumbered. I still didn’t quite understand the uneasy détente that seemed to exist between the Watchers and the vampires, but it seemed that both groups did what they could to stay away from confrontations, and avoided attracting notice as much as possible. Lucius had only reached out to me because of my abilities. Somehow I doubted I would have ever been a victim of his, or of any of the other vampires in his coven, for the simple reason that my family was a prominent one, and my mysterious death would have attracted too much attention. That was the main part of the reason why Lucius continued to be irritated with Tristan and Leticia — the vampire master might not have harbored any particular feelings for Vanessa, but her murder would continue to be investigated long after the killing of someone without her connections might have slipped into the background.
The thought made an odd little twinge go through me. I hadn’t been all that close with Vanessa, due to the difference in our ages and the simple fact that we really didn’t have very much in common, but it still hurt…a lot. Just the thought that I wouldn’t ever see her again, wouldn’t get to vicariously experience her triumphs and her continuing success, pained me more than I wanted to admit. Luckily, so far I’d managed to avoid seeing either of her murderers — or rather, Lucius appeared to have arranged things so I wouldn’t have to cross paths with Tristan or Leticia. I supposed managing such a task wasn’t terribly difficult in a house that big, especially when, despite his coaxing me to adopt more of a night owl’s schedule, I simply wasn’t awake during the hours when the vampires were most active.
For now, though, I found it soothing to take a shower in my own bathroom, to prepare myself in a leisurely fashion for the rest of my day. Yes, I knew this calm would end, that Lucius would summon me to his home as soon as the sun set, but in the meantime I could pretend everything was back to normal.
Or mostly back to normal. In the back of my mind, I kept fretting about what the doctors would say to Jackson and Bethany. I prayed — probably harder than I’d ever prayed for anything before — that the specialists at UCLA would turn out to be true miracle workers, and that they’d tell my brother and my sister-in-law that they had an effective cure for Addison’s leukemia. Because if that turned out to be the case, then there was no way Jackson would go along with Lucius’ schemes. There wouldn’t be any point. And then I could tell my brother the truth, and he would help me free Silas. Or maybe that would be the signal the Watchers had been waiting for, and they’d rescue their captive compatriot. I really didn’t care who stepped in and saved the world, as long as someone did.
After my cleaning frenzy of the day before, the kitchen trash was full. I figured that taking the garbage to one of the dumpsters down by the garages shouldn’t cause too much trouble — even not-Brian couldn’t give me too much grief over performing such a simple chore, since I wouldn’t have to leave the condo complex. As I was coming back up the stairs, however, I saw him waiting for me on the landing. A frown creased his sandy brows.
“Just taking out the trash,” I told him, figuring I might as well be proactive.
“Oh.” He glanced past me, as though he expected someone to be there. Who, I had no idea. Did he think I was using taking out the trash as an excuse for an assignation down by the dumpster? Who would I even be meeting with?
I noticed his front door was ajar. Inside, I could see Brian’s big 17-inch MacBook Pro sitting open on the dining room table. From this distance, it was hard to see exactly what he was working on, but, judging by the combination of pictures and text, I guessed it must be a product brochure for one of his clients.
“Back to the grind, huh?” I said, pointing toward the laptop.
His frown deepened. “Yes. Brian — that is, I had some projects due this week. But….”
“But?”
He shrugged then, but I could tell something was bothering him. His speech and mannerisms were close enough to those of the old Brian that I didn’t feel completely in the dark when it came to interpreting his moods. “But…that part of me, the design part…it’s not working. I open projects I was working on, and I feel like I should know what to do, but I don’t.”
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault that Lucius had turned him into a semivive. I remembered what Silas had said about semivives losing any creative spark they might have had, which was why Lucius wouldn’t have dared turned my sister into one of his half-living slaves. Her talent would have been gone, and such a loss would have been immediately apparent to anyone who knew her.
“Do you want me to take a look?” I asked. “I took a couple of design courses in college.”
The gratitude in his expression would have been almost comical if the situation hadn’t been so sad. “Would you?”
“Sure.”
I followed him into his condo, and he shut the door behind me. Nothing about the place looked any different from the times I’d been over there previously, but why should it? Brian was newly made a semivive, and so retained far more of himself than those who’d been Lucius’ slaves for years. He wouldn’t have made any material changes in the place where he lived; doing so would have only drawn his partner Lewis’ attention to a personality shift Brian had to try to keep secret for as long as possible.
As I’d guessed, the project on the laptop’s screen was a brochure — for a new golf resort in Palos Verdes. Even though I wasn’t an expert, I could tell that the layout looked clunky and pedestrian, with none of Brian’s flair for combining fonts, or the little decorative motifs he used to make a project truly his. I also knew that I was out of my depth here. I was no designer. I knew just barely enough to tell his current project wasn’t working, but there was no way I could figure out how to fix it.
That assessment must have been obvious enough in my expression, because the corners of Brian’s mouth turned down. “That bad?”
“I’m afraid so.” I looked away from him back to the computer screen, but I had no words of wisdom to offer. “When do you need to turn in your first comp?”
“Friday.”
Well, that was better than having it due the very next day. It still didn’t give us that much time. And I knew there was no way in hell I could possibly fix the layout for him. However, a sudden notion struck me. “Why not subcontract it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…put an ad on Craigslist, or post the project on Outbrain or something like that. With that kind of arrangement, you can specify that the work will be anonymous, and so you can turn it in to your client as something you did yourself.”
Brian frowned again, but this time his expression was considering, rather than annoyed. “Maybe….”
“I’ll even pay for it,” I offered. “That way, you won’t have to justify the expenditure to Lewis.”
“You’d do that for me? Why?”
Well, there was a good question. The simple answer was that I hoped something of the real Brian survived inside the semivive. Brian was my friend. It seemed second nature to help him out, even though he really wasn’t the person he’d once been. Unfortunately, I didn’t know if that kind of simple altruism was something a semivive could comprehend. So I said, “If I help you, that helps Lucius, right?”
The frown erased itself from Brian’s brow. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but…yes.”
“Well, then. Do you have the original bid you put in for the job? It would help to have that on hand while we’re putting the ad together.”
“I do…it’s in the file cabinet upstairs. Just a minute.”
He left, and I had to force myself to stand there and act like I wasn’t dying to go digging around on his laptop, just to see if he had any incriminating emails from Lucius. But no, the vampire master was a lot of things, but careless wasn’t one of them. I still wasn’t sure exactly how he communicated with his semivives, but I was fairly certain it didn’t involve emails or texts. Telepathy?
Brian came back downstairs with a manila file folder in one hand. “Everything is in here,” he said, handing it over to me. Clearly, he wasn’t worried about me seeing what technically was privileged information.
Luckily, the contract was very specific. I made some notes, and allowed myself a mental whistle at the amount he was supposed to be paid for the project. I’d known that Brian was very successful, and highly in demand, but if he got commissions like this every month — or more than one every month — he’d be well into six-figure territory without breaking a sweat.
I wasn’t going to offer that much in the ads I was putting together, but I thought I could put a price on the project that would make it worth many designers’ time, even if they weren’t yet at a point in their careers where they could command the kind of prices Brian did. As for where I’d get the money, well, I had an extremely healthy chunk sitting in my bank account. My allowance from my parents was sent via electronic transfer on the first of every month, and I didn’t need even half of it to live very comfortably, since the condo was paid for. Anyway, I could afford to help out Brian. No one would even notice the money was missing.
Together we drafted an ad, and I helped him set up an account on Outbrain so he could post the project. We also put the ad on Craigslist, just in case.
“I’m sure you’ll get lots of bids,” I told him as I got up from the chair where I’d been sitting. “Even with such a short turnaround.”
“Thank you, Serena. I know Lucius will be very pleased when he hears of how you’ve helped me.”
I smiled, even though I did so only for Brian’s benefit. I didn’t dare tell him that I couldn’t care less whether Lucius was pleased or not. “Well, we’re all in this together, aren’t we?”
“Yes…I suppose we are.”
Brian let me out, and I went next door to my place. By then it was almost lunchtime, but I found I wasn’t all that hungry. Instead, I went and retrieved my cell phone from my purse, but there were no new messages. I didn’t know for sure when Addison’s appointment at UCLA was supposed to be, since Jackson hadn’t been very specific about that. They might even be driving out to Westwood now. I’d hear when I heard, and not a moment sooner.
If I went back online and started rooting around on Google Maps, would Felix pounce on me again? Or would he think our conversation of the night before had been sufficient, at least until one of us had new information to act upon?
Even though I’d literally walked into my condo not five minutes earlier, I already felt restless, stir-crazy. Maybe it was simply that even my limited time outside had told me it was a beautiful spring day, the kind of day meant for strolling around Old Town Pasadena and doing some leisurely shopping. Ironic, considering I’d lived like such a hermit before Silas entered my world and changed it forever. Back then, I generally wouldn’t venture out unless I absolutely had to.
I hadn’t had a vision for several days now. In the past, I wouldn’t have thought such a gap particularly noteworthy — I often went two or three days, or sometimes as much as a week, without having my thoughts invaded in such a way. While I was living in Lucius’ mansion, however, the visions had come fast and furious. His influence? I didn’t know. Right then I would have almost welcomed a vision, just because it would have given me something new to obsess over.
Visions didn’t appear to be in my immediate future, though. Eventually I got hungry enough to fetch some frozen Trader Joe’s samosas and stick them in the toaster oven. I had nothing fresh in the house, so at some point I’d really need to go to the store. Not on my own, of course; I’d have to get not-Brian to drive me.
I was just about to head next door and ask if he could take me to TJ’s, and then to Whole Foods, when my cell phone rang. Immediately I turned around and ran to pick up the phone. I looked down at the screen.
Jackson’s number.
Fingers shaking a little, I pushed the green button to accept the call. Please let it be good news…please let it be good news….
“Hi, Jackson.”
“Hi, Serena.”
He sounded tired. That couldn’t be good. “Did you talk to the doctors?”
“Yes.” A long pause. “They don’t think they can do anything, either. They ran a few more tests, just to be sure, but, based on what they’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look good.”
My heart seemed to plummet somewhere to the depths of my stomach, lying there like a stone. I swallowed. “But don’t you have to wait for the results of those tests to come back before you can know for sure?”
“Technically, yes, but they’ve seen enough from her charts that they don’t think those tests are going to change much of anything. We’re — well, Bethany’s pretty upset.”
“So you haven’t told her.”
“About our little ‘meeting’ last night? No. I wasn’t going to say anything until I had a definitive ‘no’ from the doctors here. Besides, every time I try to think of how I’ll broach the subject to her, I mentally rewind that conversation and think about how crazy all of it sounds. I mean, I was there…I saw what Lucius could do…but I won’t exactly have visual aids when I talk to Bethany.”
No, I supposed he wouldn’t. I hesitated, trying to think of what I could possibly say to make this all better, but the truth was, I didn’t possibly see how it could be all better. Either Jackson fell in with Lucius and gave him the backing he needed for his “vampire serum,” and therefore locked in place the terrible future I’d seen in my visions, or my brother refused that request, and stood by and watched his daughter die.
“Well, you don’t have to tell her right away,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I mean, you’ll want to think it over.”
A long pause, one that made a nervous tremor go through my body. Then Jackson replied, “What’s to think over? If I don’t work with Lucius, give him the resources he needs to effect a cure, then we lose Addie.”
Shit. Never mind that I’d been thinking basically the same thing just a few moments earlier. Did I dare protest, tell my brother something of what I’d seen in my vision of the future? Could he go through with this, knowing that, even if he saved Addison and extended the lives of many other people — people who could afford it, of course — he’d also be committed to giving Lucius as much healthy blood as he required to create the serum that would make his vampire existence much more tolerable?
I honestly didn’t know. I wanted to believe he would do the right thing, but judgment often went right out the window when it came to dealing with a child’s illness. Anyway, the question was moot, because I couldn’t have him hold off on working with Lucius while Silas was still a prisoner. How long did it take to set up laboratories, hire researchers? If you were going through normal channels, probably months or even years. But Jackson knew the clock was ticking, that a cure had to be found sooner rather than later. There was always plenty of empty office and tech space in Southern California, especially out in the Inland Empire. Using his money and his clout, Jackson could probably have a working team up to speed within ten days or less.
Maybe much less, if I knew anything about my brother.
“I know,” I said. “Did they — ” I broke off then, because how could I possibly ask my brother if the doctors had told him how long his daughter had to live?
He seemed to guess, however, because he said, “We might have six months. Maybe. More like three or four. I don’t have time to wait. I just don’t. Addie doesn’t have that much time. You’ll see Lucius tonight?”
“Yes,” I replied. “He’s sending a car for me, probably a little after six. So I — I can talk to him when I see him.”
“Good. Tell him I’m ready to go on this. Tell him I’ll get him whatever he needs. Tell him — ” Jackson stopped himself there. I’d heard the tremor in his voice, knew how close he must be to losing it altogether. “Just tell him I’m ready to go ahead.”
“Okay, Jackson. I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks.” Another one of those pauses. What he wanted to say, I didn’t know, because when he continued, the words were innocuous enough. “Anyway, I need to get going. Bethany took the kids down to the cafeteria for ice cream, but we need to get on the road back to Claremont.”
“Are you going to stay here in California? I know your spring recess isn’t for a month — ”
“Probably. I don’t know. Nothing’s been decided yet. I may do a lot of flying back and forth. I know the climate here would be better for Addie, and she’s missed so much school already that it won’t matter. We’ll get a tutor for her, and for Griffin and Taylor, if I have to. I’ve got to go, Serena. We can hash out the details later. Just let Lucius know that we need to proceed.”
“I will, Jackson. Take care.”
“You, too, Serena.”
He ended the call, and I was left to stand there in the dining room as I stared down at the cell phone in my hand. Just like that. Now the events leading to my vision had been set in motion.
And I had no idea whether I could stop them.