“Kate.” It was my name on Eric’s lips, and suddenly I was thrust into the past. A past where we had gotten out of so many scrapes. A past where we had won, time and time again.
But it was also a past where we had lost our friends. Where we had seen those closest to us die at the hands of demons in cruel and horrible ways.
I looked away from him.
“Katherine Andrews, what do you think you are doing?”
I looked up to see Signora Micari hustling toward me with a tray of broth and juice. “This is not the young woman I knew. You would not give up so easily. And you would not let those around you give up so easily.”
“I’m not,” I said, feeling all of eleven again. “But it’s my children. I don’t know what to do.”
“And because of that you should be stronger. You should know that we will find her. And we will find the little boy. Or we will die trying.”
Not the most encouraging words, but they gave me strength. I nodded, as she came over to stand right in front of me.
“You are allowed to collapse because it is your children. But now you must put that away and get up. You must do what you can to help them, otherwise you have already failed them.”
She was right. Dear God, she was right.
Slowly, I turned in a circle, looking around the room, my eyes landing first on Eric. “Okay, everybody,” I said. “We need ideas. Lots of ideas.”
In my fantasy world, someone blurted out a brilliant idea, and we swooped in for the rescue. Unfortunately, I wasn’t living in a fantasy world. Everyone was quiet.
“First order of business is to find them,” Eric finally said, clearly deciding to get the ball rolling since Ana and Ren hadn’t jumped in.
“Lilith took her,” Jared said, now back from getting Stuart settled. “We all agree on that, right? That’s who Bruce was talking about. Theherthat he’s serving.”
“It must be.”
“Well, then, he’s probably taking her to wherever Celia is. That makes sense right? Lilith knows we don’t know where that is, dammit. Despite me spending countless hours looking.” He met my eyes, “I’m sorry I haven’t found her yet. I’m sorry I haven’t found them both.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “At least we know what to rule out.”
“They’re probably close, right?” The timid voice came from Ana. “Doesn’t make sense to go too far.”
I turned to her, and I felt a smile touch my lips. “Yes,” I said. “A-plus for reasoning.”
“So we get a map,” Jared said. “A big one. And we assess possible locations. I could try to track them—I know Allie’s scent—but since they left in a car, I don’t think it will work. My time’s better spent helping brainstorm.”
“Agreed,” I said, then turned to look at everyone. “Research and thinking, people. We don’t know anything except that we believe Jared’s sister is close. We believe she’s being held by Lilith’s minions. As far as we know, Lilith is back in the ether.”
I didn’t mention Eddie’s odd comment about a piece of Lilith being in Stuart or Allie. Since I’d never heard of anything like that, I assumed he was just spitballing, and I wasn’t going to have everyone dig in on that research unless Eddie told me it was real.
“Jared’s had a few visions of his sister, too, so he can give you more details, but the big picture is that she’s being held somewhere with crystal walls. Possibly a vault. The telepathy between vampires can’t go through crystal, so we know that’s how Lilith was holding her. But she let Celia reach out once or twice just to yank Jared’s chain. Hopefully, something he saw will give us a starting point.”
I nodded for Jared to take over.
“I didn’t see much. The walls seem to be made of stone. There were windows, but they were all up high. Celia said she was buried, which I assume means that whatever room they kept her in was an underground vault.
“Once, I thought I heard the howl of a wolf or a bobcat. I couldn’t tell. And one time, Celia spun around and told me that she was crazy-dancing in the light. By that time, she was really losing it, so I don’t know if that’s important, but that’s how she said it.”
“I’m really sorry,” Ana said. “You must be so worried.”
His mouth twisted a bit, as if he was fighting tears, and he nodded silently before saying, “Yeah. We were always close. And once we were turned—well, she’s lived over a hundred years now, but she looks ten. I take care of her. Or I did. Before Lilith’s people took her.”
“Have you had a vision since what happened at the Stone Table?” I asked. I realized I’d never asked that before. I’d assumed that he had since he was still looking for her, but I didn’t know for sure.
He shook his head. “No.” He turned to look at Ana and Ren. “Lilith was blackmailing me. Pave the way for her to get into Allie, and I’d get my sister back. And I was going to—I really was. But then—”
