Page 68 of Spiders in the Grove

But before I left his house, I changed my mind.

James Woodard is, and probably always will be loyal to Victor Faust. And I can’t do what I intend to do with those ties still in-tact.

Nora Kessler, on the other hand, I did still intend to recruit. She never treated me like the ‘girl’; she never had any problem throwing me into a situation where I might die.

But at the last minute, just like with James, I changed my mind.

Problem with Nora is that Victor was the driving force that led her to his Order; she risked her life to be accepted into it, and…well, I still wonder to this very day—why?

I admire Nora, but in my heart, I’ve never really trusted her.

So, who was left?

No one.

Fredrik is gone—he could be dead, I don’t know, but I’m not going to go looking for him. It hurts, the last words he spoke to me. And just like with Victor, I’ve learned to accept that Fredrik meant what he said that night. And Fredrik has a lot of deeply disturbing, unresolved issues, that I could never even begin to know how to help him with.

Niklas? I don’t know why, but I thought that out of everybody, Niklas would be the one I could count on, that he’d be the one who would jump at the opportunity to work together, on our own, free from bosses and rules and procedures already set in place. So, I was surprised when I went looking for Niklas at the bar where he lived upstairs, and no one had seen him in over a week. I broke into his room; his stuff was still there; nothing looked like it had been touched; a thin layer of dust had settled on his belongings on the nightstand.

“He was paid up for three months,” the owner of the building told me, standing in the doorway with the keys after I’d already broken the lock. “But the rent was due three days ago, and I still haven’t seen him. I don’t really know the guy, but it’s a bit strange that he hasn’t been down at the bar. He’s always at the bar.”

I walked through his room, looking for anything that might give me an idea where he is.

“Who did you last see him with?”

“Jackie, of course,” the owner had said. “They were always hanging out here together—she’d always end up here in his room.” He paused, pointed at me briefly. “You’re not his wife or somethin’, are ya?”

I laughed a little. “No, definitely not.”

He nodded, relieved he didn’t just rat Niklas out.

“So, what can you tell me about this Jackie?”

The owner gave me her description, and said he thought she lived in a trailer park somewhere, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Are you gonna pay for that?” he asked about the broken lock just before I went to leave.

I gave him enough cash to pay for the lock, and Niklas’ rent for another three months. Just in case.

I did have a bad feeling about his disappearance, but at the same time, it was typical of Niklas, and certainly wasn’t the first time he’d left without telling anybody. He could handle himself. Besides, I had begun to realize that going there to recruit him was the worst idea ever anyway. He was worse than Victor when it came to letting me go on missions, and worrying about me all the time. And then something hit me:

“If Fredrik sent Dante to Mexico, and Victor sent Iosif, then who did Niklas send? He had to have sent someone—there’s no way in hell he would’ve let me go on that mission without sending someone too.”

I pace the floor of my living room for a long time talking to myself, pondering the whole revelation.

Then I stop mid-stride as the pieces begin to come together. I go over to my laptop on the coffee table and research the Lockhart Family; a knowing grin spreading across my face as I see a photo of Mr. Lockhart’s daughter, Frances, standing beside him at some kind of college function. She definitely wasn’t the Frances Lockhart I saw at the auctions. And apparently, Cesara didn’t look hard enough, or she would’ve found the same picture, buried about twenty pages into Google images. Maybe she gave up on page nineteen, like I almost did.

I conclude that the woman I saw at the auction had to be someone Niklas sent—that’s why I felt as sorry for her as I did for Dante. Could she be this mysterious Jackie, perhaps? I may never know. Because just like Fredrik, and Victor, I may never see Niklas again.

For now, at least, it looks like I’m on my own, and I’m going to make the most of it. Maybe this is the way it was always meant to be; this is the place fate was leading me when I hid in the back of Victor’s car. Not into his arms, but into the start of a new life—my life—the one I was born to live, that only Victor could show me.

Victor…

I will always love him, and despite what he wanted me to do, I will never stop loving him; I will never stop looking for him; and I will never put him out of my mind.

Because I know one day we will meet again.

As lovers? Friends? Enemies?

It is the one thing I fear and desire more than anything else. To see him again; to feel his hands on me; to look into the eyes of the man who made me…understand who I already was.

Victor…