Chapter 525
Starting at the top of the list, I reached out for the person, trying to imagine what he would look like, concentrating on his name. Normally, it doesn’t take me long to find someone that way, if they’re alive and on this planet. But Boris Javko wasn’t answering. I moved to the second name, and the next, giving each one about a minute. No luck by the time I’d reached lucky number seven. On the eighth one, I thought I had something, but then it turned out to be someone else with a similar name in Russia. This was going to take forever.
“Hey, Cass? You got a second?” Eliza’s chipper voice pulled me out of a trance. I wanted to tell her no, but I couldn’t do that.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Gah, I’m so frustrated. Mila and Hannah are working together to coordinate things now, so I guess I’m not supposed to ask for your help anymore. But they totally botched the hunt.”
I couldn’t remember anyone mentioning a hunt, which was unfortunate. I could’ve helped. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, this Sylvester guy is going to be hard to catch if we just use their regular tactics.”
I took a deep breath before answering and felt out into the universe. I knew exactly where Sylvester was. An old, run down factory in Budapest. And he wasn’t alone. There were a couple of other Vampires with him. “That’s too bad.”
“It really is. It’s so stupid....” Eliza launched into a tirade about how under-utilized she was and how I must be the same because no one had bothered to ask for my help. I listened to her, but I kept scanning the lists, too. Maybe I was still going about this the wrong way. “Anyway, I think next time, I’ll just get your help anyway, you know? If you don’t mind and no one else asks you.”
“Sure,” I said. I’d already helped her before, and it wasn’t like my sister cared. I mean, maybe she didn’t particularly like me helping Eliza, but I wasn’t in trouble or anything. “It’s not hard to find Sylvester.”
“Cool. It’s been so hard adjusting to all of these new teams. Don’t get me wrong, these guys are great, but it’s not like I ever saw myself in Hungary, for crying out loud....” Eliza continued to prattle on for at least a half-an-hour, basically telling me everything she’d experienced since she’d been kicked off of the KC team. The only things she didn’t mention were the fact that she was involved with Laura in the planning of the ambush at Sierraville, where Elliott had died, and the fact that she’d sabotaged my sister’s relationship with Aaron when they were first dating. I “uh huh”ed and “hmm”ed through most of it, still looking over the list in front of me, trying to come up with a better solution and getting nowhere.
“Well, I guess I should go,” she finally said. “We’ve debriefed, but Mila wants us to do some training on how to kill Vampires that don’t go down so easily. Like I need any help with that.” She laughed, but I didn’t. She didn’t know what she didn’t know, and just because she’d had some luck with those jerks on the top of the building a few days ago, that didn’t mean anything.
“All right. Have fun.” What else was there for me to say?
“You, too.”
She hadn’t even asked what I was doing, not that I cared to tell her. I clicked my IAC off and picked up the list. I tried a few more people, but getting nowhere, I got up to stretch, used the bathroom, wandered around a little bit, and sat back down and stared at the papers. What was I missing?
My head was beginning to hurt, so I decided to try Christian again. I still hadn’t told him Cadence was back, and I felt like he needed to know that. He’d been so rude the last time, I couldn’t imagine a few hours would make him any nicer. So maybe I could just get in and get out, but leaving him in that hole alone had me bothered.
I leaned back on the couch and reached out to him. “Christian, you still okay?”
He was singing and didn’t notice me at first. I had never heard the song before, but it sounded like something one might hear while sitting around a campfire—during the American Revolution. “Let’s defend it with the sword, or die with the braves. For we had better die in freedom than live and be slaves.”
“Christian?” I hated to interrupt him, but he needed to go ahead and yell at me and kick me out so I could get on with the rest of my work. “Can you hear me?”
The song stopped, and his mind went blank for a second before he said, “Oh, hi, mind wanderer. Are you back to tell me you’ve turned me in?”
Angered by his accusation, I replied, “No, I’m back to make sure you’re still alive. Seeing as though you are, I guess I’ll go.” If he was going to be rude, perhaps he didn’t need to know the bosses were back after all.
“Wait, Cassidy.” His voice sounded a little more desperate than expected, considering who I was speaking with.
“What do you want?” I could detect him going back over our conversation earlier and the episode with Daunator, so I waited for him to decide what he wanted to say.
“Listen....” His tone had changed, softened, like he meant what he was about to say. “He said... he said you guys should try to come and save me. If you do, he’ll have what he wants. So... don’t do that, okay? I mean, I know your sister should be back soon. Don’t let her come over here until after I figure out how to kill him.”
What he’d said earlier about not coming to get him, even though he knew his weapons had done nothing, made sense to me now. He was afraid for our safety—or Cadence’s anyway. Why he seemed to be worried about her specifically, I didn’t know, and asking would get me nowhere. So I told him the truth.
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