Firstborn, Page 3

  “I take it you found it.”

  “I guess this is the point where you’re supposed to kill me and harvest my memory,” I say slowly.

  “Actually . . . I was supposed to kill you, take the diary, and not harvest your memory.”

  I blink.

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if I’m not to know what’s in the diary.”

  “It’s not a diary,” I say at last.

  He looks at me but doesn’t ask. And the fact that he doesn’t somehow makes me feel unexpectedly alone.

  I have a daughter. Her name is Eva. I saw her, and she’s beautiful.

  The knowledge wells up inside me. I want to blurt it out—to him, the world.

  But as much as I trust him, Rolan is not the person I should be telling.

  He accelerates down Highway 102, breaking the speed limit.

  “What are you doing?”

  His jaw tenses. “We need to get as far from Košljun as possible, go somewhere else. Somewhere south, out of the way. Sarajevo or Montenegro.”

  Though I see his logic—we’ve zigzagged all across Hungary, Slovakia, and Croatia already—we don’t have time. Gregor’s body could be identified any minute. The Historian might even now be receiving an urgent call about one of her hunters, exposing Rolan.

  I can’t think. The images from the vault are crashing together with the video of Luka, the map of Croatia I memorized with a single glance—the curse of a photographic memory and what I used to think was ADHD.

  I chug the remainder of a cold cup of coffee, willing the caffeine so calming to the Progeny to take effect. But all I can see is Eva’s tiny face. I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting for focus.

  A minute later, I dial Jester.

  “I don’t trust any VPN outside of Sweden for you to upload those pictures,” she says.

  “Can you exchange our car’s GPS for that of another car heading south?”

  “And the location on my phone,” Rolan adds.

  “Not in the time you have. Get a different car.”

  As soon as we’ve crossed the mile-long bridge from Krk to the mainland, we turn south to the small village of Smrika, ditch the car in the back of an apartment complex.

  Coming around front, I persuade a woman just getting into a white Citroën SUV to give us her keys.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re headed back north and then east on the A7.

  “You realize you’re going to be a fugitive,” I say.

  The sun is setting behind us, an extravagant display of reds and purples. And all I can think is that it looks too much like blood and bruises. Somewhere, presumably west of us, I imagine Eva being fed and bathed, prepared for bed.

  My arms ache at the thought of her. And I’m probably doing the stupidest thing in the world by trying to get her father back. But I can’t fathom trying to tell her ten, fifteen years from now that I could have tried, and didn’t.

  Assuming I live that long.

  She’s safe. She’s safe. As long as I don’t know where she is, she’s safe.

  Jester won’t talk about the specifics of what I found, insists that we meet them in Zagreb or Maribor tonight. When I hedge, Claudia and I end up in a heated argument about the selfishness of risking my life that ends with her yelling at me. But I know her well enough to know she’s afraid.

  “Rolan’s about to be made,” I say. “He can’t go back. If anything happens, he’ll get everything I’ve got to you.” I don’t have to say “including my memory.”

  It doesn’t help.

  “So there never was going to be an exchange,” I say to Rolan, as the sun drops below the horizon.

  “No.”

  Well, that puts a damper on things.

  “Just me dead and you delivering the so-called diary to the Historian. And Luka presumably killed as soon as she knew I was dead.”

  Rolan is silent.

  “How long until they identify the body?”

  “A day, if we’re lucky.”

  It’s nearly seven. The offices are closed unless their forensic experts work in the evening, though that might just happen on American TV. By morning then, just to be safe.

  “Where were you supposed to take the diary?” I ask.

  “I was to be given a drop location.”

  “You don’t even get the honor of giving it to the Historian face-to-face?”

  “No one sees the Historian’s face.”

  But I nearly did, five nights ago in Europe’s largest underground gathering: the Budapest court. The same night she sent me on the mission for this cache in exchange for Luka’s life. I don’t know how many times I’ve cursed myself for not lunging for her mask—or better, her throat. Except for the problem of her holding a gun on me with one hand, and Luka’s life in the other.

  I’ve already quizzed Rolan about how all this Scion stuff works.

  Who knows who the Historian is?

  No one except her immediate circle.

  How do they communicate with you?

  Via the same voice you’ve heard.

  Did you know it was the Historian herself, that night in Budapest?

  It’s the question that caused his hands to ball into fists. I’ve replayed the night in Budapest over and over. The way Rolan and the other hunter came in. Robed and masked as she was, even her own hunters didn’t know it was her.

  No. Had I known, she would be dead. But given all the guards there, most likely so would you. And there would be no one to stop the Historian’s successor from assuming power.

  I slide down in the passenger seat, mind racing.

  “So once I retrieved the ‘diary’ you would have been given a drop. And then?”

  “And then, I assume, I would have found a sum of money in my bank account. Or a job offer with a large salary waiting for me.”

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugs. “When the members of our sect began to marry into Scion families, we put ourselves in the path of wealth. I was always embarrassed by it. Not because I was holy—definitely not that. But because I had parents who forgot what it was to live under Communism. I left when I was a teenager to attend military school. I already knew then what I was, had been taught by my grandfather, who considered my father too corrupt to carry our mission. But I . . . I abhor wealth. It is maybe the only one of our original vows I have ever honored.”

  “Well, this works out fine then. Because I can help you be poor.”

  He gives a slight smile.

  “Rolan, where are the others like you?”

  “Scattered across the continent. I just happened to find you first.”

  “So, how are we going to do this?”

  “I don’t suppose I can convince you to run and let Luka go.”

  “No, sorry.”

  He’s quiet for a moment before he says: “Then you have to kill me.”

  4

  * * *

  The next proof of life comes promptly at 6:00 P.M.

  Luka, looking more refreshed even than before but visibly tense, bound and tied to the same chair that is seemingly bolted to the floor of the truck-trailer. The cords on his neck instantly relax at first sight of me.

  “I’m close to finding it, Luka,” I say, trying to sound unrehearsed and hopeful at once within our darkened car. “The diary—it’s real.”

  At those words, however, he tosses his head, trying to yell something behind the gag. And I know he’s telling me to take it and run. To get away from Rolan. Because he doesn’t know about him. The truck hits some kind of bump and the camera jolts in the hands of his captor, and then the feed abruptly shuts off.

  “Good,” Rolan says.

  But I am far from good.

  It was shorter than the others. Far too short.

  I thumb through to the folder of feeds dating back the last four days, pull up the one that just recorded.

  “Something happened at the end. Did you see that?”

  “They’re not going to give you any more
than they have to,” he says.

  “No, something else.” I play the feed again. The camera has never been perfectly steady, obviously held in human hands. But something about that jolt—

  “There,” I say, hitting pause and scrolling back.

  “I don’t see it.”

  I advance the recording a frame at a time. Just before the feed ends, the picture tilts, inadvertently incorporating the first other object I have ever seen in the truck interior. Something mostly yellow and linear that’s normally beyond the angle of the camera.

  “What is that?” I say.

  Rolan frowns. “How did you even notice that?”

  “It’s a gift,” I mutter.

  I back up a frame, and then swipe forward. The object is in a total of three frames at the end.

  “It looks like a—” He fumbles for the words in English. “The metal instrument for moving . . .”

  “A pallet jack!”

  “Yes. But so what? Any truck can have a . . . pallet jack.”

  I replay the frame.

  “It has something on it. Looks like a company name.” Though it’s too fuzzy to read on the tiny screen.

  I call Jester.

  “I’m sending you something,” I say, plugging the minidrive from my pocket into Rolan’s phone.

  “I told you not to—”

  “It’s the latest video of Luka. There’s something there, at the end, with a name on it.”

  I download the file, transfer the drive to my phone. I don’t trust Rolan’s. A moment later, I’m uploading the video to Jester, full resolution.

  “At the end, there’s something in the truck.”

  “What is that?” Jester says, switching to video chat.

  “A pallet jack. But I can’t read the name on it.”

  “A what?”

  “For moving things from a truck.”

  “Aha . . . ah, yes. All right. Let me see what I can find.” She clicks off.

  We drive in silence for an hour after that, head east for lack of a better direction. Luka was taken in Bratislava. I met the Historian in Budapest. Either one of them could be anywhere by now. I tell myself it doesn’t matter—that I have the thing the Historian wants.

  We’ve just pulled into the parking lot of a large hotel on the outskirts of Zagreb by the time Jester videos back.

  “Audra, I think I have something for you,” she says. Her dreads are tied high on her head with a purple scarf. Claudia and Piotrek peer at me from over her shoulders. I give them a little stupid wave. It’s good—so good—to see their faces.

  “If I render the image, this spray-paint lettering that seems black—but is really blue—spells out ‘Vad . . .’ ”

  “ ‘Vad’?”

  “Which are the first three letters of the Vadasz Freight Company . . .” An image takes over the screen: a trucking fleet painted in yellow and blue.

  “It is the largest freight carrier in Europe,” Piotrek says. “Hello, Audra.” He waves back.

  “And . . . they are based out of Budapest,” Jester says.

  “Then he’s in one of—what? A couple hundred trucks?”

  “More like three thousand. It’s a very large fleet.”

  My heart sinks.

  “But, Vadasz has a very sophisticated IT network and logistics system,” Jester says.

  I pause. “So you can find him.”

  “I don’t see ‘hostage’ listed as the cargo for any truck in the system,” she says dryly. “But we know he was taken four days ago near Bratislava. Once you set a location for the exchange I can track any Vadasz truck as it arrives within a radius of that point.”

  I sit back and exhale.

  “Okay,” I say and glance at Rolan. “I know what to do.”

  5

  * * *

  Parked in the back of the hotel lot, my attempts to sleep are worthless.

  I wonder where Eva is. What she looks like when she sleeps. I count back the forty weeks of my pregnancy, try to calculate the day of her conception—right around the time Luka and I got married. Wonder what our lives were like, realize I may never know.

  Rolan snores softly from the driver’s seat, the exhaustion of the last few days evident in the lines on his forehead. Meanwhile, my knee is bouncing against the console hard enough to bruise.

  Just before midnight, I shake Rolan awake, grab his phone, and check to be sure there are no identifying landmarks in the view behind me.

  The video feed comes a minute late, at 12:01.

  Luka, sagging in the same chair. This time he does not thrash or try to talk through his gag, his eyes intently focused on the camera.

  “Hey,” I say. “You trying to get a little rest, too?” I don’t have to fake the fatigue and hope it disguises the fact that I’ve rehearsed these lines a hundred times.

  A muscle in his cheek twitches.

  “I ran into a little roadblock,” I say, glancing down to hide my expression. “But I think I can find a way around it.”

  I glance up just in time for the video to end. And I don’t like the last look I see on Luka’s face.

  It’s far too serene.

  The look of a man prepared to die.

  I instantly search the recording for any hint of Luka’s location, but there is nothing—not even a bobble. They’re no longer moving.

  Of course not. They’re near the place they intend to dump his body.

  “Call them now. We have to call now!”

  Rolan takes the phone from me.

  “Not yet,” he says. “Calm down.” But the buildup of angst and adrenaline inside me feels like a tsunami. I yank open the car door, get out, rest my hands on my knees. Try to force myself to breathe.

  “I won’t make it the next six hours,” I rasp. A breeze rifles through my hair. I close my eyes and suck in a breath. Will my lungs to expand.

  “You have to. Our plan won’t work until then.”

  My phone blips from inside the car and I lunge for it. Jester.

  “Audra . . .”

  Jester, normally so composed, hesitates.

  “What is it?” Somewhere in the last three days I’ve lost my ability to tolerate even split-second silences.

  “They’ve identified the body.”

  My pulse drops out.

  “Someone’s been working around the clock, apparently. It just got logged in to the police system. As an Adran Horvat, who apparently disappeared months ago.”

  “That isn’t right. His name’s Gregor and he didn’t die that long ago.”

  Adran Horvat. I’ve seen that name before. Can picture it, even, painstakingly penned at the top of a short biography . . .

  On a page of the Progeny genealogy in Brother Daniel’s vault.

  “Adran Horvat was one of us,” I say. Gregor definitely was not.

  “Then they’re covering Adran’s death with the body of one of their own. Regardless, they know.”

  “Then we have to move. Are you sure you can do this?”

  “Not alone,” Jester says. “Luckily, I have some associates on standby.”

  “Who, the hacker group Anonymous?”

  “Let’s just say I have friends in the CCC.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter now. I end the call and turn to Rolan.

  “They know.”

  Rolan takes a deep breath. “Are you ready?”

  The phone shakes in my hands. It rings four times before a male voice answers.

  “Da.”

  Russian?

  No, Romanian.

  “English,” I say.

  “Who is this?” the voice says evenly, far more alert at this hour than I expected. But the sound of it sends instant ice down my spine.

  Because I remember that voice.

  “You know who this is,” I say unsteadily.

  “Hallo, Audra.”

  They are the same words intoned in the exact oily drawl I heard on Ivan’s phone, an hour after his death.
r />   “Where is your keeper, Audra?” he asks.

  “He’s dead. Like his partner, Gregor.”

  A pause. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” I pull the phone away from my cheek, thumb to a series of photos, and send one through the call.

  It’s a grisly image of Rolan taken earlier that evening. Grainy and dark, but it will have to do.

  The phone audibly vibrates on the other end.

  Again, a momentary silence.

  “I want to talk to the Historian,” I say.

  “I am the acting voice of the Historian. You may relay your message through me.”

  “Happy sex change to you,” I quip, neither knowing nor caring whether I just blew the Historian’s cover. In fact, I hope I did. “I want proof of life at six A.M., or I burn the diary.”

  “Very clever, Audra. And here I was told that you had yet to find it.”

  “Oh, I found it,” I say, with a slight sneer. “And it looks very interesting. Not that I’ve read it. That wouldn’t be smart, would it?”

  An appreciative exhale on the other end, almost akin to a soft laugh.

  “I’ll contact you after I receive the next feed, during which I will ask Luka a question only he will know the answer to. If he does not or cannot answer, I will know you have fabricated the feed, and the diary disappears forever.”

  Rolan gestures sharply, and I hang up before the voice on the other end can reply. I remove the SIM card immediately.

  The minute I do, weird calm washes over me. There’s a peaceful kind of crazy that comes with knowing you’ve got nothing left to lose.

  6

  * * *

  I stare in the darkness after that, the words of Brother Daniel echoing in my head.

  If you do not learn to control your powers, they will destroy you. You will lose everything you are fighting for.

  Reacting out of fear . . . holding to what you love too tightly . . .

  But I don’t know how to do anything but hold to what I love too tightly.

  “Rolan,” I say in the darkness.

  “Da—yes,” he says, voice husky from lack of sleep.

  “Was Gregor the first person you’ve killed?”