“Why these four youngsters?” Ilya asked softly. “We were supposed to foster Lara and Karol for a season or two. Why did we end up with Kira and Viktor as well?”
“There must have been a reason for the change,” Natasha said. “And all the youngsters had the necessary permissions from the leaders of their home shadows.”
“Did they? Papers can be forged.”
Natasha propped herself on one elbow and looked at him. “That would be so . . . human.”
“Yes. Isn’t a human connection exactly what we’re looking for?” The concern Grimshaw had conveyed to him had been about Kira. Nothing had been said about Viktor, the other unexpected arrival. If Grandfather Erebus had a reason for sending the two older fosterlings to Silence Lodge, he had chosen not to share that reason. Maybe because the leader of all the Sanguinati in Thaisia had decided that Ilya’s experience before becoming the leader of Silence Lodge might be needed? If that was the case . . .
“Is Lakeside hosting as many fosterlings?” Natasha asked.
“I don’t know. But the Lakeside shadow has many more Sanguinati who can keep watch over the young.”
Natasha lay down and settled comfortably on his shoulder. “You’re worried one of the fosterlings is connected with the contamination.”
“They are here. So is Crowbones. It’s hard not to wonder—and worry.”
“If there is a connection, you will find it,” Natasha said.
Will I find it in time? Ilya wondered.
It was a question that might not have an answer—until it was too late.
CHAPTER 34
Them
Watersday, Novembros 3
Trapped in this damn village!
What had Fewks done after his little performance to get himself killed and get the Others so agitated that they had locked down the entire area? Couldn’t have been the performance itself. That was so minor. Something else must be going on. Something that wasn’t under his control.
Maybe it wasn’t his project. Maybe his rival had stirred up the trouble. He thought he’d spotted a couple of her monstrosities roaming the village when he’d first arrived. He didn’t recognize them—and he doubted they would recognize him, thank the gods—but he knew the signs of his rival’s tampering and training.
Too many pieces in motion, too many ways this could go wrong now and threaten him if someone managed to ask the right questions of the wrong person. He should have left Sproing the moment he realized his rival was conducting her latest experiment here, but she could have picked anywhere for her study, while The Jumble really was the only place for him to carry out this particular project. She knew that and still risked exposing years of careful studies in how to shape nebulous thoughts into sharp beliefs, along with the studies into how to train a group of people into adopting specific behaviors.
Years of study might be erased unless enough pressure could be brought to bear on the right people in order to clear one road out of this place. Until then, he had to be careful not to provoke his rival into taking impulsive action. He had to blend into the background and let the other academics take the lead.
He was good at that.
CHAPTER 35
Grimshaw
Watersday, Novembros 3
Grimshaw ambushed Ilya on the staircase that led up to the Sanguinati’s office above the police station. He waited for the vampire to come down a few more steps before he leaned against the wall, a deceptively casual pose.
“If you could have, you would have gotten those kids away from Sproing,” he said in a conversational tone. “I have to figure that someone higher up the chain of command said no to that request but wouldn’t tell you why. I also have to figure that you don’t feel comfortable about the security you have in place around Silence Lodge. So you split up the kids, keeping the youngest with your own people and having the three teens doing ‘internships’ at human businesses.”
Ilya came down another step. “Perhaps I wanted some businesses to have a means of reaching me and mine quickly if there was trouble and the human ways of communication were severed. Perhaps the presence of Crowbones makes me feel vulnerable in a way I never have before.” He stared at the glass door at the bottom of the stairs. “Perhaps the arrival of the fosterlings coinciding with the arrival of this Hunter is the reason the youngsters can’t leave.”
He’d wondered about that as he’d brooded by himself last night. “Teenagers can certainly kill people. Even children can kill by accident or on purpose. But I don’t believe any of your youngsters did what was done to Adam Fewks’s body or killed either Crow. Which means one or more of your fosterlings might be a target or might be the bait that can flush out the contamination that landed Crowbones on our doorstep, and separating them gives you the best chance of keeping some of them alive.” Especially if one of them is a killer who would endanger other young Sanguinati.
“What would you have done?” Ilya asked quietly.
“I don’t know that I would have done anything different,” Grimshaw replied. “But putting Kira with Vicki?”
“The Jumble has layers of defenses.”
He didn’t point out that Adam Fewks had been killed with breathtaking speed within sight of The Jumble’s main house—and he didn’t point out that at least one enemy might be inside with Vicki and Kira. Ilya already knew that. But Grimshaw wasn’t sure the vampire had considered the unintended consequences of pairing a young Sanguinati female with Vicki DeVine. It wasn’t Vicki herself; it was the attraction she seemed to have for the more reclusive terra indigene around Lake Silence. “All right. Let me see what sort of busywork I can assign to my intern.”
“And I should not keep Mayor Roundtree waiting much longer.” Ilya smiled, showing a hint of fang. “I believe he has opinions about the current situation.”
May all the gods help the village’s mayor if he tried to turn this into political fodder.
Grimshaw and Ilya walked out together, then went in opposite directions.
When Grimshaw walked into the station, he found Officer Osgood and Viktor huddled around the desktop computer.
“Hey, Chief.” Osgood looked a little flushed, which Grimshaw took as a sign that the rookie wondered if he’d overstepped some boundary.
Better flushed than pale, Grimshaw thought as he approached the desk that held the computer.
“We’ve ignored e-mail for a couple of days, so I thought Viktor could go through the e-mails and delete the junk,” Osgood said.
Grimshaw studied Viktor, who studied him in turn. “You know how to work e-mail?”