“No,” Allie said apologetically. “I did look around to try to spot them, but it was very dark and there was no one on the streets.”
“But you have seen them since,” he said with certainty, and she supposed the fact that she was no longer living in Calgary probably gave that away.
“About a week after Stella died, I heard a noise in the backyard and looked out to see a man creeping toward the house. He was just a darker shape in the night, but then the moonlight, or maybe the lights from the neighboring houses, reflected off his eyes. Seeing that, I knew at once that he was one of the vampires Stella was so terrified of. Her eyes glowed like that in the night, and she had said it was the easiest way to identify one. So when I saw that, I just freaked. I immediately gathered up Liam, rushed to the garage, jumped in the car, and fled.” Allie grimaced and then finished with, “And we’ve been running ever since. The first stop was Edmonton, but there have been countless cities and towns between then and now. Toronto is just the latest in a long line of them.”
“They keep tracking you down?” Magnus asked with a frown.
Allie nodded and said with frustration, “I don’t know how. I left everything behind. I didn’t even take clothes other than what Liam and I were wearing. I had to replace them in Edmonton when I got there. I also got rid of my cell phone, and stopped using credit cards. Hell, I even drive hours from where I’m living when I have to go to the bank, just in case they can track my banking activity, but they keep finding me.”
There was silence for a minute, and then Magnus asked, “Did you keep the same car throughout?”
“Yes,” Allie admitted, glancing at him with surprise. “You think they’ve been tracking the car?”
He hesitated, but then said, “It is a possibility. It sounds like that is the only thing that has gone with you from place to place, except for Liam.”
“Well, that won’t be a problem this time,” Tybo pointed out. “Your car is still in the parking lot of your apartment building, and we’re taking a helicopter to Port Henry. They won’t be able to follow.”
Allie hoped he was right. It would be nice not to be looking over her shoulder for a change. It would be nice too not to have to give up blood to Liam, and even just to be able to talk about this stuff with someone. Those things were making Port Henry seem as attractive as a luxury resort in a tropical locale, she thought, and then glanced to Lucian with curiosity and asked, “Why haven’t you asked me to describe the rogues I’ve spotted over the last four years, or if I recall the head guy’s name yet?”
“Because I can read the descriptions from your mind and that you have not recalled the name,” he said simply.
“Oh. Right.” She felt her face heat up at the idea that he was reading her thoughts, and started running back through them, trying to see if she’d thought anything she needed to be embarrassed about.
“Maybe it would help you remember his name if you thought back to when you first heard it,” Magnus suggested. “Do you remember when Stella told you his name?”
“Not really,” Allie admitted apologetically, even as she tried to search out the memory. Distracted by the task, she muttered, “I mean, it’s been four years since she told me the truth.”
“A hectic four years too, from the sounds of it,” Tricia said, her voice sympathetic.
“Yes,” Allie acknowledged absently, her mind on when she’d heard the name of Stella’s sire. It must have been when she’d first told her the story, of course. She made herself remember the room they’d been sitting in, and tried to imagine she was back there with Stella telling her what had happened to her. After a moment, she frowned and muttered, “I remember his name started with an A like mine and it was strange. I’d never heard it before. It sounded like amazon, but wasn’t amazon. It was Ackermon, or Addabon or—”
“Abaddon,” Lucian growled.
Allie’s eyes popped open. “That’s it!”
“Dear God,” Mortimer said quietly, and then glanced to Lucian. “Basha and Marcus are in San Francisco following up on a report of a possible sighting of him there.”
“Call them back to Toronto,” Lucian said grimly. “Basha needs to be here.”
Nodding, Mortimer started to rise, but Lucian waved him back to his seat. “After we finish here.” Turning to Allie then, he asked, “Stella lived in British Columbia when she was attacked?”
“Yes.” Allie nodded firmly. “Vancouver.”
“When she arrived on your doorstep the night she died, did she specify who had found her? Did she mentioned seeing Abaddon himself there in Calgary?”
Allie shook her head. “She just said, ‘They’ve found me.’”
“So Abaddon himself could still be in Vancouver,” Mortimer said slowly. “He might just be sending crews out, first after Stella and the boy, and now after Allie and the boy.”
Lucian shook his head firmly. “He will want the boy too much. He would not wait behind in Vancouver and depend on clumsy new turns to find him.”
“But why would Abaddon want Liam so badly?” Tricia asked with confusion.
“He wants to create another Leonius,” Lucian said with grim certainty. “He spent his entire life playing puppet master first to Leonius and then to his son. With them gone . . .” Lucian’s mouth firmed out. “This would be a perfect opportunity for him. The chance to get his hands on another child to corrupt and twist into a third Leonius.”
“But both Leonius and his son were no-fangers,” Sam pointed out. “That’s why they were crazy. Liam is an immortal. He won’t be insane like Leo and his father and likely to do the things they were willing and even eager to do under Abaddon’s tutelage.”
“What is a no-fanger?” Allie asked with confusion, but might as well have saved her breath. No one answered her; instead, Lucian responded to Sam’s comment.
“You do not think that if Abaddon got his hands on Liam young enough he could twist the boy’s mind?” Lucian asked dryly. “From what we have heard, Stella was a perfectly normal young woman, yet look at how she changed after her encounter with him.”
“Yes, but that was like a temporary madness from the turn,” Sam argued. “And Liam is already immortal.”
“It was not being turned that drove Stella to do the things she did,” Magnus said quietly. “It was the manner of the turn. The way their captors waited until the need for blood forced her and her husband awake and then tossed in bloodied victims to be rent apart.”
“Yes, but Liam is already an immortal,” she repeated. “He could not do that to him.”
“Not as part of a turn,” Magnus agreed. “But he could just lock him up without blood for days or weeks, wait until he is in desperate need and mad with blood lust, and then throw in victims who have been cut up so they reek of it.” He paused briefly and then shrugged. “Combine that with a few other tricks and treats and you would either have another Leonius, or the boy would end up dead and Abaddon would look for another victim to try to turn into his next Leonius.”
Lucian grunted in agreement and then turned back to Allie. “Did any of the rogues you have spotted the last four years fit Stella’s description of Abaddon?”