The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) (18 page)

“Go on, finish what you were
going to say.”

“It’s not important.”

“It is to me. And if you care
about your friend on the floor over there--”

“I can see in his mind too! Or
at least, I did, the last time we spoke.”

A smile came over Falkon’s face.
“Oh, Nicky. This is most interesting. Most interesting indeed. But let’s get
back to your vision. It opened in your mind when you danced with Sergio.”

“Yes, and then, a month later,
he found me and told me the visions I saw were in the Italian Alps.”

“So he sent you here.”

“He said I have a memory that
was so painful I’ve hidden it away, and now it’s trying to come out.”

“At last we arrive at your
purpose,” Falkon said. “You are here because you want to make peace with your
past.”

“I don’t know what I want. I was
on the plane with Ryan, we needed to go somewhere for our date, and I just felt
like I needed to come to Italy.”

“And here you are,” Falkon said.
“In the worst stroke of luck imaginable, you found the exact place you were
looking for.”

“You’re going to kill us, aren’t
you?”

“Me? Oh no. That isn’t my intent
at all. Renata, however, may have other plans.”

He raised his hands and snapped
his fingers.

“Stand up, Ryan,” he commanded.

Groaning, Ryan pushed himself up
from the floor. Falkon walked over to him and looked in his eyes.

“The agony you have experienced
has passed,” Falkon said. “You are through the storm.”

The change in Ryan was instant.
His face brightened. His shoulders straightened. Even his skin tone was
affected, going from deathly pale back to its normal color.

“Ryan, I am going to put you in
my guest room,” Falkon continued. “I believe you will find it to be the most
comfortable bed you have ever slept in, so comfortable, in fact, that when your
head hits the pillow, you will instantly fall into a deep, restful sleep. You
will remain asleep until I tell you to awaken, and while you rest, you will
have the most pleasant dreams your mind can create for you. The fondest desires
of your heart will be yours while you sleep. As ugly and frightening as the
past few days have been for you, that is how lovely and pleasant your sleep
will be. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Say goodnight to Nicky now.”

“Good night, Nicky.”

She looked at him, wondering if
this was the last time she would ever see him.
I’m so sorry, Ryan
, she
thought.

“Good night,” she said.

After the servant took Ryan
away, Falkon said, “See how easy it is when we’re friends?”

Nicky kept her eyes down,
determined to hold back her tears.

“Well, now that I know why you
came, perhaps I can help you find what you seek. Come with me. I’ll show you
some things that might jog your memory.”

A minute later, they were
standing in the courtyard of Nicky’s nightmare.

The silver sphere, the building,
the mountainside—it was all here. Nicky had come to Italy to find this very
place. To face her memory and learn the truth about it.

She had so many questions. What
was the memory all about? Why were there different versions of it in her mind?
Why was her mother in the memory?

But more important than any of
those, the first question that came to her mind and out of her lips was, “Why
am I here?”

Falkon laughed. “You don’t waste
any time, do you?” he said. “You are your mother’s daughter, no doubt about it!
Celeste Allen was a woman who could cut through the surface and instantly get
at the root of the problem, and she knew that the best way to do that wasn’t to
ask what, or how, or even who, but why.”

Nicky walked up to the silver
sphere, approaching slowly, allowing the real object in front of her to
reconcile itself to the version in her dream.

There were some important
differences.

In her dream, she was looking up
at the sphere. Now, she was looking down.

In the dream, the sphere loomed
large before her, an entire world in which she could lose herself as she gazed
at its surface. Now, as she crouched down before it to look at its face, the
sphere seemed small. It was barely large enough to see her reflection at all.

In the dream, the silver bars
that protruded from the sphere were minor and distant. But on the real thing,
on the sculpture she looked at now, the eight bars coming out in all directions
were the dominant element.

“It’s a strange bit of irony,
isn’t it?” said Falkon. “A creature of the night whose symbol is the sun. You
always liked that sculpture, Nicky. Many times I found you out here inspecting
it. What were you looking at?”

“My own reflection,” she said.
“In my dream, I can see it clearly.”

Falkon walked over to her.

“A nobleman needs an insignia,”
he said. “I wanted mine to be a spider. But the engraver who made it for me did
a poor job. Everyone thought my spider was the sun. I became so associated with
a picture of the sun that I learned to accept it. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Why was I here?” Nicky said.
“Tell me about my mother.”

“One thing at a time,” said
Falkon. “We are talking about your memory in this courtyard. You were looking
at your own reflection in the sphere. Tell me more.”

“There was snow on the ground,”
Nicky said.

“And a full moon in the sky,”
said Falkon.

“Yes! And my mother…”

Nicky approached the brick
building, moving slowly towards the familiar plate of glass in its center.

“The dream has changed since I
got here,” Nicky said. “At first, I always saw my mother standing behind the
glass. She is sick, like those people you are holding inside.”

“Those aren’t people in there,”
said Falkon. “Not anymore.”

“But what are they? What have
you done to them? What is this place?”

“This place is where your mother
and I set out to change the world,” said Falkon. “It was your childhood home,
Nicky.”

A cold wind blew across the
mountain, sending a violent shiver through Nicky’s body.

“Lately, the dream has been
different,” she said. “Now my mother is standing over there.” She pointed at
the far side of the building, imagining her mother running up the hill. “Those
sick people are pouring out of the building and she’s yelling at me to run.”

“Is your father in this
version?”

“Yes!” Nicky said. “He appears right
beside me. He takes my hand.”

“And you run together into the
forest,” Falkon said. “While your mother is left behind.”

“What does it mean?” Nicky said.
“What am I seeing?”

“Ah-tut-tut,” Falkon said,
clicking his tongue and wagging his finger. “I liked your first question
better. Not
what
, Nicky.
Why
.”

“Why, what, who cares? Just tell
me!”

Falkon approached her and put
his arm over her shoulders. There was a warmth to his touch that shielded her
from the biting cold in the air. With his other hand, he pointed up at a
terrace cut into the mountain above them. There was a small cottage on the
terrace, hidden among the pine trees. 

“Do you see that house?” Falkon
said.

“Yes.”

“Do you recognize it?”

Nicky stared at it for a moment.
There was something very familiar about the house.

“You are curious about it,”
Falkon said. “Go on. I’m not stopping you.”

As soon as Nicky stepped onto
the road towards the house a wave of nostalgia came over her. The slope of the
road, the smell of the air, even the sound of the wind took her back somehow.
When she came to the front door the feeling that she had been here before was
overwhelming.

“It’s open,” Falkon called from
below. “Have a look.”

Nicky knew the full layout of
the place as soon as she stepped into the front room. The bedrooms were to her
right, the kitchen to her left. There was a fireplace on the far wall that lay
dormant at the moment, but in Nicky’s mind it was a vibrant hearth where a
family gathered to read books and tell stories. She could see a Christmas tree
parked next to the fireplace. She could smell a hundred different meals that
had been laid on the dining room table.

“What do you think?” Falkon
said. He was standing in the entryway, smiling at her. “Do you recognize the
place?”

Yes
, she thought.
This
is my childhood home
.

“What do you want from me,
Falkon?” she said.

“I want what you want. I want to
know why you’re here.”

“I’ve told you why. I was
dancing with Sergio.”

“But why, Nicky? Why were you
dancing with Sergio?”

“I am a senior at Thorndike. I
am one of the girls wearing black.”

Falkon laughed. “You can’t help
yourself, can you? You know I can see through your lies, but still you try and
tell them. Shall we go wake your friend? Shall we remove Mr. Jenson from his
peaceful sleep and return him to his prison cell?”

“I’m not lying, Falkon. I came
to the Homecoming Masquerade in a black dress. I am on my way to becoming the
next member of the Samarin clan.”

“Oh, the bluster, the lies,
Nicky! Tell me the truth!”

“I am telling the truth! Ask
Renata! I am one of the girls wearing black!”

“You are not! You are
transparent to me, Nicky! I know your heart! You may have worn a black dress to
your school dance, but you are not one of the girls wearing black. You have no
more interest in becoming immortal than I have in becoming human. Speak
truthfully to me or I will bring pain and suffering to your friend the likes of
which you cannot fathom! Why were you dancing with Sergio? Why did you lure
Melissa Mayhew into your house and try to kill her? Who are you really?”

As Nicky looked in Falkon’s
eyes, she thought about her friends back home. The last words she heard from
them came in a text message from Jill.
Code Orange
. Whatever happened
here and now, the mission at home was already finished.

“I am in the Network,” she said.
“I came to Thorndike to kill Sergio.”

Falkon’s mouth opened wide in
surprise. His eyes glinted with excitement. Then he let out a single laugh and
clapped his hands together.

“Oh, what fun!” he shouted.
“What fun! What fun! You joined the resistance. Of course you did! What choice
did you have? You and your father were living off the grid, knowing well that I
had people scouring the globe to find you. You spent your youth in the
underworld, and somebody figured out you had a special talent. You, like your
mother, have a will so strong not even a vampire can change it. You came to
Thorndike to hunt Sergio Alonzo, but found yourself swayed by his charms
instead!”

“I’m not swayed by anything.”

“But you let him in, Nicky. You
held off attacks on your mind from three other vampires, but you allowed Sergio
to come inside.”

“I didn’t allow it. What
happened wasn’t my choice.”

“You don’t realize it, do you?
You are completely unaware of what is happening. Oh, this is brilliant. Utterly
brilliant!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about
why
,
Nicky Bloom! I’m talking about the path fate has carved out for both of us.
Connections!” Falkon held his hands up, touching his fingertips to one another.
“When you get to be as old as me, you see patterns begin to emerge. You see one
event invariably leading to another. You see conclusions years in advance of
when they actually come about. And you start to understand
why
.”

“Well I am not as old as you and
I see none of that,” said Nicky. “I asked you why I was here and now I’m
begging you to tell me. Why do I recognize this house? How did you know my
mother? Why am I dreaming about that courtyard?”

“I think we are finished, Nicky.
I believe I understand everything now. Come, we will go back to your cell.”

Falkon grabbed onto her arm.

“No!” Nicky yelled. “But what
about my mother? What about--”

“Your mother cost me twelve
years of work,” Falkon said. “She nearly ruined everything. And you are just
like her. I really should kill you now. But we need you for Renata’s silly
Ransom game. Come with me.”

Nicky struggled to break free
from his grip, but it was no use. Falkon’s hands were locked on her arm like a
vise. With one hand, as if she weighed no more than a feather, he picked her up
and threw her over his shoulder. Then he moved so quickly Nicky’s head spun
from the motion. In seconds, they were back in the dark prison. Falkon opened
the door to her cell and threw her inside.

“What about Ryan?” Nicky said.
“You’re not putting him back in here, are you?”

Falkon grinned. “It’s sweet the
way you care for that boy. And no, I’m not putting him back in his pen. This
place nearly killed him, and we need both of you alive and well until
December.”

Alive until December? What was
he talking about?

“Good night, Nicky. See you in a
few months.”

The glass door slammed shut and
Falkon walked away, leaving Nicky alone in the darkness.

Jill was surprised that no one
from the Network tried to contact her about the SOS she had broadcast from her
phone. An entire conversation with a vampire, recorded and sent to every
operative in the field, and no one responded. If nothing else, she thought she
might get some acknowledgment of her grace under pressure, having withstood a
confrontation with Bernadette Paiz.

When Monday came and went
without a peep from anyone, she typed up a report of what she witnessed at
school and emailed it to the strategists at the Network.

I know Code Orange has been
called, but there is still work I need to do before I leave town, and, as you
heard from my SOS broadcast yesterday, I have withstood the attempts of a
vampire trying to interrogate me. That encounter makes me believe I am safe to
stay on assignment. I will continue attending Thorndike and will report anything
notable I see.