When Villains Rise

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  Nita bowed her head. She’d figured as much, but she’d needed to hear him say it. “Then who did it?”

  “I don’t know.” There was a loud bang and a muffled voice. “Ah, I have to go. Lovely hearing your baseless accusations as always.”

  He hung up before Nita could respond. Nita stared down at the phone for a long moment. If it wasn’t Adair, who could it be?

  Kovit cleared his throat beside her, his expression pained. “It wasn’t him, was it?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He rubbed his temples. “I was thinking about it, and there is one other person who could conceivably have figured out our plans.”

  “Who?”

  He winced. “Gold.”

  Nita stared at him. He was right. Gold had stayed with them for a day, she’d had plenty of opportunity to sneak around and eavesdrop. Even if she hadn’t, she’d known they were keeping Fabricio prisoner, and she could put two and two together.

  As soon as Kovit said her name, the rightness of the answer settled on Nita. Kovit had done a good deed, talked Nita into doing a good deed, and she was being punished for it. That was how the world worked. Good deeds got you nothing but pain.

  Kovit closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Nita flopped on the bed. Her voice was resigned. “I told you.”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “I warned you that she’d turn on you.”

  “I know.” Kovit ran his hand through his hair and fisted it there. “I just thought if I let her go, maybe she’d see I wasn’t all evil. She’d remember that once upon a time, we’d been friends. Before she knew who I was. I wanted to remind her that I’m not just a monster. I thought she’d . . .”

  “Be your friend again?”

  He shrugged, looking away. “I guess.”

  Part of Nita wanted to yell at him, to berate him for his naivety and stupidity. For risking everything so that he might look better in a childhood friend’s eyes. But the other part of her just felt sorry for Kovit, for his shitty life and his shitty friends and his sad, small attempts to be good going terribly wrong.

  Sometimes, she felt like both of them were damned no matter what they did, good or bad. That any choice they made led to ruin.

  But she couldn’t let herself think that way. There’s was always a way to victory. Always a path to survival. Maybe it was ugly and painted in blood and grief, but it was there. She believed it. She had to believe it.

  She put her hand over his gently. “It’s okay, Kovit.”

  He looked at her, his eyes dark. “I’m so sorry, Nita. I never meant for this to happen.”

  “I know,” she whispered, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I know. But it’s okay. It’s an extra complication, but we’ve faced worse. And even if your location is out, so what? People are questioning the entire validity of the list right now. It won’t be long until a full-scale investigation is launched.”

  He perked up. “Really?”

  “Really.” She handed him her phone with all the articles. “Take a look.”

  He did, scrolling through the information, body loosening the more he read. Nita took the time to wash and get dressed as she mentally prepared for the next stage of her plan. All these things were distractions, Kovit, the list, all of it. She had come to Buenos Aires for two reasons: Alberto Tácunan and Zebra-stripes.

  And today she was going to destroy them both.

  She dressed and went out to the main room. Fabricio was still sleeping, but he woke when she entered the room and watched her through slitted eyes.

  “Off somewhere?”

  “Taking care of something. Kovit and I will be gone most of the night.” She pulled out the duct tape and smiled at Fabricio. “You know what that means.”

  Fabricio gave a long-suffering sigh. “Can I go to the bathroom first?”

  She let him, and afterward, duct-taped him back to the couch.

  Kovit came out a few minutes later, looking much calmer and more put together. He was wearing the sunglasses, and he’d used water to slick his hair into a smooth part that made him look older. It wasn’t the best disguise Nita had ever seen, but it hit the main points. Kovit was shorter and darker, so he might be able to pass as Latin American with his eyes covered. Definitely not Argentinian, though—he moved through the world in a different way. Nita did too. It was like the city had a rhythm, and she and Kovit were walking to a different song, always a step off beat.

  But the hairstyle aged him, as did his serious expression, making him easily able to pass for late twenties instead of the twenty and a few months he actually was. She was hopeful that even if he couldn’t blend in, at least it wouldn’t be obvious who he really was.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  Nita sighed, tying her hair back in a more mature style so that she could look older than her nearly eighteen years. She didn’t want to ruin Kovit’s disguise by looking too young. Though, older men with younger women wasn’t that uncommon, just gross.

  “As we’ll ever be,” she said, adding a few age lines to her face for good measure. There. Now they looked like a pair of late-twentysomething tourists.

  It was time to get some answers.

  Twenty-Four

  IT WAS ALMOST eleven in the evening when Zebra-stripes finally came.

  Nita nearly missed him, she’d been sitting so long on the couch in the hotel lobby staring vacantly at the entrance. She knew he’d arrive today based on his message when she sold him her mother’s location, sometime after sunset, but she hadn’t known what time, which meant a lot of waiting.

  He entered quietly, unassuming in brown slacks and a thin beige coat. He’d tried to cover the distinctive white stripes in his brown hair with an old-fashioned-looking hat, the kind she expected on people who dramatically swept it off and bowed when introduced, kissing a lady’s hand in greeting. Despite the fact that all his clothes looked a little out of date, they all looked newly made and clean, and the effect was less that he’d walked out of a period drama of 1930s Chicago and more that he was young with a bit of a retro, quirky style.

  His movements were slowed down, so that they looked almost human, not the too-fast, impossible actions she remembered. It still made her shudder when she recalled how he’d moved, like she’d blinked and missed something.

  But he wasn’t trying to scare her now. He was trying to pass as human, and it seemed to be working.

  He walked to the front desk, and Nita nudged Kovit. He nodded, and the two of them separated, shifting into position. They knew where Zebra-stripes was going.

  Nita went over to the elevator banks. All of them were at the lobby, and she pressed the top floor in each one except one, sending them shooting up and away. Then Nita got in the final one, just as Zebra-stripes turned the corner.

  She smiled at him, her face a mass of wrinkles from her disguise, her hair tucked up under a wig she’d bought on the way there. She’d swapped disguises, afraid that Zebra-stripes might recognize her from the market if she looked young. But now, to all intents and purposes, she looked like a seventy-year-old woman.

  “Going up?” she asked, holding the door open.

  “Yes.” His voice was low, a little on the deep side, a little too deep for his face, which seemed young, mid-twenties. It was a lie, of course. Vampires didn’t age the same as humans. Their faces froze at some point in their lives and then after that, you could only tell their age by their hair.

  The more white in their hair, the older they were—though it wasn’t really white, it was an ethereal, almost translucent, sparkling color that resembled white. They could live as long as seven hundred years, but they grew older and frailer as they aged. When they were young, they were preternaturally strong and practically unstoppable. The old ones were weak as kittens.

  His hair was covered, but Nita remembered how much white Zebra-stripes had. She’d placed him between one and three hundred years. A dangerous age to be. Wise from their years and sti
ll strong with youth.

  That wasn’t going to stop Nita from taking him down. Nita was strong too. And she had a lot more riding on this.

  The elevator doors clicked closed, and he pressed the sixth floor, as she’d known he would. Soft music began to play, and Nita leaned forward and pressed the button for the eighth floor, dropping her bag as she did so.

  “Oh, goodness,” she croaked, making her voice raspy and old to go with her wrinkly skin. “Dear, could you get that for me? My knees aren’t what they used to be.”

  Zebra-stripes didn’t say anything, just knelt to pick up the bag.

  And Nita used the opportunity to drive a knife into his spine.

  She’d been very careful with her planning—she didn’t want to kill Zebra-stripes, not yet, but she couldn’t take on a vampire. She was realistic.

  But she’d dissected many a vampire. She knew their biology well.

  The knife slid in just below the base of his skull between the C1 and C2 vertebrae, immediately paralyzing him. Blood slipped out, coating the knife handle and painting Nita’s fingers red.

  The only sign of his surprise was his widening eyes as his body collapsed beneath him in a single moment. Paralysis was a beautiful thing—you could survive it, and it made you completely vulnerable. Vampires had superb healing, though, so Nita didn’t take the knife out as he collapsed. She left it in to prevent his body from naturally healing the damage.

  He grunted when he hit the ground, and Nita drove the knife in deeper.

  He glared up at her, his eyes so pale they seemed almost white. “Who are you?”

  Nita smiled at him, reached down, and shoved a gag in his mouth. “We’ll talk soon.”

  The elevator dinged on the sixth floor, and Kovit was waiting with the plastic tarp. They rolled Zebra-stripes onto the tarp quickly, seconds ticking by, eyes wide, hoping no one turned onto the corner and saw them.

  Blood dripped off the plastic tarp from the wound, not a lot, but some. Kovit had some cleaning supplies, and he darted into the elevator while Nita dragged the body across the hall to the room she’d rented under one of her mother’s aliases.

  Kovit held the elevator doors open and looked at the stains with concern. “Really, Nita?”

  “I did my best.”

  He gave her a look. “You’ll be okay while I deal with this?”

  She nodded, edging the door open and tugging the body into the room.

  Inside, the room looked like a serial killer’s playhouse. She and Kovit had draped everything in plastic and taped it there so that all the evidence could be bundled away and destroyed afterward. She dragged Zebra-stripes across the room and hauled him onto the bed with her enhanced strength. He grunted but couldn’t say anything through the gag.

  She used industrial-strength chains to bind him to the bed by his hands and feet, even though he was paralyzed. Then, as an extra precaution, she shoved a needle in his jugular. The needle was connected to a long plastic tube that led into a massive cooler.

  Vampires could self-heal, but it took a lot of energy. Eventually, his body might find a way to heal around the knife in his back. She didn’t want that. So she drained his blood out, knowing his body would divert energy to replenishing his blood to keep him alive and delaying his healing time and reducing his physical abilities if he did escape.

  He glared at her, and she let out a breath. It was done. She had caught him.

  The monster who had murdered her father. Who had somehow managed to con the DUL and escape justice for it.

  It was time for answers.

  She stared down at the pale vampire, his deceptively youthful face twisted in anger. But she could see the fear that lurked underneath the anger, because Nita had made a vampire’s worst nightmare out of this room.

  Vampire blood was highly prized—a sip a day kept death away, or so the saying went. It wasn’t quite true. You couldn’t become immortal from drinking their blood. But you could delay aging. A small amount every day for years built up in your system, and you’d age slower and slower over time. There was anecdotal evidence of people living to two hundred years with vampire blood.

  Nita didn’t put much stock in nonscientifically tested rumors, but most people did, and vampire blood was a booming industry. A vampire at full health could heal its body for up to a week when blood was being constantly drained from it before it died. If you occasionally fed it? Well, it could be in your blood-draining factory forever. Plenty of blood for you to live an extra century, and plenty of blood to sell online.

  Her mother hadn’t drained any vampires Nita knew of. Too much of a time commitment, too much of a hassle to feed. But Nita had dissected and packaged more than a few for sale, since eating their flesh was said to have a milder but similar effect. Probably from the residual blood in it.

  Nita crossed the room and checked on her container. Filling up nicely. Plenty of extra cash when this was over. If she was going to capture a vampire anyway, and needed to keep it weak, she might as well earn a bit of money off it as well. She certainly wasn’t going to just throw the blood out. What a waste that would be.

  Zebra-stripes grunted on the bed, trying to speak through his gag, and Nita went over to him and looked down at him as she shed her disguise. Off came the gray wig, and she tightened her skin back up until she looked like herself again.

  Zebra-stripes’ eyes widened in recognition, and Nita smiled down at him. “We meet again.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  Nita sat down on a chair beside the bed. “Don’t worry, I’ll take the gag off soon. I just wanted to make it clear how things were going to go here first.”

  He glared.

  “See, I really just wanted to murder you at first. I’m not really the forgive-and-forget type. But then I realized that you probably have a lot of answers that I need, and I have a lot of questions. So here’s the deal: answer my questions, and I’ll let you go.”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “You don’t believe me, that’s fair,” Nita agreed. “But what have you really got to lose? If you don’t answer them, I’ll just kill you. If you do answer them, I might be telling the truth and will let you go.” She paused. “Obviously I won’t let you go while I’m in the room. I’ll be long gone. But I’ll call whatever number you want to have someone come to find you.”

  He tried to speak through the gag, and Nita leaned over and plucked it from his mouth, arms fast, careful not to give him an opportunity to bite her.

  He licked his dry lips, his chin brushing against the plastic tubes sucking his blood out. “Fine. I’ll answer your questions.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But first, answer one of mine.”

  Nita shrugged. “All right.”

  “What did I do that you want vengeance for?”

  Nita blinked. “Pardon?”

  “You said you wanted vengeance, that you’re not a forgive-and-forget kind of person.” He blinked slowly. “But I don’t know what I’ve done. I’d like to know.”

  She stared at him. “You . . . what?”

  “Was it because I came to visit you in the market?” He sounded curious. “Are you getting vengeance on everyone who came to see you?”

  “What? No.” Though eventually maybe she would. She hadn’t really thought about that. She wondered how many of the people who’d visited while she was in the market were hiring people to hunt her down now. A lot, probably. “You killed someone important to me.”

  “Oh.” He considered. “Who were they? I’ve killed a lot of people over the years.”

  “You killed him two weeks ago. Just before you went to the market. In Chicago.”

  His cold eyes blinked at her. “I see. And who told you I killed him?” He sighed, veins standing out blue on his pale, bloodless face. “No, wait, let me guess. INHUP?”

  Nita blinked. “Yes.”

  His smile was bitter. “How convenient that all their enemies die by my hand. You know, if I’d committed all the
crimes INHUP claims I did, I’d never have time to sleep.”

  “Vampires don’t sleep.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  Nita crossed her arms. “So you want me to believe you’re innocent?”

  He shrugged. “You can believe whatever you want.”

  Nita considered the possibility. She did only have INHUP’s word for it. But if Zebra-stripes believed being innocent would keep him alive, he’d obviously lie.

  She put the thought aside now and moved on. Whether he was innocent or not, it didn’t change what happened next. He had answers to her mother’s past, her father’s death, and, most importantly, he had information on INHUP that must have kept him off the list.

  Nita intended to find out what it was.

  “My turn for questions.” Nita crossed her arms. “Firstly your name.”

  “Andrej.”

  “Andrej what?”

  He hesitated. “Smirnov.”

  Nita raised her eyebrows. “Like the liquor?”

  He smiled, but it seemed fake. “Exactly.”

  He was lying. That definitely wasn’t his real name.

  She brushed it aside. It wasn’t important.

  “Why are you hunting Monica?” she asked.

  “What’s she to you?” he asked, considering. “You have the same ability, so my guess is you’re her daughter. Though I never saw Monica as the motherly type. More as the eat-her-own-young type.”

  If Nita had needed proof that the two of them knew each other, that would have sealed the deal. That was one of the most accurate descriptions of her mother she’d ever heard.

  “How long have you known my mother?” Nita asked.

  “Oh, a long, long time.” Andrej made a face. “She ages better than I do.”

  “You don’t age.”

  “My point exactly.”

  Nita crossed her arms, something unhappy squiggling in her chest at the implications. “So why do you want her dead?”

  Andrej stilled, so completely, perfectly, inhumanly still, it made the hairs crawl on Nita’s skin. Then he quietly hissed, “She murdered someone very important to me.”