When Villains Rise

by Rebecca Schaeffer

  She had no idea how to use it.

  The words blurred in front of her. She didn’t know any of these names, didn’t know who she needed to blackmail to stay safe, didn’t know how to best deploy this information. Didn’t know what was important and what was junk, didn’t know who was at the top and the bottom.

  She let herself be overwhelmed by it all for a moment, the sheer magnitude of what she didn’t know, of what she had to learn.

  Then she pulled herself together and took out her phone.

  Adair picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s Nita.” She forced herself to sound cool and confident. “I have the information. I successfully robbed Tácunan Law.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line before Adair finally whispered, “Well, damn.”

  A smile crept across Nita’s face at his impressed tone. Just hearing those words made something ease in her chest. She had done something incredible. She could do anything she put her mind to. She would figure all of this out.

  “I didn’t think it was possible,” he admitted. “I’m impressed.”

  “You shouldn’t have doubted me.”

  “Of course I should have. I’d doubt anyone trying to rob something as big as Tácunan Law. Even if they were a professional. I’m sure people have tried before.”

  Nita had to admit this was true. “But they didn’t have Fabricio.”

  “Precisely.”

  For a moment, she thought of just how dangerous it must have been to be Fabricio, knowing that all anyone wanted him for was a chance to steal his father’s fortune in information, and she remembered his look of pure happiness and relief as he explained that with no more Tácunan Law, he was free.

  “I have the only copy of the information now,” Nita told Adair. “The servers there have been wiped.”

  “And that will be the end for it.” Adair’s voice was soft. “It’s been around longer than I’ve been alive. It’ll be strange to see it go. I wonder what will take its place.”

  Nita shrugged. “Don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Not at the moment.” There was a short pause and then he said, “Well, I have some information I want, and you have some misinformation you want me to spread, so shall we get started on this exchange?”

  “Let’s.”

  “Do you have anything on Arlene Qiu?”

  “Spell that?”

  He did, and Nita searched her hard drive. She found the file and clicked on it, horror mounting as she realized that she had more than forty thousand pages of text on file. Documents, court records, account details, correspondence, audio recordings. An impossible number. It would take her a year just to get through one person’s data.

  How was she even supposed to begin sorting this?

  “Do you have anything?”

  “I have . . . a lot.”

  “Define a lot?”

  “If I printed it all out and stacked it up, it would probably be as tall as your pawnshop.”

  He paused. “I know what I’m looking for. Send it all.”

  “All of it?” Nita’s voice was mildly incredulous.

  “That’s my price. Everything you asked for. I’ll have your video with Reyes debunked as best I can. When people come to me to buy information on you, I’ll tell them it’s fake and that your time in the market was all a clever scam to get in, rob them, and burn it all down. I’ll tell them whatever you want to be known for.” He paused. “And all the information you asked for, on INHUP, on the list. Anything I know.”

  Nita was silent a long time. She didn’t know how to use the information she had. These documents were probably worth far more than what Adair was giving her for them. But she needed what he had, she didn’t have the influence or power to make things happen. All she had was information, and valuable as it was, she didn’t have the knowledge to make a counteroffer. Things were only as valuable as they were useful to you.

  So even though Nita knew she was getting the bad end of the deal, she said, “Fine. How do you want me to transfer the data?”

  He sent instructions on how to upload her files to a private server of his, and she followed them carefully.

  “It’s going to take a while,” Nita said, watching the progress bar crawl along. “There’s a lot.”

  “That’s fine.” Adair was calm.

  The sound of voices laughing in the hall drifted through the small hotel room, almost but not quite covering up the hum of the air-conditioning unit.

  “So.” Nita kept her voice steady. “I want to know everything you know about Andrej and INHUP and the Dangerous Unnaturals List.”

  “I see you’ve found some of the information on your own.” A hint of amusement laced his words.

  “Yes.”

  He sighed softly. “All right. So, here’s what I know for certain. Nadezhda Novikova had a lover, who was also a founding member of INHUP. He went by the name Andrej Smirnov, but that’s likely an alias. I don’t know what his real name was—he probably discarded it a long time ago.”

  Nita turned this over, determined it wasn’t important, and said, “Go on.”

  “They were in a long-term relationship, and they’re both listed as founders. Smirnov—no, I’ll call him Andrej, I feel like I’m talking about vodka when I say Smirnov—Andrej was never, and can never be, put on the Dangerous Unnaturals List because of all the public pictures of him at INHUP functions. The public doesn’t know he’s a vampire, but they certainly would if his face made the list. And wouldn’t that cause controversy.” Adair’s voice was bitterly entertained. “That’s why he wasn’t on the list even though he killed your father and why information on that case was classified. Speaking of, INHUP apparently found video of your father’s death. I’m still working to get it, but I should have it soon.”

  “I see.” Nita pursed her lips, trying to push away all the emotions that wanted to boil back up when she thought of seeing a video of her father dying. A part of her wanted it desperately, wanted to see the truth for herself, wanted to know for sure she’d gotten his killer. And a part of her crumbled at the very idea of seeing him die. She didn’t want to watch that.

  She shoved those thoughts away for another time, and asked, “And Novikova? What do you know about her?”

  “In a coma for the past twenty years after a failed assassination attempt. The doctors say she’s brain-dead, but pulling the plug requires consent they can’t get.”

  Nita licked her lips, and even though she knew the answer, she needed to hear it. “Who tried to kill her?”

  “Ah, there’s no actual proof, but I believe it was another founding member of INHUP, a woman who goes by the name Monica Veer. Not her real name, which, I suspect you already knew,” Adair said softly.

  Nita didn’t rise to the unspoken question, and simply asked, “How did Novikova survive at all?”

  When Nita’s mother went to kill someone, usually they stayed dead.

  “Novikova had been drinking vampire blood for nearly forty years. She healed faster and was more durable than any regular human. If she hadn’t been drinking so much blood, she’d be dead,” Adair explained. “There’s so much aggregate vampire blood in her system that she hasn’t visibly aged since she was in her mid-thirties.”

  An idea formed in Nita’s head, and she asked, “Do you know where they’re keeping her?”

  “An INHUP research facility in southern France, near Nice.”

  Nita actually knew the one he meant. They’d been publishing groundbreaking papers on the long-term effects of vampire blood in humans. Now she knew where they were getting their data.

  Nita was silent a long moment, mulling things over. Her computer beeped, and the file transfer was completed.

  “Can you access the files I sent?” she asked.

  “Yes, I see them.” A short pause. “You really weren’t kidding about the volume, were you?”

  “Nope.”

  Adair was quiet before asking in a carefully m
odulated tone, “What do you plan to do with all this information?”

  Nita hesitated. “Use it.”

  “To?”

  “Intimidate the market. Take down INHUP and their list.”

  “Okay.” His words were slow and precise, as though chosen with deliberation. “Do you know what information will do that?”

  The words echoed Nita’s earlier thoughts so precisely that she wondered if kelpies could read minds.

  She opened her mouth to brush him aside, to tell him she had it handled, but what came out instead was the truth. “No.”

  He sighed softly, a brush of static over the line. “I thought as much.” A soft rustle of noise. “Nita, I’m going to make you an offer.”

  “I won’t sell it all.”

  “That wasn’t the offer.”

  “Oh.” She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Go ahead.”

  “You don’t know the value of this information. You don’t know how to sell it. You don’t know how to use it to its best effect. You overpaid me today—by a lot.”

  Nita rubbed her temples. “I figured as much.”

  “I know how to use it.” Adair’s voice was steady. “I know how to stretch it and manipulate it and leak it and whisper it in the right places to make things happen.” He took a deep breath. “Work with me.”

  Nita thought she’d misheard. “Pardon?”

  “I’ll partner with you. You have the power, but I know how to use it.”

  Nita stared at the wall, at the cracks in the plaster that looked a little like a fibula bone. Her first instinct was to reject him, to push Adair and his offer away. She didn’t share her power. She needed to be in control—only when she was completely in control would she be safe.

  But she forced the instinct down, because it was wrong. She wasn’t her mother, obsessed with control at all costs. She couldn’t do this alone. She didn’t know how to use the information. Adair was right, much as she hated to admit it. Adair was almost always right. The very thought left a bad taste in her mouth, but she knew it to be true.

  “You don’t even like me. I nearly killed you.” Nita’s voice was hard. “What’s stopping you from killing me and stealing my information?”

  “I told you, Nita, I don’t do vengeance. What’s past is past. We’re both still alive, and this isn’t about liking. This is a business partnership, not a marriage proposal. Like doesn’t factor in.”

  “Betrayal does,” Nita said. “What’s to stop you betraying me?”

  He was silent for a long time, then said, “Diana.”

  Nita blinked. “Pardon?”

  “Diana. She wouldn’t let either of us betray the other. She may not hold much sway over you, but I won’t do anything to make her angry.”

  His admission came out grudging, and Nita frowned slightly. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Of course I like her, I work with her every day. You think I’d hire her if I didn’t?”

  “No, I mean, you like like her.”

  Adair was silent for a long moment and then said, “I’ve never understood people’s obsession with romance. Why can’t I value her for who she is without there being something romantic?”

  Nita blinked. She hadn’t really thought too deeply about it, or even thought too deeply about her question. Now, though, she wondered. Why had she assumed that?

  Adair sighed softly, a crackling burst of static on the other end. “People love to think that if you have strong emotions for someone, that if you care for them deeply, it must be romantic. But that’s not true. I care about Diana a lot. But not that way.”

  Nita was quiet. She understood, in a deep, foundational way, what Adair meant. Growing up, she knew there were friends and romances. Life hadn’t prepared her for anything else, and whenever she thought about Kovit, and the emotions around him, her mind said it must be romance, because surely a friendship couldn’t be that strong. If she felt this powerfully, then it must be something else, something “more,” as though friendship wasn’t enough and there was a next level of importance.

  But what Nita felt for Kovit wasn’t necessarily romantic. That didn’t mean it wasn’t powerful.

  Hearing Adair say those words, hearing him give voice to the confusion in her soul released something deep inside her, gave her permission she hadn’t known she’d been seeking to understand something within herself.

  She cleared her throat. “I understand. I need to think on your offer.”

  “I have time.”

  Nita nodded and hung up, then stared quietly at the phone and the information, lost in thought.

  Thirty-Five

  NITA SAT THERE letting the thoughts tumble around her mind for a while before a knock on the door pulled her out of her stupor. She hesitated, heart racing as she asked, “Yes?”

  “Nita?” called the voice on the other side.

  Relief flooded her systems, muscles she hadn’t realized were tight with tension loosening, and she opened the door and let Kovit in. He wore a giant floppy tourist hat that obscured half his face, and a pair of ugly shades that covered the rest. He’d got a jacket somewhere and had used it to cover the bloodstains on his shirt. He was breathing heavily, from heat or exertion or both.

  “Are you okay?” Nita asked, closing the door behind him.

  He nodded. “I’m fine. I smell like dead bodies and hamburgers, but I’m fine.”

  Her breath whooshed out. He took off the hat and the glasses and the coat, and he stumbled over to the bathroom and started washing the dried ketchup and blood from his face.

  “What happened?” Nita asked, following him in. “How did you get away?”

  “I ran. For a while. I swear every time I thought I’d lost them, they’d find me again and there’d be more of them. But I managed to lose them for a few minutes, and I found some sunglasses in the trash. I can’t believe how much these things help.” He ripped his shirt off and stuck it under the sink, scrubbing at the blood. “It made it easier to hide from the mob with the coat. I bought it at one of those artisan stands. God, it was hot, though.”

  “I imagine.” Nita leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “I don’t think you can go outside for a while.”

  “You think?” His voice was bitter, and he wrung the water out of his shirt. It was a little pink. “I’m going to have to live in this room for the rest of my life.”

  “Hardly,” Nita said, but she wasn’t sure.

  He spread out his shirt, looking at it critically. The stains were mostly gone, and he put it back on, still wet.

  “What did I miss here?” he asked.

  Nita hesitated, then admitted, “Adair offered to partner with me. He knows how to use the information we got, and I . . . don’t.”

  Kovit nodded. “It’s not the worst idea.”

  Nita raised her eyebrows. “Working with a kelpie who’s betrayed me before?”

  “Adair’s not the worst you could do. He’s ruthless when he has to be, but he doesn’t hold a grudge, he’s damn clever, and he’s reasonably sympathetic, for a murderous black market information broker.”

  Nita sighed and flopped back on the bed. “I know.”

  “But?”

  She hesitated. “But is it . . . is it weak to take him up on it?”

  He sat beside her. “Weak?”

  “I don’t have the knowledge. If I work with him, maybe I can learn it. He can use it more effectively than I can.” She closed her eyes. “But I would basically be giving over power to someone else. I worked so hard for this, and the idea of just letting it go . . .”

  Kovit hesitated, then slowly said, “I suppose it depends on your goal.”

  “Goal?”

  “You once told me you wanted to be an unnatural researcher.” Kovit turned to her, his wet hair dripping on the bed as he lay beside her. “Can you really do that if you’re scrambling to try and use this information right? Working with Adair will make it easier—much easier—to pursue that goal safely, and faster.”
>
  Her mouth dried. “Yes, it would.”

  “You’d be giving up power, but was power your ultimate goal? I thought you wanted it so that people wouldn’t hurt you, so that they would be too scared to go after you. So you could live your life.”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  He shrugged. “Do you really think you can live your life, the one you claim this is all for, and become an information broker more powerful than Adair at the same time?”

  Nita was silent for a long moment, thinking. Because Kovit had a point—what use was power if she couldn’t use it to do what she wanted?

  She still wanted to be an unnatural researcher. But she also wanted to be so powerful that no one would ever dare try and mess with her again. Giving the information to Adair felt like shifting responsibility, trusting that he would take care of protecting her instead of Nita using the power to protect herself.

  She didn’t like it.

  She put it out of her mind for now. “Let’s see how the world is taking our videos.”

  She pulled out her phone and went online. Kovit scooched closer so he could see the screen, their arms touching and their heads tilted together to look at the news.

  The video of Kovit being beaten had created a massive online controversy. Marches protesting the Dangerous Unnaturals List were being scheduled, and several branches of INHUP had been mobbed by angry people on both sides, pro- and anti-DUL.

  INHUP posted their own video from Henry’s archive after they had, but instead of proving Kovit was a monster, it only authenticated Nita and Kovit’s video. At least three legal cases had been brought up.

  An avalanche of other stories had started coming out. Anonymous vampires who said they’d never killed anyone, they lived off their significant others’ and friends’ donations, but feared for their lives. A story about a pair of grieving parents whose neighbor had broken in, murdered, and mutilated their five-year-old son because he was a zannie.

  A research firm had done an analysis last year of the damage resulting from the DUL kill-on-sight policy and found that there were twice as many regular people killed by it as dangerous unnaturals. Through mistaken identity, casualties of mob violence, cases of people shooting at suspects and missing, hitting innocents. The mobs formed often committed other crimes after killing their target, and property damage was also high.