The Progeny

by Tosca Lee

  Luka pulls me by the elbow. I yank my arm away.

  “This is the last ferry. We have to get to—”

  “There’s been a murder. We have to get you out of here. Now.”

  Just then a murmur passes through a group of people standing ten feet away from us. I turn back in time to see a covered stretcher emerge from the hull, two uniformed men wheeling it toward the back of a van.

  The tremor, when it starts, begins in my knees. Luka seizes me by the arm and walks me swiftly toward the cab. He spots the driver, who has wandered down to get a look for himself, and says something to him, gesturing to the car.

  Back at the cab, Luka climbs into the backseat after me.

  “You don’t think that—” I can’t get the words out.

  “The police were waiting when the ferry got back. Someone with a car never got off on the island.”

  The 7:30 ferry. The same one Ivan was taking back to Cres.

  My mind races as I try to remember if I knew anything about Ivan having a car in Opatija. Well, there’s one good way to find out for sure whether Ivan’s safe. I look for my pack and, as I do, realize Luka is frantically searching around us.

  The backpacks are gone.

  “Have you seen our bags? Our things?” he says to the driver.

  The driver shakes his head, answering in Croatian, and gestures to where he was standing outside.

  “I got out last,” I say, stunned. “I got out after he did. I left them in here.”

  Luka curses, shoves out of the car to look in the trunk and then along the road. A moment later he’s talking to the people in the car in front of us, gesturing in our direction.

  I was out of the cab for what—ten minutes? Fifteen? How long did I stare at the body being wheeled into the van?

  “Please,” I say to the driver urgently. He’s backed to the very edge of the shoulder and is cranking the steering wheel. “Can I use your phone?”

  My hands are starting to shake. I have to redial the number twice.

  This time it is not picked up on the first ring, or even the second or third. By the fifth ring, I feel sick.

  It is answered on the sixth.

  “Hello?” I say. “Ivan? Are you there? Are you all right?”

  Silence.

  And then: “Hallo, Audra.”

  It isn’t Ivan.

  17

  * * *

  “Who is this?” I demand, heart pounding against my ribs. “Who are you?”

  The call clicks off.

  The cab door opens and Luka gets back in. “They’re gone,” he says grimly. “No one’s seen them.” And then he notices the phone tremoring in my hand. “Did you reach him?”

  “Someone else answered,” I say.

  The driver has finally managed to get us pointed across the road and is about to pull forward into the other lane when a light shines through the back window, right in my face. I shield my eyes. The light disappears. Someone pounds on the window.

  Luka lunges across me to lock the door, tells the driver to go.

  “Wait!” I say, unlocking the door. Hands from the outside pull it open.

  “What are you doing?” Luka shouts, and I practically feel him prepare to launch through the door at the figure outside. At the sight of Claudia, he pulls up short.

  “Hurry!” she says, grabbing my arm.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The driver shouts; Claudia snaps back and then launches into a diatribe that culminates with her throwing several kuna at him. A moment later he seems to apologize. Too profusely. And I sense she’s worked her Progeny ways on him, though I have no idea what she’s just said.

  “He cheated your meter,” she says as we move away. A lie—for Luka’s sake, I assume.

  We trek up the hill after Claudia as one car after another pulls from the line below us.

  “Have you heard from Ivan?” I say.

  “I did.” Her eyes dart to Luka.

  “Where is he? Is he okay?”

  “Come,” she says, and though her tone is brisk, her face is pale.

  She leads us farther up the hill to a car idling on the side of the road. Piotrek’s behind the wheel. We get in, and Claudia turns around in the front seat. She looks younger in the dark without her black sunglasses, and far more human.

  “So this is the friend,” she says, as Piotrek pulls ahead of the traffic.

  “Luka,” I say.

  “Well, Luka, I’m sorry to say you have come at a very bad time.” She slides a meaningful look to me.

  “Any idea what happened?” Luka asks tightly, well aware, I know, that he isn’t supposed to know anything about this.

  “I am afraid for the worst. Ivan has a history of bad company. It appears the past may have caught up to him tonight.”

  “You mean like the mafia?”

  “Well, he was from Serbia.”

  “How did you know to come for us?” I ask.

  “We were headed to Karlovac when Ivan called to say he thought he was being followed and to get you away. We came as quickly as we could.” She glances at Luka. “Ivan’s old associates have a habit of going after their victims’ friends.” She turns forward, and I can hear her exhale an unsteady breath.

  “I tried his phone,” I say. “Someone else answered.”

  Luka says, “If someone killed him on the ferry, they did it on the way over. They’d still be on the island.”

  “You know your way around,” Piotrek says, silent until now. “But your accent is Slovakian.”

  “I studied in Croatia—it’s where we met.” He takes my hand. “Before the mess of Audra’s ex showing up, of course, and everything since.”

  For a moment there’s nothing but the sound of the car whizzing down the road. And then I realize we are headed not back toward Opatija but east.

  “Where are we going?” I say.

  “We go to Karlovac and then Zagreb,” Piotrek says, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

  “No. We can’t! Ivan had something to give me. Something from my mother, maybe. I need it.”

  “It isn’t safe,” Claudia says.

  “You don’t understand—”

  “No, you don’t understand. Ivan lived in Lubenice. There are only two old ladies and hardly any tourists this time of year. You will stand out. And we cannot stay in Rijeka.”

  “Actually, I would think they’d expect us to be running as far from Rijeka as possible,” Luka says slowly. And I suppose he should know, being a hunter himself.

  “Whoever answered Ivan’s phone knew it was me,” I say. “They said my name.” I don’t need to tell her that Ivan’s killer by now knows everything Ivan himself did—including the fact that we had planned to meet him in Cres tonight. The thought makes my skin prickle, because it means they now know everything he did about me.

  Piotrek exchanges a glance with Claudia. He says something in another language, which I expect Claudia to snap at. But she murmurs instead and covers her mouth. And I realize that, for as steely as she appeared earlier, she, too, has been badly shaken by tonight.

  A minute later she makes a call. After a few brief exchanges I can’t make out, she nods to Piotrek. The car slows and pulls off onto a side street. Moments later, we’re headed back to Rijeka and Claudia has pulled the chip from her phone.

  In the darkness, Luka has not let go of my hand. And I realize that whoever killed Ivan now knows that I’m traveling with someone, even if they don’t know his name. And I’m not certain if that is a good or a bad thing.

  “I didn’t tell you that I met Claudia and Piotrek earlier,” I say to Luka. “They came with Ivan.”

  “Yes,” Claudia says. “I promised our friends in Zagreb that I would confirm that she is alive before they go to the trouble of planning a celebration.”

  “Ivan could have told you that,” I say. “I think you wanted to see me yourself . . . because you know me.”

  Her head turns, her perfect profile illuminated by the
headlights of passing cars. “So clever, always,” she murmurs. “Even with no memory you are hard to fool. Welcome back, Audra.”

  18

  * * *

  “I called Ivan a liar when he told me you were alive,” Claudia says, turned sideways in the front seat. “But I admit I hoped he was right. Piotrek would not agree to come, said anywhere within a hundred kilometers of Ivan was too dangerous.” I know she really means within a hundred kilometers of me, though of course she can’t say so in front of Luka. I’m a little surprised; somehow I thought it was Claudia, not Piotrek, who called the shots.

  “In the end, I had to see for myself,” she says.

  I think back to the phone conversation that just took place. She was checking in with someone in Zagreb. She might have wanted to see me, but she was indeed confirming I was alive to someone else.

  “I’m sorry, but how did we know one another?” I say.

  “We were friends,” she says coolly.

  “You’ll have to tell me all about that.”

  “In the meantime, we have a small problem,” Luka says. “Our backpacks were stolen from the cab. Our money, passports, phones are gone.”

  “We’ll get you new ones,” Piotrek says. “Under different names. It’s better under the circumstances, yes?”

  “That seems a little shady. Shouldn’t we go to the embassy?” Luka frowns, though I know that’s the last thing he would advise.

  “Not if you don’t want to be taken in for questioning. Audra has ties to Ivan. Better that we call friends.”

  Piotrek and Claudia are in fast conversation by the time Piotrek parks in front of a ship anchored in the harbor. Some kind of maritime hostel, judging by the sign.

  I’m confused. “You don’t know anyone we could stay with? I mean, we just had everything stolen.” Where’s the so-called underground?

  Claudia’s look is droll. “We’re far less likely to be noticed here than in a neighborhood. Besides. We’re not exactly checking in at the front desk. Wait here.” They get out of the car and head toward the entrance ramp.

  The minute they’re out of sight I cover my face with my hands. I’m shaking. Luka slides closer, lays an arm around me.

  Don’t go digging. Others’ lives depend on it.

  I was right. And Piotrek is right; no one around me is safe.

  “He’s dead because of me,” I say, breath ragged.

  Luka pulls me against him. “He knew the risks. He chose to come.”

  “He was going to tell me everything.” My words catch in my throat. I feel like I’m having some kind of breakdown. “He said he had something—something for me.”

  And now, whatever it is, they have it. Whatever he knew and meant to tell me has been harvested. They know it now.

  “I wonder if I was right, saying we should come back here,” Luka murmurs.

  “How’d they find Ivan? He was experienced—older. He was smart.”

  “I don’t know. This whole thing feels off.”

  I glance up at a movement in the parking lot. Claudia. I drag a sleeve across my eyes.

  A moment later the car door opens. “Rooms, on the house,” Claudia says. “You’re 205.”

  “Wow. How’d you manage that?” Luka says, if only for her benefit.

  “A very helpful housekeeper.”

  We get out of the car and she hands us a key card and a couple of disposable toothbrushes. “Wait a few minutes and then let yourself in. We’ll come get you in the morning.”

  * * *

  Apparently the bad blood between Claudia and me runs deep enough that she doesn’t want to bunk with us. And literally, there are four bunk beds in our IKEA-inspired room in primary yellow and white.

  I slump into the metal desk chair, aware of Luka standing at the window, staring out at the water. He’s purposefully kept the room light off, cracking the bathroom door just enough that I can see his silhouette against the moonlit harbor.

  “We shouldn’t have come. This is my fault,” he says.

  “Do you think Ivan knew his hunter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you get? For making a kill, I mean. A non-botched one.”

  He shrugs. “An executive position somewhere. A hefty lottery win. Who knows?”

  “How do you know you won’t just end up with a bullet in the back for your effort?”

  “You don’t,” he says hollowly. “But it doesn’t matter. Because you believe in it so much . . . you’d do it even without the reward.”

  I lean over, cover my face. Steps sound across the floor. And then he’s kneeling beside the chair and clasping me tightly by the hands.

  “You were supposed to be safe here. As soon as we figure out the passport thing, we leave.”

  “To go where?”

  “The Australian bush. The Maldives.” He brushes my hair from my forehead. “I’ll build a hut. You’ll dive for oysters. Or a rain forest in South Africa. Where the biggest thing we’ll worry about is getting worms under our skin.”

  “That’s so gross.”

  He laughs softly.

  I look at him. “And they wouldn’t find us there? In the jungle?”

  He’s quiet.

  “Does it even matter where we go?”

  “We’ll move around. But right now, we just need to get you to the underground or wherever Claudia and Piotrek can keep you out of sight until we get those passports.”

  “Us, you mean.”

  “They may not trust me. They probably won’t. And they’ll be able to protect you right now better than I can. Much as I hate to admit it.”

  “You’re a very convincing liar,” I whisper.

  “Because I’m telling you the truth.”

  My gaze settles on his lips. “I want to know something.”

  He looks up at me.

  Courage fails. “Can I have the first shower?”

  I lock myself in the bathroom. By the time the spray hits my hair, my face has already crumpled. I slump against the fiberglass wall.

  My name is Audra Ellison. I am in a country I do not remember, with a man I barely know and who, by all accounts, I should not trust. My only tie to real answers has just died because of me. Does that make me an accomplice to murder? Am I naïve for wanting to believe Luka—not because he says he’ll protect me but because having no one to trust is worse than the thought of dying? I thought yesterday I had never felt so alone. But now, in this tightening knot of pretenses, I feel more alone than before.

  No wonder I wanted to forget it all. Given the choice, I’d go back and forget these last five days and wake up in a hut on some beach, none the wiser.

  But despite the fact that I can’t imagine another day like this—let alone a year or an entire life . . . I also can’t imagine dying without answers.

  Or living with this much fear.

  Today I spoke with a man in the last hours of his life. Tomorrow that could be me.

  The TV is on when I emerge from the bathroom. I haven’t allowed myself to consider the thing I nearly asked Luka before I locked myself in there. But I am painfully aware that life is far too short.

  I find him slumped in the chair. I think he looks nearly as lost as I felt sitting there.

  “Before I went into the Center,” I say, finding it much easier without him looking at me, “what were we—”

  “Audra,” he says, sitting up, gaze riveted to the image on the wall. “Is that him?”

  I glance at the television and have to stare to reconcile the picture with the grizzled man I met. The man in the corner of the screen is clean-shaven with hair neatly cut. More hot college professor than hermit.

  Go, Ivan.

  “Yes.”

  Though I can’t read Croatian, the name beneath the photo is plain enough: Imre Tomić. I glance at Luka, puzzled.

  So I’m not the only one living under an alias. ’Course, Ivan’s not exactly living anymore.

  The image shrinks as the telecast shifts to earlier footag
e of the ferry: a lone, white Peugeot in the hull, paramedics packing up. Luka slides to the edge of his seat.

  There’s a woman being interviewed as blue police lights flash in the background. Though I’m weirdly picking up a few words—a remnant from my time in Croatia before?—I can’t make it all out. “What’s she saying?”

  “A man tried to revive Ivan—Imre.” He pauses a moment and then translates: “And when he failed to resuscitate him, stayed to comfort him as he died. She doesn’t know who it was, he left as police arrived. She’s calling him an angel.”

  The video shifts to a still shot taken from a security camera. A man in the act of fleeing, only part of his face captured on camera.

  But I know the angles of that face. Recognize the curve of that ear.

  Rolan.

  Luka gets to his feet, paces away with a curse.

  “I knew this was off,” he says. “One hunter, one mark. Rolan was hunting you. But if he’s just killed Ivan . . .”

  “Then someone else is hunting me.”

  Either that, or there is no need for a replacement. I slide a glance to Luka.

  “Something’s wrong. Something changed,” he says. He’s agitated, head bowed, knuckles pressed against his lips.

  “The woman they interviewed,” I say slowly. “Why would she think that, about Rolan being an angel?” I recall the way he recited from the Book of Daniel, the way I equated Watchers with angels.

  “You have to hold the head in your hands,” he murmurs. “That’s why it looked like he was comforting him.”

  An angel of death, then.

  This is on me. It’s all on me. I called Ivan from Rolan’s phone—and then came straight to Croatia to meet him. I’ve seen no trace of Rolan since we ran him off the road, but all that tells me is that he isn’t acting alone.

  Why, why did Ivan arrange to meet me? Luka was right: He knew the dangers better than anyone, especially where I was concerned. Why would he risk his life?