Firstborn

by Tosca Lee

  “The monastery where she found the cache,” Jester says. It takes him a moment to comprehend; he’s never been to Košljun. The instant it clicks into place he turns to me, face white.

  Jester’s trying to say that it doesn’t matter if the Historian’s lackey knows where I found the cache; I asked the monk to hide or destroy it—didn’t I?

  “Audra?” she says. But I am barely holding it together.

  “When did this come in?” Luka demands.

  “Around noon . . .”

  I scavenge for my current phone on the table, cannot bring it to life, the battery dead. “Your phone!” I say to Jester. “You called the monastery before I arrived with Rolan, right? Find the number.”

  “Audra, calm down. You already have the cache and the originals are safe. What’s left for them to take?” Claudia says, as Jester pulls the phone from her bag.

  “Just dial it!”

  I have known what it is to be so amped that I’m ready to leap from my skin. To have to run, swim, jump onto the nearest moving vehicle or off the edge of a building just to feel normal again.

  That’s nothing compared to this.

  Jester’s flustered, scrolling through numbers down the screen, trying to locate it. The minute she does, I rip the phone from her hand.

  I dial and hold it to my ear. It rings and rings.

  I pace away, hang up, dial again. Luka tears at his hair.

  And I know they’re watching us. Baffled by our reaction. But I can’t tell them that the guardian of the cache in our possession keeps something far more precious to us both: the location of our daughter.

  The line rings and rings. A tiny logical voice reminds me that it’s the middle of the night. That the monks are asleep or in prayer.

  “You drove here, right?” Luka asks Piotrek.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Give us your keys.”

  Claudia grabs my arm. “Audra, you can’t go back there. There’s no reason!” I shake her off as Piotrek hands me the key fob.

  “Where is it?” Luka says.

  “The black Skoda,” he stammers, clearly perplexed. “Across the street.”

  “I’m sorry.” I’m running toward the door as I say it, sending ahead for Arrick to unlock the one at the top. He wants to be persuaded? He’s getting it.

  We take the stairs two at a time. I no longer feel the pain of each step. The top door unlocks just as we reach it, and there’s Arrick, looking ecstatic, eyes wide and not a little glazed over.

  Move.

  But I don’t mean just him. The knot ahead of us parts into an aisle leading all the way to the door. A strange, manic squeal issues from Arrick as we brush past him, and I don’t even want to see the look on his face.

  We burst out onto the sidewalk. I click the fob, scanning the street.

  “There,” Luka says, pointing to the lights flashing against the opposite curb.

  We run to the car, and I throw Luka the keys, get in. Find Jester’s phone still in my hand.

  I hit redial as we head west out of Munich. The streets are a mass of congestion; I clear the lane in front of us all the way to the edge of the city. Wipe the blood from my nose. My head begins to pound until I’m practically seeing double.

  “You can’t keep this up,” Luka says, veering into the next lane.

  “I am so tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do!”

  “You know this is probably a trap.”

  No. I hadn’t considered it until now.

  “You think it’s possible they know?” he says.

  “How could they? I mean, yes—maybe. I don’t know.”

  Trap or not, neither one of us says a thing about turning back.

  I map the way to Košljun, have to retype it three times. The shortest route is six hours long. “We have to get to an airport,” I say.

  Luka’s face is tense, his fingers curled around the steering wheel. “There won’t be any flights this time of night. And by the time we get there you’ll be wasted.”

  “Then drive faster.”

  Jester calls from Claudia’s phone as we escape the city.

  “Audra, there’s no point in going.”

  “I have to. I’m sorry.”

  “If the cache was still there, they’ve already gotten to it. But even if they did, they don’t have it all. We can work with the part you brought back. And, if we work fast enough, we can do some damage before they can cover their tracks.”

  “It isn’t just the cache,” I say.

  “If they’ve gone after the guardian, you’re already too late.”

  I’m on the cusp of asking her to alert the local police. But there are no police we can trust. “I have to try.”

  “Audra, I know what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Claudia told me what happened at the monastery on Cres. I don’t mean to sound heartless, but this Brother Daniel . . . he knew the risk. They all did, and took it of their own free will. He wouldn’t be the first monk to die.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Listen to me. They have no more leverage on you. They’re trying to lure you out with the only thing they have—and you’re letting them,” she says urgently. “There’s nothing there for you, but I promise, they’ll have eyes looking for you just in case.”

  “I have to.”

  “Audra, what’s this really about?”

  “I can’t tell you. And you wouldn’t want me to. But, Jester . . .” I think of what Claudia said back at Arrick’s. “It’s important. Not just to me—or Luka. For others like us.” I don’t dare say more.

  A hissed string of French. “You should know you’re scaring us.”

  “You’re safe. Stay there—”

  “Not for us, for you!”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Just keep working on the photos. They’re far more important than I am.”

  We hang up, and I press my fingers against my eyes.

  “Is there anything at the monastery?” Luka asks. “Anything that can tie Brother Daniel to—”

  “I don’t know.”

  I find an extra shirt I recognize as Piotrek’s on top of one of Claudia’s wigs in the backseat, bunch it up, hold it to my nose. Try to will the bleeding to stop.

  I dial the monastery again. Call, over and over, hating the ambling ring of the phone. Every minute is the longest of my life.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Though I don’t know whom I’m saying it to.

  I see her again, there, in the courtyard. Huge eyes, baby-fine lashes. The tiny fingernails so neatly clipped.

  “Her hair’s the color of honey,” I say a moment later.

  He rubs his face, doesn’t answer, and accelerates around a car.

  We drive through the night. Speak little, except for Luka’s intermittent questions.

  “Did he know where Clare took her?”

  “I think so.”

  “Daniel’s not Progeny, is he?”

  “No.”

  Luka actually seems to breathe a little easier at that. Because it means Daniel’s memory can’t be harvested.

  I haven’t heard a word from Rolan since the day we parted at the parking garage in Vienna. I wonder if he’s closer to Krk than we are.

  And then I wonder if he’s even still alive.

  I send a text to his old number, not even knowing if it’s still in use.

  Are you there?

  No answer.

  Twice I consider calling the number. The one that leads to the creepy oil slick of a voice.

  Hallo, Audra.

  But calling now would only alert him to the fact that he’s rattled me.

  “I should never have given her up,” I say after a long silence. “This is my fault. If she were with us, we would know where she was. Whether she was safe. We should have gone and gotten her like you said.”

  I feel guilty then because there are other lives at st
ake here: Brother Daniel, and those in the monastery itself. As far as our friends know, the brothers are the ones I’m worried about. But all I can focus on is Eva. Is this what it means to be a mother—to fixate so much on one living soul that the world shrinks to the ground she’s on, and whether she’s safe?

  “We had no choice,” Luka says finally.

  “Of course we did. You probably wanted to keep her. And now here we are, in the same situation we were months ago, except this time I spend as much time trying to figure out what I knew as I do trying to keep us all alive! How did I ever think going into hiding was a good idea?”

  “I didn’t,” he says faintly.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want to keep her.” He rubs his eyes and refocuses on the road. “I didn’t see how we could be a family. How I could be the thing I had seen other fathers be. Not like this. Not with . . . what we were. Are.”

  I sit in silence for a long moment before I say: “Did you ever wonder . . . did you ever think that maybe, given everything, we were never meant to be together?”

  It’s the kind of thing you should never ask. But I can’t help it. What were we thinking, fighting these kinds of odds and four centuries of history?

  “Of course I thought that,” he whispers. “We both did. But I couldn’t leave.”

  He doesn’t have to say the obvious: that I did.

  My phone beeps. It’s Jester.

  “Audra. I searched that name.”

  “Name . . . ?” I have no clue what she’s talking about.

  “Serge Deniel.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “He’s a French billionaire with a major defense contract. He supplies most of the satellite surveillance systems in western Europe.”

  “That explains how they’re tracking us.”

  “Now listen to this: It turns out that stock purchase was for the majority share of GenameBase—the DNA testing company behind three of the largest for-profit genealogy companies in the world. Each of which offers direct-to-consumer DNA testing online. All of which test mitochondrial DNA. Audra, are you hearing me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know what that means? Do you know what mitochondrial DNA is?”

  “Maybe? Just tell me,” I say, impatient to get off the phone.

  “It allows people to locate ancestors along a direct maternal line. It means GenameBase can trace the legacy through our mitochondrial DNA—through the female line. The DNA is passed to a son, but not to his children. The same way our gifts are. Audra, this guy has to be feeding information on lost Progeny directly to the Historian!”

  My head snaps around, attention snared at last. It’s the thing Rolan and Nikola both preached about. The End of Days as far as the Progeny are concerned. The reason we’ll never survive another generation.

  “If we can disable him, we’ll cut off the Historian’s access to new or orphaned Progeny,” she says.

  And that, at least, is something.

  “How do we do that?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep digging.”

  “Let me know.” I pause. “And, Jester . . . thanks.” I hang up.

  We have to stop for gas. I’m about to persuade the guy just finishing filling up in front of us to loan us his credit card, and then I take note of his car.

  We hit the road thirty seconds later in the white Lotus Elise and rocket down the highway.

  Jester calls again a short time later. Her voice is strange.

  “We got into the database. Audra . . . there are certain families flagged in there. Some of them—Progeny bloodlines—with one notation. Some of the names I found in the cache of photos you gave me . . . they have another. Audra, he’s not just supplying Progeny names to the Historian. He’s been flagging potential hunters—future Scions—from several family lines for years.”

  I glance at Luka.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry. I—I was just thinking about the Scion map I found in the vault in Vienna,” I lie. “Progeny have been trying to do the same thing for hundreds of years.”

  “Yes. But now . . . it’s all here. We know who they are,” she says with slow gravity. “Audra . . .”

  For a moment, neither one of us speaks. And I know in the silence she’s asking me a question. And by refusing to ask “What?” I’m telling her the answer.

  “I’ll check in with you later,” I say and click off the call.

  “What’d you find out?” Luka asks, staring straight ahead.

  “She knows about you.”

  16

  * * *

  Just before 5:00 A.M. I stare out the window, Jester’s phone held to my ear, the monotonous old-fashioned ring on the other end like blips of white noise. On and on, forever.

  I wonder what the others will do now that they know what Luka is. A hunter. A member of the same Scion class that has killed every loved one lost to them—except for Andre, who took his life rather than let his memory be harvested.

  I wonder what Claudia must think of me. If they hate me for having brought a Scion hunter into their company, home, hiding places. And not just theirs; I brought a hunter to court in Zagreb. Will Jester even answer the next time I call? For all I know, she’s already broadcast my betrayal via her Progeny Dark Web. Nikola knew and could have betrayed me to his court and Tibor’s both. I wonder why he never did.

  It takes a moment for the interruption on the other end of the line to register.

  “Da, molim?”

  I blink, sit up, heart pounding.

  “Hello? English?” I stutter, glancing at Luka, who looks at me sharply.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi—is Brother Daniel there? This is a friend of his. It’s urgent.”

  “Brother Daniel—he is gone. Yesterday.”

  I let out a breath. “Where did he go?”

  “I am not allowed—”

  “Please, it’s an emergency. Life and death. This is Audra Ellison. I was there with him two days ago. Do you remember me? I need to know how to reach him.”

  A pause.

  “Hello?” I say, voice shrill.

  “Audra,” he says, audibly troubled. “I can only say this to you. He left in such hurry. He has gone to the monastery in Pristava. You may find him there, but he will leave again tomorrow.”

  “For where?” I say, my initial relief giving way to alarm.

  “He did not say.”

  I click off, breathe my first true breath in hours. He’s on the move—a good sign.

  Luka glances at me.

  “He’s in Pristava,” I say. I open a map on the phone, having no idea where Pristava is, and locate the small suburb of Nova Gorica, in Slovenia. Less than hour away.

  Luka sits back, shoulders visibly relaxing. “I want to meet him,” he says. “I need . . . to see him.” And I know what he means is that he needs to see Eva, and that the monk is the closest he may ever get.

  We speed along the A2, and I breathe deeply again.

  “He left,” I say, repeating it again in my mind like a mantra, willing my heart to slow. And miraculously, it does.

  I text Jester our change in course, more out of curiosity about whether she’ll even respond.

  And then I have a strange thought: Does it matter? She has the cache. She and her hacker friends can do more damage with that information than I ever could. I told Luka in Munich I couldn’t leave—but why? I sit back, stunned. Because really, what use am I now? I’ve done the thing everyone wanted. I delivered. I’m a liability at this point. Why not just disappear?

  I glance at Luka, and then at the relatively quiet highway before us, seeing with new eyes.

  We could keep going . . . just drive. To Greece, take a boat to a quiet white cliff house somewhere on Santorini, where we can swim in the Aegean. Or as far east as Istanbul. There, to wander the Grand Bazaar and drink coffee until the day that it’s safe to travel north again, to Eva. When we can become the family we were meant to be. And discover who we rea
lly are. Individually. Together. Without all of this.

  But of course, it can never be that easy.

  Pristava, which is called a suburb but looks more like a village, sits along the highway. The town is so small it doesn’t warrant a real exit—you just spin off at the roundabout.

  It’s nearly dawn by the time we wind our way along a tree-lined drive toward the monastery on the hill dividing Pristava from the town of Nova Gorica, and the sky seems charged with invisible light. We’re so close to the Italian border that I’m uncertain whether we’ve inadvertently crossed over, especially when a row of cypress trees comes into view.

  The monastery is far larger than I imagined: A sprawling, white-walled complex big enough to accommodate hundreds, with a single bell tower over the chapel at one end.

  We pull up to the outer entrance—a frescoed arch supported by two squat turrets, on either side of the drive. An iron gate in the complex itself stands twenty feet beyond it, still closed for the night. I can’t make out the image on the arch—only the life-size crucifix that hangs before it. And I’m struck again by the morbidity of the faith that buries its luminaries beneath church floors—when they don’t just leave the sarcophagi to adorn a back chapel, as the Bathory family did in the church at Nyirbator—observing death in the name of life.

  I think I understand something about that now.

  Luka cuts the engine ten feet from the arch and looks at me. Even in the darkness I can see that he’s nervous. I take his hand.

  “Ready to wake the place up?” I ask, though we both know I’ll be the one doing the waking. He takes a breath and nods, as though he were going to meet Eva herself. Because if Brother Daniel is here, there is at least a chance that she is, too.

  He gets out and comes around to my side of the car. I’ve already opened the door, but he holds it wide, as though we were on a first date. He offers his hand, and the car is so low he practically has to pull me out. As we move toward the monastery, he doesn’t let go.

  Five feet. They’re all the difference in the world. One minute, your life is untethered, crazy, and uncertain. You could be on your way to Greece by day’s end for all you know, leap into the Aegean by nightfall.

  The next, you realize how wrong you are about everything.