The Bonding Ritual (Girls Wearing Black: Book Four)

by Spencer Baum

  Alvin grinned, then reached up and put his fingers on the reinforced concrete walls of Daciana’s crypt.

  “You’d think she would have modified the design down here,” he said. “Or at least added a signal booster. I mean…she can’t use her cell phone in her own bedroom.”

  “Can I toss it to you and have you go get me a signal?” Jill said.

  “Sure thing,” said Alvin, holding out his hands.

  Jill threw the phone up to Alvin, who caught it and ran out of the room. When he returned half a minute later, the phone had a text on the screen.

  Your verification code is 547782.

  “Thanks,” said Jill. She entered the code on the computer and the popup window disappeared. A new window took its place, showing the account numbers and balances of every bank account in the clan.

  “Holy smokes,” Alvin said.

  “Are you ready to do this?” said Jill.

  “Am I ever.”

  *****

  Ryan was approaching the entrance to the highway, about to go south and begin the two-hour trek to Richmond.

  But he hadn’t heard back from Jill.

  “Come on, Jill,” he whispered. “Where are you? Let me know you’re okay.”

  He was a hundred feet from the highway entrance, looking at his phone, willing it to ring.

  “Come on, Jill. Come on!”

  She’s probably on her way to Richmond. She didn’t answer her phone because she was driving. That’s all. You’re panicking over nothing.

  He was closing in on the entrance. The dotted lines on either side of him were about to change to solid. In a few seconds, the concrete barriers would force him onto the highway.

  “God dammit!” he yelled, yanking the steering wheel to the left. He rolled off the entrance ramp to a chorus of honking horns behind him.

  He couldn’t start driving to Richmond until he knew. He had to know she was okay.

  I’ll drive to Daciana’s house. I’ll go up the hill to where I can see her driveway…

  And then what? That plan didn’t make any sense. If Jill was still at Daciana’s house, by the time Ryan got there it would be too late.

  His phone rang.

  Yes! Finally!

  But the number on the screen wasn’t Jill’s. He didn’t know who it was.

  “Hello?”

  “Ryan, this is Phillip Fischer.”

  “Where are you? Is Jill with you?”

  “She’s probably still at the mansion. I saw her driving in as I was leaving.”

  “No! She’s got to get out of there! Where are you? Are you close? She’s not answering her phone.”

  “I’m on 495 headed south to Richmond. I could turn around. I’m a good fifteen minutes away.”

  “She’s in trouble! We have to get in touch with her! Why isn’t she answering her phone?”

  “I don’t know, I...”

  “Daciana is going to be there in minutes! We’ve got to get her out of there!”

  “Daciana?”

  “She left the school in a rush! She’s driving home now!”

  “To her house? Why would she go to her house?”

  “She knows something! She was looking for Jill at prom. She was angry. I’m a minute behind her and I tell you, she’s going to her house!”

  “We’ve got a group of hunters at the Torrance house,” Phillip said. “They’re closer than I am.”

  “Get them to Daciana’s! We have to beat her there! Tell them to hurry!”

  “I’m on it.”

  Ryan put down the phone with his hands shaking. He thought about where Mary Torrance lived. Northwest part of town, Huntington Heights. Jill’s neighborhood.

  Not nearly close enough.

  He shifted gears and stepped on the gas. The Lamborghini seemed happy to respond. Within seconds, he was going over a hundred.

  He didn’t have a plan, or even an idea of what he might do. He just knew that someone had to get to the house before Daciana, and he was the only one in a car that was fast enough to do it.

  *****

  After a few minutes, Jill and Alvin were in a rhythm. Jill on the computer, Alvin on the calculator, they worked together, going through the bank accounts one at a time, and emptying them out.

  For Jill, the process was five clicks and a couple keystrokes.

  Access account.

  Transfer funds.

  Confirm source account.

  Enter destination account.

  It was at this point in the transfer that Alvin read off bank details of where the funds should go. The funds would start their journey in a transfer to the Cayman Islands. After the funds landed, they would be transferred again to Switzerland, where they would disappear from Daciana’s view.

  One more click to confirm, and the funds went on their way. Then they started again with the next account. Over and over, for every account owned by every immortal in America, Jill and Alvin used Daciana’s access to break in, and steal every penny.

  *****

  The speedometer was at 115 miles per hour when Ryan got onto the highway. It was at 130 when the black Vicenza came into view.

  In and out of traffic, snaking through the lanes, Daciana was easy to spot on the highway ahead, and hard to catch. At 130 miles per hour he felt like he was barely inching closer. So he went faster. 135. 140. Left and right, curving just behind the bumpers and brake lights of the other cars on the highway. He had to grip tight on the wheel to control his trembling hands.

  At some point, she became aware of him and started driving faster. 140 wasn’t enough anymore. To make up ground on her, he had to go 150, then 160. He was flying past traffic so quickly he could hardly even see what he was doing. The cars ahead seemed to know a drag race was barreling at them from behind, and moved out of the way, allowing Daciana to go even faster.

  The Lamborghini hugged the road and moved back and forth with ease. It seemed happy to be driving this fast, practically begging Ryan to give it more.

  So he did. 165. 170. The engine hummed like it could handle twice the load without any problem. 175. 180. The car was ready for whatever Ryan could give it. The limit was with him. How fast was he willing to go?

  He pressed harder on the gas.

  “I’m going to pass you, Daciana,” he said. “I’m getting there first.”

  *****

  The final bank account Jill entered belonged to Laura Heidegger and Peter Groff, the newest vampires in the clan.

  Access account.

  Transfer funds.

  Confirm source account.

  Enter destination account.

  “1-3-4-7-8-6-5-3,” Alvin said, reading off numbers for Jill to enter. “Cayman Trust. West Bay. Cayman Islands.”

  Jill typed in the bank details and then hit Confirm. They waited a second, and then the confirmation screen appeared.

  “That’s it,” said Alvin. “We’re done!”

  “We’re done with the first part of the hack,” said Jill.

  “There’s a second part?”

  Jill navigated to the thumb drive she had used to cold boot the computer, which was still hanging from the USB port. She found a small executable file and opened it.

  “My mother said something to me after my last attempt to hack this machine,” Jill said. “She told me I’d be a better hacker if I didn’t leave my fingerprints all over my work.”

  On screen, a small window opened with the word “Fingerprints” in the title bar. It was a black screen with a single command prompt.

  “Fingerprints?” said Alvin.

  “It’s a simple program I’ve been tinkering with,” Jill said. “It started as an attempt to automate all the work you and I just did, but as I was writing it, I realized there were too many variables and we’d have to empty the accounts manually.”

  “We just did it manually, Jill. We’re done. We stole eight hundred million dollars.”

  “We barely made a dent in the total net worth of the clan. They have real estat
e holdings, brokerage accounts, private equity, and God knows what else.”

  “It may be small potatoes to them, but it’s a lot for us. The Network is going to have more cash than they know how to spend.”

  “This isn’t about the cash,” said Jill. “This is about striking a decisive blow in the war.”

  Onscreen, Jill typed in a pathway that would lead the Fingerprints program into Daciana’s banking software, where it could work its magic.

  “Please tell me what you’re doing isn’t going to take long,” Alvin said. “At some point, they’re going to find out Nicky escaped from the Purgatory House and then the clock starts ticking for us.”

  “This will be fast,” said Jill.

  She hit enter, and a blue progress bar appeared on the bottom of the screen.

  “What’s happening now?” Alvin said.

  “We’re leaving fingerprints,” said Jill.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “One at a time, the software will open one of the bank accounts, and from inside that account, access another one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that later tonight, when Laura Heidegger sees that her account has been emptied, she’ll also see that Steffy Esparza had her hands in it.”

  “Steffy Esparza?” said Alvin.

  “And when Nora Jamison sees that her account has been emptied, she’ll see that Kate Kensington accessed it. When Beatrice Vail looks at her empty account, she’ll see a record of activity from Darcy Mackintosh. Every immortal will find evidence that another member of the clan was messing around in their now empty bank account.”

  “But they won’t know where their money went,” Alvin said.

  “Doesn’t matter. They’ll be furious and panicked, and they’ll have a name of someone else from the clan who broke into their bank account.”

  “They’ll blame each other,” Alvin said.

  “One thing I’ve learned these past four years,” Jill said. “Vampires are paranoid, suspicious, conniving creatures. It’s their greatest weakness, and we’re going to use that weakness to tear the whole clan apart.”

  *****

  Ryan was right on her bumper as they neared the exit to Daciana’s house.

  She wasn’t letting him pass.

  Back and forth, like a slithering snake, Daciana swerved to stay in front of Ryan and keep him from charging ahead. He wasn’t going to make it. Daciana’s exit was next. From there, it was barely a minute to her house. Even if he got in front of her somehow, he would only beat her to the house by a few seconds.

  It wasn’t enough time to get Jill out of there.

  He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Whoever was coming from the Torrance estate needed more time.

  “Just a few more minutes,” he said. “I need to buy her a few more minutes!”

  From behind Daciana, Ryan began swerving to the right, making like he was going to swing around at a wide angle. Daciana swerved too, and as soon as she did, Ryan yanked the wheel hard left. The Vicenza’s tires screeched on the pavement, but the Lamborghini held tight, doing exactly what Ryan asked it to do. He pounded the gas and his car launched forward, passing Daciana on the left.

  He could swear she was smiling at him as he passed.

  Now he was in front, with maybe two hundred yards of open road before the exit.

  “Get out of there, Jill,” he said. “Finish what you’re doing and get out of there.”

  With Daciana right on his bumper, Ryan lifted his foot from the gas, and slammed on the brake.

  Chapter 48

  As Jill watched the blue progress bar push from left to right across the screen, she felt like she was watching more than a computer program updating its status.

  She was watching the curtain close on her life in Potomac.

  Nicky, Ryan, and Zack were already on their way to Richmond. The emails to her parents, inviting them to leave, were sent. By this time tomorrow, word would be spreading through town about what she did.

  About what they all did.

  The progress bar reached the far right side of the screen and disappeared. In its place, a message appeared.

  Cycle complete.

  “That’s it,” she said.

  “We’re done?” said Alvin.

  “We’re done.”

  She grabbed the thumb drive from the USB port and the phone from the computer desk.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  They went up the stairs, out of the crypt, and back into the mansion, which was completely trashed. In the group’s rush to empty it out, they had thrown over file cabinets and bookcases, emptied boxes onto the floor, and left trash everywhere.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said you had to leave a lot behind,” said Jill.

  “You should see what we took,” said Alvin. “My truck is stuffed to the gills.”

  They worked their way to the loading dock and found their cars parked outside. Before Alvin got into his truck, he glanced at his phone.

  “Geez,” he said. “Phillip called me eight times when we were down there. Did he call you?”

  Jill grabbed the phone from the pouch in her dress. Before she even looked at it, she realized her mistake.

  In her rush to get out of the crypt, she had grabbed Daciana’s phone instead of her own.

  She briefly considered leaving her phone behind, but thought better of it. There was too much confidential information on that phone to hand over to Daciana.

  “I need to go back,” she said. “I grabbed the wrong phone.”

  Alvin scowled. “Be quick about it,” he said. He pressed a few buttons on his screen and held the phone up to his ear to listen to his voicemail. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Jill ran back the way they came, going all the way to the crypt, where she dropped Daciana’s phone on the desk and grabbed hers instead. Back up the stairs, through the moon room, down a hallway, dodging trash along the way…she was nearly at the loading dock when she heard it.

  A clicking sound. Like someone opening a door.

  And then her phone buzzed with an incoming text, startling her so much she yelped and dropped it on the floor.

  “Shit,” she muttered, bending down to pick it up again.

  The text was from Ryan. The time stamp said he had sent it more than fifteen minutes ago.

  If you are still at Daciana’s, get out! I think she is on her way home, going very fast!

  “Oh no.”

  Before she even started to run, she knew. That clicking sound wasn’t her imagination. It was the front door of the mansion. And no matter how fast she ran…

  A blinding force hit her from behind and she crashed to the floor, skidding across a continuous pile of loose papers and junk. She raced to get back on her feet, but a hand grabbed onto her shoulder and threw her down again.

  She grunted in pain as she hit the floor.

  “Hello, Jill.”

  Daciana was on top of her, pressing her head to the ground with one hand.

  “You’ve made a big mess of my house. I hope you weren’t intending to leave before you cleaned up.”

  Daciana pressed harder on Jill’s head, squeezing it against the tile. Jill felt like her skull was about to crack. Her instinct was to try to push back, to fight with her arms and legs and neck, but there was nothing she could do. Daciana had her legs wrapped around Jill’s body.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you,” Daciana said. “Not until we’ve spoken first. Are you ready to have a chat?”

  Jill moaned in agony as Daciana ground her temple into the floor.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Daciana grabbed Jill by the hair and lifted her head up, forcing Jill to turn and face her. The instant Jill made eye contact, she knew it was over. Daciana had control of her mind before she could even blink.

  “Are you with me, Jill?”

  Jill didn’t want to say the words but they came out anyway.

  �
�I’m with you.”

  “Good. I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer with every piece of information you think I’d like to hear. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Why are you here tonight?”

  “I hacked into your computer so I could use your banking software to get at every bank account in the clan.”

  “Why do you want our bank accounts?”

  “I emptied them,” Jill said. “I stole all your money and sent it to the Cayman Islands. From there, it’s going to a dozen Swiss bank accounts where you won’t be able to track it.”

  “Will you be able to track it? If I ask you to, can you recover all the money for me?”

  “Yes.”

  Staring into Daciana’s eyes, Jill felt like she was of two minds. There was the part of her that had no choice but to obey. That part was in full control of her body, and would do anything Daciana asked her to.

  But the other part of her, the part that wasn’t enslaved, was still there. That part was furious that she had spent so much time in the crypt, that she had left behind her phone and had to run back to get it.

  That part of her was aware of her surroundings. The trash that lined the floor, the pain in her ribs as Daciana squeezed on her torso, the smell of gasoline.

  Why did it smell like gasoline?

  “I’m glad to hear you can undo at least some of the damage you have done,” Daciana said. “We’ll get to that in a minute. First I want to know who you’re working for. You’re obviously not in this alone. Not after all that’s happened of late.”

  “I work for the Network.”

  “The what?”

  “The Network. The resistance.”

  “The humans?”

  “Yes.”

  A puzzled look came over Daciana’s face.

  “But what about Renata?”

  “She’s dead. We killed her. Then I gave the order to burn down her mansion.”

  Daciana’s eyes opened wide. She loosened her grip on Jill’s hair.

  “Renata is dead,” Daciana said. “You’re certain of this.”