The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three)

by Baum, Spencer

  She saw herself tossing and turning in bed, thinking about the Rose Ransom clues.

  “Take your time, Jill. Your mind needs a few moments to process all this new information.”

  She saw herself researching on the Internet for hours, writing software that scoured the web for relevant info about the 4-line poems she had to solve. She saw herself dreaming about connections, about cemeteries and monuments and stairs and dust.

  She realized that, until now, she had no recollection of any of this. She had changed the story in her mind to give all the credit to Tarin.

  “It was me,” she said. “It was me all along.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I figured out the first two clues,” Jill said. “I tricked myself into believing Tarin told me the answers, but it was me the whole time. As soon as I figured them out, I called Bernadette and she came with me when I solved them.”

  “It’s incredible what the mind can do, isn’t it?” said Gordon.

  “Put me under again!” Jill snapped.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The answers are in there,” Jill said, pointing at her head. “They were in there the whole time. For the first two clues, it took me months to find the answers and pull them out, and we don’t have months. The year-end party is tomorrow!”

  “You want me to hypnotize you again?” Gordon said.

  “Yes, and when you do, ask me this!”

  Jill raced to the computer desk, snatched a sheet of paper from the printer, and scribbled down a four-line poem.

  “It’s the third clue,” she said. “We have one day to solve it. If we don’t, Nicky and Ryan are dead.”

  Chapter 49

  “Alright, Jill. You know how this works. In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

  It was like Jill was getting better with practice. On this, her third hypnosis session with Gordon, she took only a minute to reach the relaxed state where he could speak to her subconscious.

  “You have asked me to read a poem to you,” Gordon said. “Here it is. An expression of mortal frailty, death and new life made manifest, in the throes of agony eternal, within and without the square.”

  They sat in silence as the words sunk into Jill’s mind. After a minute, Gordon asked, “What are your thoughts?”

  “Mortal frailty is the theme of the entire Ransom,” Jill said. She spoke slowly, her voice as soothing and distant as Gordon’s. “Things that separate humans from immortals like old age and death have been central to every clue.”

  Her mind was moving slowly, but with great purpose. In her relaxed state, she was able to see so much more. It was like her mind was an immense library so full of books that it was hard to navigate at full speed. Her normal pace of thinking was so fast she never got a chance to step back and look at the entire library. The best she could do was grab books off the shelf at random and hope to find something of interest.

  But with her eyes closed, and her body and mind supremely relaxed, she could stand back and look at the whole thing. She could dismiss all the shelves full of irrelevant ideas and go straight for the book she needed.

  “She is naming the game in the first line of this clue. The Rose Ransom itself is an expression of mortal frailty.”

  Gordon let a moment pass before he spoke again. It was an easy silence, and it allowed Jill to step back and once again look over the entirety of her mind.

  “The second line says, ‘Death and new life made manifest,’” Gordon said.

  “It is like a logic puzzle,” said Jill. “The poem is an exercise in reduction. The first line names the game we’re playing. The second line names the performance that kicks off the game.”

  “Death and new life made manifest,” Gordon repeated.

  “Renata’s Rose Ransom play is a performance of death and new life,” said Jill. “The princess dies and is reborn as an immortal. It is death and new life made manifest.”

  Another moment of silence, then Gordon said, “In the throes of agony eternal.”

  “Within and without the square,” Jill finished.

  She saw it in her mind, a memory from these past months that wasn’t any part of Bernadette’s fiction.

  “I’ve been there,” Jill whispered. “I’ve been there!”

  She opened her eyes. “Bring everyone upstairs.”

  “You’ve come out,” Gordon said. “Is our session over?”

  “Yes,” said Jill. “I know the answer to the final clue. If we hustle, we still might be able to save Ryan and Nicky.”

  Chapter 50

  Looking through her mother’s eyes, Nicky saw death approaching.

  Celeste lay on the ground in the courtyard, confident that her daughter had gotten away. Her son and the other ferals had driven Falkon into the woods long enough to give her daughter and her husband cover.

  She had ruined years of research on Falkon’s computers.

  She had shared her thoughts with her son, and they were both of one mind that tonight, he would keep Falkon occupied as long as possible, knowing full well that before the night was out, Falkon would kill him.

  Her body beaten and gashed after getting caught in a melee of feral vampires, Celeste would die soon. She would die here on the mountainside, knowing there was nothing left for her to do.

  Death came slowly. There was no instant where the lights went out, but rather, a long, slow, fade into darkness. She was well on her way when Falkon came back and picked her up. A few more minutes and she would have made it.

  “Oh Celeste. This was not how I wanted it to be,” Falkon told her. “I will bring you back. I will finish the work you began so we can be together again.”

  Unlike the other times when Falkon knocked her out, this nightmare wasn’t on endless loop. This nightmare played out slowly, with Nicky spending ages in some limbo between life and death.

  The dream ended with her glass door sliding open. Falkon was standing on the other side.

  “Good morning, Nicky,” he said. “It’s time to go. I’m sending you and Ryan to Washington.”

  “You loved her, didn’t you?” Nicky said. “That’s why you were keeping her alive. When you finished your project, you intended to make my mother into an immortal.”

  Falkon sighed. “Come along, Nicky,” he said. “I’m not here to answer questions. I’m here to put you on a plane.”

  Nicky followed Falkon out of the prison. They walked out the front door and through the courtyard a final time. As they passed the sculpture, he said, “You are partly right. I did wish to bring your mother back. But not because I loved her. At least, I didn’t love her in the way you are thinking. I never wanted to bond with Celeste. I haven’t felt the urge to bond in two hundred years and your mother was no different. But I did enjoy her company. And I thought she would come to appreciate what I did for her eventually. Eternity is such a long time—a few miserable years here and there are easily forgotten.”

  He led her to a dirt lot at the low end of the yard. A black van was parked there. The back door was open. Ryan was sitting in the back, bound and gagged.

  “Oh come on!” Nicky said. “You can’t send us off like this! Let us die with dignity, Falkon.”

  Falkon stood still for a moment with a smirk on his face.

  “Put your hands out,” he said.

  “Please, Ryan is innocent, and he’s been through so much already. Can’t you at least take the gag off?”

  “I asked you to put out your hands,” said Falkon. “I am already angry at you Nicky Bloom. Don’t make me take out that anger on your friend.”

  Nicky grunted in frustration, and put out her hands. Falkon thew a pair of handcuffs on them. He pushed her into the van and cuffed her ankles together as well.

  “I cannot accompany you on the trip to Washington,” Falkon said. “Your would-be hero is still roaming about the countryside somewhere.”

  “Sergio?” Nicky said.

  “I can sense his presence,” said Falkon. “Should you two happ
en to have some sort of long distance mind meld, tell him I’m coming for him.”

  Falkon used a chain to attach Nicky’s handcuffs to the side of the van. Now she was just as restrained as Ryan, minus the gag.

  “Falkon, if my mother ever meant anything to you,” Nicky said, “please, take off his gag. Let us talk to each other before you kill us.”

  Falkon stood still for a moment, then he ripped the gag off Ryan’s face.

  “Nicky!” Ryan said. “What’s happening?”

  “This boy’s been asleep for a long time,” Falkon said. “Perhaps you should catch him up on all that’s transpired.”

  Falkon closed the doors of the van and locked them.

  “Ryan, there’s nothing I can say or do to make this better,” said Nicky. “You don’t deserve this. I’m so sorry.”

  Ryan was staring at her with a puzzled look on his face.

  “What?” said Nicky. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’ve been asleep for so long,” Ryan said. “And I had the most vivid dreams you can imagine.”

  “Good dreams, I hope,” Nicky said.

  “They were amazing dreams,” said Ryan. “I didn’t ever want to wake up.”

  “Tell me about one,” said Nicky.

  “I can tell you about all of them,” said Ryan. “They were all about the same thing.”

  “What thing was that?”

  “You. I dreamed about you and me the whole time I was asleep. We spent entire lifetimes together. It was incredible.”

  Chapter 51

  Two things surprised Renata about the opening hour of her year-end party.

  The first surprise was that she was the only immortal in attendance. An event such as this typically brought out at least a few schmoozers from the clan, but tonight, not a one of them came. She was particularly surprised that Bernadette was absent, as she had spoken with her about the party just a few days ago and it seemed like she was going to come.

  The second surprise was how cheery and sociable she felt. Over the years, these gatherings had come to bore her, and she approached them with a just-get-through-it mentality. But not tonight. Tonight she knew she was going to enjoy herself.

  Perhaps it was her attire, chosen to signify new beginnings in her mind, that put her in such a good mood. Renata wore a black dress tonight. It was an unusual color for her—typically she allowed the Coronation girls to have black all to themselves—but tonight, in the spirit of new beginnings, she intended to buck tradition, and the dress was a good start.

  The silver pendant also helped. Nicky Bloom had set the research project back a few years with her computing stunt, but against all odds, Renata had found the pendant, and with the data stored on that pendant, she and Falkon would jumpstart a new project. Already she was excited about starting anew and getting everything right this time.

  New beginnings – that’s what the pendant meant. As such, it belonged on her person tonight, and she wore it as the only accessory to her black dress.

  Knowing full well that she looked amazing, Renata pushed her way into the party, mingling with the students, laughing at their jokes, allowing them to see her and gawk at her beauty. She joined a group of students in laughter as Sam Featherstone told an amusing story about a mattress flying out the back of a moving car. She engaged in small talk with Samantha Kwan and Karmela Sweet, who seemed in particularly fine spirits tonight. She listened to the waves of gossip flowing about the party, and smiled at how quaint it all seemed.

  Most of the chatter on this night was about the Ransom, of course. No one had solved the third clue, or was even close. As the night wore on, it didn’t go without notice that Jill Wentworth, who had solved the first two clues all on her own, wasn’t in attendance. Everyone took this as a bad omen for Nicky and Ryan.

  And bad omens for Nicky and Ryan led to plenty more gossip. These cute little teenagers were so convinced they had it all figured out. Nicky is finished, they said. This is Kim’s contest to lose, they said. It always has been, they proclaimed, and I’ve always supported her.

  Listening to the prattle, Renata found herself rolling the silver pendant around in her fingertips. You sweet, innocent children, she thought. You have no idea what the future holds for you. You’re so comfortable, so certain that money and power are yours to have because your families are in tight with the Samarin clan.

  You don’t know that the Samarin clan’s days are numbered.

  Renata looked around for one of her servants. Naturally, Frankie, who towered over this party, was the first one she saw. She called him close.

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  “This party is too tranquil,” she said. “We are having a celebration tonight.”

  “What shall I do to make things better?” Frankie said.

  “Have the bartenders put away their wine and switch to champagne,” said Renata. “And get us some different music.”

  “What kind of music would you like?”

  “I don’t know—the sort of monstrous noise the kids listen to these days. Ask one of the students to help you. They all have music on their phones.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Renata smiled as she watched Frankie rush away. These kids weren’t going to know what to do with themselves when they realized that, just this once, Renata was going to let them party in her house.

  *****

  A mile away from Renata’s mansion, Jill and Alvin sat on the open tailgate of a pickup truck. Jill was gazing down the hill through night vision binoculars, watching her classmates arrive at the house.

  “Here comes Lonnie,” she said. “When he goes inside, that will be ninety-six. The whole class is there, minus Nicky, Ryan, Annika, and me.”

  “Do you think they miss you?” Alvin asked.

  “I don’t know that they miss me, but I’m sure they’re talking about me.”

  “I missed you, Jill. I thought you were gone.”

  She pulled the binoculars down and looked at Alvin. An overweight twenty-something with big glasses and bad acne, Alvin was the sort who got into computers because it was hard for him to function in the real world. At times, his relationship with Jill had been contentious, as it became more and more clear that she had usurped his title of Best Hacker in the Network.

  But somewhere along the way they became friends.

  “You know,” she said. “That tracking app you wrote was phenomenal. I used it to follow Renata and Annika at the same time.”

  “You did?”

  “It saved Annika’s life. Shannon’s too.”

  “Wow. I’m glad you found such a good use for it. I figured it became worthless as soon as we learned it was Nicky, rather than Karmela, we were looking for.”

  “Nicky and Ryan,” Jill corrected.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Jill raised the binoculars again, this time aiming them at the back gate to Renata’s mansion. She found what she was looking for—a figure in a black trench coat moving around the back of the property towards the eastern gate.

  “Patrick is in position,” Jill said. She scanned the forest leading up to the gate. It was empty. “Tell him he’s clear to go in.”

  Alvin gave the okay over the radio, and Patrick moved to the gate. Using the keys that had been sitting in Jill’s desk drawer since the kickoff party, keys she had once used to lock the door of Renata’s crypt behind her, Patrick opened the gate and went inside. Once onto the property, he ditched his trench coat. Underneath, he was wearing the white coat and black pants that marked him as one of Renata’s slaves.

  “He’s in,” said Jill.

  *****

  The champagne was flowing, the music was rocking, the students were dancing—it was a perfect end to the perfect Rose Ransom. For more than sixty years, since the very advent of rock and roll, Renata had never allowed contemporary music or dance in her presence. But tonight, with no other immortals here to share in her joyous mood, she was pleased to let the kids have their fun
.

  And boy, did they ever have fun. Dancing and hooting and hollering—there were drinking contests, and a strange ritual Renata had never seen before called ‘body shots.’ There was singing and boisterousness and explosive sexual energy all around her. These students were having the time of their lives.

  The mood in the house was completely out of character with the meaning of tonight’s gathering. At midnight, Renata would bring the class to Nicky and Ryan’s hiding space, perform a little ceremony about sending them to the Great Beyond, and then allow the students to watch as she killed them both.

  They all knew this was coming, yet none of them seemed bothered by it. Such was the power of the spell they were under. These students had witnessed her Rose Ransom performance. They belonged to Renata now. It didn’t matter that half of them had tied their fates to Nicky Bloom or that some might be friends with Ryan Jenson. Renata had asked these students to have fun. So they did.

  And when the time came for the students to choose if they wanted to side with Renata or the rest of the Samarin clan, they would side with her, as would their parents. One day, when she and Falkon were able to transform the data now hanging around her neck into a new kind of vampire, and she declared war on her own clan, all the power players in Washington would side with her.

  At ten minutes to midnight, she shut down the music and stepped onto the stage.

  “My children,” she announced. “We have only ten minutes left before the Ransom is over. Does anyone have a solution to the final clue?”

  *****

  “We have a problem.”

  It was Patrick. He was whispering at them over the radio.

  Jill and Alvin were still at their lookout post. Nothing had happened for more than two hours. She had assumed all was going well in there.

  She didn’t want to be hearing about a problem at ten minutes to midnight.

  “What is it?” Alvin said.

  “Nicky and Ryan are locked in the room,” Patrick said. “And none of these keys will open the door.”