Firstborn

  “You said this ‘current’ Historian . . .”

  He nods. “No one knows for certain when the Historian’s office is handed down. It is meant to make him seem ageless. Eternal as wrath itself. But I have believed for months that a new Historian came into office soon after several of us agreed to separate ourselves from the fraternity. Three of those men are now dead. The rest of us are slaves to the power we craved. To the office we created!”

  If I said I didn’t take some satisfaction in the irony in that, I’d be lying.

  I also know two things he doesn’t.

  First, that what he’s saying about the new Historian is true. Even as I sit here, I can conjure the image of the Scion map rediscovered in my Vienna bank box last week. The circles down the right side of the page—the succession of the Historian’s office. A few containing names. Some, only a year. Can see the last circle drawn in crisp, black pen on the crumbling paper, empty except for a year—this one.

  Second, that the map left to me by my mother via Ivan—though scrupulously never viewed by him—was compiled by those heretic monks like Rolan. I know this, because I now recall burning the note to that effect in order to protect their existence so they could, in turn, protect mine.

  “It sounds like you have some real problems,” I say. “What exactly are you hoping I’ll do for you, Serge?”

  His face hardens. “Tibor said of anyone, you could find the Historian. I know what you are. That you are rumored to have abilities beyond those of the others. I know the lore of your kind, growing stronger with each generation.”

  “I don’t mind telling you that’s true,” I say, not knowing if it is.

  “Then you know you are the most hunted of the hunted. Not only by the Historian but—if rumor is correct—by many of your own.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Find the Historian, and I will end this. There will be peace, at last.”

  “You have no clue who the Historian is, do you?” It isn’t really a question.

  “Do you?” he says, startled.

  I give a short, painful laugh. “You really think I’d have agreed to meet you in person if I did?”

  He shakes his head, but he looks disappointed. No, distressed.

  “I have to say, you are the only hope I know to ever find my way out. And it is the same for all three of us, no?” he says, indicating the two of us, and Luka. “It must end for us to be free.”

  “What do you know about the Historian?” I say.

  “Very little. He seems to be surrounded by some trusted few who seem to protect him and his identity at all costs.”

  “There’s got to be a money trail.”

  “He rarely deals in money himself, instructing others where to send it, sending others when he must to retrieve assets from anonymous accounts.”

  “How does anyone communicate with h—” I cough painfully, having almost said her. “With him?”

  Serge expels a frustrated sigh. “Via anonymous coded e-mails. None of my people can trace them—the few I dare ask under guise of trying to track a prankster. One time I received a written message. Without fingerprints or trace! Who knows if it was even written in his own hand? He is a ghost.”

  “If you can’t give me any useful information, what do you even have to offer me?” I say with a shrug.

  “I may not know who he is, but I also know you cannot rescue yourself from drowning or the police or Europol, by whom you are wanted, or the hunters currently deployed to find you. I can give you resources. Money. Safe houses. Transportation. People to protect you. I have powerful friends . . . assuming you do not expose them all. Name what you want, and it is yours!”

  His eyes glitter as he says it. The thing I’ve been waiting to hear.

  I let the offer hang in the air between us for several long seconds.

  “I need to think about it,” I say. “But right now I’m tired.”

  It’s not a lie. I am tired. And a part of me wants to know whether the world behind my eyelids is truly gone.

  Barring that, I want to make Serge sweat.

  Luka stands, and Serge hesitates, having clearly wanted some demand to signify my consent, some plan of action. A moment later, he nods and gets to his feet.

  “Of course,” he says. “Until then, I have a gift for you. A show of my good faith.”

  He excuses himself, and I glance at Luka, who lifts his brows.

  A moment later, the door opens.

  And there is Rolan.

  24

  * * *

  Even now, it’s strange seeing the two of them—Luka, Rolan—in the same room. Shaking hands mere weeks after they would have gladly killed one another.

  “I can’t get rid of you, can I?” I say. He’s freshly shaved, wearing a gray button-up shirt. And cologne.

  “Apparently not.”

  “But how did you—how did Serge . . . ?”

  “After I left you in that garage, I drove north, to the edge of the city. His men found me just before I reached the checkpoint, took me into an unmarked car. At first, I assumed they were the Historian’s men and that I had two choices: kill as many of them as I could, or create some story about how you are more powerful than we knew. Able, even, to persuade our kind.”

  I wish.

  “I didn’t know if the Historian would believe it, but I knew if I could make him entertain at least the possibility . . .” He pauses there, and I realize he isn’t telling this story for my benefit, but for that of anyone listening in.

  “When they took me not to the Historian but to Serge, who recognized from the surveillance footage that I willingly helped you, I told him the truth: that I have wanted out for years and that I helped you escape. He offered me safe haven in exchange for what I knew of the Historian, which, of course, is not much.”

  “Lucky for you Serge has his eye in the sky,” I say.

  “Yes,” Rolan says, and comes to gently embrace me.

  “Which means he’s been tracking you all this time,” he whispers against my hair.

  25

  * * *

  With Rolan there, Luka leaves me the next morning long enough to go into town, purchase new burner phones, and get a message to Jester and the others.

  I meet Serge for breakfast in the garden. Breathe deeply. Because this world might be filled with struggle, but it is Eva’s world, and somewhere she is breathing the same air I am.

  And also because pain pills are the greatest invention in history.

  I’ve exchanged the gown that tied at my neck for a pair of soft pajamas—during which I discovered the faint burn marks on my chest. Each one the size of a defibrillator paddle. The two together having delivered enough voltage to restart a heart . . .

  . . . or revive the memories electrically turned off two months ago.

  I sip sugar-laden café au lait between bites of the most buttery, flaky croissant I’ve ever tasted.

  And for once, I can make that statement with confidence.

  The sun is on my face. The birds chatter from the garden below our terrace beneath the broad expanse of vivid blue sky on a seasonal fall day.

  I’m startled to realize it’s October.

  The last time I sat out like this in the open I was eating lunch on the public dock in Greenville, Maine, with Luka, trying to decide if I’d ever be able to be honest about who I am.

  Now instead of eavesdropping on the story of someone else’s bear hunt, I’m sitting with a hunter of another kind. Surrounded not by feral ducks snatching up french fries but by three French bodyguards gazing out toward the line of trees. Rolan stands behind me, ever watchful.

  “You have thought about what I said?” Serge says, stirring sugar into his coffee. The power breakfast of the obscenely rich.

  “I have.”

  “And?”

  “How good is your surveillance?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What can you see?”

  “Everything. Vehicles. People. Submar
ines. But you are not looking for a submarine.”

  “Can you locate a specific person?” I ask. “If I know where they’ve been—on a certain day, in a certain window of time?”

  “Yes. Almost certainly.”

  I take a long drink of my coffee.

  “You want to kill the Historian.”

  “All you need to do is find him,” he says, an expensive watch gleaming from his wrist. “And then walk away. What I do from there, you need not know. But I promise, it will end.”

  “But it won’t,” I say, shaking my head. “You said yourself: This isn’t just a vendetta. This is a religion. There are hunters who would still carry out their missions just because they believe it’s right, even with the incentive of money or power gone.”

  Serge acquiesces with a tilt of his head. “It is possible, yes.”

  “So it doesn’t end with the death of the Historian,” I say. “The Progeny won’t be able to just walk out of their hiding places without fear of getting murdered—at least not for another generation.”

  “But with no Historian, there will be no next generation of hunters.”

  “Murder the Historian and you risk creating a martyr. Fueling the war rather than ending it. Every hunter who takes a memory with a life also gets instant knowledge of every Progeny his victim knew. What’s to stop him or her from going after every one of that dead Progeny’s circle out of simple revenge? Or another Scion from trying to take the Historian’s seat?”

  “Cut off the head of the snake, and the body dies . . .”

  “Not so easy with a den of vipers.”

  “Find him,” Serge says. “And walk away. Your hands will be clean. I will establish a trust over the next fifty years for the generation to come, available to anyone with Progeny blood. Resources to begin a new life. Think of it, Audra! One day the Progeny will know nothing of bloodshed or fear. All that happened before will be nothing but a tale to them, handed down by grandparents who are alive to see them grow up and flourish. Because of you.”

  I’m quiet for a moment. “Okay.”

  Serge releases a sigh of relief with a smile.

  “But I have three conditions.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “First . . . no one ever knows that the Historian has been taken out. You tell no one, other than me. I want your fellow Scions to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. To wonder what the Historian’s silence means. To live in fear.”

  “Understood.”

  “Second. In addition to the trust, you immediately and irrevocably relinquish the administration of all GenameBase labs and servers and surrender all data backups for a period of one hundred years to an entity of my choosing.”

  He studies his cup for a long moment, finger tapping the little handle.

  “C’mon, Serge. Do you want out or not?” I say. “How much money are you really making off this genealogy stuff compared to your government contracts and other holdings?”

  After a beat he says: “All right.”

  “Third, when it’s all over, I want you to find someone for me.”

  His blue gaze levels on mine. “You find the Historian, and I will find a hundred people for you,” he says.

  “One will do.”

  He sets down his napkin, pushes back his chair. My gaze falls on his spoon.

  “I’m going to need some things,” I say.

  “Of course, anything.”

  “Names and photos of every active hunter. A plane. Two bodyguards—not Scions. And a makeup artist.”

  “I’ll have them for you by tomorrow,” he says, before excusing himself to make arrangements.

  26

  * * *

  Luka returns several hours later with three new burner phones and French chocolate.

  I knew there was a reason I loved this man.

  We walk out into the garden beneath the watchful eye of Rolan and the ever-present bodyguards, avoiding carved benches, ornate trees, and manicured hedges, staying in the open. Once we’re a good hundred yards from the house, I dial Jester.

  “Oh thank God,” she says. “Where are you? We saw the report about an accident in Slovenia. A drowning victim without a name. Claudia cried nonstop, convinced you were dead, until we got Luka’s text this morning.”

  “We’re in France.”

  “France!” she says.

  “Please tell me there’s no way someone can trace this call.”

  “It’s bouncing around the world as we speak.”

  “Good. When is the next info leak?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Do you have enough to release two at a time?”

  She pauses, and then: “Yes. But why? We are already sending them scrambling, worrying with each day who will be next—”

  “If we’re hacking away at the Historian’s legs, let’s cut them off. Completely. Leave no time for a contingency plan.”

  “It’s risky . . . Audra, what are you doing in France?”

  “Less risky than drawing it out. But you and the others need to move every twenty-four hours.”

  “We have been moving, though not quite that often.”

  “You have to. You’re more important than any of us right now.”

  A long pause. “You’ve gone to meet Serge Deniel, haven’t you?”

  I hesitate. It’s all the answer she needs.

  “I don’t understand you,” she says, low. “I believe in you, but, Audra, this is stretching the limit.”

  “I’m bargaining.”

  “For what?”

  “For our future. For help.”

  “What help can he possibly offer? We have all the leverage! I’ll tell you why he’s offering to help: to save his own skin!”

  I briefly entertain the idea of telling her everything. But even if I wanted to, even if she would welcome that information—and she might not—I won’t do it here.

  “I don’t like it,” she says.

  “Trust me, I don’t relish it, either.”

  She expels a sigh. “Listen, Audra, there’s something you need to know . . .”

  I really hate it when people start sentences like that.

  “Tibor’s dead.”

  I pause, silent. Glance at Luka.

  “How?” I say, clearing my throat.

  “He fell from the bell tower of the Zagreb Cathedral. They found him there, on the ground, bones broken, head smashed in.” Her voice catches.

  “That’s . . . Jester, I’m so sorry.”

  “They are saying, of course, that it was a suicide,” she says bitterly.

  I’m unable to shake my last memory of him. Bowed low, like a performer taking his leave of the stage.

  “You don’t think . . .” I start to say. “I mean, is it possible that he might have really—”

  “No. Of course not!” she snaps. “Tibor loved life! He would never have abandoned it—not like that.”

  I can’t help but think of something Nikola said the first time I met him after my memory procedure, when I did not recognize him and knew him only as Brother Goran.

  We assign stories to everyone around us out of our own need to feel that we understand . . .

  “I didn’t know him. Not like you,” I say.

  “I know you didn’t trust him. But he was a good man.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Please get out of there, Audra, as soon as you can. I’ll rest better knowing you’re nowhere near that Scion,” she says, spitting out the last word.

  “Me, too,” I say. “Though I’m kind of stuck at the moment. Drowning really takes a lot out of you, you know?”

  “What?”

  I click off.

  Maybe it’s Jester’s reservations, or maybe it’s just cabin fever, but going back into that palatial château is the last thing I feel like doing. Restlessness has crept back over the course of the afternoon, spiking my blood with shots of adrenaline so that I’ve found myself pacing, clenching my hands, and more than once persuad
ing the nurse to give me a couple extra happy pills. Not that I’ve taken them all, but it’s at least let off some steam during the painfully slow process of giving my body time to heal.

  I draw Luka closer under the guise of leaning on his arm even as I begin to walk faster.

  “Tibor,” I say. I don’t need to elaborate.

  Luka looks away, shakes his head. He’s been quiet since he returned from town. Staying here isn’t sitting well with him, either.

  “You’re speeding up the release on the leaks,” he says quietly.

  I nod.

  “The faster we cut off her resources, the faster she goes down.” I don’t say that I have no assurance I’ll be able to find her. But if we can’t take out the Historian, I’ll at least turn her into an island. After which, I’ll use the leverage we have to get Serge to locate Clare.

  And, with hope, Eva.

  “What about the remaining hunters?”

  I’m quiet for a moment. Because I know what I need to do next. And he won’t like it.

  I wind my arms around his right one, lay my chin against his shoulder.

  “The night we met,” I whisper. “I was wearing a black burn-out velvet shirt with wings on the back . . .”

  He takes another ambling step and then freezes. Turns to stare at me.

  “It was my favorite T-shirt mostly because it fit like a glove. When you brought me that glass of wine, I was glad I was wearing it. After I flipped you off.” I laugh, softly.

  His lips part and he blinks. “You . . . remember that?”

  I nod.

  He reaches for me, pulls me tight against him.

  “Oh my God,” he breathes.

  “I remember . . . everything,” I whisper in his ear.

  He pulls away just long enough to cover my mouth with his, to kiss me long and hard. As deeply as the first time on the bank of the Danube while I shivered in his arms.

  “You used to leave me notes next to my toothbrush. In my dresser drawers, by the coffeemaker . . . .”

  “You remember,” he says against my lips, stealing my breath.

  “The night I came back,” I say, voice thick, “you cried so hard it broke me. You got on your knees . . . you asked me to marry you . . . and promised to get me any ring I wanted. I told you a couple carats would do.”