The Progeny (11 page)

“So I hear. About this diary?”

He lets out a slow breath. “It’s the Progeny holy grail. They think it contains proof she was set up so the king and her sons-in-law could take possession of her land. That finding it will end the hunt once and for all. But the Scions believe it’s a detailed account of the girls she tortured and killed. Proof of their reason for being.”

“So which is it?”

“Who knows? No one’s ever found it, if it even exists. Years after Bathory’s death, her son Pál believed if he could find his mother’s diary and prove her innocence, the king would be forced to return the property the crown had taken and clear the family name. It was illegal by then to speak Elizabeth Bathory’s name in public. But Pál never found it. The king—by then the Holy Roman Emperor—accused him and his siblings of treason, confiscated the rest of their land . . .”

“And banished them from Hungary.”

He nods. “Bathory’s descendants have been searching for the diary ever since. As have the Scions of the Dispossessed.”

“Could that really end it?”

“It’s a myth, Audra. Or was until rumor started circulating that your mother was close to finding it. The Historian wants it so badly, he’s put a ten-million-euro bounty on it.”

“Which is why you didn’t just kill me outright,” I say quietly.

Luka doesn’t answer.

“And Ivan thinks I found this diary.”

“I don’t know. No one could have gotten closer. You have no idea what your mother was to the Progeny. What you were to them before you died.”

“What was I?”

“Hope. That the generational curse would be broken. That Progeny could live in the open for the first time in centuries, have families. Die a natural death.”

I blink into the wind streaming through the broken window.

“So did I find it or not?”

“If you had found it, there’s no way you’d have gone in for the procedure. You would’ve ended this if you could. Unless . . .”

I glance at him as his expression changes, along with his tone. “Unless you found it and it didn’t prove her innocence.”

“If we were as close as you say, how could you
not
know whether I found it?”

“You knew what was at stake. It superseded everything. And I knew that. When I finally told you who I was, you withdrew from the underground to protect them. From me, too, of course. You were spooked, imagining how close you came to having their blood on your hands just because you knew me. You had nightmares about it for months.”

“How do you know?”

“You told me. Later, when you decided to trust me again, before you went in for the procedure.”

“To protect the underground.”

“Not just that. Can you imagine two years of this? Always looking over your shoulder? Going more and more into hiding? I watched the change in you. Toward the end, before you returned to the States, anything having to do with the Scions, the diary, the Progeny was the last thing you wanted to talk about. You were tired of the underground, the hiding. Even of your own gifts—the persuasion, charisma. You would have gotten rid of them if you could, if you didn’t need them to survive. By the time you made up your mind, persuaded your way into the trial at the Center, there was no point in talking about any of it at all. It was going to go away. It was like watching someone prepare to die. When all you do are the most normal things you can. Eat a meal. Watch the sun set . . .”

I look at him sidelong, his profile illuminated by the gauges on the dash. And even in the darkness, I think he looks haunted.

“Why
did
I decide to trust you again?”

He’s silent for a moment before he says, “You said you missed me. You were tired of being suspicious all the time, with everyone. You wanted one person who really knew you that you could trust, and barring that . . . you didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Live.”

Luka’s eyes are hollow. I turn my face toward the shattered windows, welcome the blast. Close my eyes.

After a few miles, I say, “Why didn’t I leave the information with you, if you were in on the decision and I trusted you as much as you say?” Even as I say it, I see any hope I might have had of a normal life—a life without centuries-old myths and killers and people with strange powers—slipping away from me. Quiet backwoods Maine must have seemed like paradise to me before I gave up my memory. It still does.

“Who do you think is the first person the Historian would turn to if it came out you weren’t dead as I reported? I took the credit for your accident. You couldn’t leave anything with me. Besides, apparently you did leave something for yourself.”

“Ivan’s number.”

“Names would defeat the whole purpose. And any locations you knew are useless because the Progeny move. A single lifeline, though, would be enough, assuming Ivan could stay alive to hold on to it. You knew what you were doing.”

I hear Clare’s voice again.
Trust your decision.

But it’s hard to trust anyone you don’t know. Especially when that person is you.

*  *  *

W
e stop at a twenty-four-hour convenience store near Hammond, pick up a prepaid phone, a couple of prepaid credit cards, some Advil, and a baseball cap for me. Luka’s concerned about my apparent concussion. But that’s the last thing I’m worried about.

By now it’s very late, and adrenaline and neck pain have given way to mind-numbing exhaustion. Luka tells me to sleep, but he isn’t willing to stop. And though I’m moving through a fog, there’s no way I can attempt sleep with him sitting two feet away in the driver’s seat.

We drive until the city lights are within sight and my ear is practically deaf from the cold wind.

On the outskirts of Chicago he pulls into an all-night diner with free Internet and slides the cap carefully onto my head, pulling the bill down low. “Come on.”

It’s the kind of place a diner should be: greasy-looking, chrome on the counter stools, squiggly lines on the laminate tabletops with red pleather booths. I ask the waitress for a vat of coffee when she comes to drop off the menus. Luka, meanwhile, is tapping away at his phone.

“Let me see that driver’s license,” he says. I slide it over to him and he just stares at it for a moment.

“What are you doing?” I ask, as he returns his attention to the phone.

“Booking us tickets to Croatia.”

“Us?”

Suspicion and relief collide somewhere inside me.

“I’m going with you.”

“This isn’t your problem.”

His brows draw together. “Actually, it kind of is. Rolan knows you’re with me, which means the Historian sent him. They know I’m a traitor, and there’s probably a price on my head. And I told you I’d protect you.”

“Look, if you’re trying to make up for something, I’d say the fact you haven’t killed me yet makes us even. I release you. Okay?”

He lifts his gaze, eyes locked on mine. “You don’t get it,” he says. “There is no ‘yet.’ There will never be a ‘yet.’ I will
never
hurt you.” He looks for a moment as though he’s about to say more, but then seems to remember the phone in his hands.

Why this loyalty from him? Some need for absolution? To make amends? Was his mission to kill me such a great part of his life that he can’t function without a replacement cause?

My other theory is too uncomfortable to consider with him sitting across the table from me.

“Great. So we’re two targets instead of one,” I murmur.

He says nothing, ferociously tapping at the screen.

“By the way, I don’t know if you heard, but I don’t have a passport.”

“We’re going to fix that.”

“How? By heisting the passport agency on the way to the airport?”

I pour several ice cubes, two sugars, and half the tiny pitcher of cream into my coffee and drink it down. A minute later, Luka slides my license back and sets the phone aside.

“When she comes back for our orders,” he says, “ask her for a recommendation.”

I shrug. “I’m pretty sure waitstaff hate that, but okay.”

“But the entire time you’re talking, I want you to
see
her serving you a cheeseburger.”

“This is a breakfast menu,” I say, waving it.

“Doesn’t matter. If she suggests anything that isn’t a cheeseburger, compliment her and ask again,” he says, giving me a pointed look as the waitress comes back with an expectant smile, pad in hand.

“All set, hon?” I’m not a fan of endearments, but there’s something about the
hon
that makes her seem friendly enough to not spit in my coffee for my doing what Luka asked.

“What do you recommend?” I say cheerfully.

“Our stuffed French toast is
really
good.”

“Wow, you have a great smile,” I say, peering at her.

“Well thank you!” She laughs. “You just made my day.”

“So what do you recommend?”

And I realize as I’m asking it, that I am starving. And that the thought of French toast—or pretty much anything—is literally making my mouth water.

“Stuffed French toast for sure.” She beams.

“Well then . . . stuffed French toast it is,” I say, smiling not at her but Luka.

Luka mumbles something about the same, and she leaves.

“You have to be able to do this,” he hisses.

“Listen, Yoda—”

“You can do this.”

“See, that’s the problem. I can’t.”

“Look—” He points. “See that guy yawning? Over there?”

I glance over and feel my own mouth stretch open in response.

“Exactly,” he says, leaning across the table. “He yawns, and then so do you. It’s the same thing.”

“Yawns are contagious. And I haven’t slept in days.”

“Thoughts are contagious. What happens when you see a pizza commercial? What are you hungry for the rest of the day?”

“Sushi.”

“Thick, cheesy pizza. Normal people do this all the time. You just do it better. Whether it’s pizza or hot donuts. Or a greasy burger.”

I drop my hands on the table. “We’re talking about getting people to
do
things. Not eat them. I don’t need a burger. I need a passport, and right now I can’t get anything but breakfast food!”

“Listen to me, Audra.” He points toward the counter. “Unless that waitress is a hunter who secretly knows how to strangle someone with their own shirt, it
will
work.”

I feel the blood leave my face.

He leans back. “Sorry.”

“Can you really do that? Strangle someone with their own shirt?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, really. Can you?”

“I guess. If I had to.”

“Have you ever ‘had to’?”

“Audra—”

“Have you? How many people did you kill before I came along? What about my mother?” Something is boiling up in me that I didn’t see coming, but suddenly my hands are shaking. “Is that what happened before she ended up in the Danube?”

“No,” he says. “No! One hunter. One mark. You were mine.”

The waitress passes our table, and I stop her. “You know, I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for French toast . . . anything else that might be good?”

I tip well, and I want the biggest cheeseburger you’ve got.

“Well,” she says conspiratorially. “We’re on breakfast, but we do have the best cheeseburgers outside the metro. I think I could talk Matt into firing one for you,” she says with a wink.

“That would be great,” I say tightly. “With everything, please.”

The moment she leaves, I suppress a shudder. The release of adrenaline that relieves my shaking hands is immediate, and real.

When I slide my gaze back to Luka, he’s nodding. “There’s the Audra I know,” he whispers.

*  *  *

B
y the time we leave, I’m full and so tired I’m swaying on my feet. Luka finally finds a residential neighborhood off the expressway, parks behind a little church.

“You should try to get some sleep,” he says.

I pull my sleeves down over my hands, tuck them under my arms. But despite my exhaustion, sleep feels like the last thing I’ll ever be capable of again.

“Who did you tell me you were when I met you? Before, I mean,” I say. Somewhere a transit train rolls in the distance.

“I said I was taking time off from university to work for my father,” he says into the darkness. “Making some money so I could transfer to a school in the States. Which was true.”

“How did you end up involved in this in the first place? How does someone even become a
hunter
?”

“It runs in families,” he says.

“Christmas must be fun at your house.”

“It isn’t exactly something people discuss. The call may skip a generation. Maybe two. There’s never more than one hunter in any generation from the same family. Out of two siblings, one might get the call and the other will never have any idea that such a thing—any of this—even exists.” His accent, normally light, is thicker when he’s fatigued.

“Or that his or her brother is a murderer.”

Do I imagine his flinch?

“What will happen to your family?”

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. But somehow I think he has a pretty grim idea.

“This ‘call’ . . . how does it happen?”

“It was after mass,” he says with a soft, bitter laugh. “I was thirteen when the new deacon invited me to join a secret group of ‘up-and-coming young people’ that my grandfather had been a member of. A kind of fraternity that supports the—what do they call it . . . ‘mutual advancement’ of its members.”

“What, like Skull and Bones?”

“What’s that?”

“Old boys’ club at Yale.”

“All I knew was he was the youngest deacon I’d seen. My grandfather had bought the bank he worked for at twenty-five; he passed it on to my father, who became very successful. I felt a lot of pressure, even then. I was called in a year later. Told I was special, given a mission. A single thing I had to do, when the time came, that would set me, my family up for life, and right an age-old wrong.”

“Then you can identify them!”

“I never saw their faces. And I never saw the rest of the fraternity again. By the time I was seventeen, I was working for a startup. It landed a major contract the same week I was accepted to Eötvös Loránd University.”